ABSTRACT
IT is not needed, at the present day, to demonstrate the immense importance of the juvenile portion of the community to the future, and even to the present welfare of the state,-or to show the need of education to prepare the young to be good citizens and useful members of the community. The days are past when it was requisite to prove that the labouring classes can work better in light than in darkness, and that even if they cannot, the more favoured few have no right to withhold from the many God's best gifts. These questions we shall suppose to be settled. Nor shall we, in any way, touch on the topic at present so interestip.g to the public mind,-N ational Education, or refer to the systems pursued in the various public schools already existing for the labouring portion of the population, any further than to consider how far they can or cannot be applicable to the classes which form the subject of our enquiry. In like manner, if houses of correction and common prisons are alluded to, it will not be to offer any opinion on the plan and principles adopted in them, except as they bear on juvenile offenders.
