J. RUSKIN.
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_November_ 2.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] The trial of Taylor was for murder, and ended in his acquittal on
the ground of insanity.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," December 26, 1868.]
_EMPLOYMENT FOR THE DESTITUTE POOR AND CRIMINAL CLASSES_
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: Your admirable leader of to-day[124] will do great good; but it
will do more if you complete it by pointing out the chief reason for
the frequent failure of almsgiving in accomplishing any real benefit
to the poor. No almsgiving of money is so helpful as almsgiving of
care and thought; the giving of money without thought is indeed
continually mischievous; but the invective of the economist against
_in_discriminate charity is idle, if it be not coupled with pleading
for discriminate charity, and, above all, for that charity which
discerns the uses that people may be put to, and helps them by setting
them to work in those services. That is the help beyond all others,
find out how to make useless people useful, and let them earn their
money instead of begging it. Few are so feeble as to be incapable of
all occupation, none so faultful but that occupation, well chosen, and
kindly compelled, will be medicine for them in soul and body. I have
lately drawn up a few notes for private circulation on possible methods
of employment for the poor.[125] The reasons which weighed with me in
not publishing them have now ceased to exist; and in case you should
think the paper worth its room in your columns, and any portion of it
deserving your ratification, I send it you herewith, and remain your
faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, S.E., _Dec._ 24.
FOOTNOTES:
[124] A Christmas article on Charity.
[125] See the following pages.
_NOTES ON THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EMPLOYMENT FOR THE DESTITUTE AND
CRIMINAL CLASSES._
[For Private Circulation only. 1868. (Pp. 15, including the title-page.
Printed by Strangeways & Walden, Castle Street, Leicester Square.)[126]]
The first great fact on which all wise and enduring legislation
respecting labor must be founded, is, that the character of men depends
more on their occupations than on any teaching we can give them, or
principles with which we can imbue them.
The employment forms the habits of body and mind, and these are the
constitution of the man--the greater part of his moral or persistent
nature, whatever effort, under special excitement, he may make to
change or overcome them. Employment is the half, and the primal half,
of education--it is the warp of it; and the fineness or the endurance
of all subsequently woven pattern depends wholly on its straightness
and strength. And whatever difficulty there may be in tracing through
past history the remoter connections of event and cause, one chain
of sequence is always clear: the formation, namely, of the character
of nations by their employments, and the determination of their
final fate by their character. The moment and the first direction of
circumstances, of decisive revolutions, often depend on accident; but
their persistent course, and their consequences, depend wholly on
the nature of the people. The passing of the Reform Bill by the late
English Parliament[127] may have been more or less accidental: the
results of the measure now rest on the character of the English people,
as it has been developed by their recent interests, occupations, and
habits of life. Whether as a body, they employ their new powers for
good or evil will depend not on their facilities for knowledge, nor
even on the general intelligence they may possess, but on the number of
persons among them whom wholesome employments have rendered familiar
with the duties, and temperate in their estimate of the promises of
life.
But especially in passing laws respecting the treatment or employment
of improvident and more or less vicious persons it is to be remembered
that as men are not to be made heroes by an act of heroism, but must be
brave before they can perform it, so they are not made villains by the
commission of a crime, but were villains before they committed it; and
that the right of public interference with their conduct begins when
they begin to corrupt themselves, not merely at the moment when they
have proved themselves hopelessly corrupt.
All measures of reformation are effective in exact proportion to their
timeliness: partial decay may be cut away and cleansed; incipient
error corrected; but there is a point at which corruption can no more
be stayed, nor wandering recalled; it has been the manner of modern
philanthropy to remain passive until that precise period, and to leave
the rich to perish and the foolish to stray, while it exhausted itself
in frantic exertions to raise the dead and reform the dust.
The recent direction of a great weight of public opinion against
capital punishment is, I think, the sign of an awakening perception
that punishment is the last and worst instrument in the hands of the
legislature for the prevention of crime.
