SOME THOUGHTS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF INSTRUCTION. 107 
Anticipating, calculating, 
(Has met neither Ampére nor Bacon,) 
Returns, persistent, to the details, 
Explaining all conflicting portions, 
Feels not too strong in his conclusions. 
Here, ‘‘accidentals’’ claim attention, 
(Has heard not of the early Fathers). 
‘‘Investigate it!” is the watchword— 
Demands to know the hidden causes. 
In the domain of morals, the same principles obtain. ‘There are two kinds 
of government—one exerted by the teacher, parent or society, the other by the 
individual who is to be restrained. The most perfect restraint is seen in individ- 
ual control, where the fountain of discipline is in an enlightened judgment coupled 
with nobility of purpose. The most abominable restraint is the purely external 
one, as seen in the school-room only when the teacher is present, or in a domes- 
tic circle in which the proprieties of deportment are compulsory. Commonly, 
discipline at home, in the school and in society exists by a union of these two 
kinds of restraints. In Sicily, there is much of the external restraint—the arm 
of the civil and ecclesiastical power; in the United States, there is more of the 
“internal” restraint. The quality of society and the school varies with the pro- 
portions of these two kinds of restraints. Sad is the moral condition of that 
school governed largely by external influences, since, upon their withdrawal, the 
individual revels among his accidental changes of feeling and fancy without con- 
trol. These truths render it possible to account for the bad order not infrequently 
seen at the lecture room, at church, and in most public gatherings. Thus is gen. 
eral lawlessness accounted for—defacing public property, indecencies of speech, 
and want in self-respect. Too little attention is given to the fundamental princi_ 
ples of true discipline, and too much to the mere education of intellect. There is 
no honor in graduating an intellectual rascal. It is of but little consequence to 
require a student to memorize and repeat, at stated times, sickly formulas of self- 
government, and to frequently remind him of duty to himself and his fellows. 
But the student must be assisted to govern himself at that moment when desire » 
would entice him from the path of rectitude, at the instant when emotion wars 
against the weakened will. Mighty is the chasm which separates the languid, 
non-effective knowledge that we should do right, from the trained ability to be 
upright, when temptation’s hour approaches. All know that we should not 
embezzle the property of another, but the virtue implied in this statement becomes 
effective and useful to the individual only after he has resisted temptation (of one 
kind or another) time and time again. The simple knowing that we should rea- 
son confers no ability to reason—the inteilect must engage oft and deeply in the 
reasoning process, to acquire that ability; likewise, the simple knowing that we 
should do right confers no ability to do right—the moral powers must engage oft 
and deeply in those processes which constitute a moral act, before the mind 
acquires that desired ability. It is almost unnecessary to say that the simple 
learning of moral truths is an education of intellect and not a training of the 
moral powers of a human being. In the correlation of feeling and intellect, I am 
