her governess to hate and avoid falsehood, yet this child immediately afterwards heard and remarked that she told a falsehood to her mother. Our lessons are all in vain unless our conduct corresponds. They who merely teach, without feeling and practising what they teach, will infallibly betray themselves even to the observation of a simple child. Unless we love virtue and truth, we need not pretend to do so, the disguise will be too thin. Charters 'says, "Some wantonly tell lies to children, and then laugh at their simplicity for believing. It is laughing at an amiable disposition, a disposition to believe what is said, which bespeaks the truth and innocence of their own hearts: it is teaching them to suspect others as deceivers, and in their turn to deceive." Dr. Doddridge disapproves of children practising little tricks on each other. Parents should be watchful that in their amusements they observe candour and openness with one another; little tricks and deceptions lead to

dishonesty and falsehood as they grow older. Cunning is one of the most odious vices of advanced life, but it is more peculiarly odious in childhood, because it offers such a striking contrast to the simplicity and sincerity and candour which we look for in the day-spring of life, and which it is so delightful to contemplate. Let parents respect truth and candour themselves, and their children will respect them; let them neglect these, and on their heads should fall the guilt of the falsehood and deceit of which they set the example.

CHAP. VII.

THERE is a Turkish proverb which says, "the corruption of a fish always begins at the head;" meaning that bad masters are the cause of bad servants. There is much truth in the proverb, and when servants are censured, which happens almost universally, it would become their superiors to examine into their own conduct, as perhaps giving rise to depravity in their dependants. Some writers on Education are very severe against servants, and say that children ought not to have the smallest intercourse with them. There is scarcely a possibility, whatever are the circumstances of parents, of keeping children altogether from the society of serv

1

ants. A mother, even though she be but in middling circumstances, has claims upon her time, independently of her children, which must be attended to: but certainly it ought to be one of her first studies to find virtuous nurses and servants; and the grand point toward the attainment of this object is to be virtuous herself. I have however known the imaginations of children polluted by servants, where the conduct and conversation of the rest of the family were blameless. To begin from the earliest stages, I am afraid that there is scarcely one of those persons usually hired as wet nurses, a respectable married woman: indeed one of this description will hardly be allured by any bribe, to quit her own infant, and her own family. What is to be expected from admitting an unchaste woman among children? There may be those of an elder growth in the nursery, and while there is a risk of her poisoning the health of the infant under her own peculiar charge, she may commit a more grievous crime still,

by corrupting the minds of the others. She may likewise corrupt her fellow-servants.

There are some good servants, and in process of time probably their numbers will be increased. The benevolent efforts which are now almost universal, to instruct the lower classes of the people, have a happy tendency to do away the general complaints of the worthlessness of servants: for ignorance is one of the great sources of vice. "The British and foreign Bible Society, and other societies for doing good, the Cheap Repository, conveying moral and pious sentiments, by popular attractive ways, the prevalence of Sunday schools, and growing attention to education in all its branches, are auspicious features of the age. A good

servant where there are young children is an inestimable treasure, and such are to be had.

* Charters.