tive, capable,
industrious, productive, full-grown men have been created; or, rather, a
thousand consumers of the wealth of others, enemies of the public order
and peace, have been transformed into intelligent supporters of social
life, into generous, faithful guardians of public virtue and
tranquillity. Nor would the influences of this degraded population, if
unreformed, have ceased with its own existence; every succeeding
generation must have gathered somewhat of a harvest of crime and woe. A
thousand boys, hardened by neglect, educated in vice, and shunned by
the virtuous, would, as men, have been efficient missionaries of
lawlessness, wrong, and crime. And who shall estimate how much their
reform adds, in its results, to the wealth, the intellectual, moral, and
religious character, of the state? The criminal class is never a
producing class; and the labor of a thousand men here reclaimed, if
estimated for the period of twenty years only, is equal to the labor of
twenty thousand men for one year, which, at a hundred dollars each,
yields two millions of dollars. The pecuniary advantages of this school,
as of all schools, we may estimate; but there are better and higher
considerations, in the elevated intellectual, moral, and religious life
of the state, that are too pure, too ethereal, to be weighed in the
balance against the grosser possessions and acquisitions of society. We
thus get glimpses of the prophetic wisdom which led Mr. Lyman to say, "I
do not look on this school as an experiment; on the contrary, it strikes
me that it is an institution which will produce decidedly beneficial
results, not only for the present day, but for many years to come. I do
not, therefore, think that it should, even now, be treated in any
respect in the light of an experiment, to be abandoned if not
successful; for, if the school is introduced to public notice on no
better footing and with no more preparation than usually attend
trial-schemes of most kinds, the probability is that it will fail,
considering the peculiar difficulties of the case." Here is a high order
of faith in its application to human affairs; but Mr. Lyman saw, also,
that the work to be performed must encounter obstacles, and that its
progress toward a perfect result would be slow.

These obstacles have been encountered; and yet the progress has been
more rapid than the words of our founder imply. But are we not at
liberty to forget the trials, crosses, and perplex