The Arkansaw traveler., 1883-03-31
OLD ADVICE REVIEWED.

Nearly every paper in the United States has a, times advised boys to re- main on the farm, and not to trust the wayward ways of fortune arising from the diversified life of city. In part, this advice is. very good. 1T young man expects to come to town and have an easy time, he simply takes the wrong view Of the situation. Sometimes, while driving around town on load of wood, i, may seem to the country boy that the people in town arc having an excessively funny time, and that their life is mag nihcent fountain upon which changing lights are playing. He may think that every pedestrian he sees is walking for pleasure. and that when he gets tired of walking. he'll enter into some other kind of pleasure equally as sensational. The country boy looks in upon the newspaper man. and thinks. with sigh: That, fellow ain't got nothing to do b Ut 70 set there and write, while 1 have 10 work. Sitting there and writing. young fellow. is harder, more exhaustive to body. mind and soul, than any work you perform. You may think that blowing with jumping cutter is trying upon the ner.es that keeping the straw back from the tail-end of ground-hog threshing machine is devoid of humor, that pulling fodder possesses but few charms that drawing water with wooden windlass, for a yoke of steers, IS uninteres,ing tha, setting ou, cabbage plants and watering sweet potato slips with sour suds may think that these :" have lost their charms for me, Silvy;. but they are pursuits en- traneing, hilariously ethereal, when com pared with the undiversiiied work of shutting yourself in room and continu- ously moving your hand over paper whose very whiieness, in the weariness which comes, seems like the deathly pallor of hanged fl we know what.
 No, voting man. Continue to haul your wood, but, look here Can't you bring little better article than that which yog have accustomed yourself to handle :: Wood IS not sold by weight. and you are serving no good purpose when you pour water on your stock. Let your wood be dry and honest. and your chances for promotion in life are good. You are driving steers now, but if the people dis cover that you are faithful and honest. one of these days you may drive mules
 !" Stay on the farm is the beginning of hundreds of newspaper articles. As a rule they are written by men who Jeff the farm years ago and attained some thing of success. The universal advice of "s stay away from town" is worthy of but little consideration. Many of the most successful business men in the United States have came from between the blow handles. If they had remained on the farm as their county papers ad- vssed them, they might nc" be the iilicrs of mor;gagcd soil. the hewers of rough wood. and the drawers of swamp water. Where one man leaves the farm and at 'ains success. probably ten fall by the wayside. but perhaps those who fail would never make successful farmers. Of course there are young men who should never leave the farm only when unoompromis- ing occasion demands. Conspicuous among this class is the boy who sells the VIC, wood. Even after seriously consd- ering the subject, it is impossible to find place in the city for him.