THE DUTY 
 
 OF 
 
 AMERICAN WOMEN 
 
 TO THEIR 
 
 COUNTRY. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 Habpek & Brothers, 82 Clifp-St. 
 
 
^\^ 
 
 
 U 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 
 
 Harper & Brothers, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. 
 
 /,. 
 
 - \ 
 
 ; \. .-N. 
 
h 
 
 THE DUTY OF 
 
 AMERICAN WOMEN 
 
 TO THEIR COUNTRY. 
 
 My countrywomen, you often hear it said 
 that intelligence and virtue are indispensable 
 to the safety of a democratic government like 
 ours, where the people hold all the power. 
 You hear it said, too, that our country is in 
 great peril from the want of this intelligence 
 and virtue. But these words make a faint 
 impression, and it is the object of what fol- 
 lows to convey these truths more vividly to 
 your minds. 
 
 This will be attempted, by presenting some 
 recent events, in a country where a govern- 
 ment similar to our own was undertaken, by a 
 people destitute of that intelligence and virtue 
 so indispensable ; and then it will be shown 
 that similar dangers are impending over our 
 own country. The grand point to be illus- 
 trated is, that a people without education have 
 not intelligence enough to know what meas- 
 ures will secure safety and prosperity, nor 
 virtue enough to pursue even what they know 
 
4 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 to be right, so that, when possessed of power, 
 they will adopt ruinous measures, be excited 
 by base passions, and be governed by wicked 
 and cruel men. 
 
 Look, then, at France during that awful pe- 
 riod called the Reign of Terror. First, observe 
 the process by which the power passed into 
 the hands of the people. An extravagant 
 king, a selfish aristocracy, an exacting priest- 
 hood, had absorbed all the wealth, honour, 
 and power, until the people were ground to 
 the dust. All offices of trust and emolument 
 were in the hands of the privileged few, all 
 laws made for their benefit, all monopolies 
 held for their profit, while the common people 
 were condemned to heavy toils, with returns 
 not sufficient to supply the necessities of life, 
 so that, in some districts, famine began to stalk 
 through the land. 
 
 Speedily the press began to unfold these 
 wrongs, and at the same time, Lafayette and 
 his brave associates returned from our shores, 
 and spread all over the nation enthusiastic ac- 
 counts of happy America, where the people 
 govern themselves, unoppressed by monopoly, 
 or king, or noble, or priest. The press teems 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 5 
 
 With exciting pages, and orators 'inflame the 
 public mind to a tempest of enthusiasm. The 
 court and the aristocratic party cower before 
 the storm ; and ere long, the eleven hundred 
 representatives of the people are seen march- 
 ing, in solemn pomp, through the streets of the 
 capital, while the whole land rings with accla- 
 mations of joy. They take their seats, on an 
 equality with nobles and king, and proceed to 
 form a constitution, securing the rights of the 
 people. It is adopted, and swofti to, by the 
 whole nation, with transports and songs, while 
 they vainly imagine that all their troubles are 
 at an end. But the representatives, chosen by 
 the people, had not the wisdom requisite for 
 such arduous duties as were committed to 
 them, nor had the people themselves the intel- 
 ligence and virtue indispensable for such a 
 change. Men of integrity and ability were not 
 selected for the new offices created. Fraud, 
 peculation, rapine, and profusion abounded. 
 Everything went wrong, and soon the coun- 
 try was more distressed than ever. " What 
 is the cause of this ?" the people demand of 
 their representatives. " It is the aristocrats ^^ 
 is the reply ; " it is the king ; it is the nobles ; 
 A3 
 
AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 it is the clergy. They oppose and thwart all 
 our measures ; they will not allow our new 
 Constitution to work, and therefore it is that 
 you suffer." And so the people are filled with 
 rage at those whom they suppose to be the 
 cause of their disappointment and sufferings. 
 The clergy first met the storm. " These bish- 
 ops and priests, with their vast estates, and 
 splendid mansions, and rich incomes — they beg- 
 gar the people, that they may riot on the spoils" 
 And so the populace rage and thunder around 
 the national Hall of Legislation till they carry 
 their point, and laws are passed confiscating 
 the property of the clergy, and driving them 
 to exile or death. Their vast estates pass into 
 the control of the National Legislature, and for 
 a time, abundance and profusion reign. The 
 people have bread, and the office-seekers gain 
 immense spoils. But no wisdom or honesty is 
 found to administer these millions for the good 
 of the people. In a short time, all is gone ; 
 distress again lashes the people to madness, 
 and again they demand why they do not gain 
 the promised plenty and prosperity. ''It is 
 the aristocrats," is the reply ; " it is the king ; 
 it is the nobles ; it is the rich men. They 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 7 
 
 oppose all our measures, therefore nothing 
 succeeds, and the people are distressed." 
 
 Next, the nobles meet the storm. " They 
 are traitors ; they are enemies of the people ; 
 they are plotting against our liberties ; they are 
 living in palaces, and rolling in splendid car- 
 riages from the hard earnings of the poor." 
 The populace rage against them all over the 
 land. They besiege the House of Represent- 
 atives ; they beseech — they threaten. At last 
 they carry their point ; the estates of the no- 
 bles are seized ; they are declared traitors, and 
 doomed to banishment or death. Again mill- 
 ions are placed at the control of the people's 
 agents. It is calculated that by this and for- 
 mer confiscations, more than a thousand mill- 
 ions of dollars were seized for the use of the 
 people. Again fraud, peculation, profusion, 
 and mismanagement abound, till all this incom- 
 prehensible treasure vanishes away. 
 
 Meantime, all the laws have been altered ; 
 all the property has passed from its wonted 
 owners to new hands ; the wealthy, educated, 
 and noble are down ; the poor, the ignorant, 
 the base hold the offices, wealth, and power. 
 Everything is mismanaged. Everything goes 
 
8 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 wrong. The people grow distracted with 
 their sufferings, and again demand the cause. 
 " It is the king ; it is his extravagant Austrian 
 queen, who rules him and his court. They 
 thwart all our measures. They are sending 
 to brother kings for soldiers to crush our lib- 
 erties. They are gathering armies on our 
 borders to overwhelm us." 
 
 Next, the helpless king and his family be- 
 come the mark for popular rage. Every in- 
 dignity and insult was inflicted and borne with 
 a patient fortitude that extorted admiration, till 
 finally the king is first led forth to a bloody 
 death ; next the queen is sacrificed ; next the 
 virtuous sister of the king ; and, last, the little 
 dauphin is barbarously murdered. 
 
 Still misery rules through the nation. The 
 friends of the king and former government, 
 and all the peaceable citizens and supporters 
 of order, are called aristocrats, and every art 
 devised to render them objects of fear, suspi- 
 cion, and hatred, especially such of them as 
 hold property to tempt the cupidity of the peo- 
 ple. Through the whole land two parties ex- 
 ist ; one the distressed, bewildered, exaspera- 
 ted people, raging for their rights, and driven 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 9 
 
 to madness by the fancied opposition of aris- 
 tocrats ; the other a trembling, cowering mi- 
 nority, suffering insult, and fear, and robbery, 
 and often a cruel death. 
 
 And now priests and nobles and king and 
 queen are all gone, and yet the people are 
 more distressed than ever before. Amid these 
 scenes of violence, confusion, and misrule, con- 
 fidence has ceased, commerce has furled the 
 sail, trade has closed the door, manufactures 
 ceased their din, and agriculture forsaken the 
 plough. 
 
 There is no money, no credit, no confidence, 
 no employment, no bread. Famine, and pes- 
 tilence, and grief, and rage, and despair brood 
 over the land. Again the people cry to their 
 representatives, " Why do you not give us the 
 promised prosperity and plenty ? We have 
 nothing to eat, nothing to wear ; our business 
 and trades are at an end. The nations around 
 us are gathering to devour us, and what is the 
 cause of all these woes ?" 
 
 " It is the Girondists," is the reply ; " it is 
 this party among the people's representatives. 
 They are traitors ; they have been bribed ; they 
 have joined with foreign aristocrats and kings. 
 
10 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 They interrupt all our measures, and they are 
 the cause of all your sufferings." 
 
 And now the people turn their rage upon 
 the most intelligent and well-meaning portion 
 of their representatives, who have been stri- 
 ving to stem the worst excesses of those who 
 yield entirely to the dictation of the mob. 
 After a period of storms and threats and vio- 
 lence, at length a majority is gained against 
 them, and a decree is passed condemning a 
 large portion of the National Legislature as trai- 
 tors, while their leaders are borne forth by the 
 exulting mob to a bloody death. Still the dis- 
 tress of the people is unrelieved, and again 
 they clamour for the cause. " It is the party 
 opposed to us," say ths Jacobins, with Robes- 
 pierre at their head ; " they are the traitors ; 
 they will not adopt the measures which will 
 save the people from these ills." 
 
 " Cut them down !" cries the populace ; and 
 again another portion of the people's repre- 
 sentatives are led forth to death. 
 
 And now Robespierre, the leader of the low- 
 est mob of all, is supreme dictator, and all 
 power is lodged with this coldest-blooded ruf- 
 fian that ever doomed his fellow-beings to a 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 11 
 
 violent death. This was the Reign of Terror, 
 when the mob had gained complete mastery, 
 and this man, its advocate and organ, adminis- 
 tered its awful energies. Look, then, for a mo- 
 ment, at the picture. 
 
 But the horrors of this period are so incred- 
 ible, the atrocities so monstrous, that the tale 
 will be regarded with distrust, without some 
 previous indication of the causes which led to 
 such results. 
 
 Let it be remembered, then, that this whole 
 revolutionary movement was, in fact, a war 
 of the common people upon the classes above 
 them. Let it be remembered, too, that the 
 French people, by the press, and by emissaries 
 all over Europe, had invoked the lower classes 
 of all nations to make common cause with 
 them. " War to the palace, and peace to the 
 cottage," was their watchword. Every throne 
 began to shake, and every person of rank, tal- 
 ents, and wealth felt his own safety involved 
 in the contest. It was thus that the revolu- 
 tionary leaders felt that they were contending 
 for their lives, against the whole wealth, aris- 
 tocracy, and monarchical power of Europe. 
 
 In France itself, individual ambition, hate, 
 
12 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 envy, or vengeance added fearful power to this 
 war of contending classes. Not only every 
 leader, but every, individual, found in the op- 
 posing party some rival to displace, or some 
 private grudge to revenge, while ten thousand 
 aspirants for office demanded sacrifices, in or- 
 der to secure vacated places. At last the 
 struggle became so imbittered and desperate, 
 that each man looked out only for himself. 
 Friend gave up friend to save his own life, or 
 to secure pohtical advancement, till confidence 
 between man and man perished, and society 
 became a mass of warring elements, excited 
 by every dreadful passion. 
 
 Few men are deliberately cruel from the 
 mere love of cruelty. Thousands, under the 
 influence of fear, revenge, ambition, or hate, 
 become selfish, reckless, and cruel. When, 
 too, in conflicts where men feel that by the 
 hands of opponents they have lost property, 
 home, honour, and country ; when they have 
 seen their dearest friends slaughtered or starv- 
 ed, then, when the hour of retaliation arrives, 
 pity and sympathy are dead, and every bale- 
 ful passion rages. Thus almost every man in 
 the conflict had suffered : if a democrat, from 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 13 
 
 those above him ; if an aristocrat, from those 
 below him. 
 
 Meantime, reHgion, that powerful principle 
 in humanizing and restraining bad passions, 
 had well-nigh taken her flight. The war upon 
 the clergy at length turned to a war upon the 
 religion they reg^sented, till atheism became 
 the prevailing principle of the nation. 
 
 By a public act, the leaders of the people 
 declared their determination " to dethrone the 
 King of Heaven, as well as the monarchs of 
 the earth." For this end, the apostate clergy, 
 put in the places of those exiled, were induced 
 to come before the bar of the National Legis- 
 lature and publicly abjure Christianity, and 
 declare that "no other national religion was 
 now required but liberty, equality, and moral- 
 ity." 
 
 On this occasion, crowds of drunken arti- 
 sans appeared before the bar of the house^ 
 trampling under foot the cross, the sacrament- 
 al vases, and other emblems of religious faith. 
 A vile woman, dressed as the Goddess of Rea- 
 son, was publicly embraced by the presiding 
 officer of the National Legislature, and con- 
 ducted by him to a magnificent car, and fol- 
 B 
 
14 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 lowed by immense crowds to the grand Ca- 
 thedral of Notre Dame, where she was seated 
 on an altar, and there received the worship of 
 the multitudes. The Sabbath, by a national 
 decree, was abolished ; the Bible wfis burned 
 publicly by the executioner ; and on the grave- 
 yards was inscribed, "Del^jh is an eternal 
 sleep 1" ^ 
 
 At Lyons, a similar scene was enacted, 
 where a fete in honour of Liberty was cele- 
 brated. The churches were all closed, the 
 Decade, or Sabbath of Reason, proclaimed, 
 and an image of a vile character was carried 
 in procession, followed by vast crowds, shout- 
 ing, " Down with the aristocrats ! Long life to 
 the guillotine 1" After the image came an ass, 
 bearing the Cross, the Bible, and the commu- 
 nion service ; and these were led to an altar, 
 where a fire was lighted, the Cross and Bible 
 burned, the communion bread trampled under 
 foot, and the ass made to drink out of the com- 
 munion cup. Wherever democracy reigned, 
 the services of religion were interrupted, the 
 burial service vanished, baptisms ceased, the 
 sick and dying were unconsoled by religion, 
 while every species of vice, obscenity, and 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 15 
 
 licentiousness were practised without conceal- 
 ment or control. The establishments for char- 
 ity, the hospitals, and all humane institutions 
 were swept away, and their funds seized by 
 the agents of the people. Even the sepul- 
 chres of the dead were upturned. The noble, 
 the wise, and the ancient, the barons of feudal 
 ages, the heroes of the Crusades, the military 
 chieftains, the ancient kings, resting in long- 
 hallowed tombs, the mightiest monarchs of the 
 nation, the " chief ones of the earth," were 
 moved from their rest, and rose to meet the 
 coming of this awful day, while the treasures 
 of their tombs were I'ifled by vulgar hands, 
 and their very sculls kicked around as foot- 
 balls for sport. 
 
 Meantime the sovereigns of Europe were 
 making preparations to meet this flood of 
 democratic lava, which threatened to overflow 
 every surrounding land. Vast armies began 
 to gather on every side, and avenging navies 
 hovered along the shores. This added the 
 fervour of patriotic devotion to the mania of 
 democracy. 
 
 " Ye sons of France I awake to glory ! 
 
 Hark ! hark ! what myriads bid you rise ! 
 Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary, 
 Behold their tears, and hear their cries ! 
 
16 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding. 
 
 With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, 
 
 Affright and desolate our land, 
 While Peace and Liberty lie bleeding ? 
 To arms ! to arms ! ye brave ! 
 The avenging sword unsheath ! 
 March on ! march on ! to victory or death !" . 
 
 These inspiring sentiments, sung in the 
 thrilling notes of the Marseilles Hymn, were 
 echoed from one end of the land to the other, 
 awakening a whirlwind of enthusiasm. The 
 wants of thousands thrown out of employ, join- 
 ed with the excitement of patriotism, raised an 
 army unparalleled in numbers. It is calculated 
 that, at one time, one million two hundred thou- 
 sand Frenchmen were thus enrolled, and at the 
 command of the National Legislature, while the 
 millions of property, not otherwise squander- 
 ed, were employed to clothe, feed, and equip 
 this incomprehensible multitude. All France 
 was bristling like an armed field ; while every 
 mandate of government, backed as it was by 
 such a military force, was utterly resistless. 
 Thus it was that the Reign of Terror was so 
 silent, awful, and hopeless. 
 
 Behold, then, through the terror-stricken and 
 miserable land, the national troops employed 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 17 
 
 in arresting every person suspected of favour- 
 ing aristocracy, or conspicuous as the holder 
 of wealth, or object of hate, envy, or suspi- 
 cion to all in the possession of power. Be- 
 hold the prisons of the capital, of the provin- 
 cial cities, and of the country villages, cram- 
 med to overflowing with the rich, the noble, 
 and the learned. No regard was paid to sta- 
 tion, age, or sex. Gray hairs and blooming 
 childhood, stern warriors and beautiful maidens, 
 coarse labourers and noble matrons, were hud- 
 dled together into the damps, and filth, and 
 darkness of a common dungeon, while the 
 guillotine daily toiled in its bloody work of 
 death. 
 
 Whenever a fresh supply of funds was de- 
 manded for the national service, a new alarn:a> 
 of invasion or of counter-revolution was spread^ 
 and then followed new arrests of those suspect- 
 ed, or of those who held any species of wealth,. 
 In disposing of captives to make room for new 
 supplies, some were poniarded in prison, some 
 shot, and some guillotined. At last, it was 
 found needful to adopt a more summary 
 method, and the National Legislature decreed 
 that the land must be cleared of traitors and 
 B2 
 
18 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 aristocrats, not by trial and single execution, 
 but by a slaughter of masses. A corps was 
 formed of the most determined and blood- 
 thirsty, and sent all over the land to execute 
 this mandate. In carrying out this unparalleled 
 system of cold-blooded murder, various modes 
 were adopted. One was called the Republican 
 Baptism, by which men, women, and children 
 were placed in a vessel with a trap-door in the 
 bottom, and carried out into the midst of the 
 waves ; then the trap-door was opened, and 
 the crew, getting into a boat, left their victims 
 to perish. Another method was called the 
 Republican Marriage. By this, two of the 
 opposite sex, generally an old person and a 
 young one, were bereft of all clothing, then 
 tied together, and, after being tortured a while, 
 thrown into the waves. Another mode was 
 called the mitrillade or fusillade. Sixty, or 
 more, captives w^ere bound, and ranged in two 
 files along a deep ditch dug for the purpose. 
 At the two extremities of each file, w^ere placed 
 cannons loaded with grapeshot, and, at a given 
 signal, these were discharged on this mass of 
 human beings. But a few were entirely killed 
 at the first discharge. Wounded and muti- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 19 
 
 lated, they fell in heaps, or crawled forth, and, 
 with piercing shrieks, entreated the soldiers to 
 end their sufferings with death. Three suc- 
 cessive discharges did not accomphsh the 
 work, which was finally ended by the swords 
 of the soldiery. Next day, the same scene was 
 renewed on a larger scale, more than two 
 hundred prisoners being thus destroyed. This 
 was repeated day after day ; while, on one oc- 
 casion, the commanding officer rose from a 
 carouse, and with thirty Jacobins and twenty 
 courtesans, went out to enjoy a view of the 
 horrid scene. 
 
 At Toulon the mitrillades were repeated, till 
 at least eight hundred were thus slaughtered 
 in a population of less than ten thousand. In 
 Lyons, during only five months, six thousand 
 persons suffered death, and among these were 
 a great portion of the noblest and most vir- 
 tuous citizens. At Toulon, one of the victims 
 was an old man of eighty-four, and his only 
 crime was the possession of eighty thousand 
 pounds, of which he ofl^ered all but a mere 
 trifle to escape so shocking a death, but in 
 vain. Bonaparte, who saw these horrors, says, 
 " When I beheld this poor old man executed, 
 
20 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 I felt as if the end of the world was at 
 hand." 
 
 At Nantz, five hundred children, of both 
 sexes, the oldest not fourteen, were led out to 
 be shot. Never before was beheld so piteous 
 a sight ! The stature of the little ones was so 
 low that the balls passed over their heads, and, 
 shrieking v^ith terror, they burst their bonds, 
 and, rushing to their murderers, they implored 
 for pity and life. But in vain ; the sabre finish- 
 ed the dreadful work, and these babes were 
 slaughtered at their feet. 
 
 At another time, a large body of women, 
 most of them with young children, were car- 
 ried out into the Loire, and while the uncon- 
 scious little ones were smiling and caressing 
 their distressed mothers, these mothers were 
 bereft of all clothing, and thrown with their 
 infants into the waves. 
 
 At another time, three hundred young girls 
 were drowned in one night at Nantz, where, 
 for some months, every night, hundreds of 
 persons were carried forth and thrown into 
 the river, while their shrieks awoke the in- 
 habitants, and froze every heart with terror. 
 In this city, in a single month, either by hun- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 21 
 
 ger, the diseases of prison, or violence, fifteen 
 thousand persons perished, and more than 
 double that number during the Reign of Terror. 
 
 In the prisons not less dreadful . sufferings 
 were endured. In these foul and gloomy- 
 abodes, the cells were dark, humid, and filthy ; 
 the straw, their only beds, became so putrid 
 that the stench was horrible, while enormous 
 rats and every species of vermin preyed on 
 the wretched inmates. In such dens as these 
 were gathered the rank, the beauty, the tal- 
 ents, and the wealth of Paris, and the chief 
 cities of the land. Here, too , degraded turn- 
 keys, attended by fierce dogs, domineered over 
 their victims, while on one side were threats, 
 oaths, obscenity, and insult, and on the other 
 were vain arguments, useless supphcations, 
 and bitter tears. 
 
 Every night the wheels of the rolling car 
 were heard, coming to carry another band of 
 victims to their doom. Then the bars of the 
 windows and wickets of the doors were 
 crowded by anxious listeners, to learn wheth- 
 er their own names were called, or to see their 
 friends led out to death. Those summoned 
 l^ade a hasty farewell to their friends. The 
 
22 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 husband left the arms of his frantic wife, the 
 father was torn from his weeping children, the 
 brother and sister, the neighbour and friend, 
 parted and went forth to die, while survivers, 
 picturing the last agonies of those they loved, 
 or waiting their own fate, suffered a living 
 death, till again the roll of the approaching 
 car renewed the universal agony. 
 
 To such a degree did thi§ protracted torture 
 prey upon the mind, that many became reck- 
 less of life, and many longed for death as a re- 
 lief. 
 
 In many cases, women died of terror when 
 their cell door was opened, supposing their 
 hour of doom was come. 
 
 The prison floors were often covered with 
 infants, distressed by hunger, or in the agonies 
 of death. One evening, three hundred infants 
 were in one prison ; the next morning all were 
 drowned ! When the citizens once remonstra- 
 ted at this useless cruelty, the reply was, " They 
 are all young aristocratic vipers — let them be 
 stifled !" 
 
 Such accumulated horrors annihilated the 
 sympathies and charities of life. Calamity 
 rendered every man suspicious. Those pass- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 23 
 
 ing in the streets feared to address their near- 
 est friends. As wealth was a mark for ruin, 
 all put on coarse, or squalid raiment. Abroad, 
 no symptom of animation was seen, except 
 when prisoners were led forth to slaughter, 
 and then the humane fled, and the hard-heart- 
 ed rushed forward to look upon the agonies 
 of death. In the family circle, all was fear 
 and distrust. The sound of a footstep, a voice 
 in the street, a knock at the door, sent paleness 
 to the cheek. Night brought little repose, and 
 in the morning all eyed each other distrustful- 
 ly, as if-traitors were lurking there. 
 
 But there is a limit to the power of mental 
 suffering ; and one of the saddest features of 
 this awful period was the torpid apathy, which 
 settled on the public mind, so that, eventually, 
 the theatres, which had been forsaken, began 
 to be thronged, and the multitude relieved 
 themselves by farces and jokes, unconcerned 
 whether it was twenty, or a hundred of their 
 fellow-citizens, who were led forth to die. 
 
 Learning and talent were as fatal to their 
 possessors as rank and wealth. The son of 
 BufFon the naturalist, the daughter of the elo- 
 quent Vernay, Roucher the poet, and even the 
 illustrious Lavoisier, in the midst of his philo- 
 
24 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 sophical experiments, were cut down. A few 
 more weeks of slaughter would have swept 
 off all the literary talent of France. 
 
