The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-08-12
School or Business T?

l. Your boy IS fourteen years oio. Lou
are considering the question whether you
shall take him out of school and put him
to business. In the shop he can earn his
living at once. In school he costs you
from $500 to $500 q year. Even if he
goes to public school his board at home
costs something and he earns nothing.
And what is the use Of Ills learning
Latin, Greek and Algebra for the prac.
tical affairs of life2 Will his n,usa, m,u-
sea, n,usea, and his q, q and 2 ever enable
him to sell more calicoes or at more cents
o yard, or to get more bushels of wheat
out of an acre of ground, or even to con-
vince jury of practical Americans that
his client is entitled to 81, 900 damages
from the railroad company that smashed
his trunk or by its delay compelled him
to miss an important appointment? he
can read, write and speak the English
language correctly; why not apprentice
him to his trade and let him begin
Shall keep him in school or put him to
business? That is question q great
many fathers are considering this sum-
mer-and every summer.
i He that apprentices his boy chooses
his career for him; and no man knows
enough about either his boys nature-or
his future to make such choice wisely.
Some men have to make it ). THAT is their
misfortune it ought not to be your
choice. If he is put into store it is
very unlikely he will ever become law
yer; if into a lawyers Office it is hardly
probable that he will emerge civil en-
/ gineer. By putting him into business
You decide what business he shall 60 into.
But you can no more tell what your boy
at-fourteen ought to be at forty than you
can tell what an unlabeled paper of seeds
will become if planted. He is mere
bundle of possibilities. What life has
| for him you cannot foresee. Who could
have guessed that the canal boy of forty
odd years. ago need to be educated to, be
Senator and perhaps President; of sthe
United States 3l Who would bare fore.
told that the young Irish teacher half q
century ago was to be the greatest retail
and wholesale merchant in the world ?
Who can tell what Providence has in
store for your:boy? What she needs for
his highest measure of success is such an
education that he may be able to do with
| his might whatever his hand finds to do;
and therefore he needs to have every
might in him we'll developed. Educa'
ton does not merely fit men for their
station; it shows them what station they
are fitted for. 1t designates men by de-
yeloping them. Education of q man is
like cultivation of the soil; it shows
what possibilities there are in him.
A purely business education is always
narrow education. It develops par
ticular power and leaves the Others un.
developed. 1t tends to make lopsided
men; men of narrow horizons; men Of
limited abilities; that is, of abilities lim-
tied to sphere of action. The boy who
goes into q store at, fourteen to stay till
he is twenty.one may graduate a capital
salesman, but he will learn nothing else
in his school bu. how to sell goods; and
life may have some other service for him,
possibly even higher service. The boy
who graduates at college at twenty-one
will not know how to do any one thing
as we'll as his mercantile companion, but
he will be- able to learn how to do any
one of hundred things. In commu-
nifty where caste determines position,
where the son of merchant is pre-
ordained to be merchant and the son OF
"a shop.keeper to. be shop'keeper, ap.
prenticing is very we'll. But in coun-
try where society is not only fluid but
boiling, where the bottom is all the time
going up to the top and the top is all the
time going down to the bottom, every
father should be ambitious to give his sou
an education that will enable him to take
any place and hold and fill it. Business
education makes "rut" men liberal
education makes broad Inen. A business
education equips a man we'll for single
chance; if he misses that he has no re.
serve. A liberal education equips man
for hundred chances if he fails to get
one door open he has in his hand the
keys of ninety. moro.
It is the broad man who prospers in
shard times" The man who has but
one spring on his place may 80 thirsty in
drought; not so the man who has a
score. When times are dull, it is the
book-keeper who keeps ledger account
beautifully and knows not how to do
anything else who gets left out in the
cold, because there are no more ledgers
to be kept The versatile man, who has
an adaptabillty to do whatever work
| comes to his hand, always finds some
work to do. When college graduate is
found starving the story goes the circle
of the newspapers from Boston to San
Francisco; but when clerks and book.
keepers go hungry no one thinks it
strange. 1t is an appalling problem to
! contemplate: what will the thousand and
| odd graduates of our colleges this year
find to do? But, somehow, they all do
fine something. Our colleges do not
furnish the country with its beggars, its
paupers or its tramps. A we'll educated
man is man of many resources, aud ne
is therefore ready for many exigencies.
There is safety in breadth.
It is the broad man, also, who gener-
ally finds "room at the top" Education
| does not impart genius; genius some
times serves in lieu of education but,
as q rule, it: is the we'll educated men
| who are top men. The man who is really
ma Ter of any craft. The mechanic who
knows how to drive nail but not howto
solder joint may be q good carpenter,
but he will never be an architect or q
builder. All professions require for the
best and highest success an encyclopaedia
knowledge. 1t is conceded that minis
tiers, lawyers and doctors should have {, q
liberal education: but why not:as well
merchants, mechanics and farmers !?
The successful merchant is not mere
peddler with an empirical skill at driv.
| ing bargain; he is master among
men; and he must know the laws of.
trade-that is, political economy; the
earth and its products that is, physical
geography; the management of men
that is, practically, mental and moral
philosophy--and must be skilled liter
ateur, for to write good business letter
| requires as much facility with the pen as
to write good.editorial. The successful