246 THE AIANSE GARDEN. 



together with such work of his own hand as, giving 

 health to his frame, shall be found also a pleasure to 

 his heart. But it is further to be understood, that 

 the following directions, with regard to the improve- 

 ment and use of the boy, are made some matter both 

 of care and of conscience. 



In general boys are plagues. Something above 

 what is usually denominated an urchin, and beneath 

 a varlet, they are of the most impracticable age an 

 age when wit is the weakest and will is the strongest 

 when independence, as an end, is desired the 

 most, and character, as means, regarded the least. 

 They have escaped from school at a time when, con- 

 scious of strength, they began to despise the master 

 of a lowly seminary; and the parental authority to 

 which they are required to submit is rarely good. 

 The father being himself a servant, his children, by 

 an instinct that needs to be amended, fail of respect ; 

 and he, most of his waking hours abroad, can do but 

 little with the authority he has; whilst the mother, 

 not careful of training at an early day, and used to the 

 issue of uncertain commands, has recourse to persua- 

 sions or condescends to entreaty. Boys so reared 

 come home, as their instalment to office is termed ; 

 and though at first shy and dumb as a sheep, yet no 

 sooner has a small command by a superior servant 

 been imposed than it provokes a loud defiance, so 

 naturally, in their new yoke, do they slide into the 

 wonted rut of their ill made roads. Trained to no 

 habits of industry, they like no sort of work. Their 

 pleasure lies in idle companions ; and their haunt is 

 not yet the tavern, but the smithy, where they may 

 spend the long hours in bartering a knife, in arrang- 



