gued a while, let us examine coolly that part of the probable good or evil done to the parties obliged.

What are children sent to school for? To learn. And when there, what are the motives to make them learn? Dread of punishment and hope of distinction and reward. There are few children so stupid, as not to be led on to industry by one or both of these motives, however indolent they may be; but, if these motives be not allowed their proper scope of action, the stupid boy will never take the trouble to learn, if he finds he can avoid punishment, and gain reward, by prevailing on some more diligent boy to do his exercises for him. Those, therefore, who thus indulge their schoolfellows, do it at the expense of their future welfare, and are in reality foes when they fancied themselves friends. But, generally speaking, they have not even this excuse for their pernicious compliance, since it springs from want of sufficient firmness to say no ;-and deny an earnest request at the command of principle. But, to such I would put this question, "which is the real friend to a child, the person who gives it the sweatmeats it asks for, at the risk of making it ill, merely because it were so hard, to refuse the dear little thing: or the person who, considering only the interest and health of the child, resists its importunities, though grieved to deny its request? No doubt that they would give the palm of real kindness, real good nature to the latter; and in like manner the boy who refuses to do his schoolfellow's task is more truly kind, more truly goodnatured, to him than he who, by indulging his indolence, runs the risk of making him a dunce for life. But some may reply, "it would make one odious in the school, were one to refuse the common compliance with the wants and wishes of one's companions." Not, if the refusal were declared to be the result of principle, and every aid not contrary to it were offered and afforded! and there are many ways in which schoolfellows may assist each other, without any violation of truth, and without sharing with them in the practical lie, by imposing upon their masters, as theirs, lessons which they never wrote.

How often have I heard men in mature life say, "Oh! I knew such a one at school; he was a very very

Examine, look into, investigate, consider.
-Obliged, o-blijd', obligated, assisted.
For what are children sent to school ?

Is dread of punishment a proper motive?

Is hope of distinction and reward a proper motive?

What are the proper motives?

-Scope, skope, sphere, place, sufficient ground.

Stupid, dull, senseless, heedless, dozing.

Prevailing on, inducing, persuading.

Diligent, studious, active.

Therefore, consequently.

Expense, loss, hazard.

Welfare, good, usefulness, success, prosperity.

Foes, enemies, unfriendly, inimical.

Pernicious, hurtful, ruinous.

-Springs, fountains, proceeds, arises, flows, heads.

Earnest, importunate, ardent.

Principle, moral obligation, settled moral convic

tion.

From what does this practice at schools arise ?

What question does the author propose?

-Hard, uncomplying, difficult, severe, painful.
Importunities, earnest entreaties, untimely requests.
Grieved, hurt, sorry, pained.

-Palm, ipner part of the hand, tree, meed, reward.
Good nature, kind disposition.

Indolence, idleness, laziness, slothful disposition.
Dunce, foolish fellow, blockhead.
Odious, hateful, abominable, detested.
One, single, alone, a single individual.

Companions, associates, mates.

Refusal, denial.

By refusing to do another's task would you violate friendship? Ought you to assist in every proper way?

What is meant by violating principle ? Is it the same as telling a lie? What very important law do you break by violating principle ?

Mature, full, manly, ripe,

good fellow, but so dull ! I have often done his exercises for him." Or I have heard the contrary asserted. "Such a one was a very clever boy at school indeed; he has done many an exercise for me; for he was very good natured." And in neither case was the speaker conscious that he had been guilty of the meanness of deception himself or been accessary to it in another.

Parents also correct their children's exercises, and thereby enable them to put a deceit on their master; not only by this means convincing their offspring of their own total disregard of truth; a conviction doubtless most pernicious in its effects on their young minds ; but as full of folly as it is of laxity of principle; since the deceit cannot fail of being detected, whenever the parents are not at hand to afford their assistance. But is it necessary that this school delinquency should exist? Is it not advisable that children should learn the rudiments of truth, rather than falsehood, with those of their mother tongue and the classics? Surely parents ought to be tremblingly solicitous that their children should always speak truth, and be corrected for falsehood. Yet, of what use would it be to correct a child for telling a spontaneous lie, on the impulse of strong temptation, if that child be in the daily habit of deceiving his master on system, and of assisting others to do so? While the present practice with regard to exercise making exists; while boys and girls go up to their preceptors with lies in their hands, whence, sometimes, no doubt, they are transferred to their lips; every hope that truth will be taught in schools, as a necessary moral duty, must be totally, and forever, annihilat

ed.

LESSON XV.

Omnipresence of Deity. - SPIRIT AND MANNERS OF THE AGE.

Above-below-where'er I gaze,

Thy guiding finger, Lord, I view,
Trac'd in the midnight planet's blaze,

What is meant by "good fellow" in this case ?
Heard, hệrd. Compliance, kom-pli' anse.
Assented, declared, said, made known.
Clever, obliging, ingenious, apt, promising.
-Done, performed, completed, set aside.
Deception, lying, deceiving, falsehood.

Accessary to, knowing to, helping of, partner of.
-Correct, amend, chastise, take out defects.
-Put, impose, place, lay down, practice.

-Offspring, of' spring, children, generation, production.

Spell doubtless, pernicious, principle.

What bad practice of parents is here noticed? Can the deceit fail of being detected? Is such a practice very foolish ?

Delinquency, fault, failure, deception.
Rudiments, first principles, elements.

Mother tongue, own language, vernacular speech.
Classics, writers of standard reputation, Greek and
Roman authors.

.Tremblingly. Change it into a verb.
-Spontaneous, natural, unprovoked, ready.
System, regular manner, steadily.

Preceptors, masters, teachers, instructers.
Lies in their hands. Why is this expression used?
No doubt, dout, without controversy, doubtless.
Transferred, carried, borne.

Moral, of moral obligation, religious.
Totally, radically, entirely, wholly.

Omnipresence, compounded of two Latin words, unbounded presence, ubiquity.

Deity, divine being, the nature and essence of God, the supposed divinity of a heathen god, a fabulous god.

Above, over head, on the natural heavens.

Below, on earth, in opposition to heaven.

.Gaze, look intently and earnestly.

.Guiding finger, wisely directing power.

Midnight planet's. What is meant by it ?

Traced, marked out, discovered by remaining

Or glistening in the morning dew;
Whate'er is beautiful or fair,
Is but thine own reflection there.

I hear thee in the stormy wind,

That turns the ocean wave to foam;
Nor less thy wond'rous power I find,
When summer airs around me roam;
The tempest and the calm declare
Thyself-for thou art every where.
I find thee in the noon of night,

And read thy name in every star
That drinks its splendor from the light
That flows from mercy's beaming car :
Thy footstool, Lord, each starry gem
Composes-not thy diadem.

And when the radiant orb of light

Hath tipp'd the mountain tops with gold,
Smote with the blaze, my wearied sight
Shrinks from the wonders I behold;

That ray of glory, bright and fair,
Is but thy living shadow there.

Thine is the silent noon of night,
The twilight eve--the dewy morn;
Whate'er is beautiful and bright,
Thine hands have fashion'd to adorn:
Thy glory walks in every sphere,
And all things whisper, "God is here!"

LESSON XVI.

The Voyage of Life; an Allegory. -DR. JOHNSON.

We

"Life," says Seneca, " is a voyage, in the progress of which we are perpetually changing our scenes. first leave childhood behind us, then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, then the better, or more pleasing part of old age." The perusal of this passage having excited in me a train of reflections on the state