Excerpt VII: Throwing Stones

Abstract

The lesson below dramatically illustrates two of our universally held tenets until about a century ago.¹ These are that boysleft to their own devices are "wicked and malicious," and that no children's lesson is complete without moral and spiritual precepts. This lesson's severe tone may surprise modern readers; it is important to recall that once it was the bounden duty of parents to curb any propensity toward amusement as being an obstacle to salvation.²