A JOURNAL KEFT IN THE COUNTRY. 69 



Very rarely is a boy apprenticed to any trade now. 

 After they are clear of the Standards, they hang 

 about the street corners in all weathers, amusing 

 themselves with language above their years, often 

 horrible, with the sports of the season, whip-tops, 

 or marbles, or catapults. The old people are never 

 tired of expressing their astonishment at these 

 manners. The middle generation, the fathers and 

 mothers of the little revolutionaries, sometimes 

 grumble and draw comparisons with their own 

 harder youth ; but rarely attempt any sort of cor- 

 rection beyond an occasional "clip on the head," 

 dealt in ill-temper, and understood in that light. 

 The Rector thinks that the Day-school and the 

 Sunday-school between them have destroyed the 

 notion of parents' responsibility for their children's 

 ethics. Those energetic institutions take so much 

 out of the hands of the fathers and mothers that it 

 is small wonder if the formation of manners goes 

 with the rest. The result, in the case of the boys, at 

 least, is disastrous. There seems to be no sanction 

 under which to appeal to them, no respect save for 

 the superior force temporarily on the side of Order. 

 It is not pleasant to contemplate living among such 

 beings in the grown-up state ; and I have some- 

 times seriously questioned whether that branch of 



