THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 AAO 
 
 SroRafe 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 EXISTING E VILS 
 
 AND 
 
 THEIR REMEDY : 
 
 AS 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE ARCH STREET THEATRE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CITIZENS OF PHIL A DELPHI A, 
 
 JUNE 2 , 1829 
 
 BIT FRANCES WRISH2. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 GEORGE H. EVANS, PRINTER, 40 THOMPSON STREET. 
 
 1829 , 
 
Southern District of New York, ss. 
 
 BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the twenty-seventh day of June, A.D 1829* 
 in the fifty-third year of the independence of the United States of America, Frances 
 Wright, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right 
 whereof she claims as author and proprietor, in the words following, to wit: 
 
 “ A Lecture on Existing Evils and their Remedy : as delivered in the Arch Street 
 Theatre, to the Citizens of Philadelphia, June 2, 1829 By Frances Wright.” 
 
 In conformity to the act of congress of the United States, entitled “An act for the 
 encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the 
 authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned and also to 
 an act, entitled, “An act supplementary to an act, entitled, an act for the encourage- 
 ment of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and 
 proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned, and extending the benefits 
 thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints” 
 
 FREDERICK I. BETTS, 
 
 Clerk of the Southern District of New York- 
 
I Y palmer 
 
 in o 
 r\t tr*L 
 
 ON 
 
 EXISTING EVILS. 
 
 £ 
 
 Having now traced with you what knowledge is in matter and 
 in mind ; what virtue is in human conduct, where its rules are to 
 be sought, and how they may be found; tested, by the standard 
 thus supplied, the ruling topic of discussion and instruction through- 
 out this country ; shown that, while this topic subtracts from the 
 wealth of the nation twenty millions per annum, and from the 
 hearts and minds of the people social fellowship and common 
 sense, it has in its nature no real existence — is not knowledge, 
 ^ but only imagination — is not fact, but only theory ; and having 
 shown, moreover, that theory can supply no subject matter of in- 
 ''^struction ; that the teaching of opinions is as erroneous in prin- 
 ciple as it is dangerous in practice ; that the duty of the instructor 
 is simply to enrich the mind with knowledge, to awaken the eye, 
 and the ear, and the touch to the perception of things, the judg- 
 ment to their comparison and arrangement, and to leave the free, 
 unbiassed mind to draw its own conclusions from the evidence 
 thus collected, — I shall now commence a few parting observations 
 on the necessity of commencing, and gradually perfecting, a ra- 
 dical reform in your existing outlays of time and money — on and 
 in churches, theological colleges, privileged and exclusive semi- 
 naries of all descriptions, religious Sabbath schools, and all their 
 aids and adjuncts of Ribles, tracts, missionaries, priests, and 
 preachers, multiplied and multiplying throughout the land, until 
 they promise to absorb more capital than did the temple of Solo- 
 mon, and to devour more of the first fruits of industry than did 
 the tribe of Levi in the plenitude of its power ; — on the necessity, 
 I say, of substituting for your present cumbrous, expensive, use- 
 less, or rather pernicious, system of partial, opinionative, and 
 dogmatical instruction, one at once national, rational, and re- 
 publican ; one which shall take for its study our own world and 
 our own nature ; for its object the improvement of man ; and for 
 
 372260 
 
4 
 
 its means, the practical development of truth, the removal of temp- 
 tations to evil, and the gradual equalization of human condition, 
 human duties, and human enjoyments, by the equal diffusion of 
 knowledge without distinction of class or sect — both of which 
 distinctions are as inconsistent with republican institutions as 
 they are with reason and with common sense, with virtue and 
 with happiness. 
 
 Time is it in this land to commence this reform. Time is it 
 to check the ambition of an organized clergy, the demoralizing 
 effects of a false system of law ; to heal the strife fomented by 
 sectarian religion and legal disputes; to bring down the pride of 
 ideal wealth, and to raise honest industry to honor. Time is it 
 to search out the misery in the land and to heal it at the source. 
 Time is it to remember the poor and the afflicted, ay ! and the 
 vicious and the depraved. Time is it to perceive that every sor- 
 row which corrodes the human heart, every vice which diseases 
 the body and the mind, every crime which startles the ear and 
 sends back the blood affrighted to the heart — is the product of 
 one evil, the foul growth from one root, the distorted progeny of 
 one corrupt parent — Ignorance. 
 
