Self Help; Conduct and Perseverance by Samuel Smiles
page 30 of 446 (06%)
page 30 of 446 (06%)
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blessing: only the idler feels it to be a curse. The duty of work
is written on the thews and muscles of the limbs, the mechanism of the hand, the nerves and lobes of the brain--the sum of whose healthy action is satisfaction and enjoyment. In the school of labour is taught the best practical wisdom; nor is a life of manual employment, as we shall hereafter find, incompatible with high mental culture. Hugh Miller, than whom none knew better the strength and the weakness belonging to the lot of labour, stated the result of his experience to be, that Work, even the hardest, is full of pleasure and materials for self-improvement. He held honest labour to be the best of teachers, and that the school of toil is the noblest of schools--save only the Christian one,--that it is a school in which the ability of being useful is imparted, the spirit of independence learnt, and the habit of persevering effort acquired. He was even of opinion that the training of the mechanic,--by the exercise which it gives to his observant faculties, from his daily dealing with things actual and practical, and the close experience of life which he acquires,--better fits him for picking his way along the journey of life, and is more favourable to his growth as a Man, emphatically speaking, than the training afforded by any other condition. The array of great names which we have already cursorily cited, of men springing from the ranks of the industrial classes, who have achieved distinction in various walks of life--in science, commerce, literature, and art--shows that at all events the difficulties interposed by poverty and labour are not insurmountable. As respects the great contrivances and inventions |
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