Though at first you may experience a little inconvenience, you will soon take pleasure in the scientific strictness of the plan. It will gratify you to observe the profound stillness of the room where a hundred are studying. You will take pleasure in observing the sudden transition from the silence of study hours to the joyful sounds, and the animating activity of recess, when the Study Card goes down; and then when it rises again at the close of the recess, you will be gratified to observe how suddenly the sounds which have filled the air and made the room so lively a scene are hushed into silence by the single and almost inaudible touch of that little bell. You will take pleasure in this, for young and old always take pleasure in the strict and rigid operation of system, rather than in laxity and disorder. I am convinced also that the scholars do like the operation of this plan for I do not have to make any efforts to sustain it. With the exception that occasionally, usually not oftener than once in several months, I allude to the subject, and that chiefly on account of a few careless and unfaithful individuals, I have little to say or to do to maintain the authority of the study card. Most of the scholars obey it of their own accord, implicitly and cordially. And I believe they consider this faithful monitor, not only one of the most useful, but one of the most agreeable friends they have. We should not only regret its services, but miss its company, if it should be taken away.
This regulation then, viz., to abstain from all communication with one another, and from all leaving of seats, at certain times which are marked by the position of the Study Card, is the only one which can properly be called a rule of the school. There are a great many arrangements and plans relating to the instruction of the pupils, but no other specific rules relating to their conduct. You are, of course, while in the school, under the same moral obligations which rest upon you elsewhere. You must be kind to one another, respectful to superiors, and quiet and orderly in your deportment. You must do nothing to encroach upon another's rights, or to interrupt and disturb your companions in their pursuits. You must not produce disorder, or be wasteful of the public property, or do any thing else which you might know is in itself wrong. But you are to avoid these things, not because there are any rules in this school against them, for there are none;—but because they are in themselves wrong;—in all places and under all circumstances, wrong. The universal and unchangeable principles of duty are the same here as elsewhere. I do not make rules pointing them out, but expect that you will, through your own conscience and moral principle, discover and obey them.
Such a case as this, for example, once occurred. A number of little girls began to amuse themselves in recess with running about among the desks in pursuit of one another, and they told me, in excuse for it, that they did not know that it was "against the rule."
"It is not against the rule;" said I, "I have never made any rule against running about among the desks."
"Then," asked they, "did we do wrong?"
"Do you think it would be a good plan," I inquired, "to have it a common amusement in the recess, for the girls to hunt each other among the desks?"
"No sir," they replied simultaneously.
"Why not? There are some reasons I do not know, however whether you will have the ingenuity to think of them."
"We may start the desks from their places," said one.
"Yes," said I, "they are fastened down very slightly, so that I may easily alter their position."