By these means, his labors will not only be more effectual, but far more pleasant. You cannot come into collision with an individual scholar, to punish him for a mischievous spirit, or even to rebuke him for some single act, by which he has given you trouble, without an uncomfortable and uneasy feeling, which makes, in ordinary cases, the discipline of a school, the most unpleasant part of a teacher's duty. But you can plan a campaign against a whole class of faults, and put into operation a system of measures to correct them, and watch from day to day the operation of that system, with all the spirit and interest of a game. It is in fact a game, where your ingenuity and moral power are brought into the field, in opposition to the evil tendencies of the hearts which are under your influence. You will notice the success or the failure of the means you may put into operation, with all the interest with which the experimental philosopher observes the curious processes he guides; though your interest may be much purer and higher; for he works upon matter, but you are experimenting upon mind.
Remember then, as, for the first time you take your new station, that it is not your duty, simply to watch with an eagle eye for those accidental instances of transgression, which may chance to fall under your notice; you are to look over the whole ground; you are to make yourself acquainted, as soon as possible, with the classes of character, and classes of faults, which may prevail in your dominions, and to form deliberate and well digested plans, for improving the one and correcting the other.
And this is to be the course pursued, not only with great delinquencies, such as those to which I have already alluded, but to every little transgression against the rules of order and propriety. You can correct them far more easily and pleasantly in the mass, than in detail.
To illustrate this principle by another case. A teacher, who takes the course I am condemning, approaches the seat of one of his pupils, and asks to see one of his books. As the boy opens his desk, the teacher observes that it is in complete disorder. Books, maps, papers, playthings, are there in promiscuous confusion; and from the impulse of the moment, the displeased teacher pours out upon the poor boy a torrent of reproach.
"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 dominions. 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, and there the matter ends.
Another teacher takes no apparent notice of the confusion 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.