Public School Education Part 4

"In the small town of Billerica, there are ninety families with ten or more children; five of these had fourteen, and one twenty-one: the total in the ninety families is ten hundred and ninety-three. The birth-rates show that American families _do not_ increase at _all_, and the inspection of the registration in other States shows that the same remark applies to all."

Many parts of Vermont are undergoing a gradual depopulation. Sandgate had a population of 1,187 in 1810, and 805 in 1860.

The town of Rupert had a population of 1,848 in 1800, which had diminished to 1,103 in 1860.

The town of Arlington was settled in the year 1762. In the year 1800 all the arable and pasturage land was occupied, and the inhabitants numbered 1,569. In 1830 the number had decreased to 1,207, and in 1860 to 1,146.

Mrs. A. B. Boone says, in her book "The Increase of Crime," "I have frequently heard women say 'I don't mind having one or two children, but no more for me.' When I first heard these expressions I thought it merely a joke, but eventually I found out they _meant_ what they said, and I was amazed. And when these women do condescend to have one or two children, what sort of a lifelong inheritance are they giving their offspring? ill-health even unto death. Frequently I come in contact with women of thirty, and even twenty-five, so debilitated that they are far more fit for hospitals than to fill the sacred office of either wife or mother.

"I am sorry to add that the crime of _child-murder_ is carried on to the greatest extent among the wealthy. In Cambridgeport, a medical lady informed me that she was continually applied to for this purpose, and always refused in the most decided manner; but, to her knowledge, one woman performed, on an average, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty cases in a week. And yet churches abound in this place.

"The Rev. Dr. Todd has written two most truthful lectures, one ent.i.tled 'Fashionable Murders,' and the other 'A Cloud with a Dark Lining.' His revelations with regard to the determination that the Americans evince not to have children, is fearfully true, more especially among the women.

"Speaking of having children, reminds me of a circ.u.mstance that happened some fifteen years ago. I had a letter of introduction to a lady who wished to engage my children to read at a party she was about to give.

She received me with an air of melancholy politeness, at the same time informing me that the gathering was postponed, as dear little f.a.n.n.y was 'real sick.' I saw a wine-gla.s.s and teaspoon on the table by the side of the sofa, which had a small blanket on it bound with sky-blue ribbon, covering up something that I supposed to be a sick child. I approached, and gently drew aside the blanket. I jumped back--it was a poodle-dog, whose black eyes winked at me as if about to cry: a sort of appeal for sympathy shone in its glowing orbs. I was almost convulsed with laughter, it was so unexpected. When able to speak, I said, 'Pardon me, madam, for laughing; but I thought it was a baby.' She replied indignantly, 'Oh, dear, no! I never had a baby; nor I don't want one either!' And it would be a blessing, I say, if such women as these _never_ became mothers. When I was a young girl, and heard people say they hated children, and saw them fondling dogs, and feeding kittens with a spoon because the _old cat_ was too weak to attend to so many, and knew, at the same time, that poor _human mothers_ were compelled (just as _slaves once_ were) to separate from their husbands and children when _poverty_ demanded that they should go into the '_Union_,'

or, rather, _Dis_union--I say, when I pondered on these things, thoughts would flit through my mind, whether, when death severed the body from the _souls_ of these people, that their spirits were not instantly infused into cats and dogs, and that they came back in those shapes as a penance for their _brutality_ to mankind, and their _loving-kindness_ to _brutes_. However, we never went to the party. The woman remarked to a friend that she thought me devoid of all feeling, to laugh at a little, sick, _innocent_ dog!

"Three doors from the rooms I lived in is the stylish house of Dr. and Mrs. Grindle, where there are hundreds of 'fashionable murders'

committed yearly. And twice the papers have teemed with accounts of the unhappy mothers dying, and on the last occasion the child was not to be found, although born alive--and nothing done to either the doctor or his lady!"

A gentleman of one of the smaller towns of Connecticut writes to the _Independent_ as follows: "I have just read, with great interest, your editorial on the 'Murder of Helplessness.' The paper will go into hundreds of families where the crime is practised, to bear witness against it; for, thank G.o.d, it is fashionable to take the _Independent_.

