"Do you prefer sitting together, or are you willing to have me separate you?"
"We should rather sit together, sir, if you are willing," says George.
"I have no objection to your sitting together, if you could only resist the temptation to play. I want all the boys in the school to have pleasant seats."
There is a pause,—the teacher hesitating what to do.
"Suppose now I were to make one more experiment, and let you try to be good boys in your present seat, would you really try?"
"Yes sir."—"Yes sir, we will," are the replies.
"And if I should find that you still continue to play, and should have to separate you, will you move into your new seats pleasantly, and with good humor, feeling that I have done right about it?"
"Yes sir, we will."
Thus it will be seen that there may be cases where the teacher may make arrangements for separating his scholars, on an open and distinct understanding with them in respect to the cause of it. We have given these cases not that exactly such ones will be very likely to occur, or that when they do, the teacher is to manage them in exactly the way here described, but to exhibit more clearly to the reader than could be done by any general description, the spirit and tone which a teacher ought to assume towards his pupils. We wished to exhibit this in contrast with the harsh and impatient manner, which teachers too often assume in such a case;—as follows.
"John Williams and Samuel Smith, come here to me," exclaims the master, in a harsh, impatient tone, in the midst of the exercises of the afternoon.