ming at once, to a full understanding. In nine cases out of ten,
this course will be effectual. For four years, and with a very large
school, I have found this sufficient, in every case of discipline which
has occurred, except in three or four instances, where something more
was required. To make it successful, however, it must be done properly.
Several things are necessary. It must be deliberate; generally better
after a little delay. It must be indulgent, so far as the view which the
teacher takes of the guilt of the pupil, is concerned; every palliating
consideration must be felt. It must be firm and decided, in regard to
the necessity of a change, and the determination of the teacher to
effect it. It must also be open and frank; no insinuations, no hints, no
surmises, but plain, honest, open dealing.

In many cases, the communication may be made most delicately, and most
successfully, in writing. The more delicately you touch the feelings of
your pupils, the more tender these feelings will become. Many a teacher
hardens and stupefies the moral sense of his pupils, by the harsh and
rough exposures, to which he drags out the private feelings of the
heart. A man may easily produce such a state of feeling in his
school-room, that to address even the gentlest reproof to any
individual, in the hearing of the next, would be a most severe
punishment; and on the other hand, he may so destroy that sensitiveness,
that his vociferated reproaches will be as unheeded as the idle wind.

If now, the teacher has taken the course recommended in this chapter; if
he has, by his general influence in the school, done all in his power to
bring the majority of his pupils to the side of order and discipline; if
he has then studied, attentively and impartially, the characters of
those who cannot thus be led; if he has endeavored to make them his
friends, and to acquire, by every means, a personal influence over them;
if, finally, when they do wrong, he goes, plainly, but in a gentle and
delicate manner, to them, and lays before them the whole case; if he has
done all this, he has gone as far as moral influence will carry him. My
opinion is, that this course, faithfully and judiciously pursued, will
in almost all instances succeed; but it will not in all; and where it
fails, there must be other, and more vigorous and decided measures. What
these measures of restraint or punishment shall be, must depend upon the
circumstances of the case; but