For more than a year it has been on my mind to write to you upon this question. You will have the thanks of every well-wisher of the human race. But you make a great mistake when you speak of the crime of foeticide as being confined to the large cities. It prevails all over the country. I dare not tell you what I know--and the information has been given me unsolicited--in reference to this horrid practice in the land. I do not believe there is a village in the New England States but this crime is practised more or less. There are men who make it their business, with medicine and instruments, to carry on this slaughter. And even M.D.'s (physicians) in good and regular standing in the church have practised it. Men are making here, in this highly moral State, $3,000 and $4,000 a year in the small towns alone, at this business. Their patients are from the highly religious and fashionable to the low and vicious. Their scale of charges is according to the cupidity and size of purse of the victims. Delicate females go, in the dead of night, dressed in masculine attire, to avoid detection, to obtain the means to hide their shame. The cause of the evil lies in 'l.u.s.t, which is as near to the murder as fire to smoke.' The demoralization of the people at large, in the practice of licentiousness, furnishes a topic of the greatest anxiety to the philanthropist. When American women lose their shame, the race is lost--church-membership is no bar. The continence of man and the chast.i.ty of woman is the only hope."

Trustworthy physicians a.s.sure us there are not less than sixty ghouls (gules) in New York City, who grow rich by killing infants. We have seen the number stated at six times sixty. Those who have pa.s.sed through Fifth Avenue, New York, must have noticed a magnificent dwelling, or rather palace, in the neighborhood of the Central Park. It was built by a certain doctress who has acquired her wealth by the murder of helpless innocents.

The unhappy victims of these ghouls are not generally of the low and debased sort. Most of these illegitimate mothers are of the educated cla.s.ses, many of them, shocking to say, under the age of fifteen; many of them delicate, sensitive females, who make use of these unhallowed means to hide their shame from the eyes of their friends and relatives.

The number of marriages (outside the Catholic Church) has largely decreased within the past few years. The crime of infanticide is largely increasing. A certain species of it is practised in the first families, and the drugs and implements for committing such murders are publicly sold everywhere. Physicians advertise publicly, offering their services to enable people, as they say, "to enjoy the pleasures of marriage without the burden." At least 25,000 foeticides are annually committed. How to preserve their looks, and how to avoid having children, seem to be the chief aim of many women nowadays. In the upper cla.s.ses of society, in some of our large cities, a lady who is the mother of more than two children is looked upon as unfashionable.

The author of the book "Satan in Society" writes, on page 130-131, as follows: "A medical writer of some note published, in 1861, a pamphlet, in which he declared himself the hero of three hundred abortions." He admits, in a work of his, that he only found abortion necessary to save the life of the mother in four instances, thus publicly confessing that in an immense number of cases he has performed the operation on other grounds; and yet, in the face of all this self-accusation, several attempts at his expulsion from his county medical society have been defeated, and he is accounted "a brother in good standing" of several learned bodies, and holds an enviable position in a fashionable church and fashionable society. This rascal walks unhung; for this the "Medical Code" is primarily responsible, and after that the "ministers of the Gospel," the "worshippers" in the churches, the dwellers in "south fronts."

I have said above that the love of children has always been deemed a sign of superior intelligence--of n.o.ble manhood. Affection for its offspring is a quality possessed alike by all animals, with scarcely an exception; and few indeed of the millions of the animal creation seek to destroy their own offspring after birth, or to so neglect them as to leave them liable to destruction by other bodies or forces. It was left for human intelligences to encompa.s.s the death of their children, both before birth and after, and it was left to the anti-Christian civilization of this nineteenth century also to discover and adopt the most revolting and barbarous means to accomplish this end. The crime of foeticide, or infanticide, is not of recent growth. Like every other crime, it has had a venerable existence, but its beastly development among us has been mainly the work of a few years. Thirteen years ago its prevalence attracted the attention of medical jurists in all parts of our country, and essays, tracts, and bound volumes were issued against it. But the crime grew apace, and its deadly and dastardly fruits appear before us to-day, sickening to the moral conscience and religious sentiments of the nation.

And in view of the alarming increase of this crime of child-murder, the prediction of Dr. M. B. Wright to the Medical Society of Ohio, in 1860, will soon be fulfilled, namely: "The time is not far distant when children will be sacrificed among us with as little hesitation as among the Hindoos, unless we stop it here and now."

