This is a fictitious tale indeed, but it is sadly true to nature. We have seen the victim of indulgence trained by the mere neglect of restraint to a violence of passion which reviled and abused the mother that bore him. We have known the abandoned son turn with doubled fist and furious gestures to his mother, and tell her,--"_You_ have trained me to all this." We have known those who escaped this dreadful fate, mourn through life, the mental suffering, or the bodily debility, which the mistaken indulgence of a mother's love had entailed upon them. And if the _man_ could always look back with the skill of Heinroth to his early childhood, even when no gross neglect of discipline was to be discovered, would he not accuse her early and excessive indulgence of his dawning appetites and craving desires as the source of that violence of passion--that obstinacy, which cost him so much painful discipline in youth, and perhaps still poison the peace of his manhood? Is there no argument, no appeal which can reach the heart of those mothers, who are sacrificing the future peace and character and hopes of their children, to the mere pleasure of gratifying them for the moment? For the Southern Literary Messenger. AN ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT OF LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS TO PROMOTE EDUCATION. _Delivered before the Institute of Education of Hampden Sidney College, at their last commencement, by_ JAMES M. GARNETT. _Gentlemen Members of the Institute of Education:_ In compliance with the invitation with which your committee honored me some months ago, and for which I desire here publicly to make my acknowledgments; I now present myself to address you on the subject of "literary associations for the promotion of education." Thus called upon for a purpose so philanthropic, a cause so truly glorious, and one moreover of such vital importance to our whole community, I could not hesitate to comply, however apprehensive I might feel of not being able to do full justice to the subject. I came to this determination the more readily, from the confident belief that the invitation would never have been given, had not the gentlemen members of your committee as well as those for whom they acted, been prepared to extend towards my deficiencies every indulgence which they might require. This brief explanation of the circumstances which brought me here, and of my own feelings on this highly interesting occasion, seems due not only to myself, but to the very respectable assembly in whose presence I now appear. Let me endeavor now to fulfil the duty, which I have undertaken to perform.