Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/431

Rh The following day, in company with Mrs. G., I visited the institution for poor or orphan children, on Randall's Island, a salubrious and excellent locale for the purpose. Here were large houses for the children, and a large hospital for the sick among them, and all was in the highest degree orderly, neat, and in good condition as regarded outward management; not so with regard to the inward. Among these ten or twelve hundred children, there lacked mothers or motherly women. The children were well kept, but like machines in a manufactory. They produced on my mind a sorrowful impression, although their spirit of life was not destroyed; they could be unruly enough sometimes. The superintendent, whom I saw sitting among brightly-scoured copper kettles, produced upon me herself, the effect of a copper vessel, so hard and dismal did she look, not in the least like Miss Foster. And a Miss Foster, and many such as her, are so necessary for the mother warders and educators of such poor children as these! Here, it is true, there is one warm-hearted and benevolent woman; but age and increasing ill-health have disabled her for activity. The copper-madam was also old and dried-up enough to have taken her leave, but she was retained, it was said, for “considerations' sake.”

But a still sadder impression was produced upon me by the hospital for sick children, well kept and well managed as it seemed to be, with regard to cleanliness and general convenience. A number of children, for instance, who are here for diseases of the eyes, were sitting in formal circles on the floor without having anything to do, or anything to play with. They sat silent and inanimate.

“Have these little ones no playthings?” asked I.

“They had had playthings given them by the ladies, but they only broke them;” was the reply.

“But are they not allowed to employ themselves with anything?”