Now, little children, shall I tell you a story, a real true story about a very cruel boy?
If the children say, Yes, the following may be related.
A poor little dog was once going along the streets of a town, and a carriage which was coming up the street very fast, ran over it, and the poor thing was very nearly killed, but it had still strength to crawl over to a house where a boy was standing at the door, and it began to whine and looked up in the boy's face, as if to say, you see how much I am hurt, so please take me in and try and cure me; but the boy was a very cruel boy, and had no pity on the poor dog, but took a large pot of boiling water and threw it over the poor wounded little dog, so that it died soon after in very dreadful pain.

But the chief governor of the place, that is, the person whom the king had put there to punish wicked people, heard of what a cruel thing this bad boy had done.

So he brought him up to the market place, and he made a man take off this cruel boy's clothes, and lash him on the bare back before all the people of the town, in order that he might know a little of the pain that the poor dog had felt.

From this story, little children, you may learn, that you must not begin to be cruel, if you do, the habit will grow up with you as it did with this bigger boy, and will never leave you, even when you are men.
Such lessons as these, given at proper times and when the infant mind is in a fit state to receive them, will do more to prevent what you wish to avoid, than any thing which could be possibly done at a more advanced age; this is indeed moral training, and when such is given generally in infant schools, we may look forward to a generation very superior to the present, in the genuine parts of Christianity, and in every moral and social virtue.
The beneficial results of moral training have been practically shown in every infant school where the subject has been properly understood and carried out, and numerous anecdotes illustrative of its beneficial effects might be here introduced, which would convince those who have any doubt on the subject, of the good effects of exercising kindness and consideration for others, in opposition to reckless mischief, hardheartedness, and cruelty, vices which render the lower orders dangerous and formidable; but as a complete collection of such anecdotes would form in themselves a volume, we will for the present lay before our readers a few taken at random, to illustrate the subject; they are from the appendix of the first report of the Edinburgh Infant School Society, the model school of which was organized by the author of this book.
"Two of the children, brothers, about five and four years of age, coming one morning late into school, were to go to their seats without censure, if they could give an account of what they had been doing, which should be declared satisfactory by the whole school, who should decide; they stated separately that they had been contemplating the proceedings of a large caterpillar, and noticing the different positions of its body as it crossed their path, that it was now horizontal, and now perpendicular, and presently curved, and finally inclined, when it escaped into a tree.

The master then asked them abruptly, Why did you not kill it?
The children stared.