The Kansas herald of freedom., 1855-03-10
A)ofai.
Labor a Necessity and Duty.

Dofal.
Labor Necessity and Duty.
Man is by nature a being of labor.
His mental and physical constitution is
wisely adapted to labor, and ne never
ful6lIs his destiny and obeys the laws of
his being without it. Almost as soon as
the child can raise its head, it begins to
show forth its inherent element--ke Ia
6ors. That which in the child we call
play, is his labor, and most earnestly and
faithfully does he perform it. Nothing
would change the habits of the child, as
he advances in life, but the unsound and
accursed public sentiment which writes
disgrace on the perspiring brow of labor.
When he is made to believe and feel that
what is called work is disgraceful or un-
genteel, he changes his useful employ
ments for hunting, horse-racing, bowling,
sparring, billiards, or some other useless
form of filling up his time, and of obtain
ing that amount of physical and mental
exercise which the mind and body must
have, or become imbecile. Thus the
young man obeys the instincts of his na-
ture-to work; but he labors like the
galley-slave in occupations that debase
the morals, enslaye and contract the in
tellect, and do neither himself nor the
world any valuable service.
AS well might we shut out the light of
day from the young as to deprive them
of labor-they will work. If taught that
useful labor is disreputable, they viii
seek sports of questionable moral tenden
cy on which to work off their surplus
vitality and muscular energy, and the
world as well as themselves are deprived
of all the usefulness which so much vast
ed labor might have produced.
Labor is a natural institution, and is
among the greatest blessings of man.
1t were better for the affluent, the for
tunate, or unfortunate inheritors of mil
lions, in view of their own personal well
fare, to spend considerable portion of
every day in labor, producing something
really valuable to the world, and adding
to the general stock of comforts or en-
bellishments of life. Fashionable sports,
or the dainty physical labor of conceited
dandics, vitiates themselves, and, while
it does the world no good, it produces
positive harm by inspiring the young
with distaste for useful employment.
This begets idleness, dissipation, gam
bling, and theft, even, to enable the mis-
led poor to ape the life of sport and dissi-
patton of the rich.
Labor is any effort of the mind and
body exercised to produce some useful
result. 1t is valuable wholly for its ben
eft to sentient beings, particularly to the
human race. Nearly all that is produced
by labor is the result of the industrious
toll of about one half of the race the
balance are mere consumers, drOne-bees
in the hive of human society, who prey
upon the products of industry, lessen the
aggregate of human comfort, and do lit
tie or nothing to compensate society for
their sustenance. 1t is therefore not only
unnatural and dishonorable to live a life
of useless, unproductive existence, but it
is mean in the extreme; it is social rob-
berry; piracy upon the products of the
industrious world. No person has right
to live without valuable contribution to
the general stock of mind, morals, or
money. The world supports him, and
he owes it in return the efforts of his mind
or muscles in the production of the use-
full and the true. 10 refuse to do this is,
in moral point of view, robbery. The
idiotic, the insane, and the imbecile, are
excusable-none others.
If haughly, purse-proud man would
take lessons of industry from the whole
world of organic and inorganic matter,
and carry out as he should do, the indi-
cations thus written in the practical Ian
guage of action, useful, laborious, uni
yersal action, the race of idlers and nom
producers would, by reformation, cease
to burden and disgrace the earth. Nature
is one great workshop. The tides and
winds, electricity and magnetism, chem
ical and geological combinations and
changes, the formation and development
of organic life, are all specimens of in
ccssant industry, evolving results of om-
nipotent importance. Shall a part of
the noblest of Gods work be the only
exception to this great law of industry ?
Shall earth, air, and sea, be instinct of
life, action, -unmitigated action and eve-
ry species of animal, from the the ami
malcule to the elephant, exert an earnest
industry, and man. having more wants
than any animal in existence, eeither too
proud or too indolent to labor ? 1t is
wrong and unnatural to be idle, or use
lessly employed; it is a libel on exist
ence. 1t should, therefore, be regarded,
as it truly is, disgraceful.-1NlsOa Sizer.