Good Books

In the
elementary departments there is life; but as soon as the boy
has acquired the rudiments of his English or common-school
education, he begins to chafe, and to feel that it Is time
for him to _go out_, and to make haste to 'finish (!) his
studies,'--which of course he does without much heart."
And again:---
"The 'poor white male orphan,' dwelling for eight or ten
years in comfort almost amounting to luxury, waited upon by
servants and machinery in nearly all his domestic
requirements, unused to labor, or laboring only
occasionally, with some reward in view in the form of extra
privileges, finds it hard to descend from his fancied
elevation to the lot of a simple apprentice; and his
disappointment is not soothed by the discovery that with all
his learning he has not learned wherewithal to give ready
satisfaction to his master."
It has been difficult, also, to induce the large manufacturers to take
apprentices; they are now accustomed to place boys at once upon the
footing of men, paying them such wages as they are worth.


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