lothe the children of the destitute,
and accompany them to the Sunday-school, and there teach them those
things which pertain to their present and everlasting well-being, and
have thus accomplished incalculable good; but by co-operating with the
civil authorities in securing the attendance of every child in their
respective districts at the _improved common school_, they can hardly
fail to accomplish vastly more.

Several associations have been formed for this noble purpose, and many
children who, but for their fostering care, would have remained at their
cheerless homes, have, by this labor of love, been sought out, properly
cared for, and led to the common school, that fountain of intellectual
life, and of social and moral culture, which is alike open to all.
Gentlemen should everywhere encourage the formation of such
associations, and, when formed, should offer every facility in their
power to increase their usefulness. Clergymen might help forward such
benevolent labors, where they are entered upon, by preaching
occasionally from that good text, _Help those women._

But there are two classes of our fellow-citizens--perhaps I should say
fellow-beings--who, notwithstanding the abundant legal provisions to
which I have referred, and the utmost that the benevolent and
philanthropic can accomplish by voluntary effort, will utterly refuse to
give their children such an education as we have been contemplating.
These are, first, men in comfortable circumstances, who have so much
blindness of mind, and such an utter disregard for the welfare of their
offspring, as to deprive them of the advantages of even a common school
education; and, secondly, those who have such an obduracy of heart as
absolutely to refuse to allow their children to attend school, and who,
although the abundant provisions of the law are made known unto them, in
meekness and love, by "man's guardian angel," prove utterly
incorrigible.

Such persons are unworthy to sustain the parental relation, and the
safety of the community requires that the forfeiture be claimed, and
that the right of control be transferred from such unnatural parents to
the civil authorities; for, as Kent says, "A parent who sends his son
into the world uneducated, and without skill in any art or science, does
a great injury to mankind as well as to his own family, for he defrauds
the community of a useful citizen, and bequeaths to it a nuisance." How
true is it that "the mobs, the