Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-12-19
The Honor OF Manual Labor.

A friend writing on other subjects says,
incidentally, a. You write a good deal about
the honor due to manual labor, and the
manual laborer. confess that | do not
see it, Why is any more honor due to the
man who digs up the soil with spade, than
to the steam-plow that does the same work
better ?"
Were we to answer our friends query
briefly. we should say, because he is a
man." But if we went no further he would
probably ask why man who makes himself
a machine is more to be honored than any
other machine. This is the common super
fetal, supercilious view of the subject held
nv men and women of "culchur." As a
writer in the atlantic Monthly puts it; d" The
scale Of social dignity is made up on the
basis of the greater or less freedom from oh
legation 10 labor. The cream of our consid
Grafton is perhaps reserved for those who
never. by chance, have anything to do with
it. We gaze with respect upon the great
monument after it is erected. and even upon
the engineer who expended his handiwork
upon it, but have yet to see effusion mani
tested over the brawny arms that hauled al
his brick and mortar and twisted his cables. >
This view of the question must have thu
effect always to cut off the vast majority
the human race from honor. 1t shuts on
the nottingham from the dearest part of hi
hirthright. 1t flies in the face of the of
quoted aphorsm, & Act well your part, there
all the honor lies"
And vet we believe, with our friend, that
it is the mind and not the muscle that wins.
aud is entitled to the honor. The mind il
the man. And man does not make a ma
chine of himself in doing manual labor. So
far as man is a machine, the machine is the
work of God, equally with the rest of the
man. And God made the machine for use.
as he made the rest of the man. And to the
use of that machine, so far as it performs
use in the true sense of the word, honor
belongs.
We are not of those "who dignity labor
by showing you how to scramble out of it
early" We truly believe in the intrinsic
dignity of bodily labor. 1t is our deliberate
opinion that the man who shuns working
with his body sacrifices part of his man
hood We believe that in the good time
coming" every man and woman will dc
some bodily labor every day, and that then
no man or woman will have to do too much
"Drudgery" will become word without
meaning
We go even further, and say that any
family or class that repudates manual labor
for itself will in very short time perish
from the earth which it encumbers This
is dimly seen already, and is the cause why
the cultured classes" affect what are called
"manly sports" the aim and object of which
are to do the necessary quantity of bodily
work to save life without any one but our
self being the better for it. To knock ball,
about, to row boats, to ride horses, to hunt
and slay Gods creatures without any pur
pose except the sport of it, are the means
by which those who believe dignity aud use
lessness are one try to evade the doom of th'
useless But the evasion cannot succeed
There is natural selection against use
lessness which is as efficient against th'
human drone as against any other. Tn
Christian scheme in morals, and the demo
cratic scheme Tor the Republican scheme, il
you prefer the wordD in politics, involve tn
idea of the union of bodily with menta
labor to produce the only genuine and com
plete culture of which man is capable. Thi
is the "leveling up" which is equally OPP
posed to the " leveling down of the com
munist and the bitter and unjust nequalit,
of the present earthly life of man. Agains
it will fight all principalities and powers.
But for it God and everything God-lke il
man will struggle until they prevail.
The worlds work must be done, and il
the doing of it, intelligently and Christianly
is the trne process of repairing the marre'
image of his Maker in the human creature
The synthesis of castles and classes, the uni
fcation of humanity aud of man with hi
Creator in will and purpose, is the way o
progress. God is the great worker, tn
source of all energy, and only as man work
in concert, with every power and faculty o
his being, can he be raised to the full
measure Of man--that is, of an angel.