hout seeing examples which they ought to be prepared to
avoid."

These remarks are just with regard to pupils who are intended for a
public school, and no great nicety in the selection of their books is
necessary; but we are now speaking of children who are to be brought
up in a private family. Why should they be prepared to mix in the
society of children who have bad habits or bad dispositions? Children
should not be educated for the society of children; nor should they
live in that society during their education. We must not expect from
them premature prudence, and all the social virtues, before we have
taken any measures to produce these virtues, or this tardy prudence.
In private education, there is little chance that one errour should
balance another; the experience of the pupil is much confined; the
examples which he sees, are not so numerous and various as to
counteract each other. Nothing, therefore, must be expected from the
counteracting influence of opposing causes; nothing should be trusted
to chance. Experience must preserve one uniform tenour; and examples
must be selected with circumspection. The less children associate with
companions of their own age, the less they know of the world; the
stronger their taste for literature; the more forcible will be the
impression that will be made upon them by the pictures of life, and
the characters and sentiments which they meet with in books. Books for
such children, ought to be _sifted_ by an academy[101] of enlightened
parents.

Without particular examples, the most obvious truths are not brought
home to our business. We shall select a few examples from a work of
high and deserved reputation, from a work which we much admire,
"Berquin's Children's Friend." We do not mean to criticise this work
as a literary production; but simply to point out to parents, that,
even in the best books for children, much must still be left to the
judgment of the preceptor; much in the choice of stories, and
particular passages suited to different pupils.

In "The Children's Friend," there are several stories well adapted to
one class of children, but entirely unfit for another. In the story
called the Hobgoblin, Antonia, a little girl "who has been told a
hundred foolish stories by her maid, particularly one about a
black-faced goblin," is represented as making a lamentable outcry at
the sight of a chimney-sweeper; first she runs for refuge to the
kitchen, the last place to which