till at last, when this has been carried far enough,
some one suggests the formula, which is brought forth and solemnly read
to the child by the family straightener. This gentleman is always
invited on these occasions, for the very fact of intrusion into a
peaceful family shows a depravity on the part of the child which requires
his professional services.

On being teased by the reading and tweaked by the nurse, the child will
commonly fall a-crying, which is reckoned a good sign as showing a
consciousness of guilt. He is thereon asked, Does he assent to the
formula? on which, as he still continues crying and can obviously make no
answer, some one of the friends comes forward and undertakes to sign the
document on his behalf, feeling sure (so he says) that the child would do
it if he only knew how, and that he will release the present signer from
his engagement on arriving at maturity. The friend then inscribes the
signature of the child at the foot of the parchment, which is held to
bind the child as much as though he had signed it himself. Even this,
however, does not fully content them, for they feel a little uneasy until
they have got the child's own signature after all. So when he is about
fourteen these good people partly bribe him by promises of greater
liberty and good things, and partly intimidate him through their great
power of making themselves passively unpleasant to him, so that though
there is a show of freedom made, there is really none, and partly they
use the offices of the teachers in the Colleges of Unreason, till at
last, in one way or another, they take very good care that he shall sign
the paper by which he professes to have been a free agent in coming into
the world, and to take all the responsibility of having done so on to his
own shoulders. And yet, though this document is in theory the most
important which any one can sign in his whole life, they will have him
commit himself to it at an age when neither they nor the law will for
many a year allow any one else to bind him to the smallest obligation, no
matter how righteously he may owe it, because they hold him too young to
know what he is about.

I thought this seemed rather hard, and not of a piece with the many
admirable institutions existing among them. I once ventured to say a
part of what I thought about it to one of the Professors of Unreason. I
asked him whether he did not think it would do serious harm to a lad's
principles,