The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1876-02-11
Apprenticeship.

We referred the other day to an account
| by an eminent physician of the manner in
| which doctors are manufactured by the med
! ical colleges at the rate of thousands per
annum, turned out to prey upon society, with
neither knowledge, experience, nor even
honest purpose. We might have enlarged
the statement to include young men and wo-
men who have not even been manufactured
by any such training mill for any useful
purpose whatever, but who rush into the
professions, the arts, the trades, resolved to
get not only living out of then, but distinc-
ton, success and public respect. New York
and Philadelphia swarm with half-grown
boys from the country and inland towns,
each of whom means to die as rich man as
Astor or Girard, and whose sole skill or
| knowledge appears to be an aptitude in copy
ing the dress and manner of the Bowery
| gent" while the Bar here as elsewhere is
crowded with young men shutfied through
examination by the grace of an influential
| friend, and who mean TO use their profess
| sion to push them as ward politicians.
The gate to success and money-making
| which is the most popular and attacked with
| the most sanguine ambition, however, is
| that of literature. The editor of a magazine
or newspaper must have nerves of steel if he
be not wearied out with the importantly of
college graduates of fine literary taste, "who
feel themselves competent to fill any posi-
ton in his Office at moments warning,
| from that of proof reader to his own. Back
of these come a pressing crowd of women,
widows who must feed their children or see
them starve, young girls, wives with invalid
or drunken husbands, downright adventur-
ers, none of whom can earn money by teach
ing sewing, or any other head or hand craft,
and therefore take to the pen as 'the one
business which requires no training" Moth
ing can be more ptiable than the appeals of
these people, nothing more sanguine than
their hopes. Their need is desperate; their
talent, they have been assured by friends, is
indsputable. Nobody unconnected with
the publishing business in some way can
know how deplorably large this class is in
the cities. They write, write, food the ta-
bles of editors with poems, tales, essays,
which come back to them or disappear in
the waste-paper basket. We have known
young woman come to one of the seaboard
cities from a village in a southern State, and
for three years struggle against hunger,
need of every sort, writing steadily, without
one CLEAN of success Such pluck and en-
durance would have told in any other pur-
suit, but the woman was ignorant of gram
ph IN, fact
but belief in her own "genius." Nor is the
case an extreme one. In art the case is al
most as bad. Pictures, studies in oil and
crayon, are offered in the market by men
and women who apparently do not know
the first rules of art. Just as one "career"
after another is opened by which money can
be made, there will follow the same crowd
of needy asprants who mean to conquer
success without knowledge, skill, or any
kind of training.
They have their side of tho story, too.
They are hungry and ill-clothcd; they have
as much natural ability as men who sit
snugly inside the gates at which they knock
and it may be- as much information. What
then is lacking? Apprenticeship and hard
work The fable of the winged horse who
| flew to the dizzy heights of fame was long
ago exploded; nobody believes in it but
schooboys. The horse who wins the race,
whatever his strain of blood, has been long
and carefully trained and has worked hard
in every muscle. No lad, whatever his abil-
| ity, can come to- New York and earn dis
tinction or money without work, and that
| hard steady work in the line he chooses.
| No lad is such fool as to undertake to
| build house who has never handled trowel
! or hammer, and woman knows that she
must learn to boil and bake before she can
| prepare the simplest dinner. Art litera-
ture, music, journalism, are not more easily
conquered than carpentery or cookery.
These sentences, we know, are platitudes
to every intelligent reader. But for lack of
knowing just these platitudes thousands of
Tmen aud women are wasting their lives and
small means in utterly hopeless effort. They
answer that they have no time for prentice
ships. They must have money or starve
After year or two of disappointment they
clutch eagerly at the lowest of bastard sue
| cess, paint daubs Tor auctions, write ulisa-
worry ill-pad matter for flash publications
Easy as is the descent into that hell,t come
out of it is impossible.
There is but one remedy for this misera-
BILE condition of affairs. Let boys and girls
especially girls--be thoroughly taught
one means of earning their bread while they
are at home When they are turned out on
the world is no time To begin 10 learn to
handle their tools. No matter what their
social rank or expectations, give them this
one weapon whose Use they thoroughly un-
derstand with which TO keep the wolf from
the door, Make them teachers, artists,
seamstresses, musicians, painters on cldua,
typesetters, engravers what you choose,
But make them real skilled workers, aud not
sham pretenders, hopeful, unable, and good
for nothing ~, \ IriJaRe.