Chap. VII.]

MANUFACTURING ESTABLISHMENTS.

361

The committee say, that the employments, and consequentlythe condition, of large classes of the population of New England,and especially of Massachusetts, are changed and are rapidlychanging; and that it has become the solemn and indispensableduty of the legislature to provide seasonably and effectually, thatthose institutions, which have given to New England her peculiarcharacter for general intelligence and virtue, be not changed withthe changing employments of her people. They declare, thatthe consequences of this change of employments are not antici-pation and speculation merely , that they are facts of which theyhave been witnesses. After adverting to various well-knownfacts and circumstances, they again say, “ The causes for anxiety,to which we have so briefly alluded, may operate silently and '

unseen; but they will operate eternally as the laws of gravity.

And their influence, both immediate and prospective, must becarefully watched by all who would cherish and secure the purityand permanency of our free institutions.” * They say, too, thatin this case, if we would reason and act with discretion, we mustreason and act upon the contemplation of causes without waitingfor their full effect , because, if the dangers to which their at-tention has been directed, cannot be foreseen and prevented, theyhave no remedy. They allege, that powerful causes are in con-stant operation, within the sphere of large manufacturing estab-lishments, to frustrate and prevent that universal education,which, they say, was provided for by the forecast and beneficenceof the founders of the New England republics, “ on whichalone we can rely for our domestic, social, and moral well-being,which our institutions suppose and require, and which has madethese republics the nurseries of intelligent, enterprising, and patri-, otic citizens for the younger sisters of the Union. ” They argue theinestimable importance of universal education to this country,where, by our laws of universal suffrage, the government is thrown,at short periods, into the hands of the whole mass of the people,without reference to their intelligence or their virtue. They state,that in a manufacturing population of less than twenty thousandwithin the State, there are eighteen hundred and ninety-five

* See Report, p. 11.

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