and otherwise incapable dependents.

It seems to me that very unusual judgment has been shown in the manner
in which benevolent and penal institutions have been created and managed
among these people; for the tendency almost everywhere in countries which
call themselves more highly civilized is to make the poor dependent
upon charity, and thus a fatal blow is struck at their character and
respectability. Here, partly of course because the means of living are
very abundant and easily got, but also, I think, because the government
has been wisely managed, the people have not been taught to look toward
public charity for relief; and though we Americans, who live in a big
country, are apt to think slightingly of what some one called a toy
kingdom, any one who has undertaken to manage or organize even a small
community at home will recognize the fact that it is a task beset by
difficulties.

But in these Islands a state, a society, has been created within a quarter
of a century, and it has been very ably done. I am glad that it has been
done mainly by Americans. Chief-justice Lee, now dead, but whose memory
is deservedly cherished here; Dr. Judd, who died in August, 1873; Mr. C.C.
Harris, lately Minister of Foreign Relations, and for many years occupying
different prominent positions in the Government; Dr. J. Mott Smith, lately
the Minister of Finance; Chief-justice Allen, and Mr. Armstrong, long at
the head of the Educational Department, the father of General Armstrong,
President of the Hampton University in Virginia, deserve, perhaps, the
chief credit for this work. They were the organizers who supplemented the
labors of the missionaries; and, fortunately for the native people, they
were all men of honor, of self-restraint, of goodness of heart, who knew
how to rule wisely and not too much, and who protected the people without
destroying their independence. What they have done would have given them