Every Child Should Learn Some Trade—The carelessness of parents in failing to furnish employment to the children that they have taken the responsibility of bringing into the world has resulted in untold evil, imperiling the lives of many youth and greatly crippling their usefulness. It is a great mistake to permit young men to grow up without learning some trade.
(CG 355.1)
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From the pillar of cloud Jesus gave directions through Moses to the Hebrews that they should educate their children to work, that they should teach them trades, and that none should be idle.
(CG 355.2)
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You should help your children to acquire a knowledge, that, if necessary, they could live by their own labor. You should teach them to be decided in following the calls of duty.
(CG 355.3)
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Teach Use of Tools—When children reach a suitable age, they should be provided with tools. If their work is made interesting, they will be found apt pupils in the use of tools. If the father is a carpenter, he should give his boys lessons in house building, ever bringing into his instruction lessons from the Bible, the words of Scripture in which the Lord compares human beings to His building.
(CG 355.4)
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Train Sons in Agriculture—Fathers should train their sons to engage with them in their trades and employments. Farmers should not think that agriculture is a business that is not elevated enough for their sons. Agriculture should be advanced by scientific knowledge.
(CG 355.5)
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Farming has been pronounced unprofitable. People say that the soil does not pay for the labor expended upon it, and they bemoan the hard fate of those who till the soil.... But should persons of proper ability take hold of this line of employment, and make a study of the soil, and learn how to plant, to cultivate, and to gather in the harvest, more encouraging results might be seen. Many say, “We have tried agriculture and know what its results are,” and yet these very ones need to know how to cultivate the soil and to bring science into their work. Their plowshares should cut deeper, broader furrows, and they need to learn that in tilling the soil they need not become common and coarse in their natures.... Let them learn to put in the seed in its season, to give attention to vegetation, and to follow the plan that God has devised.
(CG 356.1)
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Training of Outstanding Value—No line of manual training is of more value than agriculture. A greater effort should be made to create and to encourage an interest in agricultural pursuits. Let the teacher call attention to what the Bible says about agriculture; that it was God’s plan for man to till the earth; that the first man, the ruler of the whole world, was given a garden to cultivate; and that many of the world’s greatest men, its real nobility, have been tillers of the soil. Show the opportunities in such a life....
(CG 356.2)
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He who earns his livelihood by agriculture escapes many temptations and enjoys unnumbered privileges and blessings denied to those whose work lies in the great cities. And in these days of mammoth trusts and business competition, there are few who enjoy so real an independence and so great certainty of fair return for their labor as does the tiller of the soil.
(CG 356.3)
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