finds that his new experience is not all his fancy painted it; and his letters home are filled, perhaps, with complaints of the soreness of his hands, of the dirt he has to contend with, the boorishness of his companions, and the general discomforts of his lot. He has been used to the comforts of a well-appointed home; but now, perhaps, he has to get up very early in the morning and do a couple of hours' work before he has his breakfast.

Take, for instance, the lot of a youth who has been apprenticed to a firm of mechanical engineers, where he will get in seven years as good a practical education as a lad can have. Perhaps the best way will be for him to begin by a year in the fitting-shop, where in addition to seeing a good deal of machine work, he will learn to use his hammer, chisel, and file; and after this he will find it a delightful change, both as to cleanliness and diminished laboriousness, to have a year or two in the patternmaking shops where the wooden models for casting from are made, a species of wood-work requiring much skill and precision; and where he will also get a knowledge of the principles on which all foundry work is executed. If, after this, he goes back to the fitting-shop until he is twenty-one, and afterwards gets a year or two in the drawing office, he will, with tolerably natural capacity, possess a practical education which will fit him to cope with most kinds of mechanical work, and which ought certainly to enable him to get a decent living in any quarter of the globe.

As an apprenticeship of this kind affords a good example of the sort of practical training we are writing about, a few particulars drawn from life may be interesting. The lad has been brought by his father, we will say, to the new scene of his labours, and lodgings have been secured for him with one of the better class of employés at the works. He has a bedroom which is clean and comfortable enough (especially when it is decorated with the little knick-nacks he has brought with him from home at the instance of his mother and sisters, whose photographs hang on the walls), and for his sitting apartment he occupies the best parlour, with its round mahogany table, and its abundance of framed and highly-coloured lithographs. It is a good plan to take lodgings for him with a decent, steady workman, as by that means he is in a manner admitted to the craft, gets many a useful hint, and takes a certain position in the workshop as the protégé of Dick, Tom, or Harry, who has had the good fortune to secure the young gentleman as a lodger. By his landlord's advice he has procured for himself white "overalls," which are washed every week, and blue check shirts of a strong and workmanlike description.

If he has "breed" about him, of course it shows itself through his workman's attire, and, backed up by genuine "grit," will gain him popularity among his new comrades.

Roused from his slumbers at half-past five by the boom of the steam whistle, he hastily dresses, takes the breakfast, which his landlady has prepared the night before, in his hand, and proceeds to the works. must get there before the six o'clock bell has done ringing, or he will be "locked out," and will not be able to enter till nine.

He

We will suppose he has been set to work at chiselling and filing to a smooth surface the entablatures of certain cast-iron columns to be used in the framing of a steam engine. He begins by chipping the rough surface with chisel and hammer. Probably he is placed under the care of some competent workman, who shows him from time to time how to do it. But at first the tyro hits his hand almost as often as the chisel, and the friction of the tools blisters his skin. When he has been at work three or four days his hands may perhaps bleed, and his compassionate landlady will make him a sort of poultice of boiled bran to "take the soreness off," while his companions of the workshop will tell him-not unkindly—that his hands will be "as hard as iron" in a week or two.

At half past eight the welcome breakfast-bell rings, and our boy takes his coffee can and warms it at one of the smiths' fires in the smithy. His hands are somewhat oily and dirty by this time-indeed, they are very dirty—but he is content to give them a rub with a piece of cotton waste, and to sit down on a rough bench to his slice of bacon between two pieces of bread, with much relish. He had not previously thought that bread and bacon could be so charming, or that coffee drank out of a can all black with the fire could be so refreshing. He is learning, however, to “rough it," and in a short time he begins to enjoy the process.

His mother would be shocked if she could see him there in his dirt, eating his breakfast "just like a workman;" but at some future time, in Australian or American wilds, he may be thankful that he learnt to eat workman's fare in workman's style, and to enjoy it.

At nine o'clock work begins again, and the training of persistent steady toil-against which the lad's young nature kicks at first, like a young horse in the hands of the breaker-goes on till one o'clock, when there is an interval of an hour for dinner, which his landlady usually provides in wholesome and liberal style-(such people think a good deal of dinner, and generally look after their young lodger well). Then more training and perseverance till five o'clock, when our youth may come home and wash. No boy who has not started to work in an engineer's shop knows the true luxury of a wash; and though he comes back to his lodgings literally as black as a sweep-for beginners always make themselves fearfully dirty--he comes down to his tea a very different figure; and if his mother and sisters could come in and spend the evening with him, they would be quite satisfied with his appearance.

Now, although there is much "to be, to do, and to suffer" in this training process, we do not think there is anything that need blunt the sensibilities or instincts of a truly gentlemanly boy, while there is very much to bring out the strong and manly traits of his character.