 During the revolutionary period, it is cal- 
 culated that not less than two hundred thou- 
 sand persons suffered imprisonment, besides 
 those who were put to death, of whom the 
 following list is furnished by the Republicans 
 themselves: 
 
 Twelve hundred and seventy-eight nobles, 
 seven hundred and fifty women of rank, four- 
 teen hundred of the clergy, and thirteen thou- 
 sand persons not noble, perished by the guil- 
 lotine under decrees of the tribunals of the 
 people. 
 
 To this, add the victims at Nantz, which are 
 arranged in this mournful catalogue : 
 
 Children shot 500 
 
 Children drowned ..... 1500 
 
 Women shot 264 
 
 Women drowned .... 500 
 Priests shot and drowned . . 760 
 Nobles drowned ..... 1400 
 Artisans drowned .... 5300 
 The whole number destroyed at Nants, of 
 which the above is a portion only, was thirty- 
 two thousand. 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 25 
 
 To these add those slaughtered in the wars 
 of La Vendee, viz., nine hundred thousand 
 men, fifteen thousand women, and twenty-two 
 thousand children. To this add the victims 
 at Lyons, numbering thirty-one thousand. To 
 this, add those who are recorded thus : " wom- 
 en who died of grief, or premature childbirth, 
 three thousand seven hundred ;" and we have 
 a sum-total of one million twenty-two thousand 
 human beings destroyed by violence. How 
 many should be added, as those who died of 
 prison sufferings, or from the pangs and priva- 
 tions of exile, or from famine and from pesti- 
 lence consequent on this state of anarchy and 
 violence, who can enumerate ? 
 
 At some periods, such was the awful slaugh- 
 ter, that the rivers were discoloured with blood, 
 in Paris, a vast aqueduct was dug to carry off 
 the gore to the Seine, and four men employed 
 in conducting it to this reservoir. In the riv- 
 er Loire, the corpses accumulated so that birds 
 of prey hovered all along its banks, the wa- 
 ters became infected, and the fishes so poison- 
 ous that the magistrates of Nantz forbade the 
 fishermen to take them. 
 
 Thus, in the language of another, " France 
 C 
 
26 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 became a kind of suburb of the world of per- 
 dition. Surrounding nations were lost in 
 amazement as they beheld the scene. It seem- 
 ed a prelude to the funeral of this great world, 
 a stall of death, a den into which thousands 
 daily entered and none were seen to return. 
 Between ninety and a hundred of the leaders 
 in this mighty work of death, fell by the hand 
 of violence. Enemies to all men, they were 
 of course enemies to each other. Butchers of 
 the human race, they soon whetted the knife for 
 each other's throats ; and the same Almighty 
 Being who rules the universe, whose existence 
 they had denied by a solemn act of legislation, 
 whose perfections they had made the butt of 
 public scorn, whose Son they had crucified 
 afresh, and whose Word they had burned by 
 the hands of a common hangman, swept them 
 all, by the hand of violence, into an untimely 
 grave. The tale made every ear that heard 
 it tingle, and every heart chill with horror. 
 It was, in the language of Ossian, * the song of 
 death.' It was like the reign of the plague in 
 a populous city. Knell tolled upon knell, 
 hearse followed hearse, coffin rumbled after 
 coffin, without a mourner to shed a tear, or a 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY 
 
 ? 27 
 
 solitary attendant to mark the place of the 
 o-rave. ' From one new moon to another, and 
 from one Sabbath to another, the world went 
 forth and looked upon the carcasses of the 
 men who transgressed against God, and they 
 were an abhorring unto all flesh/ " 
 
 Such, my countrywomen, are the scenes 
 which have been enacted in this very age, hi 
 a land calling itself Christian, and boasting it- 
 self as at the head of civilization and refine- 
 ment. Do you say that such cruelty and 
 bloodthirsty rage can never appear among us ; 
 that our countrymen can never be so deluded 
 by falsehood and blinded by passion ? 
 
 Look, then, at scenes which have already 
 occurred in our land. Look at Baltimore : it 
 is night, and within one of its prisons are shut 
 up some of its most excellent and respected 
 citizens. They dared to use the rights of free- 
 men, and express their opinions, and oppose 
 the measures of the majority ; and for this, 
 a fierce multitude is raging around those walls, 
 demanding their blood. They force the doors, 
 and, with murderous weapons, reach the room 
 containing their victims. Some friendly hand 
 extinguishes the lights, and in the protecting 
 
28 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 darkness they seek to escape. Some suc- 
 ceed ; others are recognised, and seized, and 
 stabbed, and trampled on, and dragged around 
 in murderous fury. One of the noblest of 
 these victims, apparently dead, is seized by 
 some pitying neighbour, under the pretence of 
 cruelty, and thrown into the river and carried 
 over a fall. There he is drawn forth and re- 
 stored to consciousness ; and there, too, it is 
 discovered, that by Americans, by the hands of 
 his fellow-citizens, his body has been stuck with 
 scores of pins, deep plunged into his flesh ! 
 
 Look, again, at the Southwest, and see gam- 
 blers swinging uncondemned from a gallows, 
 and among them a harmless man, whom the 
 fury of the mob hung up without time for judge 
 or jury to detect his innocence. 
 
 See, on the banks of the Mississippi, fires 
 blazing, and American citizens roasted alive 
 by their fellow-citizens ! See, even in New- 
 England, the boasted land of law and steady 
 habits, a raging mob besets a house filled with 
 women and young children. They set fire to 
 it, and the helpless inmates are driven forth 
 by the flames to the sole protection of dark- 
 ness and the pitiless ruflaans. See, in Cincin- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 29 
 
 nati, the poor blacks driven from their homes, 
 insulted, beaten, pillaged, seeking refuge in 
 prisons and private houses, and for days kept 
 in constant terror and peril. 
 
 See, in Philadelphia, one class of citizens ar- 
 rayed in arms against another, both excited to 
 the highest pitch of rage, both thirsting for 
 each other's blood, while the civil authority 
 can prevent universal pillage, misrule, and 
 murder, only by volleys that shoot down neigh- 
 bours, brothers, and friends. 
 
 See, too, how the rage of political strife has 
 threatened the whole nation with a civil war. 
 South Carolina declares that she will not sub- 
 mit to certain laws, which she claims are 
 unconstitutional. Her own citizens are divi- 
 ded into fierce parties, so exasperated that 
 each is preparing to shoot down the other. 
 Even the women are contributing their orna- 
 ments to meet the expenses of the murderous 
 strife. From neighbouring states, the troops 
 are advancing, the ships of war are nearing 
 their harbours. One single act of resistance, 
 and the state had been the battle-field of that 
 most bitter, most cruel, most awful of all con- 
 flicts, a civil and a servile war. 
 C2 
 
30 AMEKICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 And all these materials of combustion are 
 now slumbering in our bosom, pent up a while, 
 but ready to burst forth, like imprisoned lava, 
 and deluge the land. How easy it would be 
 to bring the nation into fierce contest on the 
 subject of slavery, that internal cancer which 
 inflames the whole body politic ! How easy 
 to array native citizens against foreign im- 
 migrants, who at once oppose the prejudices 
 and diminish the wages of those around them ! 
 How easy to make one section believe that 
 tariff", or tax, is sacrificing the prosperity of one 
 portion to gratify the envy, or increase the 
 luxuries of another ! 
 
 How easy to make one class of humbler 
 means, believe that bank, or monopoly, is de- 
 stroying the fruit of their toil, to increase the 
 overgrown wealth of a class above them ! 
 
 And here is no standing army, such as is 
 wielded by all other governments in sustain- 
 ing law. When our communities are divided 
 by interest or passion, the lawmakers, the judg- 
 es, the jury, and the military are all partisans 
 in the strife. 
 
 Nor can one part of the Union suffer, and 
 the other escape unharmed, as might be sup- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 31 
 
 posed, amid this reckless talk about the disso- 
 lution of the Union. An overt attempt to dis- 
 solve the Union is treason ; and it can never be 
 carried out without fierce parties in every state, 
 ready to fight to the last gasp against such a 
 suicidal act. Such a national dislocation would 
 send a groan of agony through every city, 
 town, and hamlet in our land ; civil war would 
 blow her trump, citizen would be arrayed 
 against citizen, and state against state, and the 
 whole arch of heaven would be inscribed with 
 " mourning, and lamentation, and wo." 
 
 What, then, has saved our country from 
 those wide-sweeping horrors that desolated 
 France ? Why is it that, in the excitements 
 of embargoes, and banks, and slavery, and ab- 
 olition, and foreign immigration, the besom of 
 destruction has not swept over the land ? It is 
 because there has been such a large body oiedu. 
 caferf citizens, who have had intelligence enough 
 to understand how to administer the affairs of 
 state, and a proper sense of the necessity of 
 sustaining law and order ; who have had mor- 
 al principle enough to subdue their own pas- * 
 sions, and to use their influence to control the 
 excited minds of others. Change our large 
 
32 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 body of moral, intelligent, and religious peo- 
 ple to the ignorant, impulsive, excitable popu- 
 lation of France, and in one month the horrors 
 of the Reign of Terror would be before our 
 eyes. Nothing can preserve this nation from 
 such scenes but perpetuating this preponder- 
 ance of intelligence and virtue. This is our 
 only safeguard. 
 
 What, then, are our prospects in this re- 
 spect ? Look at the monitions recorded in our 
 census. Let it be first conceded, that the fact 
 that a man cannot read and write is not, in it- 
 self, proof that he is not intelligent and virtuous. 
 Many, in our country, by intercourse with men 
 and things, by the discussions of religion and 
 politics, and by the care of their affairs, gain 
 much reflection and mental discipline. Still, 
 a person who cannot read a word in a news- 
 paper, nor a line in his Bible, and who has so 
 little value for knowledge as to remain thus in- 
 capacitated, as a general fact, is in the lowest 
 grade of stupidity and mental darkness. So 
 that the number w^ho cannot read and write is, 
 perhaps, the surest exponent of the intellectual 
 and moral state of a community. For though 
 this list may embrace many intelligent and 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 33 
 
 virtuous persons, on the other hand, there are 
 probably as many, or more, of those classed 
 as being able to read and Vi^rite, w^ho never 
 have used this pov\^er, and who are among the 
 most stupid and degraded of our race. 
 
 Look, then, at the indications in our census. 
 In a population of fourteen millions, we find 
 one million adults who cannot read and write, 
 and two millions of children without schools. 
 In a few years, then, if these children come on 
 to the stage with their present neglect, we sh^i^ 
 have three millions of adults managing our 
 state and national affairs, who cannot even 
 read the Constitution they swear to support, 
 nor a word in the Bible, or in any newspaper 
 or book. Look at the West, where our dan- 
 gers from foreign immigration are the great- 
 est, and which, by its unparalleled increase, is 
 soon to hold the sceptre of power. In Ohio, 
 more than one third of the children attend no 
 school. In Indiana and Illinois scarcely one 
 half of the children have any schools. Mis- 
 souri and Iowa send a similar, or worse report. 
 In Virginia, one quarter of the white adults 
 cannot even write their names to their appli- 
 cations for marriage license. In North Caro- 
 
34 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 iina, more than half the adults cannot read and 
 write. The whole South, in addition to her 
 hordes of ignorant slaves, returns more than 
 half her white children as without schools. 
 
 My countrywomen, what is before us ? 
 What awful forebodings arise ! Intelligence 
 and virtue our only safeguards, and yet all 
 this mass of ignorance among us, and hun- 
 dreds of thousands of ignorant foreigners being 
 yearly added to augment our danger ! 
 
 # We are not even stationary. We are losing 
 ground every day. Every hour the clouds 
 are gathering blacker around us. Already it 
 is found, that the number of voters who cannot 
 read and write, and who yet decide every 
 question of safety and interest, exceeds the 
 great majority that brought in Harrison. Al- 
 ready the number of criminals and felons, who, 
 on dismission from jails and penitentiaries, are 
 allowed to vote, exceeds the majority that 
 brought in our chief magistrate in 1836 !* 
 
 * The following is the mode of obtaining the facts stated 
 above : 
 
 In the census, 550,000 is the number of those who have con- 
 fessed their inability to read and write. That many have claimed 
 to be able to read and write, who are not, is thus established. 
 In Virginia, every man, on applying for marriage license, musS 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 35 
 
 Nor is the picture of our situation less mourn- 
 ful, when we examine into the condition of 
 young children in those states, which have 
 done the most for education. Take New- 
 York, for example, where, for forty years, the 
 education of the people has been provided for 
 by law, and where the very best school system 
 in the world has recently gone into operation. 
 It is the chief business of the Secretary of 
 State, to take care of the common schools of 
 the state, while, in every county, a deputy-su- 
 perintendent, paid five hundred dollars each 
 
 sign his name or make his mark. An examination was made 
 in ninety-three out of 123, the whole number of the county 
 courts giving license, and one quarter, and in many cases one 
 third, of the applicants could not write their names. Their 
 wives could not be any better educated. This indicates that 
 certainly as many as one quarter of the white adults in the state 
 cannot sign their names. One quarter of 329,959, which is the 
 adult population of Virginia, is 82,489. But the census, instead 
 of that number, gives only 58,789 who cannot read and write, a 
 difference oi forty per cent. Take, then, the 550,000 who have 
 confessed their ignorance, and z.dA forty per cent, for inaccuracy, 
 and the number is 770,000. To these, add the increase since 
 the census was taken, and those also who, by neglect, have lost 
 all ability to read and write, and one million is a very moderate 
 calculation for adult ignorance in this nation. Of these, at least 
 175,000 are voters. General Harrison's majority, in 1840, was 
 146,000, or 24,000 less than the number of voters who cannot read 
 and write. — {8ee Mr. Mann's 4th of July Oration.) 
 The census also records more children as attending school 
 
36 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 year for his services, devotes his whole time 
 to the care of common schools. Every year 
 these comity superintendents report to the Sec- 
 retary of State, in regard to the situation of 
 the schools in the county under their care. It 
 is from these reports of the superintendents of 
 schools in New- York, that we are enabled to 
 draw a picture of the condition of young chil- 
 dren in common schools, that should send a 
 chill of fear and alarm through our country. 
 For if this is the condition of young children in 
 that state which has excelled all others in a 
 
 than is the truth. Thus, in Massachusetts, the state records, 
 presented to the Legislature, are very accurate, and these make 
 the number several thousands less than the census. In 1840, 
 our population was fourteen millions. One fourth of these are 
 betvi^een four and sixteen, making 3,645,388 of an age to go to 
 school. But the census, although exaggerating the number, 
 shows only 1,845,244 as attending schools. This, deducted from 
 the number of those of age to go to school, leaves 1,800,144, or 
 nearly one half, who do not attend school. To these, add the in- 
 crease since the census, and more than half the children of this 
 nation are without schools ! 
 
 The census also shows 4750 in penitentiaries, and their aver- 
 age time of confinement is four years. An equal number were 
 in jails for crime, and their average time of imprisonment is six 
 months. Supposing them to live, on an average, eight years 
 after their release, and we have 85,500 criminals as voters. 
 
 In 1836, Mr. Van Buren's majority was 25,000. Thus it is 
 shown, that the majority which elects our President is fkr out- 
 numbered by the criminals who are allowed to vote. 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 37 
 
 wise and liberal provision for the care of 
 schools, what must be the condition of things 
 .in other states, where still less interest is felt 
 in this great concern ! 
 
 The Secretary of State, in presenting the 
 reports of the county superintendents to the 
 Legislature of New- York, remarks thus : " The 
 nakedness and deformity of the great majority 
 of schools in this state, the comfortless and di- 
 lapidated buildings, the unhung doors, broken 
 sashes, absent panes, stilted benches, gaping 
 walls, yawning roofs, and muddy and moulder- 
 ing floors, are faithfully portrayed ; and many 
 of the self-styled teachers, who lash and dog- 
 matize in these miserable tenements of hu- 
 manity, are shown to be low, vulgar, obscene? 
 intemperate, and utterly incompetent to teach 
 anything good. Thousands of the young are 
 repelled from improvement, and contract a du- 
 rable horror for books, by ignorant, injudicious, 
 and cruel modes of instruction. When the 
 piteous moans and tears of the little pupils sup- 
 plicate for exemption from the cold drudgery, 
 or more pungent suflfering of the school, let the 
 humane parent be careful to ascertain the true 
 cause of grief and lamentation." 
 D 
 
30 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 To exhibit, more fully, the sufferings of little 
 children at school, the following is abridged 
 from these reports : 
 
 Sufferings of Little Children from Bad School- 
 houses. 
 
 One of the county superintendents reports 
 of the schoolhouses in his district : " One house 
 in K. is literally unfit for a stable ; the sashes 
 of several windows are broken, twenty or thir- 
 ty panes of glass are out, the door is off, and 
 used for a writing-table. Yet the district is 
 wealthy, but * they cannot get a vote to build 
 a new schoolhouse.' " " Another schoolhouse 
 in W. is nearly as bad ; the gable ends falhng 
 out, the chimney down, and the windows near- 
 ly all boarded up." Many of the school- 
 houses are situated in the highway, so that, at 
 play, the children are endangered by the pass- 
 ing horses and vehicles, and the traveller is 
 also endangered by the rushing of boisterous 
 boys, frightening his horses. Instances of this 
 sort have repeatedly occurred. 
 
 Another WTites, that in one of the largest 
 landed districts, the worst log schoolhouse in 
 the district is still retained, offering no securi- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 39 
 
 ty against winds and storms. One of the win- 
 dow^ sashes was " laid up overhead because it 
 would not stay in its place." To keep the 
 door shut against the wind, one end of a bench 
 w^as put against it, and a boy set to tend it, 
 as one and another went out. 
 
 Another writes, that he often finds the school- 
 houses situated on some bleak knoll, exposed 
 to the howling blasts of winter and the scorch- 
 ing rays of the summer's sun, or in some marsh 
 or swamp, surrounded by stagnant pools, rife 
 with miasma, and charged with disease and 
 death. It is not uncommon, in such places, to 
 find large schools almost entirely broken up 
 by sickness, and that, too, when no contagious 
 diseases are prevailing among children. 
 
 One of these superintendents says, " A trus- 
 tee of one school, where the schoolhouse was 
 situated in a goose-pond, the water under the 
 floor being several inches deep, told me his 
 children were almost invariably obliged to 
 leave school on account of sickness, and that 
 the school was often broken up from this cause. 
 Parents pay ten times as much for physi- 
 cians to cure diseases contracted at school, 
 as it would cost to build a comfortable school- 
 
40 AMERICAN women! 
 
 house and supply it with every accommoda- 
 tion." 
 
 Another says of the schoolhouses in his 
 county, that, in some cases, the latches are 
 broken, so that, however cold the day, the door 
 cannot be shut ; sometimes the sills are so rot- 
 ten that snakes and squirrels can enter ; while 
 there are cracks in the floor, one or two inches 
 wide, and holes broken large enough for the 
 children to fall through. 
 
 The wretched condition of these houses is 
 not owing to poverty, but to the leaden apathy 
 on the subject of education, and the belief 
 among farmers that their money can be bet- 
 ter applied in building barns and stables for 
 their cattle. In one large village, where a 
 great sum has been expended for adorning 
 public grounds, and where is much wealth and 
 style, the two schoolhouses are the meanest- 
 looking buildings in the place. 
 
 Another says of the schoolhouses in his coun- 
 ty, that, in many cases, they stand on the high- 
 way, no cooling shade to protect them from the 
 burning sun, exposed to the full fury of the 
 wintry northwester, clapboards torn off) door 
 just ready to fall, and great caution needed in 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 41 
 
 order to keep from falling through the floor. 
 In one case, an aperture in the roof was of 
 such a size, that the teacher could give quite a 
 lesson on astronomy by looking up at the 
 heavens through the roof of the house. Fre- 
 quently, to the grief of the teacher, when the 
 parent brings his child the first day, such ex- 
 pressions as these are heard from the cling- 
 ing and distressed child, " Oh, pa, I don't want 
 to stay in this ugly, old house ! Oh, pa, do 
 take me home !" 
 
 Sufferings of Little Children from Want of 
 Accommodations at ScJlooI. 
 
 One superintendent says, " But few of the 
 schoolhouses are furnished with blinds or cur- 
 tains to exclude the glare of the sun. ThuSj 
 children suffer great uneasiness, headaches, 
 and often serious affections of the eyes. I 
 have found many cases of weakness of eyeSj 
 approaching almost to blindness, caused by 
 studying in such dazzling light." 
 
 Another states, that in most schoolhouses 
 
 the desks are so high, as to compel the scholar 
 
 to write in a half-standing, half-sitting attitude ; 
 
 while the seats for the smallest children are 
 
 D2 
 
42 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 often twice the proper height, sometimes a 
 hemlock slab with legs at one end, and a log 
 at the other. Many of the little ones have 
 to be helped up on them, where they are in 
 peril of life and limb from a fall. Here they 
 are obliged to sit, day after day and week 
 after week, between heaven and earth, "and 
 in a frame of mind unfit for either place," with- 
 out anything to support either their backs or 
 their feet. Those who would realize what 
 distress this occasions, let them try sitting only 
 one half hour on a table or sideboard, with 
 back and feet unsupported, and see what suf- 
 fering ensues. 
 
 Another writes thus : " Sitting with the legs 
 hanging over the edge of the seat presses 
 the veins (which lie near the surface, and carry 
 the blood to the heart), and thus retard its re- 
 turn, while the arteries, being deeper, carry the 
 blood with its full force from the heart. Thus 
 the veins become distended, numbness and 
 pain follow, and sometimes permanent weak- 
 ness is the result. Where children sit a long 
 time without any support to their backs, the 
 muscles that hold up the body become weary 
 and weak, for no muscle can be too long con- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 43 
 
 tracted without weakening it. In schools thus 
 badly furnished, it will be seen that the chil- 
 dren prefer the northern blasts out of doors to 
 the sufferings they endure within, and come in 
 unwillingly, with chilled bodies and checked 
 perspiration. In some cases, parents provide 
 comfortable chairs for their children, and then 
 it is seen, that such stay but a short time out 
 of doors, while those seated on such comfort- 
 less benches stay as long as they can. This 
 shows one predisposing cause of the curvature 
 of the spine, and distortion of the body and 
 limbs. Is it any wonder that so many of our 
 youth have round shoulders, and a stooping 
 of the body through life ? 
 
 What would be said of a farmer who made 
 his boy hold a plough as high as his head, or 
 a joiner who made his apprentice plane a 
 board on a bench as high as his shoulders? 
 And yet they expect teachers to make their 
 children study, read and write with just such 
 improper accommodations. 
 
 Sufferings of Little Children for Want of Pure 
 Air. 
 To understand this subject properly, it must 
 
44 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 be borne in mind, that the body is so construct- 
 ed as to inhale at every breath about a pin-t of 
 air. The air is composed of 79 parts nitrogen 
 and 21 parts oxygen. When it is drawn into 
 the lungs, the oxygen is absorbed by the blood, 
 and what we exhale is the nitrogen, mixed with 
 the carbonic acid, formed in the lungs by the 
 union of the oxygen of the air with the carbon 
 of the blood. Now, neither carbonic acid, or 
 nitrogen can support life. Take the oxygen 
 from the air, and then breathe it, and instant 
 death ensues. So, put any animal into car- 
 bonic acid alone, and it dies instantly. Thus, 
 every breath of every human being uses up 
 the oxygen in one pint of air, and returns it 
 with only nitrogen and carbonic acid. Let a 
 schoolroom, containing 18,000 gallons of air 
 and twenty scholars, be made perfectly air- 
 tight, and in twenty minutes they would all be 
 corpses. The horrible sufferings produced by 
 this process, were once w^itnessed in Calcutta, 
 where 146 men were driven into a room 18 
 feet square, with only one small window^ and 
 kept there from eight at night till six next 
 morning. Before midnight they all became 
 frantic with agony, fought for the window^ 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 45 
 
 choaked each other to death, screamed to the 
 soldiers to shoot them, and thus end their mis- 
 ery ; and in the morning only 26 were alive, 
 and these in a putrid fever ! Lessening the 
 amount of oxygen in the air by breathing, pro- 
 duces languor, sleepiness, nausea, headache, 
 flushed face, and sometimes palsy and apo- 
 plexy. 
 
