Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1882 — The Abolition of Apprenticeship. [ARTICLE]

The Abolition of Apprenticeship.

There are some who still deplore the fact that at'the present day the old system of apprenticeship has become obsolete; but we think that the change in our custom should not be regretted, as it is the neces-’ sary result of changed circumstances, and, taken all in all, the advantages overbalance the disadvantages. The changed circumstances referred to are the invention and universal introduction of new, improved tools and machinery. This has exerted a two-fold influence, namely, it lias upset the old routine way by which employees taught apprentices the old traditional methods, because new machinery made it necessary for the employer to continually learn himself some new way of doing a thiiig; at the same time machine work did away with the drudgery with which apprentices used to be charged and bored, resulting in a loss of much of their time without learning anything. The world has found out that it is much beter to keep boys at school a longer time, when after having received a more complete education, they will, on entering a modern shop at a maturer age, learn more of the business in three months than very young apprentices in former years used to learn in three years; and we need only point out this fact to convince any one of the advantages the youth of the present age enjoy in this country over the youth of years gone by, and over the youth in old stagnating countries of Europe. This is one of the chief reasons why we are at the head of all the world in usefiil, practical appliances, and generally acknowledged to be so. What we have said applies to most all trades, especially wood-working and carpentry, in which great improvements in machinery and tools have been introduced, which have resulted in another advantage, namely, the trade is much more readily learned, the improved tools making it easier to do good work, if the eye is only correct and the hand steady. A Cheekful Face. —Carry the radiance of your soul in your face ; let the world have the benefit of it. Let your cheerfuV ness be felt for good. Wherever you are, let your smiles be scattered like sunbeams “on the just as well as on the unjust.” Such a disposition will yield you a rich reward, for its happy effects will come home to you and brighten your moments of thought. Smiles are the higher and better responses of nature to the emotion of the soul. Let the children have the benefit of them, those little ones who need the sun shine of the heart to educate them, and would find a level for their buoyant nature in the cheerful, loving fUces of those who lead them. Let them not kept from the middle-aged, who need the encouragement they bring. Give your smiles to the aged. They come to them like the quiet rain of summer, making fresh and verdant the long, wearisome path of life. Be gentle and indulgent to all; love the true, the beautiful, the just, the holy. • _ At Charleston, 3. C., the Jury disagreed in the case of the ballot box staffers. , „