ii8 EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN 



Those who know this village life often speak 

 of hardship, but never of discontent. Nor can 

 it be truly said that the genuine village people 

 are lazy. He who passes that way at evening 

 will see the village elders settling village affairs, 

 under a great peepul tree, but he will find the 

 able-bodied hard at work, and these will continue 

 to work on as long as they are able to see. 

 Suppose the carpenters of a large village to have 

 in hand the construction of a number of carts ; 

 then no doubt if one set of men made the naves 

 of wheels and nothing else, another set the felloes 

 and nothing else, a third set of men the spokes, 

 while other carpenters were limited to the pole, 

 and others to a particular part of the body of the 

 cart, then interest in the day's labour would be 

 reduced to nothing ; and if this were the practice, 

 not of a day or a week, but of a life, then no 

 doubt there would creep in weariness and dis- 

 content, from which the workmen in the villages 

 are now free ; and are thus free because they are 

 not deprived of a real interest in their work ; 

 they can see always, when it is reached, the 

 whole result of their varying labours, the com- 

 pletion of a design, the consequence of thinking 

 while they are working, instead of working 

 along numbly without thought. 



Most of the large towns in Europe can furnish 

 evidence that where the workman has a vital 

 interest in his work, though the work be of one 

 kind only, that work has been a mainspring of 

 life, and not a cause of discontent. It is but 

 necessary to enter some of the cathedrals and 



