Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1871 — A Grievous Wrong. [ARTICLE]

A Grievous Wrong.

There is the soundest common sense In the following paragraph from the Manufacturer and Builder : AVhy is it that there t& such a repugnance on the part of parents to putting their sons to a trade? A skilled mechanic is an independent man. Go where he will his craft will bring him support. He need ask favors of none, lie has literally his fortune in his own hands. Yet foolish parents—ambitious that their sous should “ rise in the world,” as they say—are more willing that they should study for a profession, with the chances of even moderate success heavily against them, or run the risk of spending their manhood in the ignoble task of retailing dry goods, or of toiling at the accountant’s desk, than learn a trade which would bring them manly strength, health and independence. In point of fact, the method they choose is the one least likely to achieve the advancement aimed at, for the supply of candidates for “ errand boys,” dry goods clerks, and kindred occupations, is notoriously overstocked ; while, on the other hand, the demand for really skilled mechanics of every description is as notoriously beyond the supply. The crying need of this country to-day is for skilled labor; and that father who neglects to provide his son with a useful trade, and to see that he thoroughly masters it, does him a grievous wrong and runs the risk of helping by so much to increase the stock of idle and dependent, if not vicious, members of society. It is stated in the report of the Prison Association, lately issued, that of fourteen thousand five hundred and ninety-six prisoners confined in the thirty states, in 1867, sev-enty-seven per cent., or over ten thousand of the number had never learned a trade. The fact conveys a lesson of profound interest to those who have in charge the training of boys, and girls too, for the active duties of life.