Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-01-14
What to do with the BOYS.
Chicago Mail.

We often hear the question asked ::
F'What is to become of our boys?"
This is indeed a serious question for
fathers and mothers to answer. 1t is
startling fact that far too many
bows ST the present day are permitted
TO grow UP, and that, too with the
consent of their parents, without pre-
pairing themselves for the hard,
rough-and-tumble fight that life sure
" has Ia store for them. Few boys
Of well-tc-do parents are learning
trades. Young men reach their TWEEN
ties, who, if they were suddenly
thrown upon the world and their own
resources, would be as helpless as the
child in its teens. Why is it thai so
few Of the boys of well-to-do parents
are learning trades? Is 1t because 1t
is no longer considered honorable for
boy to learn trade? Again, it US
ed to be that young boys would go to
work for 50 and IS o week at some
trade, counting that, In addition to
MS small wages, the knowledge he
acquired was worth much more than
the yearly salary he receiqed. Now
1t is hard work TO get young boy to
work for less than Sc to SO per week,
his parents often unfolding him in
the demand, seemingly preferrlng
chat he do nothing unless ne can get
the wages demanded.
Many young men are struggling
today with the meager salary of
clerks, or eking out miserable exjS-
tence ia some of the over-crOwded
professions, who would be s. thousand
times better off had they put their
pride in the rear and learned some of
the useful trades. Money expended
TO educate d boy, if the education is
going to his head with the idea that it
is not honorable for an educated man
to work, is money poorly expended.
Education should be just as honable
In its shirt sleeves, working at some
Of the useful trades, as tits in shabby
genteel Prince Albert coat loafing
about a lawyers office. And it would
be if it wasn't for the tyrant called
Society" Can any sensible father
or mother tell us why the boy who is
clerk In the postoffice or clerk in a
dry goods store, measuring tape and
selling embroidery and corsets, should
be admitted to the drawing room Of
society, while the door is shut in the
face of the brOther-sOn of the same
father and mother-Who is at work in
the machine-shOp, the carpenter
shop, or on the locomotives People
say this is not done; but it is done,
and every day. in this city and every
other city and town IN the country.
men are not learning trades9 Is your
daughter less safe in keeping company
with an honest young man who
wears a check shirt at his honest toll
all day than she would be with the
young man who does nothing and
decks himself out with celluloid shirt
fronts and cuffs of the same material
We often read of men who have
grown suddenly rich by some lucky
turn OF the wheel of fortune, who
dis0wn their sons because of their
marriage with some honest but poor
girl, whose parents are In every re-
spect except Of wealth the equal of the
parents of the young man. This is
italicized vulgarltY such as only a
wealthy vulgarian can assume, and
such only as The tyrant Society seems
to demand. Wealth is no crime nor
is t virtue. The father or mother
who makes it test of responsibility
ia choosing husbands and wives for
their children are fathers and mothers
scarcely worthy the name. Some
writer is giving advice to young men
put it in the following words, which
The Mail commends to the young men
and boys who read It's columns" Be
and continue poor, young man, while
others around you grow rich by fraud
and disloyalty; be without place or
power while others buy their way up
ward; bear the pain of disappointed
hopes while others gain the accom-
plishment Of theirs by fattery; fore
60 the gracious pressure of the hand
for which others vince and crawl f.;
wrap yourself in your own virtue,
and seek a friend and your daily
bread. If you have in such a course
grown gray with unblemished honor,
bless God and die"