Drive not a timid infant from his home, in the early spring-time of his life, Commit not that treasure to an hireling, nor wrench the young heart's fibres: In his helplessness leave him not alone, a stranger among strange children, Where affection longeth for thy love, counting the dreary hours; Where religion is made a terror, and innocence weepeth unheard; Where oppression grindeth without remedy, and cruelty delighteth in smiting. Wherefore comply with an evil fashion? Is it not to spare thee trouble? Can he gather no knowledge at thy mouth? Wilt thou yield thine honour to another? What can he gain in learning, to equal what he loseth in innocence? Alas! for the price above gold, by which such learning cometh! For emulative pride and envy are the specious idols of the diligent, Oaths and foul-mouthed sin burn in the language of the idle: Bolder in that mimic world of boys stareth brazen-fronted vice, Than thereafter in the haunts of men, where society doth shame her into corners. My soul, look well around thee, ere thou give thy timid infant unto sorrows. There be many that say, We were happiest in days long past, When our deepest care was an ill-conned book, And when we sported in that merry sunshine of our life, Sadness a stranger to the heart, and cheerfulness its gay inhabitant. True, ye are now less pure, and therefore are more wretched: But have ye quite forgotten how sorely ye travailed at your tasks, How childish griefs and disappointments bowed down the childish mind? How sorrow sat upon your pillow, and terror hath waked you up betimes, Dreading the strict hand of justice, that would not wait for a reason, Or the whims of petty tyrants, children like yourselves, Or the pestilent extract of evil poured into the ear of innocence? Behold the coral island, fresh from the floor of the Atlantic, It is dinted by every ripple, and a soft wave can smooth its surface; But soon its substance hardeneth in the winds and tropic sun, And weakly the foaming billows break against its adamantine wall: Even thus, though sin and care dash upon the firmness of manhood, The timid child is wasted most by his petty troubles; And seldom, when life is mature, and the strength proportioned to the burden, Will the feeling mind, that can remember, acknowledge to deeper anguish, Than when, as a stranger and a little one, the heart first ached with anxiety, And the sprouting buds of sensibility were bruised by the harshness of a school. My soul, look well around thee, ere thou give thine infant unto sorrows. Yet there be boisterous tempers, stout nerves, and stubborn hearts, And there is a riper season, when the mind is well disciplined in good, And a time, when youth may be bettered by the wholesome occasions of knowledge, Which rarely will he meet with so well, as among the congregation of his fellows.