 Time is it to perceive this truth; to proclaim it on the house to|), 
 in the market place, in city and forest, throughout the land; to 
 acknowledge it in the depths of our hearts, and to apply all our 
 energies to the adoption of those salutary measures which this 
 salutary truth spontaneously suggests. Time is it, I say, to turn 
 our churches into halls of science, our schools of faith into schools 
 of knowledge, our privileged colleges into state institutions for 
 all the youth of the land. Time is it to arrest our speculations 
 respecting unseen worlds and inconceivable mysteries, and to ad- 
 dress our enquiries to the improvement of our human condition, 
 and our efforts to the practical illustration of those beautiful prin- 
 ciples of liberty and equality enshrined in the political institu- 
 tions, and, first and chief, in the national declaration of inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 And by whom and how r are these changes to be effected? By 
 whom! And do a free people ask the question ? By themselves. 
 By themselves — the people. 
 
 I am addressing the people of Philadelphia — the people of a 
 city where Jefferson penned the glorious declaration which awoke 
 this nation and the world — the city, where the larum so astounding 
 to tyranny, so fraught with hope and joy and exulting triumph to 
 humankind, was first sounded in the ears of Americans. I speak 
 to the descendants of those men who heard from the steps of their 
 old state house the principles of liberty and equality first proclaimed 
 to man. I speak to the inhabitants of a city founded by the most 
 peaceful, the most humane, and the most practical of all Christian 
 sects. I speak to mechanics who are uniting for the discovery of 
 
iheir interests and the protection of their rights. I speak to a pub- 
 lic whose benevolence has been long harrowed by increasing pau- 
 perism, and whose social order and social happiness are threatened 
 by increasing vice. I speak to sectarians who are weary of sec- 
 tarianism. L speak to honest men who tremble for their honesty. 
 I speak to the dishonest whose integrity has fallen before the dis- 
 couragements waiting upon industry, and who, by slow degrees, 
 or in moments of desperation, have forsaken honest labor, because 
 without a reward, for fraudulent speculation, because it promised 
 one chance of success to a thousand chances of ruin. I speak to 
 parents anxious for their offspring — to husbands who, while short- 
 ening their existence by excess of labor, foresee, at their death, not 
 sorrow alone, but unrequited industry and hopeless penury, in- 
 volving shame, and perhaps infamy, for their oppressed widows 
 and unprotected children. I speak to human beings surrounded 
 by human suffering — to fellow citizens pledged to fellow feeling — 
 to republicans pledged to equal rights and, as a consequent, to 
 equal condition and equal enjoyments ; and I call them — oh, 
 w’ould that my voice were loud to reach every ear, and persuasive 
 to reach every heart ! — I call them to unite ; and to unite for the 
 consideration of the evils around us — for the discovery and appli- 
 cation of their remedy. 
 
 Dreadful has been the distress exhibited during the past year, 
 not in this city only, but in every city throughout the whole extent 
 of this vast republic. Long had the mass of evil been accumula- 
 ting ere it attracted attention, and, would we understand how far 
 the plague spot is to spread, or what is to be its termination, we 
 must look to Europe. 
 
 We are fast travelling in the footsteps of Europe, my friends, 
 for her principles of action are ours. We have in all our habits 
 and usages the same vices, and, with these same vices, we must 
 have, as we see we have, the same evils. 
 
 The great principles stamped in America’s declaration of inde~ 
 pendence are true, are great, are sublime, and are all her own. 
 But her usages, her law, her religion, her education, are false, 
 narrow, prejudiced, ignorant, and are the relic of dark ages — the 
 gift and bequeathment of king-governed, priest-ridden nations, 
 whose supremacy, indeed, the people of America have challenged 
 and overthrown, but whose example they are still following. 
 
 A foreigner, I have looked round on this land unblinded by local 
 prejudices or national predilections ; a friend to humankind, 
 zealous for human improvement, enamored to enthusiasm, if you 
 will, of human liberty, I first sought this country to see in opera- 
 tion those principles consecrated in her national institutions, and 
 whose simple grandeur had fired the enthusiasm and cheered the 
 heart of my childhood, disgusted as it was with the idle parade and 
 pride of unjust power inherent in European aristocracy. De- 
 
6 
 
 lighted with the sound of political liberty, the absence of bayonets 
 and constrained taxation, I spake and published, as I felt, in praise 
 of American institutions; and called, and, I believe, first generally 
 awakened, the attention of the European public to their study and 
 eciation. 
 
 flisappointed, in common with all the friends of liberty in Eu~ 
 rope^ by the issue of the well imagined, but ill sustained, revolu- 
 tions of the old continent, which closed, as you will remember, by 
 the triumph of France and the holy alliance over the bands of 
 Riego and Mina in Spain, I returned to this republic as to the last 
 hope of the human family, anxious to inspect it through its wide 
 extent and to study it in all its details. 
 
