Middletown transcript., 1880-03-06
DISADVANTAGES OF CITY BOYS.
We extract the following from Washington
Gladden's Talk with Boys" in the March
81. Nicholas:

we extract the following from washington
Gladden's Talk with Boys" in the March
81. Nicholas
You boys, who are not obliged to
work, and who have half or more than
half of all your working time in which
to umuse yourselves-are not. after
all, in a very favorable position. You
are sometimes talked to about your
advantages; but the fact is that you
are laboring under great disadvanta-
ges.
1t is an immense disadvantage to
you that you are not learning, in these
years when the habits of life are form
ed, the habit of steady, patient, plod-
ding work,
II is disadvantage to you that you
have so much time for play many of
you get the idea that the staple of life
is play; your heads are so full of it
that you cannot do justice to your
studies; any task becomes irksome to
you; and you lose the power of appli-
cation and the habit of persistence.
The abundance of amusements within
reach of city boy whose parents are
in fair circumstances is great obsta-
Gle in his way. Such amusements, in
dulged in to the extent that they are
by the majority of boys of this class,
debilitate the mind, instead Of refresh
ing it, and unfit the boy for the serious
business of life.
The free access to the city libraries
and the circulating libraries is, fear,
a great disadvantage to many Of you.
1t need not be. if you make tbe right
use of them but if you read almost
wholly for amusement, as many of you
do-if you read only novels, and SEN
sational tales of travel then your
reading has exactly the same effect
upon your mind that your other
amusements have; the result of it is,
that you lose your mental grip, and
find yourselves unable to do any pa
tient, vigorous mental work.
Another of your disadvantages is,
that you have too much money to
spend-or, if you have not much, that
what you have comes easily-with lit
tie or no effort or sacrifice on your
part. You have not much chance of
learning the cost Of money. Money
costs work, and any large amount Of
it costs prudence and frugality that
is the rule, to which there are few ex-
ceptions. You are not likely to prove
exceptions to the rule when you 90
out into the world, and it is a pity
that you should seem to be exceptions
now. You think, perhaps, that your
fathers get considerable money without
seeming to work very hard but you
forget that it was by years of hard
work, with small earnings and small
savings, that your fathers, most of
them, gained the power, and the knowl-
edge, and the credit, and the capital
that enable them now to reap large re-
wards with comparative ease. You
are not going to do. off-hand, what it
has cost them lifetime to learn how
to do. And it is a great misfortune
to you that your money, be it much or
little, is so easily gotten you do not
realize the price that must be paid for
money, and you throw it away in
reckless fashion as the wise man says,
it comes lightly, and is soon diminished.
To work hard is lesson that coun-
try boys and poor boys are very often
compelled to learn, and that many Of
you do not learn and this is ire
mendous disadvantage to you.
So, then, you see that what people
call your advantages are really your
disadvantages; for, while you are hav-
ing a good time here, hanging on the
fences, summing yourselves in the va
cant lots, watching the ball-games, or
joining in laughing over the minstrel
shows or the Pinafores, reading the
novels apd the story papers, spending
your money for little luxLries, the poor
boys and the country boys are learn
ing to work. learning to put them
selves right down to hard tasks, learn
ing that disagreeable things can be
done by sticking to them, learning, in
their small gains, what costly thing
money is, learning the great and pro-
ftable lessons of labor and patience
and frugality and steadfastness. And
SO, when you and they start out to-
gether in the great arena Of the worlds
work, they go right past you, and the
first you know you are nowhere, and
the work of the world and the prizes
of industry and skill and power are
theirs.