w, but only the means by which he may
carry them into more full and complete effect.

In the case we are supposing, however, we will imagine that the teacher
does not do this. He fancies that he has made an important discovery,
and begins to inquire whether _the principle,_ as he calls it, can not
be applied to some other studies. He goes to philosophizing upon it, and
can find many reasons why knowledge received through the ear makes a
more ready and lasting impression than when it comes through the eye. He
attempts to apply the method to Arithmetic and Geography, and in a short
time is forming plans for the complete metamorphosis of his school. When
engaged in hearing a recitation, his mind is distracted with his schemes
and plans, and instead of devoting his attention fully to the work he
may have in hand, his thoughts are wandering continually to new schemes
and fancied improvements, which agitate and perplex him, and which elude
his efforts to give them a distinct and definite form. He thinks he
must, however, carry out his _principle_. He thinks of its applicability
to a thousand other cases. He revolves over and over again in his mind
plans for changing the whole arrangement of his school. He is again and
again lost in perplexity, his mind is engrossed and distracted, and his
present duties are performed with no interest, and consequently with
little spirit or success.

Now his error is in allowing a new idea, which ought only to have
suggested to him an agreeable change for a time in one of his classes,
to swell itself into undue and exaggerated importance, and to draw off
his mind from what ought to be the objects of his steady pursuit.

Perhaps some teacher of steady intellectual habits and a well-balanced
mind may think that this picture is fanciful, and that there is little
danger that such consequences will ever actually result from such a
cause. But, far from having exasperated the results. I am of opinion
that I might have gone much farther. There is no doubt that a great many
instances have occurred in which some simple idea like the one I have
alluded to has led the unlucky conceiver of it, in his eager pursuit,
far deeper into the difficulty than I have here supposed. He gets into a
contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the
projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult to
find many actual cases where the individual has, in consequence of some
such idea,