BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 211 



in science, some others in art, and others again in some 

 of the numberless branches of the production of wealth. 

 But, whatever the occupations preferred by every one, 

 every one will be the more useful in his own branch if 

 he is in possession of a serious scientific knowledge. 

 And, whosoever he might be scientist or artist, physi- 

 cist or surgeon, chemist or sociologist, historian or poet 

 he would be the gainer if he spent a part of his life in 

 the workshop or the farm (the workshop and the farm), 

 if he were in contact with humanity in its daily work, 

 and had the satisfaction of knowing that he himself 

 discharges his duties as an unprivileged producer of 

 wealth. How much better the historian and the soci- 

 ologist would understand humanity if they knew it, not 

 in books only, not in a few of its representatives, but as 

 a whole, in its daily life, daily work, and daily affairs! 

 How much more medicine would trust to hygiene, and 

 how much less to prescriptions, if the young doctors were 

 the nurses of the sick and the nurses received the educa- 

 tion of the doctors of our time! And how much the 

 poet would gain in his feeling of the beauties of nature, 

 how much better would he know the human heart, if 

 he met the rising sun amidst the tillers of the soil, him- 

 self a tiller ; if he fought against the storm with the 

 sailors on board ship ; if he knew the poetry of labour 

 and rest, sorrow and joy, struggle and conquest ! Greift 

 nur hinein tn's voile Menschenleben ! Goethe said ; Ein 

 jedcr lebfs nicht vielen isfs bekannt* But how few 

 poets follow his advice 1 



The so-called division of labour has grown under a 

 system which condemned the masses to toil all the 

 day long, and all the life long, at the same wearisome 

 kind of labour. But if we take into account how few 

 are the real producers of wealth in our present society, 

 and how squandered is their labour, we must recognise 

 that Franklin was right in saying that to work five hours 

 a day would generally do for supplying each member 



