The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-12-26
THE EXTINCTION OF LEISURE

An article in recent number of the
Forum contains so much of sound doc
trine on the conduct of life and so
concisely stated that we make the fol-
lowing extracts therefrom,
The sum of modern ethics is contained
in the word do. Do that which is good
If you can, but rest assured you shall be
pardoned for doing evil more readily
than for doing nothing.
The public is the hardest of task-mas-
tiers as we'll as the most undiscriminat.
ing. Whoever in our time undertakes
to win the approval Of that capricious
patron, must begin by FORGETTING his own.
A man intelligent and well-to-do,
whose life is made a perpetual grind in
order that a family of children may
be provided with luxuries, or fashiona.
BILE diversions, or great estates, does not
deserve well of society, and his sacrifice
is, to his offspring, more often a curse
than benefit. He would have deserved
better the regard of every body con-
cerned, had he made himself his child
ren's guide, companion and friend,
though he left them no legacy but the
trade or profession to which they were
best adapted by nature, and the knowl-
edge of how to see and to feel and to
think. On the minds and bodies of the
existing race, more than on their peck
ets, depends the excellence of the race
to come.
What is more pathetic than the hope
that those things we have failed to per-
form or enjoy will be performed or en-
joyed by our children ?
| Nothing can be more useful to a mar
than a determination not to be hurried
The popular idea that mans usefulness
depends on the amount of his business
is not correct one.
The most successful man is not he who
is always doing.
Results are not always according t
the degree of exertion.
We do not need the scriptural nara
tive to assure us that the first man acted
before he thought. His descendant
have most of them continued to do 81
ever since.
They reckon i'll who think that every
thing save enterprise, so-called, is to |
community nothing worth.
A family which gives more care t,
social and intellectual employments thai
its neighbOr is an educating and refininj
force in the community to which it be
longs.
Is all occupation to be deemed indo
lence that has not for its end a monel
reward
We are a richer and a buster people
but we are politically, Industrially, ant
socially less independent people thai
were Americans of two centuries ago.
Leisure is necessary to democracy
With no leisure there can be no IntelIi
gence and without intelligence democ,
racy cannot exist.
Leisure departs in proportion to the in
crease in the size and influence of cities
Leisure is a luxury peculiar to th,
country like pure air and fresh fruits.
Leisure has no true home only in tn
simplicity and independence Of the nat
ural country life.
Some day there will come to this time
begrudgiDg, nature-ridden, living-in
the-future Nation of ours routine o
leisure.
The perpetual accretion among us o
enormous private fortunes is the creates
discourager Of leisure.
Nothing so effectually destroys the de
sire to obtain wealth as the inherited
possession of wealth.
Education and refinement distract
mans powers from the getting of gain
so often to the ignorant and the unre
fined the only resource. They teacl
men how much there is in the worlI
that cannot be bought.