hools has sometimes to deal with, may ask, as
he reads this,

"Do you expect that such a method as this will succeed in keeping your
school in order? Why there are boys in almost every school whom you
would no more coax into obedience and order in this way than you would
persuade the northeast wind to change its course by reasoning."

I know there are. And my readers are requested to bear in mind that my
object is not to show how the whole government of the school may be
secured, but how one important advantage may be gained, which will
assist in accomplishing the object. All I should expect or hope for, by
such measures as these, is _to interest and gain over to our side the
majority_. What is to be done with those who can not be reached by such
kinds of influence I shall endeavor presently to show. The object now is
simply to gain the _majority_--to awaken a general interest, which you
can make effectual in promoting your plans, and thus to narrow the field
of discipline by getting those right who can be got right by such
measures.

Thus securing a majority to be on your side in the general
administration of the school is absolutely indispensable to success. A
teacher may, indeed, by the force of mere authority, so control his
pupils as to preserve order in the schoolroom, and secure a tolerable
progress in study, but the progress will be slow, and the cultivation of
moral principle must be, in such a case, entirely neglected. The
principles of duty can not be inculcated by fear; and though pain and
terror must in many instances be called in to coerce an individual
offender, whom milder measures will not reach, yet these agents, and
others like them, can never be successfully employed as the ordinary
motives to action. They can not produce any thing but mere external and
heartless obedience in the presence of the teacher, with an inclination
to throw off all restraint when the pressure of stern authority is
removed.

We should all remember that our pupils are but for a very short time
under our direct control. Even when they are in school the most untiring
vigilance will not enable us to watch, except for a very small portion
of the time, any one individual. Many hours of the day, too, they are
entirely removed from our inspection, and a few months will take them
away from us altogether. Subjecting them, then, to mere external
restraint is a very inadequate remedy for the moral evil to which they
are exposed. Wha