The Osceola times., 1883-07-28
PROFESSIONS AND TRADES.
AN EVIL IN THE SYSTEM OF AMER
IcAN EDUCATION.
Topeka Journal

Topeka Journal.
Sympathy for the overworked man
seems to be very fashionable. We
find it in all kinds Of papers, books
and magazines. There may be some
overworked men; we think as mat
ter of fact, we have known a dozen
in the past twenty years observation.
On the other hand, it is not putting
it too strong to say, that for every
overworkcd man there are thous-
and lazy shirks.. Most men are in
dustrious, a few work beyond their
strength; and there yet remains a
large body of citizens to whom we
desire to pay our respects, who are
idlers, lazy shirks, who dwaddle up
and down the streets shirking work
they ought to do, gossiping about
other peoples business, and whin-
ing about the aches and ills of the
world. No man has right to be a
loafer whether rich or poor. Laziness
and the dry rot kills more men than
overwork; and their example is per-
nicious. The hard-working mechan-
ic, looking up and down the street
at the line Of fellows that refuse to
work, and yet seem to go on, is
tempted TO try it. The great work.
shops and small ones show a small
proportion of American youths learn
ing useful trades. The places are
being filed by the first generation
of children Of foreign born parents.
The American boys parents are fit-
ting him for profession where his
lack of ability often forces him to be
lazy loafer, or seek some make-shift
anything but square, hard work.
The ranks of law, medicine, ministry
and teaching, are full of men who
could have made creditable places
as builders manufacturers and trades
men. The American parent tells his
boy to shoot high; and the boy fol-
lows his parental advice without
placing the necessary amount of
powder in his gun. The consequence
is the towns of the entire country are
full of jack-leg professional men un-
fitted by ambition to do anything
well or useful. Lazy young men,
ashamed to do manual labor or to
learl, a trade, are turned out Of
American homes by the hundreds
and thousands every year; and it is
more the fault of parents than sons.
Let the boys,-and the girls too, for
that matter,-of every home know
and understand their first duty to
themselves is to learn to do some
useful thing by which they can earn
an honest living. Boys grow out Of
their teens, with the consent of their
fathers and mothers, waiting for
something to turn up that will ena-
BILE them to shirk downright hard
work. They go out into the world
to find themselves respectable men,
dicants; and, when asked by the
person to whom they apply for en-
ployment, "What do you know how
to dol" stammer out, "well, / can
do almost anything, write, or clerk,
or, Or" What is wanted every
where is young men who can do
something well, and are not afraid
to do it. Able-bodied men are seek
ing easy places where there is neither
ability nor work required. Hosts of
men are hunting offices and appoint
ments because they are too lazy to
work. Parents have no right to turn
their well-bred and intelligent sons
out into the world to depend on luck
and check to get through, with their
hands and heads untitled to compete
with those trained to some trade or
business.