As, however, many poor children endeavour notwithstanding to avoid attending the elementary schools, and in all cases the instruction in these elementary schools occupies only the smaller portion of the day, so that those poor children who are not properly attended and employed by their parents have still plenty of time for idleness and beggary; attempts have latterly been made in some places to put such children under special superintendence, as, for instance, by appointing a guardian for each poor child in the person of an overseer or other public officer of the community, or of a neighbour, who has to observe it every where, at home, at work, at play; or by periodical general summons to the several parents; or by periodical visitations in the houses of poor families, especially of those who are suspected of not paying proper attention to the education of their children; or by the periodical exhibition of the work done at home; or by the public performance of some work as a specimen; or by gratuitously providing the poor children with tools and materials; by the distribution of rewards among the most diligent and skilful of the children; and by exhorting, summoning, and punishing negligent parents; by these means to acquire the certainty that such children are kept to the constant attendance of the church and school, and to doing their tasks; that they are sufficiently employed in a suitable manner; that they are not ill-treated, either by being overworked or by unmerited corporal chastisement; that they are not neglected with respect to clothing and cleanliness; and that they are not abandoned to idleness, beggary and other vices, &c. (p. 529.)