No doubt such a process is utterly destructive of namby-pambyism and delicate dilettanteism. But we may depend upon it that it will be fruitful in producing those characteristics of perseverance, fortitude, and capability, which form the best armoury the boy can have against the changes and chances to which his future may be subject.

The building trade affords a good opportunity for a lad to get hold of a practical knowledge of work, and in this case he generally figures

during his apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner. He goes into a workshop, and, beginning at the lowest rung of the ladder, he has to wait upon the men employed there, and to do such simple jobs as his capacity enables him to undertake. His father has provided him with a good chest of tools, which are the admiration of the shop, and he gradually comes to learn to use them effectively, while at the same time he has the opportunity of seeing buildings in progress, and of picking up information about the art of the stonemason, bricklayer, and kindred tradesmen, which he will find useful in after years.

In order that he may get the full benefit of a practical training, both in the discipline it affords and the manipulative skill to be acquired, it is imperative that the boy be apprenticed. Let his indentures bind him to his work for his full seven years. He may lament it while they are passing, but he will be thankful for it in his after life. The ne'er-do-weels have not, as a rule, undergone this salutary discipline-- if they had, their lot might have been different.

At some boarding schools provision is made for the teaching of practical work; but there is an amateurishness about this method which relegates it to the domain of boyish amusements; it is good as a steppingstone, and as a means of developing latent mechanical tastes and ability, but it can scarcely pretend to be more, and certainly cannot take the place of the serious training we have indicated.

There are many boys who have not the requisite physique for agriculturists, builders, or engineers, who might yet be taught with advantage to do something with their hands; or they may possess those higher artistic gifts which will enable them to shine in more decorative spheres. Let them learn some art during those seven precious years of apprenticeship, and whatever position they may take afterwards they will never regret it.

Above all, the start thus given them will generally prevent them from degenerating into mere waifs and strays on the ocean of life, tossed hither and thither by any wind of misfortune that may chance to arise, and unable to help themselves.

Something might also be said as to the effect of honest work in repressing the vain coxcombery into which idle youths will run if they do not find something better to do. The army of coxcombs and "mashers" -to use the modern slang appellative—is mainly recruited from the sons of industrious men who have realised enough money to be able to keep their offspring in ornamental idleness, or, at the best, playing at business in French-polished offices, where the market value of their services may be estimated at twelve or fourteen shillings per week. No one can reasonably object to young people of either sex trying to make themselves attractive, and we must confess to a liking to see youths and maidens fashionably attired; but when a young fellow is content to be the delight of his hairdresser and the glory of his tailor, and nothing more, things are coming to a bad pass with him. His back may be. handsome, but there is no sentiment about it, it has never borne the

burden of the weary; his head is carefully attended to, but there is nothing in it.

Now there is perhaps more prejudice against manual work for their sons among the class to which these ornamental young men belong, than any other. A man who has "made his way" from humble beginnings-first of all by the sweat of his brow and the labour of his hands, and afterwards by his determined perseverance and sheer hardheadedness-likes to think of his son as being "quite the gentleman; his idea of a gentleman being one who has never soiled his hands or done a stroke of work. The old man will put up with a good deal from his boy, and be secretly delighted with his magnificence and extravagance, in which he rivals certain members of the nobility; and with views like his it is probably of little use to attempt to combat. It is to be hoped, however, that there is an increasing number of parents in England who can read the signs of the times, and who recognise that in the keen battle for existence, which every year seems to grow more arduous, only the strong and well-furnished can hope to win; and who do not feel that they have quite done their duty to their offspring if they have not trained them into habits of industry and usefulness, and at any rate afforded them the opportunity of that discipline of their powers which comes with the mastering of a profession, or the perfect learning of some honest and useful trade. Even though one has the wealth of an American oil-proprietor to leave to a boy, it is scarcely kind to keep him in moral cotton-wool, and to give him no opportunity of developing the manhood of his nature. If his opening powers give promise of excellence in any special direction, by all means let him follow it. But in any case let him be placed in one of the great business or professional grooves. Then, if he goes wrong, at any rate he will not have you to blame.

REDBARN.

W

Poetry.

HEN sorrow fills the heart with gloom,
And casts a veil o'er earth and sky,

What can restore life's healthy bloom
Like Poetry?

When sickness makes the pulse decline,
And in a bed of pain we lie;

A tonic and an anodyne

When joy thrills through heart, blood, and brain,
And but to live is ecstacy,

The crowning, celebrating strain,

In every mood and change of life,

When doubt is strong, or faith is high,

Nought soothes our peace, or cheers our strife,

Like Poetry.

J. A. L.