This regulation then, namely, to abstain from all communication with one another, and from all leaving of seats, at certain times which are marked by the position of the Study Card, is the only one which can properly be called a rule of the school.  There are a great many arrangements and plans relating to the instruction of the pupils, but no other specific rules relating to their conduct. You are, of course, while in the school, under the same moral obligations which rest upon you elsewhere.  You must be kind to one another, respectful to superiors, and quiet and orderly in your deportment.  You must do nothing to encroach upon another’s rights, or to interrupt and disturb your companions in their pursuits.  You must not produce disorder, or be wasteful of the public property, or do any thing else which you might know is in itself wrong.  But you are to avoid these things, not because there are any rules in this school against them, for there are none, but because they are in themselves wrong—­in all places and under all circumstances, wrong.  The universal and unchangeable principles of duty are the same here as elsewhere.  I do not make rules pointing them out, but expect that you will, through your own conscience and moral principle, discover and obey them.

It is wrong, for instance, for you to speak harshly or unkindly to your companions, or to do any thing to wound their feelings unnecessarily, in any way.  But this is a universal principle of duty, not a rule of school.

So it is wrong for you to be rude and noisy, and thus disturb others who are studying, or to brush by them carelessly, so as to jostle them at their writing or derange their books.  But to be careful not to do injury to others in the reckless pursuit of our own pleasures is a universal principle of duty, not a rule of school.

Such a case as this, for example, once occurred.  A number of little girls began to amuse themselves in recess with running about among the desks in pursuit of one another, and they told me, in excuse for it, when I called them to account, that they did not know that it was “against the rule".

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“It is not against the rule,” said I; “I have never made any rule against running about among the desks.”

“Then,” asked they, “did we do wrong?”

“Do you think it would be a good plan,” I inquired, “to have it a common amusement in the recess for the girls to hunt each other among the desks?”

“No, sir,” they replied, simultaneously.

“Why not?  There are some reasons.  I do not know, however, whether you will have the ingenuity to think of them.”

“We may start the desks from their places,” said one.

“Yes,” said I, “they are fastened down very slightly, so that I may easily alter their position.”

“We might upset the inkstands,” said another.

“Sometimes,” added a third, “we run against the scholars who are sitting in their seats.”