systematic training in moral cowardice.

It is interesting, at the stage of industrial warfare which the world
has now reached, to observe how Emerson, sixty years ago, discerned
clearly the absurdity of paying all sorts of service at one rate, now a
favorite notion with some labor unions. He points out that even when
all labor is temporarily paid at one rate, differences in possessions
will instantly arise: "In one hand the dime became an eagle as it fell,
and in another hand a copper cent. For the whole value of the dime is in
knowing what to do with it." Emerson was never deceived by a specious
philanthropy, or by claims of equality which find no support in the
nature of things. He was a true democrat, but still could say: "I think
I see place and duties for a nobleman in every society; but it is not to
drink wine and ride in a fine coach, but to guide and adorn life for the
multitude by forethought, by elegant studies, by perseverance,
self-devotion, and the remembrance of the humble old friend,--by making
his life secretly beautiful." How fine a picture of the democratic
nobility is that!

In his lecture on Man the Reformer, which was read before the
Mechanics' Apprentices' Association in Boston in January, 1841, Emerson
described in the clearest manner the approaching strife between laborers
and employers, between poor and rich, and pointed out the cause of this
strife in the selfishness, unkindness, and mutual distrust which ran
through the community. He also described, with perfect precision, the
only ultimate remedy,--namely, the sentiment of love. "Love would put a
new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies
too long.... The virtue of this principle in human society in
application to great interests is obsolete and forgotten. But one day
all men will be lovers; and every calamity will be dissolved in the