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truly Christian work as by any gifts for missions in pagan 

 lands. That charity which really begins at home is at once 

 most comprehensive and diffusive. Poor children have often 

 been thus provided that they might attend the Sabbath school, 

 and this effort is worthy of all praise, but even for morality 

 and piety, thirty hours a week in the public school is worth 

 far more than one hour in the Sabbath school. In some towns 

 the Selectmen have met this exigency. While great caution 

 should be used not to encourage indolence and improvidence, 

 there are cases of destitution where town aid may be used as 

 wisely to prevent starving the mind as famishing the body. 



The fact that nearly ninety-five per cent, of our children are 

 reported as in schools of all kinds, shows that the law for the 

 prevention of illiteracy has worked beneficently and opened to 

 hundreds the door of the school house otherwise closed to them 

 forever. The influx of the foreign element suggests the lead- 

 ing cause of absenteeism. Those who need the most watching 

 are of alien parentage, as yet novices in the English language, 

 speaking chiefly a foreign tongue. There is also a large class 

 -of native children, whose parents, being illiterate immigrants, 

 do not yet appreciate the advantages of education. 



But four parents have been prosecuted and fined during the 

 year. Instead of brandishing the penalties of the law, we have 

 kept them in the background, and urged mainly the great 

 advantages of education. These persuasions are, however, 

 sometimes enforced by the delicate hint that we desire to avoid 

 the painful duty of prosecution which must follow any and 

 every case of willful and open defiance of the law. As will be 

 seen by the following report, the prosecution of the employer 

 and three parents in one town, resulted in promptly bringing 

 seventy children to school. 



It was a very gratifying fact that the superintendent of one 

 of the largest factories in the State, after being prosecuted for 

 the employment of children who had not received the required 

 schooling, and being bound over to the Superior Court, should 

 have the manliness to write to the Agent of the Board : " The 

 legal measures you took were right and proper, as you used 

 every other means in your power, and the law as the last 

 resort. From this time, you may be assured, I shall use my 



