THE CARE AND REFORMATION OF THE NEGLECTED AND EXPOSED CLASSES OF CHILDREN.
[An Address delivered at the opening of the State Industrial School for Girls, at Lancaster, Massachusetts.]
In man's limited view, the moral world presents a sad contrast to the natural. The natural world is harmonious in all its parts; but the moral world is the theatre of disturbing and conflicting forces, whose laws the finite mind cannot comprehend. The majesty and uniformity of the planetary revolutions, which bring day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, know no change. Worlds and systems of worlds are guided by a law of the Infinite Mind; and so, through unnumbered years and myriads of years, birth and death, creation and decay, decrees whose fixedness enables finite minds to predict the future, and rules whose elasticity is seen in a never-ending variety of nature, all alike prove that the sin of disobedience is upon man alone.
But, if man only, of all the varied creations of earth, may fall from his high estate, so to him only is given the power to rise again, and feebly, yet with faith, advance towards the Divine Excellence. This, then, is the great thought of the occasion, to be accepted by the hearts and illustrated in the lives of all. The fallen may be raised up, the exposed may be shielded, the wanderers may be called home, or else this house is built upon the sand, and doomed to fall when the rains shall descend, the floods come, and the winds blow. The returning autumn, with its harvest of sustenance and wealth, bids us contemplate again the mystery and harmony of the natural world. The tree and the herb produce seed, and the seed again produces the tree and the herb, each after its kind. There is a continued production and reproduction; but of responsibility there is none. As there is no intelligent violation of law, there is no accountability. Man, however, is an intelligent, dependent, fallible, and, of course, responsible being. He is responsible for himself, responsible in some degree for his fellow-man. There is not a chapter in the history of the human race, nor a day of its experience, which does not show that the individual members are dependent upon, and responsible to, each other. This great fact, of six thousand years' duration, at once presents to us the necessity for government, and defines the limits of its powers and duties. Government, then, is a union of all for the protection and welfare of each. This definition presents, in its principles and statement, the highest form of human government,—a form not yet perfectly realized on earth. It sets forth rather what government ought to be, than what it has been or is. Too often historical governments, and living governments even, may be defined as a union of a few for their benefit, and for the oppression of many. The reason of man has not often been consulted in their formation, and the interests and principles of the masses have usually been disregarded in their administration.
A true government is at once representative, patriarchal, and paternal. In the path of duty for this day and this occasion, we shall consider the last-named quality only,—governments should be paternal. The paternal government is devoted to the elevation and improvement of its members, with no ulterior motive except the necessary results of internal purity and strength. Every government is, in some degree, no doubt, paternal. Nor are those governments to be regarded as eminently so, where the people are most controlled in their private, personal affairs. These are mere despotisms; and despotism is not a just nor necessary element of the paternal relation. That government is most truly paternal which does most to enable its citizens or subjects to regulate their own conduct, and determine their relations to others. In the midst of general darkness, the paternal element of government has been a light to the human race. It modified the patriarchal slavery of the Hebrews, relieved the iron rule of Sparta, made European feudalism the hope of civilization in the Dark Ages, and the basis of its coming glories in the near future; and it now leads men to look with toleration upon the despotism of Russia, and with kindness upon the simplicity and arrogance of the Celestial Empire.
We complain, justly enough, that the world is governed too much; and yet, in a great degree, we neglect the means by which the proper relations of society could be preserved, and the world be governed less. In what works are the so-called Christian governments principally engaged? Are they not seeking, by artifice, diplomacy, and war, to extend national boundaries, preserve national honor, or enforce nice distinctions against the timid and weak? Yet it is plain that a nation is powerful according to the character of the living elements of which it is composed. If it is disorganized morally, uncultivated in intellect, ignorant, indolent, or wasteful in its labor, its claims to greatness are destitute of solid foundation, and it must finally yield to those that have sought and gained power by the elevation of the individual as the element of the nation.
