D. THE SATISFACTION OF GOOD WORK

1. WORK: A SONG OF TRIUMPH

ANGELA MORGAN

Work!

Thank God for the might of it,
The ardor, the urge, the delight of it
Work that springs from the heart's desire,
Setting the brain and the soul on fire
Oh, what is so good as the heat of it,
And what is so glad as the beat of it,
And what is so kind as the stern command,
Challenging brain and heart and hand?

Work!

Thank God for the pride of it,

For the beautiful, conquering tide of it,
Sweeping the life in its furious flood,
Thrilling the arteries, cleansing the blood,
Mastering stupor and dull despair,
Moving the dreamer to do and dare.
Oh, what is so good as the urge of it,
And what is so glad as the surge of it,
And what is so strong as the summons deep,
Rousing the torpid soul from sleep?

Work!

Thank God for the pace of it,

For the terrible, keen, swift race of it;
Fiery steeds in full control,

Nostrils a-quiver to greet the goal.
Speeding the energies faster, faster,
Work, the Power that drives behind,
Guiding the purposes, taming the mind,
Holding the runaway wishes back,
Reining the will to one steady track,
Triumphing over disaster.

Oh, what is so good as the pain of it,
And what is so great as the gain of it?
And what is so kind as the cruel goad,
Forcing us on through the rugged road?

Work!

Thank God for the swing of it,

For the clamoring, hammering ring of it,
Passion of labor daily hurled

On the mighty anvils of the world.

Oh, what is so fierce as the flame of it?
And what is so huge as the aim of it?
Thundering on through dearth and doubt,
Calling the plan of the Maker out.
Work, the Titan; Work, the friend,

Shaping the earth to a glorious end,
Draining the swamps and blasting the hills,
Doing whatever the Spirit wills —

Rending a continent apart,

To answer the dream of the Master heart. Thank God for a world where none may shirk Thank God for the splendor of work!

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Make your own list of Class Activities, completing these suggestions, and adding three others:

a. Form a question about some man or woman who

b. about reading aloud

c. about the hard words

2. Find the poem in Unit Two which most resembles "Work: A Song of Triumph."

2. THE HOME-KEEPER

LYMAN ABBOTT

This selection pictures an ideal worker in the best profession in the world, a profession that does not have an eight-hour day, that does not pay money wages, that often seems to be filled with drudgery. But it is a profession which is the bedrock of happiness, health, and character. There is no higher honor than to be a true home-maker.

The home-keeper has a passion for cleanliness. She abhors dirt and justifies her abhorrence by the scriptural command, "Abhor that which is evil." If dirt be not evil, she knows not what is. She hates vermin as David hated the enemies of Jehovah, with a perfect hatred. She is not a scientist; but she needs no scientist to tell her that the germs of disease lurk in dirt and are carried by vermin.

But no such passion for order possesses her. Cleanliness is itself a virtue. Next to godliness? If she were quite frank with herself, she would probably change the order and say godliness is next to cleanliness. Certainly she would prefer as a visitor a clean sinner to a dirty saint, and she can find no severer rebuke for occasional petty meannesses than to say that people are acting in a nasty manner.

But order is not in itself a virtue: it is only a means to an end. The end is general comfort and general convenience, and she never sacrifices the end to the means. She endeavors to have a place for everything; she tries to train the children

but not her husband — to put each thing in its appointed

place. But she does not nag. If she sometimes follows a careless husband or son, picking up after him, she never does it with a sigh which says, "See how much trouble your carelessness is making me." Because her rooms do not look so spick and span as her neighbors', she sometimes chides herself for not being so good a housekeeper.

But she is a better home-keeper, which is far more important than being a housekeeper. Neither her husband nor her boys need to go to clubs or to other homes for liberty; her home is as free as the club. If order is heaven's first law, liberty is its atmosphere; and if she finds it difficult, as she sometimes does, to preserve both the law and the liberty, she prefers the liberty.

So there are in her household hours for meals and meal hours, although the two do not always coincide. The hour for breakfast is half-past seven; but if some morning the boys desire to make an early start for a fishing expedition, the breakfast hour is six; if another morning they can, without neglect of duty, sleep late and wish to do so, it changes to half-past eight or nine. This requires both tact and efficiency in dealing with the kitchen; but when a neighbor asks her if this is not very difficult to manage, she replies cheerfully, "This is what I am for." Neither husband nor children ever know and rarely guess what tact and toil are required. For she surmounts her obstacles without talking about them, except occasionally in a burst of confidence to her husband or her daughter, and then as a narrative of her triumphs, not as a history of her trials.

This subordination of time and place to comfort and convenience is a part of her quite unconscious theory that life is the end, and that all household arrangements are means to that end. She therefore believes that things are for folks, not folks for things, and always acts on that belief. When children from the city make a visit to her country home and ask whether they may run on the grass, she says, “Of course"; and when an older visitor, fearing the effect on the young

spring shoots, asks if that is good for the lawn, she replies smilingly: "No, but it is good for the children."

She has no use for books that cannot be read, chairs that cannot be sat in, a piano that cannot be played, a room that cannot be used. She has some fine books, for she is fond of them, but she does not keep them under lock and key. She would rather injure the book in teaching the child how to use it than injure the child by refusing him the book. If a careless boy or a still more careless visitor breaks a parlor chair by trying to balance himself in it upon the two hind legs, she blames the chair, not the sitter, and does not get another of so delicate a construction. The piano tuner has to come to her house twice as often as to the house of her neighbor; but her children learn to play by playing. And though they may never become musicians, they learn to love music, and in after life a piano always brings to them thoughts of their home and their mother.

She has no parlor with closed blinds and drawn curtains, from which the sun is carefully excluded lest it fade the carpet, and into which visitors are received in state with a sunless and frigid hospitality. Sometimes a critical visitor surprises an unusual disorder, due to a misused liberty in the parlor, which Harry has for the time converted into a nursery, and the mother gently expresses the wish to herself that Harry were not so heedless. But to shut Harry out of the parlor she is quite certain would be no cure for his heedlessness, and that, not the disordered parlor, is what she wishes

to cure.

She keeps house for her husband and her children and she adjusts the affairs of her kingdom to meet the needs of her family, not of those who are employed to minister to it. To this rule there is one exception: the Sunday meals are adjusted to give her servants an opportunity for church, and they are encouraged to fulfill with fidelity all that their consciences, not hers, call on them to fulfill churchwise.

The doors of her home are always open to the friends of