on, or distinguish with honor, and aid by such reward as it
should be the object of every Government to distribute no less
punctually, and far more frankly, than it distributes punishment:
(compare 'Munera Pulveris,' Essay IV., in paragraph on Critic Law),
while the mere fact of permanent record being kept of every event of
importance, whether disgraceful or worthy of praise, in each family,
would of itself be a deterrent from crime, and a stimulant to
well-deserving conduct, far beyond mere punishment or reward.

73. Nor need you think that there would be anything in such a system
un-English, or tending to espionage. No uninvited visits should ever
be made in any house, unless law had been violated; nothing recorded,
against its will, of any family, but what was inevitably known of its
publicly visible conduct, and the results of that conduct. What else
was written should be only by the desire, and from the communications,
of its head. And in a little while it would come to be felt that the
true history of a nation was indeed not of its wars, but of its
households; and the desire of men would rather be to obtain some
conspicuous place in these honorable annals, than to shrink behind
closed shutters from public sight. Until at last, George Herbert's
grand word of command would hold not only on the conscience, but the
actual system and outer economy of life,

"Think the King sees thee still, for _his_ King does."

74. Secondly, above these bishops or pastors, who are only to be
occupied in offices of familiar supervision and help, should be
appointed higher officers of State, having executive authority over as
large districts as might be conveniently (according to the number and
circumstances of their inhabitants) committed to their care; officers
who, according to the reports of the pastors, should enforce or
mitigate the operation of too rigid general law, and determine
measures exceptionally necessary for public advantage. For instance,
the general law being that all children of the operative classes, at a
certain age, should be sent to public schools, these superior officers
should have power, on the report of the pastors, to dispense with the
attendance of children who had sick parents to take charge of, or
whose home-life seemed to be one of better advantage for them than
that of the common schools; or who, for any other like cause, might
justifiably claim remission. And it being the general law that the
entir