ays by which boys engage in open, intentional disobedience, are, of
course, greatly varied, and the exact treatment will depend upon the
features of the individual case. But the frankness, the openness, the
plain dealing, and the kind and friendly tone, which it is the object of
the foregoing illustrations to exhibit, should characterize all.

11. We have already alluded to the importance of a delicate regard for
the _characters_ of the boys, in all the measures of discipline adopted
at the commencement of a school. This is in fact of the highest
importance at all times, and is peculiarly so at the outset. A wound to
the feelings is sometimes inflicted by a single transaction, which
produces a lasting injury to the character. Children are very sensitive
to ridicule or disgrace, and some are most acutely so. A cutting reproof
administered in public, or a punishment which exposes the individual to
the gaze of others, will often burn far more deeply into the heart than
the teacher imagines.

And it is often the cause of great and lasting injury too. By destroying
the character of a pupil, you make him feel that he has nothing more to
lose or gain, and destroy that kind of interest in his own moral
condition, which alone will allure him to virtuous conduct. To expose
children to public ridicule or contempt, tends either to make them
sullen and despondent, or else to arouse their resentment and to make
them reckless and desperate. Most persons remember through life, some
instances in their early childhood, in which they were disgraced or
ridiculed at school; and the permanence of the recollection is a test of
the violence of the effect.

Be very careful then to avoid, especially at the commencement of the
school, publicly exposing those who do wrong. Sometimes you may make the
offence public, as in the case of the snapping of the lath described
under a former head, while you kindly conceal the name of the offender.
Even if the school generally understand who he is, the injury of public
exposure is almost altogether avoided, for the sense of disgrace does
not come nearly so vividly home to the mind of a child, from hearing
occasional allusions to his offence by individuals among his play-mates,
as when he feels himself at a particular time the object of universal
attention and dishonor. And then besides, if the pupil perceives that
the teacher is tender of his reputation, he will, by a feeling somewhere
between imitation an