St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-03-25
Young Men and Labor.

Every young man should learn some
useful trade and be able to maintain
himself whatever changes fortune may
bring. This was the theory and the
practice of Persian and Arabic educa-
ton; even princes learned some one of
the useful arts, and the Arabian Nights
abound in examples of the value of the
national custom. An exiled prince main
tains himself as pastry cook, an unlucky
trader falls upon some new resort. The
Jews and all the Semitic races followed
the same custom. St. Paul lahored as
a tept-maker, and all his countrymen
were taught some form of manual indus
try. The Arabs sank at last into indO-
lence and license, but the Jews main
tanned their industrious habits, and
their young men and wemen preserved
unchanged the vigor of the race. The
Romans, once laboriOus tillers of the
soil, sank into decay when they lost
their habits of industry. Once patrician
and plebian labOred together on the
fertile campaigns, but i'll the imperial
period the only valuable portion of the
population were the slaves. From the
slaves and the freedmen came the most
useful citizens of Rome in its later pc
Rod, and often its most wicked. They
kept the last remains of energy. but
lost their virtue.
In the feudal and barbaric period la
Dor fell into contempt; young men
learned only to WELD the spear and
battle-axe, to cleave each others heads
in warfare, and strike each other to the
ground in tilt and tournament. The
horrible vices and degradation of the
famous days of chivalry reduced the
great body of the people to despair,
want aud infamy. Men sighed for the
end of the world. and fancied it near
Happily the republics of the Middle
Ages began again to cultivate industry
and teach young men and women the
necessity of labor. Venice, Florence
and Milan resounded with the hum of the
spindle and the roar OF the factory :
labor was enforced upon every one
and no honest man was idle. With
labor came the growth of the intellect.
for men found that knowledge was the
parent of the arts; aud with it came,
TOO, a fierce spirit ct independence that
showed itself in the factions of Florence
and the early democracy of Venice.
Nothing could be more turbulent than
these early cities of labor; revolution
followed revolution. The savage ener-
gy OF their working people, unframed
by the long usage of civilization, rose
in ceaseless civil commissions, particu-
larry at Florence; and Gino Caponi has
recently painted with fresh distinctness
the struggles and the successes of the
cOntending orders. But from their
struggles came the genius of Dante, the
chisel of Michael Angelo, Gallileo's tel
scope, aud the growth of the early Eu-
ropean mind.
Holland and the Low Countries be
gan anew the revival of the industrial
arts. In the fair cities of Client and
Burgess every one labored the young
men learned a trade, the young women
TO knit and sew. Feudal incidence was
condemned, the savage lives of knights
and squires seemed odious and barbar-
Gus to the companions of the ATtevelds
and the wealthy manufacturers, whose
children were trained in the new
knowledge. 1t was better TO manufac-
ture copper kettles at Dinant, or to be a
brewer at Client. than to live at the