All I mean is to show by a familiar illustration how the teacher
is to endeavor to enlist the interest and to excite the curiosity of his
pupils in his plans for the improvement of his school, by presenting
them as moral experiments, which they are to assist him in
trying--experiments whose progress they are to watch, and whose results
they are to predict. If the precise steps which I have described should
actually be taken, although it would occupy but a few minutes, and would
cause no thought and no perplexing care, yet it would undoubtedly be the
means of awakening a very general interest in the subject of order
throughout the school. All would be interested in the work of
arrangement.
All would watch, too, with interest the progress and the result of the
experiment; and if, a few days afterward, the teacher should
accidentally, in recess, see a disorderly desk, a good-humored remark
made with a smile to the by-standers, "I suspect my prediction will turn
out the correct one," would have far more effect than the most severe
reproaches, or the tingling of a rap over the knuckles with a ratan.
I know from experience that scholars of every kind can be led by such
measures as these, or rather by such a spirit as this, to take an active
interest, and to exert a most powerful influence in regard to the whole
condition of the institution. I have seen the experiment successful in
boys' schools and in girls' schools, among very little children, and
among the seniors and juniors at college.
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