Idleness Corrupts Manners

Next to selfishness, idleness is the greatest corrupter of manners, as well as, of morals. Half the sins of the world may be laid at the door of idleness. If you would keep your boys from becoming gamblers, hangers-on at saloons or political parasites, keep them employed actively.

Next to selfishness, idleness is the greatest corrupter of manners, as well as, of morals. The mother who would see her daughter a happy and contented wife, should implant a love of industry. She should teach her to feel an interest in something good and useful. Gardening, needle-work housekeeping, anything but that paralysis of the faculties that results from idleness. There are women who would not object to doing kindnesses if no effort were required of them. It is too much trouble to go out into the garden and cut a few flowers for a friend who lives in a flat, or a sick child longing for the beauty and odor from which it is shut. Idleness has hung chains of greater weight than iron on the hands that ought to rejoice in doing deeds of kindness. Good intentions and good manners,  struggle to see the light but die still-born, benumbed by idleness. Half the sins of the world may be laid at the door of idleness. If you would keep your boys from becoming gamblers, hangers-on at saloons or political parasites, keep them employed actively. If you would keep your girls sweet, uncorrupted, happy, fill their lives with suitable employment and they can bid the demons of melancholy and despair defiance.— San Jose Mercury, 1896 

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