AN GAODHAL.
13
The Gael.
BROOKLYN, N. Y., NOVEMBER, 1881
M. J. LOGAN, EDITOR
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LABOR.
For some (to us) unaccountable cause the
mass of the Irish people seem to fancy that
certain kinds of employment to earn a living
are more honorable than others. These erro-
neous ideas should be discarded, as many suf-
fer dire privations by indulging in them. The
only difference we see between any industrial
pursuit is the degree of remuneration which
they yield. We throw out these timely
hints, because many of our country people
coming to these friendly shores, and who were
reared in comparative opulence at home, suf-
fer many privations because they do not wish
to engage in any occupation which to them
would seem undignified. This supercilious
notion of dignity permeates the social system
in the old country to such a degree that a
shopkeeper would not be seen to sweep the
sidewalk before his store door, and those un¬
able to pay help to do it would be seen to
watch the street to see that no one was in view
to observe them while they did it themselves.
We would, with all the vehemence of which
we are capable, explode these pernicious and
unmanly ideas. When Providence announced
that man should earn his bread by the sweat
of his brow, He drew no distinction between
the kinds of labor necessary to produce it.
Some of our high-toned countrymen would
think it horrid if we asserted that peddling
matches or pins to earn a living would be as
honorable as any other kind of employment.
Yes, we assert it — if it yields a sufficient re-
muneration. If it be honorable to engage in
the manufacture of these indispensable arti-
cles, we cannot see how it could be dishonor-
able to sell them. The position of the pres-
dent of a bank, who draws ten thousand a
year, is not a whit more honorable than that
of the porter who keeps it in order at five
hundred. The maid who cooks and washes is
as honorably employed as her mistress, who
serves the public from behind the counter of
some of our large stores. The only difference
is that some receive a larger compensation for
their labor than others. The little urchin who
peddles this journal for a living is as honorably
employed as we who produce it. We have
known young women doing general house-
work in this city, whose ancestors were of the
most respectable families in the old country.
Does the nature of their employment detract
from that respectability? Certainly not. True
dignity consists in an upright and cultivated
mind. The possession of wealth, or the
wearing of fine clothes, does not confer dig-
nity. True dignity is inherent in the Celtic
nature, and all that is required to make it visi-
ble is a little polish. Therefore, we would
urge our countrymen to avail themselves of
the opportunity now offered to attain that
polish — an opportunity which an alien and
relentless power denied them for centuries —
and of any and every honest employment that
will be remunerative. Peter the Great did
not think it undignified to labor at the anvil
and in the ship-yard.
The following letter from Dr. Heinrich
Zimmer, Professor of Sanscrit and Compara-
tive Philology in the University of Berlin, to
the Secretary of the Dublin Society for the
Preservation of the Irish Language, will be
interesting to Gaelic readers :
DEAR Sir: I have, in connection with the
studies of the Aryan languages, devoted some
years to the study of Celtic, especially to the
Irish. Although it is the more ancient period
of this language that occupies my attention
yet, having determined during the summer
just past to betake myself, for the advance-
ment of my studies, directly to the place,
where the sources of the language of this pe-
riod most abound, and to spend my holidays
in discovering some of the treasures which lie
buried in the libraries of the Royal Irish Acad-
emy, Trinity College, and the Franciscan Con-
vent. I doubted not for an instant that I
should, to a certain extent, succeed in acquir-
ing a knowledge of the spoken language by
means of ten weeks' intercourse with the people.
