To take another case, a quarrel like this may arise:  a boy has six gooseberries; another boy comes and asks for one; by a little solicitation he obtains it:—­he wishes another;—­but the boy who has them says he cannot spare any more; he has only five, and cannot part with another.  The second boy, however, duns him.  He even acts the hypocrite, and puts into play many of the worst artifices of human nature, which we so often see in daily practice, and he gains his end.  But he is not yet satisfied; he wishes another.  The first boy, however, will on no account give him more.  He again tries all his arts, but in vain.  Seeing he cannot by art or entreaty gain another, he has recourse to violence.  He snatches one out of his companion’s hand and runs off with it.  The first boy is irritated at such conduct, he pursues the fugitive, overtakes him, and gives him a blow on the face.  The second boy is as great a coward as he is a thief.  He comes up and makes his complaint to the master.  The master then has a trial by jury.  He does not knock one head against the other according to the old custom, but he hears both plaintiff and defendant, and having got the facts, he submits to the children themselves whether it was right in the one boy to take with violence What was not his own, and shews them which is the more to blame.  Then they decide on the sentence; perhaps some one suggests that it should be the utmost infliction allowable, a slight pat on the hand; while a tender-hearted girl says, “Please, sir, give it him very softly;” but the issue is, a marked distinction between right and wrong;—­appropriate expressions of pleasure and disapprobation:—­and on the spot, “a kissing and being friends.”  I am, indeed, so firmly convinced, from the experience I have had, of the utility of a play-ground, from the above reasons, and others, elsewhere mentioned, that I scruple not to say, an infant school is of little, if any, service without one.

Where the play-ground is ornamented with flowers, fruit-trees, &c. (and I would recommend this plan to be invariably adopted,) it not only affords the teacher an opportunity of communicating much knowledge to the children, and of tracing every thing up to the Great First Cause, but it becomes the means of establishing principles of honesty.  They should not on any account be allowed to pluck the fruit or flowers; every thing should be considered as sacred; and being thus early accustomed to honesty, temptations in after-life will be deprived of their power.  It is distressing to all lovers of children, to see what havoc is made by them in plantations near London; and even grown persons are not entirely free from this fault, for, not content with a proper foot-path, they must walk on a man’s plantations, pull up that which can be of no use, and thereby injure the property of their neighbour.  These things ought not to be, nor do I think they would be so common, if they were noticed a little more in the education of children.  It