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248
ETHEL CHURCHILL.

way; the very stumbles will teach not only caution, but their own strength to recover from them. There is a long path yet before us; but the goal, though distant, is glorious. The time may come, when that intelligence, which is the sunshine of the moral world, will, like the sunshine of the physical world, kindle for all. There will be no tax on the window-lights of the mind. Ignorance, far more than idleness, is the mother of all the vices; and how recent has been the admission, that knowledge should be the portion of all? The destinies of the future lie in judicious education; an education that must be universal, to be beneficial.

The state of the poor in our country is frightful; and ask any one in the habit of coming in contact with the lower classes, to what is this distress mainly attributable? The answer will always be the same—the improvidence of the poor. But, in what has this improvidence originated?—in the neglect of their superiors. The poor have been left in that state of wretched ignorance, which