ars in doing something themselves to elevate the
moral character of the school, so as to secure a _decided majority who
will, of their own accord, co-operate with you._

Let your pupils understand, not by any formal speech which you make to
that effect, but by the manner in which, from time to time, you
incidentally allude to the subject, that you consider the school, when
you commence it, as _at par_, so to speak--that is, on a level with
other schools, and that your various plans for improving and amending it
are not to be considered in the light of finding fault, and punishing
transgressions, and controlling evil propensities, so as just to keep
things in a tolerable state, but as efforts to improve and carry
forward the institution to a still higher state of excellence. Such is
the tone and manner of some teachers that they never appear to be more
than merely satisfied. When the scholars do right, nothing is said about
it. The teacher seems to consider that a matter of course. It does not
appear to interest or please him at all. Nothing arouses him but when
they do wrong, and that only excites him to anger and frowns. Now in
such a case there can, of course, be no stimulus to effort on the part
of the pupils but the cold and heartless stimulus of fear.

Now it is wrong for the teacher to expect that things will go right in
his school as a matter of course. All that he can expect _as a matter of
course_ is, that things should go on as well as they do ordinarily in
schools--the ordinary amount of idleness, the ordinary amount of
misconduct. This is the most that he can expect to come as a matter of
course. He should feel this, and then all he can gain which will be
better than this will be a source of positive pleasure; a pleasure which
his pupils have procured for him, and which, consequently, they should
share. They should understand that the teacher is engaged in various
plans for improving the school, in which they should be invited to
engage, not from the selfish desire of thereby saving him trouble, but
because it will really be happy employment for them to engage in such an
enterprise, and because, by such efforts, their own moral powers will be
exerted and strengthened in the best possible way.

In another chapter I have explained to what extent, and in what manner,
the assistance of the pupils may be usefully and successfully employed
in carrying forward the general arrangements of the school. The same
_pri