Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1911-05-06

factories: very few clerks in stores
are able to limit their labors to eight
hours: not infreauently they have to
be on duty from early morning till
nine or ten o'clock at night: while
practically all such servants of the
public as livery men, street-car en-
ployes, newspaper workers, railroad
men, steamboat people, etc, etc, have
to work irregular and sometime very
long hours.
Still another fact that may not be
wholly without interest,-the fact that
mighty few men ever really succeed
who are not willing and eager to work
fourteen hours or even twenty if the
work demands it. Napoleon is still
almost every boys hero. And Napo-
Icons regular work day was twenty
hours. He was able to recuperate on
as little as four hours sleep, and the
rest of the time he was the busiest
man in ali his empire. In most bust
nesses, if the manager rises to sue
cess and wealth, it will be found to
have been because he worked harder
and longer hours than any of his sub
oruinates.
There is only one easy way to
riches; and that is bv stealing them
from somebody else,-a method which
is indeed sometimes, quite successful
but, other times, concludes with a
term in the penitentiary. 1t is risky
and not to be recommended
Again says our western farm lad:
1.-The mother could well afford to
give the boy, a room of his own and
not make him keep his ball and bat
out in the barn.
Amen to tflati - The boy has right
to place he can call his own, COM
Portable and handy place, too, cita-
del to which he can retire when posi-
BILE and which he can fix up in his
own way. according to his own tastes:
or his books or his collection of col
ored pebbles or his book of pressed
flowers or his box of toads,-if his
run in that way.
But, again. notice that reference
to ball and bat Now no boy is ever
asked or compelled to do harder work
the work he eagerly does in a game of
baseball. He calls the latter intense.
straining. firing labor play" and
makes it an object of life. But the
less wearing and less strenuous tasks
of the farm and garden he considers
work and hates them. Well. we are
none of us so equally balanced and
impeccably reasonable that we need
find over much fault with this boyish
inconsistency. It's worth just a pass
ing thought, that's all.
Now comes a paragraph in the west
ern farm boys letter which is wholly
admirable,-Hall wool and a yard
wide:
when a boy sees nothing but back
breaking, brute methods ahead of him
he gets out; maybe he does worse in
the city, but the farm loses him. In
terest him in raising stock by giving
him percentage of the proceeds from
his efforts and YOU have started the
principle which Will keep him on the
place. Give him q field of corn or
make him junior partner in the
business. Then you have started some
thing. By some such methods and
treatment the farm might have been
made II Joy to him and held him
through life"
Seems to me that's mighty sound
and sensible talk, 1 don't care If it
does come from a boy. "Out of the
mouth of babes and sucl<iings,' you
remember. Things are certainly get
ting better in this direction. The
present on-coming generation is being
treated much more wisely and consid-
erately than we others were in the
heyday of our hot youth Unquestion-
ably the FIRST thing to do in creating
a stay on the-farm" sentiment is to
make the young folks want to stay
there. At certain ages it is the want
to- or the "don't-want-to" which
counts for more than the Ought to-"
We must take things as they are and
boys and girls as we find them. When
a lad sees that he is expected to do a
hired mans work without the hired
mans wages, he feels that there is
something wrong about it When he
is expected to take an interest in the
farm" without being allowed any in
terestiug share in the control of it or
the returns from it, he finds the de-
mand unreasonable. Why shouldn't
he?
When he plays ball he has an object
which, to his mind, is a really import
ant one. He wants to beat" the 9TH
er nine, and beat 'em bad. If he sue
ceeds, he gets a real reward and a
pungent pleasure. But he might, per-
haps. be made to feel some slight share
of that same joy in hoeing corn or
wedding onions or milking cows if he
foresaw something real and substan-
tial coming to him in the immediate
future.-not too far off, for youth is
not l0nC-Si GIFTED reward for.