 On this subject, the superintendents of the 
 New- York schools make these statements : 
 
 " Confinement in some of our schoolrooms 
 is manslaughter. Our children, shut up in 
 these hot holes, made so by their own breaths, 
 by perspiration, and by a close, overheated 
 stove, lay the foundation for diseases which 
 show no gain except to the physician, and 
 which, in after-life, no riding on horseback, or 
 journeys by sea or land, or southern residence 
 can cui^." 
 
 Another states, that the uncomfortable con- 
 dition of the schoolhouses, in his county, is such 
 as to cause much suffering, both mental and 
 bodily, to the children doomed to inhabit their 
 gloomy walls and breathe the tainted air. 
 
 Another writes of the schoolhouses in his 
 district, that they are usually low, and in cold 
 
4j6 * AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 . weather so overheated as to be hotbeds of dis- 
 ease, the close atmosphere being actually dan- 
 gerous. One teacher, in one instance, was struck 
 with palsy from the effects of confinement in 
 such a poisonous atmosphere. At a public meet- 
 ing, one citizen stated it as his conviction, that 
 one of his children died from disease engen- 
 dered by breathing the pestilential atmosphere 
 of the schoolroom. Instances are numerous 
 where the children come home dull, listless, 
 and with severe colds and coughs. The teach- 
 er, in such situations, often loses ambition, en- 
 ergy, and health, and closes school pale and 
 emaciated, perhaps to sink to an early grave, 
 a victim of the poisonous air in which, for day 
 after day, he has been confined. 
 
 Sufferings of Little Children from Cold, Heat, 
 y and Filth, 
 
 One superintendent says, "Could parents 
 witness, as I have, the suflfe rings of their chil- 
 dren from cold, I am sure no other appeal 
 would be needed. Some of those buildings, I 
 am confident, would be considered by a syste- 
 matic farmer, who regarded the comfort of his 
 stock, as an unfit shelter for his Berkshires." 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 47 
 
 Another states, that in some cases the 
 schoolhouses are small and overheated. Then 
 the teacher throws open the door, and a cur- 
 rent of cold air pours on to the children. The 
 reeking perspiration is suddenly stopped, and 
 " a cold" is the result, which is often the pre- 
 cursor of fevers and consumption. When no 
 such results follow, the parents say, " It is only 
 a cold;" when diseases and death follow, it is 
 called a dispensation of Providence ! A phy- 
 sician of extensive practice stated to this su- 
 perintendent, that a large part of his con- 
 sumptive cases originated from colds taken at 
 school. 
 
 Another describes one of the schoolhouses 
 in his county as too small, too low, the seats 
 too high, half the plastering fallen off and piled 
 in one corner, and the house warmed by a 
 cook-stove unfit for use. Six sevenths of the 
 panes of glass were gone, and two windows 
 boarded up. Going to attend the annual 
 school meeting at this house, he met two citi- 
 zens coming with a candle and firebrands, and 
 picking up sticks along the road for a fire, 
 because there was no w^ood provided at the 
 schoolhouse. 
 
48 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 Another thus describes some of the school- 
 houses in his county. It is very common to 
 see cracked and broken stoves, the door with- 
 out hinges or latch, and a rusty pipe of vari- 
 ous sizes. Green wood, and that which is old 
 and partially decayed, either drenched with 
 rain, or covered with snow, is much more 
 frequently used than sound, seasoned wood. 
 Thus it is difficult to kindle a fire, and the 
 room is filled with smoke much of the time, 
 especially in stormy weather. Sometimes the 
 school is interrupted two or three times a day 
 to fasten up the stovepipe. 
 
 The extent of these evils may be perceived 
 from the report, which says of one county 
 about as well supplied as any, out of eighty-^ 
 seven districts only twenty schoolhouses have 
 provided means for keeping their wood dry. 
 
 Another says, "At the commencement of 
 the winter term of our schools, some one of 
 the trustees generally furnishes a load of green 
 wood, perhaps his own proportion. The teacher 
 proceeds till this is exhausted, and he is com- 
 pelled to notify his patrons of the entire desti- 
 tution of wood. After meeting his school, and 
 shivering over expiring embers till the hope 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 49 
 
 of a supply is exhausted, he dismisses the 
 school for one, two, or three days, and some- 
 times for a week, before any inhabitant finds 
 time to get another load of green wood. With 
 such wood it is impossible to keep the school- 
 room at a proper temperature. The scholars, 
 at first, crowd around the stove, suflfering ex- 
 tremely with cold, and then are driven as far 
 off as they can get, in a high state of perspira- 
 tion, and almost suffocated with heat. Our 
 schools in this country suflfer much from such 
 methods of procuring fuel. The time which 
 is lost in school hours by the use of green 
 wood, I think will include near one fourth of the 
 whole time." 
 
 Another says, " The teacher found abundant 
 employment in stuffing the old stove with 
 green birch and elm, cut as occasion required 
 by the teacher and the boys. A continual 
 coughing was kept up by nearly seven-eighths 
 of the children, and the teacher apologised for 
 want of order by saying, ' they could not 
 usually do much in stormy weather till after- 
 noon, when the fire would get a going.' On 
 this occasion, one trustee and two of the in- 
 habitants of the district were present an hour, 
 E 
 
50 AMERICA2C &< O/i.CN ! 
 
 when, getting froze-'i o'Aj iaej asked to be ex- 
 cused, and left the I'hi'dren to suffer, saying, 
 *We did not thWf. our house was so uncom- 
 fortable. Sonrj^.^ g/dss must be got, and a load 
 of dry wood/" Some of the statements of 
 these superirj'.aidents, as to the order and neat- 
 ness of their schoolhouses, are no less lament- 
 able. One remarks, that " some of them, as 
 to neatness, resemble the domicil for swine." 
 Another describes one school house as " hav- 
 ing the clapboards torn off, the door just I'eady 
 to fall, an aperture in the roof where the chim- 
 ney once was, slabs with a pair of clubs at each 
 end for legs, and so high no child could touch 
 foot to the floor, rickety desks falling to ruin, 
 the plaster torn off, and the whole covered 
 with dirt, and as filthy as the street itself." 
 But this is not all. " This house is situated in 
 a district of wealthy farmers." 
 
 Another says, " It is a startling truth, that very 
 many of our schoolhouses furnish no private 
 retreat whatever for teacher or scholar. Thus 
 is one side of the schoolhouse, and, in some 
 instances, the doorstep, rendered a scene more 
 disgusting than the filth of a pig-sty." 
 
 Another says, " Schoolhouses, generally, 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 51 
 
 are not. furnished with suitable conveniences 
 for disposing the outer garments of the children, 
 their dinner-baskets, and other articles. Some- 
 times there are a few nails in an outer entry 
 where clothes and dinners may be put, but in 
 such cases the door is left open for rain and 
 snow to beat in ; the scholars, in their haste to 
 get their own clothes, pull down many more, 
 which are trampled on. Moreover, the din- 
 ners are often frozen, or eaten by dogs, and 
 sometimes even by hogs. 
 
 Sufferings of Little Children from Cruel and 
 Improper Punishments. 
 
 In reporting on this subject, the county su- 
 perintendents mention these as inflictions not 
 uncommon. Standing on one foot for a long 
 time ; " sitting on nothing," that is, obliging the 
 child to hold himself in a sitting posture with- 
 out any support ; holding out the arm hori- 
 zontally with a weight on it ; tying a finger so 
 high as to oblige the child to stand on tiptoe ; 
 holding the head downward, sometimes caus- 
 ing dangerous hemorrhages from the nose, or 
 injuring the brain ; frightening little children 
 by threats. Many cases are declared to 
 
52 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 have occurred in which permanent injuries 
 have been inflicted by thus straining the mus- 
 cles, and torturing the body and mind of httle 
 children. 
 
 The following is a description of a scene 
 witnessed at school by one of the county super- 
 intendents in his periodical visitation : two 
 girls, about twelve years of age, were out of 
 order, and the teacher, without any warning, 
 sprang across the room and severely flogged 
 both. A little boy, tired of sitting on his hard 
 seat, leaned over on his elbow ; he was caught 
 by the head, dragged over the desk to the 
 floor, and ordered to study. A little girl of 
 seven, after one or two admonitions to "tend 
 her book," v^^as caught by the arm, dragged 
 on to the floor, rudely shaken, cuffed on both 
 sides of her head, and then whipped. " I look- 
 ed around," says the superintendent, " to learn 
 the effect upon the other scholars. I saw no 
 happy faces. There seemed to settle upon the 
 countenances of nearly all, a cloud of gloom 
 and terror. The school closed soon after, and 
 the teacher remarked to me, that he did not 
 punish near as much now as he formerly 
 didr 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 53 
 
 Moral Injuries inflicted on Children at School. 
 
 One teacher writes thus : " Where the plas- 
 tering remains, it is covered with coal marks, 
 and numerous holes are cut through the wri- 
 ting desks, while vulgarities and obscenities 
 are not only written, but deeply cut in the 
 desks and doors." Of another house he says, 
 " Within and without are manifest evidences 
 of a polluted imagination. Several lewd rep- 
 resentations are deep cut in the clapboards in 
 front of the house, in the entry, and even on 
 the girls' desks, so as to be constantly before 
 their eyes." " These things," he adds, " are 
 but specimens selected from scores." 
 
 Another writes thus : " I have alluded to the 
 representations of vulgarity and obscenity that 
 meet the eye in every direction. I am con- 
 strained to add that, during intermissions, ' cer- 
 tain lewd fellows of the baser sort' sometimes 
 lecture boys and girls, large and small, illus- 
 trating their subject by these vile delineations. 
 Many of our schoolhouses are nurseries of 
 disorder, vulgarity, profanity, and obscenity — 
 nay, more, in some cases, they are the very 
 hothouses of hcentiousness." 
 E 2 
 
54 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 One single statement, made up from these 
 reports of the county superintendents, and pre- 
 sented by the head superintendent in his report, 
 speaks vokimes on the neglect of modesty, de- 
 J cency, neatness, and purity. In the whole 
 state there are six thousand schoolhouses des- 
 titute of any kind of woodhouse or privy ; and 
 of the whole number, only about one thousand 
 have privies provided with separate accom- 
 modations for children of different sexes. 
 
 It appears, also, that though the schools and 
 teachers are fast rising in character, and that 
 many now are of uncommon excellence, yet 
 that many of the teachers are notoriously de- 
 praved, while intellectual training, in the ma- 
 jority of cases, is deplorably low, and the mor- 
 al training still more defective. 
 
 One superintendent remarks, " Gloomy, in- 
 deed, are the impressions made by our school- 
 houses. The lessons of immorality and inde- 
 cency often taught there would cause a shud- 
 der to thrill every sensitive mind." Another 
 says, " There are, I regret to say, many teach- 
 ers whose morals, manners, and daily exam- 
 ple wholly unfit them for their duties." An- 
 other says, " In some instances, moral qualifi- 
 
'will you save your country? 55 
 
 cations have been wholly disregarded, and 
 teachers notoriously intemperate employed." 
 Says another, " I have found a number whose 
 language was low, obscene, and sensual, still 
 employed in teaching." 
 
 Says another, " If the tastes, associations, 
 and moral sentiments of the teacher lack ele- 
 vation and dignity, what literary progress will 
 atone for examples so pernicious ? And yet 
 such are the moral influences shed about them 
 by many licensed to teach." 
 
 After presenting all these shocking details, 
 the chief superintendent, in 1844, thus remarks: 
 
 *" No subject connected with elementary in- 
 struction affords a source for such mortifying 
 and humihating reflection as that of the con- 
 dition of a large portion of the schoolhouses as 
 presented in the above enumeration. Only one 
 third of the whole number visited were found 
 in good repair ; another third in only comfort- 
 able condition ; while three thousand three hun- 
 dred and nineteen were unfit for the reception 
 of man or beast. Seven thousand were found 
 destitute of any playground, nearly six thousand 
 destitute of convenient seats and desks, nearly 
 eight thousand destitute of any proper facilities 
 
v/ 
 
 |»6 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 for ventilation, and upward of six thousand des- 
 titute of a privy of any sort. And it is in these 
 miserable abodes of filth and dirt, deprived of 
 wholesome air, or exposed to the assaults of 
 the elements, with no facilities for exercise or 
 relaxation, with no conveniences for prosecu- 
 ting their studies, crowded together on bench- 
 es not admitting of a moment's rest, and de- 
 barred the possibility of yielding to the ordi- 
 nary calls of nature without violent inroads 
 upon modesty and shame, that upward of 
 two hundred thousand children of this state 
 are compelled to spend an average period of 
 eight months each year of their pupilage. Here 
 the first lessons of human life, the incipient 
 principles of morality, and the rules of social 
 intercourse are to be impressed on the plastic 
 mind. The boy is here to receive the model 
 of his permanent character, and imbibe the el- 
 ements of his future career. Here the instinct- 
 ive dehcacy of the young female, one of the 
 characteristic ornaments of her sex, is to be 
 expanded into maturity by precept and exam- 
 ple. Such are the temples of science, such 
 the ministers under whose care susceptible 
 childhood is to receive its earliest impressions. 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 57 
 
 Great God ! shall man dare to charge to thy 
 dispensations the vices, the crimes, the sick- 
 ness, the sorrows, the miseries, and the brevi- 
 ty of human life, who sends his httle children 
 to a pesthouse, fraught with the deadly ma- 
 laria of both moral and physical disease ? In- 
 stead of impious murmurs, let him lay his hand 
 on his mouth, and his mouth in the dust, and 
 cry " Unclean !" 
 
 Let it not be imagined that this picture is 
 peculiar to New-York. The superintendents 
 of the common schools in Ohio, and even in 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut, have reported 
 similar evils as existing, to a greater or less 
 extent, in the schools in their respective states ; 
 and if such things exist in the states where 
 most has been done for education, what can 
 be hoped for the neglected and abused little 
 ones where even less is done by law for their 
 comfort and improvement 1 In view of such 
 utter destitution of schools in the greater part 
 of our country, and of the sufferings and neg- 
 lect endured by little children in other por- 
 tions, the inquiry must be earnestly pressed^ 
 "What can be the reason of this deplorable 
 state of things ?" 
 
58 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 The grand reason is, the selfish apathy of the 
 educated classes, and the stupid apathy of those 
 who are too ignorant to appreciate an educa- 
 tion for their children. In those states where 
 no school system is established by law, the in- 
 telligent and wealthy content themselves with 
 securing a good education for their own chil- 
 dren, and care nothing for the rest. When any 
 project, therefore, is presented for obtaining 
 a good school system, the rich and intelligent 
 do not wish to be taxed for the children of 
 others, and the rest do not care whether their 
 children are educated cr not, or else are too 
 poor to pay the expense. 
 
 In those states where a school system is 
 established, parents of intelligence and mor- 
 al worth, seeing the neglected state of the 
 common school, withdraw their children to 
 private schools. And feeling no interest in 
 schools which they do not patronise, they pass 
 them with utter neglect. And thus, neither 
 rich, nor poor care enough to be willing to be 
 taxed for their elevation and improvement. 
 
 Thus, too, it has come to pass, that while 
 every intelligent man in the Union is reading, 
 and hearing, and saying, every day of his life, 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 59 
 
 that unless our children are trained to virtue and 
 intelligence, the nation is ruined, yet there is 
 nothing else for w^hich so little interest is felt, or 
 so httle done. Look, novv^,*to that great body of 
 intelligent and benevolent persons, vs^ho are in- 
 teresting themselves for patriotic and religious 
 enterprises. We see them sustaining great or- 
 ganizations, and supporting men to devote their 
 whole time to promote these several enterprises, 
 which draw thousands and hundreds of thou- 
 sands from the public for their support. There 
 is one organization, to send missionaries to the 
 heathen and to educate heathen children, with 
 its six or eight paid officers, devoting their 
 whole time to the object. Then there is an- 
 other to furnish the Bible, and another to dis- 
 tribute tracts, and another to educate young 
 men to become ministers, and another to send 
 out home missionaries, and another to sustain 
 Western colleges, and another to promote tem- 
 perance, and another to promote the observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath. Then we have an as- 
 sociation to take care of sailors, and another 
 to promote the comfort and improvement of 
 convicts in prisons and penitentiaries, and an- 
 other to relieve and ransom the slave, and an- 
 
60 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 other to colonize the free coloured race. All 
 these objects are promoted by having men sus- 
 tained by voluntary contributions, who spend 
 their whole time in urging the claims of these 
 various objects on the public mind, while al- 
 most all have a regular periodical to advocate 
 their cause. But our two millions of little chil- 
 dren, who are growing up in heathenish dark- 
 ness, enchained in ignorance, and in many ca- 
 ses, where the cold law professes to provide 
 for them, enduring distress of body and mind 
 even greater than is inflicted on criminals in 
 our prisons, where is the benevolent associa- 
 tion for their relief? where is there a period- 
 ical supported by the charitable to tell the tale 
 of their wrongs ? where is there a single man 
 sustained by Christian benevolence to operate 
 for their relief? 
 
 Let it not be claimed that Sunday-schools 
 meet this emergency. A Sunday-school can- 
 not, in its one or two short hours, educate a 
 ■ child, or undo all the fatal influences of six 
 days of idle vagrancy, with their pernicious 
 lessons of vice and sin. Besides, the Sabbath- 
 school is of little avail, except where there is 
 a large class of intelligent and benevolent per- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 61 
 
 sons to labour, and such are thinly sprinkled 
 in those portions of the land where no schools 
 exist. 
 
 The vast proportion of neglected children 
 in our land are never reached, even by the 
 feeble influence of the Sunday-school. 
 
 And this fatal neglect cannot be palliated 
 by the plea, that the means employed to sus- 
 tain other objects cannot be directed to this 
 cause. Why cannot the press be employed 
 for popular education as efficiently as for the 
 promotion of temperance, or the support of the 
 Sabbath ? Why cannot men of talents be 
 supported to write and to labour for this cause 
 as well as for any other? The only thing 
 that can save us is, to arouse this people from 
 the fatal apathy which is luring them to de- 
 struction. Ministers must preach, agents must 
 lecture, conventions must be called, discussions 
 must be urged, tracts miust be written and cir- 
 culated, the political press must be enlisted, 
 and every possible mode of arousing public 
 attention must be adopted. It must be shown 
 that teachers are needed as much as ministers, 
 that teachers' institutions are as important as 
 colleges, that it is as necessary to educate and 
 F 
 
62 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 send forth " poor and pious young women" to 
 teach, as it is " poor and pious young men" to 
 preach. And when the same influence and 
 eflforts are directed to educate our two millions 
 of American children, as are now directed to 
 establishing missions among the heathen, our 
 country may escape the yawning abyss now 
 gaping to destroy. 
 
 The American people are sanguine and 
 hasty, careless of peril, and thoughtless of 
 risk, but, when brought by danger to reflec- 
 tion, they have first-rate common sense, sur- 
 passing energy, and endless resources. And 
 if they can but be convinced of their danger 
 in season, all is safe ; but the work to be done 
 is prodigious, the time is short, and the ques- 
 tion all turns on whether the work will be 
 undertaken soon enough, and with sufficient 
 energy. 
 
 Look, then, at the work to be done. Two 
 millions of destitute children to be supplied with 
 schools! To meet this demand, sixty thou- 
 sand teachers and fifty thousand school houses 
 are required. Or, if we can aflJbrd to leave 
 half of them to grow up in ignorance, and aim 
 only to educate the other half, thirty thou- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 63 
 
 sand teachers and twenty-five thousand school- 
 houses must be provided, and that, too, within 
 twelve years. The census calculates the chil- 
 dren between four and sixteen, and in twelve 
 years most of these children will be beyond the 
 reach of school instruction, while other mill- 
 ions, treading on their heels, will demand still 
 greater supplies. Sixty thousand teachers now 
 needed for present w^ants, and thousands to be 
 added every year for the increase of popula- 
 tion ! 
 
 Where are we to raise such an army of 
 teachers ? Not from the sex which finds it so 
 much more honourable, easy, and lucrative to 
 enter the many roads to wealth and honour 
 open in this land. But a few will turn from 
 these, to the humble, unhonoured toils of the 
 schoolroom and its penurious reward. 
 
 It is woman who is to come in at this emer- 
 gency, and meet the demand ; woman, whom 
 experience and testimony has shown to be the 
 best, as well as the cheapest guardian and 
 teacher of childhood, in the school as well as 
 the nursery. Already, in those parts of our 
 country where education is most prosperous, 
 the larger part of the teachers of common 
 
64 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 schools are women. In Massachusetts, three 
 out of five of all the teachers are women. In 
 the State of New- York and in Philadelphia 
 similar results are seen. 
 
 Women, then, are to be educated for teach- 
 ers, and sent to the destitute children of this 
 nation by hundreds and by thousands. This is 
 the way in which a profession is to be created 
 for woman — a profession as honourable and 
 as lucrative for her as the legal, medical, and 
 theological are for men. This is the way in 
 which thousands of intelligent and respectable 
 women, who toil for a pittance scarcely suffi- 
 cient to sustain life, are to be relieved and ele- 
 vated. This is the way, and the only way, in 
 which our nation can be saved from impend- 
 ing perils. Though we are now in such a 
 condition that many have given over our case 
 in despair, as too far gone for remedy — though 
 the peril is immense, and the work to be done 
 enormous, yet it is in the power of American 
 women to save their country. There is be- 
 nevolence enough, there are means enough 
 at their command. All that is needed is a 
 knowledge of the danger, and a faithful use 
 of the means within their reach. 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 65 
 
 And who else, in such an emergency as 
 this, can so appropriately be invoked to aid? 
 It is woman who is the natural and appropri- 
 ate guardian of childhood. It is woman who 
 has those tender sympathies which can most 
 readily feel for the wants and sufferings of the 
 young. It is woman, who is especially inter- 
 ested in all efforts which tend to elevate and 
 dignify her own sex. It is woman, too, who 
 has that conscientiousness and religious devo- 
 tion, which, in any worthy cause, are the surest 
 pledges of success. 
 
 And it is the pride and honour of our coun- 
 try, that woman holds a commanding influ- 
 ence in the domestic and social circle, which 
 is accorded to the sex in no other nation, and 
 such as will make her wishes and efforts, if 
 united for a benevolent and patriotic object, 
 almost omnipotent. 
 
 To you, then, American women, are brought 
 these two millions of suffering and destitute chil- 
 dren ; these " despised little ones," of v/hom is 
 written, "their angels do always behold the 
 face of our Father in heaven ;" who are loved 
 and cared for by the good Shepherd above, so 
 that it were better for any of us, that we were 
 F2 
 
66 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 thrown with a millstone about our necks into 
 the sea, than that, through our guilty neglect, 
 even one of these little ones should perish. 
 
 To you, my countrywomen, these little chil- 
 dren call, with voices soft as the young ravens' 
 cry, yet multitudinous as the murmuring ocean 
 waves. To you they complain of the filth, 
 and the weariness, and the aching muscles, 
 and the throbbing head, and the tortured eyes. 
 To you they lament the degrading scenes and 
 fatal influences, that wither all that is pure, and 
 sweet, and lovely in childhood and youth. 
 Of you they ask relief from suffering, and all 
 those blessed ministries that will lead their 
 young feet to usefulness and happiness on 
 earth, and to glory, honour, and immortality 
 on high. Ah, surely their supplications will 
 be heard, and speedy relief will be found ! 
 
