Show OUR BOYS anari alari wo we do with bliem or do vor them there is a very general complaint corm corn plaint that it is becoming more wore and mor more e difficult to flud find desirable occupant for boys in all the vast jw industrial du and commercial machinery of the tho country there seems I 1 ta 6 be no space for the lads who must shortly bo be the men of another geue ration there was a time when boys boya were regularly apprenticed at mechanical trades or in mercantile houses they served nive five or seven years in the shop store or counting house and rose by slow degrees t to bo be partners heads of ho houf uses bea cea or independent masters in their own line of life other boys went to sea after receiving a good common school education and passed through the several etges singes of promotion as cabin boy before the mast ordinary seamen mates and captain all these whether on sea or land were the sons of american citizens and whether of rich or poor parents they were for the most part on a common level there was not so much dis disrelish telish for manual labor as there has been in later years perhaps there was more sturdiness of character it must be confessed that the times have llave changed how far the introduction of a foreign element into active business pursuits is for this we can not tell it is certain however that something in in tile the forecastle and in the shop has made those places distasteful to the average era e american boy it is 13 rare rate nowadays to find a gent lemans son his way to the quarter deck dech from before the mast the sneering phrase greasy mechanic often includes a fling M at tile the ignorant and uncongenial foreigner than of old with th this change lachange in the material of the mechanical trades have come the modern ideas concerning eer ning trades trader unions with all their machinery of or strikes les hes lockouts and strife with employers employ ers era ideas which are certainly not of american origin one of the very first urel demands of the trades union is that a limit be fixed to the number of apprentices tices cices to belakon be taken laken antonny into any working force some borne trades have fixed the maximum of apprentices as low as one to each thirteen journeymen or full hands possibly others have made a still more rigorously exclusive demand the theory of this sorl sort of proscription appears appear sto to be that men who have acquired a trade are determined that their number shall be kept within certain limits during their lifetime any I 1 attempt to invade that magic circle is met with a strike in which the workmen have the employees temporarily at their merey As employ employers era are not specially anxious about posterity they readily surrender to enter what are called the ther thel learned professions an expensive education is consider considered eJ necessary this is not attainable by most youths and even when it is acquired it does not always lead anywhere in these professions there is always room at the top which is small consolation to those who are aro hardly able to crowd in at the bottom vast numbers of boys therefore are driven into mercantile pursuits a vague term terni which means anything from buying and anti selling t of goods to being generally useful about a warehouse or store here the crowd of applicants for place is tremendous rhe the rho pay ay is small aud generally speaden speaking the chances for promotion and ultimate independence are smaller when we coi cot consider isider what possibilities are bound up in the boy whose only badness possibly la Is what he has inherited without his his own consent his future with only a few avenues of life open to him ia Is not cheer cheerful ful rul to one who wishes well for his kind today to day the boy stands at the dividing of the was wap the chances are that he will 1 ie e ajla th tia which leads to le tes ies s and aud uselessness if not worse the boy who wiio learns no trade masters no useful and productive callin cailin calling has lost his chance he enters life liandi handicapped di men though they may be prosperous and successful a the world gae goes goeb 1 sometimes turn back with a great cry for their lost youth ifor for a moment before they take up their burden and go on they plead that the tho youth ful rul bloom which no power in heaven or earth can restore shall bo be th irs its again the tho boys of this genera ion lon are in great need that g tio lio done to fit them for the manwood man lood which comes to them apace they complain that there is no ro m n nor for nir them anywhere new yola yolk lime |