South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2791, 4 March 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1882.

Every thoughtful parent is put to his wits’ end in this country when he tries to map out a career for his boys. He generally leaves the future of his girls to their mother’s attention, feeling assured that in the matrimonial market, which he regards as the legitimate sphere for female effort, his wife will be much more useful to them than he can be. But about boys he is sorely troubled. They are growing rapidly up and their boisterous spirits and budding strength are clamoring for an outlet; and he feels that a career must be found for them or they will assuredly come to grief. Their young strength and spirits, well-direcfed, may urge them on to success ; neglected, they-will inevitably drive them, like rudderless ships, to destruction. Looking round for a sphere of usefulness for the young Trojans, he finds the professions over-crowded, and the crafts and trades undeveloped. Now this is exactly the state of things, and its existence sets one seriously thinking. The truth is, people in their anxiety to bring their children up “ respectably,” have lost sight of the importance of productive energy. That is what should always be impressed upon the rising generation. The professional classes, the non-producers, are but a fringe of the mantle, an adjunct to progress. Unless a lad displays exceptional ability in this direction he ought to be, kept away from a pursuit which will land him, possibly in genteel beggary, probably in moral and mental ruin.

It must he remembered (and the consideration should be well weighed) that those who gather the fruits or dig up the treasures of the earth ; who form and construct, make and fashion, articles of material use—are the real, effective workers of society, whose labors, unlike those of the mere dreamer, are immediately productive. But our boys have only a circumscribed area in these colonies. Industries are as yet only in their infancy with us, and we have no more a school of handicrafts than a school of philosophy. Among the upstart class, which as yet constitutes a very large proportion of the community, there is a rush for gentility which, at all hazards, must be preserved. The old contempt of vulgar trade, dying rapidly in the Mother Country, starts up into new and vigorous life here; and some of our most promising youths are daily sacrificed to an insane craze. Will no reasoning convince people that on the development of its resources and the cultivation of its industries, depends the ultimate prosperity of a country ? Surely those who assist in promoting material progress do the State and their kind more service than those who only hang upon the march, who are the camp followers so to speak, of the great army of producers. The State finds it necessary to take the management of Public Instruction, and for some time to come at least we think this is as it should be. In its beneficent line of action in this matter, the State pays perhaps too little heed to industrial education. Industrial, or technical education (apart from the effect it may have upon our status as a producing country) has a direct effect upon the youth who receive it; and this is a consideration more immediately worthy of attention. A youth technically or industrially educated, realises the value of the instruction he is receiving;—he sees everywhere around him evidence of the practical value of it. As his tastes incline, then, he notes how practical acquaintance with a craft or art leads to actual tangible results, and he sets some value on instruction. As a preliminary, drawing may he mentioned as a subject in which every child should be regularly instructed. For drawing, apart from its own value as an art, is more valuable from the lessons it teaches—accuracy, delicacy, proportion, and in what trade are these qualities not valuable ? In Otago there is a School of Design in vigorous and useful life, and there is no centre of population in which a similar institution should not exist. For it would form the nucleus of a national system of technical education which would do more to stifle incipient larrikinism than any other agency could ever do. Looked at even in this light the matter seems worthy of attention ; but, when it is considered in reference to the material progress of the colony, it needs but little demonstration to prove how valuable it is.