It will also aid various evolutions.
Music may be employed, moreover, to soften the feelings, curb the passions, and improve the temper, and it is strange that it should not have been employed till the operation of the Infant System, to which it is absolutely indispensable.

When, for instance, after a trial by jury, as explained in a former page, the children have been disposed to harshness and severity, a soft and plaintive melody has produced a different decision.

To recite one case; when I was organizing the Dry-gate School in Glasgow[A], a little girl in the gallery had lost of her ear-rings (which, by the way, like beads, is a very improper appendage, and ought by all means to be discouraged), and on discovering the fact, commenced a most piteous lamentation.

I made inquiry for it immediately, while the children were seated in the gallery, but in vain; and I subsequently found it in the hands of a little girl at the bottom, who was attentively examining it, and who gave it me the moment it was demanded.

On asking the children what was to be done in this case, they said she should have a pat of the hand.
I then showed, that had she intended to steal it, she would have secreted it, which she did not, and that her attention was so absorbed by it, that she had not heard my inquiry; but one little boy was not satisfied; he said, "She kenned right weel it was nae her ain;" but after singing a simple and touching air, I was pleased to find his opinion changed.