LESSON 114

LABOR

做 工

Horace Greeley,1811-1872, perhaps the most famous editor of America, was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, of poor parents. His boyhood was passed in farm labor, in attending the common school. and in reading every book on which he could lay his hands. His reading was mostly done by the light of pine knots. At fifteen he entered a printing office in Vermont, became the best workman in the office, and continued to improve every opportunity for study. At the age of twenty he appeared in New York City, poorly clothed, and almost destitute of money. He worked at his trade for a year or two, and then set up printing for himself. For several years he was not successful, but struggled on, performing an immense amount of work as an editor. In 1841 he established the “New York Tribune,” which soon became one of the most successful and influential papers in the country. In 1848 he was elected to Congress, but remained but a short time. In 1872 he was a candidate for the Presidency, was defeated, and died a few days afterward. Mr. Greeley is a rare example of what may be accomplished by honesty and unflinching industry. Besides the vast amount which he wrote for the newspapers, he published several books; the best known of which is “The American Conflict.”

Every child should be trained to dexterity in some useful branch of productive industry, not in order that he shall certainly follow that pursuit, but that he may at all events be able to do so in case he shall fail in the more intellectual or artificial calling which he may prefer to it. Let him seek to be a doctor, lawyer, preacher, poet, if he will; but let him not stake his all on success in that pursuit, but have a second line to fall back upon if driven from his first. Let him be so reared and trained that he may enter, if he will, upon some intellectual calling in the sustaining consciousness that he need not debase himself, nor do violence to his convictions, in order to achieve success therein, since he can live and thrive in another (if you choose, humbler) vocation, if driven from that of his choice. This buttress to integrity, this assurance of self-respect, is to be found in a universal training to efficiency in Productive Labor.

The world is full of misdirection and waste; but all the calamities and losses endured by mankind through frost, drought, blight, hail, fires, earthquakes, inundations, are as nothing to those habitually suffered by them through human idleness and inefficiency, mainly caused (or excused) by lack of industrial training. It is quite within the truth to estimate that one tenth of our people, in the average, are habitually idle because (as they say) they can find no employment. They look for work where it can not be had. They seem to be, or they are, unable to do such as abundantly confronts and solicits them. Suppose these to average but one million able-bodied persons, and that their work is worth but one dollar each per day; our loss by involuntary idleness can not be less than $300,000,000 per annum. I judge that it is actually $500,000,000. Many who stand waiting to be hired could earn from two to five dollars per day had they been properly trained to work. “There is plenty of room higher up,” said Daniel Webster, in response to an inquiry as to the prospects of a young man just entering upon the practice of law; and there is never a dearth of employment for men or women of signal capacity or skill. In this city, ten thousand women are always doing needlework for less than fifty cents per day, finding themselves; yet twice their number of capable, skillful seamstresses could find steady employment and good living in wealthy families at not less than one dollar per day over and above board and lodging. He who is a good blacksmith, a fair millwright, a tolerable wagon maker, and can chop timber, make fence, and manage a small farm if required, is always sure of work and fair recompense; while he or she who can keep books or teach music fairly, but knows how to do nothing else, is in constant danger of falling into involuntary idleness and consequent beggary. It is a broad, general truth, that no boy was ever yet inured to daily, systematic, productive labor in field or shop throughout the latter half of his minority, who did not prove a useful man, and was notable to find work whenever he wished it.

Yet to the ample and constant employment of a whole community one prerequisite is indispensable,—that a variety of pursuits shall have been created or naturalized therein. A people who have but a single source of profit are uniformly poor, not because that vocation is necessarily ill-chosen, but because no single calling can employ and reward the varied capacities of male and female, old and young, robust and feeble. Thus a lumbering or fishing region with us is apt to have a large proportion of needy inhabitants; and the same is true of a region exclusively devoted to cotton growing or gold mining. A diversity of pursuits is indispensable to general activity and enduring prosperity.

Sixty or seventy years ago, what was then the District, and is now the State, of Maine, was a proverb in New England for the poverty of its people, mainly because they were so largely engaged in timber cutting. The great grain-growing, wheat-exporting districts of the Russian empire have a poor and rude people for a like reason. Thus the industry of Massachusetts is immensely more productive per head than that of North Carolina, or even that of Indiana, as it will cease to be whenever manufactures shall have been diffused over our whole country, as they must and will be. In Massachusetts half the women and nearly half the children add by their daily labor to the aggregate of realized wealth; in North Carolina and in Indiana little wealth is produced save by the labor of men, including boys of fifteen or upward. When this disparity shall have ceased, its consequence will also disappear.

