29.  Having thus endeavoured to prove the legality of abridgments from custom from reason, it remains only that we show, that we have not printed the complainant’s copy, but abridged it[1].

30.  This will need no proof, since it will appear, upon comparing the two books, that we have reduced thirty-seven pages to thirteen of the same print.

31.  Our design is, to give our readers a short view of the present controversy; and we require, that one of these two positions be proved, either that we have no right to exhibit such a view, or that we can exhibit it, without epitomising the writers of each party.

[1] A fair and bona fide abridgment of any book is considered a new work; and however it may injure the sale of the original, yet it is not deemed, in law, to be a piracy, or violation of the author’s copyright. 1 Bro. 451. 2.  Atk. 141. and Mr. Christian’s note on the Commentaries, ii. 407.—­Ed.

ON SCHOOL CHASTISEMENT.

[The following argument, on school chastisement, was dictated to Mr. Boswell, who was counsel in the case.  It originated in 1772, when a schoolmaster at Campbelltown was deprived, by a court of inferior jurisdiction, of his office, for alleged cruelty to his scholars.  The court of session restored him.  The parents or friends, whose weak indulgence had listened to their children’s complaints in the first stage, now appealed to the house of lords, who reversed the decree of the court of session, and the schoolmaster was, accordingly, deprived of his situation, April 14, 1772.—­Boswell, ii.]

The charge is, that this schoolmaster has used immoderate and cruel correction.  Correction, in itself, is not cruel; children, being not reasonable, can be governed only by fear.  To impress this fear is, therefore, one of the first duties of those who have the care of children.  It is the duty of a parent; and has never been thought inconsistent with parental tenderness.  It is the duty of a master, who is in his highest exaltation, when he is “loco parentis[1].”  Yet, as good things become evil by excess, correction, by being immoderate, may become cruel.  But, when is correction immoderate?  When it is more frequent or more severe than is required, “ad monendum et docendum,” for reformation and instruction.  No severity is cruel which obstinacy makes necessary; for the greatest cruelty would be to desist, and leave the scholar too careless for instruction, and too much hardened for reproof.  Locke, in his Treatise of Education, mentions a mother, with applause, who whipped an infant eight times before she had subdued it; for, had she stopped at the seventh act of correction, her daughter, says he, would have been ruined.  The degrees of obstinacy in young minds are very different; as different must be the degrees of persevering severity.  A stubborn scholar must be corrected, till he is subdued.  The discipline of a school is military.  There