afforded by this novel.

Here is room for just and copious observations on the blessings and
advantages of a sober and well-governed education, and the ruin of
so many thousands of all ranks in this Nation for want of it; here
also we may see how much public schools and charities might be
improved, to prevent the destruction of so many unhappy children,
as, in this town, are every year bred up for the executioner.

The miserable condition of multitudes of youth, many of whose
natural tempers are docible, and would lead them to learn the best
things, rather than the worst, is truly deplorable, and is
abundantly seen in the history of this man's childhood; where,
though circumstances formed him by necessity to be a thief,
surprising rectitude of principles remained with him, and made him
early abhor the worst part of his trade, and at length to forsake
the whole of it. Had he come into the world with the advantage of a
virtuous education, and been instructed how to improve the generous
principles he had in him, what a figure might he not have made,
either as a man or a Christian.

The promise of the preface is fulfilled. The whole work is a protest
against the neglect of the education and training of the youth of the
lower classes; and the life of Colonel Jack would be apt to have a good
effect on youthful readers of the time. In Chapter X, when Jack has
risen by his industry and humanity from being a slave on a Virginia
plantation to the rank of an overseer, and finally to that of an
independent planter, he makes a long digression to rejoice in his
change of condition and character:

It was an inexpressible joy to me, that I was now like to be not
only a man, but an honest man; and it yielded me a greater
pleasure, that I was ransomed from being a vagabond, a thief, and a
criminal, as I had been from a child, than that I was delivered
from slavery, and the wretched state of a Virginia sold servant; I
had notion enough in my mind of the hardship of the servant or
slave, because I had felt it, and worked through it; I remembered
it as a state of labour and servitude, hardship and suffering. But
the other shocked my very nature, chilled my blood, and turned the
very soul within me; the thought of it was like reflections upon
hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with horror, it was
odious and frightfu