1864.] 321 fPriee. 



they are bound apprentices in families, wbile other benevolent insti- 

 tutions and individuals are busy in promoting a juvenile emigration 

 to the West, of exposed and destitute children, there to be absorbed 

 healthfully and usefully into the respectable population of that teem- 

 ing region. The right of parental control is a natural one, but is 

 forfeitable when parents are derelict in duty to their children and the 

 community, and may be superseded by the jJarenspatr ice. (4 Whar. 

 Rep. 11.) It is under this principle, sanctioned by the Supreme 

 Court of the State of Pennsylvania, that vicious youth are placed in 

 the House of Refuge, to be removed from temptation, and put under 

 training and apprenticeship, to fit them for usefulness in society. 



Parents should consider that they cannot think too highly of their 

 privileges and responsibilities in respect to the public provisions made 

 for the education of their children. None can say that within their 

 own little family may not be cast those minds who are to be the bene- 

 factors of mankind and the light of the world, and that as well in the 

 families of the poor as of the rich. " God is no respecter of persons." 

 Great, then, is the privilege available to all, to have the provided 

 means of developing the intellect that may afterwards self-achieve an 

 endless good and undying renown. No parents, poor or rich, can say 

 that there shall not be found among their little ones a future Augus- 

 tine or Fenelon, a Galileo or Newton, a Luther or Latimer, a Franklin 

 or Washington. 



The law has long entertained the highest regard for the marriage 

 relation, and the welfare of the family. Its policy, derived from the 

 Roman civil law, is to encourage marriages, and the rearing of chil- 

 dren, that they may become a strength to the state. As a general 

 rule, the law in the disposition of property, permits of no legal re- 

 straint upon marriages, except during minority, and that only for the 

 advantage of the inexperienced and the immature in judgment. 

 Conditions annexed to legacies against marriage, are simply void, 

 and the legacies absolute. The law's policy regards with disfavor the 

 interference of any mercenary agency, and declares void all contracts 

 of marriage brokage. Its policy seeks that all influences shall be pure 

 that are to lead to a consummation so holy as marriage; one that so 

 much concerns the public welfare and private happiness. The law 

 desires that mutual affection, alone, should be its attraction; and then 

 there is a natural guarantee for the mutual happiness of the parents, 

 and a faithful nurture and education of the children of the Republic. 

 In this, as in all questions of wise public policy and pure morals, the 



VOL. IX. — 2r 



