"What a looking desk! Why, John, I am really ashamed of you! Look!" continues he, holding up the lid, so that the boys in the neighborhood can look in; "see what a mass of disorder and confusion. If ever I see your desk in such a state again, I shall most certainly punish you."
The boys around laugh, very equivocally, however, for, with the feeling of amusement, there is mingled the fear that the angry master may take it into his head to inspect their domains. The boy accidentally exposed looks sullen, and begins to throw his books into some sort of arrangement, just enough to shield himself from the charge of absolutely disobeying the injunction that he has received, and there the matter ends.
Another teacher takes no apparent notice of the confusion which he thus accidentally witnesses. "I must take up," thinks he to himself, "the subject of order before the whole school. I have not yet spoken of it." He thanks the boy for the book he borrowed, and goes away. He makes a memorandum of the subject, and the boy does not know that the condition of his desk was noticed; perhaps he does not even know that there was any thing amiss.
A day or two after, at a time regularly appropriated to such subjects, he addresses the boys as follows:
"In our efforts to improve the school as much as possible, there is one subject which we must not forget. I mean the order of the desks."
The boys all begin to open their desk lids.
"You may stop a moment," says the teacher. "I shall give you all an opportunity to examine your desks presently.
"I do not know what the condition of your desks is. I have not examined them, and have not, in fact, seen the inside of more than one or two. As I have not brought up this subject before, I presume that there are a great many which can be arranged better than they are. Will you all now look into your desks, and see whether you consider them in good order? Stop a moment, however. Let me tell you what good order is. All those things which are alike should be arranged together. Books should be in one place, papers in another, and thus every thing should be classified. Again, every thing should be so placed that it can be taken out without disturbing other things. There is another principle, also, which I will mention: the various articles should have constant places, that is, they should not be changed from day to day. By this means you soon remember where every thing belongs, and you can put away your things much more easily every night than if you had every night to arrange them in a new way. Now will you look into your desks, and tell me whether they are, on these three principles, well arranged?"
The boys of most schools, where this subject had not been regularly attended to, would nearly all answer in the negative.
"I will allow you, then, some time to-day, fifteen minutes to arrange your desks, and I hope you will try to keep them in good order hereafter. A few days hence I shall examine them. If any of you wish for assistance or advice from me in putting them in order, I shall be happy to render it."