Year: 1869

The present generation of young men
seem to have strong aversion to every


kind of trade, business, calling or occu-


patton that requires manual labor, and


an equally strong tendency towards some
so-called "genteel" employment or pro-
fession. The result is seen in the super
abundance of elegant penmen, book
keepers and clerks of every kind who
can get no employment, and are wasting
their lives in the vain pursuit of what is
not to be had and terrible overstock
of lawyers without practice and doctors
without patients. The passion on the
part of the boys and young men to be
clerks, Office attendants, messengers, any
thing, SO that it is not work of the kind
that will make them mechanics or trades
men, is deplorable sight to those who
have full opportunities to see the distress
ing effects of it in the struggle for such
employments by those unfortunates who
have put it out of their power to do any
thing else by neglecting to learn some
permanent trade or business in which
trained skill can always be turned to ac-
count. The applications for clerkships
and similar positions in large establish
ments are numerous beyond anything
that would be thought of by those who
have no chance to witness it. Parents
and relatives, as well as the boys and
young men themselves, seem to be affiict-
ed with the same infatuation. To all
such we say that the most unwise advice
you can give to your boy is to encourage


him to be clerk or bookkeeper. At


the best, it is not well paid occupation.


Very frequently it is among the very


poorest. This is the case when the clerk
is fortunate enough to be employed, but


if he should happen to be out of place,


then comes the weary search, the fearful


struggle with the thousands of others


looking for places, the never-ending dis


appointments, the hope deferred that


makes the heart sick, the strife with pov-
erty, the humiliations that take all the
manhood out of the poor souls, the pri-
vations and suferings of those who de-
pend upon his earnings, and who have
no resource when he is earning nothing
No father, no mother, no relative should
wish to see their boys or kindred wasting
their young lives in striving after the
genteel positions that bring such trials
and privations upon them in after life.
How do these depIorably false notions as
to choice of occupation get into the heads
of boys !? Why do they or their parents
consider it more "genteel" or desirable
to run errands, sweep out offices, make
fires, copy letters, ETC., than to make hats
or shoes, or lay bricks, or WELD the saw
or jack-plane, or handle the machinist's
file, or the blacksmith's hammer We
have heard that some of them get these
notions at school. IF this be true, it is
sad perversion of the means of education
provided forour youth, which are intend
ed to make them useful, as well as intel
ligent members of society, and not USE
less drags and drones. Should it be so,
that the present generation of boys get
it into their heads that, because they
have more school learning and book &C.
complishment than their fathers had,
they must therefore look down upon the
trades that require skill and handicraft,
and whose productions make up the vast
mass of the wealth of every country,
then it is time for the controllers and the
directors to have the interior walls of
our school-houses covered with maxims
and mottoes warning them against the
fatal error.-Philadephia Ledger.