Middletown transcript., 1895-07-27
STARTING OUR BOYS IN LIFE.

~ NOW CnaG grauuaGlOn Gays are OV'
and the diplomas are framed, I'll
annual question comes up again
II thousands of homes: How shall "
20 start the boy? 1t was not always 81
1 In the old days the father used to sa
J. that John should be a tailor, Thoms
s. painter and Richard printer. Fortl
t with they were bound as apprentice
IS and the thing was settled. We ofte
y hear old men say even now that th
t apprentice system was great succes
It and turned out breed of men VIII
u knew their trades thoroughly and wer
d sure of living every day in the yeal
l The apprentice system, however, ha
Q gone. Our boys nowadays find life
q go-as-you-please race. very easil
I entered, though by no means easil
8 won.
8 1t still remains true that to star
right is half the battle. If boy goe
, out into the world and "knocks about, ,
as the phrase is, for five or six years
and then has to begin all over again
we take the hopeful view of it and
say: "Well, he is only twenty-five and
he'll soon make up for lost time" In
truth nobody ever makes up for lost
time. We can make The best of 1895,
but if we lost 1894 we may offer the
biggest reward for it that we please
and 1t never will be returned. We may
get dog back that way, but not time.
"If I only had my life to come over
again" is an expression that has been
heard millions of times, but the sun
only rises once day, usually in the
east, and after the gun is fired it is no
use to try and recall the day-break.
When boy packs away his school
books and starts for the city to find
employment he is just going to hear
the sunrise gun of his life fired. His
mind is full of hazy but rosy expec-
tations. If he is a healthy, whole
some, well-bred boy, he sees great
things ahead. He knows but little,
but expects everything. He is bank
rupt in experience, but millionaire in
hope. His imagination turns the city
streets into fairy land; the hustle and
whirl of business, which to many an
older, wiser soul merely signifies so
much WEAKNESS and Texation of spirit,
are music to him. There is rich mo-
tive power in these sanguine antiei-
pations of our boys as they come to
life's starting post. A magic wand is
in their hands for moment; whatever
they look at is transformed in the
auroral lights that fill the daybreak |
skies. The blush of morn is here, wet |
with the dews of enchantment and |
fragrant with the odors of a myriad |
roses, whose thorns are as yet unsus-
pected.
If our boys start right they may get
long way on the road to success be-
fore they realize that the grade is up
ward and catch sight Of signp post that
says: "Walk your horses going up
HILL" This first enthusiasm of youth
is a propelling power of immense value.
"Yo outh is the time of enterprise and
hope" says DR.. johnson. 1.-THE first
repulses rather infame vehemence than
teach prudence; a brave and generous
mind is long before it suspects its own
weakness or submits to sap the diff
culties which it expected to subdue by
Storm" Cowper lays it down that
''the color of our whole life is gener-
ally such as the first three or four years
in which We are our own masters make
it," and Montaigne, in one of his
splendid essays, declares that nearly
al the great human actions of every
age have been done by men under
thirty years of age. He instances
Hannibal and Scipio to support his
declaration. But we need not go back
10 far. There has been hardly man
IF mark in American affairs for the
ast fifty years who has not distinguish l
ID himself in his twenties or at least {
IN his thirties. What is true of large
James is true also of smaller ones. The
oath of success is, as rule, entered,
f ever, while the inspirations of youth
etain their force. Byron never wrote
Inything truer than that
"Years steal
fire from the mind as vigor from the limb,
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near
the brim." "
1t being agreed that the first step is
III important, how can the average boy /
,e sure that he is starting right and '
what can his father do to help him a
make sure of it Every boy has some i
natural faculty. One has a taste for
another for art and third t
or trade. 1t is folly to split wood c
gainst the grain, and worse than folly
o put boy to doing something that Q
le has no inclination to do. We have q
good many poor clergymen in the &
world who might haye been first-rate
and plenty of Indifferent, @
lawyers who might just as tt
veil have been prosperous tradesmen. c
'utting round pegs into square holes is o
oor judgment. We hear it said that is
he professions are overcrowded; that Il
We have more lawyers than there are e.
lients for; more doctors than our sick b
an keep busy, and that if you adver- ii
ise for a clerk or bookkeeper in the a
1orning newspaper, you will have from g
wo to three hundred applicants in the
curse of week. One thing should I"
9 clearly appreaended-it is just as
ocially reputable to be thriving ira N
esman or skillful mechanic as to be b,