 How, then, can American women act for 
 these children, and thus for the salvation of 
 their country, in an emergency like this 1 
 
 Before answering this question, it is needful 
 to consider that the education demanded for 
 the American people is not merely to be 
 taught to read and write. In communities 
 where it is the universal fashion to read, and 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 67 
 
 where books and papers are multitudinous as 
 the flakes of heaven, it might, perhaps, suffice 
 to teach a child to read, so far as intellect is 
 concerned. But if the tastes and principles 
 are not formed aright, the probability is, that 
 blank ignorance would be better than the poi- 
 sonous food, which a mind, thus sent forth to 
 seek its own supplies, would inevitably select. 
 But in those sections of our country that are 
 most deficient in schools, there are neither 
 books, nor the desire, or the taste for reading 
 them. And among those who are taught to 
 read, thousands go from the portals of knowl- 
 edge to daily toil, or to vicious indulgences, 
 leaving the mind as empty and stupid as if no 
 such ability were gained. And how many 
 there are, who have sharpened their faculties 
 only as edged tools for greater mischief! No ; 
 the American people are to be educated for 
 their high duties. The children who, ere long, 
 are to decide whether we shall have tariff* or 
 no tariff*, bank or no bank, slavery or no sla- 
 very, naturalization laws or no such laws, 
 must be trained so that they cannot be duped 
 and excited by demagogues, and thus led on 
 to the ruin that overwhelmed the people of 
 
68 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 France. They must be trained to read, and think, 
 and decide intelligently on all matters where 
 they are to act as legislators, judges, jury, and 
 executive. The children who, ere long, are to 
 be thrown into the heats and passion of politi- 
 cal strife and sectional jealousy, must be train- 
 ed to rule their passions, and to control them- 
 selves by reason, religion, and law. The 
 young daughters of this nation, too, must be 
 trained to become the educators of all the fu- 
 ture statesmen, legislators, judges, jCiries, and 
 magistrates of this land. For to them are to 
 be committed the minds and habits of every 
 future child, at the time when every impres- 
 sion is indelible, and every influence eflicient. 
 What, then, can American women do in for- 
 warding an enterprise so vast and so impor- 
 tant? 
 
 In the first place, there is no woman in any 
 station, who has not work cut out to her hand. 
 Wherever there is a single ignorant child^ 
 there is one of the future rulers or educators 
 of this nation ; there is one immortal being, 
 who, if neglected, will become an engine of 
 mischief to our country, and at last sink to 
 eternal wo ; or, if trained aright, will prove 
 
 I 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 69 
 
 a blessing to our nation, and an angel of light 
 in heaven. And no v^^oman is free from guilt, 
 or free from the terrific responsibilities of the 
 perils impending over her country, till she has 
 done all in her power to secure a proper edu- 
 cation to all the young minds within the reach 
 of her influence. 
 
 Is it asked, What then ; would you require 
 every woman to turn teacher and keep school? 
 No ; but every woman is bound to bring this 
 into the list of her duties, and, as one of her 
 most imperious duties, to do all in her power 
 to secure a proper education to the American 
 children now coming upon the stage. 
 
 Every woman has various duties pressing 
 upon her attention. It is right for her, it is 
 her duty, to cultivate her own mind by read- 
 ing and study, not merely for her own grati- 
 fication or credit, but with the great end in 
 view of employing her knowledge and ener' 
 gies for the good of others. It is right, and a 
 duty for a woman to attend to domestic af- 
 fairs ; but, except in cases of emergency, it is 
 not right to devote all her time to this alone. 
 It is a duty for her to attend to religious ef- 
 forts and ordinances ; but it is not right for her 
 
70 AMEEICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 to give dl her time to these alone. It is right for 
 her to devote some time to social enjoyments, 
 some time to the elegancies and ornaments of 
 taste, some time to the adornment of person 
 and residence, and some time to the relaxation 
 of mere amusement. In many cases, these 
 last are as much duties as the more weighty 
 pursuits of life. 
 
 But this great maxim is ever to be borne in 
 mind, The most important things first in atten- 
 tion. It is the due proportion of time and at- 
 tention that decides the rectitude of all useful 
 or innocent pursuits. And a woman is bound 
 so to divide her time, as to give some portion 
 of it to each of her several duties, so that 
 no one shall be entirely crowded out ; and so, 
 also, to apportion her attention, that each shall 
 be regarded according to its relative value. 
 
 In this view of the subject, what, except 
 her own immortal interest, can an American 
 woman place, as demanding more serious at- 
 tention and more earnest efforts, than an at- 
 tempt to use her time and influence to avert 
 the dangers now impending over her country, 
 her kindred, and herself? Is there any orna- 
 mental design, any gratification of taste or ap- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 71 
 
 petite, any merely temporal good, that can at 
 all be placed in comparison with this great 
 concern? Is it, then, assuming too much to 
 claim that every American woman is bound 
 to give, not only some time, but more time to 
 this enterprise than she gives to any social en- 
 joyment, any personal or domestic decoration, 
 or any species of amusement ? Is it not so ? 
 Is it right for a conscientious woman, when 
 all that is dear and sacred is in such peril — - 
 when she has means, time, or influence which 
 will aid in saving her country, her friends, and 
 herself from such dangers — is it right to give 
 to this effort less attention and time than is de- 
 voted to visiting, or to entertaining company, 
 or to the adornment of her person or her house ? 
 Judge ye, as ye will give account for these 
 things to the Judge of quick and dead. 
 
 What, then, are the ways in which an edu- 
 cated woman can employ the talents commit- 
 ted to her for the salvation of her country? 
 
 Many may be pointed out, some one of 
 which can be adopted by every woman in 
 this nation. 
 
 Some, who are mothers, can superintend 
 the education of their children, and, while 
 
72 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 doing it, can seek in their own vicinity or- 
 phans, or children of peculiar promise, and 
 train them with their own children to become 
 teachers of others. 
 
 Some, who are sisters, can superintend the 
 education of younger brothers and sisters, and 
 add to this class others of humbler means, 
 whom they may thus prepare for missionary 
 teachers in some of the destitute villages of 
 our land. 
 
 Some, who are just returned from school, 
 with all their knowledge fresh, and all their 
 powers in active play, may collect a class 
 around them in the vicinity of their homes, 
 and impart the discipline of mind and treas- 
 ures of knowledge given them by God, not to 
 be laid up as in a napkin, but to be employed 
 for the good of others. Thus they will be 
 raising up, not only useful teachers, but valu- 
 able friends for the exigencies of future hfe. 
 
 Oh, how much happier, and more respecta- 
 ble, and more lovely, in such benevolent toils, 
 than in the shopping, dressing, calling, gossip- 
 ing round pursued by a large portion of the 
 daughters of wealth ! 
 
 Some, on completing their education, can 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 73 
 
 interest themselves in the common schools in 
 their vicinity, seeking the friendship of the 
 teacher, and then contributing their time and 
 labour to raise the school to higher intellectual 
 and moral excellence. 
 
 Some, who have a missionary spirit, may 
 go forth to the destitute portions of our land, 
 and collect the future sovereigns and educa- 
 tors of this nation, and train them for their 
 duties. 
 
 Some, who have wealth at their command, 
 understanding that much is required from 
 them to whom much is given — that wealth is 
 bestowed^ not for selfish enjoyment, but for the 
 good of others — that education is conferred, 
 not as the means of selfish distinction and ad- 
 vantage, but as the instrument for benefiting 
 mankind — such may devote time, and service, 
 and wealth to this noble enterprise. Such 
 may aid in founding and superintending insti- 
 tutions for the education and location of female 
 teachers, thus originating permanent fountains 
 of knowledge and influence, that long shall 
 send forth bounteous waters in all portions of 
 our land. 
 
 Some, who cannot enter personally into 
 G 
 
74 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 such labours, may aid in furnishing means to 
 send forth others into the field. There are 
 hundreds and thousands of benevolent wom- 
 en in the land, who would rejoice to spend 
 and be spent in this service, but who have nei- 
 ther the opportunity to qualify themselves, nor 
 the assistance necessary in finding the proper 
 location when prepared. Why is it not time 
 to turn some of the charity of woman, which 
 so long has clothed and educated young men 
 for their benevolent ministries, to aiding their 
 own sex in as important and more neglected 
 service ? 
 
 Some can interest themselves in the schools 
 in their vicinity, and aid the teacher by sym- 
 pathy, counsel, and lending suitable books. A 
 woman who is well informed herself, may, in 
 this way, do much to save both the body and 
 minds of children from great evils. On such 
 an errand, in some cases, she will find young 
 children pent up in a tight room, heated by a 
 close stove, poisoning the air with their breaths, 
 without the least relief from the process of 
 ventilation, so easily secured by a trap-door 
 in the upper wall. Thus it is, that many chil- 
 dren engender weak stomachs, headaches, fee- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 75 
 
 ble constitutions, and sometimes deformity and 
 death. In other cases, she may rescue some 
 little sufferers from the torture of supporting 
 the body on high and hard benches, without 
 any aid to the muscles from a support to the 
 back. Thus it is that children sometimes are 
 rendered feeble and distorted, especially those 
 of delicate conformation. In other cases, she 
 may ascertain, by her own inspection, the 
 shameful neglect of cleanliness, comfort, mod- 
 esty, and decency, too often to be found in our 
 common schools. Nowhere else is the super- 
 vision of woman so much demanded. The 
 preceding details of the situation of our com- 
 mon schools in these respects, found in reports 
 made by the state officers of education in New- 
 York, where great efforts have been made to 
 remove such evils, are painful indications of 
 the shocking abuses which are to be remedied. 
 The poor in our almshouses, the criminals in 
 our prisons, even the cattle in our stables, have 
 more attention paid to their comfort than is 
 given to thousands and thousands of the little 
 children of our country. In other cases, she 
 can inquire into the course of study, and the 
 modes of giving moral and religious instruc- 
 
76 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 tion, and into the character of the books used 
 in school, and if any improvement or altera- 
 tion is needed, by seeking the confidence and 
 friendship of the teacher, and lending her 
 books to read on the subject, or by influencing 
 trustees and those who direct the school, she 
 may remedy evils and secure improvement. 
 
 In some portions of the country where ed- 
 ucation is most prosperous, the mothers of a 
 district have formed an association for the im- 
 provement of the school which their children 
 attend. This is usually brought about by the 
 teacher of the school. These mothers meet 
 once a month, to consult, or to read books, or 
 to visit the school, and their contributions of 
 money are used to increase the school appa- 
 ratus, or to buy the books needed by the teach- 
 er or themselves for this object. 
 
 Some can interest themselves for the do- 
 mestics of their family, to whom the health, 
 character, and happiness of little children is 
 so extensively intrusted. By kind expressions 
 of interest, by conversing with them on their 
 pursuits and duties, by lending useful books 
 adapted to their capacities, by reading to them, 
 by inducing them to secure suitable religious 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 77 
 
 pririleges, and by using all practicable means 
 to impart knowledge and moral principle, much 
 may be done for this greatly neglected class, 
 who not only have so much influence over the 
 children of others, but are most of them, ere 
 long, to rear children of their own. In no way 
 can a mother so surely receive her reward as 
 in faithful and benevolent efforts for her do- 
 mestics. 
 
 Some can employ tneir time and means in 
 circulating books, papers, and tracts, which 
 shall enlighten the people, and awaken them to 
 their duties and dangers. Some can use their 
 personal influence over fathers, sons, husbands, 
 brothers, and friends, presenting this subject to 
 their attention, pointing out articles for them 
 to read, and urging any measures that may 
 tend to advance this cause. Some may ap- 
 proach their clergyman, and if he needs any 
 information, or any quickening on the subject, 
 furnish the books, and add entreaties to secure 
 his powerful influence both in private and in 
 the pulpit. 
 
 Some can employ the pen in writing to 
 arouse public interest, and their influence in 
 getting articles on this subject into newspa- 
 G2 
 
78 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 pers. Such works as the periodicals on Ed- 
 ucation, published in Boston and Albany, 
 Stowe's and Mann's Reports on the Systems 
 of Education in Europe, and the volume call- 
 ed the School and Schoolmaster, will furnish 
 materials for such articles. 
 
 Some, who have but little time at command, 
 can render very essential service by an occa- 
 sional visit to the schools in their vicinity, es- 
 pecially in seasons of examination ; thus en- 
 couraging both teachers and pupils by the con- 
 viction that their labours are known and appre- 
 ciated, and that the community around are in- 
 terested in their success. If the influential la- 
 dies in any place would go but once a year to 
 the schools in their vicinity, to inquire for their 
 comfort and prosperity, it would give a won- 
 derful impulse to the cause of education. The 
 torpid indifference of the influential classes to 
 the education of the young, except where their 
 own families are concerned, is the grand cause 
 •of all the dangers that threaten us. 
 
 There are many who feel that any useful 
 object of common interest can be more suc- 
 cessfully achieved hy association than by in- 
 ^dividual influence. Such are accustomed to 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 79 
 
 form societies, or associations, with officers 
 and committees. In cases where this mode 
 of operating is common and popular, a La- 
 dies' School Association might be formed, who 
 might act somewhat in this manner : 
 
 A meeting might be called, of all ladies in 
 the place, disposed to lend their influence to 
 f)romote the proper education of American chil- 
 dren, where some gentlemen, familiar with the 
 subject, might address them. Committees 
 niight then be appointed to obtain information 
 on these questions. Are all the children in 
 this vicinity so provided with schools and 
 schoolbooks that they are gaining a proper ed- 
 ucation t Do the Sunday-schools avail to se- 
 cure a proper education to the children who 
 go to no other? Is the Bible used, or any 
 moral or religious instruction given in the 
 schools? Where schools are provided, what 
 is the condition of the schoolhouse, the seats 
 and desks, the mode of heating and ventila- 
 ting, the order and neatness of the premises, 
 and what are the outdoor accommodations ? 
 
 When the committees have obtained the in- 
 formation on these points, another meeting can 
 be called to hear their reports, and to devise 
 
80 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 means for remedying any evils or deficiencies 
 that may have been discovered. 
 
 In proceeding in this way, it will be indis- 
 pensable to seek the good- will and co-opera- 
 tion of the teachers whose schools are exam- 
 ined ; and as these measures would all tend to 
 promote their comfort and usefulness, a mod- 
 erate degree of discretion and kindness would 
 secure their ready co-operation. 
 
 Those who are so infirm, or so embarrassed 
 in other ways, that they cannot engage in any 
 one of the measures suggested above, can at 
 least speak to those around them, and endeav- 
 our to influence them to engage in this work. 
 
 Those who have access to men of wealth 
 and influence, those who can approach the 
 minds that are forming comprehensive plans, 
 and enlisting thousands to promote them, may, 
 in many cases, most efficiently aid this cause 
 by urging such inquiries as these. 
 
 Why is it that no plans are formed to train 
 up our own millions of destitute children? 
 Why is no organization effected to educate 
 and locate female teachers, when there are 
 hundreds and thousands in our land, who have 
 a truly missionary spirit, and are longing to be 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 81 
 
 sent forth ? Why should so much money be 
 collected for a nine year's course for young 
 men, who are to go forth as preachers, and 
 none be received for the education and loca- 
 tion of young women, who, as teachers in des- 
 titute villages, could, with only one or two 
 year's education, do as much good as mis- 
 sionary preachers ? 
 
 If women are called upon to spend their 
 time and money in clothing and educating 
 young men, is it not proper and reasonable 
 that the other sex should do something to aid 
 young women who are longing to be sent forth 
 to save the perishing children of our country ? 
 
 Is it not required that children should be 
 trained up in the way they should go 1 and 
 ought there not to be benevolent organizations 
 to secure this, as much as organizations to re- 
 form and convert those who are vicious and 
 irreligious, simply because they are not thus 
 trained ? 
 
 Is it not better to save children from being 
 poisoned, than to pay phj^sicians for trying to 
 cure them after they are contaminated, and, in 
 many cases, beyond the reach of cure ? 
 
 Is it not as important to send forth tracts to 
 
82 AMERICAN women! 
 
 influence the people to educate their children 
 virtuously and religiously, as it is to send forth 
 tracts to convert and reform them after they 
 have been trained up to vice and irreligion ? 
 
 Is it not as important to teach our two mil- 
 lions of destitute children to read, as it is to 
 send forth tracts, and Bibles, and colporteurs to 
 a population where three millions cannot read 
 a line in Bible or tract ? 
 
 Is it not as important to organize, in order to 
 secure a good common-school education to our 
 millions who cannot read, as it is to sustain 
 and endow colleges for the few thousand youth 
 who enjoy their advantages, and who have 
 such disproportionate treasures lavished on 
 their education ? 
 
 If we neglect the democracy and provide 
 only for the higher classes, shall we not eat the 
 fruit of our own way ? The aristocracy of 
 France took all the wealth and power for self- 
 ish enjoyment, and when the democracy came 
 into power, how awfully did they revenge 
 themselves ! In this country, are not the rich 
 and influential acting on the same selfish prin- 
 ciple ? " And the people do perish for lack of 
 knowledge !" Oh ! the horrors of that day 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 83 
 
 when this neglected people shall visit their 
 wrongs on those, who now are selfishly with- 
 holding that light of knowledge which is the 
 only means of our peace and salvation ! 
 
 In attempting to influence others to engage 
 in this work, appeals can be made to the 
 generous and patriotic feelings of the young 
 with great effect. Why cannot an enthusi- 
 asm be created for educating children which 
 shall equal that which has been created for 
 preventing and curing intemperance ? Let 
 the same amount of money be spent, and the 
 same number of good and influential men at- 
 tempt to do it> and it will he done. Let every 
 woman, then, uige on this attempt. 
 
 If a woman can do nothing else for this 
 cause, she can at least pray for it ; and it is 
 rarely the case that any person offers sincere 
 and earnest prayer for any good object, without 
 speedily finding something to do for that object. 
 
 In attempting to enlist American women in 
 the work of securing a proper education to 
 the children of this nation, there is one topic 
 worthy of special consideration. The great 
 problem of the age on this subject is, how shall 
 the moral and religious instruction of children 
 
84 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 be secured at school ? When we consider the 
 vast multitudes of children who have no such 
 training, either at home or anywhere else, 
 this question becomes one of paramount in- 
 terest ; for, unless virtuous and moral principles 
 and habits are formed, education only adds 
 new powers of mischief to those who are train- 
 ed. The indifference of a large portion of the 
 community to this subject, and the extreme 
 sensitiveness of sectarian jealousy, interpose 
 great obstacles ; but these may be mucii more 
 readily overcome than many suppose. 
 
 Professor Stowe, in his Report to the Legis- 
 lature of Ohio on the Prussia.^ System of 
 Schools, makes these remarks ^ 
 
 " The universal success, also, and very bene- 
 ficial results, with which che arts of drawing 
 and designing, music, and also moy^al instruc- 
 tion and the Bible, have been introduced into 
 schools, was another fact peculiarly interesting 
 to me. 
 
 " I asked all the teachers with whom I con- 
 versed whether they did not sometimes find 
 children incapable of learning to draw and to 
 sing. I have had but one reply, and that was, 
 that they found the same diversity of natural 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 85 
 
 talent in regard to these as in regard to read- 
 ing, writing, and other branches of education ; 
 but they had never seen a child capable of 
 learning to read and write, who could not be 
 taught to sing well and draw neatly ; and that, 
 too, without taking any time which would in- 
 terfere with, or which would not rather pro- 
 mote progress in other studies. 
 
 " In regard to the necessity of moral instruc- 
 tion and the beneficial influence of the Bible in 
 schools, the testimony was no less explicit and 
 uniform. I inquired of all classes of teachers, 
 and of men of every grade of religious faith ; 
 instructers in common schools, high schools, 
 and schools of art ; of professors in colleges, 
 universities, and professional seminaries in cities 
 and in the country ; in places where there was 
 a uniformity of creed, and in places where 
 there was a diversity of creeds ; I inquired of 
 believers and unbelievers, of rationalists and 
 enthusiasts, of Catholics and Protestants, and 
 I never found but one reply : and that was, 
 that to leave the moral faculty uninstructed 
 was to leave the most important part of the 
 human mind undeveloped, and to strip educa- 
 tion of almost everything that makes it valua- 
 H 
 
86 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 ble ; and that the Bible is the best book to put 
 into the hands of children, to interest, to exer- 
 cise, and to unfold both the intellectual and 
 moral powers. Every teacher whom I con- 
 sulted repelled with indignation the idea, that 
 moral instruction is not proper for schools, and 
 that the Bible cannot be introduced into com- 
 mon schools without sectarian bias in teach- 
 ing." 
 
 While it is universally conceded by all intel- 
 ligent persons, that there is no nation on earth, 
 whose prosperity, and even existence, so much 
 depends on the moral training of the mass of 
 the people, there is no nation, where schools are 
 established hy law, in which so little of it is done. 
 It is mournful to reflect, that by far the larger 
 part of our schools banish religious and moral 
 training altogether, and confine their efforts en- 
 tirely to the training of the intellect^ and a great 
 part of them merely to that of the memory. 
 
 It is supposed, by many, that the Sunday- 
 school in our country, to a great degree, sup- 
 plies the deficiencies of our schools in respect 
 to moral and religious training. It is true that 
 this institution does more than any other to 
 meet these wants. But it must be remember- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 87 
 
 ed that such schools are properly sustained 
 only where there is a large number of benev- 
 olent and intelligent persons to teach them. 
 
 But in our country, the places which most 
 need such labourers are the very places where 
 the fewest are to be found. And even in the 
 most favoured portions of our land, much 
 of Sunday instructions is committed to very 
 young persons, while the parents often are 
 thus led to throw off their own responsibility 
 upon those of less experience. 
 
 Moreover, if the moral training of children 
 is neglected through the six days of the week, 
 in which they are exposed to the most tempta- 
 tion, how vain to expect that all the consequent 
 evil is to be remedied by gathering them for 
 an hour or two on Sunday, to receive religious 
 instruction. Even were this a remedy, there 
 are thousands of places in our land where no 
 Sunday-schools are to be found. 
 
 Many persons justify the neglect of moral 
 training in our schools, by claiming that reli- 
 gion must be banished from schools, on account 
 of the great diversity of sects, who cannot agree 
 in this matter. Such are little aware on how 
 many important points all sects are agreed. 
 
88 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 To exhibit this, and to aid any who may be in- 
 duced to attempt a course of moral and reli- 
 gious training in their schools, the following 
 is presented as an outline of a course of in- 
 struction that could be introduced into all 
 schools, without violating the conscientious 
 scruples of a single denomination in this na- 
 tion, professing to be Christian. 
 
 In the first place, all children in schools, can 
 be taught, that the Bible contains the rules of 
 duty given by God, which all men are bound 
 to obey. This is what all denominations allow, 
 and if there is any dispute about which trans- 
 lation is the proper one, each child can be al- 
 lowed to use the Bible his parents think to be 
 right. 
 
 When this is duly taught, the children can 
 be required, for several successive mornings, 
 each to repeat a passage from the Bible, which 
 teaches the character of God. 
 
 When this subject is exhausted, then the 
 teacher can compose a form of prayer consist- 
 ing exclusively of passages from the Bible, to 
 be used as the first act of school duty. The 
 children might be required to repeat each por- 
 tion, either with, or after the teacher, simulta- 
 neously, and thus unite in the exercise. 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 89 
 
 The following is presented as a specimen of 
 the prayers, of which a great variety could be 
 made, simply by arranging texts from the Bi- 
 ble : 
 
 O God, thou art my God ; early will I seek 
 thee. 
 
