oon 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,
play-things, 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 domains. 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 the injunction that he has received, and there the matter
ends.

Another teacher takes no apparent notice of the confusion which 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.

"You may stop a moment," says the teacher. "I shall give you all an
opportunity to examine your desks