ON USEFUL LABOR.
I have seen boys who would make incredible exertion to accomplish any
thing which they undertook for their own amusement; but who, when
called upon to do any thing useful, would demur and complain, put on
sour looks, and conjure up a multitude of objections, making the thing
to be done like lifting a mountain. Whenever any _work_ is to be done,
“there is a lion in the way;” and the objections they make, and the
difficulties they interpose, make you feel as if you would rather do
it a dozen times yourself, than to ask them to lift a little finger.
The real difficulty is in the boy’s own mind. He has no idea of being
useful; no thought of doing any thing but to seek his own pleasure; and
he is mean enough to look on and see his father and mother toil and
wear themselves out to bring him up in idleness. Play, play, play, from
morning till night, is all his ambition. Now, I do not object to his
_playing_; but what I would find fault with is, that he should wish to
_play all the time_. I would not have him work all the time, for
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy;”
neither would I have him play all the time, for
“All play and no work makes Jack a _mere toy_.”
There is not a spark of _manliness_ in such a boy; and he never will be
a man, till he alters his notions.
There is another boy, who has more heart--a better disposition. When
called to do any thing, he is always ready and willing. His heart
dilates at the thought of helping his father or his mother--of being
useful. He takes hold with alacrity. You would think the work he is
set about would be despatched in a trice. But he is _chicken-hearted_.
Instead of conquering his work, he suffers his work to conquer him. He
works briskly for a few minutes, and then he begins to flag. Instead
of working away, with steady perseverance, he stops every minute or
two, and looks at his work, and wishes it were done. But wishing is
not working; and his work does not get done in this way. The more he
gazes at it, the more like a mountain it appears. At length, he sits
down to rest; and finally, after having suffered more from the dread of
exertion than it would have cost him to do his work a dozen times, he
gives it up, and goes to his father or mother, and in a desponding tone
and with a sheepish look, he says, “_I can’t do it!_” He is a _coward_.
He has suffered himself to be _conquered_ by a wood-pile which he was
told to saw, or by a few weeds in the garden that he was required to
dig up. He will never make a man, till he gets courage enough to face
his work with resolution, and to finish it with a _manly perseverance_.
“_I can’t_,” never made a man.
Here is another boy, who has got the notion into his head that he is
going to live without work. His father is rich; or he intends to be a
professional man, or a merchant; and he thinks it of no use for him
to learn to work. He feels above labor. He means to be a _gentleman_.
But he is very much mistaken as to what constitutes a gentleman. He
has altogether erroneous and false views of things. Whatever may be
his situation in life, labor is necessary to exercise and develope
the muscular powers of his body. If he grows up in indolence, he will
be weak and effeminate, never possessing the vigor of a man. And
whatever sphere of life he may occupy hereafter, he will never possess
independence and energy of character enough to accomplish any thing.
A man who does not know how to work, is not more than half a man. He
is so dependent upon others, that he can accomplish nothing without
help. Nor can wealth, or education, or professional knowledge, supply
the deficiency. Wealth is very uncertain. “Riches take to themselves
wings;” and they are especially liable to fly away from men who have
been bred up in idle, _do-nothing_ habits. And what will they do when
their wealth is gone? They have never made any exertion, or depended on
themselves. They have no energy of character. They have no knowledge of
any useful employment. They cannot dig, and to beg they are ashamed.
They either sink down, in utter discouragement, to the lowest depths
of poverty, or else they resort to dishonest means of obtaining money.
I have before me a letter, written to a gentleman in Boston, from a
boy in the _House of Correction_, who got there by trying to live
without work. After telling how bad he felt to be shut up in prison,
and how bitter his reflections upon his past life were, he says, “I
thought that _as long as I could live without work_, and get my living
dishonestly, I would _go ahead_; but my high life was soon stopped.”
Here you perceive that his temptation to be dishonest arose from his
dislike of work. But now, he says, he is convinced that the best way to
get a living is by _honest labor_. And so you will find it. There is
no one more exposed to temptation than the idle boy.
“Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.”
One who undertakes to get a living without work will be very likely to
fall into dishonest practices, and get shut up in prison.
Equally necessary is it for a man of learning, or a professional
man, to know how to do with his own hands the most common things. If
dependent on his own earnings for a support, he will not be able to
hire every thing done to his hand; or, if able, he will not always
find any one to do it. And as to the merchant, his life, from the very
first, is a life of incessant toil and labor. The lazy boy, who goes
into a store as a clerk, with such notions in his head about work, will
be served as the working bees serve their _drones_--he will be _dragged
out of the hive_.
The boy that despises work, sets himself against nature; and if he
succeeds in making any thing of himself, he will contradict the voice
of all history. When man fell from his innocency, it was determined
that he should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow. It is in vain
for his posterity to attempt to evade this curse. If they refuse to
toil, they will suffer a worse disaster, as the penalty of their
disobedience. Disease, or poverty, or both, will follow the lazy
track of the sluggard. This result, Solomon has described, in the
most glowing terms: “I went by the field of the slothful, and by the
vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown
over with thorns; nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone
wall thereof was broken down. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a
little folding of the hands to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one
that travaileth, and thy want as an armed man.”
Many of the ancient nations used to have a law requiring every young
man to have a knowledge of some branch of labor. There appears to have
been such a custom among the Jews. Paul, though belonging to a wealthy
family, and bred a lawyer, in the highest school in the nation, was
yet brought up to a trade. And when he came to devote himself to his
Master’s service, he found his tent-maker’s trade of great use to him.
