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Leon Fauchat exclaimed, when told of crimes committed in our country against children,—"Est-il possible que ces choses soient permises par une nation qui a des entrailles!" "Take heed that ye offend not one of these little ones," are words of most solemn import: when women begin to deserve and acquire more weight in the community, the warning contained in them will be better understood. The interests of children will not remain unrepresented any longer than women remain so. I say this with certainty, knowing the nature of woman. It will not be left to an indignant father, or philanthropist, or to an impassioned poetess, at long intervals to translate in the ears of the public the inarticulate cry of the children:
"They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free,
For the man’s grief abhorrent, draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy."
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"They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you of their Angels in their places,
With eyes meant for Deity:
‘How long,’ they say, ‘how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upwards, O our tyrants,
And your purple shows your path;
But the child’s sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath.'"
The ears of my reader would not endure to hear what I could tell, what my eyes have seen, of outraged innocence, of horrors and miseries endured among the children of the poor. I am not unmindful of the benevolent enterprise there is in our country, the orphanages, schools and homes springing up everywhere. God be thanked for these! but they do not yet meet the evil; and we must remember that stone walls do not shut out crime, nor regulations confer blessing; these institu-
minds, and certainly a nicer discernment of his or her character. They are quite as clear in exposition as men are, and, when well trained, quite as capable of making their teaching philosophical. I must confess myself to have been also impressed by the interest which they so often took in their pupils, and their genuine ardour to do their best for them."
