ent here; and there is good reason to fear that
the relation of mistress and servant among us is in some degree
destitute of those moral qualities that make the house a home for all
who dwell beneath its roof. But, whether this fear be the voice of truth
or the suggestion of prejudice, that woman shall not be held blameless,
who, under the influence of indolence, pride, fashion, or avarice, shall
neglect, abuse, or oppress, the humblest of her sex who goes forth from
these walls into the broad and dangerous path of life. But this day
shall not leave the impression that they who are most interested in the
elevation and refinement of female character are indifferent to the
means employed, and the results which are to wait on them.

The greatest delineator of human character in this age says, as the
images of neglected children pass before his vision:

"There is not one of them--not one--but sows a harvest mankind _must_
reap. From every seed of evil in this boy a field of ruin is grown that
shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again in many places in
the world, until regions are over-spread with wickedness enough to raise
the waters of another deluge. Open and unpunished murder in a city's
streets would be less guilty in its daily toleration than one such
spectacle as this. There is not a father, by whose side, in his daily or
nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all the
ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the
state of childhood, but shall be responsible, in his or her degree, for
this enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth on which it
would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would
not deny; there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame."

This institution, then, in the true relation of things, is not the glory
of the state, but its shame. It speaks of families, of schools, of the
church, of the state, not yet educated to the discharge of their
respective duties in the right way. But it is the glory of the state as
a visible effort to correct evils, atone for neglects, and compensate
for wrongs. It comes to do, in part at least, what the family, the
school, the press, the library, the Sabbath, have nest yet perfectly
accomplished. As these agencies partially failed, so will this; but, as
the law of progress exists for all, because perfection with us is
unattainable, we may reasonably have faith in human