306. After the age that I have now been speaking of, _fourteen_, I
suppose every one _became_ a reader and writer according to fancy. As to
_books_, with the exception of the _Poets_, I never bought, in my whole
life, any one that I did not _want_ for some purpose of _utility_, and
of _practical utility_ too. I have two or three times had the whole
collection snatched away from me; and have begun again to get them
together as they were wanted. Go and kick an ANT's nest about, and you
will see the little laborious, courageous creatures _instantly_ set to
work to get it together again; and if you do this ten times over, ten
times over they will do the same. Here is the sort of stuff that men
must be made of to oppose, with success, those who, by whatever means,
get possession of great and mischievous power.

307. Now, I am aware, that that which _I did_, cannot be done by every
one of hundreds of thousands of fathers, each of whom loves his children
with all his soul: I am aware that the attorney, the surgeon, the
physician, the trader, and even the farmer, cannot, generally speaking,
do what I did, and that they must, in most cases, send their _sons_ to
school, if it be necessary for them to have _book-learning_. But while I
say this, I know, that there are _many things_, which I did, which many
fathers might do, and which, nevertheless, _they do not do_. It is in
the power of _every father_ to live _at home with his family_, when not
_compelled_ by business, or by public duty, to be absent: it is in his
power to set an example of industry and sobriety and frugality, and to
prevent a taste for gaming, dissipation, extravagance, from getting root
in the minds of his children: it is in his power to continue to make his
children _hearers_, when he is reproving servants for idleness, or
commending them for industry and care: it is in his power to keep all
dissolute and idly-talking companions from his house: it is in his power
to teach them, by his uniform example, justice and mercy towards the
inferior animals: it is in his power to do many other things, and
something in the way of book-learning too, however busy his life may be.
It is completely within his power to teach them early-rising and early
going to bed; and, if many a man, who says that he has _not time_ to
teach his children, were to sit down, in _sincerity_, with a pen and a
bit of paper, and put down all the minutes, which he, in every
twenty-four hours, _was