IMPROVEMENT IN EDUCATION. 257 



certain time every day, whether he has or has not a mind to it ; let 

 this be but required of him as a duty, wherein he must spend so 

 many hours morning and afternoon, and see whether he will not 

 soon be weary of any play at this rate. Is it not so with grown 

 men ? What they do cheerfully of themselves, do they not pre- 

 sently grow sick of, and can no more endure, as soon as they find it 

 is expected of them as a duty ? Children have as much a mind to 

 shew that they are free, that their own good actions come from 

 themselves, as any of the proudest of you grown men,, think of them 

 as you please." I knew a youth who was a striking confirmation of 

 this. He was, at one period^ remarkably fond of walking with his 

 tutor ; but after a time, wlien obliged to walk every evening, for an 

 hour, in his society, he became disgusted with the dreaded pro- 

 menade. 



Locke truly observes — " I am apt to think perverseness in the 

 pupils is often the effect of frowardness in the tutor,'* When we 

 hear, therefore, a tutor making bitter complaints of the backward- 

 ness of his pupils, it may be fairly inferred that he is not fit for his 

 situation. A teacher should endeavour to interest his pupils in their 

 studies, and induce them to take a delight in their intellectual em- 

 ployments. 



But I am far from advocating a lax mode of training. Mr. Ab- 

 bott truly remarks — '' It is a great, though very prevalent, mistake^ 

 to imagine that boys and girls like a lax and inefficient government* 

 and dislike the pressure of heavy control. What they di&like is sour 

 looks and irritating language; and they, therefore, are, very natu- 

 rally, averse to everything introduced and sustained by their means. 

 If, however, exactness and precision, in all the operations of a class 

 and of the school, are introduced and enforced in the proper manner, 

 i. e., by a firm, but mild and good-humoured, authority, scholars 

 will universally be pleased with them. They like the uniform ap- 

 pearance, the straight line, the simultaneous movement. They like 

 to feel the operation of system, and to realize, while they are in the 

 school-room, that they form a community, governed by fixed and 

 steady laws, j^r/w/y, but pleasantly, administered. On the other 

 hand, laxity of discipline, and the disorder which will result from 

 it, will only lead the pupils to despise their teacher, and to hate 



January, 1836. — vol. hi., no. xiv. s 



