Life of Count Rumford, , 189 



It will be understood that while actual beggars were 

 thus provided for in the House of Industry, the zeal of 

 their benefactor took in also all the indigent in Munich, 

 who, though they had never begged, needed aid, food, 

 and care. Measures were instituted which wisely and 

 effectively ministered to them. Thompson expresses 

 his warm thanks to the clergy who had so heartily 

 co-operated with him, though a Protestant, in all his 

 measures of reform and benevolence. Of course, efforts 

 were made by him, and plans were matured, for securing 

 that what- he had been doing for Munich should serve 

 as an impulse and a guide for like measures and institu- 

 tions over the whole country. He himself made many 

 excursions and journeys with these objects in view; and 

 in all his travels, wherever his route took him, he inter- 

 ested himself in introducing social, economical, and me- 

 chanical improvements. 



Having met with such marked success in the hard and 

 exacting work of practical reform, Thompson felt him- 

 self warranted in devoting his next Essay to dealing 

 with the " Fundamental Principles on which General 

 Establishments for the Relief of the Poor may be 

 formed in all Countries." There is an admirable me- 

 dium kept in th ; s Essay between the sentimental vein, 

 which engages the feelings, and the strain of experi- 

 mental wisdom, which would guide the judgment to 

 directly beneficent results. The suggestions which it 

 presents, and the methods and rules which it proposes, 

 might be adopted this year, after all the gatherings of 

 experience, as promising a satisfactory solution if 

 such is possible to the problem offered to the civi- 

 lized v/orld in pauperism. 



The author engages with that sad and hopeless kind 



