The parents have applied at the school to know why they kept the children so late, add have then in formed me that they have been absent all day.

Thus the whole plot has been developed; it has been found that the children were sent to school at eight o'clock in the morning, and had their dinners given them to eat at school, but instead of coming they have got into company with their older companions, who, in many cases, I have found were training them up for every species of vice.

Some of them have been cured of truant playing by corporal punishment, when all other means I could devise have failed, others by means the most simple, such as causing the child to hold a broom for a given time.
The most powerful punishment I have yet discovered is to insist on the child sitting still, without moving hand or foot for a given time, say half an hour at most.

Long punishment always has the tendency to harden the child; he soon gets contented in his situation, and you defeat your own object.
By keeping a strict eye upon them it will be remarked, they soon begin to form an attachment with some of their own school-fellows, and ultimately become as fond of their new companions, their books, and their school, as they were before of their old companions and the streets.

I need scarcely observe, how strong our attachments, formed in early years at school, are, and I doubt not but many who read this have found a valuable and real friend in a school-fellow for whom they would do any thing within their power.
There were several children in the school who had contracted some very bad habits, entirely by their being accustomed to run about the streets; and one boy in particular, only five years of age, was so frequently absent, and brought such reasonable excuses for his being so, that it was some time before I detected him.