Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-06-26
Work as the Fashion.


mOnkish apOthegm declares, this is sure
ly most prayerful age. That labor is
meritOriOus and laudable has long been
a sentiment; but it is little more than
within this generation that the sentiment
has been generally and practically adopt
ed. Singularly strange is it that what
almost everybody claims to believe
should be, in fact, so slowly accepted.
Medieval history teaches that those ma
tiOnS were more prosperous that held
work to be honorable, and proved by
deed the sincerity of their holding. The
Republics of Genoa and Venice gained
their supremacy and highest glory by
their widespread commerce, in which
the first men of the State were actively
engaged, and were justly proud of such
engagement. The distinguished family of
the Medici, who made the annals of
Florence so illustriOus, were largely oC-
cupied in trade; accommodating thereby
the immense wealth which enabled them
to be the most liberal patrons and elf
Cient promoters of their time of litera-
ture and art Giovanni de Medici, who,
with a mere handful of men, cut his
way through Milanese army besieging
Scarperia, and relieved the town, was a
merchant. So was Salvestro, who, a
few years later, stood for the people,
and Cheukod the tyranny of the mobiles.
COSmo. the Father of his Country, and
Lorenzo the Magnificent, were happy
to be known as bankers and tradesmen.
Flanders achieved her greatness by traf-
tic. Ypres, and Bruges, and Client,
and Antwerp rose to the foremost rank
of European cities by their commerce
and manufactures. Every one remem-
bers Charles VS. punning jest, in the
sixteenth century, that he could put
Paris into his Cant (glove), and that it
was Clients business burghers who made
the jest telling by its truth. The Dutch
were Woodworking people when their
countless canals were crowded with the
argosies of all nations and their gallant
Admiral who beat the English fleet off
Plymouth, burned the shipping at Sheer
ness, and compelled the boosted masters
of the sea to sign a treaty of peace at
Breda, had been an apprentice to shoe
maker Napoleon aparte-himself
of humble origin, and the greatest dOer
of modern Unrestricted the British
with being a nation of shopkeepers
and yet to the derided shopkeepers, more
than to aught save circumstance, he
owed the thunder-st at Waterloo.
All the world over the men who work
are the men who win. 1t has always
been so and always will be. They who
despise labor despise themselves. The
drones in the hive of humanity are stung
to spiritual death by consciousness of
their own folly. Still, in the face of
self-enforced morals, of indisputable
facts there have been, and there are,
men and women claiming distinction be-
cause they do nothing, imagining idle
ness to be an honor. Because they are
zerOs they fancy they make a figure in
the world, forgetful that Zeros add
naught to the sum of progress or pros
perity. Fortunately, and fifty in this
era of uncommon sense, rarer than gent
Gus always, the .conceited do-nothings
are disappearing fast, BY moral law,
too, since Nature does not keep what
she does not need The days of Show
and Sham, of Title and Theory, are rap
idly passing. Civilization has come to
mean reason, truth, practically. This
generation says to every man: Il care
not who you are; but what can you do !?
If idle or inefficient, stand aside for your
betters; for they are your betters who
can and will work. | judge each and
all by their labor and its fruits
Work, in a word, has become the
fashion-a fashion set ages ago, but
never largely followed until now. An
tecedents and ancestors and authority
no longer count, even in oligarchies, I'M
less sustained by acts. The governing
heads of the globe have active brains
and busy hands. Only to the striving
and strenuous are the badges of distinc-
ton given. Only to those who are up
opI 5oipo aOroa tho parlu aDH Tho fl1ll
rewards. The first and strongest nation
of the continent is composed of the
hardest workers, and owes her position
more to her work than to her genius or
her advantages. Germany believes in
education and exertion, not in preced-
ents, self-adulation, or military glory,
and for this reason she prevailed over
naughty France. The lesson, though
severe, has not been lost on France. Her
defeat will be her triumph in the end.
She has learned the value of labor, and
will not hereafter underrate or condemn
laborious foe Henceforth, from the
Rhine to the Pyrenees, the newest and
best of fashions, in the home of fash
ions. will be the fashion of Work. The
mode is prevailing in Russia, Aus
tria, Italy, and Spain. Each year it is
more firmly established: its every move
ment forward is movement upward.
Perhaps the strongest evidence that
can be offered of the fashionableness of
work is the fact that in England (there
caste-feeling and rank-worship, by a
strange anomaly, have been more deeply
rooted than almost anywhere else), some
of the highest noblemen have placed
their sons In commercial houses with a
view of educating them as merchants.
This audacious innovation may endanger
the British constitution, of which the
Britons talk SO much and know so little;
but the shadowy old bugbear has fallen
of late into such disesteem that cads and