and old age. The growing lad should be wisely and tenderly dealt with at
this critical stage. The severity that would fain compel the implicit
submission yielded at an earlier period, would probably succeed, if his
character was a strong one, in insuring but his ruin. It is at this
transition-stage that boys run off to sea from parents and masters, or,
when tall enough, enlist in the army for soldiers. The strictly orthodox
parent, if more severe than wise, succeeds occasionally in driving,
during this crisis, his son into Popery or infidelity; and the sternly
moral one, in landing _his_ in utter profligacy. But, leniently and
judiciously dealt with, the dangerous period passes: in a few years at
most--in some instances in even a few months--the sobriety incidental to
a further development of character ensues, and the wild boy settles down
into a rational young man.

It so chanced, however, that in what proved the closing scene in my term
of school attendance, I was rather unfortunate than guilty. The class to
which I now belonged read an English lesson every afternoon, and had its
rounds of spelling; and in these last I acquitted myself but ill; partly
from the circumstance that I spelt only indifferently, but still more
from the further circumstance, that, retaining strongly fixed in my
memory the broad Scotch pronunciation acquired at the dames' school, I
had to carry on in my mind the double process of at once spelling the
required word, and of translating the old sounds of the letters of which
it was composed into the modern ones. Nor had I been taught to break the
words into syllables; and so, when required one evening to spell the
word "_awful_," with much deliberation--for I had to translate, as I
went on, the letters _a-w_ and _u_--I spelt it word for word, without
break or pause, as a-w-f-u-l. "No," said the master, "a-w, _aw_, f-u-l,
_awful_; spell again." This seemed preposterous spelling. It was
sticking in an _a_, as I thought, into the middle of the word, where, I
was sure, no _a_ had a right to be; and so I spelt it as at first. The
master recompensed my supposed contumacy with a sharp cut athwart the
ears with his tawse; and again demanding the spelling of the word, I yet
again spelt it as at first. But on receiving a second cut, I refused to
spell it any more; and, determined on overcoming my obstinacy, he laid
hold of me and attempted throwing me down. As wrestling, however, had
been one of our favouri