 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O 
 Lord ; in the morning will I direct my prayer 
 unto thee, and look up. 
 
 For thou art not a God that hast pleasure in 
 wickedness ; neither shall evil dwell with thee. 
 
 Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness ; make 
 thy way straight before my face. 
 
 Remove far from me vanity and lies ; give 
 me neither poverty nor riches ; feed me with 
 food convenient for me ; 
 
 Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, " Who 
 is the Lord ?" or lest I be poor and steal, and 
 take the name of my God in vain. 
 
 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole mat- 
 ter. Fear God and keep his commandments, 
 for this is the whole duty of man. 
 
 For God shall bring every work into judg- 
 nf^nt, with every secret thing. 
 
 O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, 
 because we have sinned against thee ; neither 
 H 2 
 
90 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, 
 to walk m his laws which he set before us. 
 
 To the Lord our God belong mercies and 
 forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against 
 him. 
 
 For thou art the Lord, the Lord God, mer- 
 ciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant 
 in mercy and truth. Therefore will we trust 
 in thee. 
 
 To the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory 
 and majesty, dominion and power, both now 
 and ever. Amen. 
 
 Or this : 
 
 O Lord, my God, thou art very great ; thou 
 art clothed with honour and majesty : 
 
 Who coverest thyself with light as with a 
 garment,*tvho stretchest out the heavens like a 
 curtain. 
 
 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in 
 great waters, who maketh the clouds his char 
 iot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind 
 
 Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle . 
 who shall dwell in thy holy hill ? 
 
 He that walketh uprightly and worketh rig^ 
 teousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart 
 
 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, noi 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 91 
 
 CiOeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a 
 reproach against his neiglibour. 
 
 In whose eyes a vile person is contemned ; 
 but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. 
 
 He that sweareth to his own hurt, and chan- 
 geth not. 
 
 He that doeth these things shall never be 
 moved. 
 
 Lord, thou hast searched me and known 
 me. 
 
 Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up- 
 rising ; thou understandest my thoughts afar 
 off. 
 
 Thou compassest my path and my lying 
 down, and art acquainted with all my ways. 
 
 For there is not a word in my tongue, but 
 lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. 
 
 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and 
 laid thine hand upon me. 
 
 Such knowledge is too wonderful .for me ; 
 it is high ; I cannot attain unto it. 
 
 1 will praise thee, for I am fearfully and won- 
 derfully made ; marvellous are thy works, and 
 that my soul knoweth right well. 
 
 Search me, O God, and know my heart; try 
 me, and know my thoughts ; 
 
92 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 And see if there be any wicked way in me, 
 and lead me in the way everlasting. 
 
 Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisi- 
 ble, the only wise God, be honour and glory 
 now and forever. Amen. 
 
 Next, the children may be required to bring 
 texts in reply to such questions as these : 
 
 Who is Jesus Christ? 
 
 For what did he come into this w^orld ? 
 
 What is the character of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 What has he done for us ? 
 
 What does he require of us ? 
 
 What is to be the condition of those who 
 are wicked after death ? 
 
 What is to be the condition of the good 
 after death ? 
 
 How are we to escape from the portion of 
 the wicked after death ? 
 
 How are we to gain the rewards of the good 
 after death ? 
 
 Some such question can be given each 
 morning ; and the children can be required 
 to learn a text from the Bible, which will 
 answer this question, to repeat the next morn- 
 ing. If they are too young to find it them- 
 selves, they can be required to ask the aid of 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 93 
 
 their companions who are older, or of their 
 friends at home. 
 
 The being, character, and works of God, the 
 feehngs and duties owed to him, and our rela- 
 tions and duties in reference to a future state, 
 are the topics which usually are classed as 
 religious instruction. ^ 
 
 Moral training commonly is understood as 
 relating to the duties we owe to ourselves 
 and to our fellow-creatures. In this depart- 
 ment the following methods could be adopted : 
 
 Each morning, some one of such practical 
 texts as the following could be given out for 
 the children to reflect on through the day, and 
 in reference to which, they can be required to 
 seek from books, or from their friends, some 
 cases in which this command of God is either 
 obeyed or disobeyed. 
 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 " Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 to you, do ye even so to them." 
 
 " Recompense to no one evil for evil." 
 
 " Forbear one another, and forgive one an- 
 other, if any one have a quarrel ; as Christ for- 
 gave you, so also do ye." 
 
 " Bless them that curse you; bless, and curse 
 
94 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 " If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he 
 thirst, give him drink." 
 
 " Put away lying, and speak every one truth 
 with his neighbour." 
 
 " Put on humbleness of mind, meekness, long 
 suffering." 
 
 " Be followers of Christ, who did no sin, nei- 
 ther was guile found in his mouth ; who hath 
 left us an example, that we should walk in his 
 steps." 
 
 When such texts are given out, their spirit 
 and meaning should be illustrated by example, 
 and then the children should be required to 
 learn the text, and next morning to bring some 
 case to illustrate the violation of, or obedience 
 to this rule. 
 
 But it is not sufficient to give children clear 
 views of duty, and store their memories with 
 the precepts enforcing their duties. 
 
 The teachers should keep a strict watch 
 over the children, and whenever any conduct 
 or disposition appears, that violates these rules, 
 they should be pointedly applied. A precept 
 from the Bible should be employed to counter- 
 act whatever bad disposition or bad conduct 
 is observed. 
 
ILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 95 
 
 For example, if a child complains that a com- 
 panion has defaced his book, let the faulty child 
 be called up, and made to repeat the comm.and 
 of God which he has violated : such as, " What- 
 soever ye would that men should do to you, do 
 ye even so to them." If a child has taken a 
 pen from his companion without leave, take oc- 
 casion, on reprimanding him, to set before the 
 school the evil and danger of pilfering. En- 
 large on the nobleness of strict honesty and 
 uprightness. Show that the evil is not so much 
 the loss of property by the owner as the had 
 habit induced in the pilferer, which may lead 
 at last to the dungeon and the gallows. 
 
 Again, if a child is found to he prevaricating, 
 or using any kind of deceit, require him to re- 
 peat the commands of God^ " Thou shalt not 
 bear false witness." " Lie not at all." " Ly- 
 ing lips are an abomination to the Lord, but 
 they that deal truly are his delight." 
 
 Then set forth lying before the school, as 
 what should be held in universal abhorrence ; 
 show the importance of truth, as indispensable 
 to the existence of society and the happiness 
 of all beings ; show how any kind of attempts 
 at deceit weakens the habit of truthfulness, and 
 certainly will lead, at last, to lying. 
 
96 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 When it is needful to punish, endeavour to 
 select a penalty that will have a good effect on 
 the school, instead of one that will awaken 
 sympathy for the offender. When a child is 
 .whipped/m many cases, his cries excite pity and 
 sympathy, and often indignation at the teacher. 
 But if, when a child has broken the laws of 
 God, the teacher sets forth the evil of the sin, 
 and then takes some such precept as this. 
 " Withdraw thyself from every brother that 
 walketh disorderly," as his directory in requi- 
 ring all the school to be separate from him, 
 shutting him out from the play-ground, and de- 
 priving him of the usual period of recess un- 
 til the delinquent appears penitent and anxious 
 to do well ; then the teacher appears to the 
 school as acting hy Divine authority, and for 
 the good of the whole. 
 
 There are many sins against such commands 
 of God as these : " Let all things be done de- 
 cently and in order." " Whatsoever things are 
 ■ lovely and of good report, think of these things." 
 " Be ye courteous." The violations of the rules 
 of politeness, of neatness, and of order, come 
 under these precepts, and school is the place, 
 above all others, where such faults should be 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 97 
 
 checked. Throwing down hats and caps, abu- 
 sing clothes, tearing books, defiling desks with 
 ink, cutting the benches, marking the walls, are 
 faults which ought to be noticed as disobedience 
 to these rules. So, also, rude language, call- 
 ing nicknames, teasing and frightening com- 
 panions, mocking the aged, or deformed, or 
 lame, cruel treatment of birds and other ani- 
 mals, injuring trees, and many similar practi- 
 ces, should be checked by appeals to the Word 
 of God. 
 
 In addition to this, let the benefits of refined 
 taste and good breeding be set forth by specific 
 examples. Show the consequences where the 
 children of a community are rude in the streets, 
 abuse and injure fences, milestones, graveyards, 
 and fruit-trees, and then set forth the advanta- 
 ges o{ street politeness, of the care of our neigh- 
 bours' property, and of all that belongs to the 
 public. 
 
 In all efforts to lead children to benevolent 
 feelings and conduct, it is very important to 
 set before them the example of Jesus Christ, 
 appealing to their feelings of gratitude and 
 love. 
 
 If a child frets at being obliged to serve an- 
 I 
 
98 AMERICAN "WOMEN ! 
 
 Other, let him be reminded that Jesus Christ 
 has done far more for him, and that he came 
 into this world to set us an example, that we 
 should walk in his steps. 
 
 While it is indispensable to notice and re- 
 prove faults, it is no less important to notice 
 and approve whatever is commendable in chil 
 dren. And much care should be taken to ob- 
 seive whatever is right, for it is much easier 
 and much better to govern by motives of pleas- 
 ure rather than those of pain. 
 
 Whenever, therefore, any cases are observ- 
 ed of kindness, firmness, patience, truth, and 
 faithfulness, let them be spoken of, not in such 
 a way as to awaken vanity, but simply with 
 approbation as right, and wprthy of imitation. 
 
 For example, if a child gives up some grat- 
 ification in order to relieve some poor com- 
 panion, or furnish a destitute schoolmate with 
 clothes or books ; if a child has aided or defend- 
 ed a companion when laughed at, or ill-treat- 
 ed; if another has found some tempting article, 
 and. instead of secreting it, has sought out the 
 owner and returned it ; if, when insulted and 
 provoked, another has refrained from angry 
 words and all retaliation ; if another has refu- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY ? 99 
 
 sed to believe evil of a companion, and endeav- 
 oured to stop an injurious report ; if another has 
 taken care to preserve his own premises from 
 filth and disorder, and protected the school- 
 house and play-ground from abuse : let all 
 such actions be presented to the school as 
 good, and worthy of imitation. Commenda- 
 tion not only encourages and animates those 
 who do well, but inspires the desire to imitate 
 in others. 
 
 In cases where a teacher assumes the care 
 of a school where there are many children who 
 have formed bad habits, it is very important 
 that he should imitate Christ in his feelings and 
 deportment towards sinners. In such a case, 
 it is very important to convince his pupils that, 
 however bad they are, he is still their friend, 
 and ever ready to do them good. He should 
 state to them that he is aware that they have 
 formed bad habits, and that the labour of cu- 
 ring them is great and difficult. He should 
 carefully notice all attempts to do better, and 
 where there are efforts made to improve, occa- 
 sional failures should be spc^en of with words 
 of kindness, sympathy, and encouragement. 
 
 And all teachers need to be careful not to 
 
100 
 
 oe so frequent in finding fault, and so severe 
 in manner as to produce the feeling of hope- 
 lessness in efforts to please and satisfy. When 
 a child feels that, however earnestly he may 
 try to do right, he has such bad habits already 
 formed that he shall not succeed so as to 
 please his teacher, all motive for exertion 
 ceases, and he becomes reckless and hardened. 
 
 The great art of curing faults is, so to se- 
 cure the affection and confidence of a child, 
 that he shall be a cheerful co-worker with his 
 teacher, assured of approbation in success, 
 and of forbearance and sympathy in any failure. 
 
 In cases where the morals of a school are 
 very bad, it will be wise for a teacher to let 
 many things pass unnoticed that in a better 
 community he would reprove. 
 
 Some one, two, or three rules of duty can 
 be presented at a time, and diligent efforts be 
 made to remedy habits which violate these 
 rules. When some gain has been made on 
 these points, then one or two more can be 
 added, and thus a gradual advance will secure 
 far more success^than attempting everything 
 at once. 
 
 There are many ways of rendering the 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 101 
 
 Bible interesting to children, which should, if 
 possible, be introduced into common schools. 
 Some of these will be mentioned. 
 
 When reading the historical parts of the 
 Old or New Testament, a large map of Pales- 
 tine and the other countries spoken of in the 
 Bible, should be suspended before the school, 
 and all the places mentioned be pointed out. 
 There are large maps of this kind to be ob 
 tained of the Sunday-school Union. 
 
 There is also a cheap chart of history pre- 
 pared by a Mr. Lyman, which is most excel- 
 lent for aiding in the study both of sacred and 
 profane history. It is so made that it can be 
 hung conveniently around the wall of a school- 
 room, and is so large, that children can read 
 the names and events while sitting in their 
 seats. 
 
 Besides these articles, there are large draw- 
 ings to be obtained of the tabernacle and all 
 the articles spoken of in the Pentateuch, and 
 others, also, that illustrate the manners and cus- 
 toms, dress, furniture, and dwellings of the Is- 
 raelites, and the scenery of Palestine. These 
 pictures, employed to illustrate the history of 
 the Bible, would give wonderful interest to the 
 12 
 
102 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 exercise of reading it. It is hoped that, ere 
 long, gentlemen of wealth will begin to endow 
 common schools with such useful apparatus, 
 instead of confining their benefactions exclu- 
 sively to higher seminaries. 
 
 In reading the Bible in schools, the follow- 
 ing method will be found to be both useful 
 and interesting: Let the teacher, by the aid 
 of Townsend's Bible, arrange a regular course 
 of Bible history chronologically, selecting only 
 such chapters as will carry on a connected 
 and complete history. This can be read 
 aloud by the children in portions each morn- 
 ing ; and by the aid of the maps, pictures, and 
 charts, a vivid interest can be imparted to the 
 exercise, while, at the same time, opportu- 
 nities will be given to the teacher to notice in- 
 cidents that convey moral instruction. 
 
 After this course is completed, then the 
 teacher can prepare a course of biograph- 
 ical reading, arranged in chronological order, 
 and use this opportunity also to point out the 
 moral instruction to be found in these histories 
 of individuals. Next, he might arrange a 
 course embracing the didactic portions of the 
 Bible, combining in one course of reading all 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 103 
 
 the moral precepts ; and while this is going on, 
 he can collect anecdotes to relate to the school 
 illustrating these precepts. Lastly, he might 
 make a selection of the poetry and other rhe- 
 torical beauties of the Bible, and, while this is 
 being read, point out the inimitable sublimity 
 and beauty of the ideas and the style. The In- 
 troduction to the Study of the Bible by Home, 
 the larger edition, and Lowth on Hebrew poe- 
 try, are works which would greatly aid a teach- 
 er in such a course of Biblical instruction.* 
 
 In this course of moral training, it will be 
 seen that there is nothing sectarian, and no- 
 thing which would b« objected to by any but 
 those o posed to the use of the Bible in schools, 
 and to all religious and moral training. In 
 such cases, it would be proper to adopt the 
 following course : 
 
 It could be stated to the objector, that in 
 this country it is the majority that must de- 
 cide every question not already settled by the 
 Constitutions of the state or nation. That, in 
 regard to the question of moral and religious 
 training in the schools, the people are free to 
 use their own judgment. That where the ma- 
 
 * See note A. 
 
104 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 jority wish to have such training a part of 
 school exercises, they have a right to require 
 it. But in cases where persons object to hav- 
 ing their children so trained, the majority have 
 no right to insist on it. In order to avoid this, in 
 every case where a parent requests it, his chil- 
 dren can be allowed to leave the schoolroom 
 while these exercises are going on, to study, or 
 to perform some other school duty. Or if this is 
 inconvenient, they can be allowed to come 
 half an hour later, and then remain half an 
 hour longer, after the others are dismissed. 
 No man could object to such an arrangement 
 without violating the first principle of our de- 
 mocracy, by demanding that the minority, and 
 not the majority, shall be accommodated in 
 this matter. 
 
 Now is it not practicable for every woman, 
 who attempts to promote the proper education 
 of American children, to use whatever influ- 
 ence she may have with parents, or teachers 
 to secure such a course of moral training in 
 the schools in her own vicinity, as is here indi- 
 cated ? Let every woman try what she can 
 do to promote this important object. 
 
 American woman, whose eye may be rest- 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 105 
 
 ing on this page, are you willing to commence 
 an effort to aid in saving your country from 
 the perils of ignorance ? Are you not spending 
 more time in adorning your person, your chil- 
 dren, or your residence, or in social enjoy- 
 ments, or in providing for the gratification of 
 the palate, than you have yet given to this 
 cause? Can you continue this unchristian, 
 unpatriotic apportionment of time, without an 
 upbraiding conscience ? Do you say that al- 
 ready you have more to do than you can prop- 
 erly perform ? But, in the hst of your pursuits, 
 are there not some that are of far inferior con- 
 sequence to this, which it vi^ould do no harm to 
 curtail, and thus gain time for this ? Do you 
 not spend time and money for articles of dress, 
 or ornaments, or in social intercourse, or for 
 needless luxuries, that you might, without any 
 evil, give up to this object ? 
 
 Do you say that you can do but little, and 
 relieve yourself from obligation because it is 
 so Uttle ? Suppose each drop of rain should 
 urge this plea, and thus delay to refresh the 
 fields ? Is not every great and good work ac- 
 complished by a union of many little influen- 
 ces, and as much so in the moral as in the nat- 
 ural world ? 
 
106 AMERICAN WOMEN 
 
 Are you dwelling in those parts of our land 
 where most is done for education, and com- 
 forting yourself that at least you and yours 
 shall escape in safety ? But how can you tell 
 that in five or ten years either you, or those 
 you love best, will not be the other side of the 
 Alleghany, and in the most destitute portion 
 of the nation ? The changes of fortune, the 
 pursuit of wealth, the mutations of matrimoni- 
 al connexions, utterly forbid any reUance on 
 permanency of residence. 
 
 And how can one portion of this nation suf- 
 fer and the other escape ? Is not the vast Riv- 
 er Valley, whatever may be the character of 
 its millions, to hold the controlling power of 
 our nation 1 If any portion of the fair West 
 be tortured with civil commotion and lawless 
 rage, will not every groan re-echo from the ma- 
 ternal heart of New-England and New- York, 
 whose sons and daughters are dwelling on ev- 
 ery prairie and in every valley of our land ? 
 
 Mother, whose hands are so busy in orna- 
 menting your darling child ; Sister, whose fin- 
 gers fly so swiftly over the canvass or lace ; 
 Daughter, so earnestly engaged in preparing 
 your elegant habiliments, look back to that 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 107 
 
 beautiful daughter of emperors, that sister of 
 kings, that mother of princes, brought to her 
 palace-home amid a nation's transports, the 
 welcome bride of the nation's heir. 
 
 Again, on the birth of her first-born, hear the 
 triumphant paean re-echoed across the ocean, 
 sung by the very children in our streets, and 
 in the memory of many nov^ on the stage : 
 
 " A Dauphin's born ! let cannon loud 
 With echoes rend the sky ; 
 All hail to Gallia's King ! 
 Columbia's great ally !" 
 
 And thus the great English orator of that 
 day describes her : " It is now sixteen or sev- 
 enteen years since I saw the Queen of France, 
 then the Dauphiness, at Versailles : and sure- 
 ly never lighted on this orb, which she scarce- 
 ly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision ! 
 I saw her, just above the horizon, decorating 
 and cheering the elevated sphere she just be- 
 gan to move in, glittering like the morning 
 star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. Lit- 
 tle did I dream I should have lived to see such 
 disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant 
 men, in a nation of men of honour and of cav- 
 aliers. I thought ten thousand swords would 
 
108 AMERICAN WOMEN ! 
 
 have leaped from their scabbards to avenge 
 even a look that threatened her with insult." 
 
 Look, now, through those prison bars. There, 
 pale and mournful, upon a pallet of straw, rests 
 one for whom the splendours of Versailles 
 scarcely seemed enough. Her once bright 
 locks, even in youth, are gray with fear and 
 sorrow. She is in solitude; her husband in 
 one cell, and her weeping children, torn from 
 her and placed with brutal keepers, in anoth- 
 er. And now her husband is borne forth to 
 a bloody death. Again her prison doors un- 
 close, and she comes forth, seated on the fatal 
 car, her hands tied behind her back, surround- 
 ed by thousands, who shout with malignant 
 joy as the fatal guillotine terminates her woes. 
 
 See that last and most innocent sufferer, the 
 poor little Dauphin, every tender feeling crush- 
 ed, deliberately instructed in vice, doomed to 
 disgusting and degrading services, and, ere 
 long, cruelly starved to death ! 
 
 American mother, wife, sister, daughter, the 
 same earthquake is trembling under your feet ! 
 If such an awful period agitates any portion 
 of this land, it will be those raised by wealth 
 and station as the objects of popular envy, who 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? 109 
 
 must first meet the storm. You sit now in 
 peace and plenty ; you spend your time in 
 elegant pleasures, and, w^hile absorbed in self- 
 ish enjoyment, you forget the young and des- 
 titute growing up around you. And as you 
 embroider the flower, and twine the silk, and 
 fold the riband, they are learning to sharpen 
 the dagger, and twine the cord, and plant the 
 cannon. Within a stone's throw of that smi- 
 ling child with golden locks, who now absorbs 
 a mother's thoughts, may be growing up, in 
 the darkness of ignorance and vice, the very 
 hand that, at some awful crisis, will grasp 
 those locks in rage, and plant the dagger in 
 that happy bosom. 
 
 And when, in some after hour of terror and 
 distress, when the roar of musketry is heard, 
 shooting down father and husband, and broth- 
 er and friend ; when the bells are tolling, and 
 the drums beating, and the wife, mother, and 
 daughter behold those they love best girding 
 t-o meet the violators of law ; when they catch 
 the parting expression of flushed excitement, 
 or stern determination, or serious foreboding, 
 as the loved one departs, perhaps to be return- 
 ed a breathless corse — then, in the hour of 
 K 
 
110 AMERICAN women! 
 
 anxious solitude, will the solemn inquest h^ 
 made for those ruffian minds, ruined by neg- 
 lect ; and the voice of the Lord God will be 
 heard, walking in the trees of the garden, de- 
 manding, " Where is thy brother ?" And the 
 trembling response, "Am I my brother's keep- 
 er ?" will meet the stern rebuke, " What hast 
 thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood 
 crieth unto me from the ground." 
 
 But why appeal to motives of fear and danger? 
 Alas ! those thousands and millions of neglected 
 little ones in our land, they know not their wants 
 or their danger, or they would raise their sup- 
 plicating hands. Is there anything more a^ 
 propriate than that gentle woman should be 
 invoked to their aid ? Is there anything more 
 beautiful, more heavenly, than that she should 
 spend her time, and thoughts, and means to 
 rescue them ? What is it that you would en- 
 joy the most in after days, gazing at the fading 
 beauties you have wrought in canvass, muslin, 
 or lace, or looking around on the intelligent, 
 useful, happy minds you have been instrument- 
 al in training, and who will rise up and call 
 you blessed ? True, you cannot gain this rich 
 reward without some self-denying toil and 
 
WILL YOU SAVE YOUR COUNTRY? Ill 
 
 persevering effort. But is it not worth the 
 labour ? 
 
 And vt^hen your eye is closing on earth, and 
 the memories of the past are hovering around 
 your pillow, who do you wish should meet 
 your dying eye, the haggard faces of those 
 ruined by your neglect, or the grateful smiles 
 of those you have toiled to bless, who will bear 
 you in their love and prayers, like seraph's 
 wings, to the opening gates of heaven ; who 
 will shine forever as stars in your crown of 
 rejoicing ? 
 
