Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1878 — Mr. Gladstone on Manual Work. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Gladstone on Manual Work.

Mr. Gladstone in a recent speech at Hawdrden said: “ But needlework is a great deal more than a common every-day act; it rises very high Indeed, almost into fine art; and if I am to speak of subjects connected with the means of subsistence, although needlework in its lower branches is the worst-paid labor in the whole country, yet needlework in its higher branches is very well paid indeed, and to you young persons who are practising or learning needlework, what I would advise, do not be content with practising it jin its lower forms, try and learn tne nature of embroidery, and sco wiiat you oan do in practising the higher forms of needlework. In the first place, it is an improving process, and, in the second, itis a gainful process, and generally I would advise that the people of this country--should give more attention thanjttey do toi raising hand labor of allkifids to the excellence of which it isserSeeptible “ They are too fond out of hand labor and gettinginto what -they call head labor—-that is to say, getting sufficiently iu>ftuunted with reading and casting up accounts perfrops-'to get into the lower class of jriefts. Ido not believe that there is a more distressed class w the country than that class, and I believe that a great number of people would do infinitely better for themselves and for society if they were oontent to keep much more than they do to the use of their hands and would try tp raise the character of the labor which they parform with their hands, because, pray remember this, that a great deal of tjhe very highest labor is labor; performed with the hands. “ Look at the labor of the painter, of the sculptor, and, not only so, but look at a. great many intermediate kinds of labor—hard labor which is st riel ly all dependent on an excellent hand. Now, there is a great deficiency of that kind of labor in this country. Go into the’study of a sculptoi in London and you *will find that the soulp-

tor, probably an Englishman, laobUged to have a great many asaistants/because working at the marble requires verv much to be done before the stage of finishing oomes, and these assistants are well paid; but if yon come to talk to them yon will find that in the large majority of oases they are not Englishmen at all, but Italians and Frenchmen—very oommonly Italians. What I want you to do is this—ndt to be in such a hurry to get into so low a class of head labor as copying-clerks or something of that kind. People should recollect tnat handicraft itself is capable of being raised to a very high description of art and of yielding a very high standard of remuneration. **l cannot tell you how anxious lam to impress that upon the mind of young people, and bow certain I feel that the lesson is one of great importance to the people of this country. Let them perform their work in the spirit x>f an artist; let them try to give it excellence and make it a thing that not only will sell, but as good as they can make it, as useful, as well put together, os well proportioned, as pleasing to the eye, as full of beauty as they can make it, and the more they try to do it the better they will be able to do it.”