Social problems; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
Manual labor and a high degree of intelligence are by no means
incompatible, but on the contrary, must be associated, in order to
achieve great or brilliant results. It is true, however, that the
physical wants of man must first be supplied before you can proceed
successfully with the cultivation of his intellectual powers. The fact
is every day exemplified that bread is much easier gained by an
intelligent than by an ignorant laborer. Whatever faith may do, it is
certain that science and labor must be combined if we would either
tunnel or "remove mountains;" and though native talent may have been
distributed with more liberality to some than to others, all are under
the highest obligations to improve such as they have, whether it be one
talent or twenty talents.
The farmer, the mechanic, the merchant, and even the busy housewife,
have more or less leisure hours,--long winter evenings, holidays, and
sabbath days, amounting to nearly half a lifetime,--which might with
great profit be employed in the acquisition of useful knowledge through
the medium of choice books and interchange of thought. Indeed, almost
every one who has received a common-school education may so improve the
fragments of time which fall in his way as to acquire in the course of
an ordinary lifetime a pretty thorough acquaintance with the sciences,
and with general literature.
Though our leisure hours may seem too few to be worth improving, yet it
is by saving pennies that we accumulate wealth. Surprising as it may
seem, there are within the allotted age of man ten years of sabbaths
when taken in the aggregate,--ample time, one would suppose, for
perfecting, in a good degree at least, his intellectual and moral
culture. If mankind were as orthodox in their actions as they profess to
be in their creeds, the moral regeneration of the world would soon be
accomplished. One of the most formidable barriers in the way of human
advancement is the faith we have derived, not from revelation, but from
the blind interpretation of it. A true theology and a sound philosophy
can never come in conflict. In this enlightened age, it is absurd to
expect that Science will confine her inquiries within the circumference
of a circle, or so modify her annunciations of truth as to coincide with
the mystical traditions which have been handed down to us from a remote
antiquity.
As an encouragement to the friends of popular education, the fact should
not be overlooked that the masses have been to a great extent relieved
from the necessity of constant toil by the introduction of modern
machinery. In fact, genius has conquered time, and given time to the
masses. It has broken the fetters that bound them, and thus afforded
them leisure for self-culture, social intercourse, and the investigation
of truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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