When you first enter the school, you will, for a day or two, be assigned to but few classes, for your mind will be distracted by the excitement of new scenes and pursuits, and the intellectual effort necessary for joining a class is greater than that requisite for going on with it after being once under way.  After a few days you will come to me and say, perhaps (for this is ordinarily the process),

“Mr. Abbott, I think I have time for some more studies.”

“I will thank you to bring me your schedule,” I say in reply, “so that I can see what you have now to do.”

By glancing my eye over the schedule in such a case, I see in a moment what duties have been already assigned you, and from my general schedule, containing all the studies of the school, I select what would be most suitable for you after conferring with you about your past pursuits, and your own wishes or those of your parents in regard to your future course.  Additions are thus made until your time is fully occupied.

The manner of recitation in the classes is almost boundlessly varied.  The design is not to have you commit to memory what the book contains, but to understand and digest it—­to incorporate it fully into your own mind, that it may come up in future life in such a form as you wish it for use.  Do not then, in ordinary cases, endeavor to fix words, but ideas in your minds.  Conceive clearly—­paint distinctly to your imagination what is described—­contemplate facts in all their bearings and relations, and thus endeavor to exercise the judgment, and the thinking and reasoning powers, rather than the mere memory, upon the subjects which will come before you.

2.  SECTIONS.

In describing the order of daily exercises, I alluded to the sections which assemble in the last hour of the school.  It is necessary that I should fully describe the system of sections, as it constitutes a very important part of the plan of the school.

Besides giving the scholars the necessary intellectual instruction, there are, as I have already remarked, a great many other points which must receive attention in order to promote their progress, and to secure the regular operation and general welfare of the school.  These various points have something common in their nature, but it is difficult to give them a common name.  They are such as supplying the pupils with pens and paper, and stationery of other kinds; becoming acquainted with each individual; ascertaining that she has enough and not too much to do; arranging her work so that no one of her duties shall interfere with another; assisting her to discover and correct her faults, and removing any sources of difficulty or causes of discontent which may gradually come in her way.  These, and a multitude of similar points, constituting what may be called the general administration of the school, become, when the number of pupils is large, a most important branch of the teacher’s duty.