leisure, and what may be spared of his earnings, to the culture of
himself and his family, to the best books, to the best teaching, to
pleasant and profitable intercourse, to sympathy and the offices of
humanity, and to the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art.
Unhappily, the laborer, if prosperous, is anxious to ape the rich man,
instead of trying to rise above him, as he often may, by noble
acquisitions. The young in particular, the apprentice and the female
domestic, catch a taste for fashion, and on this altar sacrifice too
often their uprightness, and almost always the spirit of improvement,
dooming themselves to ignorance, if not to vice, for a vain show. Is
this evil without remedy? Is human nature always to be sacrificed to
outward decoration? Is the outward always to triumph over the inward
man? Is nobleness of sentiment never to spring up among us? May not a
reform in this particular begin in the laboring class, since it seems
so desperate among the more prosperous? Cannot the laborer, whose
condition calls him so loudly to simplicity of taste and habits, take
his stand against that love of dress which dissipates and corrupts so
many minds among the opulent? Cannot the laboring class refuse to
measure men by outward success, and pour utter scorn on all pretensions
founded on outward show or condition? Sure I am that, were they to
study plainness of dress and simplicity of living, for the purpose of
their own true elevation, they would surpass in intellect, in taste, in
honorable qualities, and in present enjoyment, that great proportion of
the prosperous who are softened into indulgence or enslaved to empty
show. By such self-denial, how might the burden of labor be lightened,
and time and strength redeemed for improvement!

Another cause of the depressed condition of not a few laborers, as I
believe, is their ignorance on the subject of health. Health is the
working man's fortune, and he ought to watch over it more than the
capitalist over his largest investments. Health lightens the efforts
of body and mind. It enables a man to crowd much work into a narrow
compass. Without it, little can be earned, and that little by slow,
exhausting toil. For these reasons I cannot but look on it as a good
omen that the press is circulating among us cheap works, in which much
useful knowledge is given of the structure, and functions, and laws of
the human body. It is in no small measure through our