disobedient child into a room by himself.

I cannot approve of this method, as the child is frequently frightened into quietness without improving its temper in the least; if it be day-time it is not so bad, but if it be dark the consequences are often serious, and materially injure the constitution of the child.

ON THE DISEASES OF CHILDREN.

IT may, probably, be considered presumption in me, to speak of the diseases of children, as this more properly belongs to the faculty; but let it be observed, that my pretension is not to cure the diseases that children are subject to, but only to prevent those which are infectious from spreading. I have found that children between the ages of two and seven years, are subject to the measles, hooping cough, fever, ophthalmia, and the small-pox. This last is very rare, owing to the great encouragement given to vaccination; and were it not for the obstinacy of many of the poor, I believe this disease would be totally extirpated. During the whole of the time I was in charge of the Spitalfields' School, I only heard of three children dying of it, and those had never been vaccinated. I always made a point of inquiring, on the admission of a child, whether this operation had been performed, and, if not, I strongly recommended that it should. If the parents spoke the truth, I had but few children in the school who had not been vaccinated: this accounts, therefore, for having lost but three children through that disease.

The measles, however, I consider as a very dangerous disorder, and we lost a great many children by this disease, besides two of my own. The symptoms I have generally found as follow. It is preceded with a violent cough, and the child's eyes appear watery; the child will also be sick. As soon as these symptoms are perceived, I would immediately send the child home, and desire the parents to keep him at home for a few days, in order to ascertain if it has the measles, and if so, it must be prohibited from coming to school until well. This caution is absolutely necessary, as some parents are so careless, that they will send their children when the measles are thick out upon them.

The same may be said with respect to other diseases, for unless the persons who have charge of the school attend to these things, the parents will be glad to get their children out of the way, and will send them with various diseases upon them, without considering the ill-effects that may be produced in the school. Whether such conduct in the parents proceeds from ignorance or not, I am not able to say, but this I know, that I have had many parents offer children for admission, with all the diseases I have mentioned, and who manifested no disposition to inform me of it. The number of children who may be sick, from time to time, may be averaged at from twenty to thirty-five. Out of two hundred and twenty, we have never had less than twenty absent on account of illness, and once or twice, we had as many as fifty.

Soon after I first took charge of the Spitalfields' School, I found that there were five or six children in the school who had the measles; the con

sequence was, that it contaminated the whole school, and about eight children died, one of my own being of that number. This induced me to be very cautious in future, and I made a point of walking round the school twice every day, in order to inspect the children; and after the adoption of this plan, we did not have the measles in the school.

The hooping-cough is known, of course, by the child hooping; but I consider it the safest plan to send all children home that have any kind of cough; this will cause the mother to come and inquire the reason why the child is sent home; I then can ascertain from her whether the child has had the hooping-cough or not.

With respect to fever, 1 generally find the children appear chilly and cold, and not unfre quently they are sick. I do not however feel myself competent to describe the early symptoms of this disorder, but the best way to prevent its gaining ground in the school is to send all the children home who appear the least indisposed; this will be the most likely way to prevent a fever from getting into the school.

As to the ophthalmia, I can describe the symptoms of that disease, having had it myself, together with the whole of my family. It generally comes in the left eye first, and causes a sensation as if something was in the eye, which pricks and shoots, and causes great pain: the white of the eye will appear red, or what is usually called bloodshot; this, if not speedily attended to, will cause blindness; I have had several children that have been blind with it for several days. In the morning the patients are not able to unclose their eyes, for they will be gummed up, and it

will be some time after they are awake before they I will be able to disengage the eyelids. As soon as I observe these appearances, I immediately send the child home; for I have ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the disease is contagious, and if a child be suffered to remain with it in the school, the infection will speedily spread among all the children.

As children are frequently apt to burn or scald themselves, I will here insert a method for the cure of both. It is very simple, and yet infallible; at least, I have never known it to fail. It is no other than common writing ink. One of my own children burnt its hand dreadfully, and was cured by immediately washing it all over with ink. Several children burnt their hands against the pipe that was connected with the stove in the school-room, and were cured by the same means. One boy, in particular, took hold of a hot cinder that fell from the fire, and it quite singed his hand; I applied ink to it, and it was cured in a very short time. Let any one, therefore, who may happen to receive a burn, apply ink to it immediately, and he will soon witness the good effects of the application.

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CHAPTER VIII.

PRINCIPLES OF INFANT EDUCATION.

"We desire to give a moral constitution to the child instead of a moral custom."

IT is observed by a very celebrated writer, "that the educator's care, above all things, should be, first, to lay in his charge the foundation of religion and virtue." If, then, this be the first care, how important is it to take the earliest opportunity of instilling such principles into infant minds, before they are overcharged with principles of an opposite nature. It has likewise been observed, and perhaps with some truth, "that the human soul is never idle, that if the mind is not occupied with something good, it must needs employ itself about something evil." The chief end and design of an infant school, is to keep the mind employed about what is innocent and useful; and therefore teaching children to read, write, and so on, are regarded as secondary objects. Many have been taught to read and write well, and have had, what is usually called, a good education; but inasmuch as they have not been taught their duty to God, and to each other, they have frequently