instruction be promoted, many who are now unconcerned for the misfortunes of others will themselves ask for compassion. "Surely there will come a time," says Dr. Johnson with truthful energy, "when he who laughs at wickedness in his companion shall start from it in his child."

Now, the only sure and legitimate way of reforming those evils which burden society is to prevent their acquiring any existence. It is a favorite notion with many, that, by checking vice here and there, our benevolent institutions are working a thorough cure. But this is not so. While we furnish subsistence to those whom intemperance and idleness have brought to destitution,—while we erect asylums where reason may be restored to the shattered mind,—while we enlarge prisons in which to punish the violators of the law,—we should remember that some endeavors should be made to prevent others from requiring the same charities, and incurring the same penalties. Instead of standing merely by the fatal shoal to rescue the sinking crew, we should raise a warning signal to avert future shipwrecks.

All experience shows that, to operate successfully, this branch of education must be early attended to. True it is, that, just as 'the twig is bent, the tree's inclined;' and true it is, that on the discipline of childhood depends the moral character of manhood. The tree in the forest, after it has grown to a considerable height, may yet be bent from its natural course, and, by long-continued force, be made to grow in a different direction; but that change will not be permanent. When the power which turned its course is withdrawn, every breeze and every tempest that shake its branches will aid it in gradually assuming its original position, till hardly a trace of that power which attempted to guide its growth can be perceived. There may be some who would neglect that moral influence on the young which is necessary, trusting in the delusive expectation, that the law will keep them in the right path; that the example of punishment, the terror of the gallows, the prison, or the penitentiary, will prevent the commission of crime. But let us not wait for the saving influence of these things; for they are but checks which often render the next outbreak more alarming. The force of punishment will be found to resemble the application of power in changing the growth of the tree: weeks, years of confinement, will not effect a complete reformation in the offender. His life may seem to be changed, his habits reformed; but, as he goes out to mingle again with the world, as one occasion after another presents itself to him, his former passions begin to revive, those early impressions take possession of him, and he becomes the same that he was originally, only that his degraded position renders him far less able to resist the temptation to do wrong. Impressions and habits acquired in youth are proverbially lasting. With characteristic eloquence and fervor has Lord Brougham illustrated the peculiar importance of early training. In a Speech delivered in the House of Lords in 1835 upon one of those measures which have conferred so much glory on his name as well as benefit upon his countrymen, he said, "If at a very early age a system of instruction is pursued by which a certain degree of independent feeling is created in the child's mind, while all mutinous and perverse disposition is avoided,—if this system be followed up by a constant instruction in the principles of virtue, and a corresponding advancement in intellectual pursuits,—if, during the most critical years of his life, his understanding and his feelings are accustomed only to sound principles and pure and innocent impressions, it will become almost impossible that he should afterward take to vicious courses, because these will be utterly alien to the whole nature of his being. It will be as difficult for him to