perly
be called carelessness, on their part, but simply from the immaturity of
their knowledge in respect to the properties and qualities of the material
objects with which they have to deal.

It is true that children may be, and often, doubtless, are, in fault for
these accidents. The boy may have been warned by his father not to attempt
to bore with his knife-blade, or the girl forbidden to attempt to carry the
milk-pitcher. The fault, however, would be, even in these cases, in the
disobedience, and not in the damage that accidentally resulted from it. And
it would be far more reasonable and proper to reprove and punish the fault
when no evil followed than when a damage was the result; for in the
latter case the damage itself acts, ordinarily, as a more than sufficient
punishment.

_Misfortunes befalling Men_.

These cases are exactly analogous to a large class of accidents and
calamities that happen among men. A ship-master sails from port at a time
when there are causes existing in the condition of the atmosphere, and in
the agencies in readiness to act upon it, that must certainly, in a few
hours, result in a violent storm. He is consequently caught in the gale,
and his topmasts and upper rigging are carried away. The owners do not
censure him for the loss which they incur, if they are only assured that
the meteorological knowledge at the captain's command at the time of
leaving port was not such as to give him warning of the danger; and
provided, also, that his knowledge was as advanced as could reasonably be
expected from the opportunities which he had enjoyed. But we are very much
inclined to hold children responsible for as much knowledge of the sources
of danger around them as we ourselves, with all our experience, have been
able to acquire, and are accustomed to condemn and sometimes even to punish
them, for want of this knowledge.

Indeed, in many cases, both with children and with men, the means of
knowledge in respect to the danger may be fully within reach, and yet
the situation may be so novel, and the combination of circumstances so
peculiar, that the connection between the causes and the possible evil
effects does not occur to the minds of the persons engaged. An accident
which has just occurred at the time of this present writing will illustrate
this. A company of workmen constructing a tunnel for a railway, when they
had reached the distance of some miles from the entrance, prepared a number
of c