I frequently see the boys of a certain large public school, which is attended by boys of the better class; and judging from their cheerful and happy aspect, I judge that bullying among boys of that condition is becoming rare.  Still, I doubt not, there yet are poor little nervous fellows whose school-life is embittered by it.  I don’t think any one could read the poet Cowper’s account of how he was bullied at school, without feeling his blood a good deal stirred, if not entirely boiling.  If I knew of such a case within a good many miles, I should stop it, though I never wore a glove again that was not split across the right palm.

But, doubtless, the greatest cause of the sorrows of childhood is the mismanagement and cruelty of parents.  You will find many parents who make favorites of some of their children to the neglect of others:  an error and a sin which is bitterly felt by the children who are held down, and which can never by possibility result in good to any party concerned.  And there are parents who deliberately lay themselves out to torment their children.  There are two classes of parents who are the most inexorably cruel and malignant:  it is hard to say which class excels, but it is certain that both classes exceed all ordinary mortals.  One is the utterly blackguard:  the parents about whom there is no good nor pretence of good.  The other is the wrong-headedly conscientious and religious:  probably, after all, there is greater rancor and malice about these last than about any other.  These act upon a system of unnatural repression, and systematized weeding out of all enjoyment from life.  These are the people whose very crowning act of hatred and malice towards any one is to pray for him, or to threaten to pray for him.  These are the people who, if their children complain of their bare and joyless life, say that such complaints indicate a wicked heart, or Satanic possession; and have recourse to further persecution to bring about a happier frame of mind.  Yes:  the wrong-headed and wrong-hearted religionist is probably the very worst type of man or woman on whom the sun looks down.  And, oh! how sad to think of the fashion in which stupid, conceited, malicious blockheads set up their own worst passions as the fruits of the working of the Blessed Spirit, and caricature, to the lasting injury of many a young heart, the pure and kindly religion of the Blessed Redeemer!  These are the folk who inflict systematic and ingenious torment on their children:  and, unhappily, a very contemptible parent can inflict much suffering on a sensitive child.  But of this there is more to be said hereafter; and before going on to it, let us think of another evil influence which darkens and embitters the early years of many.