e are
very few which may not be lessened by prudence.

The modes of nursing infancy in this little dominion of poverty, are
truly defective. It is to be feared the method intended to train up
inhabitants for the earth, annually furnishes the regions of the grave.

Why is so little attention paid to the generation who are to tread the
stage after us? as if we suffered them to be cut off that we might keep
possession for ever. The unfortunate orphan that none will own, none
will regard: distress, in whatever form it appears, excites compassion,
but particularly in the helpless. Whoever puts an infant into the arms
of decrepit old age, passes upon it a sentence of death, and happy is
that infant who finds a reprieve. The tender sprig is not likely to
prosper under the influence of the tree which attracts its nurture;
applies that nurture to itself, where the calls occasioned by decay are
the most powerful--An old woman and a sprightly nurse, are characters as
opposite as the antipodes.

If we could but exercise a proper care during the first two years, the
child would afterwards nurse itself; there is not a more active animal
in the creation, no part of its time, while awake, is unemployed: why
then do we invert nature, and confine an animal to still life, in what
is called a school, who is designed for action?

We cannot with indifference behold infants crouded into a room by the
hundred, commanded perhaps by some disbanded soldier, termed a
school-master, who having changed the sword for the rod, continues much
inclined to draw blood with his arms; where every individual not only re
breathes his own air, but that of another: the whole assembly is
composed of the feeble, the afflicted, the maimed, and the orphan; the
result of whose confinement, is a fallow aspect, and a sickly frame: but
the paltry grains of knowledge gleaned up by the child in this barren
field of learning, will never profit him two-pence in future; whereas,
if we could introduce a robust habit, he would one day be a treasure to
the community, and a greater to himself. Till he is initiated into
labour, a good foundation for health may be laid in air and exercise.

Whenever I see half a dozen of these forlorn innocents quartered upon a
farm house, a group of them taking the air under the conduct of a
senior, or marshalled in rank and file to attend public worship, I
consider the overseer who directed it, as possessed of tender feelings:
their orderl