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THE CALIFORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT
March 15, l!126
the Home fdea" i'How Can We Rejuvenate 'W'. is Title of
A. Mcllrath's ^A,ddress
See Note on Page l0
There is a modern picture, possibly inspired by Harrthorne, which the painter calls, "IIow they met themselves." A man and a woman, haggard and weary, wandering, lost in the woods, suddenly meet the shadowy figures of a youth and a maid. Their gaze becomei fixed and stills the heart of the wanderers, and their amazement deepens into awe as they gradually recognize themselves as once they were, the bloom of youth upon their cheeks, the light of hope in their trusting eyes, blythe and radiant with the glory of the dawn. Today and here we meet ourselves. There is only pity for the man who is forever looking backward, afraid of the future, and longing for the days and conditions that are
The training of the boy today is away from work. , It is a common expression to hear men s:ry that they rpant to gct things fixed so that their boys will not have io work aj hard as th-ey themselves have done. The greatest asset that any boy can have ii to have learned to work from his youth up. If ybu hlvent had to struggle you ar€ out of luck, for a non-woiking boy is later a nonworkin-g-man. If you_had a really tough job requiring indifiercacc to hardship and sacrifice you would pick a man who had bccn through the or- the boy who had-had a bitter fight to get an education and-mill has a background that will make later baitles looE easy
you look at the shadowy picture. ft takes most of you back to a country or village home of 20 or 25 years ago. Then you considered it wrong to play cards, to play seven up was wicked and a real game could only be played in- the hay-mow or some other unfrequented spot. You may have experimented with trying to smoke corn silks, but any boy who smoked or endeavored to smoke real cigarettes before he could grow a beard was considered to already have a smell of brimstonC about him. The discipline of the home was rigid and you had a wholesome respect for the various uses that could be made of the woodshed. The chances are more than even that there was family worship and that you were a regular attendant. The'spirit of the home in which you are bringing up your boy is difrerent. If cards are not regularly played in ioui hbme it is -the exception., You say there is no harm in it and that it is all right for your boy to play, but when your yard manager becomes too adept at the game you let him go. You realize that the game does
cherished that their boy would soon be carryins on the busin6ss thcl have built so carefully, yet in the very training of that boy they arl
gone, but I want you to take a look at the youth you will see as
not mix well with business and to have the reputation of being a
good card player is not a business asset. The woodshed has been turned into a garage and its uses curtailed. majority of your boys who are in high school today are smok-ingThe cigarettes. You say he is foolish, but it will not do him much harm. Do you realize that there has never been a world's record made in any track event by a boy or man who smokes cigarettes? The late J. P. Watson, one of the greatest trainers of athletes, refused to waste his time trying to develop any boy who smoked cigarettes, saying he would only end in failure. Charlie Paddock goes still further and says there never will be a world's record set by a cigarette smoker. Re4 Grqnge, the idol of football, has never smoked a cigarett-e, nor has William Tilden. It means more than .we are willing to admit to have formed habits that prevent us from being the besi that we could have been. Have you ever seen a boy or man smoking a cigarette- and reading the Bible at the same time? No, you have not. for it is not done. The brief reading from the old book, which you see in the shadowy picture, the bended knee, and the spirit of reverence, goes far in creating the_ home spirit, and ask of you to think of the rejuvenating that might be done in your home in this respect.
to hirn,
There are lumbermen here who have told me of the hopc they
debarring him from success. There is not a captain of Gdusdv in any line ,today who djd not learn to work as a boy, and yet in- thc face. of all past experience you are not training your boy tb work. Five years ago I left this Convention to have-a hst iisit with mv father,- and, a-mong other things, he said, one of the hardest thingi he had ever done was to tell me that I had to get out and earn riv own way through school, but it is one of the things for which I arir most thankful to him.
There are idlers in the homes of both rich and poor. but there is
no-one thing that will do more to put new life int6 your homc than to have every member of that home a working Dartner.
men realize just how completely you are educat. I wonder -if you away ing your_ children from work. To give .you the definite .data on this I have prepared a chart showing what has become of the last 30fi) students who left Winnipeg High School 1920 to 1923, which allows three years for them to have become located:
.........1635 $joresandofficeemployees... Mecnanrcs ........ tTZ and truck gardens .. . . . 12 Rarms rroressrons 26 Carpenters ....... ........ 11 Masons and bricklayers .. . . 2 Lumbermen O Blind alley and unskilled . . .. .. . . 470 I have the data covering this.in great detail, giving every line of work, should any one want further information, It was rather hard for me to believe that with all the boys sent in from the farm for an education that only 72 returned to the land. i not want
did to believe that there was not one lumberman developed out of 30Q0 and checked up on our own yard men, and we have'no high school graduates. I asked one of thi large companies to checi up on their yafd managers and they reported none. From this chart you have definite data as to just-how iompletely your boy is being headed towards a white collar job.
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