 The result of my observation has been the conviction, that the 
 reform commenced at the revolution of ’76 has been but little im- 
 proved through the term of years which have succeeded ; that the 
 national policy of the country was then indeed changed, but that 
 its social economy has remained such as it was in the days of its 
 European vassalage. 
 
 In confirmation of this I will request you to observe that your 
 religion is the same as that of monarchical England — taught from 
 the same books, and promulgated and sustained by similar means, 
 viz. a salaried priesthood, set apart from the people; sectarian 
 churches, in whose property the people have no share, and over 
 whose use and occupancy the people have no control ; expensive 
 missions, treasury funds, associations, and, above all, a compulsory 
 power, compounded at once of accumulated wealth, established 
 custom, extensive correspondence, and a system of education im- 
 bued with its spirit and all pervaded by its influence. 
 
 Again — in proof of the similarity between your internal policy 
 and that of monarchical England, I will request you to observe 
 that her law is your law. Every part and parcel of that absurd, 
 cruel, ignorant, inconsistent, incomprehensible jumble, styled the 
 common law of England — every part and parcel of it, I say, not 
 abrogated or altered expressly by legislative statutes, which has 
 been very rarely done, is at this hour the law of revolutionized 
 America. 
 
 Farther — in proof of the identity of your fabric of civil polity 
 with that of aristocratical England, I will request you to observe 
 that the system of education pursued in both countries is, with 
 little variations, one and the same. There you have endowed 
 universities, privileged by custom, enriched by ancient royal favor, 
 protected by parliamentary statutes, and devoted to the upholding, 
 perpetuating, and strengthening the power and privilege to which 
 they owe their origin. There, too, you have parish schools under 
 the control of the parish priest, and a press every where coerced 
 by law, swayed, bribed, or silenced by ascendant parties or tyran- 
 nous authority. And here have we not colleges with endowments 
 
still held by the loyal charters which first bestowed them, and col- 
 leges with lands and money granted by American legislatures ; 
 not for the advantage of the American people, but for that of their 
 rulers ; for the children of privileged professions upon whom is 
 thus entailed the privdege of their fathers, and that as certainly 
 as the son of a duke is born to a dukedom in England. Here 
 have we not also schools controlled by the clergy ; nay, have we 
 not all our public institutions, scientific, literary, judicial, or hu- 
 mane, ridden by the spirit of orthodoxy ; and invaded, perverted, 
 vitiated, and tormented by opiniative distinctions ? And here have 
 we not a press paralized by fear, disgraced by party, and ruled 
 by loud tongued fanaticism, or aspiring and threatening sectarian 
 ambition. And more, my friends, see we not, in this nation of 
 confederated freemen, as many distinctions of class as afflict the 
 aristocracies of Britain, or the despotism of the Russias ; and more 
 distinctions of sect than ever cursed all the nations of Europe to- 
 gether, from the preaching of Peter the hermit, to the trances of 
 madame Krudner, or the miracles of prince Hohenlohe 1 
 
 Surely all these are singular anomalies in a republic. Sparta, 
 when she conceived her democracy, commenced with educational 
 equality ; when she aimed at national union, she cemented that 
 union in childhood — at the public board, in the gymnasium, in 
 the temple, in the common habits, common feelings, common du- 
 ties, and common condition. And so, notwithstanding all the 
 errors with which her institutions were fraught, and all the vices 
 which arose out of those errors, did she present for ages, a won- 
 drous sample of democratic union, and consequently of national 
 prosperity ? 
 
 What, then, is wanted here? What Sparta had — a national 
 education. And what Sparta, in many respects, had not — a ra- 
 tional education. 
 
 Hitherto, my friends, in government as in every branch of 
 morals, we have but too much mistaken words for truths and forms 
 for principles. To render men free, it sufficeth not to proclaim 
 their liberty ; to make them equal, it sufficeth not to call them so. 
 True, the 4th of July, ’76 commenced a new era for our race. 
 True, the sun of promise then rose upon the world. But let us 
 not mistake for the fulness of light what was but its harbinger. 
 Let us not conceive that man in signing the declaration of his rights 
 secured their possession ; that having framed the theory he had 
 not, and hath not still, the practice to seek. 
 
