Page:The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (IA b21971961 0001).pdf/17



HE interests of the poorer classes of society are so interwoven with those of every part of the community, that there is no subject more deserving of general attention, nor any knowledge more entitled to the exalted name of science, than that in which their well-being is concerned;—than that, the tendency of which is to carry domestic comfort into the recesses of every cottage, and to add to the virtue and morality of a nation, by increasing its happiness. The noblest and most elevated employments of the human mind lose their importance, when placed in competition with researches, on which the welfare and good conduct of millions may depend; and the result whereof may add as much to national prosperity as to individual benefit.