【中文阅读】

每个孩子都应该在某些富有成效行业的有益分支接受灵巧方面的训练，此举的目的并非意在他肯定能遵照职业规范，而是一旦他未能从事他心仪的需要投入更多智慧或人工的职业，无论如何都能予以补救。如果他愿意的话，还是让他努力成为医生、律师、布道者和诗人吧。但是，不要让他把成功寄托在工作上，而是如果他的推动力源自第一工作，那么在从事属于第二工作时会掉队的。要是他愿意的话，还是让他接受某些需要投入较多智力的职业方面的训练，假如推动力源于他自己的选择，在他的意识中灌输他不必贬低自己，这样也不会违背他的信仰，目的是从此便能取得成功。因为他能生活得很好，在另一个职业中（如果是他以更谦卑的姿态选择的话）也能如鱼得水。这个通向完善的扶壁，这种对自尊的把握，这在富有成效的工作所需要接受的效率方面的培训中非常普遍。

世界充满误导和虚度浪费的事情。但是，人类由于霜冻、干旱、虫害、冰雹、火灾、地震洪水而遭受的所有灾难和损失，与他们由于自身懒惰和无效率所带来的那些损失相比算不了什么，而懒惰和无效率则肇始于（或者说归咎于）缺少产业培训。相当保守地估计，我们当中有十分之一的人都已经习惯懒惰，因为（正如他们所说的）他们发现无事可做。他们希望做的工作自己找不到。他们似乎，或者说他们不能直面这样多的遭遇，而硬拉他们。假设平均来看一百万身强体壮的人，他们的工作每天仅值一美元，由于不情愿的懒惰我们每年的损失将不低于三亿美元。据我判断，每年实际上不少于五亿美元。假如他们受到适当训练，许多站着等待被雇用的人每天就能挣两到五美元。“有相当大的提升空间，”丹尼尔•韦伯斯特在答复一项关于年轻人刚从事法律工作的调查时指出。具备一种能力或技能的人，从男人到女人，绝对不会出现就业稀少现象。在这个城市里，有一万名女性始终从事每天少于五十美分的缝纫工作。然而，有多达两倍的有技能的缝纫工能够找到稳定的工作，在富裕家庭生活得很好，每天的收入不低于一美元，而且还提供膳食和住处。他是个手艺很好的铁匠，尚可的造水车木匠，还过得去的做四轮马车的工匠，还能刨木料，做篱笆，需要的话还能经营小农场，始终有工做，收入还不错；在他或她能管理图书或者教音乐，可是不晓得如何做其他事情，结果总是陷于非故意的懒惰和随之出现的赤贫危险中。总的来说，这种倾向很明显，没有哪个小伙子整个成年的后半段习惯于在地里或在店里终日劳作，他不想通过这种方式来证明自己是个有用的人，而是要找到不论何时都能善始善终的工作。

然而，对于整个社会不断涌现的就业大军而言，一个前提是必不可少的——工作的多变性已经建立，或者从此被自然化。仅有单一赢利手段的人，一律贫穷，并非由于职业选择错误所致，而是因为没有一种职业可以雇佣和使具有各种各样能力的男性和女性，老人和年轻人，健壮的人和身体衰弱的人得到报偿。因此，大规模砍伐树木和渔猎的地区易于拥有大量贫困人口，特别热衷于种植棉花或开采黄金的地区也是这样。对于维持活跃性和繁荣而言，工作的多样性是必不可少的。

六七十年前，从前被称为地区的，现在成了缅因州，在新英格兰的谚语里就是指这个地区的民众赤贫，主要因为他们绝大多数都从事木料加工的缘故。俄罗斯帝国盛产谷物，出口小麦的地区，也因为这个缘故百姓贫困，民风粗野。因此，马萨诸塞州的工业按人均来看要比北卡罗来纳州的工业生产率高得多，甚至比印第安纳州也高，一旦制造业在全国遍地开花，这种趋势才会停止，他们必定也必然会的。在马萨诸塞州，半数女性和将近一半的儿童都会通过日常劳动来增加实际财富；在北卡罗来纳州和印第安纳州，除了男人做工外，包括十五岁或以上的青少年，别的群体几乎不创造财富。当这种悬殊不再继续下去时，其后果也会随之消失。