Amidst the excitements of political contests at home, with wars and rumours of wars abroad, the voice of “Social Science” is occasionally heard, and listened to, with a growing conviction of its importance. The Politician, the Moralist, and the Christian are impelled by various reasons to its consideration, and will listen with equal interest to its details.

Experience is always valued by practical men, and the records of what has been done are anxiously sought, to assist our judgment in future and more extended exertions.

The condition of the young, and the education of children, naturally engaged the earliest attention of Social Reformers. Experience has shewn the importance of genial influences at home, and that it is necessary to improve the homes of the poor, in order to save the children from destruction. It has also been found that much can be thus effected. Poor women, who have been subjected to the severe discipline of a struggling existence, are often willing and anxious listeners to useful instruction, and are perhaps more susceptible of good influence than younger persons who have not felt the necessity for improvement. There is, therefore, room to hope that the influence which can be brought to bear upon the mothers of the working-classes will be a most important element in that general elevation which it is our desire to attain.

It was principally owing to this impression, and also the great desire which I felt to do something, however feeble, to bring more happiness and comfort into the houses of my poor neighbours, that induced me, five or six years ago, to commence a Mothers’ Society. The usual ways of helping the poor seemed to me to effect little real good. The nice soup sent for the sick man was spoiled by being smoked in the warming up, or by the taste infused into it from the dirty saucepan: the sago intended for the infant was burnt, or only half cooked; and medicine and food alike failed to be efficacious in the absence of cleanliness, and in the stifling air which the poor patient was doomed to breathe. The mothers of the little, thin, fretful babies would complain to me that they could not think why the child did so badly, for they managed to get a rasher of bacon for it whenever they could, and always fed it two or three times in the night. I saw that the wise man was indeed right in saying “that knowledge is the principal thing;” and that if I could help them in any way to “get knowledge,” it would be a gift far surpassing in value anything else I could offer them. The applications constantly made to me for information on the best modes of establishing and conducting these Societies, induce me to suppose that they have taken some hold on the public mind, and that these institutions supply a want that is every day increasingly felt.

The only value that can be attached to any remarks which I have to make is, that they are the result of some years’ experience; and that the plans which I have adopted, though capable of great improvement, have been to some extent successful. But the principal motive in my own mind for sending these simple narratives forth into the world is, the hope that more attention than ever may by their means be directed to that great and difficult subject, the improvement of the homes of the poor. As a few notes of a bird, the lisping of a child, the sound of the wind dying away, have sometimes been sufficient to awaken the spirit of harmony in some master-mind, and so led to the composition of the music which has thrilled and delighted all who have heard it; so, it is hoped, the suggestions here made may be of use to many minds, and that anything already effected may be as the drop to the showers, or as the first buds of spring to the luxuriance of summer.

8 Lansdowne Crescent,
May 10, 1859.