"I suppose it never occurs to parents," says John Foster, in his
Journal, "that to throw vilely-educated young people on the world is,
independently of the injury to the young people themselves, a positive
_crime_, and of very great magnitude; as great, for instance, as
burning their neighbor's house, or poisoning the water in his well. In
pointing out to them what is wrong, even if they acknowledge the
justness of the statement, one cannot make them feel a sense of guilt,
as in other proved charges. That they love their children extenuates to
their consciences every parental folly that may at last produce in the
children every desperate vice." As to this matter of education,