Short Talks with the Boys. BY M. QUAD, IN THE " FREE PRESS."

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2033, 18 July 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Short Talks with the Boys. BY M. QUAD, IN THE " FREE PRESS."

I w\s talking with a sturdy old farmer the other clay, and linked him ho.v many boys he had. " Five," ho rapliel, " and I'm going to maLe a farmor o( every one of 'em." •• How do you know you are?" " Why, they're my boys, ain't they, and I reckon they'll do as I Hay about it !" " Do tney like farming ?" 11 No matter whether they do or not, they've got to work at it 1" The man waa what you might call a representative farmer. He waa fairly educated, more man comfortably well off, and was looked up to in hia township. If anybody had calle-i him stingy or mean, hia friends would have been flhocked, and yet he caoliy planned to (sacrifice the futures of his five boys through purely nelaßh motives. The chances are tnat not all oi tiio five would select agnculture as an occupation, or mako a succors of it if they did, but their father wanted thwir serviced until each was 21 years old, and nc had no care how they turned out after that. Too miny farmers take this same view of the case. Under the law a father is entitled to tho services of his son until the latter reacius hia majority. Half a century ago no boy begtiu a trade until hs waa 21. How the majority of taem be^in at 16 or 17, calculating to have tueir trade finished at 21. If the farmer's boy, who is determined on learning Borne trade or profession, must stick to the plough until he beaomes of age, his prospects are greatly damaged. He is no longer a boy, nor can he accept of boy 'a wages. A blacksmith or maaon or carpenter with five sons would not have answered that he waa dcterufcned to make evory one of the boys learn hka trade. Had any one auggested such a thing, he would h&ve laughed m derision, fully realising that he had no moral right to sit in judgment that way. During thd last six month* I have been bunting for statistics about farmer* and their eons. In thit time I have talked with at lea^t sixty farmers, only ten or twelve of whom had any love for, or enthusiasm iv, agriculture. The others replied to tho question with : "I wanted to learn a trade, but father opposed it, and so I had to stay on the farm." Out of the forty-seven men who answered me in that way not one was rich. All complained more or le3s about hard luck and poor crops, and it was easy to sec that they had no heart m the business. These were the sons whose selush fathers had obliged them to become farmers. Of the others all were well off, cheery and contsnted and full of pluck. These were cho men who had taken up agriculture from choice. Of the fifty or sixty farmers' boys -whom I interviewed, not more than ten intended to stick to tha farm. The others wantad to learn trades or professions. There is one particular point in which the average farmer is contemptibly mean with hia boy. He sets himself up as a standard. If he didn't want so and so why should his boy? If ha had to turn out of bed at 4 o'clock a.m. and work until dark why should his boy be spared ? He didn't have a decent suit or fine boots or any spending money, and why should his offspring go into uuch extravagance ? The farmer who reasons that way has a selfish motive under it. He knows ft 1 .! well as other people that the boys of to-day cannot be and ore not treated like the boys of fifty years ago. He will admit that his father wore a hickory shirt without collar to meeting, while he must have a white one well starched and adorntd with collar and neck-tie, but he won't admit that his son has any right to improve on him. If a boy feels enthusiastic to learn to be a printer, harness-maker or wood-engraver no father with any sense in his head will command the boy to learn the trade of a stonemason. Why then should a farmer decide that his son, who has exhibited a taste for mechanics, spoil bia whole life by ordering him to stick by the farm ? If a. boy who wanted to loam the carpenter's trade is made to learn the harness-maker's, and thereby becomes a botch workman, why shouldn't a farmer's son, who ought to have been an architect, make a poor farmer ? He certainly will, figure it as you may. I have a letter from a resident of Alabama who nays he hated farm work and ran away to escape it. His father wanted him to be a farmer, and h« wanted to be something elie. The boy ran away, and ia now comparatively rich and doing well. He reasons that farmer*' sons should run away to gee along m the ■w*rid. The idea *u pernicioua and altogether wrong. The changes for a runaway boy are not one iv a hundred. The bare laot of hit having run away is enough to condemn him with all honeut men. Out of fifty who run away not more than one or two will »tand a show of success. Let the farmer's son seek to discover what his taste runs to. If to agriculture, he should be given a fair show. He should have the best of agricultural papers and every chance to impiove on the uystem bis father has worked under. Home of the land and tha live stock should be bis, and bo should be to a certain extent a partner. No man will dig and delve for you without pay ad an incentive. A boy who is expected to put la hid befat effoits on the farm beoause the lay/ saya his father is entitled to his services will certainly disappoint you. If his taste runs to a trade or profession the father must argue the ,

matter as a reasonable man wonld. Hejjas no right to emramber the with anether botch farmer. Ha has no ri^ht to condemn hia ten to poverty vision he mi^brt be rich by his owa exertions. If he ia wise he will even encourage th« boy to fellow ont the bent of his incliratrons. Nine times out of ten whore you hear of ft farmer's boy being set down as a hard case you find his father to blame for it. He has been too hars>h and arbitrary He has gone on tb.p idea th&t his sou wa3 a drudge. His idea has boen to moke money out of his tired muscles and baok-aches, and give back the least possible reward. AH farmers are not so, but too muny still are, no matter how much other classes have improved. The results have been and will ever be disastrous. Too many sons have been drudged and bowed and pounded until they prefer the life of a vagrant. There ia hwdly any combination of circumstances to warrant a boy running away from home, but it ii ea>y for a father to drive his boy away and make a bad man ol him. It i 3 being done in almost every country in the land every day.