The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-02-20
Learning Trades.

One of the evils of our times is the limited
number of young men who are learning trades.
The demand for skillful and well trained me-
chanics in all the trades is rapidly increasing.
We have an over-supply already of bunglers,
but frst-cass workmen are exceedingly scarce ;
and any one who desires to have a JOB of work
done in wood, brick or iron, etc., will have
trouble enough, unless he will be satisfied with
the coarsest and commonest workmanship.
Nor is there any visible improvement, or effort
among the trades to bring their work up to the
highest standards There is also manifest
disposition to slight their work, the one aim
and object being apparently to get it complete
and secure the pay, with little manifest anxiety
that 1t reflect credit on the workman OF the
art.
This low state of the trades has been contri-
buted to by many circumstances. The low
grade of intelligence among the laboring clas-
ses, however, that legacy and curse of the old
order Of things, has been and still is the chief
obstacle to that perfection of the mechanic arts,
placing US in this respect from fifty years to a
century behind other portions of the Union.
Labor has been dishonorable and dishonored,
and the result has been to practically drive
away from the trades the best material, out of
which skilled workmen are made. The preju-
dice against labor still exists to fearful ex-
tent, and as result thousands of our youths
are growing up in idleness, fully possessed with
the idea that they can get q living by hook or
crook without working for it.
There is no more useful member of society,
no one who is more to be respected and honored,
than he who by his superior skill and genius
makes the beautiful houses for US to dwell In,
carriages, furniture and works of vertu, those
things which not only minister to our comfort
but to our tastes. 1t is the application of
aesthetics to the trades which lifts them into
the higher and more honorable ranks, which
transforms the rude wigwam into the palace,
the stool or bench into the chair and sofa, the
coarsest material into the finest fabrics. These
are the results of the highest education of the
tastes, and the greatest skill attainable in
workmanship.
We cannot, therefore, expect to attain the
highest degree in the mechanic arts if only the
most inferior and menial classes are encouraged
to enter the trades. How can their uncultiva-
ted tastes follow the law of aesthetics? for
where there is no clearly defined ideal in the
mind there cannot be graceful and skillful ex-
ecution by the hand If then, the useful arts
are to be cultivated, if we are to arrive at per-
fection, or if we are to make any advance on
the present condition of the trades, an intelli-
gent class of apprentices must be secured.
Parents should remember that for many years,
there will be no more honorable or lucrative
positions for the brightest and smartest of their
children than those open to them in the trades.
It is not to be expected that every boy who is
put to trade is to make frst-class mechanic,
but those whose natural bent and genius is in
that direction, may, with industry, application
and sobriety, calculate on uninterrupted sue
cess in their calling, and an honorable compe-
tency. We hope to see revival and reforma-
ton in this direction and while we can now
say that we have few superior workmen in
the various trades, we hope to be able in few
years to challenge the world.-C0lumbia Un-
ion.