Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1891-05-23
Sunday RaafHB,
Making a Start,

your OOy may ue very cAdopVIot |
ing question to the man whose
theories have settled it that boys |
make themselves. He will tell you
that vocation cannot be forced np0n !
a person; that every boy knows best
what he wants to do; and that work
of any high order will come to moth
ing unless it is taken up under the
pressure ola strong personal convic'
ton of its necessity. Very true; but
when boy grows up without find
ing either in himself or not of him.
self, any definite purpose-when the
only thing that he is sure of regard
ing in his future is that he is sure he
does not know anything about it
what shall the father do with him?
There are too many such boys.
The schools and colleges are filed
with them. Their education, often
an expensive one, is provided by
parents who assume, somewhat
doubtfully, that they Will have the
best possible preparation for "busi>
ness"-that American synonym for
all the weighty interests of life. But
many of these boys are not seeking
to prepare themselves for anything.
They do not take very keen inter-
est in their studies, or in anything
else, unless it be some transient fun
or excitement. They manifest no
strong attraction toward any noble
pursuit, no urgent sense of powers
unused, or pressing work waiting. to
be done. Yet it is with instruments
like these that much of the worlds
work must be, accomplished. How
shall the work and the workers be
put in fruitful relation?
Is there anything more helpless
than young man, old enough for
independent responsibility, and
thrown upon his own resources with
just enough education to unfit him
for manual labor, without having
learned to do anything that the
world wants done? But this is pre-
cisely the situation in which many
of our young people are placed,
through the mistaken kindness OF
their elders. Fathers and mothers,
too, who do not look for any higher
life than one of material prosperity,
but whose incomes are large enough
to protect their sons from that educa-
ton Of earning their own living
which was their own lot, postpone
: any serious consideration and en-
, ployment through feeling of ten
derness for the boy. There is 6
vague notion that che may as wei
60 to school little longer" The
|, father considers, with comfortable
, complacence, that she doesn't neeC
to take life as hard as / did" He il
himself shrewd business man. A
. the age of that lad he was fighting
= pluckily for the possession of thu
first steps on that ladder of success
which led to his present easy posi-
ton. But the shrewdness which
served him so well is not brought t
bear upon the boys education. HI
encourages habits of ease and self
indulgence, he carries for him all tn,
practical burdens of life; yet whel
personal responsibility can no loDge
be evaded, he will expect him t,
take his place promptly in wOrlC
- of whose relations he knows nothing
Too often hopeless failure results
, The unframed boy becomes one o
the UNBIASED men" who are lef
helplessly swirling in every eddyini
bay along the stream of progress.
boy brought up in this way is physi
cally and mentally unfit for the lif
of a workingman, useful and self
respecting as that life may be. I'm
- less he has a remarkable natural apt
I tude for business, he is more likely t
| devote himself to spending none
| than to make it. Ofthe broader use
| fitness and higher aims of a life {
/ culture, he has, too often, no conceI
I ton. Whose fault is it, and how ar
J, these boys to be helped to bette
:. start in life?
A strong intellectual bent is oGte
its own protection. 1t urges on il
possessor to that development an
activity of the powers which suppl
\ its own object in life and furnish bot
: stimulus and reward. 1t is the boy
y of moderate endowments, of merel
m average talents, who are in the grea
Is est danger. They are boys VIII
Is might do their fair share of the il
" evitable tasks of their generation
/ but who are without striking fore