 And into that world of perfected benevo- 
 lence and joy, who is it that shall enter and 
 go no more out ? It is those who, in this 
 world, have followed the footsteps of Jesus 
 Christ ; who have lived, not for themselves, but 
 for otliers ; who, like him, have denied them^ 
 selves daily to promote the salvation of the 
 lost. Is not Jesus Christ presented as the 
 bright and perfect example of self-denying 
 benevolence, and is it not written, " If any man 
 have not the spixnt of Christ, he is none of his?" 
 
 Oh, ye who are appointed by Him, who toil- 
 ed for your salvation, to go forth and rescue 
 these httle ones, what saith your great Exem- 
 
112 AMERICAN women! 
 
 plar ? " Ye are the light of the world ; and if 
 the light in you be darkness, how great is 
 that darkness !" 
 
 Where, then, are your golden lamps ? 
 Whom will you guide to the light and liberty 
 of his presence ? Awake, from the dream 
 of thoughtless pleasure ! Awake from the 
 reveries of selfish care, and save yourselves 
 and your country, ere it be forever too late ! 
 
A PLAN PROPOSED. 
 
 It is the object of what follows, to enable every 
 woman, who wishes to do something- for the cause 
 of education and her country, to act immediately, be- 
 fore the interest awakened is absorbed by other pur- 
 suits. 
 
 The thing to be aimed at is, the employment of fe- 
 male talent and benevolence in educating ignorant and 
 neglected American children. 
 
 In order to give an idea of what needs to be done, 
 and of what can be done, some facts will be stated of 
 which the writer of this volume has personal knowl- 
 edge. There are, in all parts of this country, women 
 of education and benevolence, and some of them 
 possessing wealth, who are longing for something 
 to do, which is more worthy of their cultivated en- 
 ergies than the ordinary pursuits of women of lei- 
 sure. There is a still greater multitude of women 
 of good sense and benevolence, who, if educated, 
 would make admirable teachers, but who now have 
 no resource but the needle and the manufactory. It 
 is melancholy to see, in all mechanical trades where 
 woman's labour is available, how many thousands 
 are following pursuits, many of them injurious to 
 health and to morals, and none of them qualifying 
 a woman, in any respect, for future domestic duties. 
 
 In the schoolroom, or at domestic service, a wom- 
 K 2 
 
114 WANT OF GOOD TEACHERS. 
 
 an is learning to train children, and to perform do- 
 mestic duties properly, but in the workshop and 
 manufactory, she follows a monotonous toil, useful 
 neither to body nor mind, often injurious to both, and 
 formnig habits and tastes disqualifying her for future 
 domestic duties.* 
 
 On the other hand, in all parts of our country, es- 
 pecially at the West, there are multitudes of flour- 
 ishing towns and villages willing and anxious to have 
 good schools, and able and ready to support them, 
 but unwilling to do anything to sustain the miserable 
 apology for teachers within their reach. And still 
 broader regions are to be found, in every direction, 
 not only without good teachers, but in many cases 
 without any desire for schools of any kind. Our 
 two million destitute children are an appalling oroof 
 of this destitution and apathy. 
 
 Now, there are hundreds and thousands of enter- 
 prising, benevolent, and, many of them, well educa- 
 ted women, who would rejoice to go forth as mis- 
 sionary teachers to these destitute children. Such 
 women, by their influence, not only in their schools, 
 but in the village around them, could do almost as 
 much as a missionary, and at far less expense. 
 For a woman needs support only for herself, a man 
 requires support for himself and a family. And 
 there are multitudes of such women, sighing over 
 our destitute country and wishing to be sent forth 
 on such a service, and yet they know of no way to 
 secure the object of their wishes. 
 * See note B, p. 153. 
 
CATHOLIC ENTERPRISE. 115 
 
 In the Catholic Church, a wisdom is shown on 
 this subject, which Protestants as yet have not ex- 
 hibited. In that Church, if a lady of wealth and fam- 
 ily is led to devote herself to benevolent enterpri- 
 ses, a post is immediately found for her as Lady Ab- 
 bess, or Lady Patroness, or Lady Superior, where 
 she secures the power, consideration, and rank, 
 which even ambition might covet. There is now a 
 Catholic institution in one of our principal western 
 cities, known to the writer, which is superintended 
 by a lady of rank and family from Belgium, and 
 which is only a branch of a still larger institution in 
 Belgium, over which another titled lady presides. 
 And there are several other ladies of family and 
 fortune from Europe, who are spending their time 
 and wealth in gathering American children into 
 the Catholic Church. Meantime, all women of 
 humbler station have places provided, as Nuns or 
 Sisters of Charily, where they can spend their be- 
 nevolent energies in honoured activity. The cler- 
 gy, having no families to occupy their time, devote 
 their whole attention to the extension of their faith 
 hy schools as well as by planting churches. To these 
 instrumentalities are added the Jesuit establishment 
 in this country, expressly devoted to the interests 
 of education, with the head Jesuit for the West sta- 
 tioned in Cincinnati, to supervise and promote all 
 plans for education. He is a man of winning man- 
 ners, great policy, untiring industry, and, so far as 
 human eye can see, honestly and sincerely devoted 
 to the cause he has espoused. Under his watchful 
 
116 PROTESTANT APATHY. 
 
 eye, no energy, or benevolence, or skill is ever lost, 
 but all is husbanded and skilfully directed. 
 
 But among Protestants there is no system or or- 
 ganization instituted, thus to secure and employ the 
 benevolent energies of the female sex in the cause 
 of education. If a woman finds it in her heart to 
 turn missionary and go away from her country to 
 instruct the heathen, in most cases, every facility is 
 provided, and public sentiment urges and encourages 
 her efforts, and she knows to whom to apply for 
 support and encouragement. But let a woman be- 
 come interested in her own country, and earnestly 
 desire to labour for destitute American children, 
 and no such means, or facilities exist as make it suit- 
 able, or practicable to undertake. Among Catholics, 
 let a woman of family and fortune talk of going to 
 the West to teach, and she instantly is lauded as a 
 saint ; bishops, priests, and Jesuits are at her side 
 to encourage and aid, and honour in life and canon- 
 ization at death are her sure reward. But let a 
 Protestant woman of wealth and high standing ex- 
 press a wish and intention to go to the West to 
 teach, and it would be regarded by most of her 
 friends and associates as a mark of oddity — a de- 
 ficiency of good sense. Family friends would op- 
 pose, acquaintances would sneer, a few would faint- 
 ly approve, no individual and no body of men could 
 be found, whose appropriate business it is to aid, 
 and so many obstacles would oppose, that, in most 
 cases, it would really be Quixotic to encounter them. 
 And women in humbler circumstances find almost 
 
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. ] 17 
 
 as insurmountable obstacles ; they know of no place 
 where they can g-o, it is the business of no one to 
 aid them, they know of no one to whom to apply 
 for assistance, and thus it is that hundreds and 
 hundreds of women, abundantly competent to act 
 as missionary teachers, are pining in secret over 
 wasted energies, which they are longing to spend in 
 the most appropriate duty of women, the training of 
 young minds for usefulness and for Heaven. It may 
 be replied, that in the Catholic Church women take 
 vows of celibacy, which alone can enable them thus 
 to act for the cause of education, and that no such ef- 
 ficient action for education can be anticipated from 
 Protestant women, whose religious faith opposes 
 rather than encourages this sequestration from do- 
 mestic alliances. A few facts will serve to show 
 the fallacy of this impression. A lady of New- 
 England, who for a number of years conducted a 
 large female institution, furnishes this as the result 
 of her experience. During nine years, four hundred 
 teachers went out from this institution. Of these, 
 eighty-eight went to the West and South. At the 
 end of these nine years, of the eighty-eight who went 
 to the West and South, sixty-four (which is more than 
 three fourths) continued as teachers. Twelve of 
 these continued teachers after marriage. During 
 three years of this time, a society connected with 
 this institution was in operation to aid young women 
 in educating themselves to be teachers. This as- 
 sistance was in the form of a loan, which at no time 
 was to exceed two hundred dollars to any one indi- 
 
118 WHAT CAN BE DONE. 
 
 vidual, and this loan was to be returned whenever it 
 was practicable. The society remitted the debt in 
 cases where it was not. Means were also provided 
 for the appropriate protection and location of these 
 teachers. The number who in three years received 
 aid was forty-three^ and the sum of $4340,00 was 
 loaned for this purpose. Twenty-four of these, in 
 the space of eight years from the first loans, refund- 
 ed from their own earnings all that was loaned. 
 Eight refunded in part. The remainder did not re- 
 fund within the eight years, but all who were not 
 sick or dead were expecting and aiming so to do. 
 
 A clergyman, who for a number of years was a 
 travelling agent for one of our benevolent institu- 
 tions, and who felt an interest in discovering the 
 results of the above effort, stated it as his convic- 
 tion, that no college in our country had, in the same 
 period, done more for the cause of education and 
 religion in our land than this institution had done 
 by sending forth its female teachers. Many other 
 similar facts could be stated, showing that there is 
 even a greater chance of permanent results in era- 
 ploying a given sum for the education of female 
 teachers, than for the education of young men for 
 the ministry. 
 
 The lady who conducted this institution, and fur- 
 nished these facts, also stated, that at all times the 
 number of those desirous of qualifying themselves 
 for teachers, and who would gladly have obtained 
 loans for this end, was far beyond the means the 
 society could command, while the demands sent on 
 
DEMAND FOR TEACHERS. 119 
 
 to this institution for teachers, from the South and 
 West, was altogether more than could be supplied ; 
 thus showing that there were places demanding 
 teachers, and teachers seeking for places, and no 
 adequate instrumentality in existence for meeting 
 these reciprocal demands. In the Eastern States, 
 it is the testimony of school committees, and others 
 employed in selecting teachers, that crowds of fe- 
 male applicants are constantly turned aside, not 
 because they are not qualified, but because the 
 number of applicants greatly exceeds that of the 
 vacancies. 
 
 Another lady, who had conducted a large female 
 mstitution in New-England, made an attempt to aid 
 women of education and benevolence, who were 
 anxious to act as teachers, and wished for aid in 
 finding a proper location. The failure of health in- 
 terrupted her eff'orts, yet, with a very limited inqui- 
 ry, more than a hundred women of appropriate spirit 
 and qualifications were immediately found, anxious 
 to avail themselves of such aid; while the rumour 
 of such an effort, for two or three years, brought 
 letters to her from all parts of the country, asking 
 assistance, some of them in the most moving terms. 
 
 By the census, it appears that the excess of fe- 
 male population in New-England over that of the 
 other sex is more than 14,000. From extensive in- 
 quiries and consultation, the writer believes that 
 one fourth of these women would gladly engage as 
 teachers; that a large part are already qualified, 
 and that the others could be fitted for these duties 
 
120 FAILURE OF A GOOD PLAN 
 
 at an average expense of two hundred dollars 
 each. 
 
 Another fact will be mentioned to show the waste 
 of female talent and benevolence for want of some 
 organized agency which secures men whose business 
 it is to attend to the interests of education. 
 
 A lady, who had conducted a large female institu- 
 tion in New-England, removed to one of the largest 
 western cities, and, in connexion with several other 
 ladies of experience and reputation, established an 
 institution, which they designed, eventually, should 
 become an institution for the preparation and loca- 
 tion of female teachers, with a school connected 
 with it, supported by the citizens, which should 
 serve as a model school. It was hoped that, when 
 the teachers had gained public confidence at the 
 West, as they had done at the East, funds would be 
 furnished, both at the East and West, which would 
 enable these ladies to say to hundreds of their coun- 
 trywomen interested in the effort, " Here is a resort 
 for you, where you may qualify yourselves to be 
 first-rate teachers, and be aided in finding a location 
 in the many flourishing but destitute towns and vil- 
 lages of the West." 
 
 The school was abundantly patronised, and suc- 
 cessfully conducted. The ladies then applied for a 
 fund of some $30,000, given for purposes of educa- 
 tion, by a gentleman of that city, and not specifical- 
 ly devoted to any particular object. The trustees 
 of this fund voted to devote it to this enterprise, if 
 the citizens would raise $ 1 5,000 for a building. The 
 
FROM WANT OF ORGANIZATION. 121 
 
 citizens manifested all appropriate interest, so far 
 as kind words and liberal offers were concerned. 
 Two gentlemen subscribed a thousand dollars each,, 
 and several five hundred each, and nothing waa 
 needed but a person properly qualified^ who should de- 
 vote himself to the enterprise. The ladies conducting 
 the school, with failing health and many eares,. 
 could not carry forward such an effort, and no man. 
 could be found to devote himself to it. The result 
 was, that the Catholic bishop bought the building 
 occupied by this school for a Catholic female insti- 
 tution. No other suitable building could be hired. 
 The hard times came on, and funds could not be 
 raised to build one ; and thus, with tears of bitter 
 disappointment, the school was given up, and the 
 whole enterprise failed, and simply because it was 
 the business of no person to attend to the general 
 interests of education. Had these ladies turned 
 Catholics, bishops, priests, Jesuits, and all their 
 subordinates, would have been devoted to their 
 cause, and rich funds from foreign lands would have 
 been laid at their feet. As it was, in a wealthy and 
 most liberal Protestant city, where four of the lar- 
 gest establishments in its bounds have been pur- 
 chased for Catholic institutions of education, and two 
 of them for females, 2i Protestant institution, conduct- 
 ed by four female teachers of established reputation, 
 passed away for want of suitable accommodations. 
 Meantime, in that same city, the agents of various 
 benevolent societies took up liberal contributions for 
 the heathen, for slaves, for drunkards, for sailors, 
 L 
 
122 PROTESTANT BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 for convicts, for colleges (both in and out of the 
 city), for the education of young men, for the dis- 
 tribution of Bibles and tracts, and for many other 
 objects ; because men are supported.^ by voluntary con- 
 tribution, to give their whole time to these objects. 
 
 There is no just foundation for the remark not 
 unfrequently made, that the Catholic Church con- 
 tains more self-denying henevolence than other com- 
 munions, while sisters of charity and nuns are point- 
 ed out as illustrations. There are hundreds and 
 thousands of women in this Protestant land, who, 
 without the mistaken principles, possess all the 
 self-denying benevolence which, in Catholic com- 
 munities, leads to cloistered vows. The writer, 
 after extensive inquiaipes in almost all the free 
 states, believes it would be far within the bounds 
 of moderation to assert that, if any responsible per- 
 sons would pledge the pecuniary means and appro- 
 priate protection, five hundred benevolent women 
 •could be found in less than one month, with all ap- 
 propriate qualifications for missionary teachers. 
 Some of these are possessed of wealth, and still 
 more command a pleasant home, with all the com- 
 forts of competence and the best society ; yet they 
 would joyfully encounter the privations of mission- 
 ary life in efforts to save their country, could any 
 appropriate method be devised. 
 
 These allusions to the aid and encouragement of- 
 fered to benevolent women in the Catholic Church 
 :are not designed to be invidious. Whatever class 
 of religionists conscientiously hold, that there is no 
 
A PLAN PROPOSED. 123 
 
 safety from eternal ruin but in their church, not only 
 Christian benevolence, but common humanity should 
 impel them to all possible efforts, to gather every hu- 
 man being- into their communion. And it is fear- 
 ed that Protestants do not alway^make sufficient 
 allowance for this consideration. 
 
 The wrong lamented is, not that Catholics act 
 consistently with their faith, but that Protestants do 
 not offer the same aid and encouragement to benev- 
 olent Protestant women, who are so earnest in their 
 desires to devote time and talents, and, in some ca- 
 ses, wealth, to the salvation of the children of our 
 country. 
 
 In view of these facts, it is now proposed to at- 
 tempt to raise means for educating destitute Amer- 
 ican children, by the agency of women of education 
 and benevolence, who wish to engage in the work ; 
 and for supporting at least one gentleman of suita- 
 ble character and influence, whose time shall be 
 wholly devoted to this enterprise. 
 
 The first thing which will be attempted will be 
 to select, from those who are desirous to engage in 
 such a service, a certain number of those who are 
 best qualified by education, energy, discretion, and 
 self-denying benevolence, and who are willing to 
 be stationed, under the protection of some adjacent 
 clergyman, in places where there are neither church- 
 es or schools, assured of nothing more than is al- 
 lowed to home and foreign missionaries, namely, 
 a proper mode of conveyance and location, and 
 
124 COMMITTEE. 
 
 a simple support^ secured by some responsible per- 
 sons. 
 
 A small beginning will be made, under the super- 
 vision of a committee of six gentlemen, one from 
 each of six diffef#nt Protestant denominations. The 
 following gentlemen have consented to act as such 
 a committee until more permanent arrangements 
 can be made. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Elliot, Cincinnatti. 
 Rev. Dr. Lynd, ditto- 
 Rev. James H. Perkins, ditto. 
 Rev. Dr, M'Guffey, ditto. 
 Rev. Dr. "Stowe, ditto. 
 Rev. Bishop Smith, Louisville, Kentucky. 
 
 As soon as means are raised sufficient to support 
 a gentleman who shall devote himself to this object, 
 the above committee will endeavour to organize a 
 Board of Managers, consisting of an equal number 
 of gentlemen from each of the principal Protestant 
 denominations, who are resident in different sections 
 of the country, and possess general confidence. 
 This board will then appoint an Executive Com- 
 mittee, Treasurer, and Secretary, to superintend and 
 perform all the business connected with this enter- 
 prise, who shall be located either in New-York or 
 Cincinnati. 
 
 In order to aid in raising funds for this object, a 
 method is proposed, which will enable every woman 
 
METHOD OF RAISING FUNDS. 125 
 
 who feels an interest in the effort, to contribute, at 
 least a small sum, to promote it. 
 
 Two works are now issued by the largest publish- 
 ing house in the country, which, it is believed, will 
 prove useful and interesting to every American wo- 
 man. An account of these works and the terms 
 of the contract will be found at the close of this 
 volume.* It will be seen that these terms are 
 very favourable, and involve no hazard of loss. 
 These works will be put into the market and be sold 
 at ordinary prices. Half the profits (after paying a 
 moderate compensation to the author for the time 
 and labour of preparing them, the amount to be de- 
 cided by the above gentlemen) will be devoted to 
 this object, and as the works are of a kind that will 
 always be useful, a large sale would secure both a 
 present and future income. 
 
 Any woman, then, who is desirous to aid in pro- 
 moting this enterprise, can do so by requesting 
 some bookseller in her vicinity to send for these 
 works, and then purchasing them herself and using 
 her influence to induce her friends to do the same. 
 Still more will be effected by securing notices. 
 of these works in newspapers and other periodi- 
 cals. 
 
 Should means be obtained sufficient to secure the 
 services of a suitable gentleman, the following 
 measures are suggested as what might be attempt- 
 ed. « 
 
 * See Note B. 
 
126 COMMITTEES OF LADIES. 
 
 In the first place, an efFort could be made to se- 
 cure committees of ladies, of each denomination, in 
 all our principal cities, who shall agree to act si- 
 multaneously, on some uniform plan, and, if need be, 
 keep up a correspondence in order to secure this re- 
 sult. Such committees might exert themselves in 
 one, or all of the following ways : 
 
 They could, firstly, aim to secure the aid and co- 
 operation of the conductors of the periodical press, 
 literary, political, and religious. The gentleman 
 who engages in this enterprise, could write, or 
 cause others to write, articles calculated to arouse 
 the public mind in regard to popular education. 
 These articles could be transmitted to all the affil- 
 iated committees in every part of our land, and by 
 their influence, be inserted in most of the newspa- 
 pers, or other periodicals within their reach. Thus 
 a steady and most povi^erful influence would be 
 brought to bear on the public mind. The people 
 would be aroused, and through the people, the le- 
 gislatures might be led to energetic and appropriate 
 action. And then, as fast as schools are formed, fe- 
 male teachers will be in demand. 
 
 These committees, if it is deemed proper, might 
 slao address private letters to clergymen of their 
 ■several denominations, asking aid and advice. Next 
 to the press, the pulpit is the most effective engine 
 •of moral power, and, happily, the clergy of this 
 flation have ever been among the most ardent 
 :and active friends of education, and the warm sup- 
 jporters of almost every benevolent enterprise. 
 
THEIR BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE. 127 
 
 An appeal to them for aid must secure happy re- 
 sults. 
 
 Another method, which such committees could 
 aoopt, would be, to make personal appeals, both to 
 ladies of large means and to those, also, of smaller 
 ability, for subscriptions to aid in educating and lo- 
 cating female missionary teachers. Such subscrip- 
 tions, however, cannot be successfully sought until 
 some body is organized, consisting of gentlemen of 
 various denominations, who possess public confi- 
 dence, and who shall be properly authorized to re- 
 ceive and appropriate subscriptions. 
 
 Another and most important measure could be 
 prosecuted by these committees. At the East, 
 where there is a superabundance of teachers, and 
 of women who could speedily be qualified to teach, 
 such committees could act in selecting the most suit- 
 able women of their own denomination to receive 
 the aid provided ; and the number might be regulated 
 by the relative amount of subscriptions in each de- 
 nomination. 
 
 At the West, such committees could aid in provi- 
 ding schools for those sent out, a suitable escort, a 
 proper home, and the advice, sympathy, and aid that 
 would be needed by a stranger in a strange land. 
 
 "Were such committees known to be in existence 
 at the East, they speedily would be addressed by 
 multitudes of intelligent and benevolent women, 
 seeking aid in their efforts to gain opportunities to 
 impart knowledge and salvation to the perishing 
 heathen children in our own land. 
 
128 AN INCIDENT. 
 
 Were such committees in existence at the West, 
 and their eyes directed to the desolate regions of 
 ignorance around them, they would soon find their 
 warmest energies enlisted in gathering outcast 
 lambs into the fold of safety, to be trained and guided 
 to heaven. 
 
 To impart a more vivid idea of the wants which 
 are to be met, and of one of the first objects to be 
 aimed at, in the efforts proposed, some incidents in 
 the experience of the writer will be narrated. 
 
 In a small village, less than thirty miles from one 
 of the largest cities of the West, the writer once 
 stopped to dine. Several children were playing 
 about, when the following conversation took place : 
 
 " Is there any school in this place V 
 
 " No, madam ; it is a good while since we have 
 had one. Miss L. came and taught here nearly a 
 year ; but she went home, and we have had no school 
 since." 
 
 " How many children are there here who would 
 go to a school if there were one 1" 
 
 " I should think there are as many as forty or 
 fifty." 
 
 " Do you suppose the parents would like to have 
 a school, and would pay the teacher well V 
 
 " Oh, yes ! If we could get a good teacher, she 
 would be well paid for her trouble ; but none of us 
 know where to get one, and the men folks are too 
 busy to go and look for one." 
 
 " Have you any clergyman in the place I" 
 
 " No, madam." 
 
A WORTHY EXAMPLE. 129 
 
 " Do the people here ever go to any church V 
 
 " Yes, madam ; they sometimes go off a good 
 piece to W., where there is preaching some- 
 times." 
 
 It was in another village of the West, and one as 
 destitute as this, that a young lady from New Eng- 
 land, who came out under thercare of a clergyman, 
 stationed herself to rear up a school. She agreed 
 to teach for a small sum, and to board around with 
 the parents of her pupils. 
 
 Most of these parents were from the South, where 
 they were unaccustomed to the notions of comfort 
 and thrift which the young lady possessed. 
 
 She not only taught the children at school, but, 
 in each family where she boarded, taught the house- 
 keeper how to make good yeast and good bread. She 
 also taught the young women how to cut dresses 
 and how to braid straw for bonnets. 
 
 Her instructions in the day-school and in the Sun- 
 day-school, and her influence in the families, were 
 unbounded, and almost transforming. No minister, 
 however well qualified, could have wrought such 
 favourable changes in so short a time. 
 
 In another case, known to the writer, a young 
 lady went into such a destitute village. There was 
 no church, and no minister of any sect. She taught 
 the children through the week, and also instituted a 
 Sunday-school. In this she conducted religious 
 worship herself. Gradually the mothers came to 
 attend, then the fathers, until, at last, she found 
 herself in the oiRce both of teacher and clergyman. 
 
