‘4. Strife, disobedience, inattention, or any description of riotous or disorderly conduct, is punishable by extra labour or confinement, as directed by the Committee, according to circumstances.
‘5. Diligent and respectful behaviour, continued for a considerable time, will be rewarded by occasional permission for the pupil so distinguished to visit his home.
‘6. No pupil, on obtaining leave of absence, shall presume to continue it for a longer period than that prescribed to him on leaving the Seminary.
‘7. During their rural labour, the pupils are to consider themselves amenable to the authority of their Agricultural Instructor alone, and during their attendance in the schoolroom, to that of their Literary Instructor alone.
‘8. Non-attendance during any part of the time allotted either for literary or agricultural employment, will be punished as a serious offence.
‘9. During the hours of recreation the pupils are to be under the superintendence of their Instructors, and not suffered to pass beyond the limits of the farm, except under their guidance, or with a written permission from one of them.
‘10. The pupils are required to make up their beds, and keep those clothes not in immediate use neatly folded up in their trunks, and to be particular in never suffering any garment, book, implement, or other article belonging to or used by them, to lie about in a slovenly or disorderly manner.
‘11. Respect to superiors, and gentleness of demeanour, both among the pupils themselves and towards the servants and labourers of the establishment, are particularly insisted upon, and will be considered a prominent ground of approbation and reward.
‘12. On Sundays the pupils are required to attend their respective places of worship, accompanied by their Instructors or Monitors; and it is earnestly recommended to them to employ a part of the remainder of the day in sincerely reading the Word of God, and in such other devotional exercises as their respective ministers may point out.’
At certain periods of the year, when all hands are required, such as harvest, etc., the literary labours of the scholars are stopped, and they are all in the field. On the present occasion we followed them into a potato-field, where an army of them were employed digging out the potatoes; while another regiment were trenching-in elsewhere for the winter: the boys were leading the carts to and fro. To reach the potatoes we had to pass a field, part of which was newly ploughed: the ploughing was the work of the boys, too; one of them being left with an experienced ploughman for a fortnight at a time, in which space the lad can acquire some practice in the art. Amongst the potatoes and the boys digging them, I observed a number of girls taking them up as dug and removing the soil from the roots. Such a society for seventy young men would, in any other country in the world, be not a little dangerous: but Mr. Campbell said that no instance of harm had ever occurred in consequence, and I believe his statement may be fully relied on: the whole country bears testimony to this noble purity of morals. Is there any other in Europe which in this point can compare with it?