deeply, found something also which he might do for her in
his own department; and she had her garden-children, whom the Architect
had reviewed shortly before his departure, marshalled up into the great
saloon. In their bright, clean uniforms, with their regular orderly
movement, and their own natural vivacity, they looked exceedingly well.
The Assistant examined them in his own way, and by a variety of
questions, and by the turns which he gave them, soon brought to light
the capacities and dispositions of the children; and without its seeming
so, in the space of less than one hour he had really given them
important instruction and assistance.

"How did you manage that?" asked Charlotte, as the children marched
away. "I listened with all my attention. Nothing was brought forward
except things which were quite familiar, and yet I cannot tell the least
how I should begin to bring them to be discussed in so short a time so
methodically, with all this questioning and answering."

"Perhaps," replied the Assistant, "we ought to make a secret of the
tricks of our own handicraft. However, I will not hide from you one very
simple maxim, with the help of which you may do this, and a great deal
more than this. Take any subject, a substance, an idea, whatever you
like; keep fast hold of it; make yourself thoroughly acquainted with it
in all its parts, and then it will be easy for you, in conversation, to
find out, with a mass of children, how much about it has already
developed itself in them; what requires to be stimulated, what to be
directly communicated. The answers to your questions may be as
unsatisfactory as they will, they may wander wide of the mark; if you
only take care that your counter-question shall draw their thoughts and
senses inwards again; if you do not allow yourself to be driven from
your own position--the children will at last reflect, comprehend, learn
only what the teacher desires them to learn, and the subject will be
presented to them in the light in which he wishes them to see it. The
greatest mistake which he can make is to allow himself to be run away
with from the subject; not to know how to keep fast to the point with
which he is engaged. Do you try this on your own account the next time
the children come; you will find you will be greatly entertained by it
yourself."

"That is very good," said Charlotte. "The right method of teaching is
the reverse, I see, of what we must do in life. In society we