Page:Carl Schurz, Education of Orphan Children.pdf/2

 tween parent and child. In this respect the relation between teacher and pupil, be it ever so sympathetic, is not sufficient, for there is only one teacher to a great many pupils, and the sympathy of the teacher is, therefore, necessarily too much divided and dispersed.

“But here are many families, hundreds of generous and warm-hearted men and women, who have already by their magnanimous contributions shown how sincerely their hearts are in this noble work, and who are always ready to do still more. No appeal to them has ever failed to call forth a response. Now, each one of the lady patrons of this institution might constitute herself the individual patroness of some one child, to be selected by her among the many in the asylum; or, in order to avoid a perhaps not unnatural but unwholesome partiality for the prettiest and brightest, to be assigned to her by lot or otherwise; and, surely, patronizing the least attractive would be the most humane and meritorious work of charity. And if she then would devote to that one child her special interest, visit it sometimes, permit it to speak and to write to her, invite its little confidences, advise and encourage it, win and requite its affection, making it feel that somebody outside cares for it especially, that somebody will be proud of its good conduct, and that it can go to somebody with its cares and troubles and wishes and hopes—would not new rays of sunshine lighten up that orphan's existence? Would not that child presently cease to feel itself a stranger in the world, and would it not be animated with new and hopeful ambitions? I have no doubt such relations exist already, and probably many of them. But when they become the general rule you will find in them a source of beneficence and satisfaction greater than can be purchased with any mere outlay of money, be it ever so lavish.

“There is one general principle which I am confident, as practical men, you will always instinctively keep in mind. It is that, as an able writer on this subject expressed it, “the further the life of these young people differs from that of the work-a-day world, the more difficult will they find it to accommodate themselves to its demands when they go forth into it to earn their living”; and, I may add, on the other hand, the more the arrangement of the subjects and methods of instruction, as well as the discipline of daily life in an institution like this, puts the orphans upon the same level and gives them the same opportunities and inspires them with the same feelings as other children, the better equipped and the more courageous and self-reliant will it send them forth to meet the competition with the rest of mankind.

“But this is a large subject upon which much more might be said could I permit myself to go into detail. I can now only express the confident hope that this grand structure which you are dedicating to the noblest and most useful of charities will forever remain consecrated to high purposes; that it will be to the orphan children who are to inhabit it an abode of happiness and useful preparation to which they will look back all through their lives with affection and gratitude; that to those whose generosity built it up it will ever be an object of love and a source of satisfaction; and that the community which it adorns will always proudly point it out as one of the finest monuments of that to which this republic owes the best part of its greatness—the generous and enlightened public spirit of its good citizens.”