Year: 1871

Woflu. Cnlluren ought TO De protected
against this short-sighted avarice on the
part of their fathers and mothers.
Children are not to blame for the igno,
rance in which they are growing up.
The fault is first parental, then social
Ii parents are poor and ignorant, gem
eral laws ought to provide that every
child should not suffer unnecessarily
from neglect, and humane individuals
ought to see to it that in every neigh>
borhood those laws take effect.


These poor parents plead that they
need the work of the children to help
in the maintenance of the family, to
buy the clothing and daily bread In
some cases, this plea is just In large
number of cases it is groundless.
Where it is just, it would be better
public economy to keep the family and
pay for the children's schooling, than
to allow the parents to deprive the
children of their early advantages,
their rights to the privilege of educa>
ton. The better citizens they would
thus become, would more than repay
the community in dollars and cents for
its fcrethousht aud justice.


1t ought to be a recognized first prin
ciple, that every child born into the
bosom of society has right to the best
we can do for it. The welfare of the
whole community is more or less iu-
volved in its welfare If it is so cared
for as to be useful aud productive, soci>
ETY. is the gamer But if it be left in
neglect, becomes vagrant, a criminal
or got, society is continually taxed for
support, and has constantly a heavy
bill OF expenses to defend itself from its
vicious depredations. If we do not
secure tie children their lnalienable
rights, we suffer previously for our
neglect. We make the public expense
greater, the public safety less, the pub.
lie morality lower, and allow the public
tone to fall far below the demands Of a
nominally Christian andenlightened age.


There are many other considerations
touching the rights of children which
are a plicable to their treatment in the
home. Bnt to-day we had in view their
treatment by society; its duty to secure
them protection against the enslaving
desire of poor and ignorant parents.
We have abundant occasion to consider
the matter. Here stand these twenty
thousand children who have no school
Jog, no wise provisions made for them
who are beggars, vagrants, little boot
blacks, newsboys, and who are maturing
every day. What are their prospects
What are they likely to become? What
are all the Christians, all the philan,
thropists, all the wealthy and the wise
doing to secure their higher rights


Inviting Death-Some Startling Facts.


The New York Tribune asserts that
the cause of half the vice among us is
the ignorance Of parents of the fact that
certain nervous and cerebral diseases
transmitted from themselves, tend to
make of their children from their birth
criminals or drunkards, and that only
incessant and skillful care can avert the
danger. The editor then goes on to
philosophise in this way:


A man may drink moderately but
steadily all his life, with no apparent
harm to himself, but his daughters be-
come nervous wrecks, his sons epilep.
tics, libertines, or incurable drunkards,
the hereditary tendency to crime hav.
ing its pathology and UNMARRIED laws
precisely as scrofula, consumption, or
any other purely physical disease.
These are stale truths to medical men,
but the majority of parents, even those
of average intelligence, are either igno-
rant or wiekedly regardless of them.
There will be chance of ridding our
jails and almshouses ef half their ten
nants, when our people are brought to
treat drunkenness as a disease of the
stomach and blood, as we'll as of the
soul, to meet it with common sense and
physician, as well as with threats OF
eternal damnation, and to remove gin
shops and gin sellers for the same rea-
son that they would stagnant ponds or
uncIean sewers. Another fatal mistake
is pointed out in the training Of chill
dren-the system of cramming-hot
house forcing of their brains, induced
partly by the unhealthy, feverish am
bition and struggle that mark every
phase of our society, and partly by the
short time allowed for education. The
simplest physical laws that regulate the
use and abuse of the brain are utterly
disrcgarded by educated parents. Te
crafty mothers silly vanity during q
boys school days, many man is made
incompetent and useless If the boy
shows any sign of unnatural ambition Of
power, instead of regarding it as symp
tom of an unhealthy condition of the
blood vessels or other cerebral disease
and treating it accordingly, it is accept
ed as an evidence of genius, and th'
infamed brain is taxed to the utter
most, until it gives way exhausted.