State to do this, than to support reformatory establishments, prisons,
almshouses, and insane-asylums, with their necessary retinues of
officials. Institutions in which these girls were educated might be
made self-supporting, and the course of instruction might include
different kinds of handicraft.

It was poor economy for the State to let that pauper "grow up as best
she could." It would probably have been money in the State's pocket
had it surrounded "Margaret" in her early childhood with the choicest
productions of art, engaged competent teachers to instruct her in the
solid branches, in the accomplishments, in hygiene, in the principles
and practice of integrity, and then have given her particular
instruction in all matters connected with the training of children.
And had she developed a remarkable taste for painting, for modelling,
or for music, the State could better have afforded even sending her to
Italy, than to have taken care of those "two hundred criminals,"
besides "a large number" of "idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, lunatics,
and paupers."




CHAPTER IV.

THE OTHER PART OF "WOMAN'S MISSION."--RUFFLES VERSUS READING.--THE
CULTIVATION OF THE FINGERS.


Let us leave for a while this matter of child-training, and consider
the other part of woman's mission,--namely, "making home happy." It