Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-31
Dignity of Labor.

OlSuity VI LdUoI.
We have been fond nation of speaking
OF the dignity of labor, meaning thereby
manual labor. Personally / don't think
that we begin to understand what high
place manual labor should take; and 1t
never can take this high place unless It
offers scope for the best type of man. We
have tended to regard education as q mat
ter of the head only, and the result is that
great many of our people, themselves the
sons of men who worked with their hands,
seem to think that they rise in the world if
they get into a position where they do no
hard manual work whatever; where their
hands will grow soft. and their working
clothes will be kept clean. Such a conception
is both false and mSchievouS. There are, of
course. kinds of labor where the work must
be purely mental, and there are other kinds
of labor where. under existing conditions,
very little demand indeed is made upon the
mind. though l am glad to say that | think
the proportion of men engaged in this kind
OF work is diminishing. But in any healthy
community, In any community with the
great solid qualities which alone make
really great nation. the bulk of the people
should do Work which makes demands upon
both the body and the mind. Progress can
not permanently consist in the abandon
ment of physical labor, but in the develop
ment of physical labor so that it shall rep
resent more and more the work of the
trained mind in the trained body To pro
vide such training, to encourage in every
way the production of the men whom it
alone can produce, is to show that
nation have a true conception of the
dignity and Importance of labor. The call
ing of the skilled tiller of the soil, the call
ing of the skilled mechanic. should alike
be recognized professions, just as en-
phat!cally the callngs of lawyer, OF
doctor, of banker, merchant, or clerk The
printer, the electrical worker, the house
painter, the foundry man, should be trained
just as carefully as the stenographer or the
drug clerk. They should be trained alike
in head and in hand They should get over
the idea that to earn SO a week and call
it salary is better than to earn SO a
week and call 1t wages" The young man
who has the courage and the ability to re-
fuse to enter the crowded field of the So
called professions and to take to construc-
tive industry is almost sure of ample re-
ward in earnings, in health, in opportunity
TO marry early and to establish a home
with reasonable freedom from worry We
need the training, the manual deXterity,
and industrial intelligence which can be
best given in a good agricultural, or build
Ing, or textile. or watch making, or engrav-
ing, or mechanical school. 1t should be
one of tour prime objects to put the me-
chanic. the worker who works with
his hands. and who ought to work in a
constantly larger degree with his head. on a
higher plane of efficiency and reward, 50 as
to increase his effectiveness in the economic
world. and therefore the dignity, the re-
enumeration, and the power of his position
In the social world. To train boys and
girls in merely literary accomplishments to
the total exclusion of industrial, manual
and technical training tends to unfit them for
industrial work: and in real life most work
Is Industrial.