By
the third year it will be known whether his earnings will more than
pay the actual cost of his board; if they should, he will have it
at his option to remain and receive his earnings, or not. Those
who prove unable to earn their own livelihood will not be retained;
as it is not desirable to convert the establishment into an alms-
house, or to retain any but working bees in the hive. Those who by
physical or mental imbecility are disqualified from work, are
thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious
community; and they can be better provided for in establishments
fitted for the infirm.'
I went to see this place one very fine winter morning: an Italian
sky above, and the air so clear and bright on every side, that even
my eyes, which are none of the best, could follow the minute lines
and scraps of tracery in distant buildings. Like most other public
institutions in America, of the same class, it stands a mile or two
without the town, in a cheerful healthy spot; and is an airy,
spacious, handsome edifice. It is built upon a height, commanding
the harbour. When I paused for a moment at the door, and marked
how fresh and free the whole scene was - what sparkling bubbles
glanced upon the waves, and welled up every moment to the surface,
as though the world below, like that above, were radiant with the
bright day, and gushing over in its fulness of light: when I gazed
from sail to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining
white, the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue - and,
turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that
way, as though he too had some sense within him of the glorious
distance: I felt a kind of sorrow that the place should be so very
light, and a strange wish that for his sake it were darker.
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