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242 SEI/F REFORM, OR INDIVIDUAL EFFORT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
_ ~-* - Eje~ Happ Time Iness Was Or When...
but we are not told that therefore ignorance is preferable to knowledon the contrary it is so written to induce us to get beyond the
ge , puffing * point . Were our poorer neighbours to have healthier dwellings built for them , and could they be induced to make
exertions to surround themselves with the physical comforts and proprieties that aid in keeping up purity of manners , their self-respect
without doubt would increase , and even in gaining this one point , we should have attained muchand go on with increased hope .
, In all matters of social reform , until bur theories can be reduced to practice , they help us but little ; nevertheless we must first have
the thinker to put the machinery in motion , or at least to tell us how it is to be doneotherwise our wheels and engines will be but
as dead giants or paral , ysed monsters . As in the physical , so in the moral and mental world ; we have
powers lying dormant that we know not how to use until some master irit breaks the spell and sets them free for action , and at
times emergencies sp arise which call into activity faculties undreamt of by their owners .
* The present time may be one of those epochs ; we may be even now standing in the grey dawn of a new era watching with anxious
eyes the streaks of light , as slowly they gild the horizon . But we need not wait for the sun to begin our respective tasks . We had
better find out what they are , and at once fall to work . It is admitted that to aid in reforming the habits and raising the
intelligence of those who require such training , is a work of national importancea work in which all may take a partas no human
being is so , isolated or stands so apart from the race , as to render his services of no avail ; hence we would impress on every one , women
taneous especiall , y then , the , with imperativeness the building of individual of better houses responsibility for the . laboring Simul- 1
classes , there ought to be a movement for the trainingof their occupants to better habits of order and cleanliness , and whoas we
, have said , are so well fitted for this department of social duty as the ied women of the middle class ? A duty and a task full of
difficulty unoccup , neither easy nor pleasant , for the real world must be looked in the face , and the rose-colored veil through which so many of the
luxuriously opulent alone view it , must be sternly cast aside , and the bare truth of the life of the poor be made to stand out before them ;
not , however , to remain in its harsh and cold aspect , but to be reclothed with a new and more veritable beauty , born of pureness of
life , and radiant with the light that cometh from above .
A . ft . L .
242 Sei/F Reform, Or Individual Effort.
242 SEI _/ F REFORM , OR INDIVIDUAL EFFORT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1858, page 242, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121858/page/26/
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