And whatever occupation you design to follow, you will find use for all
the practical knowledge of _work_, of _handicraft_, or of _mechanical
skill_, you can acquire in early life.
In the empire of China, labor is held in such esteem, that the emperor,
on the day of his coronation, is required to plough a furrow with his
own hand. And if you look over the page of history, both ancient and
modern, you will find that many of the greatest men that ever lived,
were accustomed to follow some laborious occupation. David, the poet
king, the sweet singer of Israel, whose name has been embalmed in the
hearts of the pious in all ages, when a boy, was occupied in keeping
his father’s sheep. Dr. Franklin was the son of a mechanic in Boston,
and was bred a printer. Washington, the father of his country, was a
farmer. And the blessed Savior himself has set an example of industry
and love of labor, which should put to shame every _pseudo-gentleman_
who despises the labor of the hands. His apostles, also, were called
from laborious occupations to preach the gospel; and many of the most
eminent of his ministers and missionaries of the present day have been
called from the plough or the workshop; and some of them have _worked
their way_ through a long course of study, bearing the expenses of
their education with the labor of their hands.
We may safely conclude, then, that, whoever despises labor is a fool;
for he despises the only thing that can make him A MAN.
But industry is not only necessary to _make you a man_; it is necessary
to _make you happy_. Some boys have such an aversion to labor, that
they would think themselves perfectly happy if they had _nothing to
do_. But they are greatly mistaken. They might like such a life a
day or two; but they would soon get tired of it. The children at the
Sandwich Islands have nothing to do. Their parents have no employment
for them. They grow up in idleness. A missionary, writing to the
children of this country, says, “Now, does any one say, ‘Happy, happy
children, inhabiting these sunny isles! Absolutely nothing to do, but
to seek their own gratification, without fear or restraint!’ Happy?
No. The goats which graze the sides of their mountains may be happy;
or the kitten which gambols on your kitchen hearth may be happy; but
these children are not happy.” They often go hungry. Their parents
were brought up in idleness, also; and now they will not work if they
can help it. They receive no assistance from their children, and often
have no food to give them. The children frequently live upon roots,
which they dig in the mountains, or upon sugar-cane, which they find in
the fields. After spending the day in idleness, they often have to go
supperless to bed.
In many parts of the islands, also, the children, who have no
disposition to labor and obtain clothing, suffer much from cold. They
go almost naked; and when night comes, they lie down on a bare mat,
with the dogs and fleas. Would the children of America exchange their
warm beds and sweet sleep, for the leisure and hard fare of these young
Sandwich Islanders?
But in sickness, their sufferings are much greater. They are destitute
of nearly every comfort; they have no physician; and they receive very
little attention from their parents and friends. No kind mother watches
over their couch at night. If they suffer, they suffer alone; if they
die, they die unattended.
Idleness, also, makes these children vicious. Having nothing useful to
do, they are always ready for every evil work. They tempt each other to
sin. They rush together the downward road; and if spared to become men,
they are poor and degraded, diseased and miserable.
But perhaps you will say, “These Sandwich Islanders are uncivilized
heathen; and this is what makes them so wretched.” But you need not
go to heathen lands, to see the bad effects of the want of useful
employment, upon boys and young men. In the Southern States, all the
labor is done by slaves. It is esteemed disgraceful for a white man to
work. The consequence is, that the boys grow up in idleness and vice.
They learn every thing that is bad. They grow up with strong and fiery
passions, and vicious inclinations unsubdued. Among the young men,
gambling, horse-racing, and other social vices, generally prevail. But
many of them become poor; and then they are as wretched as the poor
Sandwich Islanders. There is, perhaps, no class of persons, in this
country, more degraded than the poor whites in the slave states. And
their poverty and wretchedness may be traced to the fact, that it is
disgraceful, among them, for white men to labor.
There is no country on earth where there is less of squalid poverty,
and where the people generally enjoy more comfort and happiness, than
in New England. And what is the reason? There is, probably, no other
country in the world where the people are so industrious--where _all
the people_ are engaged in some useful employment. In New England, boys
are set to work as soon as they are old enough to handle a hoe, an axe,
or a spade. Every child has something to do, which adds something to
the family’s comfort. And where, in the wide world, will you find so
many smiling, happy faces as among the children of New England? This
is the true reason why they are so much happier than the children of
the Sandwich Islands. The Yankee boy may sometimes get tired of his
work; but if he had nothing to do, he would be absolutely miserable.
It is not in the nature of a son of New England to be happy without
employment. And, where you find one of them educated, and rising to
eminence in professional life, if you trace back his history, in most
cases, you will learn that, when a boy, he worked on his father’s farm,
or in his father’s shop. And if you could see him seeking relaxation
and amusement, you would often find him engaged in the same kind of
labor that he used to perform when a boy.
When one of the convicts in the state prison has committed an offence,
they punish him by shutting him up in his cell alone, and _giving him
nothing to do_. For a little while he is glad to be relieved from his
work; but very soon, he begs for it again. Nothing is so hard for him
to bear as _doing nothing_.
If, then, you would be virtuous and happy,--if you would be qualified
to brave the storms of life’s troubled ocean,--_cultivate the love
of useful labor_. This will give you independence of character. It
will give you the ability to take care of yourself. It will make you
despise the fawning sycophant, who would sell his birthright for a
piece of bread. It will save you from the temptation to surrender your
independence, or commit any act of meanness or dishonesty for the sake
of a living.