LETTERS FROM NEW ENGLAND.—NO. 4.
BY A VIRGINIAN.
Albany, N. Y. July 27th, 1834.
It is a Southern opinion, that the large factories which have grown up in the North, within the last seventeen years, are of a very demoralizing tendency: that so many persons—such persons too—cannot be housed together, and allowed the free intercourse unavoidable where the restraint is not for crime, without a large result of licentiousness and vice. I have long thought thus: and must confess I entered New England with a sort of wish (arising from my hostility to the protective system,) to have the opinion confirmed. In some places, I heard and saw confirmation strong: but in most—and those the chief seats of manufactures—my inquiries resulted directly otherwise. The laborers there, it seems, are as moral as any other class of the population. The females watch each other's deportment with the most jealous vigilance: a slip is at once exposed, and punished by expulsion; even a slight indiscretion is sure to draw down remonstrance, and if that fails, complaint to the ruling power. The boys and girls are allowed a reasonable part of the year to attend the common-schools; and are encouraged at all seasons to frequent Sunday schools. Lectures, occasional or in courses, are delivered, of which the operatives are eager hearers: and social Libraries, with habits of reading, sometimes produce among them strengthened and well stored minds. Wherever these good effects appear, be it observed, the proprietors and superintendents (generally men of fortune, as well as intelligence) have taken the greatest possible care to produce them. And where the unfavorable appearances occurred, there seemed to have been a corresponding neglect on the part of owners and agent.
The natural course of these establishments, then, seems to be down the stream of vice. Great exertions may enable them to resist, nay to surmount and ascend the current; but so soon as those efforts cease, that instant the downward tendency prevails.1 While the manufacturing system is young—while high protecting duties enable employers to give high wages—while a desire to conciliate favor to the system keeps both owners and operatives upon their best behavior—the favorable moral condition I have described may continue. But the oarsman cannot forever row up the stream; weariness, or confidence, or incaution, will, some day, relax his arm. In process of time, these promiscuous assemblages of hundreds and thousands will vindicate the justness of the reasoning, which argues the danger of contamination (a sort of spontaneous combustion) from so close a contact:2 will shew themselves rank hot beds of vice; and make the lover of good morals grieve, that so many souls should ever have been seduced from the healthful air of field, and forest, and rustic fireside, to sicken and die in a tainted, unnatural atmosphere.
| 1 | Non aliter quam qui adverso vix flumine lembum Remigiis subigit; si brachia forté remisit, Atque illum in præceps prono rapit alveus amni. |
2 In Godwin's Inquirer, are some very just and forcible observations on the corrupting effect upon youth, of too close and numerous an association with each other. He applies it to large boarding schools. The enlightened President of a Rhode Island University, on similar grounds (as he told me), does all that he can to discourage students from boarding and lodging in College. Observation and experience had shewn him the danger of spontaneous combustion, from the too near approach of human passions and weaknesses. The same principle applies to the case of Factory hands: only, here, are superadded, elements which incalculably enhance the danger.
I mentioned Lectures, and social Libraries.—These, and similar institutions for diffusing knowledge among the multitude, are among the chief glories of New England. In all the cities, and many of the larger and middling towns (towns in the English sense,) there are Lyceums, Young Men's Societies, Library Societies, or associations under some such name, for mental exercise and improvement. A collection of books is a usual, and a philosophical apparatus an occasional appendage. Connectedly with these institutions, or sometimes, independently of them, Lectures on every variety of subjects that can instruct or profit mankind, are delivered by public spirited men—professional and unprofessional—sometimes, by farmers and mechanics themselves. They are gratuitous; and in a style plain enough to be understood by all classes of society, who flock to hear them. For these occasions, the first abilities of the country have now and then been put in requisition. Story, Everett, and Webster—alike with the village teacher and mechanic; have contributed their quota of MIND, towards the holy cause of Popular Instruction. A valuable lecture from each of these; from Mr. Everett indeed, two Lectures—are in Vol. 1 of the "American Library of useful knowledge." The name of this work at once suggests that a similar one, published by Mr. Brougham and his generous associates in Great Britain, in fortnightly pamphlets, at a rate so cheap as to be within every laborer's reach; unfolding, in a familiar style, the useful parts of scientific and historical knowledge. To his share in this work, Brougham, you remember, having his hands already filled with pressing employments, was obliged to devote "hours stolen from needful rest." How magnanimous the spirit, which could prompt that "hardest lesson that humility can teach—a voluntary descent from the dignity of science,"3 to explain the simple rudiments of knowledge to unlettered minds! the spirit, which could make genius and power drudge in the lowliest walks of learning, to open and smooth them for the ingress of intellectual "babes and sucklings!" When will the great of Virginia deign this magnanimous descent? When will our Leigh, our Tazewell, our Barbour, our Rives, our Johnson, our Stanard, our Robertson—a generous spirit, from whose devotion to democracy, something might be expected towards fitting his countrymen for self government—when will they, and the host of talents besides that Virginia possesses, be found striving in this noble race of usefulness with Brougham, Jeffrey, McIntosh, Webster and Everett? That trumpet-call of the North American Review five years ago, which might have roused apathy itself to energetic effort in the cause of Popular Education, and which—whether it betokened only, or strengthened, the beneficent operation of the spirit that has so long been diffusing through the North the blessed light of MIND—doubtless met a response in every Northern bosom; that trumpet-call, in Virginia, fell upon senseless ears. You indeed, I remember, echoed it; but trumpet-call and echo both, sounded in ears deaf save to the miserable wranglings of party, about the more miserable pretensions of opposing candidates: and, at this day, our people, and their leaders, are in a slumber as profound on this subject, as if we had no Literary Fund—no Primary Schools—no youth to educate—no country to save from the certain fate of popular ignorance.
3 Dr. Johnson.
It is bed time, and I must forbear saying more at present. Yet I have not done with New England: there remain several topics, which I incline to touch. So you shall hear from me at my next stopping place.