DECLINE IN THE BIRTH-RATE 189 



workmanship in the public estimation. By example 

 and precept, by an appeal to the past history of nations, 

 they sought to enforce the doctrine of the dignity of 

 manual labour, to illustrate the beauty and interest of 

 craftsmanship, and to emphasize the moral lessons to 

 be obtained from the performance of accurate and 

 artistic handiwork. Had their views of life and labour 

 been more generally accepted, we should have escaped 

 from the conception of manual labour as something in 

 itself degrading — a conception which has proved such a 

 stumbling-block in the way of those who, unfitted for 

 the sphere of intellectual development in which they 

 find themselves placed, have disdained to exchange it 

 for the honourable and natural surroundings of good 

 manual work. As long as such an exchange is 

 associated with the sense of social catastrophe and 

 personal disgrace, so long will many of those born into 

 the more prominent intellectual classes, a sphere for 

 which they personally are unfitted, have to be kept 

 up artificially by the exertions of others. Much 

 unproductive labour is thus expended, and a great loss 

 to the community ensues in waste of wealth, time, and 

 happiness. Moreover, this interchange of spheres of 

 occupation is an integral part of any scheme by which 

 those suited to intellectual activity are brought into 

 positions where their abilities are best employed. 

 Indeed the idea of a social ladder is a false analogy, 

 productive of much ill-feeling ; we require to build 

 bridges^ with free passage from either side, where the 

 spirit in which work, whether manual or not, is per- 

 formed, and the moral effects of his occupation on the 

 workman, are the true criterions of success or failure. 



