had no security against
them. Another serious complaint was the barbarity of the children
towards all living creatures in their power. The clergyman, teacher,
and elders, often laid their heads together, to find some remedy for
this inhuman spirit, by which every child in the place was more or
less affected. They could not conceive why such a spirit should
prevail so specially in _this_ village; but they could find neither
cause nor remedy: all exhortations, all punishments, were in vain. The
clergyman of the village was changed; and the new minister was a great
friend to schools. His first walk was to the school-house. The vice of
the scholars had been made known to him, and the failure of all
preventive measures hitherto applied. But, determining within himself
to watch the whole course of proceedings in school, he soon perceived
that the teacher had a habit, and had acquired a singular dexterity in
it, of knocking down and killing flies with his cane, to the end of
which he had fastened a piece of leather. The windows were all on one
side, and being exposed to the morning sun of summer, they were
continually full of flies. The teacher's path lay along them, in front
of his scholars; and while talking to the latter, he struck down the
flies as they shewed themselves at the window. This manoeuvre amused
the children infinitely more than his instruction did, and they
followed his example. They were incessantly on the watch for flies
that buzzed through the room, caught them in their hands, and shewed
as great dexterity in this kind of chase as their teacher in his. But
their amusement did not end here: they had learned to play with their
captives, treat them with detestable cruelty, and seemed to find a
wicked delight in observing the shivering of their victims.

On observing these curious and far from pleasing peculiarities of the
school, the intelligent and humane clergyman easily accounted for the
spirit of destructiveness among the children; and his first step was
to induce the teacher to take his leather from the end of the cane;
and next, to turn the desks so that the boys sat with their backs to
the windows, and the teacher's path lay on the other side of the room.
Then the minister went frequently into the school, and examined so
severely, that both teacher and pupils had more to do than to give
their attention to the flies. As this was not yet entirely
satisfactory in its results, the minister took advantage of