But I did not wish to keep school thus. I had no respect for people who did right only because they feared punishment or hoped for a reward. Such motives made people selfish. I had known of children who would deny having done something they had really done, and try to make a teacher suppose some one else did it; and also of other children who were sorry when some one else got the present. All these things made people selfish, and tempted them to be false. We should do right because it was right, whether it were to bring us pleasure or pain. It was the duty of all to improve their faculties, because God had given them to us for that purpose, and had put us into a beautiful world, and given us parents and teachers to help us prepare for a long existence of which this life is but a small part,—a kind of school in which we are educated for another world.
I wished to have but one rule in my school, and that was the Golden Rule: "do unto others as you wish others to do unto you."
The duty in school was to study well and to keep order, that others might have a chance to study. It would be necessary for them all to respect my arrangements, and obey my wishes for the sake of this order, but they need not think of prizes or marks, for I should give none.
I wished them to govern themselves. This would make it unnecessary for me to watch them all the time. I should soon learn who was worthy of being trusted.
Did they not like to be trusted?
They responded warmly to this.
Did they not like to do as they pleased?
There was, of course, but one answer to this question.
I told them none could be allowed to do that in school except those who pleased to do right, because it was my duty to prevent them from disturbing each other, or from wasting their own time. But I hoped never to be obliged to punish any one for doing wrong. I should make no rules at present, and if I found all were polite, obliging, and industrious, I should never need to make any; but if there were any in school who did not obey conscience, and think about other people's convenience, I should be obliged to make rules for such. I should put the names of such scholars on a paper, and those children must live by my rules, because they had none of their own.
I considered proper manners in school to be quietness, no unnecessary speaking or moving about in study time, politeness to every one, ready obedience to my wishes and arrangements, and industrious habits of study.