Proper Balance of Physical and Mental Labor
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are qualified to exercise greater intellectual strength than others, while
others are inclined to love and enjoy physical labor. Both of these
classes should seek to improve where they are deficient....
The minds of thinking men labor too hard. They frequently use
their mental powers prodigally; while there is another class whose
highest aim in life is physical labor. The latter class do not exercise
the mind. Their muscles are exercised, while their brains are robbed
of intellectual strength; just as the minds of thinking men are worked,
while their bodies are robbed of strength and vigor by their neglect to
exercise the muscles. Those who are content to devote their lives to
physical labor, and leave others to do the thinking for them, while they
simply carry out what other brains have planned, will have strength
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of muscle, but feeble intellects. Their influence for good is small in
comparison to what it might be if they would use their brains as well
as their muscles. This class fall more readily if attacked by disease.
The system is vitalized by the electrical force of the brain to resist
disease.
Men who have good physical powers should educate themselves
to think as well as to act, and not depend upon others to be brains for
them. It is a popular error with a large class to regard work as degrad-
ing. Therefore young men are very anxious to educate themselves to
become teachers, clerks, merchants, lawyers, and to occupy almost
any position that does not require physical labor. Young women regard
housework as demeaning. And although the physical exercise required
to perform household labor, if not too severe, is calculated to promote
health, yet they will seek for an education that will fit them to become
teachers or clerks, or will learn some trade which will confine them
indoors to sedentary employment. The bloom of health fades from
their cheeks, and disease fastens upon them, because they are robbed
of physical exercise and their habits are perverted generally. All this
because it is fashionable! They enjoy delicate life, which is feebleness
and decay.
True, there is some excuse for young women not choosing house-
work for employment, because those who hire kitchen girls generally
treat them as servants. Frequently their employers do not respect
them and treat them as though they were unworthy to be members
of their families. They do not give them the privileges they do the
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seamstress, the copyist, and the teacher of music. But there can be no