In the case we are supposing, however, we will imagine that the teacher does not do this.  He fancies that he has made an important discovery, and begins to inquire whether the principle, as he calls it, can not be applied to some other studies.  He goes to philosophizing upon it, and can find many reasons why knowledge received through the ear makes a more ready and lasting impression than when it comes through the eye.  He attempts to apply the method to Arithmetic and Geography, and in a short time is forming plans for the complete metamorphosis of his school.  When engaged in hearing a recitation, his mind is distracted with his schemes and plans, and instead of devoting his attention fully to the work he may have in hand, his thoughts are wandering continually to new schemes and fancied improvements, which agitate and perplex him, and which elude his efforts to give them a distinct and definite form.  He thinks he must, however, carry out his principle.  He thinks of its applicability to a thousand other cases.  He revolves over and over again in his mind plans for changing the whole arrangement of his school.  He is again and again lost in perplexity, his mind is engrossed and distracted, and his present duties are performed with no interest, and consequently with little spirit or success.

Now his error is in allowing a new idea, which ought only to have suggested to him an agreeable change for a time in one of his classes, to swell itself into undue and exaggerated importance, and to draw off his mind from what ought to be the objects of his steady pursuit.

Perhaps some teacher of steady intellectual habits and a well-balanced mind may think that this picture is fanciful, and that there is little danger that such consequences will ever actually result from such a cause.  But, far from having exasperated the results.  I am of opinion that I might have gone much farther.  There is no doubt that a great many instances have occurred in which some simple idea like the one I have alluded to has led the unlucky conceiver of it, in his eager pursuit, far deeper into the difficulty than I have here supposed.  He gets into a contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult to find many actual cases where the individual has, in consequence of some such idea, quietly planned and taken measures to establish some new institution, where he can carry on unmolested his plans, and let the world see the full results of his wonderful discoveries.

We have in our country a very complete system of literary institutions, so far as external organization will go, and the prospect of success is far more favorable in efforts to carry these institutions into more complete and prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or substituting others in their stead.  Were it not that such a course would be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might