488 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Juiy 9, 



Specialty in Country Life Considered. 



BY F. L. THOMPSON. 



On page 97, Mr. Abbott, in commenting on my statement 

 that general farming, as it actually exists, stultifies the mind, 

 says, "It is no more degrading to milk a cow," etc. I did not 

 say it was. Nor was the faintest intimation of such an idea 

 intended in that artl3le or in my thoughts. " Stultify " and 

 "drudge " do not imply moral debasement. 



" If farm life is so stultifying to man's intellectual life, 

 why is it that some of our best and ablest men come from the 

 farm ?" To get away from it, of course. That is where they 

 show their sense. They want specialty. 



"There is an intelligent way to milk a cow, clean a 

 stable," etc. Agreed ; but when such work continues all day 

 and every day, the mental part of the labor becomes infini- 

 tesimal. Result : Mental starvation, none the less real be- 

 cause often unconscious. 



" I find recreation in all of thfese things, and education, 

 too." One begins to wonder why Mr. Abbott is not farming. 

 There is nutriment in a lump of dirt, but we do not choose to 

 eat clay on that account. 



"If it were not for them, I should soon have to cease all 

 intellectual work." I am not talking about recreation, or the 

 daily constitutional, but about business. Earnestness and en- 

 thusiasm in the distraction of half-a-dozen equal occupations 

 cannot be attained in nearly the same degree as in one. Sub- 

 ordinated variety is the spice of life. 



" No necessary work is drudgery unless we make it so." 

 I have also heard it said, " Be virtuous and you will be 

 happy." I don't deny it. All that the quotation from Mrs. 

 Garfield amounts to is this : When there is an "inevitable 

 necessity " there is room for any.araount of sermonizing. But 

 when there is not an inevitable necessity there is a choice, 

 and that choice is governed by principles. 



"The most disagreeable work may become a certain 

 source of enjoyment, if looked at in the right light." Just ray 

 sentiments, and the " right light " is furnished by specialty. 

 The sense of fresh development, the quickened sympathy with 

 the relations of things, the thorough comprehension of what 

 is to be done, and other influences which can hardly be ex- 

 pressed in language, combine to make work of any kind a 

 pleasure. These influences in non-specialty are far inferior. 

 To say that they make no difference is to shut one's eyes to the 

 facts. 



We work for the sake of achieving objects, not primarily 

 for work's sake, and we might as well say so. That work is a 

 blessing, is not the maiu fact. 



Drudgery is not the work itself, but is a mental condition, 

 the protest of Nature against this false estimate of work. It 

 is almost a pathological fact. We do not cure dyspepsia by 

 preaching. To bear up against adverse circumstances is one 

 thing ; to control circumstances, another. Mr. Abbott con- 

 fuses the two. 



I agree with all that he says or quotes about disagreeable 

 work ; but I consider his application of it a fundamental mis- 

 take, one that has already caused untold misery. A certain 

 amount of drudgery to be overcome is a tonic ; an excess is 

 deadly. Much of our preaching is unconscious selfishness. 

 We forget half of our own experience, ignore the rest, and be- 

 cause we would be so comfortable if others felt as we now do, 

 we infer they ought to. 



The majority think it is enough to exercise the mind as 

 we do the body. Like animals, they eat, drink, work, and are 

 merry, and don't bother themselves about other than receptive 

 thought more than they have to. As long as they are not 

 conscious of mental hunger, they think they are not starving. 

 Others have found that different laws govern the exercise of 

 the mind ; that to be healthy, it must be progressive. The 

 former class may turn work into comfort ; ijut this one aims 

 to turn work into fresh achievement. " The best work," says 

 a recent editorial in The Dial, " is not, as a rule, done by 

 those who toil for the greatest number of hours or days, but 

 rather by those who so shape their lives as to maintain the 

 working period at its highest potency." 



On page 633 (1895) Mr. Abbott mentions several things 

 which " should fill to the brim the cup of human happiness," 

 but a growing mind is not one of them. If I had not read his 

 ideas on page 590 ( 1S95), which I think cannot readily be 

 carried out on non-special lines, I would be tempted to say 

 that he seems to be safe with the majority. 



The restlessness of the second class is exceedingly irritat- 

 ing to the first one, which cannot chew its cud in peace. It is 

 not backward about giving No. 2 a piece of its mind. It 

 says, " You are not like me, therefore you are a fool," or, 

 . " You shull not be different from me. I will not have it ;" or 



when, as sometimes happens, aspiration takes the form of 

 education, "Oh, want to be a gentleman, do you ? think your- 

 self too good for common folks ;" by which deliberate false- 

 hood, when directed against natural and worthy instincts, 

 there is no telling how many lives have been embittered. 



