Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-12-30
EDUCATION IN ARTS AND
TRADES.

AoACu Adp1O VI ouUJCOtlhS 1ouo W ohO
training of apprenticeship has been suf-
fered to die out The lack of system
attic education in the practice of the in
dustrial arts has already produced seri-
Gus effects upon many of our trades in
which skilled labor is needed, and there
are loud complaints from all classes of
our employers against the imperfect
methods of W brk which have unfortu-
nately become the rule rather than the
exception. The younger generation of
Americans seem to have forgotten that
their fathers won the honors and rewards
of life through diligent labor, careful
study and the skillful adaptation of
means to ends. Practical education has
given place to sort of happy -go-lucky
scramble, in which the quickest is the
luckiest. Young men plunge headlong
into avocations for which they are total
ly unsuited by nature or by education
the useful life of the artisan is too often
regarded with undisguised contempt by
those who prefer to starve in clerkships
rather than to live comfortable lives
through the gains of labor. Country
lads come to the cities with no degree
of fitness for city work, and frequently
fall into evil ways; and the ranks of
the skilled workmen, which must be
kept full in order to preserve our indus
tries from decay, are chiefly recruited
from abroad. Ask the owner of any
of our large printing offices, who gives
employment to many men, if the printer
is as well trained for his work as he
should be, and the answer is the mega
tive-and why? Because the custom
of apprenticing boys to that trade has
fallen into disuse, chiefly through the
operations of the trade-union system.
Inquire of any machinist, who has hun
dreds of good workmen under pay, what
proportion of Americans find their way
to his shop among the throng of appli-
cants for places, and his reply will be
that the foreign element is largely in
excess of the native. The same reason
is given in cxplanation-the foreign
workman is trained from boyhood to the
avocation he elects to follow, and the
American workman is unframed The
statistics of our manufacturing indus
tries for the past ten years show that
this condition of affairs has gradually
grown worse, and the problem of the
best method of reforming the evil is one
which demands attention.
Recent discussions of the subject Of
technical education have therefore as
sumed an important aspect. We need
schools for instruction in the industrial
arts, open to all corners, and capable
of impartlng practical knowledge Of
essential processes but more than all
else, we need better education of the
young in the lessons of industry and
duty. The rising generation of Ameri.
can youth should be so tutored that they
will regard honest Labor as an obliga
tion incumbent upon them, rather thar
as punishment inflicted for their sins
1t is not given to every man-child t.
work in the way of the statesman, the
orator, or the author-nor, for that mat
ter, to become proficient as clerk or mer
chant. Nature has created Arkwright
and Brunnels and Stephensons for thu
practical work of the world, and but fo,
this practical element the profession
would speedily find themselves withou
: clients or audiences. Let our boys b,
; allowed to select their own line of bust
ness, and when their choice is made, re.
f quire them to apply all their energies t.
the mastery of its principles and its de
tails, and we shall then have begun t
5 purge the body corporate of some of tn
, unwholesome humors which now retarc
e its growth and restrict its energies.
~
STOMACH AND BRAIN.-If it be true
D and we suppose it is-that the stomac
/ and the brain are so interrelated that tn
< condition of one organ defines the stat
!. of the other, then the man who teache
e us the proper laws of cookery must b
a regarded as the benefactor of his species
One Of our leading literary journals re
Y Gently declared that more good food
1 wasted in this country than any
t weere else on earth, and the fact is ad
mitted by all who have had the oppol
tunity to break bread at European table:
= 1t is proverbial saying that a French
man will get three courses out of bone
and the economies Of the German are a
most equally famous. The dense popu
lations, the low wages and the distinc
tions of classes in Europe compel th
people to make the most Of what the
possess There is very little waste, an
= hardly any trace of tendency to dyspel
: sia which is SO peculiar to Americans
: and human life is longer and happier
: consequence. Our people, bent on gettir
= through the world in a hurry, are gene
- ally careless of their diet, might leal
something from the Englishman, IL
Frenchman and the German, and eve
the stolid Indian from the Far West
Better methods of cooking. less haste