GIVE YOUR SONS TRADES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XI, Issue 4021, 1 October 1874, Page 3

GIVE YOUR SONS TRADES.

The following interesting and instructive article, taken from the Melbourne Argus, should receive the attention of parents in all stations of life. The facts stated and the inferences drawn therein are' equally applicable to this colouy :—" We may reasonably .hope that iu a few years there will be no one within the bounds of Victoria possessing the ordinary faculties of mind and body who will not have received that moderate amount of instruction which is provided gratuitously under our State Schools Act. No doubt there are thousands enjoying the advantages so placed at their disposal who, at the termination of the school age, will never afterwards open a book for the purpose of study, while many will probably go their way and straightway forget what little they may have learned. .But at the same time it is certain that hundreds and thousands will be added to what may be called the semi-edu-cated class, who would otherwise remain ignorant, and consequently entirely dependent on manual labour for the means of livelihood. The compulsory preparatory training they receive will develop a desire for additional knowledge, and thus scores will be added to the number of those who are competent to discharge the duties of clerks with efficiency and credit. There is, unfortunately, a strong tendency already to look to cleric;d employment for support; and in view of this threatened addition to ranks already overcrowded, it becomes a serious duty for parents to exercise '! r. little foresight, and not to allow ar?y foolish I idea.? .oi accruing tho cc-tiparative " j '.i,ty°'or iiiill-dvivinji ;~£?uv.;al !:.boi."-ro la-

■i w-CttaLi. j : vvsi;v.. tfug • ••'iir.6 line of life they will select for their children. It is a lamentable fact thai men who have thriven by handicraft or exertions behind the counter, are always desirous of elevating their offspring to a different social grade. It docs not matter to them that by indulging this foolish desire they are casting a reflection on the career by which they have themselves prospered. They have been accustomed to regard the wearers of broadcloth as so much superior to those clothed in. fustian, that they are determined th?ir sous shall assume the former, no matter what the cost may be. For the majority of the ' young gentlemen' so promoted there is no opening except in the great regimcut of scriveners, which is already so much beyond its legitimate strength. Every fresh recruit has a tendency to reduce the remuneration of the entire body, for employers naturally diminish salaries when lihey find every vacant billot besieged by a host of applicants. The son of the small shopkeeper or artisan thus exalted lias little reason to rejoice at his fortune. Instead of enjoying a prospect of becoming, like his father, a well-to-do and prosperous tradesman, he finds himself one of an underpaid and helpless class, which has very few prizes to offer its members. As lie pursues a nearly hopeless career, he has the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that the soaring ambition of his parents, or perhaps his own, has been the means of aggravating the disadvantages under which it labours by reason of its unnecessary numbers. It may be thought that tLis is an exaggerated picture, but we are sure it is true to life even at the present time, and for the reasons we have given it will fail to represent the real state of the case within a very few years. What do we see nowada3's whenever applications are invited for any clerical office, no matter how small? Countless applicants. Only one can succeed, while scores go disappointed away to repeat the operation, on the morrow, with the same unsatisfactory result. There must be hundreds of men this very day in Melbourne and suburbs—skilful penoien, fair accountants, possessing business experience and bearing good characters —to whom life is a burden, owing to that heart sickness which springs from hope deferred. These, doubtless, in the bitterness of their spirits, secretly curse the folly wliich, for the sake of a mere idea, prevented their being trained to some of those manual occupations which insure to those who follow them plenty and independence. And it is the same all over the world. Speaking of England, the Spectator says : — ' People are getting educated in. a kind of way by tens of thousands a year, and a result which ought, to have been expected from that, but was not expected, is daily more ' perceptible. The price of semi-educated labour—that is, of work which, without demanding any specialty of brain, does demand a moderate degree of education, and much industry—is declining, declining we think positively, but certainly decliuing in comparison with the price of manual work.' According to the same authority, the clerk has a smaller income than nearly any artizan, and, relatively to Ins needs, not half so much. In Germany it is the same. In America, [ where almost all but immigrants are educated'—as will be the ease with us before long—' the case is even worse,' payment for educated work being lower iu comparison with manual labour than anywhere else in the world. The A r eic York Tribune tells a tale within its own knowledge, shewing the difference in position between the two. Unskilled building labourers in its employ, who were in receipt of two dollars a day, demanded an additional 50 cents, and went on strike sooner than accept an increase of 25. While these gentlemen could afford to lounge about the city 'in fresh paper collars and new-dyed moustaches,' there were others in a very different plight. A lawyer advertised for a clerk, and received in a single day over one hundred replies from gentlemen, ' all of whom wrote fail - hands, some excellent; all were acquainted with the routine business of a law office ; some were attorneys already admitted to practice, graduates of colleges and universities, &c. These men asked salaries of from eight to fifteen dollars a-week, averaging less than the strikers were demanding for eight hours a-day for the mere labour of their hands, requiring no intelligence whatever.' In face of these facts, we trust to see the j>rejuclice iu favour of halfstarved ' gentility' die out. The manual trades have all the best of it: and those parents who minister to their own pride by forcing their children into an occupation already overcrowded, commit a cruel act, end assume a very heavy I responsibility Let them give the young as good an education as their jjockets can afford, but let them disabuse their minds at the same time of the spurious idea that a person of attainments is degraded by manual labour. As a rule their educational acquirements will assist them in their work, transforming the mere mechanic into an artist or an engineer. They never can he wholly thrown away, for at the worst they remain for the solace of leisure hours ; but better they should be wasted entirely, than cmployed in marring the fortunes of their possessor aud adding to the ranks of the wretched."