JOHN RUSKIN’S WORK

It was first delivered before the working men's institute, at Camber well. This
lecture on Work expounds the matter of labour in its various relations,

i. Work in relation to play, or the difference between those who work and those who
play ;
ii. The relation of production to consumption, or the difference between those who
produce and those who consume the various means of life ;
iii. The relation between those who work with the head and those who work with the
hand ; and
iv. The relation of sense to nonsense, or the difference between those who work wisely
and those who work foolishly.

SUMMARY

Ruskin addresses the members of the Working Men's Institute at Camber well
where he has passed the greater part of his life. Such Institutes prepare the way for a great
change in all the circumstances of industrial life. But the success of such institutions will
depend on the conditions and limits of this change. Anyway, the speaker while addressing
the working class will have to deal with the root of class distinction. He will have to decide
whether the distinction between the working men and others is just or unjust. Shall it
continue or shall it be modified or even effaced by education?

The author then makes his point more explicit by giving the examples of Working
Men's Colleges and Idle Men's Colleges. Working men call their employers idle persons
whereas the masters call their subordinates idle. But the fact is that there are the idle poor
and idle rich. There are busy poor and busy rich. There is a working class—strong and
happy among both rich and poor; there is an idle class—weak, wicked and miserable—
among both rich and poor. If in spite of this truth there is misunderstanding between the
two classes, it is because the wise of one class habitually contemplate the foolish of the
other. Each class has a tendency to look for the faults of the other. According to Ruskin,
"A hard working man of property is particularly offended by an idle beggar; and an
orderly but poor workman is naturally intolerant of the licentious luxury of the rich." In
truth, there is no class-distinction between idle and industrious people. There is class-
distinction among the industrious them-selves. The idle people are to be omitted at present.
They are mere nuisances.

The author, therefore, proceeds with the kinds of work undertaken by the industrious
people. And these distinctions are mainly four:

v. Between those who work and those who play;

vi. Between those who produce the means of life and those who consume them;
vii. Between those who work with the head those who work with the hand;
viii. Between those who work wisely and those who work foolishly.
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 In short and for easier memory, they can be expressed as follows:

i. Between work and play;

ii. Between production and consumption;
iii. Between brain work and manual labour, and lastly
iv. Between wise labour and foolish labour.

Regarding the first relation, the author defines the words 'play' and 'work'. In his
words, play is an exertion of body or mind made to please ourselves and with no
determined end; and work is a thing done because it ought to be done and with a
determined end. If play were done as an ordered exercise for health's sake, it would
become work directly.

Then Ruskin analyses the game played by the playing class of England. He remarks
ironically that the first of all English games is making money. The game is very absorbing.
Players knock each other down. Like a Cricketer, they are after runs, i.e., after more
money. In London, businessmen carry on the game of money making. It is a great city of
play. It is only Lord's cricket-ground without the turf—a huge billiard table without the
cloth.

The first great English game is playing at counters. When other games are expensive, it
always produces money. But there is great difference between winning money and making
it, a great difference between getting it out of another man's pocket into ours or filling
both.

Hunting is next English game which is costly. It is a useless and deadly game. Through
horse-racing people are led to gambling. Game-preserving has its bad result. It implies
encroachment on land.

Next game is the-ladies' game of dressing which is also costly. A broach at a jeweler’s in
Bond Street costs nearly £ 3000. They should not be selfish in dressing themselves. They
should read the fashions for the poor first. The doublets which the poor people wear are
not able even to protect themselves from the strong wind.

Then there is playing at literature and at art but the most dangerous game is the game
of war. It is the costliest game. Millions are spent on players and. their equipment in this
game. The money for war is paid by working men in fields and factories. The jewel-cutter
whose sight fails over the diamonds, the weaver whose arm fails over the web, the iron-
forger whose breath fails before the furnace, pay for wars and are the sincere workers who
know no play. Play rue ns 'sickness' in the iron manufacturing and coal-mining country
round about Birmingham where the workman knows no holiday except when he falls ill
This is the first distinction between the upper and lower classes. The rich ‘Should not
exploit the poor. That is beyond the principle of Christianity. Work is a purifying factor
for man's life and the men of upper classes should not become parasites.

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 The difference between the rich and the poor that existed in Ruskin's days was never
there before in Pagan or Christian times. He illustrates the difference by taking the
examples of a rich Russian described in Telegraph mid he contrasts him with the death, of
a poor •bone-picker and the more pathetic description of paupers gnawing the scraps of
putrid flesh repotted by the same newspaper. This distinction between rich and poor rests
on two bases. The first is lawful and everlastingly necessary. The second is unlawful and
everlastingly corrupts the framework of society.

The lawful basis of wealth is that a man who works should be paid the fair value of his
work and that if he does not like to spend it today, he should have freedom to keep it and
spend it tomorrow. Thus an industrious man working daily will save something in the end.
On the other hand, there is the idle person who does not work and the wasteful person who
lays nothing by will be doubly poor in possession and dissolute in moral habit. A law
should be enacted in society that only he who earns justly should keep money. This is the
proper basis of distinction between the rich and the poor. But there is also a false basis of
distinction. There are people who inherit money and make more money by the power to
use it. They set themselves to the accumulation of money as the sole object of their lives.
Necessarily, that class of men is an uneducated class because an educated or brave man
cannot make money-earning the chief object of his thought. Soldiers, clergy men, doctors
earn money by working properly, but they do not live for money. With them, work is first
and money second. They are God's servants. To others, money is first and works second.
They are Satan. They are slave of slaves. In every country, we find a certain number of
these Fiend's servants, the aim of whose life is to make money. Judas Iscariot betrayed
Christ for thirty pieces of gold. He did not understand Christ. He never thought that
Christ would be killed and when He was killed, he hanged himself for shame How many of
our present money-seekers would have the grace to hang themselves whosoever was
killed? The capitalist takes the produce of worker's labour to himself except the laborer’s
food. That is the modern Judas's way of carrying the bag. The technique adopted by the
capitalist’s to amass wealth can be compared with that of the barons of feudal age. Capital
is now exactly what crags were then. The poor vagrants by the roadside suffer now quite
as much from the bag-baron as ever they did from the crag-baron. Bags and crags have
just the same result on rags.

