The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1907-11-29
WE LIKE TO WORK.
It is the only True Pleasure in This Life.

conquered ever have been many.
Athens, when the census was taken
in the fourth century B. c., had 2l'-
600 citizens, $1,000 foreigners, but
400 900 slaves. 1t was the toiling
millions through thousands OF gen
erations that evolved the powers OF
labor for mankind, evolved the pow
ers of systematic sustained activities
which superseded the whimsical
movements of the primitive pastimes.
And after the race thoroughly had
acquired the habit of work it began
to like and love it. One OF II. Z.
Burners tiny tales chronicled the
courtship of pair who had fallen IL
love through the fatality OF proxim-
ity." And the Tale of the Shark
relates the fortunes of the beaver and
his enemy out in the storm, who
merely from nervousness, not from
good will, marched along shoulder
to shoulder. -
Men sadly marched shoulder to
shoulder merely from nervousness
and not from good will with their
work, and by the fatality and prox-
unity they acquired the habit OF work
and finally fell in love with it. And
after awhile when the habit became
especially strong they could not get
work that was hard enough. Wise
ones have intimated that the work
of the world sometimes would be bet
ter done if some of the reasonably
clever folk did not fancy they were
passing clever, and weep for more
worlds to conquer, and demand bet
ter, heavier, more wonderful work
than they we'll can do.
But meantime some sorts OF work
are losing caste. Imagine a child
playing with ball, tossing it hap
hazard as it will, and letting the ball
lie when wearied, which will be right
soon. To try taking aim would be
be irksomely difficult. But under
fear of a whip or torment he does
take aim and learns to pitch and
catch, and joins a baseball nine, and
by now he likes pitching fancy curves
and will have nothing to do with any
thing less difficult. That is para sc
of the opprobrium attached by us
naughty humans to certain sorts Of
toll
1t is all artificial, this distaste for
labor M. Adolphe Coste, the promi-
nent professor, has studied it all out
and he has shown the rest of us who
are less prominent in affairs of sOcio-
Iogy that employments which now are
exclusively followed by the working
class and which no gentleman of leis-
ure would deign to pursue were the
pride of the greatest men Of anti
putty.
Many of these were expert masons,
carpenters, tanners, forgers, dyers.
The men of to-day will not tan and
carpenter, but they will row and fish
and follow the chase for the satisfac-
tory reason that these are among
the privileged pursuits, whereas reap
ing corn and sowing are peasant oc-
equations which folk of high degree
are obliged to disdain, although their
natural faculties and capacities may
be prime for a farmers life.
All the race practices useful arts,
practiced them until their tolls took
caste and the lower castles fell into
disrepute and were permitted only
to people of low degree.
In and of itself there is nothing
odious in work which does not ex-
haust the system. Both body and
mind enjoy activities when they are
not fatigued with the effort to satisfy
the needs of existence. so long as
work is in repute, so long as it in
wolves no loss of caste, it will be
done"
Several illustrious men have
thought about this, Charles Fourier,
the father of Fourierism, perhaps
first Of all, and he begged us to find
way for redeemtng our pristine
pleasures in useful labor.-Michigan
Tra6eSman