The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1869-01-20
DIGNITY OF LABOR.

From the Southern Planter and Farmer.
The Dignity of Labor, Particularly
when applied to the Cultivation of
the Earth.
The great folly of the Southern people,
in time gone by, was most conspicuously
manifested in the estimate which they
placed ON honest people.
They should more rightly have appre-
ciated the fact so well expressed by Pope
'That hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed;
Hence to himself and to his infants, bread
The laborer bears" 70 ii.. ta ata+
Surely, that which so contributes not only
to the comfort but to the very necessities of
our race, cannot be lightly regarded by any
we'll regulated mind On the contrary, it
should be highly esteemed, as well by those
who claim to be of the upper ten" as by
the many of whom it may be said,
"Their bloody task unwearied still they ply"
No true gentleman, who has been taught
to know what good breeding is, and to esti-
mate worth at its real value, will ever look
with an air of fancied superiority upon the
honest and industrious laborer toiling for
his daily bread but on the contrary, he
will endeavor to impress him with proper
sense OF the dignity CT his calling, and thus
encourage him to look up" and to regard
himself as the peer of all, save of those by
whom he is sreelled IN uirtue and intelligence,
and which only confers true dignity ON man,
for
aWbat can ennoble sots, or slaves, or towards
Alas! not all the blood of all the Towards"
Saint Paul thought it not beneath the
dignity of gentleman and great man to
labor with his own hands for support, and
A greater even than Paul labored for years.
as carpenter, to teach men that labor is
honorable, when He might have commanded
the treasures of the universe.
Surely, then, the pigmies of our day
should not feel themselves disgraced by being
compelled to soil their soft and effeminate
hands by bringing them in contact with the
plough, the axe, the hammer, or the saw.
Rather let them so act as to gain for them
selves the high privilege of saying, in the
language of one of Shakespeare's char
acters, "Sir, / am true laborer; / earn
that I eat; get that I wear; owe no man
hate; envy no mans happiness"
The trials through which the Southern
people have passed since "the surrender,
sad and trying though they have been in
some respects, have taught them the whole
some lesson, (hard to learn in the school o.
prosperity that no occupation, howeve
| humble, is in itself degrading; and that h
| is the best and most useful citizen who sets
before those around him an example of In
dustry, integrity and sobriety.
Let our young men, then. take courage, ant
betake themselves to the tillage of the soil
or some other useful occupation, knowing
| that it will elevate them in the estimation
of all the virtuous and good, of both sexes
| and let them learn to despise the opinion o
all who regard honest labor as degrading, o
in any degree beneath the dignity OF tn
most exalted in the land
If what we have written in commentator
of honest labor be true, how can it be NOR
honorably or usefully employed than in TN
cultivation of mother earth, who is so Deau
tiful in yielding her rich treasures to all WIN
make proper application for them.
This is the most ancient, most nohoiApie
and most indispensable of all employments
the most ancient, inasmuch as 1t was prac
ticed by the father of our race; the most non
orabIe because II was initiated and com
manded hv Cod himself, and the most indis
spensible because, without it, gaunt falnin
would stalk over the land, and our people
throughout all our borders, would be doom
| ed not only ais iaa
..The pains of famish'd Tantalus to feel,'
but endure the horrors of utter starvation
and thus to perish from the earth.