Working person

“ On account of this entire absence of presuppositions with which we have to approach our subject, it will be necessary at starting to have a clear understanding of what we mean by a working man, or by the working class. ”

“ On a day a party of visitors would come to the little shop and the owner would pick up a hand-forged hammer and say, 'See what John made!' But, in our modern industry, no one man ever completes a task. Each task is subdivided into twenty, forty, a hundred or more portions, and a workingman is given just one to work on, day by day, year after year, for a working generation. ”

“ The ideal for every employee, therefore, is that he should be employed in that position which he is best fitted to fill, doing work which by natural aptitudes, training, and experience he is best qualified to do, and working under conditions of material environment—tools, rates of pay, hours of labor, and periods of rest, superintendence and management, future prospects, and education—which will develop and make useful to himself and his employer his best and finest latent abilities and capacities. ”

“ As a first-hand account of actual working and living-conditions in the great basic industries, Mr Williams’s ‘What’s on the worker’s mind’ is of considerable value for the author is an excellent reporter. ”

“ With our worker, just as sure as the sun rises and sets, if he continues to work and is no fool, he will rise to earn a competency, to improve himself, to own his own labor, to own his own home, to hire the labor of other men who are beginners as he once was himself. ”

“ You will see now, my dear son, why I have been so earnest to have you establish in early life a habit of industry, and to cultivate a taste for daily, honest labor. No matter what employment you have, if it is honorable employment. ”

“ As a factory girl working at her job—with all that, we determined to peek out of the corner of our eyes, and keep both ears to the wind, lest we miss anything from start to finish. Artificial, of course. ”

“ Most of them are of a very humble origin, and being debarred from business positions on account of their ignorance and inexperience, they are thankful to earn money in any kind of employment regardless of the length of working hours. ”

“ To the brain-working captain of industry, maintaining himself and his family on thousands a year, the manual-working wage-earner seems to belong to another species, having mental faculties and bodily needs altogether different from his own. ”

“ By very working, they will learn; they have, Antaeus-like, their foot on Mother Fact: how can they but learn?
The vulgarest Plugson of a Master-Worker, who can command Workers and get work out of them, is already a considerable man. ”

“ I am speaking, of course, of that class of people of our race who depend mainly upon a day's work—working by the day, as we call it—for their living. These men with whom I talked gave several illustrations of this tendency. In the first place, I think they mentioned, without exception, this fact—that if the coloured people are employed in a factory, they work well and steadily for a few days, say until Saturday night comes, and they are paid their week's wages. ”

“ This fact which seems to be true of employers and employees, of capital and labor in general, brings out and illustrates another general principle in making the necessary excavations in one's own mind and other people's for new brain tracks—another working principle of technique for a man or a group in a nation to use in getting and deserving to get its way. ”

“ When you speak to the average person about labor—industrial work, especially—he seems to [Pg 122] get the idea at once that you are opposed to his head being educated—that you simply wish to put him to work. ”

“ I see by a recent statement in the press that your road has greatly increased in business. Do you feel the need of an employe? Any light employment that will be honorable without involving too much perspiration would be acceptable. ”

“ And yet, my boy, there are many in the world, with larger responsibilities than yours are at present; think, for instance, of a great employer of labour who has to decide great things, affecting, perhaps, the welfare of both his employés and his business. ”

“ The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. ”

“ The wiser man, the labourer, begins at his corner of the wood, and makes out a task for himself for each day. Let not our imaginations be employed on one side only. Think, that large as may appear the work to be done—so too the result of any endeavour, however small in itself, may be of infinite extent in the future. ”

“ Work in the factory or in the office, work which brings us into contact with the outside world, calls for the exercise of qualities and attainments which we had no need of before, for the abandonment of habits and ideas which can only hamper our progress in our changed surroundings. ”

“ The truth of the matter is that they have everything in common. Every employer—almost without exception—was once a workman. He was a successful workman, therefore he became more than a workman—he became an employer. ”

“ He may prove in many ways, as a mere purchaser, his concern for the interests of the producer. And there are, doubtless, occasions on which you, the great employers of labour, may call upon him to make large sacrifices of his money, his time, and his thoughts, for the welfare of the labouring classes. His example and his encouragement may cheer you on; and as a citizen, as an instructor, as a neighbour, in all the capacities of life, he may act and speak in a way that may indirectly, if not directly, support your more manifest endeavours in the same good cause. ”

“ To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working-people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet:" serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. ”

“ The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a good job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. ”

“ Sound work, clean work, finished work; feeble work, slack work, sham work—these words express an identical contrast in many different departments of activity. In so far forth, then, even the humblest manual trade may beget in one a certain small degree of power to judge of good work generally. ”

“ So he never was able to "take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry." And if he had spent as much labor in useful work (say building, or ploughing, or sandal-making) , what a good workman he might have become! ”

“ A man’s employment, whatever it may be that he feels a need for in his own person, is also divided into four categories: (1) the muscular employment of power, labor of the hands, feet, shoulders, back,—hard labor, from which you sweat ”

