The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-02-27
Manual Labor.

We find the following forcible and pungent article
under the above heading, in the San Francisco Com
msrcIai Herald of a late date.
One of the demoralizing effects of q long and
bloody civil war is to be found in the aversion to en-
gage in pursuits which require manual labor. The
rapidity with which colossal fortunes were made
during and since our late terrific struggle, by men
void of culture and refinement, but full of dash and
venture, was so strikingly in contrast with the tedi-
Gus and comparatively unsatisfactory progress of
those who relied upon manual labor to achieve indie
pendence, that the latter method is come to be re-
garded as something to be despised and Stunned.
Tom Jones, the former hod-carrier, but now Thomas
Jones, Esq, the millionaire, affects to regard with
contempt any and all pursuits which require the ex-
ertion Of corporal effort. Nothing short Of the bar,
the pulpit, or the counting-house is deemed suitable
for his child; and Bill Smith, the carpenter, who
knew Tom Jones in bis days of squalor and destitu-
ton, determines that his son shall have as much OPP
portunity to become distinguished, and the boy is in
stilled with the belief that nothing confers honor in
this world but the possession of money. He hears it
at home; sees it in the streets; learns it from his in
tercourse with others brought up in the same school,
and even comes to realize its dominant power in
churches whose congregations vie with each other to
erect the most costly and sumptuous tabernacles.
No thought is given to the fact that the professions Of
this country are altogether overstocked, and that not
more than five in every hundred achieve even fair
success. The splendid career of such men as Watt,
Stephenson, Franklin, Morse, Burritt, Ericsson, and
q hundred more of the same character, are not
thought worthy Of imitation nowadays by the aver
age American. He would be deemed a cruel and I'M
natural father-as a rule-who might presume 20
place his son behind a pillow; to shove a fore-plane,
or ask him to smite the glowing iron with the mas
siye sledge. The metal of which young hopeful is
composed possesses qualities far too fine for such
rough avocations. Besides, he is too delicate; he
sometimes has a headache, or perhaps a slight cough.
To indenture him as an apprentice is. to the Ameri-
can mind, too much like abandoning him to peonage;
and to give him a trade, or place him in any position
requiring manual labor, would be to lower him in
&c society,"" 1t never occurs to such parents, who
seem to have their veins full of the aspiring blood
of the Lancasters,' that they are employing the best
possible method of either making vagabOnds and dis
contented idlers of their children, or hurrying them
out of this world through the doors of a lawyers,
minister's or merchants Office. Brought up under
such training, our young men seem ambitious only
to get a living out of their wits, even at the expense
of manliness, independence, self-respect, and the
fearful wear and tear of conscience. What is the re-
suit? Vast numbers of the best farms in the United
States are now in the possession of Germans. Irish.
Swedes, Dutch, and other foreign-born and bred
Our workshops are filed with imported
who have brought with them certain stip-
ulations by which our youth are ruled out from learn
ing trades. Our shipping is largely manned by for
sailors, and all our manufacturing establish
ments are little better than hives for the industrious
of other countries. Such a condition of society
is replete with evil. II can, if continued, result only
in national degredation, and the destruction of that
independent element which is our best safeguard.