We are gratified
by observing several external improvements during the past year; such
as a larger and more convenient dining room, a labor saving cooking
apparatus, a purer diet, a more orderly and quiet attendance at the
refections, superior arrangements for industry, and generally an
increased seriousness in respect to the value of the example which
those who are there assembled may constitute to their fellow beings.
Of about seventy persons now assembled there, about thirty are
children, sent thither for education; some adult persons also place
themselves there chiefly for mental assistance; and in the society
there are only four married couples. With such materials it is almost
certain that the sensitive and vital points of communication cannot
well be tested. A joint-stock company, working with some of its own
members and with others as agents, cannot bring to issue the great
question whether the existence of the individual family is compatible
with the universal family, which the term "Community" signifies. This
is now the grand problem. By mothers it has ever been felt to be so.
The maternal instinct, as hitherto educated, has declared itself so
strongly in favor of the separate fireside, that the association, which
appears so beautiful to the young and unattached soul, has yet
accomplished little progress in the affections of that important
section of the human race--the mothers.
Pages:
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384