during the first week of his school. Perceiving all this, he very wisely shaped his course for establishing his authority on a more permanent foundation than can ever be raised in feelings where fear alone is the governing principle. While dignity and decision of manner marked his conduct in enforcing good order in school, he yet made kindness and courtesy to characterize his general demeanor towards all his scholars. This course he adopted no less from the suggestions of his own mind, drawn from the remembrance of the effect which kindness and respect in a teacher always produced on his feelings when he himself was a pupil, than from the recommendation of Bunker, "to treat his scholars like men and women."

The sentiment of the last-named person on this subject is indeed one well deserving of the consideration of all instructors of youth. Few teachers seem to be aware what a just estimate children put upon manners how quickly they pass a sentence of condemnation on all that is coarse, contemptuous, or unfeeling, and how soon they appreciate every thing that denotes respect and kindness towards them. If teachers would properly consider this, they would find less difficulty, perhaps, in accounting for the little influence which they often find themselves capable of exercising over the minds of their pupils: for almost as certain as one pursues the first-named course of conduct towards them, will his precepts be rejected; while the precepts of him who exhibits the last-mentioned conduct will be readily received, and treasured up for improvement.

And such was the effect of the kind and judicious manner which Locke displayed among the rough and uncultured pupils he had undertaken to control. When they saw, that, instead of turning out the cruel and capricious tyrant they had expected, he wanted nothing of them but what their own consciences told them was just and reasonable, and especially

when they found themselves uniformly treated with such respectful courtesy, when their behavior was not exceptionable, all the mingled feelings of hatred, fear, and suspicion, with which they had armed themselves in anticipation of an opposite treatment, rapidly melted into an affectionate reverence, that not only destroyed, in most of them, all inclination for insubordinate conduct, but made them anxious to gain his approbation; the more particularly so, doubtless, from the belief they still entertained, that his displeasure would be attended with fearful consequences to themselves.

The first object of our instructor, that of gaining willing ears for what he wished to impart, was now, to a good degree, accomplished. And no sooner had he made sure of this important point, than he began to redouble his exertions to rouse their minds from that cold and listless intellectual condition in which they were unconsciously sunk, and which caused them to look upon learning and all attempts at mental excellence as a mere matter of secondary concern. This he did, not so much by general exhortation (for he well knew that scholars generally hate preaching masters), as by what logicians call arguments ad hominem, addressing the self-love of one, the vanity of another, the curiosity of a third, and so on; the dispositions of each having been previously studied for the purpose. In fine, he adopted almost as many expedients as he had pupils, in inciting them to push forward in their particular studies, and in awakening in their bosoms a love of learning. And, in doing this, he also labored incessantly, with argument, ridicule, and such familiar illustrations as they could best understand and appreciate, in showing them the superiority of mind over matter, or mere physical powers; and in setting up the true standard of excellence among them, instead of the false one, to attain to which seemed hitherto to have been the only object of their emulation. The happy results of these well

directed exertions were soon apparent. The exploits of the wrestling ring, the leaping match, and other of the rough athletics, in which it had been their chief pride to excel, were no longer the main topic of conversation; and the feats of bullies and hectoring blades, exercised upon schoolmasters, ministers, and deacons, were no longer considered a matter of boasting. The keen interest formerly manifested on all these subjects, indeed, had so sensibly declined, that they were now seldom mentioned. But in their place were heard, both during the intermissions of school, and the evenings spent at home, almost nothing but talk of studies, anecdotes of the school, or the discussion of the arithmetical puzzles, and the various interesting and curious questions relative to the phenomena of nature, which the teacher was in the habit of putting out, with which to exercise the minds of his pupils. The parents of the district witnessed this change in their children with no less surprise than pleasure, and wondered by what magic it could have been effected. Bunker, the committee-man, daily grew proud of his selection of a teacher, and declared he had already done more towards making good thinkers of his scholars than any of their former instructors had done in a whole winter. In short, before two weeks had elapsed, the whole Horn-ofthe-Moon was ringing with praises of the new master.

But although young Amsden's school was fast becoming what he had so sedulously labored to make it, and although his pupils had generally, since the expiration of the first half week of their attendance, so far shown themselves disposed to obedience and propriety of behavior, as led him to believe that no attempt would now be made to resist his orders, yet it was not long before he found he should not be permitted to avoid the test to which a master's firmness and discretion are almost invariably put, in maintaining his authority, at some period or other of his school.

This period, which forms a sort of crisis in the teacher's government, resulting either in its overthrow, or in its establishment on a permanent basis, generally occurs about the third week of the school. After the first few days of the school, during which the restraints which scholars feel under a new master, or the fears they may entertain of his yet untried spirit and promptitude in administering punishment, usually keep them quiet and orderly, they begin to take liberties; though at first of so trivial a character, that a teacher, not finding in them any particular cause of complaint, suffers them to pass unnoticed. From this, the more evil-disposed go on crowding, crowding a little, and a little more, upon his authority, till they get so bold that he finds the most decisive measures will alone save his dominion from a total overthrow.

Something like this was the process which Locke had perceived going on in his school, without knowing exactly where to interpose his authority; when one, a boy of about fourteen, who had been more forward than others in the course, one day grew so bold as to place his orders at absolute defiance. Perceiving at once that his government was at an end, unless the offender was conquered, and indignant at his unexpected audacity, our hero, under the impulse of the moment, was about to chastise him on the spot. A second thought, however, told him that he was too much irritated to do this now with the best effect on the offender, or on others inclined to become so; and he accordingly apprised the boy of the reason for deferring his punishment, but promised him, at the same time, that punishment would certainly follow. Although this act of disobedience was not instigated by any one, even by those from whom he had most reason to apprehend difficulties, yet either that, or the threatened chastisement, seemed to produce considerable sensation among them, by awakening, perhaps, remembrances of their

old fracases in resisting their teachers on similar occasions, and in exciting in some degree their sleeping inclinations to take some such part when the punishment of the present offender should be inflicted. In addition to these suspicious appearances, he noticed, after his school was dismissed for the day, considerable mysterious whispering among two or three of those just mentioned, and overheard one of them, a relative of the offender, trying to excite the others to join him in preventing the threatened punishment, which they supposed would take place on the opening of the school. the next morning. But our hero, unmoved by these unexpected and somewhat ominous demonstrations, resolved to go resolutely forward and do his duty, whatever might be the consequences to himself. On his way homeward, however, while reflecting upon the subject of school-punishment, its object, and the most effective manner of administering it to obtain that object, he began seriously to doubt the wisdom and expediency of the custom which he had always witnessed, and which he had proposed to follow in the present case, that of inflicting chastisements in open school. He reasoned, and from a just notion of the human heart too, that the presence of companions, whom the delinquent knew to be looking on to see with what spirit he bore up under the operation, that they might afterwards praise him for the spunk he exhibited, or taunt him for his weakness if he was seen to succumb, would in most instances have a tendency to arm him with feelings of pride and obstinacy, which would not only destroy all the beneficial effects to be gained from the punishment, but often make him more obdurate than before. So strongly, indeed, did these considerations weigh on the mind of Locke, that he at length determined to adopt a different mode of punishing the boy in question; and after trying to judge of his own feelings, were he placed in the offender's situation, as to what course would most conduce to