The Dishonor of Labor. The fundamental, essential cause of slavery and its concomitants, ignorance, degradation and suffering on the one side, as of idleness, prodigality and luxury-born disease on the other, is a false idea of the nature and offices of Labor. Labor is not truly a curse, as has too long been asserted. It only becomes such through human perverseness, misconception and sin. It was no curse to the first pair in Eden, and will not be to their descendants, whenever and wherever the spirit of Eden shall pervade them. It is only a curse because too many seek to engross the product of others' work, yet do little or none themselves. If the secret were but out, _that no man can really enjoy more than his own moderate daily labor would produce_, and _none can truly enjoy this without doing the work_, the death-knell of Slavery in general--in its subtler as well as its grosser forms--would be rung. Until that truth shall be thoroughly diffused, the cunning and strong will be able to prey upon the simple and feeble, whether the latter be called slaves or something else. [Illustration: Horace Greeley. (Engraved by J. C. Buttre.)] The great reform required is not a work of hours nor of days, but of many years. It must first pervade our literature, and thence our current ideas and conversation, before it can be infused into the common life. Meanwhile, it would be well to remember that-- Every man who exchanges business for idleness, not because he has become too old or infirm to work, but because he has become rich enough to live without work; Every man who educates his son for a profession, rather than a mechanical or agricultural calling, not because of that son's supposed fitness for the former rather than the latter, but because he imagines Law, Physic or Preaching, a more respectable, genteel vocation, than building houses or growing grain; Every maiden who prefers in marriage a rich suitor of doubtful morals or scanty brains to a poor one, of sound principles, blameless life, good information and sound sense; Every mother who is pleased when her daughter receives marked attention from a rich lawyer or merchant, but frowns on the addresses of a young farmer or artisan of slender property, but of well-stored mind, good character and industrious, provident habits; Every young man who, in choosing the sharer of his fireside and the future mother of his children, is less solicitous as to what she is good for, than as to how much she is worth; Every youth who is trained to regard little work and much recompense--short business-hours and long dinners--as the chief ends of exertion and as assurances of a happy life; Every teacher who thinks more of the wages than of the opportunities for usefulness afforded by his or her vocation;