Oh, ye who are appointed by Him, who toiled for your salvation, to go forth and rescue these little ones, what saith your great Exemplar? “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, before the interest awakened is absorbed by other pursuits.
The thing to be aimed at is, the employment of female 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 knowledge. 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 energies than the ordinary pursuits of women of leisure. 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 woman is learning to train children, and to perform domestic duties properly, but in the workshop and manufactory, she follows a monotonous toil, useful neither to body nor mind, often injurious to both, and forming habits and tastes disqualifying her for future domestic duties.[3]
On the other hand, in all parts of our country, especially at the West, there are multitudes of flourishing 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 proof of this destitution and apathy.