Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1872-11-15
MANUAL LABoR---IS 1T DE-
GRADING?

" |
There has always been a class of "gen-
teel people who have turned up their noses
at the base mechanical and agricultural
workers of the world, that create the wealth
upon which said gentry live vicious and idle,
or at best, useless lives. If not always, at
least for a long time to come, there will con-
tinue to be such folks. They constitute a
sort of refuse material, worth hardly more in
human society than the flies in the insect
world, that live by slipping the sweets which
the industrious bees gather. 1t is of no
use to reason with people Of such ways Of
thinking, nor Of much consequence what
thoughts occupy what they call their minds.
But we notice with surprise that among
thinking men, and still more notably among
thinking women, the opinion seems to be
gaining ground that manual labor and simple
tasks requiring chiefly manual dexterity for
their accomplishment are beneath the dignity
of intelligent and educated people. Gail
Hamilton, the editor Of Woods Household
Magazine, is printing a series of articles in
support Of the doctrine that women, especial
ly, should be relieved from physical labor, as
degrading to the sex, and fatal to her proper
influence in the world Her idea is that all
the work in life that requires more than the
slightest physical exertion should be done by |
the coarser sex, and woman left free to glo-
rify life by developing her tastes for the
good, the noble and the beautiful. She ad- |
mits, indeed, that in the present state Of the
world, even in the most civilized portions,
there is much work of this objectionable sort
that must fall upon and be done by women,
but she holds that bodily labor is not the
proper sphere for the sex, and that it is the
duty of the coming man to see that the
coming woman shall not be domestic
drudge"
We have read Miss Calls arguments on
this topic with interest, as indicating one of
the currents of modern thought, but have not
been convinced by them simply because we
do not admit that to be true which she as
serts as the basis of her theory, namely, that
daily manual tasks, even the simplest, have
any tendency to degrade or dwarf the soul or
intellect. The education of the body is as
important in its sphere as the education of
the affections or the mind, and indeed, it
forms the best if not the only true founda-
ton for moral and mental culture. Even in
the fine arts the two are inseparabe.
l. Al -
selves were the best skilled in the mechani-
cal parts of their respective arts.
Miss Gail seems to think there is such a
distinction between the sexes that, while. it
degrades woman to work with her hands it
is not injurious for the male of her speces,-
being forced to this conclusion by the patent
fact that there is and must always be great
deal of that kind of work to be done. Yet
but little reflection is needed to convince a
candid man that in this, as in many other
matters, "what is sauce for the goose is sauce
for the gander." If it degrades woman to
wash her own or her husbands aud childrens
clothes, to scrub and sweep the floors of her
dwelling, or to cook the food for her family,
why does it not degrade the husband Of that
woman to chop his wool, dig out his stumps,
build his fences, pillow his fields and harvest
his crops? Unless it be claimed that men
and women are an entirely different order of
beings, they must be trained for the next
world by substantially the same labors and
experiences In this.
The education of the eye and the hand,
and the cultivation of the simple faculty of
observation which goes Herewith, are so alb
solutely essential to every subsequent step Of
progress in life, that it may be safely said
the latter ia any thorough or effective form
cannot exist without being preceded and ac-
eompanied by the former. The facts that
hard work must be done, that there is a vast
amount of 1t, and no prospect that there will
ever be any less to be done in the future,
but rather more and more continually, show
that the Creator does not regard it as inju-
rious or degrading to his creatures.
The notion that manual labor is degrading
is based upon profound ignorance of its es-
sential nature, and Of its vast educating
power upon all who engage in it, 1t would
seem to be difficult for any one to watch the
eagerness and delight with which children of
both sexes take to manual work, and the rap
id growth of ideas with them while engaged
in it, without getting some idea of its use.
And from the lowest to the highest grades Of
hand wOrk-tho highest demanding the high
est mental culture for its proper accomplish
ment-this educating power still accompanies
it. Our minds and our hearts continually
grow and expand under the teaching power
of icork.
But, says Gail, to do the same work over
and over again, after it has been once thor.
oughly masterod--to scrub floor three times
a week for lifetime, to make bread, wash