“It seems, then, you have ingenuity enough to discover the reasons.  Why did not these reasons prevent your doing it?”

“We did not think of them before.”

“True; that is the exact state of the case.  Now, when persons are so eager to promote their own enjoyment as to forget the rights and the comforts of others, it is selfishness. Now is there any rule in this school against selfishness?”

“No, sir.”

“You are right.  There is not.  But selfishness is wrong, very wrong, in whatever form it appears, here and every where else, and that whether I make any rules against it or not.”

You will see, from this anecdote, that, though there is but one rule of the school, I by no means intend to say that there is only one way of doing wrong here. That would be very absurd.  You must not do any thing which you may know, by proper reflection, to be in itself wrong. This, however, is a universal principle of duty, not a rule of the Mount Vernon School.  If I should attempt to make rules which would specify and prohibit every possible way by which you might do wrong, my laws would be innumerable, and even then I should fail of securing my object, unless you had the disposition to do your duty.  No legislation can enact laws as fast as a perverted ingenuity can find means to evade them.

You will perhaps ask what will be the consequence if we transgress either the single rule of the school or any of the great principles of duty.  In other words, What are the punishments which are resorted to in the Mount Vernon School?  The answer is, there are no punishments.  I do not say that I should not, in case all other means should fail, resort to the most decisive measures to secure obedience and subordination.  Most certainly I should do so, as it would plainly be my duty to do it.  If you should at any time be so unhappy as to violate your obligations to yourself, to your companions, or to me—­should you misimprove your time, or exhibit an unkind or a selfish spirit, or be disrespectful or insubordinate to your teachers, I should go frankly and openly, but kindly to you, and endeavor to convince you of your fault.  I should very probably do this by addressing a note to you, as I suppose this would be less unpleasant to you than a conversation.  In such a case, I shall hope that you will as frankly and openly reply, telling me whether you admit your fault and are determined to amend, or else informing me of the contrary.  I shall wish you to be sincere, and then I shall know what course to take next.  But as to the consequences which may result to you if you should persist in what is wrong, it is not necessary that you should know them beforehand.  They who wander from duty always plunge themselves into troubles which they do not anticipate; and if you do what, at the time you are doing it, you know to be wrong, it will not be unjust that you should suffer the consequences, even if they were not beforehand understood and expected.  This will be the case with you all through life, and it will be the case here.