The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1922-11-30

the stamps to carry the dope sheets
thruout the land to keep the people
from furnishing for news of the
social stunts and exercises at the
university.
OF course all the smaller institu-
lions of learning are emulating the
example Of the university insofar as
they can. We suppose they will all
settle down to school work after the
holidays. And 1t will be refreshing
to know that there is teaching Of
things practical and workable. We
hear people asking where there Is a
carpenter or other skilled workman
or plumber who will engage to do
some work and actually 60 to the
place and fill his engagement within
a couple Of weeks of the time he
fixes as an agreeable date for him
to mend the pipe or whatever it Is.
They seem scarce, and yet the
products Of our schools amble up
and down the streets and expect dad
to support them, for 10, there is
nothing in the way of employment
there are no positions open to
stenographers and bookkeepers.
Graduates don't want jobs OF car
pentry or plumbing showed at them.
They want shorthand and bookkeep-
ing, especially the short hand, the
shorter the better.
In some series of tests we have
made in the past couple of years try
ing to find a reporter we have dis
covered that nearly all of the boys
who come to us for a try-out at re-
porting, do not know how to spell
and punctuate and they are not neat
and careful. The girls rate about as
high as the boys and most of them
write words quite at random such as
principal, principle, to, too, two,
there, their and they know not the
corretc use of the apostrophe for in
dicating the possessive. They use
1t. but neary always at random like
the spelling.
Our schools have been enjoying a
great run of manual training, and
for many years we have been pub
fishing news about the classes in
carpentry. The Oregon Short Line
have been sending men all over
southern Idaho trying to find these
young carpenters, for they have
wrok for scores of them. Nothing
doing. William is waiting for a Job
to loom up in the bank, and Sarah
is playing the piano for the movies
or hopes to. Our information in
dicates that it is so in all the towns
where they have had the best
schools. Physical labor is taboo.
A firm on the coast put out call
recently for 700 carpenters and
wanted them to sign up for long
periods of employment. You would
think from reading the school news
OF recent years that they could get
them in platoons in this state. False
alarm; only the old stagers could be
found responding. The rising gen.
Grafton are only driving nails-nail-
ing something that has already been
shaped and put in position. Aside
from mechanics working in garages,
there seem to be scarcely any young
men who have learned anything
they can make a living at, and the
towns are flooded with cigarette
smoking fellows whom you would
hesitate to take into your home as
companions because they can
neither entertain, be entertained
agreeably nor do anything useful.
We have at the head of our school
system, some very learned people
who are employed for the purpose of
planning the school system so that
it shall rank high. 1t seems to be
going on high and hitting on all the
cylinders, but the people who pay
the gas bills would be much graft
fed If they could find out where it |
is going to arrive.