Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/326

 Healthy physical exercise, reasonable study, and religion as the basis of that study: so Miss Corelli would train the children.

"Boy" teaches equally healthy lessons, though the story and the circumstances are totally different. "Boy" might have been a fine fellow. He had good qualities. That he became a thief and a forger was the fault of the home circumstances and example. The father of "Boy" was a drunkard and a blackguard, though a man of good family. The lad's mother was a silly-minded slattern. There was too much discipline brought to bear upon Lionel Valliscourt; far too little was ever tried on "Boy." The latter, in his early childhood left to himself, or to mix only with street lads, and with parents who, for a foolish "pride," refused him better training at the hands of others, developed by neglect into a young ruffian, though he turned out well in the end.

Again, in conclusion, we commend these books to parents, and, indeed, to all interested in or engaged in the education and upbringing of children.