was not the muster that created the companionship; that only revealed it. In the company we got the touch of the elbow and the cadenced step. Why cannot we have them in civil life, with all those who love our civil institutions? They are needed. They give strength and security as well as fellowship. But with all this good disposition, in spite of the common interests that bind us together, the observant philanthropist and patriot is forced to admit that the seams which have marred the face of the social landscape seem to be widening into chasms. If these gulfs are to be filled, we must establish dumps on both sides of them. It will aid the work, if those on either side use the bridges to get a view of it from the other side. it What are the natural rights of man? The old declaration says that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a fine summary. It sets the feet of a man in a larger place. They are said to be God's endowment, and it follows that they are inalienable. He gave me life, and I have no more right to sell it or throw away than you have to take it; no more right to alienate my liberty than you have to rob me of it. It is quite as contrary to natural right to prevent me from working as to force me to work when I don't choose. If a greater success has been attained, envy is ignoble, and malice a crime. The indiscriminate denunciation of the rich is mischievous. It perverts the mind, poisons the heart, and furnishes excuse for crime. It is a most wholesome and saving fact in the United States, that the people so generally reject the teachings of anarchy. The workman is a producer; the anarchist is a destroyer, and fellowship is impossible. I would that there were fewer very rich men and fewer very poor men; but it would not help but greatly hurt, to take by force from the one what he has honestly acquired and bestow upon the other what he has not earned. We should destroy thrift, enterprise, industry; for men will not labor unless they can enjoy the fruit of their labors. We should destroy self-respect, manliness, personal pride; for he only feels himself a man, who eats his bread in the sweat of his brow, and not in another man's favor. We see each other so seldom, our touch is so casual, that we do not understand each other's ways. It takes an earthquake, a famine, or a flood to get our attention. But there is no work that requires more thought or is more worthy of doing, than the work of burning the barriers of misconception and prejudice which now separate men. Benefactions are good for those who are past helping themselves. If the seamstress, when she leaves a good woman's house, takes with her the feeling that she may come back, if in perplexity or trouble, it is worth more to her than her wages. We need to get rid of the idea that the payment of stipulated wages entitles us to a receipt in full. In full of wages? Yes, but not in full of obligation ! You are bound to make the employment as safe and healthful as its nature will permit. Society has awakened to interest in this matter, and laws have mitigated some of the needless perils of labor. These reforms should be made of good will and not of law. We owe it to our employees that they shall not be abused in their person or in their self-respect. Foremen, not "bosses," should be set over them. Discipline? Yes, but no nagging! Reproof? Yes, but no damning! No employee should ever be compelled to choose between pocketing an insult and pocketing his wages. He should be required to act like a man, and be treated as one. If it is honorable to employ a man to do a particular thing, it must be honorable to do it. The late Senator Stanford would not have a swearing man about his stables at Palo Alto. He required that even his horses should be treated with respect. We should be under special restraints not to speak harshly or to act with injustice toward one who cannot retort or resent. No blood follows the blow: the hemorrhages are internal; but a spring of hatred has been opened. If we would have work well done, we must let the man see that he is not degraded in our opinion by doing it; that, indeed, commendation as well as wages are due the faithful worker. God does not esteem the gold and the glory of heaven enough for His servants. He crowns them with the benediction, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" And here, a man whose work praises him, should not miss a man to praise his work. The only way in this free land to be assured of one's rights is freely and generously to acknowledge other people's rights. 11. NO EXCELLENCE WITHOUT LABOR. THE moral and intellectual education of every individual must be chiefly his own work. Rely upon it that the ancients were right, that in morals and in intellect we give the final shape to our own fortunes. How else could it happen that young men who have had precisely the same opportunities, should be continually presenting us with such different results, and rushing to such opposite destinies ? Differences of talent will not solve it, because that very difference is often in favor of the disappointed candidate. You shall see issuing from the halls of the same college, nay, sometimes from the bosom of the same family, — two young men, of whom the one shall be admitted to be a genius of high order, the other scarcely above the point of mediocrity; and yet you shall see the former sinking and perishing in poverty, obscurity, and wretchedness, while, on the other hand, you shall observe the latter -plodding his slow but sure way up the hill of life, gaining steadfast footing at every step, and mounting at length to eminence and distinction, an ornament to his family, a blessing to his country. Now, whose work is this? Manifestly their own. They are the architects of their respective fortunes. The best seminary that can open its portals to you, can do no more than afford you the opportunity of instruction. It must depend, at last, upon yourselves, whether you will be instructed or not, or to what point you will push your education. It may be declared as the result of observation that it is a settled truth that there is no real excellence without great labor. This is a fiat from which no power of genius can absolve you. Genius, unexerted, is like the poor moth that flutters around the candle, till it scorches itself to death. If genius be desirable at all, it is only of that great and magnanimous kind, which, like the condor of South America, pitches from the mountains of Chimborazo above the clouds, and sustains itself at pleasure in that empyreal region, with an energy rather invigorated than weakened by the effort. It is this capacity for high and continued exertion, this vigorous power of profound and searching investigation, this widespreading comprehension of mind, and these long reaches of thought that "Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, This is the prowess, and these the hardy achievements, which are to enroll your names among the great men of earth. WILLIAM WIRT. 12. LABOR HOURS HAVE LIMITS.1 If we consider man, in a commercial point of view, as a machine for productive labor, let us not forget what a piece of mechanism he is, how "fearfully and wonderfully made." If we have a fine horse, we do not use him exactly as a steam-engine, and still less should we use a man so, especially in his younger years. The depressing labor that begins early in life and is continued too long, every day, enfeebles his body, enervates his mind, weakens his spirit, overpowers his understanding, and is incompatible with any good or useful degree of education. A state of society in which such a system prevails, will inevitably, and in no short space, feel its baleful effects. What is it which makes one community more prosperous and flourishing than another? Not the soil; not its climate; not its mineral wealth, its natural advantages, its ports, or its great rivers. Is it anything in the earth, or in the air, that makes Scotland a richer country than Egypt; or Batavia, with its marshes, more prosperous than Sicily? No! but the Scotchman made Scotland what she is; and Dutchmen raised their marshes to such eminence. Look to America! Two centuries ago it was a wilderness of buffaloes and wolves. What has caused the change? Is it her rich mould? Is it her mighty rivers? Is it her broad waters? No! Her plains were then as fertile as now; her rivers were as numerous! Nor was it any great amount of capital that the emigrants carried with them. They took a mere pittance. What is it then that has effected the change? It is simply this. You have placed the Englishman instead of the red man upon the soil; and the Englishman, intelligent and energetic, cut 1 Written in 1846, but never more timely than now. |