The observance of Sunday as a day of rest from labour and business will be all the more popular as it is made precious to irreligious people. They are numerous enough to have a right to ask that the public school-houses be opened for free classes in French, German, drawing, and modelling; botany, chemistry, and bird-lore; cooking, sewing, and wood-work. If teachers of these branches were employed on Sunday by our cities, less money would be needed for police. Our industrial interests would certainly gain by having this system carried out as far, for instance, as is done by Lyons and Milan, which have special Sunday-schools for teaching weaving. Goldsmiths are instructed by similar schools in Austria, and blacksmiths in Saxony. The full advantage of Sunday classes of the various kinds here suggested might not perhaps be seen until a taste for them could be made general, but doing this would go far to diminish the taste for saloons.
The first step, however, which ought to be taken by our legislatures is the repeal of all laws hindering the sale of tickets on Sunday to exhibitions of pictures or curiosities, concerts, stereopticon lectures, or other instructive entertainments which are acknowledged inoffensive during the rest of the week. How far dramatic performances and other very attractive forms of public amusement should be permitted to take place on Sunday is a question which ought to be settled by municipal authorities, with due reference to each special case. The people whose feelings ought to be considered are not those who wish to stay away from such places. They can easily do that without help from the police. The people who ought to be heard, first and last, are those who wish to get innocent amusement on their one day of leisure; and the only thing which the police need do is to see that they do get it without being defrauded or tempted into vice. Only the actual existence of such temptation can justify interference with dancing or card-playing in a private house. The Sunday reforms most needed, however, are those which will promote out-door exercise and mental culture.
LIST OF DATES
1776. Declaration of American independence, July 4th.
1780. Emancipation in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
1783. Peace between IL S. A. and Great Britain, September 3d.
1785. Great prosperity of British factories about this time.
1787. Slavery prohibited north of Ohio River; slave-trade opposed in England; Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation published.
1788. Constitution of U. S. A. ratified by a sufficient number of States, June 21st.