OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. /].! 



had seen them bury him. Told m Victor Hugo's vigorous 

 poetry the story is exqusite. However strong his mind, how- 

 ever dreadful his books (and dreadful in most cases, because they 

 are only too true,) the children have lost a friend in Victor 

 Hugo. 



If Science could be made to bear upon this point it would 

 be worthy of the human race; I speak not of it here as a religi- 

 ous movement, I speak of it as a matter of common sense and 

 education. If children were taught the science of bringing up 

 their own race, educating their own species and caring 

 for them, the little ones would suffer less than they do. To 

 make children keep still is cruel. They are naturally restless. To 

 make them work in factories and other dull places is more 

 than cruel. On this point the children have had another friend, 

 our own Mrs. Browning; who can forget her words ? 



" Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 



Ere the sorrow comes with years. 

 They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, 



y\nd that cannot stop their tears." 

 The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 



The young birds are chirping in the nest ; 

 , The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 



The young flowers are blooming towards the West. 

 But the young, young children, O my brothers, 



They are weeping bitterly; 

 They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 



In the country of the free. 



In connection with this it may be well to note here the 

 exertions made by that noble Earl, so lately gone to his rest, 

 Lord Shaftsbury. He saw what has in it the elements of pure 

 science, that to prevent crime human beings must be rescued 

 from their surroundings when children, and therefore he estab- 

 lished his homes (some of which are in this country) for educa- 

 ting, refining and improving boys, who would be otherwise 

 - tossed upon the seething mass of crimnal life in the great cities. 

 Nov/ let Governments take that enlightened view; let men who 

 are cultivating good breeds of horses, cattle and dogs take that 

 view of it; let them cultivate the human race, and in a few gen- 

 erations crime will be greatly diminished and the race itself im- 

 proved on the principle that the man of science, Herbert Spencer, 

 advocates, and which the poet Wordsworth has expressed in 

 one sentence, " The child is father of the man." 



