Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1877 — The Value of Training. [ARTICLE]

The Value of Training.

It is a great thing to be a born poet, lawyer, merchant, musician and financier; but training has done as much as Nature to make men great in the various avocations of life. All who are familiar with the biographies of great men and great women know perfectly well that unless Nature had been largely aided and 4uupj>lemented by diligent training, their names might have remained forever unknown. Training may begin with tha'hst Jay of a child’s life. It is certain to continue in one form or another to the last, and doubtless ceases not then, for life here and hereafter is but a school, and we are advanced, as we are prepared, from one class to a higher class. Obedience to law is the first lesson a child should learn. Is it not also the last? We call it the forming of the right habits in him, right habits of sleeping, of washing, of eating; afterward of submitting his will to the will of his nurse or mother; afterward of the use of his limbs, his senses, his power of speech. At this point, culture on the part of the parent tolls perhaps as much as at any other point; for, in proportion as the parent understands and appreciates the force and beauty of language, will she take pains to form in her child the invariable habit of purity of speech in every sense in which the word purity can apply to speech. Cicero says that those among the Romans who became renowned for eloquence, learned the Latin language in its perfection from their mothers’ lips, and never knew how to talk incorrectly. Early in childhood, habits of self-re-liance and self-help may be formed. The child should be taught to amuse itself," to wait upon Itself, and to perform services, according to its strength and ability, for others. It is no kindness to a healthful child to wait upon it continually, when it is aid’ enough to wait upon itself. The very birds know that. Until their younglings can fly, they bring food and put it into their mouths, but no sooner arc they fledged than they are pushed from the nest by the sensible, God-taught parent, and compelled to exercise their own powers in taking care of themselves. It is surprising what mere training will do in developing talent in children There are those who have no aptitude for music, but persistent cultivation of the voice and the ear docs often make very passable musicians of those who seemingly had no talent in that direction. The same is true of drawing and painting. No child in the Boston schools is excused from drawing because he has no liking for the task. Of course, if one loves music, or mathematics, or geography, he will make easy and rapid advancement in those studies; but the fact that he does not like them constitutes no reason why he should not become more or less proficient in them. There is ho training that can take the place of a good home training. Those boys and girls who are so fortunate as to have fathers and mothers capable of instructing them in the performance of whatever accomplishments make home a place to be longed for and enjoyed, are indeed fortunate. Their equipment for life ia complete-. - . - Special trainings are of great value. A lawyer of several years’ standing at the bar in New York, in a recent conversation, remarked: “I studied law in a lawyer’s oflice. My brother here, several years younger than myself, went through the law school, and he has so much the advantage of me in consequence of that training, in the studious habits he has formed, in being brought into immediate contact with the best legal minds, in being held to the highest standards, that this fall I shall enter the law school and take the entire course.” =men,” so*csHett, snbjcctthemselves to the severest training and discipline, and do not avail themselves of collegiate and technical training, simply because the force of circumstances prevents them from doing so. There w as never an hour in their youth when Henry Wilson and Horace Greeley would not have availed themselves of all the facilities offered by academies and e< >ll ege.-, i f 111 e x cell 1d ha ve doll <•s< >. How carefully they trained themselves! Skilled labor is wanted everywhere; in the composing room, in the editorial room, in the shop, at the piano, at the forge, in the kitchen. Skilled labor commands good wages, even in these hard times, but skilled labor comes and can come only by long training.— N. Y. Tribune.