CORRESP ONDENCE. 



413 



ized " ! On what ground ? Because, he 

 says, " they encourage crime " ! But does 

 the vile man or trail girl, committing evil, 

 pause beforehand to deliberate how the 

 possible fruit of the crime is to be taken 

 care of ? No ! any such consequence is 

 not thought of ; if it were, that would be a 

 restraint upon immoral tendencies. But Mr. 

 Smiley can be shown some " foundling asy- 

 lums " where poor but virtuous women have 

 found homes for their true children, when 

 they have not been able to provide for these, 

 or have been out at labor in families and 

 factories, especially when their husbands 

 have been sick, feeble, or vicious, and there- 

 fore could not provide for their legitimate 

 children. Would Mr. Smiley deny to such 

 women so great a privilege '? 



As to the encouragement of immoral 

 girls, I can point Mr. Smiley to one " found- 

 ling asylum," at least, in Chicago, originated 

 by Dr. George Shipman, a homoeopathic 

 physician, who assured me that only about 

 one in a hundred women, coming with their 

 babes, could be regarded as essentially crim- 

 inal. They were either unfortunate wives 

 or deceived girls, who, having received at the 

 asylum proper instruction, were taken into 

 respectable families as domestics. Rarely 

 did one such fall, especially as the restraint 

 was put upon them tnat a second lapse 

 v7ould forbid their return. Would Mr. Smi- 

 ley disorganize such an institution ? Would 

 he break up Mr. Miiller's great establish- 

 ment in Bristol, or that of Dr. Cullis in Bos- 

 ton, wherein many have been housed, fed, 

 comforted, and rightly trained, fitted for 

 death or for usefulness in life, and from 

 which so many rescued victims of poverty 

 and distress have gone forth into the world 

 to find success and honor ? 



If Mr. Smiley had consulted the records 

 of education societies, he would have found, 

 what any one of its secretaries, I know, 

 would have told him, that scores and even 

 hundreds of thorough female teachers and 

 distinguished pulpit orators have been the 

 happy and successful beneficiaries of such 

 societies. Their statistics plainly show this. 

 The one sporadic case to which he refers is 

 an individual and marked exception to the 

 general rule and does not justify a broad 

 deduction as to the evil of those organiza- 

 tions. " One swallow does not make a sum- 

 mer," neither does one snow-flake make a 

 winter. 



In pressing " egoism " to the exclusion of 

 " altruism," or to its disparagement, Mr. Smi- 

 ley would feed that natural selfishness which 

 is common, more or less, to all men, and 

 which, unrestrained, tends to such extremes 

 as bring vast misery to mankind. He thus 

 antagonizes that law of love which is the 

 rhythmic force in the moral world. A great 

 Teacher said, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 

 as thyself" — no more, no less. He here 

 brings altruism into juxtaposition with ego- 

 ism. They arc counterparts and correlatives, 



each essential to the other. As in the solar 

 system the centripetal and centrifugal forces 

 keep its orbs apart and in space with equi- 

 librium, so these two forces of egoism and 

 altruism balance each other, and promote 

 the harmony of society. As in physical 

 science both the positive and negative poles 

 of the battery are needed for the generation 

 of magnetism or electricity, so these two 

 moral poles must be coincidently present and 

 work together to the production of moral 

 magnetism for human benefit. As in logic, 

 induction and deduction, according to Sir 

 William Hamilton, are not antagonisms, but, 

 if not identical, are certainly counterparts, 

 the one reciprocally leading to and involving 

 the other — so are egoism and altruism ; they 

 are associative and co-operative. Common 

 love binds them together ; common interests, 

 as with all human associations, bring them 

 into unity of thought and action for the 

 greatest mutual good. Once, Wendell Phil- 

 lips, speaking of capital and labor, said, 

 "They are twins — Siamese twins — bound to- 

 gether by a living ligament, to cut which 

 would be to kill both." They are interde- 

 pendent, vitally united. So with egoism and 

 altruism. They need each other for true ex- 

 istence and right action. Egoism alone runs 

 to selfisra ; altruism alone to fanaticism. 

 Together, they are mutually compensative — 

 apart, destructive. Of the two in union, the 

 words of Shakespeare's Portia may be predi- 

 cated : " It blesseth him that gives and him 

 that takes." That union fulfills Christ's 

 words : " Give and it shall be given unto 

 you, good measure, pressed down and shaken 

 together and running over, shall men give 

 into your bosom. For, with the same meas- 

 ure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured 

 to you again." In these words, egoism and 

 altruism are pronounced correlative and 

 compensative. Does not the patriot feel re- 

 warded fully when dying for his country? 

 Does not the martyr, though suffering phys- 

 ically, rejoice thus to maintain truth ? Does 

 not the benefactor, like a Slater or a Hand, 

 giving his millions for the education of an 

 ignorant and despised race, feel assured of 

 due return ? If the arguments of Mr. Smi- 

 ley were carried out practically to their ulti- 

 mate and logical results, then all such pa- 

 triots, martyrs, and benefactors must be 

 relegated to the realms of folly or forget- 

 fulness. Then the egoistic Alexanders and 

 Napoleons must have exaltations above all 

 Howards, Wilbcr forces, Garrisons, and Caro- 

 line Frys. 



May it not be suggested that Mr. Smiley 

 has taken rather a one-sided, prejudiced, and 

 pessimistic view of his subject ? lias he not 

 failed to take note of abundant and palpable 

 facts controverting his positions ? What if 

 the altruism he condemns be banished from 

 society? What then would the world do 

 without the multitude of noble, self-sacrific- 

 ing men and women whose love of humanity 

 has led them into the deep, dark slums of 