 •Your fathers, indeed, on the day from which dates your existence 
 as a nation, opened the gates of the temple of human liberty. But 
 think not they entered, nor that you have entered, the sanctuary. 
 They passed not, nor have you passed, even the threshold. 
 
 Who speaks of liberty while the human mind is in chains ? 
 Who of equality while the thousands are in squalid wretchedness, 
 
Sxbe millions harrassed with health-destroying labor, the few afflict- 
 ed with health-destroying idleness, and all tormented by health- 
 destroying solicitude ? Look abroad on the misery which is gain- 
 ing on the land ! Mark the strife, and the discord, and the jea- 
 lousies, the shock of interests and opinions, the hatreds of sect, the 
 estrangements of class, the pride of wealth, the debasement of 
 poverty, the “helplessness of youth unprotected, of age uncom- 
 forted, of industry unrewarded, of ignorance unenlightened, of 
 vice unreclaimed, of misery unpitied, of sickness, hunger, and 
 nakedness unsatisfied, unalleviated, and unheeded. Go ! mark all 
 the wrongs and the wretchedness with which the eye and the ear 
 and the heart are familiar, and then echo in triumph and celebrate 
 in jubilee the insulting declaration — all men are free and equal !j 
 
 That evils exist, none that have eyes, ears, and hearts can dispute. 
 That these evils are on the increase, none who have watched the 
 fluctuations of trade, the sinking price of labor, the growth of 
 pauperism, and the increase of crime, will dispute. Little need be 
 said here to the people of Philadelphia. The researches made by 
 the public spirited among their own citizens, have but too well 
 substantiated the suffering condition of a large mass of their popu- 
 lation. In Boston, in New York, in Baltimore, the voice of dis- 
 tress hath, in like manner, burst the barriers raised, and so long 
 sustained, by the pride of honest industry, unused to ask from 
 charity what it hath been wont to earn by the sweat of the brow. 
 In each and every city necessity has constrained enquiry; and in 
 each and every city enquiry has elicited the same appalling facts, 
 that the hardest labor is often without a reward adequate to the 
 sustenance of the laborer; that when, by overexertion and all the 
 diseases, and often vices, which excess of exertion induces, the 
 laborer, whose patient, sedulous industry supplies the community 
 with all its comforts, and the rich with all their luxuries — when 
 he, I say, is brought to an untimely grave by those exertions which, 
 while sustaining the life of others, cut short his own — when he is 
 mowed down by that labor whose products form the boasted wealth 
 of the state, he leaves a family, to whom the strength of his man- 
 hood had barely furnished bread, to lean upon the weakness of a 
 soul-stricken mother and hurry her to the grave of their father. 
 
 Such is the information gleaned from the report of the committee 
 lately appointed by the town meeting of the city and county of 
 Philadelphia, and as verbatim reiterated in every populous city 
 throughout the land. And what are the remedies suggested by 
 our corporations, our newspaper editors, our religious societies, 
 our tracts, and our sermons'? Some have ordained fasts, multiplied 
 prayers, and recommended pious submission to a Providence who 
 should have instituted all this calamity for the purpose of fulfilling 
 the words of a Jewish prophet, “ the poor shall never cease from 
 the land.” Some, less spiritual-minded, have called for larger 
 
'J 
 
 jails and more poor bouses ; some for increased poor rates and ad- 
 ditional benevolent societies ; others for compulsory laws protec- 
 tive of labor, and fixing a minimum , below which it shall be penal 
 to reduce it; while others, and those not the least able to appre- 
 ciate all the difficulties of the question, have sought the last re- 
 source of suffering poverty and oppressed industry in the humanity 
 and sense of justice of the wealthier classes of society. 
 
 This last is the forlorn hope presented in the touching document 
 signed by Matthew' Carey and his fellow laborers. 
 
 It were easy to observe, in reply to each and all of the palliatives 
 variously suggested for evils, which none profess to remedy, that 
 to punish crime when committed is not to prevent its commission ; 
 to force the work of the po or iq noor houses is only farther to glut 
 an already unproductive^. market; to multiply charities is only to 
 increase pauperism ; that to fix by statute the monied price of 
 labor would be impossible in itself, and, if possible, mischievous 
 no less to the laborer than to the employer ; and that, under the 
 existing state of things, for human beings to lean upon the com- 
 passion and justice of their fellow creatures, is to lean upon a 
 rotten reed. 
 
