urch," said Rudolph, "whose Sunday-school room is as
beautifully adorned as any haunt of sin. There is a fountain in the
centre, which plays into a basin surrounded with shells and flowers;
it has a small organ to lead the children's voices, and the walls are
hung with oil paintings and engravings from the best masters. The
festivals of the Sabbath school, which are from time to time held in
this place, educate the taste of the children, as well as amuse them;
and, above all, they have through life the advantage of associating
with their early religious education all those ideas of taste,
elegance, and artistic culture which too often come through polluted
channels.

"When the amusement of the young shall become the care of the
experienced and the wise, and the floods of wealth that are now
rolling over and over, in silent investments, shall be put into the
form of innocent and refined pleasures for the children and youth of
the state, our national festivals may become days to be desired, and
not dreaded.

"On the Fourth of July, our city fathers do in a certain dim wise
perceive that the public owes some attempt at amusement to its
children, and they vote large sums, principally expended in
bell-ringing, cannon, and fireworks. The sidewalks are witness to the
number who fall victims to the temptations held out by grog-shops and
saloons; and the papers, for weeks after, are crowded with accounts of
accidents. Now, a yearly sum expended to keep up, and keep pure,
places of amusement which hold out no temptation to vice, but which
excel all vicious places in real beauty and attractiveness, would
greatly lessen the sum needed to be expended on any one particular
day, and would refine and prepare our people to keep holidays and
festivals appropriately."

"For my part," said Mrs. Crowfield, "I am grieved at the opprobrium
which falls on the race of _boys_. Why should the most critical era in
the life of those who are to be men, and to govern society, be passed
in a sort of outlawry,--a rude warfare with all existing institutions?
The years between ten and twenty are full of the nervous excitability
which marks the growth and maturing of the manly nature. The boy feels
wild impulses, which ought to be vented in legitimate and healthful
exercise. He wants to run, shout, wrestle, ride, row, skate; and all
these together are often not sufficient to relieve the need he feels
of throwing off the excitability that burns within.