re are many teachers who profess to cherish the spirit, and to
entertain the hopes of piety, who yet make no effort whatever to extend
its influence to the hearts of their pupils. Others appeal sometimes to
religious truth, merely to assist them in the government of the school.
They perhaps bring it before the minds of disobedient pupils, in a vain
effort to make an impression upon the conscience of one who has done
wrong, and who cannot by other means be brought to submission. But the
pupil, in such cases, understands, or at least he believes, that the
teacher applies to religious truth, only to eke out his own authority,
and of course, it produces no effect. Another teacher thinks he must, to
discharge his duty, give a certain amount weekly, of what he considers
religious instruction. He accordingly appropriates a regular portion of
time to a formal lecture or exhortation, which he delivers without
regard to the mental habits of thought and feeling which prevail among
his charge. He forgets that the heart must be led, not driven, to piety,
and that unless his efforts are adapted to the nature of the minds he is
acting upon, and suited to influence them, he must as certainly fail of
success, as when there is a want of adaptedness between the means and
the end in any other undertaking whatever.

The arrangement which seems to me as well calculated as any for the
religious exercises of a school, is this:

1. In the morning open the school with a very short prayer, resembling
in its object and length, the opening prayer in the morning, at
Congregational churches. The posture, which from four years' experience,
I would recommend at this exercise, is sitting, with the heads reclined
upon the desks. The prayer, besides being short, should be simple in its
language, and specific in its petitions. A degree of particularity and
familiarity, which might be improper elsewhere, is not only allowable
here, but necessary to the production of the proper effect. That the
reader may understand to what extent I mean to be understood to
recommend this, I will subjoin a form, such as in spirit I suppose such
a prayer ought to be.

"Our Father in heaven, who has kindly preserved the pupils and the
teacher of this school during the past night, come and grant us a
continuance of thy protection and blessing during this day. We
cannot spend the day prosperously and happily without thee. Come
then, and be in this scho