If a person does not like to spend his money, he must either hoard it or lend it and the
worst thing he can do is to lend it. It is with the borrowed money that all evil is mainly
done and all unjust war protracted. For example, the English gave loans to the Russians
and the Austrians for mischievous activities. Such a money-lender robs the Austrian
peasant, assassinates or banishes the Polish peasant.

The third distinction is between the intellectual and manual labour. Both kinds of work
are indispensable. The work should be done by arms otherwise none of us could live.
Brain-work must also be done otherwise life would not be worth living. Rough work is to-
be done by rough men and gentle work by gentlemen. It is physically impossible that one

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class should do or divide the work of the other. Whether manual work is honorable or not,
one fact is clear that the labour is totally exhausted after the day's work. He is not the
same man at the end of the day or night as one who has been sitting in a quiet room, with
everything comfortable about him. Rough work is at all events real, honest and generally
useful whereas the fine work is a great deal of it, foolish, false and dishonorable. Who is to
do this rough work? And how is the worker of it, to be comforted, redeemed and
rewarded? These questions must be answered. Many thinkers are busy with them. Work is
done well only when it is done with a will—-and in an ordered, soldierly and human way.
Let the agriculturist be trained as soldiers are trained, fed and dressed. Let the plough-
exercise be done as carefully as the sword-exercise. The master and the servant must be
just to each other. What we have to ask is not what is best to do or most profitable to do,
but what is just to do. Even our Master says, "Do justice and judgment. It is wrong to pray
or sing psalms if we are not just in our dealings with others. The one Divine work—the one
ordered, sacrifice is to do justice, People may say that charity is greater than justice but
they should know that justice is the foundation of the temple of charity, hence, more
important. The top cannot be attained without the bottom. Justice tells us that the
sweeper's child crossing the street is as much entitled to a feather in its hat on visiting a
church on Sunday as our own child. We may say God has put the sweeper's son in that
position and as such why should we decorate him with a feather in his hat? This is face
saving device. It is highly illogical. If we knock a man into a ditch and then tell him to
remain content in the position, God has placed him, the matter would sound ridiculous.

Suppose, the question of the persons doing hand work is decided, the next questions will
be how the hand-workers are to be paid, how they are to be refreshed and what play they
are to have. But these questions are meaningless if adequate pay is not given to workers.
Generally, good, useful work whether of the hand or head is either ill- paid or not paid at
all. None of the best work in art, literature or science is ever paid for. What recompense
did Homer or Dante get for their epoch-making works? Galileo who invested the telescope
was persecuted by the Church. The inventor of microscope died of starvation, driven from
his home. The ways of the world are cruel. Persons doing the noble and honest work are
not given bread but stones to keep them quiet. Luckily, the fate of the hand-workers is not
so bad today. The worst work assigned to them can be to break stones, not be broken by
them. . Time will come when they will be better paid. We shall pay our ploughman a little
more and our lawyer a little less and so on. Even now we may take care that what-ever
work is done shall be fully paid for and secondly, the actual worker will receive the
payment and not somebody else. It will also be seen that the worker shall have plenty of
rest and most natural atmosphere for his recreation. Workers still have at least as good
books to read as anybody else and as comfortable fireside to sit as anybody else. Regarding
the last point, Ruskin tells his audience that all wise work is mainly threefold in character.
It is honest, useful and cheerful. When we get honesty in play, we call it fair play, when we
hate it, we call it foul play. Similarly, we have fair work and foul work. The merchant
gains his match by foul selling. There is no harm if the food-articles supplied weigh less.
But if they are adulterated, it is an act of murder. Therefore, the workmen and tradesmen
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should be true to themselves and to their customers. Without honesty, all reforms, free-
trade measures are useless.

Then secondly, wise work is useful. It matters little if it is hard. It must lead to some
usefulness. It should not be wasteful because of all wastes; the greatest waste is that of
labour. If the dairy-work is spoiled by the child or a cat, it is wasted. To waste the labour
of man is to kill him.

Lastly, wise work is cheerful as a child's work is. People pray daily to God, 'Thy
Kingdom come.' God's kingdom cannot be attained without human service. People should
work for it. God's kingdom cannot be entered by -anybody except a child. It is the
character of children we want. The character consists of these elements. The first
character of right childhood is that it is modest; it may think that all grown up people
know everything, only the child knows nothing. Similarly, a good, worker confesses
candidly that there are many above him wiser than he. The second quality of right
childhood is faithfulness. A child respects his father. That is the true character of all good
men, as obedient workers or soldiers under captains.

Third character of right childhood is to be loving and generous. If a child is shown

some love, he returns it with greater love. Lastly, the child is cheerful. It places its trust in
its father and is always happy whether in its love or its duty. That is also the character of
the great worker. He does not think of next day. He performs his duty well.

Thus the four qualities of the child's character are modesty, faith, charity and
cheerfulness. By including them, men can enter the kingdom of God. Working men can
seek inspiration among children for the redress of their grievances.

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