The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-05-19
Address by
N0[R23o cDU[L0EAG1 s. GA[RLE2o
On The of at the State Normal
Industrial College.

/ years, as it was in 1884 that they were
discontinued, her health being very much
impaired. She had been the governess
of the celebrated DIR. William Emery
| Channing's children. In 1884 she left
Boston, and visited England, when she
met true friends to whom she became
| greatly attached. After spending elgh-
teen months most delightfully."- and re-
| freshingly to her wearied body and mlnd
] she returned in improved health and
| buoyancy. She had received a legacy
from relative that had made her indie
pendent of toll. Her life had been such
! strain, that at thirty-three or four, as
| it may have been according to the date
VI birth, it was sadly married. But God
had noble philanthropic work for her
to do, and He spared her life and restor-
ed her to health. She was quite i'll in
| England but her new friends there were
so kind, so sympathetic, so genial and
loving, that they nursed her back TO
health. When she returned to her native
land she found an unpleasant change in
the frigid unsympathetic society, and IN
the bleakness and austerity of their New
England life and scenery. She began then
| in earnest her life work of devotion and
sympathy and service. She had been in
4 stern school of experience. She had
walked the burning mari of sorrow and
suffering, and it was 1.-The rude grasp of
that great impulse of love and sympathy
/ (which drove" her into the wide, waste
! full fields of duty. She girded herself for
sacrifice and toll. She had been severely
taught and knew, as Cicero had said dong
a go, the great Roman orator and essaylst
men resembed the gods in nothing so
much as in doing good to their fellow
| creatures" Emanuel Kant said 'Bene
| ficience is a duty 80. and thus thy
| beneficence will engender in thee that
| love to mankind which is the fulness and
consummation of the inclination to do
good" In this world where there is so
much of wall and WEAKNESS, so much Of
sorrow and suffering, there will be al
ways occasion for the exercise of love
and ever place for human virtue. The
generous soul, full of sympathy, can
ever find occasion ''for his bounty
though there be mo winter in it" but
glorious Autumn twas, that grew the
more by rcaping." She devoted herself
| to the investigation of the condition OF
| three classes of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS,
lunatics, and prisoners. 1t was in 1S41
| that she took charge of a Sunday School
class of women in the East Cambridge
| House of Correction. She was encour-
aged in her beneficient labors by her pas
tor and friend, the eloquent Dr.. Chan
ming. Miss Dix visited the prisoners in
| the Boston jail and found them without
| fire in the coolest weather. She found
| the Insane treated in this way. She
went into the Court and by her repre-
sensations compelled the authorities to
listen to her plea of mercy, and it was
needed and stoves were at once intro
| duced. She made thorough report of
the condition of the Jail, exposed its a
| buses, and with the aid of influential
| friends succeeded in rectifying wrongs
and bringing something of comfort to
| the inmates. Here was the start Of
most remarka BILE life of benevolence and
mercy.
| She began to work outside of Boston.
| Within the two following years she had
| actually visited every Jail and almshouse
in Massachusetts, and had made a special
| study of thee ondition in which she
| found the incarcerated insane. In 1S43,
| she presented to the Legislature of her
| State petition in behalf Of the insane
! persons confined within cage, closets, eel
, lars, stalls, pens, chained, naked, beaten
! with rods, or dashed into obedience" IL
Illustrating the then common belief that
the insane were subjects of moral per-
version" and as such, no treatment could
be too severe for them. In this most
benignant and praiseworthy effort in be-
half of these victims, these children at
tlicted of God she succeeded, and secur-
ed remedies and blessings for them in
many ways. Having been so signally sue
cessful in her own State, she began to
extend work into other States, and to
visit blessings and mercies upon the sad
and suffering insane in other parts Of the
American Union. In prosecuting her no.
BILE work Of relief and pity she visited
every State in the Union east of the
Rocky Mountains endeavoring to reach
the insane everywhere, and to persuade
the several Legislatures to take prompt
measures for the relief of the poor and
wretched. God blessed her wonderfully
in this most noble and gracious labor of
love in behalf of His own afflicted poor.
Remember that this great sacrifice Of
money, time, and toll was at a time
when to travel was irksome, sometimes
difficult, and not without danger. From
State to State this pleader for the poor
and suffering went seeking to move the
hearts of men to extend the blessings she
sought upon the hapless, helpless inmates
of jails and other places Of confinement
and torment One Of her several bio
graphers says that she travelled from
State to State until ''her system was
actually saturated with malaria" and
she never withheld her hand or slackened
her energy, or withheld her hope
until she saw nsylums in twen-
ty different States erected, at
work filled with the suffering and I'M
der proper, wise, benevolent management.
In less than four years, this consecrated
earnest worker for humanity-this reso-
lutte, noble benefactor Of her race
this wise philanthropist, had
travelled over ten thousand miles,
visited fifteen penitentiaries Of the States,
visited over three hundred county jails
and houses of correction, visited over five
hundred almshouses, and in addition
many houses of refuge and hospitals. No
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