Nobility of Labor

I call upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility of labor. It is heaven's great ordinance for human improvement. Let not that great ordinance be broken down...

Do not men toil? it may be said. They do, indeed, toil; but they too generally do it because they must. Many submit to it, as in some sort a degrading necessary; and they desire nothing so much on earth as escape from it. They fulfill the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit; fulfill it with the muscle, but break it with the mind. To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should fasten, as a chosen and coveted theatre of improvement. But so is he not impelled to do, under the teachings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in his idleness. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd...

It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed of toil, art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy work shop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand, scarred service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather stained garments, on which mother Nature has embroidered, midst sun and rain, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to Nature- it is impiety to Heaven- it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance.

Toil, I repeat.

Toil, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, the only true nobility

Labor is worship, labor is health. Let your great deeds be your prayer to God.
p 494
Pennsylvania School Journal - Google Books