130 NO WANT OF LABOURERS. 
 
 The last portion of her duties she resigned to a 
 minister, who, by her instrumentality, was settled 
 there. 
 
 The writer might mention several other similar 
 eases which have come to her knowledge. 
 
 There are hundreds of such destitute places in 
 our land, where a prudent, self-denying, and ener- 
 getic woman might be instrumental in leading a 
 whole community " out of darkness into marvellous 
 light," and there are hundreds of such women wish- 
 ing to go to them. 
 
 The writer, when returning to the East, has often 
 been met by young friends with such representa- 
 tions as these : "1 have nothing to employ my time 
 which satisfies my conscience. I have education, 
 leisure, and means ; can you find me a sphere of 
 usefulness which I can reach with propriety ? I 
 cannot go off alone ; for, even if I thought it proper, 
 my friends would not consent." 
 
 Again, another friend says, " Why cannot you 
 find something for Miss G. to do 1 She is well ed- 
 ucated, rich, benevolent, and really is suffering for 
 want of something to do. She has thought of going 
 on a foreign mission, but surely there is enough for 
 her to do in her own country." 
 
 Yes, surely, there is enough to do in our own 
 country. When will the wise, and the influential, 
 and the benevolent awake to this subject, and devise 
 the proper mode of meeting such wants 1 
 
 Those who are interested in the project presented 
 in this work by no means assume that this is the 
 
LETTER FROM HON. T. BURROWEg. 131 
 
 hest way. They only feel that something ought to 
 be attempted ; and that, if this effort does no other 
 good, it may put in train influences that will devel- 
 op a better way. 
 
 The writer of this volume also presents this en- 
 terprise, not as the plan of an individual, but as a 
 project devised, by consultation, among many la- 
 dies of influence and benevolence, who are interest- 
 ed in securing its success. And if it is effected, it 
 is hoped that it will be by such simultaneous interest 
 and efforts, that no one will be conspicuous, either 
 as originator or leader in the enterprise. 
 
 The views presented in this work are those held 
 in common by a large number of intelligent ladies 
 in all parts of our land ; and, though one has been 
 selected and requested to write this work, it should 
 be regarded, not as the opinions of an individual, 
 but as a wreath of benevolence, woven, indeed, by 
 one hand, but gathered from many noble and benev- 
 olent minds. 
 
 The following extracts from letters received from 
 gentlemen of high standing in various parts of our 
 nation, will serve to corroborate the views express- 
 ed in the preceding pages : 
 
 From the Hon. Thomas Burrowes, late Secretary of 
 Slate in Pennsylvania. 
 
 I have long been of opinion that the great deficiency 
 
132 LETTER FROM HON. T. BURROWES. 
 
 of our age and country, in reference to the sound 
 instruction of the coming generation, is the want of 
 teachers. 
 
 I am now fully convinced that this want must be 
 supplied before any other step can be safely or use- 
 fully taken. Nay, I believe that, until this indispen- 
 sable preliminary measure is accomplished, money, 
 and eflfort, and legislation will be, as they have been, 
 money, and effort, and legislation nearly thrown 
 away. Since 1834, this state has expended more 
 than five millions for the support of her common 
 schools, and, at the end of ten years, I see but little 
 improvement. 
 
 In this immense expenditure, not a dollar has 
 been spent to secure this great prerequisite — good 
 teachers ; and hence the system has not only failed 
 to obtain general favour, but is in danger of becom- 
 ing more and more unacceptable the longer it is 
 tried. It is sad to think that we have thus wasted 
 five millions of dollars, and ten years of time, to say 
 nothing of the labour expended and obloquy encoun- 
 tered, and must now re-commence from the found- 
 ation ; but so it is. 
 
 I know of no cause which so much needs a gen- 
 eral movement as this. Let not its friends shrink 
 from the undertaking because they may not be able 
 to operate in all, or even in many of the states. 
 Let it be remembered that if a commencement 
 is made in one state, and a report of results sent 
 forth, it will serve to start the good work in all the 
 rest. 
 
LETTER FROM HON. T. BURROWES. 133 
 
 The necessities, the crying- necessities of this 
 cause, are far and away before those of the Tem- 
 perance Reform, or of Colleges, or of Foreign Mis- 
 sions. He who, being fit, should devote himself to 
 this cause, would confer a greater benefit on his fel- 
 low-man than he could possibly do by any other 
 use of his time and talents. 
 
 The missionary to a heathen land opens the Booh 
 of Life to his fellow-man ; the missionary in this 
 cause opens the mind of his fellow-citizens, not only 
 to the Book of Life, but to a knowledge of all those 
 rights and duties, without which our free institu- 
 tions cannot stand to encourage and reform the 
 world. 
 
 If my gifts and domestic relations permitted, I 
 should devote myself to a mission in this and other 
 states for the purpose of impressing on Legislatures, 
 philanthropists, and teachers, the necessity of Teach- 
 ers^ Seminaries. 
 
 A gentleman, supported to operate in this cause, 
 might be employed in this way. He could visit 
 different states one after another, and address the 
 citizens of each county in the county town, after 
 long and full notice. Besides addressing the people 
 publicly, he could appeal to leading individuals pri- 
 vately, and engage them to act with him for this ob- 
 ject. Meantime, he could be obtaining educational 
 statistics for future use, and ere long he could make 
 such a report as would set the people to work in 
 earnest, and for their own sakes. 
 
 While thus proceeding, he could also obtain the 
 M 
 
134 LETTER FROM REV. MR. STURTEVANT. 
 
 promise of one or more intelligent persons in each 
 county, to write on the subject every week in each 
 of the county newspapers. Articles thus addressed 
 to the reason, the patriotism, and the economy of the 
 people, would have a powerful elEfect, and cost no- 
 thing. 
 
 If funds could be provided from private benevo- 
 lence to establish proper Teachers^ Institutions in 
 two or three states, they would set the matter far 
 ahead in a few years. They would serve as models 
 and inducements to the public, and would not long 
 continue to need the support of private philanthropy. 
 They would really be normal, or pattern establish- 
 ments. 
 
 Beyond a doubt, the plan ought to embrace insti- 
 tutions for the preparation oi female teachers. The 
 gentleness, self-devotion, and untiring humanity of 
 women eminently qualify them to be the instructers 
 of the more youthful pupils of both sexes, and of 
 their own of all ages. There is not a show of any 
 reason why male teachers only should be provided 
 for at the public charge, when female teachers are 
 as necessary, as useful, and as much confided in by 
 the public. 
 
 From the Rev. Mr. Sturtevant, President of Illinois 
 
 College. 
 
 In regard to some voluntary organization to se 
 
 cure popular education, if it were worked with a 
 
 truly liberal and Christian spirit, it could, and w^ould, 
 
 do us great good in this state ; first, by collecting 
 
LETTER FROM REV. HENRY BEECIIER. 135 
 
 Statistics of our wants, and calling attention (by the 
 press, and by public lectures all over the state) to 
 these wants, and to what has been accomplished in 
 other states and countries. 
 
 2. By supporting, at least in part, model schools in 
 different parts of the state, to show, by example^ 
 what good schools are. 
 
 3. By bringing public sentiment to bear on the 
 Legislature, especially in reference to our school 
 fund. It is now nearly two millions, and is yearly 
 increasing.* Now, its whole management is left to 
 the unregulated action of the Legislature, without a 
 single mind devoted to acquiring and disseminating 
 knowledge as to the proper mode of using it. 
 Whether, any one year, there shall be even one in- 
 teUigent friend of education in our Legislature, is a 
 matter of chance. If some plan be not devised for 
 leading the Legislature to wise views, the object of 
 this fund will be lost. It will a little diminish the 
 expense for each child, but add nothing towards get- 
 ting better schools." 
 
 President Sturtevant's account of the deplorable 
 state of their schools, and of the public apathy on 
 the subject, is mournful. 
 
 From the Rev. Henry Beecher, of Indianapolis, Indiana, 
 Much can be done in Indiana, much ought to be 
 done, and speedily ; for, 
 
 1. It will be a more densely- populated state than 
 Ohio or Illinois, because its land is unifarmly good. 
 
 2. It has been grievously neglected. Its set- 
 
136 LETTER FROM DR. CORNETT. 
 
 tiers were originally from Kentucky, North Caro- 
 lina, and Pennsylvania. Such do better for flocks 
 and farms than for mental and moral improvement. 
 
 3. We have a good system of common school 
 education, which, for purposes of Church and State 
 ambition, some sectarians are disposed to break 
 down ; and they are of the dominant sect in the 
 state. Those sects that foster education are in the 
 minority, and struggling up through many embar- 
 rassments. 
 
 4. We have a school fund of more than two mil- 
 lionsj which is in such neglect as threatens its entire 
 loss. 
 
 An agent should be supported to lecture through 
 the state, in every county town, to secure workers 
 to defend our school system, to protect our school 
 fund from depredators, to secure an annual Educa- 
 tion Convention, and otherwise exert influence. 
 The right man for such an agent I know. It is a 
 Dr. Cornett, of Versailles, Ripley Co., la. He is a 
 member of our Senate, and chairman of their Com- 
 mittee on Education : a man prudent, cool, saga- 
 cious, interested in the cause, and of great weight 
 in the community. 
 
 The following is extracted from a letter from the Dr, 
 Cornett spoken of above. 
 
 Strange it is, that while the benevolent among 
 our people are exerting themselves so much at 
 home and aboard, that the thousands and millions 
 m our own country who cannot so much as read one 
 
LETTER FROM DR. CORNETT. 137 
 
 word in the Book of Life, should be overlooked, 
 and no organization effected in their behalf. It is 
 absurd to think of a Republic being long sustained 
 without the people generally being educated. To 
 talk of their maintaining their rights when denied 
 the means of knowing what their rights are, is to 
 talk nonsense. If our whole people could be edu- 
 cated by the right sort of teachers, there would be 
 little need of temperance societies, and temperance 
 newspapers, and lectures, and other means now so 
 properly employed for moral reformation. Our chil- 
 dren would enter on the practical duties of life with 
 pure minds, well fortified against vice in all shapes. 
 In Indiana we are in deplorable want of good teach- 
 ers for our comn^pn schools. Why cannot some 
 plan be devised for educating intelligent boys and 
 girls for these duties, and then finding tliem situa- 
 tions 1 
 
 In reference to the school fund, he says, 
 Many of our state legislators seem more dis- 
 posed to favour the borrowing of school money than 
 to promote eJbcation. If competent lecturers were 
 sent among the people, urging the value of educa- 
 tion, both in a fecuniary and political view, these 
 same demagogues would find it for their interest to 
 become clamorous for the cause. I have been at 
 the head of the Senate's Committee on Education, 
 and have had great difliculty in sustaining the in- 
 tegrity of our school fund. The term of my ser- 
 vices has expired, and I cannot resume them. 
 From what 1 know of our Legislature, I believe 
 M3 
 
138 LETTER FROM JUDGE LANE. 
 
 there is great need of a stir being made among the 
 people in reference to this matter and the cause in 
 general. My isolated condition, laborious profes- 
 sion, and poor health forbid my following my feel- 
 ings in going forth as a voluntary lecturer ; but 
 let some organization be eifected, and numerous 
 and efficient lecturers would rise up to do gratui- 
 tous work. 
 
 The following is from Judge Lane, of the Supreme 
 Court of Ohio. 
 I believe our Legislature, if left to itself, would 
 permit the Common Schools to sink and perish in 
 their hands. That body possesses at all times in- 
 dividuals of great worth, but th«i larger part have 
 very little intelligence, and their motives of action 
 are entirely different from those which would sub- 
 serve this cause. I believe that an association of 
 gentlemen in this state is the only mode of leading 
 the Legislature into the necessary measures, and 
 that, through them, this might be accomplished hy 
 the press and by public lectures (if the fight man and 
 measures are employed). I believe that a change 
 of public opinion on this subject cannot be secured, 
 indirectly, through the elevation of the minds of a 
 few, nor by the dissemination of good principles 
 by the circulation of Bibles and tracts, or the set- 
 tlement of ministers, or the cultivation of young 
 men in colleges, or in any other speedy mode ex- 
 cept that of an association acting on a specific plan, 
 and pursuing it with perseverance, and by expedient 
 
LETTER FROM E. C. DELAVAN. 139 
 
 means. I deem the employment of some agent in- 
 dispensable to give form and intensity to such an 
 association ; and a man for this work would require 
 a rare combination of qualities. 
 
 The following is from one of the leading Lawyers of 
 Ohio. 
 The more I think of this subject of national ed- 
 ucation, the more I feel anxious to be up and doing. 
 I do not think that any other field of labour novi^ 
 presents itself in which so much good can be done, 
 and it is not the least important consideration, cer- 
 tainly, that while thus engaged in doing good to 
 others, we shall be, in the highest sense, educating 
 ourselves. All that I can do, I feel anxious to do in 
 this great work ; and as soon as any plan is defi- 
 nitely arranged, I will go to work, and if I can get 
 time in no other way, will diminish my business for 
 the purpose. 
 
 The following is from E. C. Delavan, Esq., who has 
 devoted so much of his time for several years to the 
 cause of Temperance. 
 
 The importance of the question of national ed- 
 ucation caimot be overrated. In a selfish point of 
 view, the old states could well aflFord to be taxed 
 a million a year Xo enlighten the new, but they 
 will not see it or feel it, I fear, until it is too late ; 
 yet much can be done. When leading minds are 
 suitably impressed, the mass will be. Under God, 
 the press is the great instrument that must be used, 
 and a long time before the mass will move. It ap- 
 
140 LETTER FROM A LAWYEH. 
 
 pears to me that the first step to be taken is to in- 
 terest men in all parts of the Union to feed the 'polit- 
 ical and religious press. Then, when the public mind 
 is aroused, talents and means will be found to take 
 hold practically. 
 
 The following is from a Lawyer in Cincinnati. 
 
 Our city and vicinity would furnish room for a 
 dozen labourers in this cause instead of one ; and 
 one of the most effectual modes of operation would 
 be to enlist a dozen others in the cause. A man 
 devoted to this cause would be welcomed among 
 us as an angel of light by all classes and all sects, 
 and would be sure to enjoy the good wishes of all, 
 the positive aid of many, and the useful counsel of 
 not a few. The spirit of education is largely abroad 
 among us, and only wants an efficient leader to en- 
 able it to breathe a new existence into the whole 
 moral, social, political, and religious being of our 
 community here, and, by necessary consequence, 
 into the whole valley of the West. We have the 
 best tools to work with, the best materials to work 
 upon, and we only want, and this we sadly want, 
 some person to influence us to use the one and act 
 upon the other, by commencing an example. 
 
 I should hail the commencement of such an en- 
 terprise as the dawning of a new light upon the 
 West, and would not only give what little aid I 
 might, but would use all my little influence to make 
 it work effectually in its onward progress. 
 
ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR STOWE. 141 
 
 These extracts will suffice to show the vast field 
 of labour open to a man of talents, supported for the 
 object aimed at. 
 
 The following extract from an address of Prof. StowCy 
 
 delivered at Portland in 1844, corroborates the views 
 
 expressed by the author on the subject of moral 
 
 training. 
 
 But in this country, in consequence of our un- 
 bounded religious freedom, the subdivisions of sect 
 are almost innumerable ; it is impossible, in a sys- 
 tem of public instruction, to provide separately for 
 them all ; and, unless religious instruction can be 
 given without sectarianism, it must be abandoned. 
 
 " In this country the rights of all sects are the 
 same, and any denomination that would have its 
 own rights respected must respect the rights of 
 others. 
 
 " The time which can be devoted to religious m- 
 struction in schools is necessarily very limited ; 
 and if there be an honest and sincere desire to do 
 right, the whole of this time certainly can be occu- 
 pied, with efficiency and profit, without encroaching 
 on the conscience of any sect which really has a 
 conscience. 
 
 "Facts show plainly that, notwithstanding the 
 diversity of sects, there is common ground on 
 which the sincerely pious of all sects substantially 
 agree. For example, the most acceptable books of 
 practical piety, which are oftenest read by Chris- 
 tians of all denominations, have proceeded from 
 
142 ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR STOWE. 
 
 about all the different sects into which Christendom 
 is divided, and are read by all with scarcely a rec- 
 og-nition of the difference of sect. Such are the 
 writings of Thomas a Kempis an.d Fenelon, who 
 were Roman Catholics ; of Jeremy Taylor and 
 Bishop Hall, who were Churchmen ; of Baxter, 
 Watts, and Doddridge, who were Presbyterians or 
 Congregationalists ; of Bunyan and Andrew Fuller, 
 who were Baptists ; of Fletcher and Charles Wes- 
 ley, who were Methodists. This fact alone shows 
 that there is common ground, and enough of it too, 
 to employ all the time which can properly be de- 
 voted to religious instruction in our public institu- 
 tions. 
 
 " All Christian sects, without exception, recognise 
 the Bible as the text-book of their religion. They 
 all acknowledge it to be a book given of God, and 
 replete with the most excellent sentiments, moral 
 and religious. None will admit that it is unfavour- 
 able to their peculiar views, but, on the contrary, 
 all claim that it promotes them. To the use of the 
 Bible, then, as the text book of religious instruction 
 in our schools, there can be no serious objection on 
 the part of Christians of any sect ; and even unbe- 
 lievers very generally admit it to be a very good 
 and useful book. 
 
 "But shall it be the whole Bible 1 or only the 
 New Testament] or selections made from one or 
 both 1 
 
 "A book of mere selection would be verj'' apt to 
 awaken jealousy ; and the exclusion of any part of 
 
ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR STOWE. 143 
 
 the Scriptures would, to my mind, be painful. Let 
 every scholar, then, have a whole Bible. The book 
 can now be obtained so cheap, that the expense can 
 be no objection. 
 
 " But how can the teacher instruct in the Bible 
 without coming on to sectarian ground 1 He can 
 teach a great deal in regard to its geography and 
 antiquities, and can largely illustrate its narrations, 
 and its moral, and even religious, beauties. An hon- 
 est, intelligent teacher can find, in this way, abun- 
 dant employment for all his time, if he be himself a 
 lover and student of the Bible, without ever passing 
 into sectarian peculiarities, or giving any reason- 
 able ground of offence. 
 
 " But, apart from all this, the chief business of 
 instruction in this department may be the commit- 
 ting to memory of portions of the Divine Word. 
 The most rigidly orthodox will not object to this, 
 for they believe every portion of the Bible to be the 
 word of God which liveth and abideth forever, and that 
 all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correc- 
 tion, and instruction in righteousness ; and the liberal, 
 though they may not sympathize in the high ortho- 
 dox view of the divine excellence of the Word, yet 
 regard it as, on the whole, the best of books, and 
 the more of it their children have treasured up in 
 their minds, the better it must be for them. If the 
 parent chooses, he can always himself select the 
 portions to be committed by his child, or he may 
 leave it to the discretion of the teacher, or he may 
 give general directions, as selections from the Gos- 
 
144 ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR STOWE. 
 
 pels, the Proverbs, the Psalms, &c. It is not at all 
 essential that all the children of the same school, 
 or even of the same class, should recite the same 
 passag-es. Each child may be called upon, in turn, 
 to recite vi^hat each one has committed, and the re- 
 citation may or may not be accompanied by re- 
 marks from the teacher, as circumstances may 
 seem to justify or require. 
 
 " But there is another difficulty. The Roman 
 Catholics, it is said, do not desire, that their children 
 should be instructed in the Scriptures ; they receive 
 the apocryphal book as a part of Scripture, and con- 
 tend that we have not the whole Bible unless we 
 include the Apocrypha ; and they object to our com- 
 mon English translation. 
 
 " In reply to this, 1 remark, in the first place, there 
 are many parts of our land where there are no Ro- 
 man Catholics, and, of course, the difficulty will not 
 occur in those places. 
 
 " Secondly, if Roman Catholics choose to exclude 
 their children from a knowledge of the Bible, they 
 have a perfectly legal right to do so, and we have 
 no legal right to prevent it ; nor should we desire 
 any such legal right, for the moment we desire any 
 such legal right, we abandon the Protestant princi- 
 ple and adopt the Papal. Catholic parents are per- 
 fectly competent to demand that their children 
 should be excused from the Bible recitation, and this 
 demand, if made, should be complied with ; but they 
 have no right to demand that the Bible should be 
 withheld from the schools because they do not like 
 
ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR STOWE. 145 
 
 it, nor do their objections render it necessary or ex- 
 cusable for Protestants to discard the Bible from 
 schools. 
 
 "Again, if Roman Catholics desire that their chil- 
 dren take their Bibles into the schools, and recite 
 from them, by all means let them do so ; and so of 
 Jews, let them recite from the Old Testament, if 
 they choose, to the exclusion of the New. We al- 
 low to others equal rights with ourselves ; but we 
 claim for ourselves, and shall insist upon having, 
 equal rights with all. I am perfectly willing to give 
 to the Roman Catholics all they can justly claim, 
 but I am not willing to encroach on any one's rights, 
 or the rights of any Protestant denomination, for the 
 sake of accommodating the Roman Catholics. Nor 
 do I suppose that the Romanists have a claim to 
 any special accommodation, for they have never 
 yet manifested any particular disposition to accom- 
 modate others. Let them have the same privileges 
 that our Protestant sects have — that is enough; 
 and they have no right to demand, our legislators 
 have no right to grant, any more ; and we Protest 
 ants will be perfectly satisfied when Protestants 
 can enjoy as great privileges in Italy as Roman 
 Catholics now enjoy in the United States. In ju- 
 dicious practice, I am persuaded there will seldom 
 be any great difficulty, especially if there be ex- 
 cited generally in the community anything like a 
 whole-hearted honesty and enlightened sincerity in 
 the cause of pubhc- instruction. 
 
 " It is all right for people to suit their own taste 
 M 2 
 
146 ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR STOWE. 
 
 and convictions in respect to sect ; and by fair means 
 and at proper times, to teach their children and those 
 under their influence to prefer the denominations 
 which they prefer ; but farther than this no one has 
 any right to go. It is all wrong to hazard the well- 
 being of the soul, to jeopardize great public interests 
 for the sake of advancing the interests of a sect 
 People must learn to practise some self-denial, on 
 Christian principles, in respect to their denomina- 
 tional preferences, as well as in respect to other 
 things, before pure religion can ever gain a com- 
 plete victory over every form of human selfishness. 
 
 " Happily, there are places where religious in- 
 struction that is purely denominational can be freely 
 given, so that there is no need whatever of intro- 
 ducing it into our public schools. The family and 
 the Sunday school are the appropriate places for 
 such instruction ; and there let each denomination 
 train its own children in its own peculiar way, with 
 none to molest or to find fault. It is their right, it 
 is their duty. 
 
 "As to the objection, that the use of the Bible in 
 schools makes it too common, and subjects it to con- 
 tempt, as well might it be objected that the sun be- 
 comes contemptible because he shines every day 
 and illumines the beggar's hovel as well as the bish- 
 op's palace. Where is the Bible most respected, in 
 Scotland and New-England, or in Italy and Austria? 
 The works of man, the robed monarch, may make 
 themselves contemptible by being too often seen ; 
 but never the works of God. The children may. 
 
ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR STOWE. 147 
 
 and ought to be, taught to treat the book with all 
 possible reverence, and to preserve it as nice and 
 unsullied as the Catholic preserves his crucifix : and 
 in this way, I am sure, on all the principles of hu- 
 man nature with which I am acquainted, that the 
 Bible will be no more likely to suffer from the habit 
 of daily famiharity than the crucifix. 
 
