THE BATTALION.
17
THE KIND OF MEN THE TIMES
WANT.
HE South needs young men
who know how to superin
tend and run factories and mills.
As the Atlanta Co?istitution says,
we we have young men of our
own who should be available for
this work, but owing to our faulty
ideas on education, while they are
prepared to be doctors or law
yers, they are not prepared to be
handlers of coal or iron. Thus
we see them standing about with
out employment, or clamoring for
commissions in the army, while
the fat berths with comfortable
salaries at home are almost all
taken up by stranger. The need
of our country, then, is education.
“We do not need men who can
expound Blackstone,” adds the
Co?istitution, “but men who can
swing hammers and press electric
buttons. If we do not make
our facilities for technical educa
tion broad enough and thorough
enough, we must expect to seethe
Massachusetts man sitting in the
superintendent’s office while our
own sons pass around the water
pail.” Noting these conditions at
home, the Raleigh Observer says;
“In these modern times, while
the book or school part of educa
tion has been extended and im
proved, nothing has been incor
porated into the modern system of
education to take the place of that
practical apprenticeship for plan
tation work, and which laid the
foundation in physique and mind,
not only for the best possible
plantation managers, but for
statesmen, lawyers and other pro
fessional men.
“The chief need of the youth
of to-day is training in manufac
turing pursuits. The school and
collegiate education of to-day is
all right as far as it goes. The
graduate of 21, hewever, is large
ly without practical knowledge or
tsaining in the lines of the work
he wishes to undertake. If the
young men of to-day knew as
much about spindles, looms and
steam engines as the ante-bellum
young man knew about mules,
cotton growing and the like, there
would be ample occupation for
them at good pay in the cotton
and other factories. Indeed, we
are now in a condition where the
developing manufactures are con
stantly in need of and seeking an
educated and practical class of
young men, while the country is
at the same time full of educated
and more or less impractical
young fellows hunting positions.
Some of these young fellows, re
alizing their deficiency , take steps
to get the practice and go to work
to make themselves capable to do
efficient work. These invariably
succeed and soon become in due
time superintendents, managers
and owners. Many of them, how
ever, are handicapped for a long
time solely for the want of practi
cal training or an apprenticeship
in the practical end of the work
they want to do. In respect to
this practical side of education the
modern schools are improving all