Year: 1876




medical colleges at the rate of thousand


per annum, turned out to prev upo,


society, with neither knowledge, experience


nor even honest purpose We might hav,


enlarged the statement to include voun,


men and women who have not even beer


manufactured by any such training mil


for any useful purpose whatever, but VIII,


rush into the professions, the arts. tn,


trades, resolved to win not only living OIL


OF them, but distinction, success, and pub


lie respect. New York and Philadelphis


swarm with halfgrown boys from the


country and inland towns, each of whom


means to die as rich man as Astor and


Girar'l, and whose sole skill or knowledge


appears to be an aptitude in copying the


dress and manner of the Bowery gent"


while the Bar here and elsewhere is crowded


with young men shuffied through exami.


nation Is the grace of an influential friend.
and who mean to use their profession to
push them as ward politicians.


The gate to success and money-making
which IS the most popular and attacked
with the most sanguine ambition, however.
Is that of literature. The editor of maga-
zine or newspaper must have nerves of steel
If he be not wearied out with the i'm
portunity of "eOllege graduates of fine
literary TASTE" who feel themselves com.
petent TO fill any position in his Office at n
moments warning, from that of proof.
reader to his own. Back of these come n
pressing crowd Of women, widows who
must feed their children or see them starve.
young girls. wives with invalid or drunken
husbands. downright adventures, none of
whom can earn money by teaching, sewing.
OF any other head or hand-craft, and there
fore take to the pen as 1.-THE one business
which requires no training Nothing can
be more pitiable than the appeals of these
people, nothing more sanguine than their
hopes. Their need is desperate: their
talent they have been assured by friends.
isindisputable. IS Nobody unconnected with
the publishing business in some way can
know how deplorably large this class is in
the cities. They write, write, food the
tables of editors with poems, tales, ESSAYS.
which come back to them OF disappear in
the waste-paper basket. We have known
young woman come to one of the sea. |
board cities from village in a Southern
state and for three years struggle against
hunger, need of every sort, writing steadily.
without one gleam of success Such pluck |
and endurance would have told in any
other pursuit; but the woman was ignorant |
OF grammar, English literature. everything |
in fact but belief in her own "genius." |
Nor Is the case an extreme one. In art |
the case is almost as bad. Pictures, studies
IN oil and crayOn, are offered in the market /
by men and women who apparently do not |
know the first rules of art Just as one /
career" after another is opened by which |
money can be made, there will follow
the same crowd of needy aspirants who
mean to conquer success without knowledge.
skill, or any kind of training.


They have their side of the story too.
They are hungary and ill-clothed; they
have as much natural ability as men who
SIT snagly inside the gates at which they
knock; and it may be as much informa-
ton. What then is lacking? Apprentice
ship and hard work. The fable of the
winged horse who few to the dizzy nights
of fame was long ago exploded; nobody be-
lieves in it but schoolboys. The horse who
wins the race, whatever his strain of blood.
has been long aud carefully trained and
has worked hard in every muscle. No lad,
his ability, can come to New
York and earn distinction or money with
out work, and that hard, steady work in
the line he chooses. No lad is such fool
as to undertake to build house who had
never handled trowel or hammer, and a
woman knows that she must learn to boil
and bake before she can prepare the sim
plest dinner. Art, literature, music, jour
nalisul, are not more easily conquered than
or cookery.


These sentences, we know, are platitudes
10 every intelligent reader. But for lack of
knowing just these platitudes thousands
Of men and women are wasting their
/
loss effort. They answer that they have no
time for 'prenticeships. They must have
money or starve. After a year or two of
they clutch eagerly at the
lowest of bastard success, paint daubs for
auctions, write unsavory ill-paid matter for
fash publications. Easy as is the descent
into that hell, to come out of it is impossi-
bic.


There is but one remedy for this miserable
condition of affairs. Let boys and girls
girls-be thoroughly taught one
means Of earning their bread while they
ARE at home. When they are turned out
on the world is no time to begin to learn to
handle their tools. No matter what their
social rank or expectations, give them this
one weapon whose use they thoroughly un-
derstand with which TO keep the wolf from
the door. Make them teachers, artists,
seanasfresses, musicians, painters on china,