fe? Is not every effort made
to induce the young to lie in bed late that they may be out of the way?
Are they not placed, as soon as possible after they are up, with the
servants--if unfortunately there are any in the family--that they may be
out of the way? Are they not required to breakfast, and dine, and sup
elsewhere, if possible, that they may be out of the way? Do we not send
them to school, even the Sabbath school, to get them out of the way? Do
not some mothers even dose their infants with stupifying medicines to
lull them to sleep, in order to have them out of the way? And to crown
all, though they are quite too often permitted to sit up late in the
evening, to enjoy that society which they are denied so great a part of
the day-time, are they not occasionally put to bed early that they may
be out of the way, and that the parents may attend late parties, to
indulge in immoral or unhealthy habits?

In the last instance, they are indeed sometimes put out of the way, in
the result--and with a vengeance. Many a child, nay, many thousands of
children, are burnt up yearly, while their parents are gone abroad in
the evening in quest of that enjoyment which ought to be found in the
bosom of their families. "In Westminster, a part of London, containing
less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred children were
thus destroyed, during a single year." And the moral results which
occasionally happen are a thousand times worse than burning. But enough
of this.

The common practice of lecturing the young on the importance of early
rising, may have a good effect on a few; but in general, it is believed
to produce the contrary result. It is, in short, to sum up the whole
matter, the influence of parental example, and the speaking often of the
happiness which early rising affords, with perhaps the occasional
indulgence of the child in a pleasant morning walk, which, if he retires
early enough, are almost certain to produce in him the valuable habit of
early rising.

But what is an early hour? Some call it early, when the sun is one hour
high; some at sunrise; others, when they hear of an early riser,
suppose he must be one who rises at least by daybreak.

Midnight is, of course, as near the middle of the night as any hour; and
he who goes to bed four or five hours before midnight, will never
complain of those who insist that _he_ is not an early riser who is not
up by four or five o'clock. In summer, no adult ought