Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1890 — A TALK WITH BOYS. [ARTICLE]

A TALK WITH BOYS.

You Can’t Expect All of Them til Follow Their Fathers. I “I am a farmer’s son. I don’t lil® farm life. Please tell me what chan® there is in the city?” I Out of twenty letters received fro® farmers’ sons at least seventeen wi® read as above. One might argue fro® this that, there was general dissati® faction with the avocation, but such ■ not the case. A proportion of farmer® son’s have always left the farm w learn a trade or profession, and pe>l haps, the proportion to-day is na larger than it was twenty years ag<>| To argue that every boy born on ■ farm must become a farmer would bl as bad as to argue that every carpenJ ter's son must naturally learn hii father’s trade. A fair per cent of ouj famous men were born and reared tl country life, but it was not the® natural bent. ‘ The farmer who has ■ boy anxious to break away and le u-n I trade or study for a profession shoull encourag® that ambition, in days gon J by people argued that any sort of a man could make a farmer. If he hat! failed at everything else he was ad| vised and eneduraged to- try farming! Fn these days we liir know that ona must be adapted to his work—th® farmer as well as the machinist. Ona will do his best only in that whichi comes the most natural to him. I Nor is thereany danger that the agl ricultural districts will be deserted bji the young men because a hand is hold out to those whose natural bent lies ing some other direction. Statistics would] "doubtless show, if any such had even been gathered, that at lea?*, one boy out of every three born on a farm grows up to pursue that avocation for life. The ratio among lawyers, doc tors, journalists, machinists, carpenters, blacksmiths, etc., is no greater. The farmer who should be told that a certain carpenter, painter or wheelwright with four sons was determined that each one of them should learn hie trade would “Jl'-ale in contempt. And yertho average farmer thinks it a singular th.ng when one of his boys detest tertn-work and feels that life contains something better for him. While the boy of 15 may be inquiring: “What trade shall I learn, or what profession ah ill I pursue?” it is in most cases a settled thing with the boy of 18. He has discovered his forte and is making arrangements to pursue it No boy should permit circumstances to force into a trade against his wishes. If he is obliged to earn wages, it is much better that he do general work until the right sort of opening appears. No father has any right to dictate in this matter. He is apt to be guided by a selfish spirit. If his boy can earn $4 per week as apprentice to a machinist, he would decide on the former trade without reflecting as to the boy’s natural bent. After two or three years, when the lad has discovered that he was cut out for something else, he has lost valable time and much of his ambition. And, too, the father who notes the successes in the professions is quite apt to argue that what one does another can do, and therefore shapes his son’s career in that direction, no matter what the boy thinks about it. It ii this argument that fills.the land with shyster lawyers, half starved doctor! and sharpers who must beat their bill! to get ~along from ypnr rn you—-Tfir* number of men who earn anything tmore than a bare living in any profusion is surprisingly small.