 I believe no individual, possessed of common sense and common 
 feeling, can have studied the report of the committee to which I 
 have referred, or the multitude of similar documents furnished 
 elsewhere, without acknowledging that reform, and that not slight 
 nor partial, but radical and universal, is called for. All must 
 admit that no such reform — that is, that no remedy commensurate 
 with the evil has been suggested, and would we but reflect, we 
 should perceive that no efficient remedy can be suggested, or if 
 suggested, applied, until the people are generally engaged in its 
 discovery and its application for themselves. 
 
 In this nation, any more than in any other nation, the mass has 
 never reflected for the mass ; the people, as a body, have never 
 addressed themselves to the study of their own condition, and to 
 the just and fair interpretation of their common interests. And, 
 as it was with their national independence, so shall it be with their 
 national happiness — it shall be found only when the mass shall 
 seek it. No people have ever received liberty in gift. Given, it 
 were not appreciated ; it were not understood. Won without ex- 
 ertion, it were lost as readily. Let the people of America recal 
 the ten years of war and tribulation by which they purchased their 
 national independence. Let efforts as strenuous be now made, 
 not with the sword of steel, indeed, but with the sword of the spirit, 
 and their farther enfranchisement from poverty, starvation, and de- 
 pendence must be equally successful. 
 
 Great reforms are not wrought in a day. Evils which are the 
 accumulated results of accumulated errors, are not to be struck 
 down a* a blow by the rod of a magician. A free people may 
 
JO 
 
 boast that all power is in their hands ; but no effectual power can 
 be in their hands until knowledge be in their minds. 
 
 But how may knowledge be imparted to their minds? Such 
 effective knowledge as shall render apparent to all the interests 
 of all, and demonstrate the simple truths — that a nation to be 
 strong, must be united ; to be united, must be equal in condition ; 
 to be equal in condition, must be similar in habits and in feeling; 
 to be similar in habits and in feeling, must be raised in national 
 institutions as the children of a common family , and citizens of a 
 common country. 
 
 Before entering on the development of the means I have here 
 suggested for paving our way to the reform of those evils which 
 now press upon humanity, and which, carried, perhaps, to their 
 acme in some of the nations of Europe, are gaining ground in 
 these United States with a rapidity alarming to all who know how 
 to read the present, or to calculate the future, I must observe 
 that I am fully aware of the difficulty of convincing all minds of 
 the urgency of these evils, and of the impossibility of engaging all 
 classes in the application of their remedy. 
 
 /In the first place, the popular suffering, great as it is, weighs 
 not with a sufficiently equal pressure on all parts of the country ; 
 and, in the second, affects not equally all classes of the popula- 
 tion so as to excite to that union of exertion, which once made, 
 the reform is effected and the nation redeemed. 
 
 While the evil day is only in prospect, or while it visits our 
 neighbor but spares ourselves, such is the selfishness generated by 
 existing habits, and such the supineness generated by that selfish- 
 ness, that we are but too prone to shrink from every effort not ab- 
 solutely and immediately necessary for the supply of our own 
 wants or the increase of our own luxuries. Yet, would the most 
 spoilt child of worldly fortune but look around him on the changes 
 and chances which ofttimes sweep away the best secured treasures, 
 and bring in a moment the capitalist to bankruptcy and his family 
 to want, he could not feel himself entirely removed in sympathy 
 from the suffering portion of his fellow creatures. But let us take 
 the case of the thriving artizan, or successful merchant — on what 
 security does he hold that pecuniary independence which puts the 
 bread into the mouths of his children, and protects from destitu- 
 tion the companion of his bosom ? On sustained industry and un- 
 remitting exertions, which sickness may interrupt, a fall in the 
 market reduce to half its value, or a few casualties or one miscal- 
 culation in a moment annihilate. Or what if death finally inter- 
 rupt the father’s care or the husband’s tenderness — where is the 
 stay for his orphan children ? where succor for their widowed 
 mother, now charged alone with all the weight of their provision 1 
 I have taken no extreme cases ; I have taken such as may, in the 
 course of events, be the case of every man who hears me, 
 
11 
 
 Were it my disposition, which, I think, it is not, to exaggerate 
 evils, or were I even disposed to give a fair picture of those really 
 existing among a large mass of the American population, more 
 especially as crowded into the cities and manufacturing districts, 
 easy it were to harrow the feelings of the least sensitive, and, in 
 the relation, to harrow my own. 
 