That nation, then, is wise, and destined to become truly great, which cultivates the best elements of individual life and character. It is not enough to read the parable of the lost sheep, and of the ninety and nine that went not astray, and then say, "Even so, it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish," while the means of salvation, as regards the life of this world merely, are very generally neglected. Such neglect is followed by error and crime; and error and crime are followed by judgment not always tempered with mercy.
While human governments debate questions of war and peace, of trade and revenue, of annexations with ceremony, and appropriations of territory without ceremony, who shall answer to the Governor and Judge of all for the neglect, indifference, and oppression, which beget and foster the delinquencies of childhood, and harden the criminals of adult life?
And who shall answer for those distinctions of caste and systems of labor which so degrade and famish masses of human beings, that the divine miracle of the feeding of the five thousand must be multiplied many times over before the truths of nature or revelation can be received into teachable minds or susceptible hearts? And who shall answer for the hereditary poverty, ignorance and crime, which constitute a marked feature of English life, and are distinctly visible upon the face of American civilization? These questions may point with sufficient distinctness to the sources of the evils enumerated; but we are not to assume that mere human governments can furnish an adequate and complete remedy. Yet this admitted inability to do everything is no excuse for neglecting those things which are plainly within their power. Taking upon themselves the parental character, forgetting that they have wrongs to avenge, and seeking reformation through kindness, criminals and the causes of crime will diminish, if they do not disappear. This is the responsibility of the nations, and the claim now made upon them. Individual civilization and refinement have always been in advance of national; and national character is the mirrored image of the individual characters, not excepting the humblest, of which the nation is composed. Each foot of the ocean's surface has, in its fluidity or density or position, something of the quality or power of every drop of water which rests or moves in the depths of the sea. What is called national character is the face of the great society beneath; and, as that society in its elements is elevated or debased, so will the national character rise or fall in the estimation of all just men, and upon the page of impartial history. Government, which is the organized expression of the will of society, should represent the best elements of which society is composed; and it ought, therefore, to combat error and wrong, and seek to inaugurate labor, justice, and truth, as the elements of stability, growth, and power. It must accept as its principles of action the best rules of conduct in individuals. The man who avenges his personal wrongs by personal attacks or vindictive retaliation, must sacrifice in some measure the sympathy of the wise, the humane, and the good. So the nation which avenges real or fancied wrongs crushes out the elements of humanity and a higher life, which, properly cultivated, might lead an erring mortal to virtue and peace. The proper object of punishment is not vengeance, but the public safety and the reformation of the criminal. Indeed, we may say that the sole object of punishment is the reformation of the criminal; for there can be no safety to the public while the criminal is unreformed. The punishment of the prison must, from its nature, be temporary; perpetual confinement can be meted out to a few great crimes only. If, then, the result of punishment be vengeance, and not reformation, the last state of society is worse than its first. The prison must stand a sad monument of the want of true paternal government in the family and the state; but, when it becomes the receptacle merely of the criminal, and all ideas of reformation are banished from the hearts of convicts and the minds of keepers, its influence is evil, and only evil continually.
Vice, driven from the presence of virtue, with no hope of reformation or of restoration to society, begets vice, and becomes daily more and more loathsome. Misery is so universal that some share falls to the lot of all; but that misery whose depths cannot be sounded, whose heights cannot be scaled, is the fortune of the prison convict only, who has no hope of reformation to virtue or of restoration to the world. His is the only misery that is unrelieved; his is the only burden that is too great to be borne. To him the foliage of the tree, the murmur of the brook, the mirror of the quiet lake, or the thunder of the heaving ocean, would be equally acceptable. His separation from nature is no less burdensome than his separation from man. The heart sinks, the spirit turns with a consuming fire upon itself, the soul is in despair; the mind is first nerved and desperate, then wandering and savage, then idiotic, and finally goes out in death. Governments cannot often afford to protect themselves, or to avenge themselves, at such a cost. There may be great crimes on which such awful penalties should be visited; but, for the honor of the race, let them be few.