Tlie lielations of Luhor and Cajjiial. 49 



and associations in whicli tliey live and work. It is thus 

 indirectly concenied witli all departments of productive in- 

 dustry. Under this head may be set down the mother's 

 nursing and training of her child, the teacher's efforts, the 

 services of the phj^sician, the lawyer, the minister of religion, 

 the author, the editor and the greater part of the labor 

 involved in the administration of government— all that is 

 commonly called professional and official service. 



This distinction of labor as directly or indirectly concerned 

 in production is much more simple and better every way than 

 the old distinction much insisted on by some writers on Po- 

 litical Economy and as strongly contested by others, of labor 

 as productive or unproductive. The term unproductive can 

 properl}^ be ap})lied to labor only when it is labor wasted 

 through misdirection, as when a wag paid a man ten cents 

 an hour to bail out the river, as its waters set up between two 

 boats, or as a luckless inventor may spend years of brain-work 

 and manual toil on a machine which has no practical use. 

 Certainly we may not say of Morse's years of study and work in 

 devising the elective telegraph, or of Webster's labor to bring 

 under sentence of the law the murderers of White, or of Coan's 

 preaching the gospel in the Sandwich Islands, it was unpro- 

 ductive labor. 



Much exertion is put forth for mere recreation, as in hunt- 

 ing, boating, ball-playing, etc. If this really recruits mind 

 and body, it pu.ts the laborer in better condition for produc- 

 tive toil, and so indirectly aids it. 



There are professions, such as those of the musician and the 

 actor, in which labor is put forth only to furnish a passing en- 

 tertainment — a moment's pleasure. Though after the enter- 

 tainment is over, nothing is left which can be laid up and 

 counted as wealth, yet is it for the time a real gratification, 

 and the sweet memory of it will abide. The true end of labor 

 is accomplished immediately. The satisfaction follows the 

 effort instantaneously. The hearer of Nilsson has his quid 



