the opportunity to test by experiment, under the most
pleasant and favorable circumstances, the principles which form the
basis of this work. To you, therefore, it is respectfully inscribed, as
one of the indirect results of your own exertions to promote the best
interests of the Young.

I am very sincerely and respectfully yours,
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

This book is intended to detail, in a familiar and practical manner, a
system of arrangements for the organization and management of a school,
based on the employment, so far as is practicable, of _Moral
Influences_, as a means of effecting the objects in view. Its design is,
not to bring forward new theories or new plans, but to develope and
explain, and to carry out to their practical applications, such
principles as, among all skilful and experienced teachers, are generally
admitted and acted upon. Of course it is not designed for the skilful
and the experienced themselves; but it is intended to embody what they
already know, and to present it in a practical form, for the use of
those who are beginning the work and who wish to avail themselves of the
experience which others have acquired.

Although moral influences, are the chief foundations on which the power
of the teacher over the minds and hearts of his pupils is, according to
this treatise, to rest, still it must not be imagined that the system
here recommended is one of persuasion. It is a system of
authority,--supreme and unlimited authority, a point essential in all
plans for the supervision of the young. But it is authority secured and
maintained as far as possible by moral measures. There will be no
dispute about the propriety of making the most of this class of means.
Whatever difference of opinion there may be, on the question whether
physical force, is necessary at all, every one will agree that, if ever
employed, it must be only as a last resort, and that no teacher ought to
make war upon the body, unless it is proved that he cannot conquer
through the medium of the mind.

In regard to the anecdotes and narratives which are very freely
introduced to illustrate principles in this work, the writer ought to
state, that though they are all substantially true, that is, all except
those which are expressly introduced as mere suppositions, he has not
hesitated to alter very freely, for obvious reasons, the unimportant
circumstances connec