Extract from Address of Mr. Angell to the 

 Annual Meeting of "The American Social 

 Science Association," in New York City, 

 May 21, 1874. 



EASY TO INTEREST CHILDREN. 



" It is very easy to enlist the sympathies of children in the 

 animal world. Take, for instance, the history and habits 

 of birds : show how wonderfully they are created ; how kind 

 to their young; how useful to agriculture; what power 

 they have in flight. The swallow that flies sixty miles an 

 hour, or the frigate bird which, in the words of Audubon, 

 * flies with the velocity of a meteor,' and, according to Mi- 

 chelet, can float at an elevation of ten thousand feet, and 

 cross the tropical Atlantic Ocean in a single night ; or those 

 birds of beauty and of song, the oriole, the linnet, the lark, 

 and, sweetest of all, the nightingale, whose voice caused 

 one of old to exclaim, 'Lord, what music hast thou pro- 

 vided for saints in heaven, when thou hast afforded such 

 music for men on earth ? ' 



'• Or, take that wonderful beast of the desert, the camel, 

 which, nourished by its own humps of fat, and carrying its 

 own reservoirs of water, pursues it toilsome way across 

 pathless deserts for the comfort and convenience of man. 



^^ Is it not easy to carry up the minds and hearts of chil- 

 dren by thoughts like, these from the creature to the infi- 

 nitely wise, good, and powerful Creator ? 



" I believe there is a great defect in our systems of edu- 

 cation. I believe that in our public schools it is quite as 

 possible to develop the heart as the intellect, and that when 

 this is required and done, we shall not only have higher 

 protection for dumb creatures, and so increased length of 

 human life, but also human life better developed and better 

 worth living. I believe that the future student of Ameri- 

 can history will v/onder, that in the public schools of a free 

 government whose very existence depended upon public 

 integrity and morals, so much attention should have beeyt 

 paid to the cultivation of the intellect, and so little to the 

 cultivation of the heart J^ 



