d come and take
him away; this so frightened the child, that he fell into a violent
fit, and never afterwards could bear the sight of this woman. On the
mother getting the child admitted into our school, she desired me to
be very gentle with him, relating to me all the above story, except
that the child had had a fit. About a fortnight after the admission of
the child, he came running one day into the school, exclaiming, "I'll
be a good boy, master! master! I'll be a good boy." As soon as he
caught sight of me, he clung round, and grasped me with such violence,
that I really thought the child was mad; in a few minutes after this
he went into strong convulsions, and was such a dreadful spectacle,
that I thought the child would die in my arms. In this state he
remained for about twenty minutes, and I fully expected he would be
carried out of the school a corpse. I sent for the mother, but on her
arrival I perceived she was less alarmed than myself; she immediately
said, the child was in a fit, and that I had frightened him into it. I
told her that she was mistaken; that the child had only just entered
the school, and I was ignorant of the cause of his fright; but several
of my little scholars soon set the matter to rest, by stating the
particulars of the fright, which they observed when coming to school.
It seems that a man was in the street, who sweeps chimneys with a
machine, and just as the little fellow passed him, he called out,
"Sweep;" this so alarmed the child, that he thought the man was going
to take him, and was affected by his fears in the way I have stated.
The child, however, getting better, and the mother hearing what the
children said, begged my pardon for having accused me wrongfully, and
then told me the whole particulars of his first fright and the woman
and the coal-hole. I had the greatest difficulty imaginable to
persuade him, that a sweep was a human being, and that he loved little
children as much as other persons. After some time, the child got
somewhat the better of his fears, but not wholly so. He had but one
fit afterwards. This shews how improper it is to confine children by
themselves, or to threaten them in the manner described. Many persons
continue nervous all their lives through such treatment, and are so
materially injured, that they are frightened at their own shadow.

It is also productive of much mischief to talk of mysteries, ghosts,
and hobgoblins, before children, which many person