The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-08-04
TRAINING OF BOYS.
what the Country Las Have to
Contend with as Against
These Of Cities.

aiming hmeFI'dn FARMING lPbpir. Pleas
urcs come after duty has been dome. and
they are rewards for the duties that have
been well done. This placing Of duty
FIRST is the great disciplinary advantage
III the training that country boys receive.
The country work cannot he postponed,
and the accomplishment Of it becomes a
hablt OF life, no matter how far removed
the person trained i'll it may be from the
Held in which it was necessary.
Now boy III town has pretty nearly
everything done for MIN. Jh" necessa-
| rles OF life are bought and not produced.
| SO long as the pure holds ont t" buy
city folks are provided in the easiest way
conceivable with ill that they need. 10
tie sure, the filling Of the purse is always
most serious problem. but ii is Il prob
lem with which the young people Of fam
! ines not seriously poor have nothing to
do. They hear of the bread winners
struggles, they hear of the necessity now
| ana again Of greater economy, but these
Things become very soon to be old stories
and make little or 10 impression. The
things in the city home which may never
| be neglected appear to be that the chill
dren shall be sent regularly to school,
| that they shall be clad as well as their
| companions and that they shall not laci.
Tor the amusements which indulgrnt par
ents fondly imag inc keep Jack from be-
ing dull boy. But these things are
OFerdone, and in the OVERRIDING the chill
| dren are to an extent spoiled. while the
parents are weighed down with almost
| unbpara bic cares,
country boy goes to Il circus once Il
year. He lives for weeks and months in
anticipation OF the coming Of the little
snow and for months after he reyels in
she remembrance of the joys that were
MS "hen the band played ;t II" horses
h.,
cut comlcal capers. Blu, the youth of
! the town takes his decornis way to II
| theater matinee twenty times Il year. and
| as for the circus he has Il chance. to 20
as often as he chooses. He does not
| mark with Il large red letter The day in
Tue year when he saw the circus, but
bOastfuily TO his companions emu
| merates the number of times that
ne saw the great threrrinS combina-
loh' with its confused Superfluity
OF novel attractions. And 50 when
thcSe fellows meet in Young manhood
they, are all unequal. The city lad is
| old beyond his years: he is hla<c. cyni-
cai and tired: nothing is wonderful to
Ilhi' and the enthnsia SIN which should
wants sensations every day in the week.
ana the thing which aroused him this
week VIII pail upon him next SO comes
| dlScontent and the Spr,il;tv. ,ouderiuc
| as to the WorthtS>ncS> Of life without
| the means ready at band IT, gritty every
long, and produce ca. Il desired change.
ne great cities III Amrri'a are. flied
| WIN young fellows such tI,i<-lad< in
caracltated t" do great things because
| small things are not interesting, to Them
anu 90 not seem worth WHILE They are
sHrei! TO be pltie;:. cor t.r,y start ont nr
are started out all wrong, and the con-
| Test with others of better equipment is
all unequal ~
Enthusiasm is the spur to endeavor.
anu az the same time it is the saver Of
NE. Inc country boy whose ambition
mas taken him to town comes filled with
enthusasms. Even the little things are
novelties to him, and as he accomnIishes
| this and that he feels that he is doing
something not only interesting. but VAT
liable. His simple tastes have not been
spo1ed by multiplicity of qualifications.
comes his way. AT thirty. if he leads a
ciean life, be has more of the boy il him
than his city cousin has left at fifteen.
Inc other fellow is no match for him.
ne with his sense of duty does what is
before him because it is his duty. while.
DONG ANYTHING. and asks. What's the
use: One can get ready for test of
sklil or strength in some athletic sport,
ana tax pleasure in anticipating the
glory that comes with The, winning: the
other does what he finds to do as a sim
| pie matter of course, and because the
doing Of the little thing is a preparatiun
| for the larger thing that will also as a
| matter of course fall in his way later on.
All young fellows are ambitious. All
OF them have dreams of the greatness
which shall be theirs in the years to
| come. But all of these dreams are i'll the
main very vague and shadowy. haze
often read in Story-bo"kS cf the well-,lc-
| fined ambitions of boys who became
great men. 1t may be that in some few
| instances there have been such cases but
| IN the main | am persuaded that the
ambitions of youth are very vague in
deed. and that. as Il rule unauthorized
| "lrcNn:taM>t:: s':itr*.i ;,lr l.. cinnn: Of
| the ultimate ln,lnSc< If life The vague
| ness of the arn!.iti,n$ of country and city
boys are, however i'll degree very differ
| ent. The city lads dream as -Alna>har
did in the Arabian Nights story. and
| they as frequently as not fashion these
ambitious dreams with less than Il tray
| full of glass as the foundation of for
tune. TO them something is to come. as
everything before came. without much
| effort. and the princess is to come. too.
| because he wants her. and not because
| she is wooed and Won. But the >turdier
| chap from the fields. with less imagina-
| ton. perhaps. but with a greater strength
| to do. begins with the conviction that
what he will ever hold he must gain for
himself. And though he may not know
| definitely what he wants. and though he
| may have very vague ideas OF how to do
| anything. he is rarely led ;stray ny the
| false notion that some ou" else will do
| his work. and let him have the honorS
| and the profits.
These are some of the reasons which
| have made the country boys more ste
Eel ~
| than those bred and trained in tn" city.
| The history Of our country proves what
| l have said quite conciusivcly. Let any
one who doubts my statement devote Il
| few days to the study of American hiog-
| raphies That student will learn that in
almost every line of endeavor the coul-
try boy has come out ahead.
OF the men who have achieved great
prominence and high influence in our af
fairs of state the country-hred boys are
at least as twenty to one over the city
lads | have not made Il careful and eN-
act computation in fixing this proportion,
but l have taken up several eraS in the
history Of the country. and the hiograph-
ical records of each bears me out. Now
adayS, indeed. our cynical young city
lads look upon the men who take an in
| terest in public affairs as rather low
fellows, and quite beneath their associa-
ton and notice. They look with some
reverence. it is true. upon the men of the
past upon whom history has placed the
seal of greatness, but upon the men Of
the day they cast eyes of suspicion. In
this they go as far as the cynical deli
milton Of Speaker Reed. who said that Il
statesman was a politician who was
dead.
Apart, however. from the affairs of
state the country boys have been just as
successful. In. finance they are pre-emi
| nent and the great bank presidents to-
day in the great cities OF the land nearly
all learned to read and to cipher in coun-
try schools where birch and ferule had
not succumhed to the civilizing influence,
of scientific pedagogy. Our great rail
roads. with a mileage equal to that in all
the rest of the world, were in the main
built by them. and today the administra-
tors of these great companies are in great
measure from farms and country villages,
from places where work began in early
infancy. and a sense of duty was devel
oped while still the lisp of childhood
fingered. These things are so true that
it is not necessary to enumerate in
St,nceS In every line IF effort tho comm