This should be done, however, cautiously, deliberately, and with
good-nature, keeping the object of it a good deal out of view. It must
be done cautiously and deliberately, for the first appearances are
exceedingly fallacious in respect to the characters of the different
children. You see, perhaps, some indications of play between two boys
upon the same seat, and hastily conclude that they are disorderly boys,
and must be separated. Something in the air and manner of one or both of
them confirms this impression, and you take the necessary measures at
once. You then find, when you become more fully acquainted with them,
that the appearances which you observed were only momentary and
accidental, and that they would have been as safe together as any two
boys in the school. And perhaps you will even find that, by their new
position, you have brought one or the other into circumstances of
peculiar temptation. Wait, therefore, before you make such changes,
till you have ascertained _actual character_, doing this, however,
without any unnecessary delay.
In such removals, too, it is well, in many cases, to keep the motive and
design of them as much as possible out of view; for by expressing
suspicion of a boy, you injure his character in his own opinion and in
that of others, and tend to make him reckless. Besides, if you remove a
boy from a companion whom he likes, avowedly to prevent his playing, you
offer him an inducement, if he is a bad boy, to continue to play in his
new position for the purpose of thwarting you, or from the influence of
resentment.
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