I often think we would all be happier if we followed the example thus set. I do not fancy that either the kings of men or the kings of money have educated their children in this way under any belief that they might be compelled to get their living by the labor of their hands. If the Rothschilds were to be bankrupt, and the Hohenzollerns driven into exile, the former could always make a livelihood as business men, and the latter as officers and commanders in an army.
It is not, then, to provide against any possible accidents to their fortunes that they have been taught other work than that which they are called on as princes and bankers to spend their lives in doing. It has been rather to teach them habits of patience and industry in doing work where no hope of gain or fame is present to urge the worker on. We can all take pains when we want to make money or get some reputation, but very few of us think that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well and in a workman-like manner, although it is merely a pastime.
There is another view of the question which must not be left out of sight. We are all of us very fond of using our hands, and if we do not use them to make something, we use them to destroy something. In this respect girls are generally better educated than boys, for they all learn sewing without any idea of ever being seamstresses.
Give a girl a needle and thread, and she amuses herself with a hundred useful things. Give a boy a jackknife, and he first cuts his fingers, and then cuts the school-desks. Even when we have a box of tools given us, we are never made to learn how to use them properly. Jig-saws and the like never seemed to quite satisfy the boyish mind; the work was too "finicking," and not varied enough; in fact, it was to real work what fancy embroidery is to plain needle-work, and struck one as being nearly useless.
Handicrafts differ in one peculiar respect from the labors to which most of us will have to give our time. We have in everything we do to use our hands and our brains, but in most cases we shall have to use our hands to carry out the work of our brains. In handicrafts we have to use our brains to guide and direct our hands, and our minds, instead of being continually on the strain, have merely to superintend a mechanical operation. Our thoughts are employed without the trouble of thinking.
[THE BATTLE OF LAKE BORGNE.]
HOW THE BRITISH MADE A LANDING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.
When the British made up their minds, near the end of the year 1814, to take New Orleans, and thus to get control of the Mississippi River, there seemed to be very little difficulty in their way.