offices and stores, on sea-going craft of all kinds, and in the vast field
of land transportation, the race, as a rule, has had its education in
those elemental qualities which make organised society possible. When the
race goes to its work in the morning, it goes to its school; and the chief
result of its toil is not that which it makes with its hands, but that
which it slowly and unconsciously creates within itself. It is concerned
with the product of its toil; with soil, seed, or grain; with wood, paper,
metal, or stone; with processes and forces; but in the depths of the
worker's nature there is a moral deposit of habit, quality, temper, which
is the invisible moral result of his toil. The real profit of a day's work
in the world can never be estimated in terms of money; it can be estimated
only in terms of character.

The regularity, promptness, obedience, fidelity, and skill demanded in
every kind of work, skilled or unskilled, compels the formation of a
certain degree of character. No worker can keep his place who does not
develop certain moral qualities in connection with his work. Honesty,
truthfulness, sobriety, and skill are essential to the most elementary
success,--the getting of the bare necessities of life; and these
fundamental qualities, upon which organised society rests as on an
immovable foundation, are the silent deposit of the work of the world.
Through what seems to be the bondage of toil the race is emancipated from
the ignorance, the licence, and the dull monotony of savagery; through
what seems to be a purely material dealing with insensate things men put
themselves in the way of the most thorough moral training.

The necessity of working gives society steadiness and stability; when
large populations are freed from this necessity, irresponsible mobs take
the place of orderly citizens, and the crowd of idlers must be fed and
amused to be kept out of mischief. A man can never be idle with safety and