Our manufacturing interests too often give little thought to the employed; the article to be made is generally the only object considered.

They do not care if a man spends the whole of his life upon the head of a pin, or in making a screw in a watch factory.

They take no notice of the occupations that ruin, or the phosphorus, the dust, the arsenic that destroys the health, that shortens the lives of many workers; of the cramped condition of the body which creates deformity.
The moment we compel those we employ to do work that demoralizes them or does not tend to elevate or lift them, we are forcing them into service worse than useless.

"If we induce painters to work in fading colors, or architects with rotten stone, or contractors to construct buildings with imperfect materials, we are forcing our Michael Angelos to carve in snow." Ruskin says that the tendency of the age is to expend its genius in perishable art, _as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in bonfires_.

Is the work you compel others to do useful to yourself and to society?
If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or six beautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which will only clothe yourself, and which you will wear at only one ball, you are employing your money selfishly.