the uncultivated, as presented to our notice in our own country, or recorded upon good authority of the inhabitants of lands confessedly void of civilization, without coming to the conclusion that man has by nature no conception of justice, as a principle, abstractedly considered. All savages are

by nature thieves; so would our children be if left without education. The selfish propensity to appropriate seems to be a law of nature throughout the entire creation, and only to be conquered by the stronger artificial laws instituted by conventional virtue and supported by legal authority. In demi-civilized communities piracy and robbery were long, and are still, considered honourable employments; for with them honour supplies the place of equity. "Honour among thieves," is a proverbial expression: the heroic robbers of antiquity formed among themselves a code of honour suited to the spirit of the age in which they lived, which they strictly observed. So have robbers in more recent times; so, in fact, do some professional plunderers at the present day.

From the little pains hitherto taken to implant in the hearts of the lower orders of the people principles of truth and justice, their notions of integrity have been for the most part fluctuating and very limited; in some instances bounded by the fear of incurring the penalties of the law; in others, formed upon the established notions and feelings of neighbours and fellow-labourers. Certain breaches of honesty and truth are thus held in

abhorrence; while others, in reality equally atrocious, are deemed but venial errors, and never punished by remorse. Hence arises the system of fraud practised by too many tradesmen: they would shrink with horror from the thought of breaking into your house, or picking your pocket, but hesitate not to cheat to a much greater amount in the way of trade. Such is their code of honour.

Strange that in a land where the Bible is to be seen in every house, where every Sunday throughout the year, both in pulpit discourses and from the Holy Scriptures themselves, Gospel truths are disseminated, exhorting men to deal honestly one towards another, and denouncing wrath and punishment to those who transgress. Strange is it, I repeat, that such lax morality should prevail. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," says St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians; "for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." And again, in his Epistle to the Thessalonians, "That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter; because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified."

To reform this flagrantly corrupt system, disgraceful to a civilized community, our only hope, but it is a well founded hope, lies in the exertions now making, and which we earnestly desire to see still more widely extended, to educate the infant

population of the lower classes. That correct notions of truth and honesty may be made clear even to an infant's comprehension, experience has fortunately proved.*

But it is not only among the lower and confessedly uneducated classes that notions of truth and honesty appear to be confused. A gentleman sells a lame horse to his neighbour, knowing him to be so, and at the same time does not scruple to pledge his word that the animal is sound. Yet would the same gentleman shoot that man, or run him through the body, who should presume to question his veracity. In the political world too, are not offences against truth and justice manifold? Electioneering frauds and electioneering quibbles have been notorious time out of mind; nevertheless they are winked at, except they be so glaringly iniquitous as to fall under cognizance of the law. To outwit and to stretch the prerogative of power until it becomes injustice, is, I fear, as frequent among the great and opulent, as are the impositions and fraudulent practices of the petty trader. And who shall say that the Nimrod of a rural district, the sporting squire, who follows his game over his farmer's corn-fields, and recklessly destroys at one fell swoop the fruits of his industry; or who insists that the hares shall be allowed to eat up the produce of the land until it is his pleasure to hunt them-who shall tell me that such an one is not

* See "Evidence printed by the English Education Parliamentary Committee."

MAY BE MADE INTELLIGIBLE TO CHILDREN. 233

guilty, in spirit, of as great an act of injustice, though his licence be in his pocket, as the pirate who captures the merchantman on the high seas, or the brigand who pursues his game without certificate amid the mountains of Calabria?

I cannot doubt that a perfect recognition of justice, if not a perfect love of it, might, with little difficulty, be induced in all children, of whatever class, though innately they have no idea of it. "Our first actions," says Locke, "being guided more by self-love than reason or reflection, it is no wonder that in children they should be very apt to deviate from the just measure of right and wrong, which are in the mind the result of improved reason and serious meditation. This, the more they are apt to mistake, the more careful guard ought to be kept over them, and every the least slip in this great social virtue taken notice of and rectified, and that in things of the least weight and moment, both to instruct their ignorance and prevent ill habits, which in small beginnings will, if let alone, grow to higher frauds, and be in danger to end at last in downright hardened dishonesty."

Covetousness is the forerunner of dishonesty. It was the covetousness of Ahab that paved the way for one of the most flagrant acts of injustice recorded either in sacred or profane history. "Thou shalt not covet," is a commandment of the Decalogue, equally imperative as "Thou shalt not steal." Children are prone to covet; in this respect also resembling savages. Little children often

contract a bad habit of begging for whatever they see that pleases them; a habit not only very troublesome to persons exposed to their importunities, but dangerous to themselves, since it may lead to their purloining what they so much desire to possess, should temptation prove stronger than principle.

The justice of punishment will be readily admitted by children accustomed to a firm and consistent mode of government. So easily is it acknowledged by them, that they will sometimes voluntarily render themselves up to the punishment that awaits them, conscious that they deserve it; trusting, it is probable, that in consideration of their voluntary submission, justice may be tempered with mercy. An early initiation into strict principles of justice will save them from much disappointment, and from the commission of many errors, when they come to mingle in society at large. It will guarantee them, should they be vested with power and authority, against inflicting injustice upon others.