454 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. ' 



testimony, — the testimony of persons of whom 

 society had purged itself, bo it remembered, — 

 and gave it full credence against the Trustees and 

 Superintendent of the Institution ! The crimes 

 of these boys — rather men ? — have been related 

 in the defence. 



Now, let us see who these Trustees and Super- 

 intendent are, whose reputation is left at the mer- 

 cy of six criminals, and without an opportunity 

 either to examine or rebut their testimony ! 



Parley Hammond, of Worcester, is the se- 

 nior member on the Board. He has long been 

 the cashier of a bank, is the Treasurer of the In- 

 stitution, both on the part of the Government 

 and the Board, and sustains a high reputation 

 wherever he is known. 



Simon Brown, of Concord. 



Thomas A. Greene, of New Bedford, long a 

 successful and distinguished Teacher, a worthy 

 member of the Society of Friends, a gentleman 

 of intelligence and practical wisdom, whose name 

 is synonymous Milh benevolence and love, and 

 who has been on the Board of Trustees from the 

 foundation of the Institution. 



JosiAH H. Temple, of Framingham, a Clergy- 

 man, in good standing, and a thorough scholar. 



Henry W. Cushman, of Bernardston, a Farm- 

 er, the President of a Bank, and who is doing 

 more than most men in the State to educate its 

 youth. His reputation needs no exposition from 

 my pen. 



JuDSON S. Brown, of Fitchburg, a Manufac- 

 turer, a sincere and earnest Reformer, — willing 

 to devote his time and talents to the cause of hu- 

 manity, — an upright Christian gentleman. 



Theodore Lyman, of Brookline, a son of the 

 Founder of the Institution, who, with his ample 

 fortune, is devoting his time, and his rare powers 

 of mind, to works of benevolence, and the diffu- 

 sion of useful knowledge among men. 



Five of these persons have been members of 

 the popular branch of the Government, and two 

 of them have been elected by the free suffrages 

 of the people as Lieutenant-Governors, and had 

 an honorable seat in the Council Chamber. 



Having enjoyed these privileges, it will be pre- 

 sumed hy the good people of the Commonwealth, 

 that they ought to know something of the usages 

 of the Council. They do know, that the follow- 

 ing were, if they are not novi-, rules of that dig- 

 nified body : 



1. That when a man is accused, their knowl- 

 edge of the accusation should be held sacred 

 and inviolate until he could be heard in his own 

 defence, and that any infraction of this rule 

 was a gross breach of privilege. 



2. That not only ]irivato "l°r,kasos" v,-ere repre- 

 hensible, retailed in a sm;;ll wav, but that all 



information imparted to publishers, whereby a 

 partial and imperfect knowledge of the transac- 

 tions of the Chamber should be made public, was 

 a gross violation of justice and decency, as well 

 as a violation of privilege. 



3. That all memorials, petitions, and papers of 

 every description, that related to public affairs, 

 and that were respectful in their terms, should 

 receive the careful and impartial consideration 

 of the Chamber. 



I will not enlarge upon this point, but leave it 

 to you to say, whether you have not seen para- 

 graphs in the public prints, relating to public af- 

 fairs, pregnant with "mischief a-foot," when noth- 

 ing had appeared as official from the Council 

 Chamber. A proper sense of justice, nay, of com- 

 mon fairness, ought to have impelled the Council 

 to present their charges to the Trustees, in the 

 first place, and to have allowed their explanations 

 and extenuating circumstances, if there were any, 

 to have had their proper weight. If, then, the 

 Trustees had continued their alleged "cruel and 

 barbarous" Duke of Alvaisms* upon the boj's, 

 they should have removed the whole Board, and 

 then, — and not until then. — ^justified their acts by 

 a publication of the facts in the case. The pub- 

 lic had no right to these facts before, and if this 

 publicity was made through ignorance, it was a 

 '■^blunder," which has been said to be "worse" in 

 a high public functionary, "than a crime," for the 

 Council "were bound to know what they ought 

 to know." It was ten times a blunder, on the eve 

 of one of the most important elections we have 

 ever had ! Can this furnish the reason why, af- 

 ter the report had been "unanimously accepted," 

 no action Avas taken to remove these guilty offi- 

 cers, and that the Institution was suffered to pro- 

 ceed under the alleged horrible "cruelties" prac- 

 ticed in it ? Does not this furnish the highest 

 evidence that the authors of this report had no 

 confidence in it themselves"} 



The Institution is a noble one, and is doing a 

 noble work, — more, by far, than its most sanguine 

 friends ever expected of it. But it has its imper- 

 fections, and these are organic, not administra- 

 tive, and they have been repeatedly pointed out 

 to the Legislature in the annual reports of the 

 Trustees. It is governed in the principles of pa- 

 rental love, of kindness and personal attention 

 to ifs inmates. It is governed by a rigid SYSTEM, 

 but a humane one. There is no looseness or 

 guess-work about it, and harmony of feeling and 

 action abound within its walls, — but, in the lan- 

 guage of its munificent Founder, "the institution 



* The Duke op Alta was a General of Philip II., of Spain, 

 and his historian says of him : "The world has agreed that such 

 an amount cf stealth and ferocity, of patient vindictivenessand 

 uriTt'r-:al hlondfhii'Ftinojs, wore never ffmn(! in a saraee beast 

 'if iho Inresr. ai.J Imt rarely in a liuraau bosom." — See I\Mleiff 



