our
companions, or to do any thing to wound their feelings unnecessarily, in
any way. But this is a universal principle of duty, not a rule of
school.

So it is wrong for you to be rude and noisy, and thus disturb others who
are studying, or to brush by them carelessly, so as to jostle them at
their writing or derange their books. But to be careful not to do injury
to others in the reckless pursuit of our own pleasures is a universal
principle of duty, not a rule of school.

Such a case as this, for example, once occurred. A number of little
girls began to amuse themselves in recess with running about among the
desks in pursuit of one another, and they told me, in excuse for it,
when I called them to account, that they did not know that it was
"_against the rule"_.

[Illustration]

"It is not against the rule," said I; "I have never made any rule
against running about among the desks."

"Then," asked they, "did we do wrong?"

"Do you think it would be a good plan," I inquired, "to have it a common
amusement in the recess for the girls to hunt each other among the
desks?"

"No, sir," they replied, simultaneously.

"Why not? There are some reasons. I do not know, however, whether you
will have the ingenuity to think of them."

"We may start the desks from their places," said one.

"Yes," said I, "they are fastened down very slightly, so that I may
easily alter their position."

"We might upset the inkstands," said another.

"Sometimes," added a third, "we run against the scholars who are sitting
in their seats."

"It seems, then, you have ingenuity enough to discover the reasons. Why
did not these reasons prevent your doing it?"

"We did not think of them before."

"True; that is the exact state of the case. Now, when persons are so
eager to promote their own enjoyment as to forget the rights and the
comforts of others, it is _selfishness. _ Now is there any rule in this
school against selfishness?"

"No, sir."

"You are right. There is not. But selfishness is wrong, very wrong, in
whatever form it appears, here and every where else, and that whether I
make any rules against it or not."

You will see, from this anecdote, that, though there is but one rule of
the school, I by no means intend to say that there is only _one way of
doing wrong here._ That would be very absurd. You _must not do any thing
which you may know, by proper reflection, to be in itself wrong._ This,
however, is a universal pr