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long as the same should be found favorable to the promotion of these best palladiums of a nation's happiness, a double tax might be at once expedient and politic..

First, a moderate tax per head for every child, to be laid upon its parents conjointly, or divided between them, due attention being always paid to the varying strength of the two sexes, and to the undue depreciation which now rests on female labor. The more effectually to correct the latter injustice, as well as to consult the convenience of the industrious classes generally, this parental tax might be rendered payable either in money, or in labor, produce, or domestic manufactures, and should be continued for each child until the age when juvenile labor should be found, on the average, equivalent to the educational expenses, which,, I have reason to believe, would be at twelve years.

This first tax on parents to embrace equally the whole population; as, however moderate, it would inculcate a certain forethought in all the human family; more especially where it is most wanted-in young persons, who, before they assumed the responsibility of parents, would estimate their fitness to meet it.

The second tax to be on property, increasing in per centage with the wealth of the individual. In this manner I conceive the rich would contribute, according to their riches, to the relief of the poor, and to the support of the state, by raising up its best bulwark-an enlightened and united generation.

Preparatory to, or connected with, such measures, a registry should be opened by the state, with offices through all the townships, where on the birth of every child, or within a certain time appointed, the same should be entered, together with the names of its parents. When two years old, the parental tax should be payable, and the juvenile institution open for the child's reception; from which time forward it would be under the protective care and guardianship of the state, while it need never be removed from the daily, weekly, or frequent inspection of the parents.

Orphans, of course, would find here an open asylum. If possessed of property, a contribution would be paid from its revenue to the common educational fund"; if unprovidêd, they would be sustained out of the same:

In these nurseries of a free nation, no inequality must be allowed to enter. Fed at a common board; clothed in a common garb, uniting neatness with simplicity and convenience; raised in the exercise of common duties, in the acquirement of the

game knowledge and practice of the same industry, varied only according to individual taste and capabilities; in the exercise of the same virtues, in the enjoyment of the same pleasures; in the study of the same nature; in pursuit of the same object-their own and each other's happiness-say! would not such a race, when arrived at manhood and womanhood, work out the reform of society-perfect the free institutions of America?

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TO THE CONDUCTORS OF THE NEW-YORK PERIODICAL

PRESS.

DURING the last three or four weeks, many of you have seen fit to attack myself and my colleagues in terms which I should be sorry either to remember or repeat. I deem it proper, in my turn, to address a few words to you.

The signs of the times are those of much excitement and great enquiry, and they have elicited from you many expressions of alarm. You have prophesied of anarchy and misrule; you have spoken to the fears of the rich and of the timid; painting to the one the violent downfall of a monied aristocracy, and to the other the repetition of scenes similar to those that were once acted by the misguided revolutionists of France. You have spoken to the bigotry of the sectarian by foretelling the decay of religion, and to the apprehensions of the good man by talking of the breaking up of social order and the decline of morality.

I have nothing to do with your motives in sounding this tocsin of alarm. If I cannot believe them honest, I have yet no right to condemn them without full proof. I speak of your conduct, only with reference to its consequences.

There is just cause for alarm; not from the people, if they are left to listen to the dictates of their own unheated judgments, and quietly permitted to gain wisdom by experience; for a people-a republican people especially-when they act as a body and are not spurred on by abuse and oppression, seldom persist in violence or injustice, whatever kings and tories may say to the contrary: not, as you idly pretend, from those who never strain their imaginations after other worlds; for it is more especially their interest to preserve the tranquility and secure the peaceful well being of this. But there is just cause for alarm-in the consequences of your own conduct.

The people have begun to speak and to act for themselves. They are but little accustomed to do so; and it is small wonder, that in so novel an attempt, they should overstep the line of prudence. It was your duty, and (had you but known it) it was your best interest, mildly to remind them, if you saw that they did so; that, perceiving their error, they might remedy it. But what has been your conduct? Most of you have substituted abuse for advice, and violence for argument. One of your number has spoken of the mob, and sneered, even at the noble principle of universal suffrage. You have goaded where you ought to have restrained, and irritated where you might have convinced.

Do you imagine that conduct so unwise shall not produce its effects? Are the people so very prudent, so very cool-tempered, so philosophically impassive to indignation, that they can sit with quiet pulses and hear themselves thus unworthily abused? If you think they are, you know little of human nature. They will feel they have felt, the stinging injustice of your accusations. And if these should overpower the still small voice of reason within them, and tempt them, against their better judgments, to extravagance somewhat similar to your own, then, perhaps, you will begin to reflect, that, in morals as in physics, the higher the pendulum is raised on one side, the farther it swings to the opposite.

