In the finer seasons of the year, much of these leisure spaces of time can be expended out of doors; and we have still only to refer to every one's own observation of the account to which they are turned, in the lives of beings whose lot allows but so contracted a portion of time to be, at the best, applied directly to the highest purposes of life.--Here the hater of all such schemes of improvement, as would threaten to turn the lower order into what that hater may probably call Methodists, (a term we venture to interpret for him as meaning thoughtful beings and Christians,) comes in with a ready cant of humanity and commiseration. And why, he says, with an affected indignation of philanthropy, why should not the poor creatures enjoy a little fresh air and cheerful sunshine, and have a chance of keeping their health, confined as many of them are, for the greatest part of the time, in narrow, squalid rooms, unwholesome workshops, and every sort of disagreeable places and employments? Very true, we answer; and why should not numbers of them be collected in groups by the road-side, in readiness to find in whatever passes there occasions for gross jocularity; practising some impertinence, or uttering some jeering scurrility, at the expense of persons going by; shouting with laughter at the success of the annoyance, or to _make_ it successful; and all this blended with language of profaneness and imprecation, as the very life of the hilarity? Or why should not the boldest spirits among them form a little conventicle for cursing, blaspheming, and blackguard obstreperousness in the street, about the entrance of one of the haunts of intoxication; where they are perfectly safe from that worse mischief of a gloomy fanaticism, with which they might have been smitten if seduced to frequent the meeting-house twenty paces off? Or why should not the children, growing into the stage called youth, be turned loose through the lanes, roads, and fields, to form a brawling, impudent rabble, trained by their association to every low vice, and ambitiously emulating, in voice, visage, and manners, the ruffians and drabs of maturer growth? Or why should not the young men and women collect in clusters, or range about or beyond the neighborhood in bands, for revel, frolic, and all kinds of coarse mirth; to come back late at night to quarrel with their wretched elders, who perhaps envy them their capacity for such wild gaieties and strollings, while rating them for their disorderly habits? We say where can be the harm of all this? What reasonable and benevolent man would think of making any objection to it? Reasonable and benevolent,--for these have been among the qualities boasted for the occasion by the opposers of any materially improved education of the people; while in such opposition they virtually avowed their willing tolerance of all that is here described.