The Dirty Children, With Their Hair Tangled Beyond All Hope Of
Combing, Had The Begging Whine, And The Trick Of Raising Their Hands
For Money, When One Looked At Them, Which Is Universal In The Catholic
Parts Of Switzerland.
Indeed, all the way from the Sardinian frontier
we had been dogged by beggars continually.
Parents seemed to look upon
their children as valuable only for this purpose; the very baby in
arms is taught to make a pitiful little whine, and put out its fat
hand, if your eye rests on it. The fact is, they are poor - poor
because invention, enterprise, and intellectual vigor - all that
surrounds the New England mountain farmer with competence and
comfort - are quenched and dead, by the combined influence of a
religion and government whose interest it is to keep people stupid
that they may be manageable. Yet the Savoyards, as a race, it seems to
me, are naturally intelligent; and I cannot but hope that the liberal
course lately adopted by the Sardinian government may at last reach
them. My heart yearns over many of the bright, pretty children, whose
little hands have been up, from time to time, around our carriage. I
could not help thinking what good schools and good instruction might
do for them. It is not their fault, poor little things, that they are
educated to whine and beg, and grow up rude, uncultured, to bring
forth another set of children just like themselves; but what to do
with them is the question.
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