Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

threaten us, and come to us, not solely from the ranks of the poor. Many children of the competent, and even of the rich, through early vice and recklessness may become inmates of our prisons, or beggars in our streets. It is well, therefore, and our duty, to look with a strong solicitude to all the exposures of all the classes of the young. But where the young have natural guardians and protectors, who are able to restrain, to guide and to secure them, on them rests the great responsibility of their guidance and security. But where rests responsibility for the orphan poor; for the children of poor widows who cannot govern them; and for those of vicious parents, who

first made by Patrick T. Jackson. The first plan of the school was drawn by his brother, Judge Jackson, who is President of its Board of Directors, and whose zeal and interest in the cause have been among the most important means of its success. The first meeting at which gentlemen were called together to consider the importance of the object was held in the hall of the Tremont Bank, on the 27th of the last January. Subscription papers for funds were prepared, and in a very short time $23,000 were obtained. A strong wish having been expressed, that the House of Reformation might be connected with the proposed Farm School, several conferences were held with a committee of the city government on the subject: and it was not till about the middle of the last month that it was decided, that this union, for the present, at least, is not expedient. As soon as this decision was made known, the Directors of the Farm School proceeded to make a purchase of Thompson's Island, in Dorchester Bay. A row boat passes with ease, in fifteen minutes, from Dorchester Point, to the island; upon which, as soon as may be, the necessary building will be erected. The island contains one hundred and forty acres of land, almost all of which is of an excellent quality. The right of a landing place at Squantum-Point is also secured, from which the distance to the island is but a sail of two or three minutes. Mr Wells, now superintendent of the House of Reformation, has been elected superintendent of the Farm School, and has accepted the appointment.

And, by fideldone to lessen

care not for their virtue, for their condition here, or for their souls hereafter? To me, indeed, it seems that the divine command, "go and save these children," is as plainly addressed to Christians, as is any one lesson that was ever given to us in the providence of God. ity to this duty, more, I believe, may be the burden of taxation, to give security to property, to advance the general interests of society, and, above all, to accomplish the moral objects of Christianity in the temporal and spiritual salvation of men, than by any other means within the scope of human exertions.

To this class belong also those, who, being generally able, while they have health, to provide for their daily wants, but unable to meet any extraordinary expenses, are occasionally and temporarily reduced to a dependence on charity by sickness; it may be their own, or of their children. The loss also of a husband and father, who has provided comfortably for his family, but who had made, and could make, no provision for them beyond the time of his death, may bring a virtuous family to temporary poverty. And, beside these, there are those who must have constant employment to enable them to pay their rent, and to obtain the necessaries of life.

Such

for example are those, and they are not few, who make coarse shirts and pantaloons for eight or ten cents each, and who, by severe labor, cannot earn more than sixteen or twenty cents a day. But their supply of work occasionally fails; and sometimes for four, and five, and six weeks, they can hardly find enough to earn half, or a third of that sum. This failure of supply must therefore bring them for a time to a dependence on charity. "He who lives upon the wages of daily labor, and can only live

upon those wages, without laying up store for tomorrow, is spending his capital; and a time must come when it will fail." This is not unfrequently a condition of many very deserving families; and of families, too, whose rent must be paid to the last cent, and whose children must be fed. If this temporary dependence cannot be met, and their poverty remedied, by a supply of work, it must be met by charity. Is charity here withheld? The alternative is, extreme suffering from want; or, the scarcely smaller suffering from the embarrassment of debt, which will not only sink them deeper into dependence, but expose them even to sorer, and far more dreadful evils. Some experience is indeed required for a discrimination of character and condition in the cases of those, who plead a want of employment as the cause of their poverty; for there are those who would have employment, but for their inefficiency, or indolence; and who are willing, as far as they can, to live upon the charity and the industry of others. But deception upon this subject cannot long be practised upon those, whose business it is to visit, aud to know the poor, and who know how to avail themselves of the lessons of their own experience. And no one who knows how to make this distinction, will think lightly of the wants of the industrious and virtuous poor, who would, but from causes beyond their control cannot, provide for their absolute necessities. No one can understand their condition without strong feelings, not only of sympathy, but of obligation, if he possesses the means, of ministering to their relief and comfort.

The third class of the poor to which I would call your attention, consists of those whose poverty, though imme

diately attributable to vice, is yet remediable. This class also contains several divisions.

1st. Here I would place the young, who are of an age to earn enough for their own support, and who have physical ability to make this provision for themselves, but who have learned to prefer idleness, and vagrancy, and dissipation, and dishonesty, to regular and useful employment. These juvenile delinquents are not always the children of poor parents; and, where they are not, it may be thought that we should not class them with the poor. But even those of them whose parents are not poor, are in truth living, and, unchecked, will continue to live, upon the industry and resources of others; or, even if some of them should ultimately inherit property, they will, if left to themselves, go on in their career of vice, till they either sink into the abjectness of irremediable poverty, or into the deeper debasement of a life of recklessness and crime. But every juvenile delinquent, if already a pauper, may be rescued from pauperism; and if only on the verge of the gulf, may be saved from falling into it, and made a useful, respectable, and happy member of the community. It is believed that the Farm School, in the establishment of which there will be no further unnecessary delay, will offer facilities and advantages to the parents and friends of disobedient children, which could hardly be given by any merely municipal institution.

2d. Here, likewise, I would place the adult idler, who is able, but unwilling to work. His ability is the resource God has given him; and if he fail to avail himself of this resource, when he may have employment, society has a right to claim, and to have, from this very resource, a remuneration for all which it may contribute for the sup

port of the able bodied idler. Through this ability, his poverty is remediable.

Again. There are those who are beginning to be poor through intemperance, with whom, however, intemperance has not yet become an inveterate habit. Their poverty is remediable, because, by wise measures, kindly and perseveringly pursued, they may be recovered from intemperance. Before they were intemperate, they were not indisposed to labor; and, even now, they labor perhaps when they can. But their loss of character brings with it some loss of opportunities of employment; and they are sometimes unfitted for employment, when, if they had been temperate, they might have obtained it. They become as distrustful of themselves, as others are of them. Difficulties and embarrassments come upon them, which they have not energy to bear. They contract debts, which they have no means of paying. And trouble, trouble, as they say, drives them to recklessness, and to habitual intoxication. But no one is at once, or suddenly, an habitual drunkard; and he who is an habitual, and irreclaimable drunkard, and therefore irremediably poor, had he early been an object of christian sympathy, and interest, by well directed efforts might have been recovered to temperance, and saved from pauperism, and perhaps from crime and wretchedness.

Again. I would form a division in this class of the thriftless, and the improvident. There are those of this character, who are neither idle, nor intemperate. But they have no notion of a wise and economical appropriation of what they earn to the true necessities of their condition. They have never been instructed in the princi ples of a wise economy; and they are poor, only because

[blocks in formation]
« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »