That boy's master wrote to his mother towards the end of his school-time--he was a Bluecoat boy--and said that he positively dreaded his leaving, as his influence on the side of everything good, and pure, and high was quite that of a master.
And now I come to the question of religious teaching, which you may be surprised that I have not put first of all.

First of all, in one sense, I do put it.

There can be no greater safeguard to purity of life than vital religion.

I do not go so far as some evangelical mothers who have told me that nothing less than the conversion of their boys would be of the least avail to keep them morally straight; on the contrary, I have known men who have never come under any strong religious influence, but have grown up sceptical scientific men, yet who have led lives as pure as any woman's.

Common manhood, with the "Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world"; common love for mother and sister, which for their sakes maketh it impossible to wrong their womanhood, even when fallen into the dust; common self-respect, which is so strong in some men, and makes them shrink from anything in the nature of mud, is often sufficient to accomplish this end.