The true instruments of reformation are employment and reward--not
punishment. Aid the willing, honor the virtuous, and compel the idle
into occupation, and there will be no need for the compelling of any
into the great and last indolence of death. The beginning of all true
reformation among the criminal classes depends on the establishment
of institutions for their active employment, while their criminality
is still unripe, and their feelings of self-respect, capacities
of affection, and sense of justice not altogether quenched. That
those who are desirous of employment should be always able to find
it, will hardly, at the present day, be disputed; but that those
who are undesirous of employment should of all persons be the most
strictly compelled to it, the public are hardly yet convinced. If
the damage of the principal thoroughfares in their capital city, and
the multiplication of crimes more ghastly than ever yet disgraced a
nominal civilization, do not convince them, they will not have to wait
long before they receive sterner lessons. For our neglect of the lower
orders has reached a point, at which it begins to bear its necessary
fruit, and every day makes the harvest darker and more sure.[128]
The general principles by which employment should be regulated may be
briefly stated as follows:
1. There being three great classes of mechanical powers at our
disposal, namely, (_a_) vital muscular power; (_b_) natural mechanical
power of wind, water, and electricity; and (_c_) artificially produced
mechanical power; it is the first principle of economy to use all
available vital power first, then the inexpensive natural forces, and
only at last to have recourse to artificial power. And this, because
it is always better for a man to work with his own hands to feed and
clothe himself, than to stand idle while a machine works for him; and
if he cannot by all the labor healthily possible to him, feed and
clothe himself, then it is better to use an inexpensive machine--as
a wind-mill or water-mill--than a costly one like a steam-engine,
so long as we have natural force enough at our disposal. Whereas at
present we continually hear economists regret that the water-powers
of the cascades or streams of a country should be lost, but hardly
ever that the muscular power of its idle inhabitants should be lost;
and, again, we see vast districts, as the south of Provence, where a
strong wind[129] blows steady all day long for six days out of seven
throughout the year, without a wind-mill, while men are continually
employed a hundred miles to the north, in digging fuel to obtain
artificial power.
But the principal point of all to be kept in view is that in every
idle arm and shoulder throughout the country there is a certain
quantity of force, equivalent to the force of so much fuel; and that
it is mere insane waste to dig for coal for our force, while the vital
force is unused; and not only unused, but, in being so, corrupting and
polluting itself. We waste our coal and spoil our humanity at one and
the same instant. Therefore, whenever there is an idle arm, always
save coal with it, and the stores of England will last all the longer.
And precisely the same argument answers the common one about "taking
employment out of the hands of the industrious laborer." Why, what is
"employment" but the putting out of vital force instead of mechanical
force? We are continually in search of means of strength--to pull,
to hammer, to fetch, to carry; we waste our future resources to get
power, while we leave all the living fuel to burn itself out in mere
pestiferous breath and production of its variously noisome forms of
ashes! Clearly, if we want fire for force, we want men for force first.
The industrious hands _must_ have so much to do that they can do no
more, or else we need not use machines to help them: then use the idle
hands first. Instead of dragging petroleum with a steam-engine, put it
on a canal, and drag it with human arms and shoulders. Petroleum cannot
possibly be in a hurry to arrive anywhere. We can always order that
and many other things time enough before we want it. So the carriage
of everything which does not spoil by keeping may most wholesomely and
safely be done by water-traction and sailing vessels, and no healthier
work nor better discipline can men be put to than such active porterage.
2. In employing all the muscular power at our disposal, we are to make
the employments we choose as educational as possible. For a wholesome
human employment is the first and best method of education, mental as
well as bodily. A man taught to plough, row or steer well, and a woman
taught to cook properly and make dress neatly, are already educated
in many essential moral habits. Labor considered as a discipline has
hitherto been thought of only for criminals; but the real and noblest
function of labor is to prevent crime, and not to be _Re_formatory but
Formatory.
