W. At the conclusion of your study of this text-book, make a list of the titles that you think would be appropriate for it. Which one is most fitting? WORK BY HENRY VAN DYKE Let me but do my work from day to day, This work can best be done in the right way." Then shall I see it not too great, nor small, To suit my spirit and to prove my powers; Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring hours, And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall, At eventide, to play and love and rest; Because I know for me my work is best. Work! WORK: A SONG OF TRIUMPH BY ANGELA MORGAN Thank God for the might of it, The ardor, the urge, the delight of it- Work! Thank God for the pride of it, For the beautiful, conquering tide of it, And what is so strong as the summons deep, Work! Thank God for the pace of it, For the terrible, keen, swift race of it; Fiery steeds in full control, Nostrils a-quiver to greet the goal. Work! Thank God for the swing of it, For the clamoring, hammering ring of it, On the mighty anvils of the world. Rending a continent apart, To answer the dream of the Master heart. Thank God for a world where none may shirkThank God for the splendor of work! KEEP ON WORKING BY RICHARD EUGENE BURTON HEALTH, work, and religion are the three things which make life least a bore and most a blessing. Nor need work apologize to the other two. Work of the right kind conduces to health and becomes religion; hence the Scriptural commendation of good workmen by Solomon: "They shall maintain the fabric of the world, and in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer." It was Burke, I believe, who with this in mind offered the advice: "Work, work, and never despair; but even if you do despair, keep on working." He knew it for a chief antidote against hopelessness. Ruskin once said that there were three desiderata for a happy life: congenial work, not too much of it, and a fair return for one's labor. As to this last, he did not mean a mere reward in money, but a sense in the worker that his product is of use, of value to fellow-men, that he has not in this sense labored in vain. The return may come in the respect of the community, its readiness to intrust him with some undertaking of importance to the general weal -in this, rather than in the sum he is paid. The big thing is the consciousness in the worker that he is a help, not a hindrance, to the social machine; that he makes something that has beauty or utility or, better yet, both. The number of those who work in a way to illustrate Ruskin's ideal makes but a small fraction of the great army of workers. Consider the misfits, for one thing. It is astonishing how many folk will say to you, "My business is merely a manner of money-getting. It is distasteful to me in the extreme, and I would get out of it to-morrow if I could. My pleasure comes from the hours outside my work." What a pity this is, for if a human being has any right, it is the right of congenial employment, the chance to do what he is interested in, that which stimulates his faculties and draws out his best endeavor. It is only by doing such work that he becomes of Taken from Burton's Little Essays in Literature and Life, by permission of The Century Co. |