Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1876 — Intelligence and Labor. [ARTICLE]

Intelligence and Labor.

The old delusion that education is unfavorable to labor has almost past away. We no longer argue that the more a man thinks the less he is inclined to work, nor fear that the material interests of our country will suffer through intellectual cultivation. We acknowledge that a well educated man may work as well as his neighbor who can hardly sign his name; ana we even go a step further, and admit that a certain amount of education i 8 necessary to secure the best kind of labor. Yet we are still far from appreciating the full effect of mental progress upon industrial employments, or estimating the vast debt which the latter owe to the former. Intellectual culture, so far from unfitting men and women for exertion, actually excites them to it. Ignorance is the chief cause of indolence, and they are rarely separated. Savage tribes know but little of the benefits that Industry can secure, and, having scarcely a motive beyond that of appeasing hunger, are proportionately idle. Educate them—show them the superiority of a house to a wigwam, and of a comfortable dress to a blanket—and the industry which can secure these benefits immediately begins to expand. Each fresh accession of civilized life demands a fresh accession of labor; and in proportion as the results of industry become more and more apparent, industry itself will more and more develop» Education benefits industry, not alone by exciting and increasing it. It has an equally direct arjd powerful influence upon $t in raising and improving its quality. Bow is the soil made most productive? Not by an unthinkingroutineof drudgery upon it, bm! rather by a knowledge of its I nature and requirements; a study Of the | laws which govern vegetation; a thought-

I ful consideration of the relations which subsist between human needs and the powers ot agriculture to supply them. The suocess of manufactures is due almost wholly to the busy thoughts that are ever planning improvements; making new inventions; constructing machinery; combining and regulating labor, and adapting all the various means within reach to the highest and most productive ends. Commerce, too, owes its very existence to the same source. The more forethought, iudgment, discretion and knowledge the merchant possesses, the more certain we may be of his ultimate success. 1 The same is true of those occupations which we are accustomed to consider wholly manual. The mechanic or laborer who thinks out the meaning of his work, who enters into its spirit, who devises improved plans for its execution, and sends a thought with every stroke, has tenfold the value of one who only bestows physical strength upon his work. In the province of domestic service, every housekeeper knows that the great lack u of mental, not bodily, power. There are plenty of girls who have the requisite muscle, but few who can furnish the judgment, care, forethought and economy which are so needful in the kitchen and the nursery. Each laborer, whatever be his sphere of action, needs to understand the laws which govern his department of labor, and so to adapt his efforts as to conform with them. If he does not, his work must be to that extent unproductive and unsuccessful. These laws, however, are so entwined with those of other branches, and so dependent upon those of life in general, that a thorough education upon a broad basis is the best preparation for any kind of labor, and a continued mental discipline the best safeguard for its success. No industry can afford to slight the Intellect ; no man or woman who is a mere machine can ever give out his fall value to the world, no nation or community can ever emerge from indolence, except in so far as they emerge from ignorance. In this country, where the opportunities of education are so numerous and so widely spread, it wonld hardly seem necessary to urge their acceptance; yet it is of the highest importance to our national prosperity and personal wellbeing that we all recognize the intimate connection between the growth of intelligence and the value of labor. -Philadelphia Ledger.