 " Let no one say that the religious instruction here 
 proposed for schools is jejune and unprofitable. I 
 do not so view the words of God. In any view, if 
 the child faithfully commit to memory so much as 
 the single Gospel of Matthew, or the first twenty- 
 five Psalms, or the first ten chapters of Proverbs, 
 or portions of the book of Genesis, those divine sen- 
 tences will be in his mind forever after, ready to be 
 called up to check him when any temptation assails 
 his heart, to cheer him when any sorrow oppresses 
 his soul, to be a lamp to his feet and a light to his 
 path ; to be in all respects of more real and perma- 
 nent value to him than any creed, or catechism, or 
 system of theology, or rules of ethics, of merely 
 human origin, ever can be. 
 
 " Why should we prevent so great a good by claim- 
 ing what we have no right to claim 1 Are we not 
 willing to trust the Word of God to cut its own way ? 
 Or can we claim to be Christians at all, while we 
 consent to have the Word of God and all Christian 
 teaching banished from our institutions of public 
 instruction? Let not infidel coldness, Jesuitical intoU 
 erance, or sectarian jealousy, rob our schools of their 
 greatest ornament and most precious treasure, the 
 
148 ANOTHER MODE OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 
 
 Bible of our fathers. Let not denominational feel- 
 ing so far prevail as to lead us to destroy the great- 
 est good while attempting to secure the less, as 
 has so often been done in the Christian world here- 
 tofore. We are willing to give up much for the 
 sake of peace and united effort ; but the Bible, the 
 word of God, the palladium of our freedom, the found- 
 ation of all our most precious hopes, we never can, 
 we never will give up. Let all who love the Bible 
 unite to defend it, to hold on upon it forever." 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 The writer, in the preceding part, has presented a 
 mode of rehgious training adapted to schools com- 
 posed of children whose parents are of different 
 sects. 
 
 There is one modification of this mode, which the 
 writer wishes to present to that class of parents 
 who not only believe in the Supreme Divinity of Je- 
 sus Christ, but are in a habit of addressing their 
 worship to Him distinctively ; believing that this is 
 the way in which we have access to God the Father, 
 who is worshipped as dwelling in Jesus Christ. 
 Such suppose that the Bible sanctions alike the 
 mode of addressing Jesus Christ distinctively, and 
 also the Father distinctively, and that we can pray 
 in either mode with acceptance. 
 
 It is believed that parents who hold this view 
 
ANOTHER MODE OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 149 
 
 will find great aid in the religious training of their 
 children by adopting this method. 
 
 Ill commencing instructions from the Bible, let 
 the first lesson consist of such texts as the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 " Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- 
 ners." 
 
 " And his name is called the Word of Gody 
 
 " All things were made by Him, and without Him 
 was not anything made that is made." 
 
 " In whom we have redemption through his blood, 
 even the forgiveness of sins." 
 
 " By Him were all things created that are in heav- 
 en and that are on earth, visible and invisible, wheth- 
 er they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, 
 or powers ; all things were created by Him and for 
 Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all 
 things consist. Every house is builded by some 
 man, but He that built all things is God." 
 
 Having thus fixed in the child's mind that the 
 Creator of the world is Jesus Christ, and that the 
 terms Jesus Christ, God, Jehovah, and the Lord, are 
 different names for the same person, then let all the 
 Bible history in the Old Testament be read with the 
 understanding that the being spoken of through the 
 whole of it is Jesus Christ. If any one has doubts 
 on this point, let him read President Edwards's work 
 on the History of Redemption, and let him also col- 
 late all the passages in which God appeared to the 
 ancient patriarchs and prophets, and it will be clear 
 that there was a Jehovah who sent, and a Jehovah 
 N2 
 
150 ANOTHER MODE OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 
 
 who was the messenger, and that this last was Jesus 
 Christ, and the one who always appeared to the 
 patriarchs. 
 
 The advantage of this mode of commencing reli- 
 gious instructions is, that it presents to the mind of 
 a child a Being who can be clearly conceived of, 
 and a character which is drawn out in all those ten- 
 der and endearing exhibitions that a child can un- 
 derstand and appreciate. It thus is rendered easy 
 for parents to obey the words of the Saviour, who, 
 when his mistaken disciples would have driven 
 them afar off, said, " Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me." 
 
 If a child is taught, from the first, to pray to Je- 
 sus Christ, all that perplexity, doubt, and difficulty 
 which many feel in regard to Jesus Christ and the 
 place he is to hold in their devotions will be esca- 
 ped. Then, if they feel any doubts as to whether 
 they understand correctly about the Father, and 
 whether they are required to worship him distinc- 
 tively, these doubts will easily be removed by these 
 words of Christ. 
 
 "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. If 
 ye had known me, ye should have known my Fa- 
 ther. I am in the Father, and the Father in me. 
 The Father dwelleth in me. Believe me, I am in 
 the Father, and the Father in me. And whatsoever 
 ye ask in my name, thai will I do; that the Father 
 may be glorified in the Son. If ye ask anything 
 in my name, I will do it." 
 
 The writer has seen a family of four children, the 
 
ANOTHER MODE OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 151 
 
 youngest four and the eldest not nine, where the 
 mother, who pursued this course, remarked that 
 these children seemed to be aided in overcoming 
 faults, and strengthened in doing right, by love to 
 the Saviour, just as true Christians are ; and that if 
 they continued their present habits of feeling and 
 conduct, she should not know where to date the 
 time when they became pious. 
 
 There is also a mode of practical teaching in re- 
 gard to right and wrong, sin and holiness, which tends 
 much to aid a child's right apprehension of truth. 
 
 Let the child be taught that Jesus Christ created 
 all his creatures for the purpose of making ihem good 
 and happy ; that it is not possible for any one to be 
 perfectly good and happy, unless he has such a char- 
 acter as .Jesus Christ, and that the nearer we come to 
 possessing such a character, the better and happier 
 we are. Then set forth the character and example 
 of Christ, as a perfectly benevolent and self-denying be- 
 ing, living not to gratify himself, but to do good to 
 others. Show the child that he has not such a char- 
 acter, that he is Hving to please himself, and not to^ 
 do good, and that this is selfishness and sin. Set be- 
 fore him the misery to which selfishness leads, and 
 the consequences of it, both here and hereafter. 
 
 Teach the child that the great business of life, to 
 us all, is, by the aid of God's Spirit, to change our 
 characters, in order to become like Christ ; that it i-s 
 a difficult work, and one that we can never accom- 
 plish without this aid from God. 
 
 Show him that all the commands of Christ are 
 
152 ANOTHER MODE OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 
 
 designed to keep iis from doing what will injure 
 ourselves or injure others, and that these rules are 
 so many and so strict, that no one ever will, in this 
 life, 'perfectly obey them all. 
 
 Teach him that the true children of Jesus Christ 
 are those who love him, and who earnestly are stri- 
 ving to obey all his commands. 
 
 Set before the child the command of Christ, " De- 
 ny thyself daily, and take up thy cross and follow 
 me," and then teach and encourage him every day 
 to practise some self-denial in doing good. 
 
 Teach him that the more he practises this self- 
 denial for the good of others, the more he becomes 
 like Jesus Christ, and that the duty will become 
 easier and pleasanter, the more he practises it. 
 
 Inquire daily, especially at the close of the day, 
 "whether the child has practised any self-denial in 
 doing good during the day, and express satisfaction 
 at any success. 
 
 Teach the child to pray for help to overcome self- 
 ishness, and to give thanks for Divine aid when he 
 •has performed any act of benevolent self-denial. 
 
 If any tendency to self-righteousn*ess and self- 
 complacency is discovered, point out his various 
 deficiencies, or overt sins, and teach him daily to 
 observe and confess to God his faults. 
 
 Teach him that heaven is a world wliere all are 
 perfectly free from selfishness, and that those, who 
 are selfish, could not be happy there, and will never 
 find admittance until they become like Jesus Christ. 
 Teach him that this life is designed as a world of 
 
WORK ON DOxlIESTIC ECONOMY. 153 
 
 trial and discipline, to free us from selfishness, and 
 thus prepare us for heaven. 
 
 This mode, in connexion with others suggested 
 in the previous part, if faithfully pursued, would 
 produce results such as seldom have been seen. 
 
 These views are presented, not to oppose the 
 views and opinions of others, but simply to induce 
 those who hold them to act consistently with their 
 belief. 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 Of the two books referred to, the first is A Trea- 
 tise ON Domestic Economy, by Miss Catharine E. 
 Beecher, which has been examined by a commit- 
 tee of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and 
 deemed worthy of admission as a part of the Mas- 
 sachusetts School Library. The following are the 
 titles of the chapters : 
 
 1. The Peculiar Responsibilities of American 
 Women. 2. The Difficulties peculiar to American 
 Women. 3. The Remedies for the preceding Difli- 
 culties. 4. On the Study of Domestic Economy in 
 Female Schools. 5. On the Care of Health. 6. On 
 Healthful Food. 7. On Healthful Drinks. 8. On 
 Clothing. 9. On Cleanliness. 10. On Early Ri- 
 sing. 11. On Domestic Exercise. 12. On Domes- 
 tic Manners. 13. On the Preservation of a Good 
 Temper in a Housekeeper. 14. On Habits of Sys- 
 tem and Order. 15. On giving in Charity. 16. On 
 Economy of Time and Expense. 17. On Health of 
 Mind. 18. On the Care of Domestics. 19. On the 
 
154 THE FAMILY RECEIPT BOOK. 
 
 Care of Infants. 20. On the Management of Young 
 Children. 21. On the Care of the Sick. 22. On 
 Accidents and Antidotes. 23. On Domestic Amuse- 
 ments and Social Duties. 24. On the Economical 
 and Healthful Construction of Houses. 25. On 
 Fires and Lights. 26. On Washing. 27. On Starch- 
 ing, Ironing, and Cleansing. 28. On Whitening, 
 Cleansing, and Dyeing. 29. On the Care of Parlours. 
 SO. On the Care of Breakfast and Dining Rooms. 
 31. On the Care of Chambers. 32. On the Care of 
 the Kitchen, Cellar, and Store-room. 33. On Sew- 
 ing, Cutting, and Mending. 34. On the Care of 
 Yards and Gardens. 35. On the Propagation of 
 Plants. 36. On the Cultivation of Fruit. 37. Mis- 
 cellaneous Directions. 
 
 The other work is called the American Housekeep- 
 er's Receipt Book, and the following is the Preface 
 and Analysis of the Work. 
 Preface {for the American Housekeeper'' s Receipt Book.) 
 
 The following objects are aimed at in this work : 
 
 First, to furnish an original collection of receipts, 
 which shall embrace a great variety of simple and 
 well-cooked dishes, designed for every-day comfort 
 and enjoyment. 
 
 Second, to include in the collection only such re- 
 ceipts as have been tested by superior housekeep- 
 ers, and warranted to be the best. It is not a book 
 made up in any department by copying from other 
 books, but entirely from the experience of the best 
 practical housekeepers. 
 
 Third, to express every receipt in language which 
 
OBJECTS OF THE WORK. 155 
 
 is short, simple, and perspicuous, and yet to give all 
 directions so minutely as that the book can be kept 
 in the kitchen, and be used by any domestic who 
 can read, as a guide in every one of her employments 
 in the kitchen. 
 
 Fourth, to furnish such directions in regard to small 
 dinner-parties and evening company as will enable 
 any young housekeeper to perform her part, on such 
 occasions, with ease, comfort, and success. 
 
 Fifth, to present a good supply of the rich and ele- 
 gant dishes demanded at such entertainments, and 
 yet to set forth so large and tempting a variety of 
 what is safe, healthful, and good, in connexion with 
 such warnings and suggestions as it is hoped may 
 avail to promote a more healthful fashion in regard 
 both to entertainments and to dail^r table supplies. 
 No book of this kind will sell without an adequate 
 supply of the rich articles which custom requires, and 
 in furnishing them, the writer has aimed to follow 
 the example of Providence, which scatters profuse- 
 ly both good and ill, and combines therewith the cau- 
 tion alike of experience, revelation, and conscience, 
 " choose ye that which is good, that ye and your 
 seed may live." 
 
 Sixth, in the work on Domestic Economy, togeth- 
 er with this, to which it is a Supplement, the writer 
 has attempted to secure, in a cheap and popular form, 
 for American housekeepers, a work similar to an 
 English work which she has examined, entitled the 
 Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy, by Thomas Weh- 
 ster and Mrs. Parkes, containing over twelve hundred 
 
156 • OBJECTS OF THE WORK. 
 
 octavo pages of closely-printed matter, treating on 
 every department of Domestic Economy ; a work 
 which will be found much more useful to English 
 women, who have a plenty of money and well-train- 
 ed servants, than to American housekeepers. It is 
 believed that most in that work which would be of 
 any practical use to American housekeepers, will be 
 found in this work and the Domestic Economy. 
 
 Lastly, the writer has aimed to avoid the defects 
 complained of by most housekeepers in regard to 
 works of this description issued in this country, or 
 sent from England, such as that, in some cases, the 
 receipts are so rich as to be both expensive and un- 
 healthful ; in others, that they are so vaguely ex- 
 pressed as to be very imperfect guides ; in others, 
 that the processes are so elaborate and fussing as 
 to make double the work that is needful; and in 
 others, that the topics are so limited that some de- 
 partments are entirely omitted, and all are incom- 
 plete. 
 
 In accomplishing these objects, the writer has re- 
 ceived contributions of the pen, and verbal commu- 
 nications, from some of the most judicious and prac- 
 tical housekeepers, in almost every section of this 
 country, so that the work is fairly entitled to the 
 name it bears of the American Housekeeper's Receipt 
 Book. 
 
 The following embraces most of the topics con- 
 tained in this work. 
 
 Suggestions to young housekeepers in regard to 
 style, furniture, and domestic arrangements. 
 
TOPICS TREATED OF. 157^ 
 
 Suggestions in regard to different modes to be 
 pursued both with foreign and American domestics.. 
 
 On providing a proper supply of family stores, 
 on the economical care and use of them, and on 
 the furniture and arrangement of a store-closet. 
 
 On providing a proper supply of utensils to be used 
 in cooking, with drawings to illustrate. 
 
 On the proper construction of ovens, and direc- 
 tions for heating and managing them. 
 
 Directions for securing good yeast and good breado. 
 
 Advice in regard to marketing, the purchase of 
 wood, &c. 
 
 Receipts for breakfast dishes, biscuits, warm 
 cakes, tea cakes, &c. 
 
 Receipts for puddings, cakes, pies, preserves, pick- 
 les, sauces, catsups, and also for cooking all the 
 various kinds of meats, soups, and vegetables. 
 
 The above receipts are arranged so that the more 
 healthful and simple ones are put in one portion, and 
 the richer ones in another. 
 
 Healthful and favourite articles of food for young 
 children. 
 
 Receipts for a variety of temperance drinks. ^ 
 
 Directions for making tea, coffee, chocolate, and 
 other warm drinks. 
 
 Directions for cutting up meats, and for salting 
 down, corning, curing, and smoking. 
 
 Directions for making butter and cheese, as fur- 
 nished by a practical and scientific manufacturer of 
 the same, of Goshen, Conn., that land of rich but- 
 ter and cheese. 
 
 
 
158 TOPICS TREATED OF. 
 
 A guide to a selection of a regular course of fam- 
 ily dishes, which will embrace a successive variety, 
 and unite convenience with good taste and comfort- 
 able living. 
 
 Receipts for articles for the sick, and drawings of 
 conveniences for their comfort and relief. 
 
 Receipts for articles for evening parties and din- 
 ner parties, with drawings to show the proper man- 
 ner of setting tables, and of supplying and arran- 
 ging dishes, both on these and on ordinary occasions. 
 
 An outline of arrangements for a family in mod- 
 erate circumstances, embracing the systematic de- 
 tails of work for each domestic, and the proper mode 
 of doing it, as furnished by an accomplished house- 
 keeper. 
 
 Remarks on the different nature of food and drinks, 
 and their relation to the laws of health. 
 
 Suggestions to the domestics of a family, design- 
 ed to promote a proper appreciation of the dignity 
 and importance of their station, and a cheerful and 
 faithful performance of their duties. 
 
 Miscellaneous suggestions and receipts. 
 
 The following extract from the Preface to the 
 Domestic Economy will exhibit the origin of these 
 two works, and some of the objects aimed at by 
 the writer : 
 
 " The author of this work was led to attempt it, 
 by discovering, in her extensive travels, the deplo- 
 rable sufferings of multitudes of young wives and 
 mothers, from the combined influence of poor health. 
 
DEFECTIVE DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 159 
 
 poor domestics, and a defective domestic education. The 
 number of young women whose health is crushed, 
 ere the first few years of married life are past, would 
 seem incredible to one who has not investigated this 
 subject, and it would be vain to attempt to depict 
 the sorrow, discouragement, and distress experien- 
 ced in most families where the wife and mother is a 
 perpetual invalid. 
 
 " The writer became early convinced that this evil 
 results mainly from the fact, that young girls, es- 
 pecially in the more wealthy classes, are not trained 
 for their profession. In early life, they go through a 
 course of school training which results in great de- 
 bility of constitution, while, at the same time, their 
 physical and domestic education is almost wholly 
 neglected. Thus they enter on their most arduous 
 and sacred duties so inexperienced and uninformed, 
 and with so little muscular and nervous strength, 
 that probably there is not one chance in ten, that young 
 women of the present day, will p9,ss through the 
 first years of married life without such prostration 
 of health and spirits as makes life a burden to them- 
 selves, and, it is to be feared, such as seriously in- 
 terrupts the confidence and happiness of married 
 life. 
 
 " The measure which, more than any other, would 
 tend to remedy this evil, would be to place domestic 
 economy on an equality with the other sciences in fe- 
 male schools. This should be done because it can 
 be properly and systematically taught {not practical- 
 ly, but as a science), as much so 2lS political economy 
 
160 THE REMEDY PROPOSED. 
 
 or moral science, or any other branch of study ; be- 
 cause it embraces knowledge, which will be needed 
 by young women at all times and in all places ; be- 
 cause this science can never be properly taught until 
 it is made a branch of study ; and because this meth- 
 od will secure a dignity and importance in the esti- 
 mation of young girls, which can never be accorded 
 while they perceive their teachers and parents prac- 
 tically attaching more value to every other depart- 
 ment of science than this. When young ladies are 
 taught the construction of their own bodies, and all 
 the causes in domestic life which tend to weaken 
 the constitution; when they are taught rightly to 
 appreciate and learn the most convenient and eco- 
 nomical modes of performing all family duties, and 
 of employing time and money; and when they per- 
 ceive the true estimate accorded to these things by 
 teachers and friends, the grand cause of this evil 
 will be removed. Women will be trained to secure, 
 as of first importance, a strong and healthy consti- 
 tution, and all those rules of thrift and economy 
 that will make domestic duty easy and pleasant. 
 
 " To promote this object, the writer prepared this 
 volume as a text-book for female schools. It has 
 been examined by the Massachusetts Board of Ed- 
 ucation, and been deemed worthy by them to be ad- 
 mitted as a part of the Massachusetts School Li- 
 brary. 
 
 " It has also been adopted as a text-book in some 
 of our largest and most popular female schools, both 
 at the East and West, 
 
ITS PRACTICABILITY. 161 
 
 " The following, from the pen of Mr. George B. 
 Emmerson, one of the most popular and successful 
 teachers in our country, who has introduced this 
 work as a text-book in his own school, will exhibit 
 the opinion of one who has formed his judgment 
 from experience in the use of the work : 
 
 *' * It may be objected that such things cannot be 
 taught by books. Why not? Why may not the 
 structure of the human body, and the laws of health 
 deduced therefrom, be as well taught as the laws of 
 natural philosophy 1 Why are not the apphcation of 
 these laws to the management of infants and young 
 children as important to a woman as the application 
 of the rules of arithmetic to the extraction of the 
 cube root? Why may not the properties of the at- 
 mosphere be explained, in reference to the proper 
 ventilation of rooms, or exercise in the open air, as 
 properly as to the burning of steel or sodium? 
 Why is not the human skeleton as curious and in- 
 teresting as the air-pump; and the action of the 
 brain, as the action of a steam-engine ? Why may 
 not the healthiness of diiferent kinds of food and 
 drink, the proper modes of cooking, and the rules 
 in reference to the modes and times of taking them, 
 be discussed as properly as rules of grammar, or 
 facts in history ? Are not the principles that should 
 regulate clothing, the rules of cleanliness, the ad- 
 vantages of early rising and domestic exercise, as 
 readily communicated as the principles of mineral- 
 ogy, or rules of syntax? Are not the rules of Je- 
 sus Christ, applied to refine domestic manners andi 
 02 
 
162 IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 preserve r good temper, as important as the abstract 
 principles of ethics, as taught by Paley, Wayland, 
 or Jouffroy 1 May not the advantages of neatness, 
 system, and order, be as w^ell illustrated in showing 
 how they contribute to the happiness of a family, 
 as by showing how they add beauty to a copy-book, 
 or a portfolio of drawings ? Would not a teacher 
 be as well employed in teaching the rules of econ- 
 omy, in regard to time and expenses, or in regard 
 to dispensing charity, as in teaching double, or sin- 
 gle entry in book-keeping] Are not the principles 
 that should guide in constructing a house, and in 
 warming or ventilating it properly, as important to 
 young girls as the principles of the Athenian Com- 
 monwealth, or the rules of Roman tactics] Is it 
 not as important that children should be taught the 
 dangers to the mental faculties, when over-excited 
 on the one hand, or left unoccupied on the other, as 
 to teach them the conflicting theories of political 
 economy, or the speculations of metaphysicians ? 
 For ourselves, we have always found children, es- 
 pecially girls, peculiarly ready to listen to what they 
 saw would prepare them for future duties. The 
 truth, that education should be a preparation for ac- 
 tual, real life, has the greatest force with children. 
 The constantly-recurring inquiry, " What will be 
 the use of this study]" is always satisfied by show- 
 ing, that it will prepare for any duty, relation, or of- 
 fice which, in the natural course of things, will be 
 likely to come. 
 " ' We think this book extremely well suited to be 
 
FARTHER TESTIMONY. 163 
 
 used as a text-book in schools for young ladies, and 
 many chapters are well adapted for a reading book 
 for children of both sexes.' " 
 
 To this the writer would add the testimony of a 
 lady who has used this work with several classes of 
 young girls and young ladies. She remarked that 
 she had never known a school-book that awakened 
 more interest, and that some young girls would learn 
 a lesson in this when they would study nothing else. 
 She remarked, also, that when reciting the chapter 
 on the construction of houses, they became greatly 
 interested in inventing plans of their own, which 
 gave an opportunity to the teacher to point out dif- 
 ficulties and defects. Had this part of domestic 
 economy been taught in schools, our land would not 
 be so defaced with awkward, misshapen, inconve- 
 nient, and, at the same time, needlessly expensive 
 houses, as it now is. 
 
 The copyright interest in these two works is 
 held by a board of gentlemen appointed for the pur- 
 pose, who, after paying a moderate compensation 
 to the author for the time and labour spent in pre- 
 paring these works, will employ all the remainder 
 paid over by the publishers, to aid in educating and 
 locating such female teachers as wish to be employ- 
 ed in those portions of our country, which are most 
 destitute of schools. 
 
 The contract with the publisher provides that the 
 publisher shall guaranty the sales, and thus secure 
 against losses from bad debts, for which he shall re- 
 
164 CONTRACT WITH THE PUBLISHERS. 
 
 ceive five per cent. He also shall charge twenty 
 per cent, for commissions paid to retailers, and also 
 the expenses for printing, paper, and binding, and 
 make no other charges. The net profits thus de- 
 termined shall be divided equally, the publisher ta- 
 king one half, and paying the other half to the Board 
 above mentioned. 
 
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