6 FABLES. 



an unnatural violence towards his Mother? Let no 

 one wonder, said he, that I have done this to her, 

 for she deserves even worse at my hands. For if 

 she had chastised instead of praising and encour- 

 aging me, when I stole my school-fellow's book, I 

 should not now have been brought to this ignomini- 

 ous and untimely end. 



APPLICATION. 



THE approaches to vice are by slow degrees, and 

 the good or evil bias given to youth is seldom 

 eradicated. The first deviations from sound moral- 

 ity should therefore be most strictly watched, and 

 wickedness checked or punished in time ; for when 

 vice grows into a habit, it becomes incurable, and 

 both good governments and private families are 

 deeply concerned in its attendant consequences. 

 One need not scruple to affirm that most of the 

 depravity which is so frequent in the world, and so 

 pernicious to society, is owing to the bad education 

 of youth ; and to the connivance or ill example of 

 their parents. It is therefore of the utmost conse- 

 quence that parents, guardians, and tutors, should 

 be of characters befitting them for the various and 

 important offices they have to perform. The latter 

 description of persons may and ought to be care- 

 fully selected ; but it is to be lamented that the base 

 and mean-spirited hosts of bad parents are out of 

 the reach of control, and nothing can prevent the 

 evils arising from their tutorage. Perhaps it would 

 be harsh to make laws to check the marriages of 

 such; but there is no need to encourage the breed 

 of them, for they are already too abundantly 

 numerous. 



