Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
The dark and dismal jungle of pauperism, vice, and despair is the
inheritance to which we have succeeded from the generations and
centuries past, during which wars, insurrections, and internal troubles
left our forefathers small leisure to attend to the well-being of the
sunken tenth. Now that we have happened upon more fortunate times,
let us recognise that we are our brother's keepers, and set to work,
regardless of party distinctions and religious differences, to make
this world of ours a little bit more like home for those whom we call
our brethren.
The problem, it must be admitted, is by no means a simple one; nor can
anyone accuse me in the foregoing pages of having minimised the
difficulties which heredity, habit, and surroundings place in the way
of its solution, but unless we are prepared to fold our arms in
selfish ease and say that nothing can be done, and thereby doom those
lost millions to remediless perdition in this world, to say nothing of
the next, the problem must be solved in some way. But in what way?
That is the question. It may tend, perhaps, to the crystallisation of
opinion on this subject if I lay down, with such precision as I can
command, what must be the essential elements of any scheme likely to
command success.
SECTION I.--THE ESSENTIALS TO SUCCESS.
The first essential that must be borne in mind as governing every
Scheme that may be put forward is that it must change the man when it
is his character and conduct which constitute the reasons for his
failure in the battle of life. No change in circumstances, no
revolution in social conditions, can possibly transform the nature of
man. Some of the worst men and women in the world, whose names are
chronicled by history with a shudder of horror, were those who had all
the advantages that wealth, education and station could confer or
ambition could attain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account