 But as the measure it is my object this evening to suggest to 
 the people of Philadelphia, and my intention hereafter to sub- 
 mit to the whole American nation, must, at the first sight, win to 
 its support the more oppressed and afflicted, 1 am rather de- 
 sirous of addressing my prefactory arguments to that class from 
 whence opposition is most to be apprehended. 
 
 I know how difficult it is — reared as we all are in the distinc- 
 tions of class, to say nothing of sect, to conceive of our interests 
 as associated with those of the whole community. The man pos- 
 sessed of a dollar, feels himself to be, not merely one hundred 
 cents richer, but also one hundred cents better , than the man who 
 is pennyless; so on through all the gradations of earthly posses- 
 sions — the estimate of our own moral and political importance 
 swelling always in a ratio exactly proportionate to the growth of 
 our purse. The rich man who can leave a clear independence 
 to his children, is given to estimate them as he estimates himself, 
 and to imagine something in their nature distinct from that of the 
 less privileged heirs of hard labor and harder fare. 
 
 This might indeed appear too gross for any of us to advance in 
 theory, but in feeling how many must plead guilty to the prejudice l 
 Yetis there a moment when, were their thoughts known to each 
 other, all men must feel themselves on a level. It is when as 
 fathers they look on their children, and picture the possibility 
 which may render them orphans, and then calculate all the casu- 
 alties which may deprive them, if rich, of their inheritance, or, if 
 poor, grind them down to deeper poverty. 
 
 But it is first to the rich, I would speak. Can the man of opu- 
 lence feel tranquil under the prospect of leaving to such guardian- 
 ship as existing law or individual integrity may supply, the minds, 
 bodies, morals, or even the fortune of their children 'l I myself, 
 was an orphan ; and I know that the very law which was my pro- 
 tector, sucked away a portion of my little inheritance, while that 
 law, insufficient and avaricious as it was, alone shielded me from 
 spoliation by my guardian. I know, too, that my youth was one 
 of tribulation, albeit passed in the envied luxuries of aristocra- 
 cy. I know that the orphan’s bread may be watered with tears, 
 even when the worst evil be not there — dependence. 
 
 Can, then, the rich be without solicitude, when they leave to 
 the mercy of a heartless world the beings of their creation ? 
 Who shall cherish their young sensibilities ? Who shall stand be- 
 tween them and oppression ? Who shall whisper peace in the hour 
 
12 
 
 of affliction? Who shall supply principle in the hour of temptation? 
 Who shall lead the tender mind to distinguish between the good 
 and the evil? Who shall fortify it against the corruptions of 
 wealth, or prepare it for the day of adversity ? Such, looking 
 upon life as it is, must be the anxious thoughts, even of the weal- 
 thy. What must be the thoughts of the poor man, it needs not 
 that we should picture. 
 
 But, my friends, however differing in degree may be the 
 anxiety of the rich and the poor, still, in its nature, is it the same. 
 Doubt, uncertainty, apprehension are before all. We hear of 
 deathbed affliction. My friends, I have been often and long 
 on the bed of mortal sickness: no fear had the threatened last 
 sleep for me, for I was not a parent. 
 
 We have here, then, found an evil common to all classes, and, 
 one that is entailed from generation to generation. The measure 
 I am about to suggest, whenever adopted, will blot this now uni- 
 versal affliction from existence ; it will also, in the outset, alle- 
 viate those popular distresses whose poignancy and rapid increase 
 weigh on the heart of philanthropy, and crush the best hopes of 
 enlightened patriotism. It must further, when carried into full 
 effect, work the radical cure of every disease which now afflicts 
 the body politic, and build up for this nation a sound constitution, 
 embracing at once, public prosperity, individual integrity, and 
 universal happiness. 
 
 This measure, my friends, has been long present to my mind 
 as befitting the adoption of the American people ; as alone cal- 
 culated to form an enlightened, a virtuous, and a happy commu- 
 nity; as alone capable of supplying a remedy to the evils under 
 which we groan ; as alone commensurate with the interests of the 
 human family, and consistent with the political institutions of this 
 great confederated republic. 
 
 I had occasion formerly to observe, in allusion to the efforts 
 already made, and yet making, in the cause of popular instruc- 
 tion, more or less throughout the Union, that, as yet, the true 
 principle has not been hit, and that until it be hit, all reform must 
 be slow and inefficient. 
 
