Public nurseries.

Date:
MDCCCL
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Public nurseries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the day ; but we do say that any scheme tending, or even professing, to unite rich and poor, it a small scheme or a great one, comprehensive or minute, standing alone or one among many, is worthy at least of attention. And we think it will hardly be denied that a collection of the children of the poor in a public and well-conducted place, would affpi'd opportunities for communication with their parents which do not now exist, and that most of the obstacles which at present deter many ladies from intercourse with the poor in great towns, and which are so well known to the dwellers in those places that it would be useless as well as tedious here to detail them, might by the same means be removed. Moreover, though the poor themselves were to support the necessary expenses of the nurseries, much scope may be afforded for liberality in founding or providing additional comforts for them, if that should be considered expedient; to say nothing of the occasion given for the exercise of number- less charitable offices which are not of a pecuniary nature at all. Of course it may be said of any benevolent or useful institution, that it tends to bind society together ; and so it does. The most important of such influences proceed from our ministers of religion, and our schools. We shall probably be thought visionary enthusiasts for naming our humble Nursery in the same breath with such gigantic powers, and claiming for it a relationship with them. Yet what is there which so calls forth the sympathies of our sex as the demands of helpless infancy for assistance ? And what mother’s heart is not won by kindness shown to her child ? If, then, the proposed system be one which would offer the greatest attractions for the rich to assist the poor, and if that assistance would be conveyed through a channel which must reach the hearts of the poor, may we not hope that the effect of it would be, in its own mode and measure more closely to unite the two great orders into which God’s providence has divided the world; to humble the rich, to elevate the poor, and to soften and ameliorate both. THE END.