Again, he believed that boys must not be afraid to lock horns with an obstacle. A difficult job may be their greatest blessing. Richardson coddled at home feels himself a weakling by the side of Morton whom difficulties have made self-reliant. William Frost, who begins a business career with good looks, good clothes, and parental influence, returns to his home in disgrace because he “disregards the claims of others, esteems labor drudgery, and expects recompense without service rendered”; while Arthur Lennox, who sets out from his Fryeburg home barefoot and penniless, his only inheritance “a strong arm and a mother’s blessing,” wins success by unflinching toil. “Hardship,” said Mr. Kellogg, “is a wholesome stimulant to strong natures, quickening slumbering energies, compelling effort, and by its salutary discipline reducing refractory elements.” The boy who is always dodging difficulties will make a gingerbread man. Only by grappling can we gain power to achieve. Only by having tough junks to split can we learn “to strike right in the middle of the knot.”
The value and dignity of labor is the ever recurring burden of these stories. They teach boys to work as well as to play. Through them all resounds the merry music of labor. The ring of the axe, the crack of the whip, the song of the teamster, the screech of the plane, the ring of the anvil, the swish of the scythe, the chirp of the tackle, the creak of the windlass, the shout of the stevedore--all in these books make a happy harmony and witness that man’s primal curse has become his choicest blessing. Mr. Kellogg believed with Carlyle that all work is divine, that to labor is to pray. Especially did he wish to get out of boys’ minds the false notion that only mental work is honorable. He thought that often it is as honorable to sweat the body as to sweat the brain. As honorable and as necessary; for he believed that it is only by keeping the lungs full of fresh air, and the pores open by perspiration, and the limbs strong by activity, that a man can keep his vision from being distorted. “The essence of hoe handle, if persistently taken two hours a day,” would, he believed, cure many diseases of the mind and heart. The devils of fretfulness and fault-finding are not always to be cast out with prayer and fasting. Often it requires labor in the fresh open air,--a good pull against the tide, a long ride on horseback, or an hour’s chopping with the narrow axe. Many a disheartened preacher who now mopes in his study and who “takes all his texts out of Jeremiah,” would get “Sunday’s harness-marks erased from the brain,” and preach glad tidings of great joy if he would only start the perspiration by healthful, outdoor exercise. Mr. Kellogg thought a boy should learn to work with his hands as well as with his brain. All wisdom, he knew well, is not in school and college. He appreciated the value of book learning; but democrat as he was and well acquainted with common people, he knew that an illiterate Jerry Williams or an Uncle Tim Longley can teach scores of valuable lessons to many a schoolman. The boy who is too lazy to do some of the practical duties of life, who thinks it disgraceful to work with his hands, can have no part or lot in his kingdom. His boys are always able “to cut their own fodder.” His ideal college boy is Henry Morton, who is a keen debater, a good writer, a lover of the classics and a lover of nature, but who, at the same time, can hew straight to the line, cut the corners of many a farmer, and take the heart of a tree from many a woodsman.