The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-07-03
ADVICE TO BOYS.
Some Ideas That Are Well Worth
Reproducing.
Sensible Talk by Journalist Regarding
Education-Some Strong Reasons Why
Trade is More Desirable Than =
Profession.
IN. Quad. in Detroit Free Press.l

m. Quad, in Detroit Free Press1
I am boy sixteen years old. Have fair
have great desire TO secure thorough edu-
cation: Ny parents are poor and unable 70 give
can you prescribe for my case2
The above letter comes from Wisconsin.
It fails to give many points which ought to
have been covered, but presents sufficient
TO prove that the lad has an ambition which
should be encouraged.
First, answering him personally, what do
you wish to make of yourselfy You have
no desire to learn q trade, but you do not
say that you wish to enter upon profess
sion. You must take one or the other or
else be content as a Jack all trades and
master of none.
Presuming, however, that your desire
for thorough education is born of the in
tention TO pursue a profession, you are
just now at the point TO put in your time to
the best advantage or throw it away.
With fair common school education to
back you you must now study with an OBJ
ject in view. If you wish to become a doc
tor you will Ger tainIy have to attend col
lege and pursue special studies. If you
wish to take up the law and can secure a
place in the office of lawyer at home for
a year or two to acquaint yourself with
the forms of law-draw up papers, study
various standard legal works, and get such
insights as you may-you can shorten
your college course very materially. In
deed, if you can learn enough law in q
lawyers Office you may be admitted to the
bar without going to college at all. You
can become a book-keeper, clerk or CASH
Ter without special study except for the
former.
If your parents are poor the chances are
against you as compared to a lad whose
father can afford him a collegiate educa-
ton. Any move you may make towards a
profession will cost money. But, if you
have the true grit and are thoroughly in
earnest, pluck may stand you in place of
money. Dozens of the leading men of to-
day paid their way through college by
manual labor. There are plenty of people
of this generation who stand ready to give
plucl1y boy lift up the ladder, and all
will at least encourage him.
If you have fair common school educa-
tion-wen up in arithmetic, grammar, or
biography, chirography and history-and
are only sixteen years old, you have many
chances of success. If you have selected
profession which requires a collegiate
course and it's attendant expenses, and
must rely on yourself entirely, quit school
and go to work at something which will
bring you in money. Even though your
wages are small you can save enough in
two years to pay your way through col
lege. During the interval do not throw
your evenings away. If you only will you
can advance yourself in every common
school study. You do not write as good
hand as most boys of your age. Half an
hours practice every evening for three
months will make you good pen nan. If
your father can not afford to give you
money he can surely afford to give you
some of his evenings to hear your lessons.
photography and grammar should be
mastered as thoroughly as possible. Don't
throw away an hours time on algebra I'M
less you are studying to become a teacher
or a civil engineer. Without being obi
gated by the same reason do not weary
your brain over intricate mathematics.
There isn't lawyer, doctor, editor or cler-
gyman in the country who has any use for
mathematics beyond the four simple tables
once in ten years. Retail merchants and
bankers have their printed tables showing
rates of interest and the quotient of all fig
ures in fractions likely to ever be called
for, and the head of wholesale house new
er meets with anything harder than finding
how much 5,430 yards of sheeting would
come to at six and a quarter cents per
yard.
Do not sigh for ga thorough education"
unless you have a target beyond it. There
are plenty of thoroughly educated mer
who are heavy burden on their friends.
Without having determined on profession
they rushed off to college, graduated with
the highest honors and walked out into the
world again to find themselves worse off
than before. Book-keepers are paid for be-
ing accurate, honest and reliable. The
merchant never asks to see any specimens
of their Greek translations or essays on
physiology. Cashiers may have spent
twenty years at college without receiving
6 dollar more salary than man who got
his schooling in a village. If the doctor is
thoroughly educated in medicine, and the
lawyer in law, and the clergyman in theol-
ogy, we demand no more. have heard it
said of man that he was a scholar, and
have seen that same man glad of an oppor-
tunity to take the position of a traveller for
a wholesale house. He had been educated
without any aim beyond it.
Now, my boy, as it was you who preached
this matter, let me ask you to sit down and
seriously reflect. | proved to you few
weeks ago that all the professions were not
only overcrowded but that none of them
had the money and the ease which were
commonly attributed. How do Hyou know
you don't want TO learn trade! Did you
ever give it ten minutes serious thought!
You can begin now and have any trade
known in this country finished by the day
you reach manhood. Ask yourself If 1t
isn't possible that you might make poor
lawyer or doctor or teacher, when you
might make success as n jeweler, carver.
Joiner or tinsmith?
Think well before you take the step. 1t
is serious hour in hoy's life when he
comes to a decision on this matter. 1t IS
not for a day, but for a lifetime. The
world is a great beehive. Once in a while
YOU see drone, but the vast majority are
workers. Every one has an object and an
aim. Day after day, month after month,
year after year the labor goes on. There
Il no rest for the bees until worn 5ut.
Think seriously and well, my boy, for
mistake now may render a lifetime COM
-..-oA;rralrr north less