Manawatu Herald. FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1889. OUR BOYS.

Manawatu Herald, 29 March 1889, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1889. OUR BOYS.

Every day, on all sides comes the question, what are we to dowith our "boys? It is a very grave question to d«al with, and we h»v« no i*tau

tion of entering fully into it, but, to be in season, gently assist in the discussion. Wo cannot help thinking that the education craze is helping to make this subject more difficult than it otherwise need be, from the fact that parents are foolish enough to | imagine, that because a boy has received a fair education in the State schools, it behoves them to put the youngster into what is ignorantly styled a genteel occupation. These occupations being, as clerk in a mercantile house, in an insurance office, in a bank, or worse than all, in a Government office. This choice is arrived at from the outside view obtained of these young men, but to test the value of their position, the uncertainty of their appointments, and the certainty of their never realising more than is sufficient to keep them, should be more carefully inquired into. We have had already in evidence what one distinguished judge on the other side has said about putting a boy into a bank, and that was, that he would put him to stone breaking first, as preferable. The staff of teachers will soon be full to overflowing, that starvation wages will only be earnt. In a mercanti : e office, unless the boy is Sent merely to gain an education to fir him to control a business of his own, What he learns will ba of no use, as when one man leaves hundreds are ready to swarm into his place, at any salary they can get. It •ounds disastrous to declare this as the state of affairs existing in a new country, but what can be expected, when fathers act so foolishly as to lead their children to look up to these situations, as being more gentlemanly than being employed in honest labor. We trust the colony, will, havingexpendedan enormous amount to run the education business, cacceed is turning out most of its scholars as having passed the fourth or fifth standard, and should it do so, how can it be • pected that our merchants' offices, banks, and schools are going to absorb our male population, But if not, what are we to dowith our boys? Our opinion is that we should do thus far with our boys, if we have their rea happiness at heart. We should studiously educate them to believe, that a. man who can be of some use to himself and others, is of more use to the world than the one who can only dress elegantly and move in one small circle of life* No matter what the occupation may be, let the lad have one chance of learning something beyond being able to write and make out accounts, something by which with the use of his hands, he can earn his daily bread. While young he is more readily taught, and whatever trade it may be, does not neces itate his always following it, if better openings are offering, but the actual knowledge of a trade will make the boy independent, and s >ve him from becoming either the victim of grasping masters or of having to contest vacancies with others more ignorant than himself. The misery suffered by those whose only training has been that of clerks, should be a warning 'to parents to try and do something better for their offspring. Let us decide that if trade and handicrafts are not genteel at the present time, to make them so, by placing in their ranks genteel and well educated young men. This will stop the cry of what are we to do with our boys.