deplore--that was negro-slavery.

"When, in the next year, Mr. Owen came, with his friends, to
commence his experiment of creating a new moral world at New
Harmony, Frances Wright came with him, not as a full believer
in his crotchets, but to try an experiment, devised with
Jefferson, Lafayette, and others, for the emancipation of the
negro-slave.

"Fanny Wright, however, failed in her negro experiment. She
soon discovered that the American people were not, as yet,
prepared to engage in earnest for the abolition of slavery. On
more mature reflection she came to the conclusion that slavery
must be abolished only as the result of a general emancipation,
and a radical reform of the American people themselves.

"The first step to be taken for this purpose was to rouse the
American mind to a sense of its rights and dignity, to
emancipate it from superstition, from its subjection to the
clergy, and its fear of unseen powers, to withdraw it from the
contemplation of the stars or an imaginary heaven after death,
and fix it on the great and glorious work of promoting _man's
earthly well-being_.

"The second step was, by political action, to get adopted, at
the earliest practical moment, a system of State schools, in
which all the children from two years old and upward should be
fed, clothed, in a word, maintained, instructed, and educated
at the public expense.

"In furtherance of the first object, Fanny prepared a course of
Lectures on _Knowledge_, which she delivered in the principal
cities of the Union. She thought that she possessed advantages
in the fact that she was a woman; for there would, for that
reason, be a greater curiosity to hear her, and she would be
permitted to speak with greater boldness and directness against
the clergy and superstition than would be one of the other sex.

"The great measure, however, on which Fanny and her friends
relied for ultimate success, was the system of public schools.
These schools were intended to deprive, as well as to relieve,
parents of all care and responsibility of their children after
a year or two years of age. It was assumed that parents were,
in general, incompetent to train up their children, provide
proper establishments, teachers and governors for them, till
they sh