You have accused us as the promoters of anarchy and misrule. Little did you know what leads to anarchy, or, knowing, little did you regard it, when you made the baseless accusation. The best supporters of order are the temperate friends of reform; the most dangerous enemies of a nation, are those who oppose reform and abuse reformers. We, by reason, would effect a quiet and gradual change; you, by ill-timed virulence, may bring about a violent and a dangerous one.

You have told the people that we advocate agrarian laws and arbitrary divisions of property. If you said so with wilful intention to misrepresent, and thereby unfairly to advance the supposed interests of a party, I have no remark to make on your conduct. If you said so, as really believing your own assertion, I request that you will peruse, and afford your readers an opportunity to peruse, the following:

We, the editors of the Free Enquirer, have never directly or indirectly advocated or approved any thing approaching to an agrarian law, any proposal to make a division of lands or property, or any measure tending to weaken that SECURITY to per

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son and property which is indispensable to protect for society the small portion of happiness and tranquillity it now enjoys. We have proposed, and do most earnestly press it on the consideration of all friends to mankind and promoters of human improvement, that EQUAL EDUCATION should be secured to every child born to the republic. What a future generation thus trained up under the common guardianship of the State, to regard each other, not as rich and poor, not as producers and consumers, not as plebeians and patricians, but as friends, companions, and fellow-citizens—what measures they will adopt, or whether they will adopt any, to equalize their possessionswe conceive it neither possible for us now to decide, nor useful for us now to imagine.

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I repeat it, we look to NATIONAL EDUCATION ALONE, for national reform. We propose no equalization, but that which equal national education shall gradually effect. Those who say we endeavour to bring about, openly or secretly, any other, say so, either in ignorant presumption of our principles and motives, or because they choose, with their eyes open, to misstate them.

For myself that I rejoice to see the mechanics and working men awaking to enquiry and to action, that I approve many of the principles they have set forth, that I believe them honestly desirous constitutionally to secure their just rights, and that I wish them, from my soul, success in the attempt, is most true: but that I drew up that set of resolutions which you denominate anarchical, or that I have hesitated, on all fitting occasions, to express my dissent from those among them that set forth equality of property as a remedy for evils which I believe equality of education only can safely, effectually cureis most untrue. The mechanics who drew up the resolutions, and those who afterwards conversed with me on the subject, know that it is; and cannot put any very charitable construction on your unceasing efforts to persuade your readers to the contrary.

I will forward a copy of the paper containing this article to each of you. I propose but that which is reasonable and just, in requesting those among you who have lately attacked us, to admit into your columns this statement in reply. If you refuse, I cannot but construe the refusal into an evidence that you fear, or at least do not choose to meet, the voice of truth. If you add any comments of your own, have the goodness to send me the papers that contain them; and they be brief and to the point, I will, in return, admit them into the Free Enquirer. ROBERT DALE OWEN.

PROSSIMO'S EXPERIENCE.

[Extracted from the Free Enquirer.]

My mother was a devoted sectarian; devout, yet I think not bigoted in her religion; and an affectionate and careful parent. She inculcated in her children, with unwearied zeal, the mysterious doctrines of her sect; and she lost no opportunity to confirm and strengthen the first impressions she had made. Was any one among us sick? she sat, hour after hour, by his bedside; and administered, by turns, temporal comforts and spiritual instruction. Had we lost a friend? his death was spoken of but as a translation to another and a better world. Did any of us ask, with childish curiosity, to be told a pretty story? it was related to us out of the scriptural pages. We were told of the place above for the good boys and girls, and of the place below for the wicked; and when we enquired, with childish simplicity, who were the good and who the wicked, we were taught, that whoever believed that God had a son called Jesus Christ, and read the Bible with reverence every morning, and said prayers with devotion every night, was a good man; and that whoever disbelieved this doctrine, or neglected these forms of worship, was a wicked reprobate, called an infidel, or an unbeliever, or an atheist.

My father was not of the orthodox persuasion; but, however unwilling he might be that his children should become sectarians, he did not for many years interfere with my mother's instructions. He excited our youthful minds, indeed, to observation and enquiry; but he never called in question my mother's infallibility. His was a strong, unprejudiced, and comprehensive mind; yet either from regard to my mother's feelings or to the world's opinion, he forbore, even when our questions led to it, from undermining our belief.

I recollect, for instance, after I had listened patiently to an explanation from him how seeds produced plants and trees, and had asked him where the very very first seeds came from

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