trous formations
of character. I cannot believe that any child, rightly educated, would
prefer the society of none but its parents, or even its parents and
brothers and sisters.

A French author has written a considerable volume on the importance of
what he calls _gaiety_, but which he should prefer to call cheerfulness.
Among the rest, he maintains that it is indispensable to the best
health. But if so--and I do not doubt it--then it ought to be encouraged
in children, and the earlier the better. Now there is no way to
encourage cheerfulness in the young so effectually as by indulging them
with considerable society.

That the thing may be carried to excess, I have no doubt. I have seen
mothers who permitted their children to play with their mates till they
became excited, and were thus led to continue their sports, not only
farther than cheerfulness and health demanded, but until they were
excessively fatigued, and almost made sick. And I believe that the
excitement of numbers, in infant and other schools, may be so great as
to be injurious, rather than salutary. Still I think these are rare
cases.

Truth usually lies somewhere between extremes. To keep a child,
especially a boy, always in the nursery, or even in the parlor with his
mother, is one extreme; and to let him go abroad continually, till his
home and its smaller circle become insipid, is the other. A child
properly trained will _usually_ prefer home, and only desire to go
abroad occasionally. He will rather need urging in the matter than
require restraint.

But he must, at any rate, be taught to be sociable, not only for the
salve of cheerfulness and the consequent health, but for the sake of his
manners, his mind, and his morals.

If it is a matter of indifference, in the formation of human character,
whether we mix in society or not, then, for anything I can see, an
improvement might be proposed in the construction of the material
universe. Instead of forming the planets so large--and this earth among
the rest--each might have been divided into hundreds of millions; and
every human being might have had a little planet, and an immortality,
exclusively his own. Such an arrangement would certainly prevent a great
many evils; and, among the rest, a great deal of quarrelling and
bloodshed.

But divine wisdom is higher than human wisdom, and one world to hundreds
of millions of human beings has been made, instead of giving to each
individual of the univ