3. The third great principle of employment is, that whenever there
is pressure of poverty to be met, all enforced occupation should be
directed to the production of useful articles only, that is to say, of
food, of simple clothing, of lodging, or of the means of conveying,
distributing, and preserving these. It is yet little understood by
economists, and not at all by the public, that the employment of
persons in a useless business cannot relieve ultimate distress. The
money given to employ riband-makers at Coventry is merely so much money
withdrawn from what would have employed lace-makers at Honiton, or
makers of something else, as useless, elsewhere. We _must_ spend our
money in some way, at some time, and it cannot at any time be spent
without employing somebody. If we gamble it away, the person who wins
it must spend it; if we lose it in a railroad speculation, it has
gone into some one else's pockets, or merely gone to pay navvies for
making a useless embankment, instead of to pay riband or button makers
for making useless ribands or buttons; we cannot lose it (unless by
actually destroying it) without giving employment of some kind, and
therefore, whatever quantity of money exists, the relative quantity
of employment must some day came out of it; but the distress of the
nation signifies that the employments given have produced nothing that
will support its existence. Men cannot live on ribands, or buttons, or
velvet, or by going quickly from place to place; and every coin spent
in useless ornament, or useless motion, is so much withdrawn from
the national means of life. Whereas every coin spent in cultivating
ground, in repairing lodgings, in making necessary and good roads,
in preventing danger by sea or land, and in carriage of food or fuel
where they are required, is so much absolute and direct gain to the
whole nation. To cultivate land round Coventry makes living easier at
Honiton, and every house well built in Edinburgh makes lodgings cheaper
in Glasgow and London.
4th, and lastly. Since for every idle person some one else must be
working somewhere to provide him with clothes and food, and doing
therefore double the quantity of work that would be enough for his own
needs, it is only a matter of pure justice to compel the idle person
to work for his maintenance himself. The conscription has been used in
many countries to take away laborers who supported their families from
their useful work, and maintain them for purposes chiefly of military
display at public expense. Since this had been long endured by the
most civilized nations, let it not be thought that they would not much
more gladly endure a conscription which should seize only the vicious
and idle already living by criminal procedures at the public expense,
and which should discipline and educate them to labor, which would not
only maintain themselves, but be serviceable to the commonwealth.
The question is simply this: we must feed the drunkard, vagabond, and
thief. But shall we do so by letting them rob us of their food, and do
no work for it; or shall we give them their food in appointed quantity,
and enforce their doing work which shall be worth it, and which, in
process of time, will redeem their own characters, and make them happy
and serviceable members of society?[130]
The different classes of work for which bodies of men could be
consistently organized might ultimately become numerous; these
following divisions of occupation may at once be suggested.
1. Road-making.--Good roads to be made wherever needed, and kept in
constant repair; and the annual loss on unfrequented roads in spoiled
horses, strained wheels, and time, done away with.
2. Bringing in of Waste Land.--All wastelands not necessary for public
health, to be made accessible and gradually reclaimed.
3. Harbor-Making.--The deficiencies of safe or convenient harborage
in our smaller ports to be remedied; other harbors built at dangerous
points of coast, and a disciplined body of men always kept in
connection with the pilot and lifeboat services. There is room for
every order of intelligence in this work, and for a large body of
superior officers.
4. Porterage.--All heavy goods not requiring speed in transit, to be
carried (under preventive duty on transit by railroad) by canal boats,
employing men for draught, and the merchant shipping service extended
by sea; so that no ships may be wrecked for want of hands, while there
are idle ones in mischief on shore.
5. Repair of Buildings.--A body of men in various trades to be kept
at the disposal of the authorities in every large town for consistent
repair of buildings, especially the houses of the poorer orders, who,
if no such provision were made, could not employ workmen on their own
houses, but would simply live with rent walls and roofs.
6. Dress-making.--Substantial dress, of standard material and kind,
strong shoes, and stout bedding, to be manufactured for the poor, so as
to render it unnecessary for them, unless by extremity of improvidence,
to wear cast clothes, or be without sufficiency of clothing.
