The timid child is wasted most by his petty troubles;
And seldom, when life is mature, and the strength proportioned to the burden,
Will the feeling mind, that can remember, acknowledge to deeper anguish,
Than when, as a stranger and a little one, the heart first ached with anxiety,
And the sprouting buds of sensibility were bruised by the harshness of a school.
My soul, look well around thee, ere thou give thine infant unto sorrows.
Yet there be boisterous tempers, stout nerves, and stubborn hearts,
And there is a riper season, when the mind is well disciplined in good,
And a time, when youth may be bettered by the wholesome occasions of knowledge,
Which rarely will he meet with so well, as among the congregation of his fellows.