sort of a crotchet my own notion of school
keeping was, and how it answered. Let me
be at the same time careful to reiterate, that I
do not propose it as a nostrum, but that, on the
contrary, I should hold cheaply the wit of any
one who copied it exactly in practice. I
only want my principles adopted —nothing
more. One notion of mine was, that if children
could be interested really in their studies
— as they can be —so long as they were treated
frankly and led by their affections, the work
of education could be carried on entirely
without punishment. I had been, as a boy,
to many schools, and knew how dread begot
deception, and we were all made, more or less,
liars by the cane. Even our magnanimity
consisted frequently in lying for each other,
and obtaining for ourselves the floggings that
impended over friends. I knew how deceits
rotted the whole school intercourse to which
I had myself been subject; how teachers, made
distrustful, showered about accusations of
falsehood; how we cribbed our lessons, and
were led to become sly and mean. I do not
mean to lay it down as a principle that
schools should be conducted without punishment;
I can conceive a dozen kinds of men
who would know how to do good, with a few
floggings judiciously administered. But I was
not one of the dozen —I should certainly
have done harm. Corporal punishments
being abolished, there remained few others.
For, I uphold it as a principle that punishments
which consist in the transformation of
the schoolroom to a prison, or in treating
studies and schoolbooks as if they were racks
and thumbscrews —instruments of torture to
be applied against misdoers, in the shape of
something to write or something to learn —to
learn, forsooth! —defeat the purposes of
education, heap up and aggravate the disgust
which it should be the business of a good
teacher carefully to remove as it arises.

I set out, therefore, with the belief that I
could dispense wholly with punishment, if I
could establish perfect openness of speech and
conduct in the school. Accordingly, a little
ceremony of signing a book was established
on the entry of each pupil, whereby the
signer formally promised in all dealings with
his teacher or his companions " to act openly
and speak the truth." All motive to deception
being as much as possible withdrawn, the
strongest motive penalty could give, was put
in the other scale; for, it was established as a
fundamental law that a first falsehood would be
forgiven, but that after a second the offender
would be required to leave the school. This
law was taken, as it was made, in sober earnest.
There was only one transgressor, a youth
of fifteen, blunted in feeling by a long course
of mismanagement. He did not remain with
us three months. Systems, and very good
systems too, according with the individuality
of other teachers, would provide for cases of
that kind; mine did not. It was so far faulty.
It would suit forty-nine children out of fifty,
but the fiftieth would need another kind of
discipline. A little pains being taken to keep
up the feeling, perfect openness was secured,
and no tale-telling was possible, for every
one told frankly his own offence.

And that too was the case, although it was
found in practice not quite possible to go on
wholly without pains and penalties. At first,
when there were half-a-dozen pupils, all went
well; but when the number had increased,
though all continued to go well, and the best
spirit was shown by the children, it was not
possible for them, gathered in groups, to
exercise so much self-control as they might
themselves wish, and as was necessary for a
reasonable discipline. The joyousness and
restlessness of youth, not being chilled in any
way, would now and then break out at inconvenient
times, and every idler was a cause of
interruption to his neighbours. Penalties
were therefore established. They were of the
lightest kind, and represented nothing but
the gain or loss of credit. They would have
been ridiculous, except in as far as they were
applied to children anxious to prove their
resolution to do right.

Rewards were established with the penalties,
and it is necessary to explain their nature
first. I think it may be laid down as a
principle, that the practice of urging schoolboys,
or even young men, into fierce competition
for a book, a medal, or a sum of money, hurts
more than it helps, the work of earnest
education. The true teacher ought not to give
prominence to an unworthy motive for exertion;
only a false teacher does that to escape,
in an artificial way, some of the consequences
which result from the false principles on
which he goes to work. It was my crotchet
to give nobody a book for being more quick-witted
than his neighbour, but, as much as
possible, to set each working for his own sake,
and to fix a common standard: not of intellect,
but of application and attention, which each
was to endeavour singly to attain. It was
possible that at the end of a half-year, every
pupil might receive a first prize. It was certain
that, as prize or present, every one would
receive a book, and that although there were
first, second, and third prizes,, the difference
between them was not to consist in money
value.

This was our system of penalties, by
which alone the little state of children was
held in sufficient check: —Whoever during
work time was a cause of interruption, had
an interruption marked against him. If he
interrupted three times, it was said that he
lost half-a-day; if six times, he lost the day,
and, for the day, had nothing more to lose.
If he chose —as he never did choose —it was
to be supposed that, having got so far, he
might make as much noise as he pleased
thereafter. Gay spirits now and then
indulged themselves in the luxury of two
offences against order, stopping at the third.
Every offence against discipline went by the