 The noble example of New England has been imitated by 
 other states, until all not possessed of common schools blush for 
 the popular remissness. But, after all, how can common schools , 
 under their best form, and in fullest supply, effect even the pur- 
 pose which they have in view ? 
 
 The object proposed by common schools (if I rightly under- 
 stand it) is to impart to the whole population those means for 
 the acquirement of knowledge w'hich are in common use : read- 
 ing and writing. To these are added arithmetic, and, occasionally, 
 perhaps, some imperfect lessons in the simpler sciences. But, I 
 would ask, supposing these institutions should even be made to 
 
embrace all the branches of intellectual knowledge, and, thus, 
 science offered gratis to all the children of the land, how are 
 the children of the very class, for whom we suppose the schools 
 instituted, to be supplied with food and raiment, or instructed in 
 the trade necessary to their future subsistence, while they are fol- 
 lowing these studies? How are they, I ask, to be fed and clo- 
 thed, when, as all facts show, the labor of the parents is often in- 
 sufficient for their own sustenance, and, almost universally, inade- 
 quate to the provision of the family without the united efforts of 
 all its members ? In your manufacturing districts you have chil- 
 dren worked for twelve hours a day ; and, in the rapid and cer- 
 tain progress of the existing system, you will soon have them, as in 
 England, worked to death , and yet unable, through the period of 
 their miserable existence, to earn a pittance sufficient to satisfy 
 the cravings of hunger. At this present time, what leisure or 
 what spirit, think you, have the children of the miserable widows 
 of Philadelphia, realizing, according to the most favorable esti- 
 mate of your city and county committee, sixteen dollars per an- 
 num, for food and clothing? what leisure or what spirit may their 
 children find for visiting a school, although the same should be 
 open to them from sunrise to sunset? Or what leisure have usu- 
 ally the children of your most thriving mechanics, after their 
 strength is sufficiently developed to spin, sew, weave, or wield a 
 tool ? It seems to me, my friends, that to build school houses 
 nowadays is something like building churches. When you have 
 them, you ueed some measure to ensure their being occupi* d. 
 
 But, as our time is short, and myself somewhat fatigued by 
 continued exertions, 1 must hasten to the rapid development of the 
 system of instruction and protection which has occurred to me as 
 capable, and alone capable, of opening the door to universal 
 reform. 
 
 In lieu of all common schools, high schools, colleges, semina- 
 ries, houses of refuge, or any other juvenile institution, instruc- 
 tional or protective, I would suggest that the state legislatures be 
 directed (after laying off the whole in townships or hundreds) to 
 organize, at suitable distances, and in convenient and healthy 
 situations, establishments for the general reception of all the chil- 
 dren resident within the said school district. These establish- 
 ments to be devoted, severally, to children between a certain age. 
 Say, the first to infants between tw r o and four, or two and six, 
 according to the density of the population, and such other local 
 circumstances as might render a greater or less number of esta- 
 blishments necessary or practicable. The next to receive children 
 from four to eight, or six to twelve years. The next from twelve 
 to sixteen, or to an older age if found desirable. Each establish- 
 ment to be furnished with instructors in every branch of knowledge, 
 intellectual and operative, wfith all the apparata, land, and con- 
 
14 
 
 veniences necessary for the best development of all knowledge ; 
 the same, whether operative or intellectual, being alvVays calcula- 
 ted to the age and strength of the pupils. 
 
 To obviate, in the commencement, every evil result possible 
 from the first mixture of a young population, so variously raised 
 in error or neglect, a due separation should be made in each es- 
 tablishment; by which means those entering with bad habits 
 would be kept apart from the others until corrected. How rapidly 
 reform may be effected on the plastic disposition of childhood, 
 has been sufficiently proved in your houses of refuge, more espe- 
 cially when such establishments have been under liberal superin- 
 tendance, as was formerly the case in New York. Under their 
 orthodox directors those asylums of youth have been converted 
 into jails. 
 
 It will be understood that, in the proposed establishments, the 
 children would pass from one to the other in regular succession, 
 and that the parents, who would necessarily be resident in 
 their close neighborhood, could visit the children at suitable hours, 
 but, in no case, interfere with or interrupt the rules of the institu- 
 tion. 
 