“ With so many other laborers in the field, and considering their task, we scarcely dare think of the miserably small pay they must receive for their labor. We wonder how they can live. And yet they have a certain wholesome, thrifty appearance—their clothes, although coarse, are not ragged; they look well and strong, and they work with an energy which would imply a certain satisfaction in their task well done. ”

“ “There is this difference— where a man works for himself, or where, when working for an employer, he takes his wages in kind, his wages depend upon the result of his labor. Should that, from any misadventure, prove futile, he gets nothing. When he works for an employer, however, he gets his wages anyhow—they depend upon the performance of the labor, not upon the result of the labor.” ”

“ If duty calls you to work, work as he worked—not merely for your own advantage, but for the benefit of others. While labouring at any profitable employment, never forget the poor and destitute, whose wants may be alleviated by your diligence. ”

“ Then, for certain hours he works between the dawning and the dark,
And delivers one day's work for one day's pay.
This industrial arrangement has advantages for both,
If employer and employed are honest men. ”

“ For in all those higher forms of work which involve not only expert workmanship but a spiritual content of some kind, the worker must bring to his task not only skill but ideas, force, personality, temperament; and, sound workmanship being secured, his rank will depend not on specific expertness, but on the depth, energy, and splendour of the personality which the work reveals. ”

“ I have borne these things in mind since I became an employer, and I can feel for poor fellows who are clamouring for work; for man must eat, and, if he is willing to work, he will have work, or some one will suffer. ”

“ Most of my life I have been associated with people who worked hard for a living, and I have done all kinds of manual labor myself. It is with such people, and such varieties of labor, that my verses deal. ”

“ The factory-worker, with a mind stupefied by the mechanical repetition of some few simple physical movements of no possible interest to him except as resulting in the wage that keeps him alive, has no share in such light as may be scattered about him. ”

“ To get skilful servants and work-women then, it is necessary to make them feel that their occupation is not the business of a few months or years, but their life-long vocation, which the better they understand and practise, the higher will be their pay and their importance ”

“ Labor does not engender dirt. Never say of a laborer coming from his work, “He is filthy.” You should say, “He has on his garments the signs, the traces, of his toil.” Remember this. And you must love the little mason, first, because he is your comrade; and next, because he is the son of a workingman.
Thy Father.
[60] ”

“ The American workman, as things are organized now, finds himself confronted with two main problems. One is himself. How can he get himself to work hard enough to make his food and clothes cheap? The other is his employer. ”

“ His English limps slightly at moments of excitement, but his mastery of its shades of meaning never, and this is his version of the present relation between employer and employed:—
“In me always are two peoples,—one that loves work well, that must work ever to be happy, and one that will think and think ever how hard is life even with work that is good and with much to love. ”

“ Every one who has eyes and a heart sees that you, working men, are obliged to pass your lives in want and in hard labour, which is useless to you, while other men, who do not work, enjoy all that you accomplish, - that you are the slaves of these men, and that this ought not to be. ”

“ Let me merely request you, in this place, to form a habit of this kind, from which no ordinary circumstances shall suffer you to depart. Your first object after rising and devotion, should be to take a survey of the business which lies before you during the day, making of course a suitable allowance for exigencies. I have seldom known a man in business thrive—and men of business we all ought to be, whatever may be our occupation—who did not rise early in the morning, and plan his work for the day. ”

“ Every employe who studies how much he can do is a help to an employer. Every employe who sees how little he can do is a hold-back to the institution.
Employes should remember that prosperity goes in cycles, that it is but three generations from shirt sleeve to shirt sleeve. ”

“ The man who saves a little from his income has given the surest indication of the very qualities that every employer is seeking for.
“The great successes of life are made by concentration. Do not think you have done your full duty when you have performed the work assigned you. You will never rise if you only do this. ”

“ What this Employer wanted, he contended, was employees who would work for the good of the Business and not be always thinking about their own good. He said he hadn’t a man around the place who could sink Self with the rock of Gibraltar tied around its neck. ”

“ But in directing the employment of labour, they would find room for the exercise of all the powers of their minds, of their best affections, and of whatever was worthy in their ambition. p. 35Their occupation, so far from being a limited sphere of action, is one which may give scope to minds of the most various capacity. ”

“ Study your business, devise new modes of operation, be able to give your employer points. The art lies not in giving satisfaction merely, not in simply filling your place, but in doing better than was expected, in surprising your employer; and the reward will be a better place and a larger salary.
When out of work, take the first respectable job that offers, heeding not the disproportion between your faculties and your task. If you put your manhood into your labor, you will soon be given something better to do. ”

“ The labourer is worthy of his hire. But three or four times a year, and always unexpectedly, swoop down upon them like the Last Judgment; examine every corner and recess; make a noise like thunder, and strike right and left at the fitting moment—this clears the house for many weeks! ”

“ If he is treated honestly and fairly the firm will gain greatly thereby, in many ways unknown to them. The workman, in return, will be conscientious and will use his tools and machinery with scrupulous care. ”

“ Employment.—The wise prove, and the foolish confess, by their conduct, that a life of employment is the only life worth leading.—Paley.
Life will frequently languish, even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit.—Blair. ”