Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1883 — Boys, Learn a Trade. [ARTICLE]

Boys, Learn a Trade.

Learn a trade even if you are in a position which may seem to insure you against want as long as you may live. You may not follow a trade for a living, but time invested in learning a trade, and learning it thoroughly, is the laying away of a capital stock on which you may find it very convenient to draw some day. Life is said to be an uncertain existence. It is, so far as wealth is concerned. You may be a rich man to-day, but by some unlucky investment which made great promises at the start, and failed, you are made a poor man. With a good trade, under such circumstances, you have nothing to fear. You have an exhaustless reserve fund to draw from. Not only learn the theory of a trade, but learn its practical worth, and learn it thoroughly.’ In the Carriage Makers’ convention in New Haven, Ct., after the committee on apprenticeship had reported in favor of restoring the old system of indenturing apprentices until they reach their majority, Mr. John W. Britton, of New York, said: “One of the serious wants of this country, and our trade is good boys. Our boys are deteriorating as are our men. The greatest difficulty that we experience in New York is that of getting boys who have brains and are willing to learn a trade thoroughly. The example of men who have made millions in a few years is held up before our boys in school, and the boys become inflamed with the notion that they must make their millions and be able to found cross-roads colleges before they die. So they eschew trades and become poor professionals.” America, to-day, depends upon Europe for her most skilled and finest workmen, simply because her young men slight the minutia of the trade they go to learn, and merely obtain a superficial or general knowledge of it. We have too many professional men in the country to-day, and, as the speaker above referred to says, our schools love to dwell too much on the achievements of professional men. A man with a trade well learned, next to the farmer, is the most independent, and most to be envied among men. He is prepared for any emergency.