th individuals as possible.

7. Another point to which the teacher ought to give his early attention
is to separate the bad boys as soon as he can from one another. The
idleness and irregularity of children in school often depends more on
accidental circumstances than on character. Two boys may be individually
harmless and well-disposed, and yet they may be of so mercurial a
temperament that, together, the temptation to continual play will be
irresistible. Another case that more often happens is where one is
actively and even intentionally bad, and is seated next to an innocent,
but perhaps thoughtless boy, and contrives to keep him always in
difficulty. Now remove the former away, where there are no very frail
materials for him to act upon, and place the latter where he is exposed
to no special temptation, and all would be well.

This is all very obvious, and known familiarly to all teachers who have
had any experience. But beginners are not generally so aware of it at
the outset as to make any direct and systematic efforts to examine the
school with reference to its condition in this respect. It is usual to
go on, leaving the boys to remain seated as chance or their own
inclinations grouped them, and to endeavor to keep the peace among the
various neighborhoods by close supervision, rebukes, and punishment. Now
these difficulties may be very much diminished by looking a little into
the arrangement of the boys at the outset, and so modifying it as to
diminish the amount of temptation to which the individuals are exposed.

This should be done, however, cautiously, deliberately, and with
good-nature, keeping the object of it a good deal out of view. It must
be done cautiously and deliberately, for the first appearances are
exceedingly fallacious in respect to the characters of the different
children. You see, perhaps, some indications of play between two boys
upon the same seat, and hastily conclude that they are disorderly boys,
and must be separated. Something in the air and manner of one or both of
them confirms this impression, and you take the necessary measures at
once. You then find, when you become more fully acquainted with them,
that the appearances which you observed were only momentary and
accidental, and that they would have been as safe together as any two
boys in the school. And perhaps you will even find that, by their new
position, you have brought one or the other into circumstances of
peculiar tempta