Under the old system of education, I must candidly say, moral treatment has been often altogether omitted, and still more frequently has it been erroneous, and consequently inefficient.  Let me ask,—­would it promote a child’s health to teach it to repeat certain maxims on the benefits resulting from exercise?  The answer is obvious.  Neither can it be of any service to the moral health of the child, to teach it to repeat the best maxims of virtue, unless we have taken care to urge the practical observance of those precepts.  And yet this has rarely been the case.  How frequently do we hear persons remark on the ill conduct of children, “It is surprising they should do so;—­they have been taught better things!” Very likely; and they may have all the golden rules of virtue alluded to, carefully stored up in their memories; but they are like the hoarded treasures of the miser, the disposition to use them is wanted.  It is this which we must strive to produce and promote in the child.  Indeed, if we can but be the instruments of exciting a love of goodness, it will not err, nor lack the knowledge how to do good, even though we were to forget to give it any rules or maxims.  It is to the heart we must turn our attention in the moral treatment of children.  We must carefully endeavour to elicit and train out the moral feelings implanted within; and to awaken the conscience to the approval of good, and the dislike and detestation of evil.  Another grand object of the master or mistress of an infant school, is, therefore, to win their love, by banishing all slavish fear.  They are to be invited to regard their teacher, as one who is desirous of promoting their happiness, by the most affectionate means—­not only by kind words, but by kind actions; one of which influences a child more than a volume of words.  Words appeal only to the understanding, and frequently pass away as empty sounds; but kind actions operate on the heart, and, like the genial light and warmth of spring, that dispels the gloom which has covered the face of nature during the chilly season of winter, they disperse the mists which cold and severe treatment has engendered in the moral atmosphere.  The fundamental principle of the infant school system is love; nor should any other be substituted for it, except when absolutely necessary.  Let the children see that you love them, and love will beget love, both toward their teacher and each other.  Without the aid of example nothing can be done; it is by this magnetic power alone that sympathetic feelings can be awakened.  It acts as a talisman on the inmost feelings of the soul, and excites them to activity; which should be the constant aim of all persons engaged in the important work of education.  As we find that vicious principles are strengthened by habit, and good principles proportionally weakened, so, on the contrary, immoral dispositions are weakened by the better feelings being brought into action.