Why Smart Boys Do Not Learn Trades.
By Editor
Under the above heading, a New York paper speaks as follows concerning an evil that is too common. We commend it especially to the careful perusal of the young:— The question of the hour with parents is, What shall we do with the boys? "Give them trades," the judicious family adviser says—there is always a judicious adviser inside or outside of every family, who suggests impossible things, but who never goes farther than that. "A trade," the judicious adviser continues, "is always something to fall back upon. It is a crutch or a staff, as you please. You can lean wholly on it or use it only occasionally when other means fail. Every boy ought to have a trade." The judicious adviser stops there. If the boy is consulted, as he generally is, he will object to the drudgery of a trade. He has been "educated," and he wants to head-work, not hand-work. The American parent, trembling before the lad's stern aspect, timidly remarks that even with the inestimable benefit of a public-school education, the youthful book-keeper does not always succeed in marrying his employer's daughter—and succeeding to the business. There are not heiresses enough to supply the demand; and, though the young American may be able to "bound" Alaska with his eyes shut, and explain the properties of protoplasm, he will find himself no better off than the thousands of "educated" clerks who every year valiantly take their pens in hand to seek the rare heiress in her native lair. American boys are disinclined to learn trades; and employers do not want them. A vicious system of education has induced our young men to hold that it is best for a man to live by his wits. Their intolerable conceit is beaten down only when they find that serviceable wits are as rare as the illusive heiress. The dignity of labor of which religion gives us the knowledge, is little felt in this country. The example of St. Joseph, toiling serenely at his bench, helped by our blessed Lord, does not lead the handcrafts-men of our day to feel that the yoke of labor is sweet and easy to bear. Labor, with Christian contentment, is not a curse; it is a consolation. The American boy—of course there are exceptions to this rule—does not know the meaning of contentment. "Excelsior" is his motto; he wants to climb on somebody else's ladder. He does not think of constructing a ladder for himself. That would not be "smart." And, of all detestable qualities, American "smartness," "cute-ness," "crookedness," is the most detestable. Yet the judicious adviser and the family consider it a trait to be cultivated. Little Jack Horner, who sat in a corner and pulled a plum out of his own Christmas pie, was not a smart boy at all. He was a stupid English boy. Our Jack Horner would have pulled the plum out of his brother's pie, and would have been applauded by an admiring family for his "smartness." The ordinary boy is too "smart" to learn a trade. When he has found an employer who is not prevented by a trades' union from taking him, he begins his voluntary apprenticeship by spoiling as much work as he can. When he has learned the rudiments of the trade and become of use to his employer, he determines to go it alone. Hence we have plumbers who are ruinous, cabinet-makers who are competent to make the showy furniture which adorns the auction-rooms, shoemakers who cannot compete with machinery, printers whose "proofs" are temptations of the devil to the patient editor, book-binders who are capable of putting mottled paper on a black-letter tome—and a crew of muddled, half-taught craftsmen, masters of no craft, and without one spark of interest or pride in their work. Who mends your watch? A German. Who makes shoes that will not let in water? A German. And so on. If you want a table made after the solid fashion of a hundred years ago, will you easily find any man to do it? A dozen men will offer to make "one that will look just as well." If you pay them for doing this you will lose your money. The carpenter bred in this country can make doors or fit in sashes already made by machinery, but show him an original plan and ask him to do any task which requires nicety of judgment and complete skill, he will smile at you in his superior way and "guess" that you will not find a man to do it. To get a simple book-shelf made after a model that you have seen, is a difficult matter and a costly one. The carpenter who will do it at last will prove to have been trained abroad. The reasons why we have few skilled artisans are that our boys are too impatient of restraint and too anxious to use a superficial knowledge; that manual labor is not considered "genteel"; that neither parents nor children will submit to a long term of apprenticeship, and that employers cannot take the risk of giving work to boys who will leave them almost as soon as they can drive a nail or put a rivet in with neatness. The employer does not care to give his assistants the attention he gave them under the old patriarchal system of apprenticeship, which was the means of turning out American mechanics worthy of the name. It was a rough old system, capable of abuses, but it helped to make men. The apprentice of those days did not smoke as many cigars or wear such heavy watch chains as the youthful autocrat who condescends to work does now. He had not so much time for displays of "hoodlumism" on street-corners. He was not always well fed, and sometimes he ran away, and his master offered a shilling reward for him in one of the prints of the day. Nevertheless, he knew his trade thoroughly, and when the term was over, acquired a home and throve exceedingly. "There was no machinery then." No. But who will buy machine-made shoes to-day, if he has a skilled workman to make shoes for him? If it is a toss-up between a high-priced and unskillful workman and a low-priced and fairly skillful machine, it is "heads" for the machine every time. Skill pays. Any work will produce just as much as you put into it—no more; and machinery can never drive the disciplined hand out of employment. The omnipresent chromo did not fill the place of the picture made by hands. The sewing-machine has its limitations; and the seamstress who is especially deft with her needle need not fear that it will take away her occupation. The buisness of the world will never be run by automata. He who performs the work of each moment with his whole might need not fear that the world will have no use for him.