CLASS SET 

DOCUMENT 1

From “Self-Help” –one of the top-selling books of its time, by Samuel Smiles, government reformer from Scotland, 1859
“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is doneformen or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves….National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

vocab help:
A well-tried maxim is an often-heard short phrase of simple wisdom. Smiles says vast (huge amounts of) human experience is embodied (contained) in the small, guiding phrase he quotes.

vigour (British English for vigor) = robust good health

enfeebling = weakening

questions to consider:

-Does Mr. Smiles like the phrase, “Heaven helps those who help themselves?”
-Why is he using it as an example here?

-What do you think he would think about a welfare system (e.g. food stamps or unemployment)?

-Does Mr. Smiles seem to be a nationalist?

DOCUMENT 2

From “Das Kapital” –by German philosopher Karl Marx, 1867; along with fellow German Friedrich Engels, Marx gained fame by writing the political pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto,” widely circulated in Europe during the revolutionary year, 1848
Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labor are brought about at the cost of the individual laborer….They mutilate the laborer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil....It follows...that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the laborer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.... Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.


vocab help:
mutilate = physically disfigure until unrecognizable (Literally, this word describes horrible violence. Marx, of course, is using it figuratively to describe what is happening to laborers)

appendage = a thing added or attached to something larger or more important (Once again, Marx is being figurative)

questions to consider:

-“Fragment of a man” indicates there isn’t much left of the man. What parts of the man do you
think Marx believes have been lost? In considering this question, you might also ask what
Marx considers the “charm” in work to be.

-Considering the definition of appendage, what does Marx feel is more valuable to the capitalist
–the laborers or the machines?

Name ______Per _____
TWO POST-INDUSTRIAL PERSPECTIVES
directions:
1) Carefully read each document, referencing the vocab help
2) When finished, read and think about the questions to consider, and discuss them with a partner
3) Fill out the SOAPS chart for the document
4) Choose a segment from the passage that you feel shows the author’s point-of-view, and enter it in the quotation box
5) Write a complete sentence that paraphrases the segment. Follow this with a second sentence that begins,
“This shows that…” and describes the author’s point-of-view
Doc 1 - Smiles: Self-Help
Speaker
Occasion
Audience
Purpose
Subject
Quotation
Paraphrase of Quotation
directions:
1) Carefully read each document, referencing the vocab help
2) When finished, read and think about the questions to consider, and discuss them with a partner
3) Fill out the SOAPS chart for the document
4) Choose a segment from the passage that you feel shows the author’s point-of-view, and enter it in the quotation box
5) Write a complete sentence that paraphrases the segment. Follow this with a second sentence that begins,
“This shows that…” and describes the author’s point-of-view
Doc 2 - Marx: Das Kapital
Speaker
Occasion
Audience
Purpose
Subject
Quotation
Paraphrase of Quotation