Mr. Abbott has come too near the implication of some- 

 thing like this, no doubt from good motives. But I wish he 

 would stop and think what it leads to. Some, undoubtedly, 

 are low enough to be "above" cleaning stables when neces- 

 sary, but plenty others avoid too great a portion of stable- 

 cleaning in their lives for no such reason, but because they 

 wrish to be men, and because life is too short, and human na- 

 ture too limited, to neglect a continuous and considerable 

 attention to the needs of the mind. Such unqualified talk, 

 from leaders of thought, is indeed discouraging. 



Yet in spite of ignorance and injustice, more and more 

 are leaving the ranks of the first-class and joining the second. 

 It is beginning to be seen that it is against Nature for the 

 majority to be where they are; that progress is the life-blood 

 of civilization ; that even perfection must keep moving "lest 

 one good custom should corrupt the world." 



Non-specialists necessarily belong to the first class. It is 

 all they can do to follow other men at a long distance behind, 

 when trying to do several things at once. Their inspiration, if 

 it comes at all, must come from work for work's sake. Some- 

 times it does. But does it, and will it, in the majority of 

 cases ? Human nature says no. 



The farmer's cup of happiness is to be filled to the brim, 

 with a mild dash of diluted theory for flavoring, by regarding 

 work as the end instead of the means. No wonder Mr. Abbott 

 makes a moral question out of this. It needs extraordinary 

 support. But we cannot deceive even ourselves with impunity. 

 Moral laxity inevitably follows moral falsity. 



Such principles preserve aristocracy. If it was the ex- 

 ception to find men without some individual superiority, snob- 

 bishness might die out. But why should not that be ? I do 

 not believe in any philosophy of life which does not include 

 the majority. Most men are naturally fitted to excel in some 

 one particular, and should have the opportunity to do so. 



Is not T. B. Terry a specialist ? Who supposes he devotes 

 one acre of land to one variety of potato, and does nothing 

 else? Who connects Edison with the phonograph only? 

 These are the only proper parallels to the study of one lan- 

 guage exclusive of others, or the dative case. A broad basis 

 of subsidiary knowledge is necessary for specialty to amount 

 to much, but it is none the less specialty, for all that. 



"A broad-minded man the specialist can never be." Mr. 

 Abbott seems to want to give the word " specialist " a very 

 attenuated meaning, and fight it out on that line. I protest. 

 I understand by the word " specialist " just what is understood 

 by it — a man who understands his busness well enough to de- 

 velop its applications, and who practices only what he thor- 

 oughly understands. This specialist is under no influence 

 whatever which narrows him more than the non-specialist. 

 The one practices one department thoroughly : the other, sev- 

 eral departments superficially. The influences are different, 

 to be sure, but I cannot comprehend by what sort of mental 

 gymnastics the non-specialist can be made out to have the ad- 

 vantage. It cannot be because he has several irons in the 

 fire, because by that line of reasoning if he studies 36 subjects 

 instead of three, be will be 12 times wiser. It is not because 

 the specialist is like a student who investigates the dative 

 case alone, because the great majority of money-making 

 specialists that we are talking about cannot know one thing 

 thoroughly without being familiar with a great variety of re- 

 lated subjects — more, in fact, than the average non-specialist 

 finds it worth while to bother with, in spite of his numerous 

 requirements. 



If, as is almost always the case, the specialist has more or 

 less acquaintance with other things which he might follow for 

 a livelihood, but does not, that does not make him a non- 

 specialist. He does one thing (and the best thing) at a time. 

 That is the main point. As a matter of fact, I have met many 

 more narrow-mined men among non-specialists than among 

 specialists. I wonder why. 



" The farmer who devotes all his energies to other things 

 and buys his honey usually has none, as he generally thinks 

 times too hard to buy honey." True at present. But consid- 

 ering the great quantities of fine extracted honey annually 

 sold at the same prices as syrup, it is rather due primarily to 

 false commercial conditions than to any disadvantage in not 

 producing one's own honey. 



"Children are crying" for it, and we want it "three 

 times a day, 365 days in the year." I quickly get sick and 

 tired of the finest honey if obliged to eat it at every meal, and 

 have met plenty others who are affected likewise. Is not a 

 little revision needed here? 



