s, time enough before we want it. So, the
carriage of everything which does not spoil by keeping may most
wholesomely and safely be done by water-traction and sailing-vessels; and
no healthier work can men be put to, nor better discipline, than such
active porterage.

* In order fully to utilize this natural power, we only require machinery
to turn the variable into a constant velocity--no insurmountable
difficulty.

131. (2d.) In employing all the muscular power at our disposal we are to
make the employments we choose as educational as possible; for a
wholesome human employment is the first and best method of education,
mental as well as bodily. A man taught to plough, row, or steer well,
and a woman taught to cook properly, and make a dress neatly, are already
educated in many essential moral habits. Labor considered as a
discipline has hitherto been thought of only for criminals; but the real
and noblest function of labor is to prevent crime, and not to be
Reformatory, but Formatory.

132. The third great principle of employment is, that whenever there is
pressure of poverty to be met, all enforced occupation should be directed
to the production of useful articles only; that is to say, of food, of
simple clothing, of lodging, or of the means of conveying, distributing,
and preserving these. It is yet little understood by economists, and not
at all by the public, that the employment of persons in a useless
business cannot relieve ultimate distress. The money given to employ
riband-makers at Coventry is merely so much money withdrawn from what
would have employed lace-makers at Honiton; or makers of something else,
as useless, elsewhere. We must spend our money in some way, at some
time, and it cannot at any time be spent without employing somebody. If
we gamble it away, the person who wins it must spend it; if we lose it in
a railroad speculation, it has gone into some one else's pockets, or
merely gone to pay navies for making a useless embankment, instead of to
pay riband or button makers for making useless ribands or buttons; we
cannot lose it (unless by actually destroying it) without giving
employment of some kind; and, therefore, whatever quantity of money
exists, the relative quantity of employment must some day come out of it;
but the distress of the nation signifies that the employments given have
produced nothing that will support its existence. Men cannot live on
ribands, or buttons, or vel