once go into full and complete
operation. Even those who are firmly determined to keep the rule will,
from inadvertence, for a day or two, make communication with each other.
They must be _trained_, not by threatening and punishment, but by your
good-humored assistance, to their new duties. When I first adopted this
plan in my school, something like the following proceedings took place.

"Do you suppose that you will perfectly keep this rule from this time?"

"No, sir," was the answer.

"I suppose you will not. Some, I am afraid, may not really be determined
to keep it, and others will forget. Now I wish that every one of you
would keep an exact account to-day of all the instances in which you
speak to another person, or leave your seat, out of the regular times,
and be prepared to report them at the close of the school. Of course,
there will be no punishment; but it will very much assist you to watch
yourselves, if you expect to make a report at the end of the forenoon.
Do you like this plan?"

"Yes, sir," was the answer; and all seemed to enter into it with spirit.

In order to mark more definitely the times for communication, I wrote,
in large letters, on a piece of pasteboard, "STUDY HOURS," and making a
hole over the centre of it, I hung it upon a nail over my desk. At the
close of each half hour a little bell was to be struck, and this card
was to be taken down. When it was up, they were, on no occasion whatever
(except some such extraordinary occurrence as sickness, or my sending
one of them on a message to another, or something clearly out of the
common course) to speak to each other; but were to wait, whatever they
wanted, until the _Study Card_, as they called it, was taken down.

"Suppose now," said I, "that a young lady has come into school, and has
accidentally left her book in the entry--the book from which she is to
study during the first half hour of the school. She sits near the door,
and she might, in a moment, slip out and obtain it. If she does not, she
must spend the half hour in idleness, and be unprepared in her lesson.
What is it her duty to do?"

"To go," "Not to go," answered the scholars, simultaneously.

"It would be her duty _not_ to go; but I suppose it will be very
difficult for me to convince you of it.

"The reason is this," I continued; "if the one case I have supposed were
the _only_ one which would be likely to occur, it would undoubtedly be
better for her to go; but if it is