In all probability advancing years will prevent me in future from personally labouring much in the cause, and from personally overcoming objections, by presenting publicly, facts that cannot be refuted.  It is out of my power now to employ agents and pay them.  I cannot take infants by sea and land to convince unbelievers, and silence gainsayers.  Neither circumstances nor remaining strength, will allow me to repeat these things.  I must trust then to my pen, to the thinkers amongst us, and above all to the good Providence of God, for further success in behalf of the rising generation.  Those who doubt what I assert about children should recollect one fact—­twenty-seven thousand have passed through my hands, and were for a short time under my training, and have then been examined by me to convince a doubting public, on the spot where they happened to be in each town and country, all this for the period of one-third of a century.  Ought not this to entitle me, as respects the education of children, to say such a thing is right, or even such a thing is wrong?  The abuse of a plan is no argument against its use.  That it has been abused I am well aware,—­that the parrot-system has been revived and also applied in infant-schools.  It was never intended to injure the young brain by over-exciting it, or to fill the memory with useless rubbish; yet this is done.  I cannot help it.  I have done and will do my best to prevent such a violation of the very first principles of infant teaching.  To conclude, there is much to be thankful for!  Since the infant-system was evolved, a very great improvement has taken place in the character of school-books, and also in prints.  The graphic illustrations and the simplicity of style, on a variety of subjects, is admirable.  The same may be said with respect to nursery books; I see a great improvement in all these.  This is comforting to one situated as I am, and leads me to hope much from the future.  I trust the intellectual character of the age will advance, and not only the intellectual but also the moral and spiritual, and “that truth and justice, religion and piety may be established amongst us for all generations.”

CHAPTER II.

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.

Teachers of theft—­Children the dupes of the profligate—­An effort at detection—­Affecting cases of early depravity—­Progress of a young delinquent—­Children employed in theft by their parents—­Ingenuity of juvenile thieves—­Results of an early tuition in crime—­The juvenile thief incorrigible—­Facility of disposing of stolen property—­A hardened child—­Parents robbed by their children—­A youthful suicide—­A youthful murderer.

* * * * *

“An uneducated, unemployed poor, not only must be liable to fall into a variety of temptations, but they will, at times, unavoidably prove restless, dissatisfied, perverse, and seditious:  nor is this all, even their most useful and valuable qualities, for want of regular and good habits, and a proper bias and direction from early religious instruction, frequently became dangerous and hurtful to society; their patience degenerates into sullenness, their perseverance into obstinacy, their strength and courage into brutal ferocity.”—­The Bishop of Norwich.