The employment forms the
habits of body and mind, and these are the constitution of the man,--the
greater part of his moral or persistent nature, whatever effort, under
special excitement, he may make to change or overcome them. Employment
is the half, and the primal half, of education--it is the warp of it; and
the fineness or the endurance of all subsequently woven pattern depends
wholly on its straightness and strength. And, whatever difficulty there
may be in tracing through past history the remoter connections of event
and cause, one chain of sequence is always clear: the formation, namely,
of the character of nations by their employments, and the determination
of their final fate by their character. The moment, and the first
direction of decisive revolutions, often depend on accident; but their
persistent course, and their consequences, depend wholly on the nature of
the people. The passing of the Reform Bill by the late English
Parliament may have been more or less accidental; the results of the
measure now rest on the character of the English people, as it has been
developed by their recent interests, occupations, and habits of life.
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