The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1897-03-22
WHAT A CHILD WANTS TO BE
Girls Desire to Teach, Boys to Handle
Tools, When Grown Up.

Tools, When Grown Up.
Children in their early teens have
strange ambitions. From $500 replies
to the question, What would you like
to do or be when you grow up?" it is
recorded in the annual report of the de-
partment Of instruction in New York
that among the girls 3S per cent wanted
to be teachers, "a per cent milliners, II
per cent clerks and stenographers, 3 per
cent housekeepers; storekeepers, nurses
and servants, each 2 per cent; artists, l
per cent; then follow missionaries, mu-
s~icians, factory hands and those who
hope to be wives and mothers, each
about three-fourths Of l per cent. 1t is
indeed a poor showing for the desire for
motherhood. What is wrong with our
schooling system that most young girls
make up their minds that they would
like to be teachers, and that only three
fourths Of l per cent of them express
any interest in being a wife and mother?
Among the boys who were questioned
the most popular occupations related to
the trades. Fourteen per cent had this
preference. Next in frequency came the
desire to be merchants, IL per cent then
clerks, 7 per cent; then farmers, 6 per
cent; doctors, about 5 per cent lawyers,
about o per cent; engineers, nearly 4
per cent; teachers and soldiers, each 3
per cent railroad men and sailors, each
go per cent; business, 3 per cent. The
rest named 80 different occupations. 1t
was noticed that the boys thought that
IN occupation that dealt with tools,
plants or animals meant something that
conferred power over ones fellows.
Only in boys about Z years old was
there a large preference for such occu.
patlOns as that of policeman, fireman or
railroad man. AS he grows older the
average boy mOdities his desire for the
perilous, until at ii he wants to be a
bank clerk. There is one interesting *
oeption 70 this. The ambition to be a
sailor appears at Z and increases slowly,
eliminating at IA.
Here is the composition Of a boy of
IA, parents American, his father a la
borer When | am a man l will 60 to
sea and be Il sailor on the stormy ocean.
Then | can see strange and foreign. lands
and places, where no man but the sailor
can go. ~+* | can go among the ice
bergs OF the antarctic region, and l can
spend a nightly winter in some arctic
country. The dark continent holds many
joys for the sailor. He can hunt and
have adventures without other cost than
walking into them. Because | speak in
such glowing terms Of the sailor does
not say that / think he has no discom-
forts, for what kind Of life does not
have its full share of the dangers and
discomforts? The millionaire frets about
the fact that some bank will go under.
s** Even the poorest laborer frets,
fearing he and his family will starve to
death when he has no work. And now,
hurrah for the ~sailor!"
And here is a little end Of the CEN
fury old maid Of g., Of English and
American ~parentage, whose father is a
staid minister OF the gospel: 81 want to
marry a man that doesn't smoke, be-
cause l don't like the smell of smoke. I
want to teach school where they will
let me spank the children. For children
knead disciplin. l want to wear bloom
ers all the time. l want to wear a cut
away suit. Because it looks nice with
boomers. l will wear russell shoes and
brown stockings. l want to have my
hair cut short. Because it will be
coler. New York Press.