Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1922-02-09

The proprietor of an establishment
On this side of the river was out OF
patience. He has been having difficult
ty with one of the problems Of bust
ness enterprises where it is desirable
to train apprentices. The problem of
hiring a boy who would be worth the
damage he did around the place had
him just about swamped. His par
ticular trouble seemed to be that the
boys smoked so many cigarets they
could hardly remember their own nam
es. Indeed, it isn't only the boys
it's large number of the men as well,
who don't seem to care to da any think
ing-they'd rather smoke cigarets.
Neither is our friend the only one
who has been driven almost to despair
in the attempt to find a boy who wants
to learn a business or trade and
WORK at it. / think the schools are
partly at fault They seem to devote
their entire energies to amusing and
entertaining the young people, or
examining their heads with frag1nen-
tary information and they neglect to
teach the young people to thins-they
fail to impress upon them that the only
real and permanent satisfaction most
of them are likely to get out of life will
be the sense of good job we'll done. 1t
may get them something in the way
of passing notice to play good game
at base ball, football or basket ball.
They may be locally popular as skill
ful-footed jazz dancers, but there's no
character required n these things, and
no great amount of character built by
then1-without something more solid
back of it.
The unacceptable fact is that the
schools are turning out more and more
unambitious, characterless, wishy
washy, good-for- nothing youth every
year. Whether the schools are as
much to blame as the homes is anoth
er question. Certainly the schools
seem to get poorer material to work
on than they used to get. Parents are
to busy motoring, skinning their GUS
toners and competitors in business,
gambling in poker places or bridge
sessions, and other useless or inane oc-
equations, to attend to their chief bu-
siness, which is, or ought to be, the
building of character and usefulness
in their children More attention needs
to be paid to the formation of ideas
and ideals in the young people, if there
is to be any satisfaction in the young
er generation, from business and in
dustrial standpoint.
There is no escaping che fact, says
the Bolskevick on the shady side of the
street that if the poor man wants to I,
enjoy the thrill of taking chance on
whether he has more pictures per
quintette on his cardboard parallelo- |
grams than the other fellow the same
as the wife of his boss does, he has to |
break the law to do it. She does not.
It's good deal like the prohibition
law, he says.
We heard a certain organization
mentioned the other day as "the only
force in America today"
1t wasn't the church, either. In 1772-
rs the stabilizing forces We're the
Tories who advocated the paying of
the unjust taxes. They wanted to
string along with King George III. The
stabilizing forces of 1848-61 hanged
John Brown. The stabilizing forces
of today are just as inimical to the
progress and growth of Democracy
as they were in IT'S. Let us hope they
stop trying to stand still and make
the rest of the world stand still, be-
fore another 1776 rolls around.