The Value of Learning a Trade
Education is not all from books. Education in a good trade is oftentimes more befitting the boy and valuable to him in character building than all the book knowledge which can be forced into him. Judge Ben. B. Lindsay, of the Juvenile court of Colorado, tells us in a recent address: “I had a boy, pursued by the school-attendance officer, come to me with tears in his eyes to know why he couldn’t get an education by learning the plumber’s trade. He wanted to be a plumber’s helper, but he had no interest in either botany or zoology. I say that boy should have had an opportunity to learn a trade. I say that boy was right, and the school was wrong. Do you people know that in nearly every state in this union, in order for a boy to learn a trade, he must commit a crime? That is to say, the state industrial schools, and not the public schools, teach these things. A public school principal once told me to send a boy to the reform school because, as he carelessly expressed it, ‘he will have a chance to learn a trade.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘but why in God’s name and in common justice can’t he learn a trade at home?’ Let him learn some vocation, so that when he gets out from the eighth grade, as 92 per cent. of them do, with no chance for higher education, he will be equipped to do something that is practical, so that he can get to work to do or make things in which he finds a pleasure and a joy, instead of going to the messenger service and the street.”