y
the superintendent is to be spent in study. You will see, then, when the
last hour arrives, that all the scholars go in various directions to the
meetings of their respective sections. Here they remain as long as the
superintendent retains them. Sometimes they adjourn almost immediately,
perhaps after having simply attended to the distribution of pens for the
next day; at other times they remain during the hour, attending to such
exercises as the superintendent may plan. The design, however, and
nature of this whole arrangement I shall explain more fully in another
place.

_Close of the School._

As the end of the hour approaches, five minutes' notice is given by the
bell, and when the time arrives the Study Card is half dropped for a
moment before the closing exercises. When it rises again the room is
restored to silence and order. We then sing a verse or two of a hymn,
and commend ourselves to God's protection in a short prayer. As the
scholars raise their heads from the posture of reverence which they have
assumed, they pause a moment till the regulator lets down the Study
Card, and the sound of its bell is the signal that our duties at school
are ended for the day.

III. INSTRUCTION AND SUPERVISION OF PUPILS.

For the instruction of the pupils the school is divided into _classes_,
and for their general supervision into _sections_, as has been intimated
under the preceding caption. The head of a _class_ is called a
_teacher_, and the head of a _section_ a _superintendent_. The same
individual may be both the teacher of a class and the superintendent of
a section. The two offices are, however, entirely distinct in their
nature and design. As you will perceive by recalling to mind the daily
order of exercises, the classes meet and recite during the first three
hours of the school, and the sections assemble on the fourth and last.
We shall give each a separate description.

1. CLASSES.

The object of the division into classes is _instruction_. Whenever it is
desirable that several individuals should pursue a particular study, a
list of their names is made out, a book selected, a time for recitation
assigned, a teacher appointed, and the exercises begin. In this way a
large number of classes have been formed, and the wishes of parents, or
the opinion of the principal, and, in many cases, that of the pupil,
determines how many and what shall be assigned to each individual. A
list of these classes, with the a