The career of industry which the nation has pursued, has also
proved its best education. As steady application to work is the
healthiest training for every individual, so is it the best
discipline of a state. Honourable industry travels the same road
with duty; and Providence has closely linked both with happiness.
The gods, says the poet, have placed labour and toil on the way
leading to the Elysian fields. Certain it is that no bread eaten
by man is so sweet as that earned by his own labour, whether bodily
or mental. By labour the earth has been subdued, and man redeemed
from barbarism; nor has a single step in civilization been made
without it. Labour is not only a necessity and a duty, but a
blessing: only the idler feels it to be a curse. The duty of work
is written on the thews and muscles of the limbs, the mechanism of
the hand, the nerves and lobes of the brain--the sum of whose
healthy action is satisfaction and enjoyment. In the school of
labour is taught the best practical wisdom; nor is a life of manual
employment, as we shall hereafter find, incompatible with high
mental culture.
Hugh Miller, than whom none knew better the strength and the
weakness belonging to the lot of labour, stated the result of his
experience to be, that Work, even the hardest, is full of pleasure
and materials for self-improvement.
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