MAN AND NATURE 



The farm youth of intelligence does not remain a 

 farmer; he goes to the city, and we find him presently 

 at the head of a railroad or a bank, or practising law 

 or medicine. The more intelligent laborer becomes 

 finally a foreman, and no longer handles the axe or 

 sledge. We should think it grotesque were we to see 

 a man of intellectual power obstinately following a 

 pursuit that cost him habitual physical toil. When 

 now and then a Tolstoi offers an exception to this 

 rule, we feel that he is at least eccentric; and we may 

 be excused the doubt whether he would follow the 

 manual task cheerfully if he did not know that he could 

 at any moment abandon it. It is because he knows 

 that the world understands him to be only a dilettante 

 that he rejoices in his task. 



After all, then, judged by the modern practice, 

 rather than by the philosopher's precept, the old Hebrew 

 and Greek ideas were not so far wrong. Using the 

 poetical language which was so native to them, it might 

 be said that the necessity for physical labor is a curse 

 a disgrace. 



A partial explanation of this may be found in the 

 fact that the most uncongenial tasks are also the worst 

 paid, while the congenial tasks command the high 

 emoluments. Generally speaking there is no distinc- 

 tion between one laborer and another in the same 

 field except where the eminently fair method of piece 

 work can be employed. Even the skilled laborer is 

 usually paid by the day, and the amount he is to re- 

 ceive is commonly fixed by a Union regardless of his 

 efficiency as compared with other laborers of the same 



[27] 



