this is not
so. While we furnish subsistence to those whom intemperance and idleness
have brought to destitution,--while we erect asylums where reason may be
restored to the shattered mind,--while we enlarge prisons in which to
punish the violators of the law,--we should remember that some endeavors
should be made to prevent others from requiring the same charities, and
incurring the same penalties. Instead of standing merely by the fatal
shoal to rescue the sinking crew, we should raise a warning signal to
avert future shipwrecks.

All experience shows that, to operate successfully, this branch of
education must be early attended to. True it is, that, just as 'the twig
is bent, the tree's inclined;' and true it is, that on the discipline of
childhood depends the moral character of manhood. The tree in the
forest, after it has grown to a considerable height, may yet be bent
from its natural course, and, by long-continued force, be made to grow
in a different direction; but that change will not be permanent. When
the power which turned its course is withdrawn, every breeze and every
tempest that shake its branches will aid it in gradually assuming its
original position, till hardly a trace of that power which attempted to
guide its growth can be perceived. There may be some who would neglect
that moral influence on the young which is necessary, trusting in the
delusive expectation, that the law will keep them in the right path;
that the example of punishment, the terror of the gallows, the prison,
or the penitentiary, will prevent the commission of crime. But let us
not wait for the saving influence of these things; for they are but
checks which often render the next outbreak more alarming. The force of
punishment will be found to resemble the application of power in
changing the growth of the tree: weeks, years of confinement, will not
effect a complete reformation in the offender. His life may seem to be
changed, his habits reformed; but, as he goes out to mingle again with
the world, as one occasion after another presents itself to him, his
former passions begin to revive, those early impressions take possession
of him, and he becomes the same that he was originally, only that his
degraded position renders him far less able to resist the temptation to
do wrong. Impressions and habits acquired in youth are proverbially
lasting. With characteristic eloquence and fervor has Lord Brougham
illustrated the peculiar importan