 In the older establishments, the well directed and well protect- 
 ed labor of the pupil would, in time, suffice for, and, then, exceed, 
 their own support ; when the surplus might be devoted to the 
 maintenance of the infant establishments. 
 
 In the beginning, and until all debt was cleared off, and so long 
 as the same should be found favorable to the promotion of these 
 best palladiums of a nation’s happiness, a double tax might be at 
 once expedient and politic. 
 
 First, a moderate tax per head for every child, to be laid upon 
 its parents conjointly, or divided between them, due attention 
 being always paid to the varying strength of the two sexes* and 
 to the undue depreciation which now rests on female labor. The 
 more effectually to correct the latter injustice, as well as to consult 
 the convenience of the industrious classes generally, this parental 
 tax might be rendered payable either in money, or in labor, pro- 
 duce, or domestic manufactures, and should be continued for each 
 child until the age when juvenile labor should be found, on the 
 average, equivalent to the educational expenses, which, I have rea- 
 son to believe, would be at twelve years. 
 
 This first tax on parents to embrace equally the whole popu- 
 lation ; as, however moderate, it would inculcate a certain fore- 
 thought in all the human family ; more especially where it is most 
 wanted — in young persons, who, before they assumed the respon- 
 sibility of parents, would estimate their fitness to meet it. 
 
 The second tax to be on property, increasing in per centage 
 with the wealth of the individual. In this manner I conceive the 
 rich would contribute, according to their riches, to the relief of 
 
i5 
 
 tiie poor, and to the support of the state, by raising up its best bui 
 wark — an enlightened and united generation. 
 
 Preparatory to, or connected with, such measures, a registry 
 should be opened by the state, with offices through all the town- 
 ships, where, on the birth of every child, or within a certain time 
 appointed, the same should be entered, together with the names 
 of its parents. When two years old, the parental tax should be 
 payable, and the juvenile institution open for the child’s recep- 
 tion ; from which time forward it would be under the protective 
 care and guardianship of the state, while it need never be remo- 
 ved from the daily, weekly, or frequent inspection of the parents. 
 
 Orphans, of course, would find here an open asylum. If pos- 
 sessed of property, a contribution would be paid from its revenue 
 to the common educational fund ; if unprovided, they would be 
 sustained out of the same. 
 
 In these nurseries of a free nation, no inequality must be al- 
 lowed to enter. Fed at a common board ; clothed in a common 
 garb, uniting neatness with simplicity and convenience ; raised 
 in the exercise of common duties, in the acquirement of the same 
 knowledge and practice of the same industry, varied only accord- 
 ing to individual taste and capabilities ; in the exercise of the 
 same virtues, in the enjoyment of the same pleasures ; in the study 
 of the same nature ; in pursuit of the same object — their own and 
 each other’s happiness — say ! would not such a race, when arri- 
 ved at manhood and womanhood, work out the reform of society 
 — perfect the free institutions of America ? 
 
 I have drawn but a sketch, nor could I presume to draw the 
 picture of that which the mind’s eye hath seen alone, and which it 
 is for the people of this land to realize. 
 
 In this sketch, my friends, there is nothing but what is practical 
 and practicable ; nothing but what you yourselves may con- 
 tribute to effect. Let the popular suffrage be exercised with a 
 view to the popular good. Let the industrious classes, and all 
 honest men of all classes, unite for the sending to the legislatures 
 those who will represent the real interests of the many, not the 
 imagined interests of the few — of the people at large, not of any 
 profession or class. 
 
 To develop farther my views on this all important subject at 
 the present time, wpuld be to fatigue your attention, and exhaust 
 my own strength. T shall prosecute this subject in the periodical 
 of which, I am editor, # which, in common with my public dis- 
 courses, have been, and will ever be, devoted to the common cause 
 of human improvement, and addressed to humankind with- 
 out distinction of nation, class, or sect. May you, my fellow be- 
 ings, unite in the same cause, in the same spirit ! May you learn 
 
 * The Free Enquirer, published in New York, 
 
1G 
 
 to seek truth without fear ! May you farther learn to advocate 
 truth as you distinguish it ; to be valiant in its defence, and peace- 
 ful while valiant ; to meet all things, bear all things, and dare all 
 things for the correction of abuses, and the effecting, in private and 
 in public, in your own minds, through the minds of your children, 
 friends, and companions, and, above all, through your legisla - 
 tures, a radical reform in all your measures, whether as citizens, 
 or as men ’ 
 
 freorge II. Evans, Printer, 40 Thompson street. 
 
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