What the country needs are a few labor-making inventions.

Hear the witty yet piercing words of Arnold H. Glasow, the humorist and sage who clothed wisdom in jest: “What the country needs are a few labor-making inventions.” At first glance, the saying seems strange, for is not all invention aimed at saving labor, lightening toil, and granting ease? Yet beneath the laughter lies a truth that burns with urgency: mankind has long sought to escape effort, but in doing so has often escaped growth, discipline, and the noble virtues born of work.

For from the beginning, toil has been the teacher of strength. It is through the plow that the farmer learns patience, through the forge that the blacksmith learns endurance, through the loom that the weaver learns craft. Labor is not merely hardship; it is the furnace in which character is tempered. When men devise only labor-saving inventions, they may free the body, but they risk starving the soul. Glasow, with playful irony, reminds us that what is most needed are not devices that spare us from effort, but tools that call forth our energy, our initiative, and our will.

Consider the age of the Industrial Revolution. Machines multiplied, and with them came abundance. Yet alongside prosperity arose a class of men who grew detached from effort, lulled into idleness by the very machines meant to empower them. In contrast, those who embraced labor—whether in tending the machines, managing their power, or venturing into new enterprise—rose in stature, shaping the modern world. It was not ease that built nations, but work. The invention that challenges man to act, to rise, to strive—that is the invention that truly strengthens the land.

Think too of the pioneers who crossed continents. No labor-saving device bore their wagons across rivers or lifted their cabins from the earth. It was labor itself—hard, grueling, relentless—that made them. Their tools were crude, yet their spirits mighty. Their very survival became a kind of labor-making invention, forcing them to draw upon reserves of courage and skill. Thus they laid the foundations of new nations, not by ease, but by toil sanctified into triumph.

Glasow’s words strike us today with even greater force, in an age when machines perform tasks once thought impossible, when automation removes human hands from the workbench and the field. Yet as work disappears, so too does purpose for many. The man without work is like a warrior without a sword: unarmed, restless, diminished. A country that spares all its citizens from effort risks raising generations without discipline, without patience, without the satisfaction of achievement. Thus, Glasow’s jest becomes prophecy: what we need are labor-making inventions, not to burden man, but to restore him to the dignity of striving.

The lesson, then, is this: seek not a life of perpetual ease, but embrace the labors that shape you. Choose paths that demand your energy, that test your will, that require the sweat of your brow and the focus of your mind. For every effort overcome is a victory carved upon the soul. Do not ask always, “How may this task be made easier?” Ask instead, “How may this task make me stronger?” In this lies the secret of growth.

Therefore, my child, let your life be a workshop of labor-making inventions—not machines of iron, but habits of discipline, practices of effort, and challenges that refine your character. Invent for yourself the daily trials that build patience: the study that stretches your mind, the exercise that strengthens your frame, the service that humbles your pride. For a land filled with such men and women will never lack for greatness, even if the machines fall silent.

So let these words endure beyond jest: The true invention is not that which removes all labor, but that which awakens in us the will to labor well. In this lies the strength of nations, the dignity of man, and the secret to a life of purpose. For while ease may soften the body, only labor can forge the soul.