more or less definitely about one's vocation and liberalizes that. There is no job so menial but that it opens out into the broadest human interests. A certain ambitious youth was set to the unpromising and effeminate task of selling lace. But he was undaunted by the apparent narrowness of the field. Although having then nothing to do with the purchase of lace, he took to studying lace catalogues in order to acquaint himself with the various kinds and their uses, and with the various manufacturers, their prices and claims. Then, to enlarge his hold upon the field, he studied commercial geography and economics and thus acquainted himself with the commercial and industrial conditions under which lace is manufactured and distributed. And then, that he might be able to answer in a more intelligent way his customers' questions regarding the effect of certain dyes, the conditions of the shrinking, and the rotting of the fabrics, etc., he made a thorough study of chemistry. It is no wonder that in a few years this young man was no longer at the lace counter as a clerk, but the company's expert buyer of laces in Paris. He had not allowed his menial job to cramp him. Instead he had followed out the implications of the job until it had widened into the whole of human culture and endeavor, and it was this large human element that he brought each day to focus upon his work. Implications of one's job. And in this same way every job can open out into infinity until it becomes too big in its implications and too sacred for any man. The newspaper correspondent can acquaint himself with the grave social consequences of his work and the responsibilities which it involves, with the marvelous development of journalism, with the wonderful complexity and organization of the system to which he belongs. The blacksmith can inform himself on the physics and chemistry of the processes with which he deals, with the long history of the craft, and with the beautiful and inspiring literature that centers about it and idealizes it. Even the street cleaner or the bootblack can find enough of science, of history, of literature, of inspiring story centering about his work to make it full of dignity and of poetry. There is no job into which one can not go in a professional spirit. There is no job which does not open out into the whole of human culture. There is no job which of itself is of such a nature as to cramp and brutalize a man. The crying need is rather for men and women who are big enough adequately to man our so-called menial jobs. Says Carlyle: The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here in this poor miserable, hampered, despicable, actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal: work it out therefrom, and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself. In a similar vein Emerson, in opening his oration on "The . American Scholar," says: The planter, who is man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer instead of the man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney a statute book; the mechanic a machine; the sailor a rope of a ship. In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is man thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. Strength through spontaneous work. The work, then, in which the strong man must find his strength and his individuality must not consist in one little rill running through the desert. Rather it must consist in an immeasurable dam concentrating its force upon one definite outlet, and projecting its waters with that power which only a circumscribed outlet, fed by an unlimited store, can possess. The strong man must be one with his fellow craftsmen, one with his nation, one with all his fellow-men, one with the universe. Yet all this breadth of spirit he must not possess merely as an intellectual luxury, but must at every moment draw it to a focus through his life and concentrate it upon that work in the carrying through of which his life, his individuality, his selfhood consists. He must, that is, be not only a worker but a loyal worker - a worker who so supplements his vocational with avocational activities as to make him in the long run the most effective social servant; a worker who chooses his job not because he must but because the work calls him; a spontaneous, self-directed and self-impelled worker; a worker who labors in conscious and willing coöperation with his fellows; a worker who goes to his job, however menial in reputation, with an enthusiastic professional spirit, thus dignifying his work with the dignity of his own spirit. EXERCISES 1. Do you know people who have, as the result of “experience” with the world, gradually lost their idealism? Describe the process. 2. Is "The Man with the Hoe" a true picture of life? To what extent can we compensate, by idealizing through poetry, "the toilworn craftsman who laboriously conquers the earth and makes her man's"? 3. Give examples, from your own observation, of tasks which, although requiring sustained effort and leading to useful results, are yet done in such spirit as to make them essentially play. Do you believe that every task could be done in this spirit? 4. Illustrate how one can view his work as a means of expressing his own individuality and of thus realizing himself. Why is that worth while? 5. Is it true that if one left a bit of his work undone a gap Iwould be left in the world? Could not his neighbor do the neglected job? But who would then do the job which this neighbor would be obliged to leave undone in consequence? 6. Is a bit of work in which you pride yourself ever dehumanizing? Is it fatiguing? 7. What is the difference between vocation and avocation? What may constitute a schoolboy's avocation? To what extent should such avocational activities be engaged in by school boys? To what extent by out-of-school people? When does an avocation become a handicap? 8. Much has been said of late in defense of school training designed to fit the pupil for "enjoyment of leisure." Show how the pupil might be fitted also for "enjoyment of labor." 9. By trying it out with several unpromising jobs, test the truth of the statement that "There is no job which of itself is of such a nature as to cramp and brutalize a man." 10. Do you know of any persons, either from your own acquaintance or from history or literature, who, in spite of the fact that their work is of an unpromising nature, are yet "grand men," men of large human interests and sympathies? CHAPTER XXV LOYALTY IN the preceding chapter we were led to the conclusion that not merely in work, but in loyal work, is that strength to be found for which we have been inquiring. One's life must be focused in pursuit of some definite line of activity which makes up a consistent bit of work. But around this focus there must be grouped those larger interests and sympathies which make a man one with his fellows. His life must be inclusive, comprehensive, even universal in scope, yet all of its manifold content must point together into one channel of expression. Through the true individual, in the performance of his mission, all of the universe, then, gets expressed, and, in turn, through a cultivation of his larger human relations, the petty life of the individual is widened out until it becomes, in extent and significance, one with the universe. Loyalty. But we must not think of work here in the narrow sense in which the term is ordinarily understood. It must mean for us any consistent, purposeful activity. And, that we may avoid misunderstanding, we had better adopt, at this stage, a word with a wider and better connotation service. Or, better still, we may take over from a great recent philosopher the yet stronger term, loyalty. Loyalty, as Professor Royce defined it, is "the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause.' This cause may be whatever you please. It may be the cleaning, with scrupulous care, of the streets; the molding, as best you can, of iron plates; the designing, with |