The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-06-20
Do Laboring Men have Time to study9

GAIL work and no play, makes Jack dull
boy" is true saying, if not model OF litera,
ry excellence. Its meaning is, that mind and
heart, as well rs muscle need exercise. Man
is complex being. Body, mind and soul need
to be mutually and harmoniously developed, or
the human machinery becomes out of balance,
and speedily shakes itself to pieces. A certain
class of social philosophers have taken it upon
themselves to assert that the laboring classes in
this country, s.lbeit they who perforce cultivate
muscle enough, do not and can not, for want of
time, cultivate soul and mind as they ought.
A distinguished essayist, hailing from Boston,
the American Athens, has taken up the pen to
urge that the laboring classes play too much
and study too little-that the nature of the
case hardly admits of much effort at mental
improvement So many hours labor and such
hearty meals TO get through it all are required,
that any attempt at intellectual improvement
on the part of the working class is, in our Bos-
ton philosophers opinion, necessarily as the
gait of the OK to that of trotting horse.
We have word to say on this subject, and
we shall begin by agreeing with our essayist,
that working1nen, especially young working
men, study too little; but we dissent totally
the nature of their labor to prevent them, as a
class, from successful study, if they could be
induced to undertake it systematically.
1t is asserted that they eat too heartily-that
they mast eat too heartily to be feet-minded.
We admit, because our experience, as we'll as
physiological science, proves it, that hearty
meal can not be followed Immediately by Wig
orous mental application. The attempt to do
it must inevitably work i'll to body and mind.
But we also know, from theory and practice,
that the last meal of the day should be, espe-
ciallY to the laboring man, light one. This
meal precedes the hours of leisure generally
possessed by laboring men-the hours which
are too generally spent in smoking, theatre
going, billiard-playing, drinking in many sad
cases, or, what is scarcely better, season of
mental and physical inanity by the fireside,
slowly but surely degrading all the faculties.
Now, let it be distinctly understood that we
do not object to harmless amusement per Sc. If
workingmen will not study, they had better
play than sit and NOPE. We believe in the
dalty of recreation. But we also believe that
study itself is recreation to man whose mus
cles have been in active play for ten hours OF
the day, and the best kind of recreation, too,
when the last meal has been, as it should be, q
light one Then the body rests while the mind
is fresh and vigorous, and two or three hours OF
profitable and most interesting intellectual en-
lOyment can De nau at Iar less expense tudH
the pipe, the billiards or the theatre demands.
Let us now look for moment at the .ques-
ton of time. Suppose laborer to work ten
hours, and to devote two hours per day to meals
and going to and from work. There remain
twelve hours out of the twenty-four. Allow
nine of this for sleep-an hour more than ne
cessary for most persons-but say nine hours ;
three of leisure remain. But suppose one OF
the three to be spent with the family there are
still two hours of the time for quiet study.
Now exclude Sundays from the calculation, and
allow one secular evening for amusement sole.
ly, there remain ten hours per week for study
AN amount of time that would, with ordinary
intelligence, answer to master the rudiments OF
the French or German language in single
year, thus opening a new and rich field, OF
amusement and culture. Ten years OF such
course would give man the mastery Of the
French and German tongues, fair knowledge
of mathematics pure and applied, an outline OF
the physical sciences, and skill as craftsman.
Let any mechanic at the age of twenty con-
slider how much advantage the above acquire
ments would be to him at the age of thirty,
should he obtain them, and then go to work
and get them.