teacher, if he is a kind-hearted and
considerate man, perhaps briefly commends the effort with some such dubious
and equivocal praise as it is "Very well for a beginner," or "As good a
composition as could be expected at the first attempt," and then proceeds
to go over the exercise in a cool and deliberate manner, with a view of
discovering and bringing out clearly and conspicuously to the view, not
only of the little author himself, but often of all his classmates and
friends, every imperfection, failure, mistake, omission, or other fault
which a rigid scrutiny can detect in the performance. However kindly he
may do this, and however gentle the tones of his voice, still the work is
criticism and fault-finding from beginning to end. The boy sits on thorns
and nettles while submitting to the operation, and when he takes his marked
and corrected manuscript to his seat, he feels mortified and ashamed, and
is often hopelessly discouraged.

_How Faults are to be Corrected_.

Some one may, perhaps, say that pointing out the errors and faults of
pupils is absolutely essential to their progress, inasmuch as, unless they
are made to see what their faults are, they can not be expected to correct
them. I admit that this is true to a certain extent, but by no means to
so great an extent as is often supposed. There are a great many ways of
teaching pupils to do better what they are going to do, besides showing
them the faults in what they have already done.

Thus, without pointing out the errors and faults which he observes, the
teacher may only refer to and commend what is right, while he at the same
time observes and remembers the prevailing faults, with a view of adapting
his future instructions to the removal of them. These instructions, when
given, will take the form, of course, of general information on the art of
expressing one's thoughts in writing, and on the faults and errors to be
avoided, perhaps without any, or, at least, very little allusion to those
which the pupils themselves had committed. Instruction thus given, while it
will have at least an equal tendency with the other mode to form the pupils
to habits of correctness and accuracy, will not have the effect upon their
mind of disparagement of what they have already done, but rather of aid and
encouragement for them in regard to what they are next to do. In following
the instructions thus given them, the pupils will, as it were, leave the
faults previously committ