The Alaska sourdough., 1911-10-03

to be uSe1ul, our DOyS uo HOC nave much to do, and little disposition to do that A year or two ago, small boy who had been raised on a farm in a timbered portion of Oregon, brought up in something like the thrift of the old days, earned eighty dollars a month simply because he was willing to-as a rule, boys of today are not industrious. A local reason has been assigned for it the boys here get the money too eas- ily it has been said-but the fault is not local but general, and one must look deeper for the cause.
 Not by any means is the public school responsible for this change in the youth of the human family, but it must bear it's chare of the blame. One critic has said:
 "One sees arrive at the school every year lot of brisk, healthy boys, with fair intelligence and quite disposed to work; and at the other end, one sees depart. a corresponding set of young gentlemen who know nothing and who can do nothing, and are pro- foundly cynical about all intellectual things. And this is the result of the meal of chaff we serve out to them week after week; we collect it,, we chop it up, we tie it up in pack cts, we spend hours administering it in teaspoons. and this is the end. And yet this preposterous system continues year after year. ..
 The merchant and the man. ufacturer in the city complain that the young people who come to them have no sense of the value of time, no con ception of property rights, no power of application, no thoroughness, no ambi- tions but to do as little as possible; that they are lazy, eye-servants, self seeking. and of fabby character. A city tailor is swamped with orders. When asked why he does not employ more men, he replies hire more men! Would to God I could find a man, or even an old fashioned boy! If you will find me anybody who can do any thing. or is willing to learn to do any thing well, will take dozen tomor- row morning.
 The manual training schools of the United States have solved the problem of how to teach the boy to want to do things This is large claim, but it is true Here in Douglas it has been asked skeptically: "What can be done in one or two forty minute periods week?' In properly conducted man ual training school, it IS unquestlon- ably true that boys beg to be allowed to put in extra time in the shop-boys as a rule are glad to learn how to do things well once they are but at it right, and this extra time in the shop is granted as a reward for work well done in the other classes-so that man. ual training instruction strengthens the work done in the books.
 manual training school, properly conducted is not, necessarily, to teach the boy some trade, but to teach him to be handy with his hands, as men were universally before the division of labor due to the invention of the mod ern machine. In good public school manual training department, the boys are taught something about the nature of. work in wood and also in the met als. The things he actually learns to do is of some use to him, but the train ing is worth thousand times more.
 "Such work,'' says Turner, twill help to produce sterling character. A joint will not be party to decep- tion, perfect curve,i unlike a question in geography, cannot be- answered by a sidewise glance at a school mates paper, hammer marks in metal cannot be slyly wiped out; skillful technique cannot be cribbed, there are no ponies in translating raw material into finish