The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1907-12-21

thing to do. And when fate does
not force eXertion for bread and bed
We are sure to work for fun. perhaps
only with parties and gold sticks.
but, if our forces are expended on
higher planes, with painting and poe
try and all the beautiful arts. This
is the story of the fine arts. They
came through the favored folk whose
bread not only but tarts and turtle
soup were provided as effortlessly as
the mamma Of old and whose energies
for pure delight in new ways for
new things that not yet had become
necessities for the wider world.
But in reality all of us do work for
a living. Did We not We should per-
ish OF strophy. Keep moving the
Christmas signs say in the shops,
and SO saith Mother World to all of
her children. Brains need work to
render and keep us nimhle of wit,
muscles must exercise if they would
be strong. All the ills that flesh is
heir to, Shall we say, proceed from
. lack of exercise. Not only is it pleas
ant to exercise our facilities nor
nally. but it is in this normal exercise
/, that ''all pleasure, all enjoyment and
all good consist. All want and all
pain and he whole of the so-called
Welt SchmcrZ are due to restraints
of one sort or another upon this ex-
ercise."
Sc -
this pain there remain the pains of
ennui, the most insufferable of all
These are the miseries of the leisure
ones. They must work or suffer the
pargs uncomfortable of nothing to do.
Normally they do follow Neblcn S
splendid instinct of workmanship and
do something useful and are scienti-
fc, artistic, philosophic. religious.
And abnormally they give balls to the
monkeys.
They work abncrmally, in part be-
cause certain sorts of movements
have been labeled play and patrician
and certain other sorts have been
labeled work and outcaste That is
one reason why we like and dislike
them. And part of the dislike is
lack of ability. Some play is higher
caste than work, and some play is
easier than work.
Time was when none OF us could |
work. The human race was a child |
at play in desultory, dallying, spas
modic activities. 1t could sleep, eat.
laugh. but it could not work In the
beginning no one liked to work and
centuries OH centuries of enforced
toll have the flttest to work Leaned
to work and survived to work. The
original problem, says Lester Ward,
the captain of the sociologists, was
how to make men work
The human race has been radically
transformed in this respect The
modern industrious artisan or la
borer is unlike his primitive ancestor.
Compare him with the North Ameri-
can Indian for some little idea of this
gross Indifference. Compare him es-
pecially with those tribes that have
adhered to the tribal customs and
have adopted none CT the habits of
the Europeans.
Only those who have had consid-
cradle to do with these races realize
how impossible it is for them to do
anything that we call work The
.otal lack of power of application,
especially among the men, is an al
most universal characteristic. 1t is
he daily drudgeries Of the women
ok busy with the eternal feminine
'ound Of feeding and clothing and
giving birth to the world. incessantly
performed. that bear semblance to
he steadiness of modern labors Men
II the primitive type would be per-
ectly worthless in the industrial
:orld to-day Their productive
'ower in the economic sense would
c nil.
Was it Wizards wonders that
ausht man how to work? Did pri-
leval man sip potion that transfig- ;;
red silly King Dodo into an ener- 81,
etlc laborcr? 1t was the good gift ,
+ slavery-our power to work. 1t
IDS lHe SOclal MISSION or slavery, &C
ording to Ward, to convert mere ac-
witty into true labor. The aim of the =
race was to gain the max
mum advantage from the conquered. =
md the only permanent valuable be- =
)nging to the victims, as the ancient
ictors astutely saw, was their energy. 8
his energy must be used. :,
Men and women were enslaved and J..
ow must needs go On with unto =
ard tolls, not because they loved :,
1em nor because they could well =
ope with them, but because they :,
lust do or die. The lash ever was -
ear, and if the lash failed the slave =
as tortured, and if the tortures did ;,
OF suffice he was killed. !