What A Child Wants To Be
Children in their early teens have etrauge arnbitioni;. From 2,500 replies to tjie question, "What would you like to tío or be when yon grow np?" it iy recorded in the annual, report of the departrnent of instruotion in New York that arnong thegirls 38 percent wanted to be teachers, 24 per oont milliners, 11 per cent clerks and stenographers, 3 per cent housekeepers; storekeepers, nnrses and servants, each 2 per cent; artists, 1 per cent; thenfollow missionaries, musicians, factory hands and those who hope to be wives and mothers, each about three-fourths of 1 per cent. It is indeed a poor showing for the desire for rnotherhood. What is wrong with our Bchooling system tbat most young girls make up their minds that they would like to be teachers, and that only threefourths of 1 per cent of thera express any interest in being a wife and raother? Arnong the boys who were questioned the most popular occupations related to the trades. Fourteen per cent had this preference. Next in freqnency carne the desire to bemerchants, 12 per cent; then clerks, 7 percent; theu farmers, 6 per cent ; doctors, about 5 per ceut ; lawyers, about 5 per cent; engineers, nearly 4 per cent; teachers and soldiers, each 3 per cent ; railroad rncn and sailors, eacb 24 per cent; business, 2 per cent. The rost named 35 different occupations. It was noticcd that the boys thought that an occnpation that dealt with tools, plants or auimals meant something that conferred power over one's fellows. Only in boys about 7 years old was there a large preference for such occupations as that of policernan, fireman or railroad man. As be grows older the average boy modifles bis desire for the perilous, until at 14 he wants to be a bank clerk. There is one iuteresting exception to this. The ambitiou to be a sailor appeters at 7 and iucreases slowly, culminatiiig at 14. Here is the composition of a boy of 14, parents American, bis father a laborer: "When lama man, I will go to sea and be a sailor on the storiny ocean. Then I can see strange and foreign lands and places, where no man but the sailor can go. I eau go among the icebergs of the antarctic región, and I can spend a nightly winter in some arctic country. The dark continent holds mauy joys for the sailor. He can hunt and have adventures without othercost than walking into them. Because I speak in such glowing terms of the sailor does not say that I think he has no discomforts, for what kind of life does not have its full share of the dangers and discomforts? The millionaire frets about the fact that some bank will go under. ♦ Even the poorest; Jaborer frets, fearing he and his family will starvo to death when he has no work. And now, hurrah for the sailor!" And here is a little end of the century old maid of 9, of English and American parentage, whose father is a staid minister of the gospel : "I want to rnarry a man that doesn't smoke, because I don 't like the smell of smoke. I want to teach school where they will let me spank the children. For children knead disciplin. I want to wear bloomers all the time. I want to wear a cutaway suit. Because it looks nice witb bloomers. I will wear russet shoes and brown stockings. I want to have my hair ent short. Because it will be coler. ' '-
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Ann Arbor Argus
Old News