The books and tasks of these smallest of scholars,
were adapted, in the same judicious manner, to their childish
powers. When we had examined these lessons, four morsels of girls
(of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about the merry month
of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would have suited
an English November better. That done, we went to see their
sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the arrangements were
no less excellent and gentle than those we had seen below. And
after observing that the teachers were of a class and character
well suited to the spirit of the place, I took leave of the infants
with a lighter heart than ever I have taken leave of pauper infants
yet.
Connected with the House of Industry, there is also an Hospital,
which was in the best order, and had, I am glad to say, many beds
unoccupied. It had one fault, however, which is common to all
American interiors: the presence of the eternal, accursed,
suffocating, red-hot demon of a stove, whose breath would blight
the purest air under Heaven.
There are two establishments for boys in this same neighbourhood.
One is called the Boylston school, and is an asylum for neglected
and indigent boys who have committed no crime, but who in the
ordinary course of things would very soon be purged of that
distinction if they were not taken from the hungry streets and sent
here.
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