Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne: Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of WorkRuskin, John
Philosophy
Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne: Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work
Ruskin, John
Social sciences; Working class -- Great Britain
73. Nor need you think that there would be anything in such a system
un-English, or tending to espionage. No uninvited visits should ever
be made in any house, unless law had been violated; nothing recorded,
against its will, of any family, but what was inevitably known of its
publicly visible conduct, and the results of that conduct. What else
was written should be only by the desire, and from the communications,
of its head. And in a little while it would come to be felt that the
true history of a nation was indeed not of its wars, but of its
households; and the desire of men would rather be to obtain some
conspicuous place in these honorable annals, than to shrink behind
closed shutters from public sight. Until at last, George Herbert's
grand word of command would hold not only on the conscience, but the
actual system and outer economy of life,
"Think the King sees thee still, for _his_ King does."
74. Secondly, above these bishops or pastors, who are only to be
occupied in offices of familiar supervision and help, should be
appointed higher officers of State, having executive authority over as
large districts as might be conveniently (according to the number and
circumstances of their inhabitants) committed to their care; officers
who, according to the reports of the pastors, should enforce or
mitigate the operation of too rigid general law, and determine
measures exceptionally necessary for public advantage. For instance,
the general law being that all children of the operative classes, at a
certain age, should be sent to public schools, these superior officers
should have power, on the report of the pastors, to dispense with the
attendance of children who had sick parents to take charge of, or
whose home-life seemed to be one of better advantage for them than
that of the common schools; or who, for any other like cause, might
justifiably claim remission. And it being the general law that the
entire body of the public should contribute to the cost, and divide
the profits, of all necessary public works and undertakings, as roads,
mines, harbor protections, and the like, and that nothing of this kind
should be permitted to be in the hands of private speculators, it
should be the duty of the district officer to collect whatever
information was accessible respecting such sources of public profit;
and to represent the circumstances in Parliament: and then, with
Parliamentary authority, but on his own sole personal responsibility,
to see that such enterprises were conducted honestly and with due
energy and order.
The appointment to both these offices should be by election, and for
life; by what forms of election shall be matter of inquiry, after we
have determined some others of the necessary constitutional laws.
75. I do not doubt but that you are already beginning to think it was
with good reason I held my peace these fourteen years,--and that, for
any good likely to be done by speaking, I might as well have held it
altogether!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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