Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1873-10-02
ALESSON FOR THE BOYS.


We have very little respect for the pre-
cous youngsters who prefer praying to play
ing, who never tear their clothes or rumple
their hair. It is the nature ola genuine boy,
made of the stuff of which men are made,
to roll in the mud, split his breeches at the
knees and get pair of black eyes a month.
These are the real boys, who become earnest,
serious, plucky men-doing their work in
life with what force and strength is in them.
We warrant that the boys and young men, of
whom the Augusta C0nstitutionahst writes,
always played in play-time, and when work
time comes they grapple their work and do
it. This is the story, as told by our contem-
porary, of what these boys have accomplished:
"a widow lady, living not many miles
from Augusta, has three sons, aged respect.
lively, nineteen, fourteen and twelve years. All
of them attended school at the Richmond
Academy, and are attentive to their scholastic
duties. Every Saturday of last year, by
ploughing and hoeing, with no outside aid,
they cultivated portion Of the land around
their mothers home. The first boy attended
to two acres, the second one acre, and the
third half acre in cotton. The eldest boy
made two bags of cotton weighing four hun
dred and sixty-seven pounds each. The Sec
ond boy made one bale weighing four hun
dred and sixty pounds. The youngest made
one hundred and fifty pounds of lint cotton.
During last winter they broke two small steers,
and, with the assistance of horse, used in at
tending school, they hauled from the ad'
iacent woods an abundance Of leaves and lit
ter. This material, with four hundred pounds
per acre of Dickson's compound, they applied
to the poor land they had the use Of The
present crop of the eldest boy is three and a
half acres Of cotton. The two younger boys
have the same acreage as last year. The prob
abilities are that the eldest boy will make three
and half bales; the second boy one five hun
dred pound bale; and the youngest lad two
hundred and fifty pounds lint cotton. Mean
while, they have been punctual in their attend
ance at school, except for a period during
the summer, when the younger boys were at
tackled with measles. At the time Of their
sickness they hired a hand to do their hoeing.
Outside of this inevitable help all of the Ia
Dor has been done by themselves. During
vacation they have been busy picking out
their crop, and on Saturdays they complete
the gathering"
These boys undertook this planting scheme
of their own free will. They are not obliged
to work, but they are industrious by nature,
and they have had teaching under the blue
skies and in the open air quite as useful as
that received in the Academy rooms. They
have paid the greater part of the cost Of their
education, and they have garnered up habits
of thrift and energy which will make them in
dependent, healthy and wealthy men.
Louisiana, as we'll as Georgia, has some
model youngsters. One young man, eighteen
years ld,named Agrippa Gaydon, raised seven
bales of cotton and two hundred bushels of
corn, which gave him net profit of s6O7 39.
And A. Norwood, only seventeen years old,
made eighteen bales Of cotton, three hundred
bushels Of corn ,one ehundred bushels ofpotatoes
and quantity of other vegetables, giving
him net profit of 81, ,1O6 Sc. The land was
rented by young Norwood at ten dollars an
acre. Such boys shame many older men, and
the record of their work, which is the story
of their lives, is the right kind Of reading to
give children.
Those who intend to adopt one of the learn
ed professions may find it necessary to remain
in school, and at college, until they are twen-
ty or twenty-five years old but the young
men who have to make their own way, in
commerce or in trade, or as farmers, require
to be at work several years earlier. A boy
can learn by the time he is sixteen all that is
absolutely necessary to enable him to hold
his own in society, and to push himself on in
business. Boys and girls take ten years to
learn what ought to be taught them in five.
Too much coddling and stufting will spoil
any boy, and make him unfit for any real
work until the nonsense has been rubbed out
ofhim. The three years from fifteen to eigh-
teen, are too valuable to be wasted by those
whose heads and hands are their only fortune.
Charleston Neaus