another (and yet not another) service, "They perceive what it deprives them of, but they do not see what it bestows; they exaggerate its sacrifices, without looking at its consolations." How can such as these know any thing of the pleasantness of teaching?

3*

LETTER III.-TO THE SAME.

GOVERNMENT OF A SCHOOL.

I have already observed that children must be governed to a great extent by the same way as men are, viz. by the adaptation of plans to the fixed and uniform tendencies of human nature. At the same time, it is fully allowed, that the government of a school must be a power, exercised by the will of one man, according to circumstances of which he alone is the judge. Now there are two ways, and but two ways, of obtaining power of this description,-one is by force, the other, by influence. Both are necessary in their places, according to the age and character of those who are the subjects of discipline; but both are not equally suitable for the school. A child is a reasonable being; and therefore Dr. Johnson was wrong in arguing, in defence of Hastie, that school boys "can be governed only by fear; that no stated rules can ascertain the degrees of scholastic, more than of military punishment, but that it must be enforced till it overpowers temptation,

till stubbornness becomes flexible and perverseness regular." Lord Mansfield, in his judgment on the same case, which he pronounced in the House of Lords, showed himself both a wiser and a better man, when he exclaimed, "My Lords, severity is not the way to govern either boys or

men."*

Let us then try to find out "a more excellent way." Putting aside, therefore, the old notion of brute force, as unfit to be applied for the purposes of government, when the reasoning powers are possessed and developed, let us see how moral means, or what we term influence, may be brought to bear in this service.

The first thing to be attended to in every school is GOOD ORDER. This point, not less essential to the comfort of the teacher, and to the communication of instruction, than it is to the happiness and the moral welfare of the child, must be gained at all hazards. The want of order is the great master defect of nearly all schools. I know of no one thing which so powerfully counteracts the exertions of teachers as this want of good discipline. It is a great mistake to attend to instruc

* Dr. Johnson's argument in this case, may be found at length in the appendix to Boswell's Johnson, vol. iii. Murray's edition.

It will be seen that I use this word here, and I shall do so in future, in its modern and limited sense, as referring to control; and not in its more legitimate and extended signification, as relating to the whole course of instruction. I make this remark because

tion as the first thing; the love of order, punctuality, and cleanliness, ought to be awakened before the means of knowledge are increased; and this, not because literary instruction is less important, but because discipline is itself a principal means both of moral and intellectual improvement. Every intelligent being sees and feels the beauty of order when he finds himself surrounded by it, and children do so even more than adults. A good teacher will know how to turn this natural taste for arrangement to account. I will only add that, whatever may in other respects be the talents of an instructor, if he cannot maintain good order, he is worse than useless as a moral governor of the young; he takes rank with the incompetent and the indolent.

The question then arises, How is order to be obtained? I should reply, by letting it be understood from the first that you are determined to have it. Good or bad arrangements, a well or ill chosen system, (matters with which your pupils have nothing to do,) will, of course, materially affect the degree of order which can be maintained, and will also make a wide difference in the ease or difficulty of obtaining it. I am not now, however, speaking of systems, but of the kind of influence which must be exercised in order to make

any

Professor Pillans, in his very useful "Letters on Elementary Teaching," adopts the latter sense, as corresponding to disciplina, in the writings of Cicero and Quintilian.

system work quietly, regularly, and efficiently. And here nothing can be done without unbending, inflexible determination on the part of the teacher. He must be an absolute monarch, and he must speak as a man "having authority."

These last words start a new train of thought. They suggest the idea of ONE, before whom, not the waywardness of childhood, but the wickedness of mature and hardened malignity, cowed and was abashed; and yet he was "meek and lowly," a "man of sorrows," in rank a servant, and in temper a lamb. With this example before us, need I add, that the voice and look of authority are quite compatible with a spirit of gentleness, love, and true humility? Ah! you will say, say, but He was "the Holy One!" True! that was the secret of his power. While he commanded others he was himself governed; not indeed by men, but by principles; and so must you be, if, like him, you would be in your appropriate place, the object at once of fear and of love. Law (not caprice) must rule your school; law, of which Hooker beautifully says, "Her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the very greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all