It should be so furnished, that men should be able to wander through a vicious world, amidst all its foibles and its follies, and pass uncontaminated by them.
It should have that tone given to it, which should hinder all circumstances from becoming occasions.

But this can never be done by locking up the heart to keep vice out of it, but by filling it with knowledge and with a love of virtue." "That this is the only method to be relied upon in moral education, they conceive may be shewn by considering upon whom the pernicious effects of the theatre, or of the ball-room, or of the circulating library, principally fall.

Do they not fall principally upon those, who have never had a dignified education.

'Empty noddles, it is said, are fond of playhouses,' and the converse, is true, that persons, whose understandings have been enriched, and whose tastes have been corrected, find all such recreations tiresome.

At least they find so much to disgust them, that what they approve does not make them adequate amends.
This is the case also with respect to novels.