All manual employment is considered degrading;
and those who are compelled to do it, try to conceal it. A few years
since, very respectable young men at our colleges, cut their own wood,
and blacked their own shoes. Now, how few, even of the sons of plain
farmers and industrious mechanics, have moral courage enough to do
without a servant; yet when they leave college, and come out into the
battle of life, they _must_ do without servants; and in these times
it will be fortunate if one half of them get what is called 'a decent
living,' even by rigid economy and patient toil. Yet I would not that
servile and laborious employment should be forced upon the young.
I would merely have each one educated according to his probable
situation in life; and be taught that whatever is his duty, is
honorable; and that no merely external circumstance can in reality
injure true dignity of character. I would not cramp a boy's energies
by compelling him always to cut wood, or draw water; but I would teach
him not to be ashamed, should his companions happen to find him doing
either one or the other. A few days since, I asked a grocer's lad to
bring home some articles I had just purchased at his master's.
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