To blame others for what
we suffer, is always more agreeable to our self-pride, than to blame
ourselves. But it is perfectly clear that people who live from day to
day without plan, without rule, without forethought--who spend all their
earnings, without saving anything for the future--are preparing
beforehand for inevitable distress. To provide only for the present, is
the sure means to sacrificing the future. What hope can there be for a
people whose only maxim seems to be, "Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die"?
All this may seem very hopeless; yet it is not entirely so. The large
earnings of the working classes is an important point to start with. The
gradual diffusion of education will help them to use, and not abuse,
their means of comfortable living. The more extended knowledge of the
uses of economy, frugality, and thrift, will help them to spend their
lives more soberly, virtuously, and religiously. Mr. Denison was of
opinion that much of this might be accomplished "within two
generations." Social improvement is always very slow. How extremely
tardy has been the progress of civilization! How gradually have its
humanizing influences operated in elevating the mass of the people! It
requires the lapse of generations before its effects can be so much as
discerned: for a generation is but as a day in the history of
civilization.
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