Note 10 — ESSAY II. THE EDUCATION OF THE EMOTIONS.

I will cite an example from my own experience, which may help to make parents realize the subtle peril of which I speak. Twenty-five years ago I was engaged in an effort to help Mary Carpenter in the care of the Red Lodge Reformatory for girl-thieves at Bristol. Our poor little charges had all been convicted of larceny, or some kindred offence, but they were not technically “fallen” girls: another establishment received young women of this “unfortunate” class. Twice, however, it happened, during my residence with Miss Carpenter, that girls who had been on the streets were by mistake sent to us when convicted of theft, and were of course received and placed with the others, all being under the most careful surveillance both in the school-rooms, playgrounds, and dormitory. Nevertheless, in each case, before the “unfortunate” had been three days in the Lodge, by some inexplicable contagion the whole school of fifty girls were demoralized so completely that the aspect of the children and change in their behavior gave warning to their experienced janitress to trace the history of the new-comer more exactly, and, as the result proved, to detect where the infection had come in.