Discontent With Work

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Feb 25, 1904

Discontent With Work

THAT there is much discontent with work among the so-called middle classes in America is due in a large part to the pampering of children, to the supplying of their natural and artificial wants, and to the sentimental idea that “their day of toil will come soon enough.” In general, work is not a curse, but a blessing — a positive means of grace. One can hardly begin too early to impress upon children lessons of self-help by tasks appropriate to their age and forces, and to beget in them scorn of idleness and of dependence on others. To do this is to make them happy through the self-respect which comes with the realization of power, and thus to approximate Tennyson’s goal of man: “Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control.”—The Century.