7. Works of Art.--Schools to be established on thoroughly sound
principles of manufacture and use of materials, and with simple and,
for given periods, unalterable modes of work; first in pottery, and
embracing gradually metal work, sculpture, and decorative painting;
the two points insisted upon, in distinction from ordinary commercial
establishments, being perfectness of material to the utmost attainable
degree; and the production of everything by hand-work, for the special
purpose of developing personal power and skill in the workman.
The two last departments, and some subordinate branches of the others,
would include the service of women and children.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] There were two editions of this pamphlet. The first was entitled
"First Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the Destitute
and Criminal Classes. By John Ruskin, A.M. For private circulation
only. 1868" (pp. 11, including the title-page. London: Strangeways &
Walden, printers, Castle Street, Leicester Square). Mr. Ruskin enclosed
the second edition to the _Daily Telegraph_, where almost the whole of
the pamphlet was reprinted. The differences between the two editions
consisted only in one or two additions in the second (see below, pages
197 and 202, notes).
[127] The reform bill of 1867. The late parliament had been dissolved
on November 11, and the new one had just sat (December 10, 1868).
[128] The _Daily Telegraph_ reprinted the pamphlet from this point to
the end.
[129] In order fully to utilize this natural power, we only require
machinery to turn the variable into a constant velocity--no
insurmountable difficulty.[131]
[130] Here the first edition of the pamphlet ends; the remaining
sentences being contained in the second edition only.
[131] This note was not contained in the first edition of the pamphlet,
and was not reprinted by the _Daily Telegraph_.
[From "The Y. M. A. Magazine," conducted by the Young Men's
Association, Clapham Congregational Church. September, 1879. Vol. iii.,
No. 12, p. 242.]
_BLINDNESS AND SIGHT._[132]
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
_18th July_, 1879.
MY DEAR SIR: The reason I never answered was--I now find--the
difficulty of explaining my fixed principle never to join in any
invalid charities. All the foolish world is ready to help in _them_;
and will spend large incomes in trying to make idiots think, and the
blind read, but will leave the noblest intellects to go to the Devil,
and the brightest eyes to remain spiritually blind forever! All _my_
work is to help those who _have_ eyes and see not.
Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN.
THOS. POCOCK, ESQ.
I must add that, to _my_ mind, the prefix of "Protestant" to your
society's name indicates far _stonier_ blindness than any it will
relieve.
FOOTNOTES:
[132] This letter was sent by Mr. Ruskin to the Secretary of the
Protestant Blind Pension Society in answer to an application for
subscriptions which Mr. Ruskin had mislaid, and thus left unanswered.
[From "The Y. M. A. Magazine," October, 1879, Vol. iv., No. 1, p. 12.]
THE EAGLE'S NEST.[133]
_To the Editor of "The Y. M. A. Magazine."_
MY DEAR SIR: There is a mass of letters on my table this morning, and
I am not quite sure if the "Y. M. A. Magazine," among them, is the
magazine which yours of the 15th speaks of as "enclosed;" but you are
entirely welcome to print my letter about Blind Asylums anywhere, and
if in the "Y. M. A." I should be glad to convey to its editor, at the
same time, my thanks for the article on "Growing Old," which has not a
little comforted me this morning--and my modest recommendation that, by
way of antidote to the No. III. paper on the Sun, he should reproduce
the 104th, 115th, and 116th paragraphs of my "Eagle's Nest," closing
them with this following sentence from the 12th Book of the Laws of
Plato, dictating the due time for the sittings of a Parliament seeking
righteous policy (and composed, they may note farther, for such search,
of Young Men and Old):
ἑκαστης μὲν ἡμερας συλλεγομενος ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἀπ' ὄρθρου μέχρι περ
ἂν ἥλιος ἀνίσχῃ.
Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE, _August_ 17th, 1879.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] The article on "Growing Old" (Y. M. A., August, 1879) was "a
study from the poets" on happiness in old age; that upon the sun,
contained in the same number of the magazine, dealt with the spots in
the sun, and the various scientific opinions about them; the paragraphs
reprinted from the "Eagle's Nest" are upon the sun as the Light, and
Health, and Guide of Life.
