1846.] Shirkiug of Lessons a Self Robbery. 151 



by which the lesson was avoided, has given exercise and strength to 

 motives of deception and fraud. Herein lies the lamentable cha- 

 racter of the deed. It is only a misfortune to be ignorant, but it 

 is an unspeakable calamity to be dishonest. However vigilantly 

 the teacher may look after the intelligence of his charge, he should 

 use a thousand times more vigilance in preserving their integrity. 

 Limited attainments are not incompatible with a high degree of 

 happiness; but every immoral act diminishes the capacity for hap- 

 piness forever and ever. 



Another means of avoiding study, — and I am sorry to say I 

 have found no little evidence of its existence, — is, after procuring 

 some fellow-pupil, or other person, to perform the work which 

 the teacher has assigned, to present the work thus performed by 

 another, as the product of one's own labor. The intellectual loss 

 and injury of such a course are great. It leaves the mind unexer- 

 cised, when it was one of the principal objects of the lesson to 

 exercise it. It also disqualifies the pupil more and more for mas- 

 tering subsequent lessons. A scholar who did not get his lessons 

 last week, through indolence, may be unable to get them this 

 week, through incapacity, and next week, he may give them up 

 in despair. But the most deplorable quality of such conduct is, 

 that it is an acted falsehood; and, as subsequent lessons are mas- 

 tered with so much more difficulty, after the omission of preceding 

 ones, the power of the temptation increases, in a geometrical ra- 

 tio, at each succeeding step. 



The cases above referred to are generally those where assistance 

 is obtained out of school; but the prompting of a fellow-pupil in 

 school, and during the recitation, ,comes under the same general 

 head, and incurs the like mischievous consequences. To guard 

 against the latter species of misconduct, the teacher should be all 

 eye and all ear. He should be so familiar with the lesson, that 

 he can devote his whole attention to the class, instead of occupy- 

 ing the time in preparing himself, by looking at his book, to hear 

 the successive answers. His eye should be on them, on their ac- 

 count; and not on his book, on his own account. To guard the 

 pupil against taking fraudulent measures out of school, he should 

 instruct as faithfully in regard to the object of the lesson, as in 

 regard to the lesson itself. The attention of the pupil should 

 be forever turned towards the state of his own mind. Have the 

 lesson, the fact, the principle, the scientific relation, been repro- 

 duced within himself? Are they recorded on the tables of his in- 

 tellect? Are they so clearly and enduringly written there, that if 

 the slate and black-board were broken to fragments; if the book 

 were to be consumed; he would still posses them as his own, — 

 ineilaceably inscribed on the mind? Is the lesson so luminously 

 recorded in his memory, that he can see it there in the darkness 



