Evening journal., 1897-07-23

choose, humbler), vocation II driven
from that Of his cnoice. This buttress
TO integrity, this assurance Of self-re-
spect Is to be found in a universal
training to efficiency in productive
labor.
The world is full Of misdirection
and waste; but all the calamities and
losses endured by mankind through
frost, drouth, blight, hail, fires, earth
Quakes, inundations, are as nothing to
those habitually suffered by them
through human idleness and ineffi-
cheney, mainly caused (or eXcused) by
lack of industrial training. 1t is quite
within the truth TO estimate that one
tenth of our people, in the average, are
habitually idle because (as they say
they can find no employment. They look
for work where Il cannot be had. They
seem to be, or they are, unable to do
such as abundantly confronts and so
licits them. Suppose these were to-
average but one million able-bodied
persons, and that their work is worth
but one dollar each per day; our loss
by involuntary idleness cannot be less
than $500 900 per annum. l judge
that II is actually $500,000 900. Many
who stand waiting to be hired could
earn from two to five dollars per day
had .hey been properly trained to work.
He who is a good blacksmith, a fair
millwfight, a tolerable wagon-maker,
and can chop timber, make fence and
manage a small farm If required, is al
ways sure of work, and fair recon-
pense: while he or she who can keep
books CT teach music fairly, but knows
how to do nothing else, is in constant
danger of falling into involuntary idle
ness and consequent beggary. II is a
broad. general truth, that no boy was
ever yet injured to daily, systematic,
productive labor in field or shop
throughout the latter half of his mi
nority, who did not prove a useful man,
and was not able to find work when
ever he wished It, A diversity of pur-
suits Is indispensable to general activ-
ity and enduring prosperity. Sixty or
seventy years ago, what was then the
district. and is now the State of Maine,
was a proverb in New England for the
poverty of its people, mainly because
they were so largely engaged in tim
ber-cutting. The great grain growing,
wheat-exporting districts Of the Rus
sian empire have a poor and rude peo-
ple for a like reason. Thus the indus
try of Massachusetts, Is immensely more
productive per head than that of North
Carolina, or even that of Indiana, as 1t
will cease to be whenever manufactures
shall have been diffused over our whole
country. as they must and will be. In
Massachusetts, half the women and
nearly half the children add by their
daily labor to the aggregate of realized
wealth: in North Carolina and Indiana
little wealth is produced save by the
labor Of men, including boys of fifteen
or inward. When this disparity shall
have ceased, it's consequences will also
disappear.
These are the words of great man
long since dead They are the result
Of a long life of systematic daily toll
and keen observation and are worth
their weight in gold. II some OF our
young men in Wilmington who are so
habitually idle would read them and
apply them they would find much more
in a life of laborthan in life of shame
full and dependent ease.
We boast of having the greatest di-
versi.y of manufacturing interests Of
any city in the country, population Of
course being considered in the state
men.. This is one Of the best Of rea-
sons why none of our young men
should be habitually idle. Our chan
nels of trade are losing many thousands
of dollars annually by reason of this
sweet doing nothing on the part of a
class Of our young men, and the evil
effects of such idleness are felt in every
walk Of life.