“Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that
no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed
in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and
partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the
town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise exercised
in it themselves. Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all,
every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself; such as
the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith’s work, or carpenter’s
work; for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them.
Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any
other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes
and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it is
neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and
calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes their
own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men, learn one or
other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal
in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the
ruder trades to the men. The same trade generally passes down from
father to son, inclinations often following descent: but if any man’s
genius lies another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family
that deals in the trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be
done, care is taken, not only by his father, but by the magistrate,
that he may be put to a discreet and good man: and if, after a person
has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also
allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has
learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public
has more occasion for the other.
The chief, and almost the only, business of the Syphogrants is to take
care that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade
diligently; yet they do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil
from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden, which as it is
indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the common course of life
amongst all mechanics except the Utopians: but they, dividing the day
and night into twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three
of which are before dinner and three after; they then sup, and at eight
o’clock, counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours: the rest
of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is
left to every man’s discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval
to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise,
according to their various inclinations, which is, for the most part,
reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before
daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked
out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks,
go to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their
inclinations: but if others that are not made for contemplation, choose
rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of
them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that
take care to serve their country. After supper they spend an hour in
some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls
where they eat, where they entertain each other either with music or
discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and
mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike
our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as
it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the
virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices among
themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not unpleasantly
represented; together with the special opposition between the
particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which vice either
openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue; and virtue, on the other
hand, resists it. But the time appointed for labour is to be narrowly
examined, otherwise you may imagine that since there are only six hours
appointed for work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary
provisions: but it is so far from being true that this time is not
sufficient for supplying them with plenty of all things, either
necessary or convenient, that it is rather too much; and this you will
easily apprehend if you consider how great a part of all other nations
is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half of
mankind; and if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle:
then consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that are
called religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that
have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together
with their families, made up of idle persons, that are kept more for
show than use; add to these all those strong and lusty beggars that go
about pretending some disease in excuse for their begging; and upon the
whole account you will find that the number of those by whose labours
mankind is supplied is much less than you perhaps imagined: then
consider how few of those that work are employed in labours that are of
real service, for we, who measure all things by money, give rise to
many trades that are both vain and superfluous, and serve only to
support riot and luxury: for if those who work were employed only in
such things as the conveniences of life require, there would be such an
abundance of them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen
could not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labour about
useless things were set to more profitable employments, and if all they
that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness (every one of whom
consumes as much as any two of the men that are at work) were forced to
labour, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of time would
serve for doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant
to mankind, especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds:
this appears very plainly in Utopia; for there, in a great city, and in
all the territory that lies round it, you can scarce find five hundred,
either men or women, by their age and strength capable of labour, that
are not engaged in it. Even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law,
yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that by their examples they may
excite the industry of the rest of the people; the like exemption is
allowed to those who, being recommended to the people by the priests,
are, by the secret suffrages of the Syphogrants, privileged from
labour, that they may apply themselves wholly to study; and if any of
these fall short of those hopes that they seemed at first to give, they
are obliged to return to work; and sometimes a mechanic that so employs
his leisure hours as to make a considerable advancement in learning is
eased from being a tradesman and ranked among their learned men. Out of
these they choose their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors,
and the Prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but is called
of late their Ademus.
“And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered
to be idle nor to be employed in any fruitless labour, you may easily
make the estimate how much may be done in those few hours in which they
are obliged to labour. But, besides all that has been already said, it
is to be considered that the needful arts among them are managed with
less labour than anywhere else. The building or the repairing of houses
among us employ many hands, because often a thriftless heir suffers a
house that his father built to fall into decay, so that his successor
must, at a great cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a
small charge; it frequently happens that the same house which one
person built at a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he
has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and he,
suffering it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But
among the Utopians all things are so regulated that men very seldom
build upon a new piece of ground, and are not only very quick in
repairing their houses, but show their foresight in preventing their
decay, so that their buildings are preserved very long with but very
little labour, and thus the builders, to whom that care belongs, are
often without employment, except the hewing of timber and the squaring
of stones, that the materials may be in readiness for raising a
building very suddenly when there is any occasion for it. As to their
clothes, observe how little work is spent in them; while they are at
labour they are clothed with leather and skins, cut carelessly about
them, which will last seven years, and when they appear in public they
put on an upper garment which hides the other; and these are all of one
colour, and that is the natural colour of the wool. As they need less
woollen cloth than is used anywhere else, so that which they make use
of is much less costly; they use linen cloth more, but that is prepared
with less labour, and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the
linen or the cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness
of the thread. While in other places four or five upper garments of
woollen cloth of different colours, and as many vests of silk, will
scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too few,
every man there is content with one, which very often serves him two
years; nor is there anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for
if he had them he would neither be the, warmer nor would he make one
jot the better appearance for it. And thus, since they are all employed
in some useful labour, and since they content themselves with fewer
things, it falls out that there is a great abundance of all things
among them; so that it frequently happens that, for want of other work,
vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways; but when no public
undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened. The
magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labour, since the
chief end of the constitution is to regulate labour by the necessities
of the public, and to allow the people as much time as is necessary for
the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of
life consists.