Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1881 — Farm Training. [ARTICLE]

Farm Training.

The .form is the best place-in the world to raise boys. Most of tha- suecesstol business men of cities were form boys. The habits formed of early rising, constant employment of body or mind In a useful way, economy, trutbfalneeS, honesty and virtue, are just what are needed to make sterling, go-ahead, successful men'in all departments of life. . j -y,: '■ * A gentleman sent the following fetter to one hundred men, standing at the head-of--the financial, commareial, professional and educational interests of an eastern city : ~ , My Dkak But—l desire to find out, for the benefit of the boys, how the leading men of this city spent their boyhoodi Will'you be hhui enough to tell me:—- -- , ‘ 1. Whettieryouf home for the first fifteen yeam of your life was on ft farm, in a villi age, or in a city? : 2. ,'Wheiher you were accustomed during any part of thftt period to en 1 - gage ifi iny kind es work when not ih be glaci, of course, to have you go into particulars-as fully as you aredispose<wodo; but I do not»wish' to tax your, patience, and I should be greatly pbliged for a simple answer to txio cruestions.' * * ? Eighty-eight replied. Of these eigh-ty-eight^men,—twelve spent the first fifteep years o( tHete life in the city, twelve In villages, arid sixty-four were fomeris boys. * But or the tWenty-four who lived in. villiagee and. eities, onefourth were practically, fanner’s boys, fbr thfcy lived in the vicinity and did the work of farmer’s .boys. One of these village boys said: “Jt learned to hoet'digand mow, and to work whether I liked it or.npt.•„ I. went to school in winter, arid’ wrought at nights and mcpßlrigs far my board.’* Another, “Jnaed to urork aw»y fr° m borne op a farm in the summer and fall. In the winter, whed going to school, we three boys used to work ;up the wood for winter use.” This was the story of others, tro'lbat'76 outof Bs—four-fifths —had iarmlife training. ( ’ t -; >Did the few boys of the city list have an easy time? Oue studied law when ’outof achboL He had notmuch play. The others’ ■Were poor boys, children of the working classes, in needy circum- , stances, accustomed to hard work from thwr earliest years. . Onesaid he was “generally employed in “summer months and, during!,vacations in doing airy work that offered,” • Font-were newsboys. One said “the last of his con nection with the press he , carried SIOO before breakfast,” Another •that *llopaid his owtf way since eight years pf age, without any assistance except board from my Bth to my 11th year. i \ the boys to-day who were at the same time going to school and amusing themselves? Where are they? . ; \ye know who, the 96 per pent, of successful ruen were—former’s boys or ' poor andfhard working town boyr.