362 MORALS OF THE DIFFERENT PROFESSIONS. [Part V.

children between the ages of four and sixteen, who do not attendthe common schools any portion of the year, and that from thisnumber but a very slight deduction is to be made for those whoattend private schools. They are sensible, too, that no wisdomof the legislature can remove the natural causes of prospectiveevil on which they dwell; — the most they expect, is, that theymay, in some degree, counteract them and diminish their effects.That may often be counteracted, in a measure, which cannot beentirely remedied. In view of these considerations, they earn-estly recommend to the legislature to use all the means knownto, and consistent with, our institutions, to secure universal edu-cation throughout the commonwealth.

These observations and arguments of the very respectablecommittee of the Massachusetts Legislature have been thusabridged and presented by me in a summary way, not certainlyin a spirit of hostility to manufacturing establishments, but to callthe attention of their proprietors and all others to the dangersimpending, and to urge them to counteract, as far as they can,the deteriorating influences which these establishments must,from their nature, in some degree, exert on those who are em-ployed in them. For the sake of distinctness, it may be well toenumerate the principal evils, which have sprung from manufac-turing establishments in England, and which are beginning to befelt in this country, with the remedies on which we can placemost reliance, and to accompany both with very brief illustrations.

1. Manufacturing establishments are unfavorable to health andlength of life. This is to be ascribed to the severity of the con-finement of the inmates, to the impure atmosphere which theybreathe, to their want of opportunities for exercise, and, aboveall, to their being kept from the enjoyment and the invigoratinginfluences of the open air. 2. Their tendency is, to make therich richer, and the poor poorer. A manufacturing populationis divided into capitalists and laborers, owners and operatives, —the former class generally small in number, and wealthy ; thelatter numerous, poor, and depressed. The laborers receivelittle, if any thing, more than a scanty subsistence, while it is inthe nature of capital to augment itself. 3. They are highlyunfavorable to intellectual, moral, and social improvement. The