Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1877 — Make the Work Light. [ARTICLE]

Make the Work Light.

There is no fair way to get along in life without work. The commands of God and of necessity join in the same demand tor earnest labor. It is folly for a father to seek to conceal from the boys the tact that there is work to be done. Better let them know it at once, and put them at it with a hearty example. Labor should not be a drudgery, but a pleasure; a boy should love his work, and if he does not his education is wrong or incomplete. There is no man so tired of work as the one who does least of it. It is because he has no appetite for it, and a very small amount gluts the market. Those who do the most, and most effective work, know how to make the work light. Teach the boys that honest labor pays. In our time there are a great many who have taken liberal stock in the theory tliat the man who does not work has a better life than the one who does. A young man who struts around through a neighborhood with good .clothes, for which he is probably in debt, and without a dollar in his pocket, has often been the curse of the He has nothing to do, and seem ato be happy. Thoughtless persons sometimes covet his ease, while they do not know the base shallowness of his brain, or they would shudder in the presence of such, a shadow of humanity. To teach our children that labor has a reward in the composition of conscience, chancier and independence, as well as in dollars and .dimes, is to make their work liaht.

Teach the boys that labor is honorable, and highly respectable in society, if you would make their work easy. Mary a boy plodding along in his labor, clad in coarse clothing, has felt in the presence of refinement .that there was a shame on his coarse garments and sturdy toil. He has studied how to escape it, and as he saw no way of escape his labor became heavy, and toil was a drudgery. Culture and refinement have seemed tp belong to professions and to a life of ease; and honor to those who were separated from the masses. This is unpairionable folly. The man of agricultural or mechanical toil is as near to God as any man of profession and is to .be honored 4is highly, if the same nobleness of character be main tained Honor to the commander on the field of heroism, but none the less to the patriot in the .ranks which cut like flames of fire in the armies of the sod. All honor to him who .both commands and fights. Give the a chance for mental and social culture, if you would make ‘heir work light. them to take time to read the paper.and the hook*; If so, they will do more .and nicer work, and do it cheerfully. Always have a good paper, and see that it is opened, even" in harvest. A short stoiy as a half column will be of cheer through a day’s toil. See that a good history and other books of interest and profit are brought home every once cn a while, It wil 1 make .work light; it will givq the world brightness and beauty that makes toil« pleasure. Every house ought to have a few volumes of poetiy and theology. Have not the children souls to feed as well as bodies ? How can their work be light it their souls are neglected, any more than if they have do food? Theology and poetry are not alone for the preacher or teacher. Has not the child of Che farmer or mechanic as good a right to know of God and His science, and of the finer strains of thought and symphonies of the poet ns another? Who would shut out the beauty of the world, of God, and oi the tenderer emotions of the soul from the homeef the laborer? Let not the parent do it • Let no one do it. Give a little time far recreation. Give a chance foi social end intellectual culture and you make the work light. If you feed th« boy on work all the time, it is very probable he will get the dyspepsia. Bettei givA him a little dessert once in awhile; tee will then take none the less of the former, bitt the latter will give it a relish and maka tZ. go better Religious Telescoge.