every penalty you threaten. Hear all reasons and excuses with patience, and decide with care; but when you have once decided, be firm. Yield to no importunity, and never be swayed from what you consider a just decision, "by fear or affection."

To secure the affections of his pupils, it is necessary for a master to treat them with uniform kindness, to show that he has a regard for their real welfare; that he desires their improvement and happiness; and in order to show this, it is absolutely necessary to feel it. Α stern, austere man, who does not love children, and delight in their happiness and improvement, should never assume the office of a teacher.

With respect to the different systems or schemes of school government, there are various theories and opinions; and much time and paper has been used in advocating their respective claims to attention. Judicious writers, however, appear to be pretty generally united in the opinion, that "that which is best administered is best." It is very certain that vastly more depends upon the character of the teacher, than upon the system he adopts. An earnest, faithful, and intelligent teacher, is very sure to make good scholars. Whatever system he may adopt, he will soon be taught by experience to seize upon its best principles, and to rely chiefly on these. He will study the characters and feelings of his scholars; he will see what it is which most readily fixes their attention and stimulates to

exertion; and availing himself of this knowledge, he can hardly fail to produce a satisfactory result.

The best method of preventing disorder, is, no doubt, to furnish every pupil with employment, and also to furnish a motive for exertion. Now it is impossible to give a single direction by which all this may be accomplished. It comprehends almost the whole art of teaching. It must be effected by various methods, and by addressing ourselves to various and opposite principles of the human mind. We must excite the love of learning by rendering the subjects of instruction interesting-by explanation and illustration. We must stimulate to exertion by reward and praise. We must rouse the youthful mind from apathy, by presenting new and striking subjects, or by arraying those which are familiar, in new and attractive forms. We must sometimes resort to coercion; and after having made the particular portion of knowledge in view perfectly attainable, we must insist upon its attainment. We must address ourselves to the principles of emulation and curiosity, and only when these fail, must we have recourse to fear. The love of praise, and the love of learning, should be respectively brought into action. We hold that these feelings may both be lawfully and honourably resorted to. He who thoroughly understands their use, will seldom be obliged to have recourse to the fear of punishment.

An excellent method of exciting emulation, and rewarding exertion, is, to keep a school

record, in which the result of every recitation is carefully set down, and the rank of the pupils in the several classes, and their promotion to higher classes, adjusted by the result. An assignment of cards, certificates, or books, to the most successful, may take place with advantage at the end of the quarter; nor is it necessary that this should interfere with the usual arrangement of allowing the pupils to stand in the class for recitation according to their rank.

This record also furnishes an excellent method of punishment. Let the instructer pardon the first offence against the school laws, and record the second, and all succeeding ones, as misdemeanors, in the book. At the end of the quarter, let a card or certificate of the best kind be given to every one who has no marks against him, and a card of the second degree to those who have but three, or perhaps five marks. There are very few children in any school so insensible or refractory, as not to feel the benefit of such a regulation.

Many of the modes of punishment resorted to in schools, are very objectionable. Mimicking or ridiculing a pupil, is sure to raise a strong feeling of hostility towards the teacher. There is hardly any thing which children or men forgive with more difficulty, than derision and contempt. A child should never be placed in a painful or ridiculous attitude, or have his defects of utterance or manner exposed as objects of mirth to his companions. Such a proceeding excites improper feelings in the spectators as well as the sufferer; and the master

is sure to lose a portion of their respect by a course of conduct of which the impropriety is so easily discerned.

It is by no means politic to punish a misdemeanor by assigning an extra lesson as a task. The pupil, who has a lesson for punishment, is in great danger of associating unpleasant and degrading ideas, with that lesson, and afterwards so connecting them with others, as to acquire a disgust for all his lessons. It may sometimes be necessary to detain a pupil after the school hours, in order that he may learn a lesson which he has neglected. But the instructer should always endeavour to impress upon him the idea that this is not a punishment for a crime, but a regulation for assigning to every day its certain amount of work, and to prevent the business of one day from being postponed to the next. It should always be carried into effect without any harsh words or angry looks. The teacher should hear the lesson patiently, when it is ready, and take care that it is well learnt before the pupil is dismissed; and he should be careful that the whole affair is considered rather in the light of a regulation of business, than an affair of crime and punishment.

ESSAY III.

The Explanatory or Demonstrative Method of

Instruction.

"A revolution in school discipline is in progress, the tendency of which is to substitute mental activity and agreeable excitement, in the place of the languor, weariness, and aversion to all things scholastic, which have hitherto been the most striking features of our country schools. Those among the teachers who have the wisdom to discern the signs of the time, and to anticipate its slow results in their practice, are sure not only to rise in professional reputation, and have the first chance of promotion, but to contribute towards raising the character and condition of their order."

Pillans

THERE is a mechanical mode of teaching which is too prevalent. Many instructers appear to think that they have done their whole duty, when they have heard their classes read and spell, looked at the writing books and slates, heard the lessons in geography and grammar recited verbatim, as printed in the book, whipped all the naughty children, and uttered the welcome words, you are dismissed. In the present advanced state of society, this can hardly be considered sufficient. The public have become too much enlightened to rest satisfied with such instruction. It is not enough that the child is out of the parent's way six hours a day, and has a task to learn in the evening. It is beginning to be necessary