[From "The Y. M. A. Magazine," November, 1879, Vol. iv., No. 2, p. 36.]
_POLITICS IN YOUTH._
_To the Editor of "The Y. M. A. Magazine."_
MY DEAR SIR: I am heartily obliged by your publication of those pieces
of "Eagle's Nest," and generally interested in your Magazine, papers
on politics excepted. Young men have no business with politics at all;
and when the time is come for them to have opinions, they will find all
political parties resolve themselves at last into two--that which holds
with Solomon, that a rod is for the fool's back,[134] and that which
holds with the fool himself, that a crown is for his head, a vote for
his mouth, and all the universe for his belly.
Ever faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
The song on "Life's Mid-day" is very beautiful, except the third
stanza. The river of God will one day sweep down the great city, not
feed it.[135]
SHEFFIELD, _October 19th_, 1879.
FOOTNOTES:
[134] Proverbs xxvi. 3, and x. 13.
[135] The following are the lines specially alluded to:
Shall the strong full-flowing river, bearing on its mighty breast
Half the wealth of some proud nation, precious spoils of East and West,
Shall it mourn its mountain cradle and its infant heathery bed,
All its youthful songs and dances, as adown the hills it sped,
When by it in yon great city half a million mouths are fed?
[_Y. M. A. Magazine, October_, 1879.]
[From the "New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class."
Aberdeen, 1873.]
"_ACT, ACT IN THE LIVING PRESENT._"[136]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_Christmas Eve_, '72.
MY DEAR SIR: I am always much interested in any effort such as you are
making on the part of the laity.
If you care to give your class a word directly from me, say to
them that they will find it well, throughout life, never to trouble
themselves about what they ought _not_ to do, but about what they
_ought_ to do. The condemnation given from the judgment throne--most
solemnly described--is all for the _undones_ and not for the
_dones_.[137] People are perpetually afraid of doing wrong; but unless
they are doing its reverse energetically, they do it all day long, and
the degree does not matter. The Commandments are necessarily negative,
because a new set of positive ones would be needed for every person:
while the negatives are constant.
But Christ sums them all into two rigorous positions, and the first
position for young people is active and attentive kindness to animals,
supposing themselves set by God to feed His real sheep and ravens
before the time comes for doing either figuratively. There is scarcely
any conception left of the character which animals and birds might have
if kindly treated in a wild state.
Make your young hearers resolve to be honest in their work in this
life.--Heaven will take care of them for the other.
Truly yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] This and the two following letters were originally printed in
different annual numbers of the above-named publication, to whose
editor (Mr. John Leith, 75 Crown Street, Aberdeen) they were addressed.
Amongst the "messages" contained in them are some from Mr. Gladstone
and others.
[137] See the tenth of Mr. Ruskin's letters on the Lord's Prayer,
_Contemporary Review_, December, 1879, p. 550.
[From "New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class."
Aberdeen, 1874.]
"_LABORARE EST ORARE._"
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_December_, 1873.
MY DEAR SIR: I should much like to send your class some message, but
have no time for anything I like.
My own constant _cry_ to all Bible readers is a very simple one--Don't
think that nature (human or other) is corrupt; don't think that you
yourself are elect out of it; and don't think to serve God by praying
instead of obeying.
Ever, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
[From "New Year's Address," etc. (as above), 1878.]
_A PAGAN MESSAGE._
HERNE HILL, LONDON, S.E.
_19 Dec._ 1877.
MY DEAR SIR: I am sure you know as well as I that the best message for
any of your young men who really are trying to read their Bibles is
whatever they first chance to read on whatever morning.
But here's a Pagan message for them, which will be a grandly harmonized
bass for whatever words they get on the New Year.
Inter spem curamque, timores et inter iras,
_Omnem_ crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum.[138]
("Amid hope and sorrow, amid fear and wrath, believe _every_ day that
has dawned on thee to be thy last.")
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] Horace, Epistles, i. 4. 12.
[From "The Science of Life."]