Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-11-27

equally severe course but young Amer
lea cannot submit to any such thing as
that, he graduates at the district school,
loafs around street corners and places OF
public resort for few years, and then
buys stock of goods and acts as mer-
chant for short time, and fails; goes
into the drug business and kills few
people by errors in compromising pre-
scriptions, and retires or hires an old
lot of surgical instruments and PUSHES
about as physician, barely able to ex-
tract wart or clip hang-nail, or what
is nearly as bad, gets pair of eight dol
lar shears and goes to running news
paper, that no one wants to read, and
one that would do them no good if they
should.
There is no more humiliating sight to
the intelligent American citizen than to
see the sloppy, ruinous farms and bungl-
ing mechanical work so frequently met
with in America, except the ranting of
ignorant ministers, the fioundering of
unframed lawyers and the conceit of
quack doctors. America produces some
of the brightest ornaments of every pro-
fession and every trade, but these are men
who, through years of study and prep
aration, have surmounted all obstacles
and mastered their business. Many men
have been successful in learning bust
ness while performing its duties, but the
IF obi oil N
this country is altogether too low, and
needs a searching reform. The answer
of Daniel Webster to the ambitious
young man who was DESTROYS to practice
law, but feared that the profession was
oyercrowded, that ''there was always
room in the upper stories" contained
great wisdom. There is no profession
or trade so overcrowded but what there
is room for a first-class workman among
the few perfect masters of the business.
1t is the lower walks of the incompetent
and those who are there only to earn
their bread and make money, without an
ambition to be better and do better work
than others, that there is over compe-
tition in trade, and an Improbable
| crowding.
We have always favored trade unions,
| and professional societies, with the hope
that they would develop higher pro-
fessional culture, and promote more sys-
| tematic training, and we regret to see
that some of the unions of mechani-
cal trades are using their influence in an
opposite direction, by limiting the num-
Der of arprenticeships. This can have no
purpose except to keep trained work
men out of the business, by preventing
young men from obtaining training
and education in that trade, and of
course will take away the necessity OF
the artizans doing better work to get
employment at ALL In most of the. large
manufacturing establishments of the
country, employers who must hire, new
men prefer foreign mechanics, because
/ they understand their business better,
and this shutting the door to our own
youth to learn such trades as. they de-
sire, is driving them into the more. dis
| reputable occupations. We do.not de-
sire to see the English requirements
adopted but the time is coming when all
restrictions must be removed, and every
employment have its training schools,
and its apprenticeship be free to all, and
the inducements for thorough culture
and perfect work be so great that it viii
be disgraceful for person to undertake
to do what he don't know how to ac-
complish. Every profession, trade and
occupation requires higher education in
its calling, and for that purpose they
must have higher ambition. 1t is
shameful to have all the best places in
mechanical employments held by fore
igners, or men who have won their po-
sition through series of failures and
mistakes, because of imperfect prepar-
alton.