Thus came great
communities of monks and nuns, shut out from the love and labors of
a Christian home; thus, also, came the monkish systems of education,
collecting the young in great establishments away from the watch and
care of parents, and the healthful and self-sacrificing labors of a
home. Thus both religion and education have conspired to degrade the
family state.
Still more have civil laws and social customs been opposed to the
principles of Jesus Christ. It has ever been assumed that the learned,
the rich, and the powerful are not to labor with the hands, as Christ
did, and as Paul did when he would "not eat any man's bread for naught,
but wrought with labor, not because we have not power "[to live
without hand-work,]" but to make ourselves an example."(2 Thess. 3.)
Instead of this, manual labor has been made dishonorable and unrefined
by being forced on the ignorant and poor. Especially has the most
important of all hand-labor, that which sustains the family, been thus
disgraced; so that to nurse young children, and provide the food of
a family by labor, is deemed the lowest of all positions in honor and
profit, and the last resort of poverty.
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