The necessity for each person’s working at some kind of honest labor,
is an obligation laid on us by the Creator; and it is a sin to live in
idleness, without a desire to work. We are also far more happy when we
are working than when we are idle; and this in itself ought to cause us
to follow a course of active industry.
As children are not able to work, they are supported for a number of
years by their parents; but when they grow up, they are expected to
go and work for themselves. Some young persons are so ignorant, or
have such bad dispositions, that they think it would be pleasant for
them to live always by their parents’ or others’ working for them,
and so remain idle all their days. They do not seem to care how much
they take from their fathers or their mothers, who are sometimes so
greatly distressed with the conduct of their children, that they die of
grief. This is very cruel and sinful conduct on the part of these young
persons, which no boy or girl should imitate. It is the duty of all who
have health and strength to labor for their own support.
In this large world there is room for all persons to work at some
kind of useful employment. Some are strong in body, and are fitted
for working in toilsome professions; others are less strong in body,
but have active minds, and they are suited for professions in which
little bodily labor is required. Thus, every young person chooses the
profession for which he is fitted, or which he can conveniently follow.
Young persons cannot, in all cases, follow the business they would
like; both boys and girls must often do just as their friends advise
them, and then trust to their own industry.
As some choose to be of one profession, and some of another, every
profession, no matter what it be, has some persons following it as
a means of living, and all assisting each other. The tailor makes
clothes, the shoemaker makes shoes, the mason builds houses, the
cabinet-maker makes furniture, the printer prints books, the butcher
kills animals for food, the farmer raises grain from the fields, the
miller grinds the grain into flour, and the baker bakes the flour into
bread. Although all these persons follow different trades, they still
assist each other. The tailor makes clothes for all the others, and
gets some of their things in return. The shoemaker makes shoes for
all the others, and gets some of their things in return; and, in the
same manner, all the rest exchange their articles with each other. The
exchange is not made in the articles themselves, for that would not be
convenient; it is made by means of money, which is to the same purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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