§ 22. What length and severity of labor may be ultimately found
necessary for the procuring of the due comforts of life, I do not know;
neither what degree of refinement it is possible to unite with the
so-called servile occupations of life: but this I know, that right
economy of labor will, as it is understood, assign to each man as much
as will be healthy for him, and no more; and that no refinements are
desirable which cannot be connected with toil.
I say, first, that due economy of labor will assign to each man the
share which is right. Let no technical labor be wasted on things useless
or unpleasurable;[8] and let all physical exertion, so far as possible,
be utilized, and it will be found no man need ever work more than is
good for him. I believe an immense gain in the bodily health and
happiness of the upper classes would follow on their steadily
endeavoring, however clumsily, to make the physical exertion they now
necessarily take in amusements, definitely serviceable. It would be far
better, for instance, that a gentleman should mow his own fields, than
ride over other people's.
§ 23. Again, respecting degrees of possible refinement, I cannot yet
speak positively, because no effort has yet been made to teach refined
habits to persons of simple life.
The idea of such refinement has been made to appear absurd, partly by
the foolish ambition of vulgar persons in low life, but more by the
worse than foolish assumption, acted on so often by modern advocates of
improvement, that "education" means teaching Latin, or algebra, or
music, or drawing, instead of developing or "drawing out" the human
soul.
It may not be the least necessary that a peasant should know algebra, or
Greek, or drawing. But it may, perhaps, be both possible and expedient
that he should be able to arrange his thoughts clearly, to speak his own
language intelligibly, to discern between right and wrong, to govern his
passions, and to receive such pleasures of ear or sight as his life may
render accessible to him. I would not have him taught the science of
music; but most assuredly I would have him taught to sing. I would not
teach him the science of drawing; but certainly I would teach him to
see; without learning a single term of botany, he should know accurately
the habits and uses of every leaf and flower in his fields; and
unencumbered by any theories of moral or political philosophy, he should
help his neighbor, and disdain a bribe.
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