Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-10-01
A Commentary on the Times.

The Scientific american calls attention TO
the results of advertisements for intelligent
working men and for clerks. Responses TO
the former come by ones, twos and threes,
to the latter by hundreds. Parties solicit
ing funds in Boston for religious and benev-
olent purposes report that many wealthy
people decline to give, or give but little,
because as they say they "have so many
poor relatives to support"
Why is it that boys all want to be clerks
or professional men? Why is it that intel
ligent parents encourage them in these
ideas, and in looking down upon industrial
employments, Notwithstanding that in every
place the average earnings of clerks and
young professional men are nowhere near so
large as the earnings of industrial workmen
of intelligence and fair education Is
there any calling more wretchedly " mechan-
ical &" than average clerking2 The puzzled
Scientific american in view of these things
wonderingly asks, "Why is it that teachers
almost invariably train their pupils to look
above industrial pursuits ?"
These things are an acknowledged evil, ac-
knowledged even among those most welded
to it, and who, in asking why so-and-so does
not bring up his boys to trades, have no in
tention of so bringing up their own boys,
but merely want the young so-and-so's to
get out of their way in the struggle for
"genteel " employment
Tbn 81; md 60
this kind of folly, is the lack of that social
pride and proper self-assertion among in
dustrial classes which come from a good
education in the line of their business Let
young mechanics and farmers be educated
for their business as young men designed
for mercantile and professional life are
ducated-trained in the branches of knowl
edge most useful in the work they propose
will become just as respectable " as COM
merce and the professions. There is limit,
soon reached, for the entrance into success
full business, as middlemen of any class,
and a still closer limit as regards the So
called professions. But in industry there is
no limit. Educated farmers and mechanics
can find "openings" by the million. The
market for educated brains in these avoca-
tions has no ascertained bounds, either as
regards numbers or profit. But-and here
comes the very point of the matter-the
education Introductory to commerce and the
professions is neither sufficient nor of the
right kind to prepare young people for the
useful arts. We want an entirely new sys-
TEN of training for these businesses, with
new methods and far more skillful class of
teachers than any we now have. The de-
velopment of industrial education must be
slow at first, but a beginning has been made,
and the demand is so pressing that the way
will rapidly open. There is no better thing
for smart young men and women now to
engage in than to fit themselves for teachers
of industrial schools. And there is an ad.
ditional inducement in this, that should
there be an over supply of industrial teach
ers at any time there is an immediate
opening from the teaching to the practice of
all the arts. The teacher of agriculture who
is out of work can always go to farming