--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Associations, Young Men’s Mutual Improvement collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 13 number: 2 published: 1909-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "President John R. Winder," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 2 (December 1909): 175.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1302unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1302unse start_page: 175 end_page: 175 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1302unse publication_year: 1909 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # President John R. Winder EDITOR'S TABLE. 17.-, judge of my appearance, and I can judge of yours; but if I may judge of my own appearance and my apparel, I have the opinion that my coat and vest look just about as well as some that you wear, and mine are home-made. For the last forty years I have worn home-made goods, and I have paid just a little more than I could get shoddy for, I would have been glad to have done this right along, year after year, rather than to see this home industry fall to the ground for want of patronage. Here is Brother Smoot, who has been engaged in the manufacture of woolen goods, he can speak from the figures, for he is more familiar with figures than I am. "We want to make these valleys of tbe mountains teem with the products of our own labor, and skill, and intelligence. I believe it to be suicidal for us to patronize those at a distance from us, when we should and could go to work and organize our labor and produce everything at home; we might thereby give employment to everybody at home, develop the intelligence and the skill of our children, instead of letting them hunt after these fancy occupa- tions that so many young people desire above manual labor. The schools of the Latter-day Saints and some of the state schools are beginning to introduce manual labor. Some of our boys are learn- ing how to make tables, chairs, sofas, bookcases, bureaus, and all that sort of thing— all good as far as it goes; but if we want a mason to lay brick, we have to look mostly to some man that has come from England or Germany, or somewhere else to lay our brick. Why? Because our boys do not like to lay brick. If we want a good blacksmith, we must hunt up some foreigner who has learned the trade in his mother country, and who has come here with a knowledge of blacksmithing; we must find such a man before we can get blacksmithing done, because boys do not like to be blacksmiths. They don't like even to be farmers; they would rather be lawyers or doctors than to be farmers. This is the case with too many of our boys, and it is a great mistake. I hope the time will come when the children of the Latter-day Saints will learn that all labor that is necessary for the happiness of them- selves and of their neighbors, or of mankind in general, is honor- able; and that no man is degrading himself because he can lay brick or carry on carpentry or blacksmithing or any kind of mech-