ernon
School. If I should attempt to make rules which would specify and
prohibit every possible way by which you might do wrong, my laws would
be innumerable. And even then I should fail of securing my object,
unless you had the disposition to do your duty. No legislation can enact
laws as fast as a perverted ingenuity can find means to evade them.

You will perhaps ask what will be the consequence if we transgress,
either the single rule of the school, or any of the great principles of
duty. In other words what are the punishments which are resorted to in
the Mt. Vernon School? The answer is there are no punishments. I do not
say that I should not, in case all other means should fail, resort to
the most decisive measures to secure obedience and subordination. Most
certainly, I should do so, as it would plainly be my duty to do it. If
you should at any time be so unhappy as to violate your obligations to
yourself, to your companions, or to me,--should you misimprove your
time, or exhibit an unkind or a selfish spirit, or be disrespectful or
insubordinate to your teachers,--I should go frankly and openly, but
kindly to you, and endeavor to convince you of your fault. I should very
probably do this by addressing a note to you, as I suppose this should
be less unpleasant to you than a conversation. In such a case, I shall
hope that you will as frankly and openly reply; telling me whether you
admit your fault and are determined to amend, or else informing me of
the contrary. I shall wish you to be _sincere_, and then I shall know
what course to take next. But as to the consequences which may result to
you if you should persist in what is wrong, it is not necessary that you
should know them before hand. They who wander from duty, always plunge
themselves into troubles they do not anticipate; and if you do what, at
the time you are doing it, you know to be wrong, it will not be unjust
that you should suffer the consequences, even if they were not
beforehand understood and expected. This will be the case with you all
through life, and it will be the case here.

I say it _will_ be the case here; I ought rather to say that it _will
be_ the case, should you be so unhappy as to do wrong and to persist in
it. Such cases however never occur. At least they occur so seldom, and
at intervals so great, that every thing of the nature of punishment,
that is, the depriving a pupil of any enjoyment, or subjecting her to
any disgrace, or gi