in respect to the district, under the
former head. He may call upon a few families, especially those which
furnish a large number of scholars for the school, and make as many
minute inquiries of them, as he can, respecting all the interior
arrangements to which they have been accustomed; what reading books and
other text books have been used,--what are the principal classes in all
the several departments of instruction,--and what is the system of
discipline, and of rewards and punishments to which the school has been
accustomed.

If in such conversations the teacher should find a few intelligent and
communicative scholars, he might learn a great deal about the past
habits and condition of the school, which would be of great service to
him. Not, by any means, that he will adopt and continue these methods
as a matter of course,--but only that a knowledge of them will render
him very important aid in marking out his own course. The more minute
and full the information of this sort is which he thus obtains, the
better. If practicable, it would be well to make out a catalogue of all
the principal classes, with the names of those individuals belonging to
them, who will probably attend the new school, and the order in which
they were usually called upon to read or recite. The conversation which
would be necessary to accomplish this, would of itself be of great
service. It would bring the teacher into an acquaintance with several
important families and groups of children, under the most favorable
circumstances. The parents would see and be pleased with the kind of
interest they would see the teacher taking in his new duties. The
children would be pleased to be able to render their new instructer some
service, and would go to the school-room on the next morning with a
feeling of acquaintance with him, and a predisposition to be pleased.
And if by chance any family should be thus called upon, that had
heretofore been captious or complaining, or disposed to be jealous of
the higher importance or influence of other families,--that spirit would
be entirely softened and subdued by such an interview with their new
instructer at their own fireside, on the evening preceding the
commencement of his labors. The great object, however, which the teacher
would have in view, in such inquiries, should be the value of the
information itself. As to the use which he will make of it, we shall
speak hereafter.

3. It is desirable that the young