The Harvest of RuskinGraham, John W. (John William)
Religion
The Harvest of Ruskin
Graham, John W. (John William)
Ruskin, John, 1819-1900
§ XVI. “We have much studied, and much perfected, of late, the great
civilized invention of the Division of Labour; only we give it a false
name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the
men:--Divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments and
crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is
left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts
itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a
good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we
could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,--sand
of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discussed what it
is--we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the great
cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their
furnace blast, is all in very deed for this--that we manufacture
everything there except men--we blanch cotton and strengthen steel and
refine sugar and shape pottery--but to brighten, to strengthen, to
refine or to reform a single living spirit, never enters into our
estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our
myriads can be met only ... by a right understanding on the part of all
classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and
making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience or
beauty or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the
workman, and by equally determined demand for the products and results
of healthy and ennobling labour.”
§ XVII. “And how, it will be asked, are these products to be recognized,
and this demand to be regulated? Easily: by the observance of three
broad and simple rules:
“1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely
necessary, in the production of which Invention has no share.
“2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some
practical or noble end.
“3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except for the
sake of preserving records of great works.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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