It is certainly the "cue" of every patriot who loves his country.
The joy of work is well described by Cleveland Moffett in the article which has been mentioned. He says: "However disagreeable work may be, life without work is even more disagreeable. All who have tried it, no matter how rich they are, agree that enforced idleness ranks among the most cruel of tortures. Men easily die of it, as doctors know, who every day order broken-down neurasthenics in their middle fifties, back into the business or professional harness they have foolishly retired from."
The field of work for those women who are obliged or prefer to support themselves, is broadening hopefully. President Woolley of Mount Holyoke tells of seven of her recent graduates who took part lately in a symposium at the college, all of whom were engaged in paying work, but no one of whom was teaching, though that has hitherto been the main dependence of the wage-earning girl.
One of these young women was a physician; the others were respectively: a lawyer; an interior decorator; an editor of the children's department of a well-known periodical; a county agent in New York State; a member of the staff of the Children's Bureau at Washington; and the Secretary of the American Nurses' Association.
Such incidents make us confident that the varied talents of our bright girls will soon find as wide a scope as that enjoyed by our boys.
And it cannot be too strongly emphasized that regular daily work in early life is invaluable in establishing habits of industry.
A common expression used to be: "He has good habits," or "He has bad habits." We do not hear it so often nowadays, but the words are full of meaning. As a man's habits are, so is he.
"Could the young but realize," says Mr. Moffett, "how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state."
It is then that we mothers must mold them into the workers that we want them to be, and we must use the patriotic motive to quicken their love of industry. In certain states this motive is strengthened by laws compelling idle men to work.
Robert Gair is the founder of what is now the greatest "paper-products" business in this country, and probably in the world. It is located in the Borough of Brooklyn, New York City. There Mr. Gair, on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, made an address to his employees, a portion of which, as reported in the _Brooklyn Eagle_, was as follows: