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Chapter 24—Manual Training
At the Creation, work was appointed as a blessing. It meant
development, power, happiness. The changed condition of the earth
through the curse of sin has brought a change in the conditions of
work, yet though now attended with anxiety, weariness, and pain, it
is still a source of happiness and development. And it is a safeguard
against temptation. Its discipline places a check on self-indulgence,
and promotes industry, purity, and firmness. Thus it becomes a part
of God’s great plan for our recovery from the Fall.
Young people should be led to see the true dignity of work.
God is a constant worker. All things in nature do their allotted
work. Action pervades the whole creation, and in order to fulfill our
mission we, too, must be active.
We are workers together with God. He gives us the earth and
its treasures, but we must adapt them to our use and comfort. He
causes the trees to grow, but we prepare the timber and build the
house. He has hidden in the earth the gold and silver, the iron and
coal, but only through work can we obtain them.
We should show young people that while God has created and
constantly controls all things, He has endowed us with a power not
wholly unlike His. To us has been given a degree of control over
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the forces of nature. As God called forth the earth in its beauty out
of chaos, so we can bring order and beauty out of confusion. And
though all things are now marred with evil, in our completed work
we feel a joy similar to His, when, looking on the fair earth, He
pronounced it “very good.”
As a rule, the exercise most beneficial to young people will
be found in useful work. Little children find both diversion and
development in play, and their sports should be such as to promote
not only physical but mental and spiritual growth. As they gain
strength and intelligence, the best recreation will be found in some
line of useful activity. That which trains the hand to helpfulness and
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