all this signifies but little or nothing to the inner development, to the well-being of the community.
The sittings of the Congress continued nearly a week, during which time, you heard—England and France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, the Scandinavian Kingdoms, the United States, Brazil, Algeria, and Poland, state their various experiments, and explain their various institutions for the elevation of the working classes, and the improvement of their condition.
A Congress very similar to this had, the preceding year, been held in Paris, to inquire into the same class of subjects, though principally in connection with the moral means of influence, as education, literature, benevolent societies, and such like. The Congress of the Brussels people had boldly confined itself to the material means. It occupied itself with the dwellings of the poorer classes, their clothing, food, prospects of worldly success, as well at the present time, as for the future; but above all, with the establishment of such an order of things as should enable every man and every woman, by good conduct, industry, and forethought, to enjoy and secure worldly prosperity for themselves and their families. The chief activity of the Congress was evidently employed in this direction, although, as it seemed to me, not with full consciousness.[1] Soup-kitchens, hospitals, and such institutions,
- ↑ As I gave a very full report of this Congress, at the time, in an article which was published in the Stockholm Aftonblad, during the autumn of 1856, which was translated into various languages, I shall, therefore, here only touch upon a few of its principal traits.—Author's Note.