The frightful increase of immorality, of unnatural crimes, in these latter years, and especially in those very States where the common school system of education is fully carried out, as in New England, proves, beyond doubt, that there is something essentially wrong in this system. Some years ago the public were startled by the shocking developments of depravity in one of the female Public Schools of Boston; so shocking, indeed, as almost to stagger belief. The Boston _Times_ published the whole occurrence at the time, but after creating great excitement for a few weeks, the matter was quietly hushed up, for fear of injuring the character of the common schools.

Only a few years ago other startling transactions came to light in New York, involving the character of some of the leading school commissioners, and some of the princ.i.p.al female teachers in the common schools. These scandals became so notorious, that they could be no longer blinked at or smothered, and several of the leading papers came out openly, to lash vice in high places. The Chicago papers a.s.sert openly that the Public Schools there are _a.s.signation houses_, for boys and girls above a certain age.

"It is but six or seven years ago that Mr. Wilbur H. Storey, who owns the _Chicago Times_--the paper, at that time, of largest circulation in Chicago--published in his paper, and sustained the a.s.sertion, that the Public School system in Chicago had become so corrupt, that any school-boy attending, who had reached fourteen years of age, was whistled at by his companions as a _spooney_, if he had not a _liaison_ with some one or more of the Public School-girls!

"The Daily _Sentinel_, of Indianapolis, quoted Mr. Storey's articles, and said, with great regret, that it was only too true of Indianapolis also, judging by the wanton manners of troops of the girls attending Public Schools in Indianapolis."

And there are but too many cities to which the same order of remark applies. Far be it from me to say that _all_ the children of the Public Schools of any of these cities are corrupted. It is marvellous how some are protected from even the _knowledge_ of vice, in these hot-beds of pollution. But the _system_ of schools without the control of positive religious teaching and discipline, tends only to one vile end. We are a.s.sured, as to the City of New York, that smart girls, even of most immature years, show their discontent at their neglected fate, from hearing girls only a few years older tell what "_nice_" acquaintances they have made on the streets, or in the cars, going or coming, and what delicious lunches they have taken with these "gentlemen" at restaurants of most unquestionably bad repute. These things I have learned from a friend who heard them from members of the City Police, and from others that could not avoid the unhappy knowledge of the facts indicated.

The moral character of the Public Schools in many of our cities has sunk so low, that even courtesans have disguised themselves as school-girls, in order the more surely to ply their foul avocation.

Does any one wonder, then, that we hear and read of "Trunk Horrors"?

Does any one wonder that we have divorces, despair, infanticides, foeticides, suicides, bagnios, etc., and that other cla.s.s, I fear not less numerous, but certainly more dangerous, "_the a.s.signation houses_"?

These you cannot "police," or "localize." They, like a subtle poison, circulate through all the veins and arteries of that society called in fashionable phrase "genteel," penetrating the vital tissues of the social body, and corrupting, too often, the very fountains of life.

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT IS IT TO BE A MOTHER?

Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be the mothers of to-morrow. Mothers are destined, by G.o.d, to bring up children for heaven. This is their grand mission. What a happiness, what an honor for a mother to give angels to heaven! Would to G.o.d she only knew the real dignity and importance of her mission, and comprehended the qualifications in the moral and religious order that best prepare her for the duties of her sublime calling! What mission can be more sublime, more sacred, what mission can be more meritorious before G.o.d than that of giving to the young child the primary lessons of religion?

There is indeed nothing more honorable, nothing more meritorious, nothing which conducts to higher perfection, than to instruct children in their religious duties. This instruction of children is a royal, apostolic, angelic, and divine function. _Royal_, because the office of a king is to protect his people from danger. _Apostolic_, because our Lord commissioned apostles to instruct the nations, and, as St. Jerome says, thus made them the saviours of men. _Angelic_, because the angelical spirits in heaven enlighten, purify, and perfect each other according to their spheres, and their earthly mission is to labor without ceasing for the salvation of man. St. Peter Chrysologus calls those who instruct others in the way of salvation, "the subst.i.tutes of angels." Indeed this mission of mothers is divine; they are called to carry on the very work of G.o.d Himself. Everything that Almighty G.o.d has done from the creation of the world, and which He will continue to do to the end, has been, and will be, for the salvation of mankind. For this He sent His Son from heaven, who enlightened the world by His doctrine, and who still continues to instruct His people by His chosen disciples.

