"
The boys laughed.
"Is not this the fact?"
"Yes, sir."
It certainly is so, though I suppose James did not consider it. Your
fathers bought your hats. They worked for them and paid for them. You
are only the wearers, and consequently every generous boy, and, in fact,
every honest boy, will be careful of the property which is intrusted to
him, but which, strictly speaking, is not his own.
2. MISTAKES.--A wide difference must always be made between mistakes
arising from carelessness, and those resulting from circumstances beyond
control, such as want of sufficient data, and the like. The former are
always censurable; the latter never; for they may be the result of
correct reasoning from insufficient data, and it is the reasoning only
for which the child is responsible.
"What do you suppose a prophet is?" said a teacher to a class of little
boys. The word occurred in their reading lesson.
The scholars all hesitated; at last one ventured to reply:
"If a man should sell a yoke of oxen, and get more for them than they
are worth, he would be a prophet."
"Yes," said the instructor, "that is right; that is one kind of
_profit_, but this is another and a little different," and he proceeded
to explain the word, and the difference of the spelling.
This child had, without doubt, heard of some transaction of the kind
which he described, and had observed that the word _profit_ was applied
to it.
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