56'6 KDL'CArioN. 



Even tyranny, if penalties in such a case may be so called, is here to 

 be well applied, as it may be well applied, in the enforcement of 

 cleanliness, sobriety, and industry. 



To those who pursue knowledge with ardour, it is known that there 

 is a great pleasure realized, which, for its solidity and permanency, 

 far exceeds any other incident to the human body. It is the immor- 

 tal pleasure of the soul, that knows no solicitude, administers comfort 

 under every affliction or disadvantage in life, keeps up a^bright hope 

 of the future, illumining with joy even the death-bed. This is in 

 fact, the chief good for mankind. 



There is a higher social consideration than even the pleasure of 

 accumulating knowledge, which is that where virtues are not con- 

 stantly planted and in full growth, exhausting the energies of the soil, 

 the weeds of various vices wdl be springing up and destroying what 

 little virtue might have been planted. This consideration makes it 

 important that there be a fidl and systematic occupation of the twenty- 

 four hours of every day of the life of every human being, after a 

 capability to acquire knowledge has commenced. We are not car- 

 rying the question to a stoicism or asceticism : we see the necessity or 

 utility of amusement as well as instruction, of rational recreation and 

 exercise for health ; but even these may be made instructive and not 

 be time wasted or misspent. 



In our towns and villages may be seen on the sabbath, and on the 

 evenings of other days, children, youth, and aged persons sauntering 

 about without any rational occupation of their time. Youth are en- 

 couraged to enter the places where intoxicating liquors are sold, and 

 the smoking of tobacco is made a habit; and this, for av ant of better 

 scenes, is considered the first criterion of manhood. The incipient 

 passions are inflamed by a general looseness and viciousness of con- 

 versation there found ; nothing but vice is there brilliant : wit, 

 humour, the laugh and song, all administer to viciousness of purpose ; 

 while, the liquor and tobacco intoxicating, the youth sallies out little 

 tlisposed to enter his quiet home, but ripe for mischief of any kind. 

 Hence robberies are planned and executed, seductions, rapes, and 

 murders consequent, and our gaols filled. 



If you enter the gaol and can converse with the gaoler on the sub- 

 ject of prison discipline, you will find him lamenting that he has no 

 sufficient useful occupation for the time of the prisoners, and that he 

 knows not how to keep them all usefully employed. The conse- 

 quence is that the prisoners exchange and amalgamate their vices, 

 and p-o back to their several neijrhbourhoods worse characters than 

 when they were taken away. Severity is used, meals shortened, the 

 prisoner kept humble and slavish ; but all this hardens without cor- 

 rection for future liberation. Every pretence to educate in our gaols, 

 even at tiiis day, when much pretence is made, is a mockery. We 

 have never found one with a salaried schoolmaster who was not him- 

 self a prisoner, and there of necessity as a degraded being. There 

 is a chaplain and an increased amount of prayers. The prisoners 

 are trained to sing the psalms and conform to ceremony, as far as 

 the eye of gaoler or deputy can make them. But all this is compul- 

 sory ; there is neither willingness nor seriousness attending the cere- 