Those mothers, then, who direct their children in the paths to heaven, who allure them from vice, who form them to virtue, may fitly be termed apostles, angels, and saviours. Oh! what glory awaits those mothers who perform the office of angels, and even of G.o.d Himself, in laboring for the salvation of the souls of their children. If this employment is honorable for mothers, it is also not less meritorious for them. What is the religious instruction of children, but conferring on a cla.s.s of our race, the weakest and most helpless, with inconceivable labor and fatigue, the greatest of all blessings? For while the physical development of the child advances with age, it is not so with the mental; for religious instruction only can develop the n.o.ble faculties of the soul. The soul of a child, so to speak, would continue to live enshrouded in Pagan darkness, if the mother did not impart and infuse the light of truth. All the gold in the world is but dross in comparison with true religious knowledge.

Our Saviour says: "Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones, even a cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward."--(Matt. x.

42.) May we not infer that those mothers who bestow upon children the treasures of divine knowledge will receive an exceedingly great reward?

If G.o.d denounces so severely those who scandalize little children: "But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matt. xviii. 6), what recompense will mothers not receive who instruct and sanctify them?

Mothers who give their efforts and means to this object, choose the surest way to appease the anger of G.o.d, and to insure their own salvation. They choose the best means of attaining a high degree of perfection. Almighty G.o.d gives to each one the graces proper to his vocation. Mothers, therefore, who are devoted to the religious instruction of their children, must rest a.s.sured that G.o.d will give them extraordinary graces to arrive at perfection. "Whoever," says our Lord, "shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me."--(Matt.

xviii. 5.) Whosoever, then, believes that our Saviour will not allow Himself to be surpa.s.sed in liberality, must also believe that He will bestow His choicest blessings on those mothers who instruct their children in the knowledge of G.o.d and the love of virtue.

What obligations have not the "angels" of children "who always see the face of the Father who is in heaven" (Matt. xviii. 10), to pray for these mothers--their dear colleagues and charitable subst.i.tutes, who perform their office and hold their place on earth. The children will pray for their mothers, and G.o.d can refuse nothing to the prayers of children, and their supplications will ascend with the prayers of the angels.

Do you desire, O Christian mother, to be saved? Do you wish to acquire great treasures in heaven, and to attain great perfection in this life?--Employ yourself diligently in the religious instruction of your children. Do you wish to gain the love of our Lord, and to deserve His protection?--Teach your children to fear and love G.o.d; you cannot do anything more pleasing to His Divine Heart.

It is related in the Gospel that mothers brought to Him little children, that He might touch them. And the disciples rebuked them that brought them. And when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said to them: "Suffer little children to come to me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of G.o.d; and embracing them, and laying His hands on them, He blessed them." If Jesus was displeased with those who prevented little children from coming to Him, what love and tenderness will He not have for those mothers by whose means they come to Him?

Oh! how consoled will they not be in their last hour, when they shall see the souls of those whom they prepared for heaven, accompanied by their good angels, surrounding their bed of death, forming, as it were, a guard to protect them from the snares and a.s.saults of the enemy!

This is a happiness which those mothers may confidently expect who labor a.s.siduously to give their children a good religious education. Ah! would to G.o.d, I say once more, that mothers would understand their sublime mission on earth!

But it is just here that the difficulty lies: how can a mother give the child these early lessons of piety and devotion, if she has never learned them herself? How can she train it to raise its young heart to that Heavenly Father, and ask Him for His continued mercy and blessings, of whose name or law she has never been informed or instructed in the Public Schools? How can she impart to her child that knowledge which she herself has never learned in the Public Schools, and which she has always been taught to look upon as unnecessary? Can she teach the child to love G.o.d and keep His commandments, to hate sin, and avoid it for the love of G.o.d?--To love, honor, and obey its parents, not from natural motives alone, but because, in so doing, it would love, honor, and obey G.o.d in the person of its father and mother, and have thus not only a great reward, and length of days here below, but also the joys of heaven above? This lesson the poor mother was never taught in the Public Schools. How can she teach her sweet child that it has an immortal soul, that G.o.d sees even the inmost thoughts of the soul, that it is this soul that sins by consenting to the evil inclinations of the heart; that when the child is tempted to pride, gluttony, anger, disobedience, theft, lies, or any manner of uncleanness, even in thought as well as deed, that it must call on G.o.d and its good guardian angel to come to its a.s.sistance, and keep its soul from consenting, and its body from doing, any of those things that might offend its good G.o.d? All this the poor mother has not been taught in the Public Schools. The State claims the right to educate her, and it did not regard this kind of knowledge necessary, else it would have provided it.

Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be the women of to-morrow.

The most majestic kingdom for woman to reign in is home. A woman nowhere looks more lovely, more truly great, more fascinating, and more really beautiful and useful, than when in her own house, surrounded by her children, giving them what instruction she is capable of, or devising some plan of intellectual entertainment. Depend on it that this is the grandest position in this world for a woman, and this home-audience is nearer and sweeter to the affectionate heart of a mother whose brain is properly developed, than all the applause and flatteries that the outer world can bestow. It is not in the court-room, the pulpit, and rostrum, but it is among the household congregation that woman's influence can achieve so much, and reign paramount. This, however, is not easily understood and practised by women who have been educated without religion. And it is for this reason that such women cannot make faithful wives and tender mothers.

Young ladies whose education has been devoid of moral and religious instruction, whose imagination, always over-ardent and vivacious, has been still more stimulated by a cla.s.s of exercises, public examinations, and studies better calculated to give them an unreal than a sober view of life, are not prepared to fulfil their divine mission on earth. An ill.u.s.tration of this truth is the fact that quite recently over six hundred personal applications--mostly made by girls of from fifteen to twenty--were made in one day at the Grand Opera House in New York to fill places in the ballet and Oriental marches of the spectacle of Lalla Rookh. a.s.suredly this fact is evidence that the women in New York, like so many women in all quarters of the land, are unwilling to do the work which properly belongs to them to do, and prefer any shift, even the degrading one mentioned above, to honest household labor. There are thousands of ladies to whom the following description, written by a lady herself, may well be applied:

"How is it that there is not more nature in the present age, and less sophistication in society, and that mothers do not teach their daughters to fit themselves for wives and mothers? For they all seem to be setting traps to get husbands. Why, the young ladies of the present day are quite ashamed should they be ignorant of the name of the last new opera and its composer, but would feel quite indignant if they were asked whether they knew how to make good soup, or broil a beefsteak, or mend stockings.

"Above all, you can notice in the young ladies of the present day a madness beyond description for dress, for b.a.l.l.s, theatres, watering-places, and all kinds of worldly amus.e.m.e.nts; you can see in them the greatest desire to appear ladies. They go and spend the whole day at the perfumer's, where they purchase their complexion; at the goldsmith's and the milliner's, where they get their figures. A few days ago, the father of one of these ladies had to pay a bill of forty-nine hundred dollars at the milliner's, for his daughter. The chief mental agony of the ma.s.ses of the young women of the present day seems to be, who shall have the largest possible waterfall, the smallest bonnet, and make themselves the greatest fright. They do nothing from morning till night but read novels, and look at their white hands, or the pa.s.sers-by in the street. They all seem to be senseless creatures, for their capacious brain soars no higher than dress, fashion, pleasure, comfort of life. Were it not for their vain daughters, hundreds of parents at this moment would have a happier countenance, and not that careworn, wretched look that we so frequently see when honest people get in debt, incurred by living beyond their _means_. Were it not for the extravagancy of young women, young men would not be afraid to marry, consequently would not be led into the temptations that they are in the single state, for marriage is one sure step towards morality, and consequently tends to the decrease of crime.

"Very many young ladies act as catch-traps, with their painted faces and affected sweetness, to lure young men into the swamps of iniquity.

"I frequently read comments about servants not knowing and performing their proper duties; in fact, of their incompetency to fill the office they apply for: _and it is true_.

"In Boston, a short time ago, one hundred and eighty unfortunate girls were arrested in _one night_; and I doubt not that the greater portion of them could have _once_ been respectable servants, but considered the office and _name too low_! Men think it no disgrace to become carpenters and masons, and it is certainly as respectable to clean a house, and keep it in order, as it is to build it. And what kind of a name have these girls now? What future have these women to look forward to?