essons with
a little prayer or devotion. For the rest, they give them, in their
schools, a plain, practical education.

Every day (we are told) there are instances of men slipping from the
high rounds to the lowest one in the ladder of wealth. Business men find
themselves engulphed in the sea of financial embarrassment, from which
they emerge with nothing but their personal resources to depend upon for
a living. Clerks, salesmen, and others find themselves thrown out of
employment, with no prospect of speedily obtaining places which they are
competent to fill, and with no other means of gaining a livelihood. How
many men are there in every city to-day, some of whom have families
dependent on them for support, who bewail the mistake they made in not
learning useful trades in their younger days? There are hundreds of
them. There are men in every city who have seen better days, men of
education and business ability, who envy the mechanic, who has a sure
support for himself and family in his handicraft. Parents make a great
mistake when they impose upon the brain of their boy the task of
supporting him, without preparing his hands for emergencies.

No matter how favorable a boy's circumstances may be, he should enter
the battle of life as every prudent general enters the battle of armies:
with a reliable reserve to fall back upon in case of disaster. Every man
is liable to be reduced to the lowest pecuniary point at some stage of
his life, and it is hardly necessary to refer to the large proportion of
men who reach that point. No man is poor who is the master of a trade.
It is a kind of capital that defies the storm of financial reverse, and
that clings to a man when all else has been swept away. It consoles him,
in the hour of adversity, with the assurance that, let whatever may
befall him, he need have no fear for the support of himself and his
family.

Unfortunately a silly notion--the offspring of a sham aristocracy--has,
of late years, led many parents to regard a trade as something
disreputable, with which their children should not be tainted. Labor
disreputable! What would the world be without it? It is the very power
that moves the world. A Power higher than the throne of the aristocracy
has ennobled labor, and he who would disparage it must set himself above
the Divine principle, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread!" A
trade is a "friend in need"; it is independence and wealth--a rich
legacy which the