“Do you suppose that you will perfectly keep this rule from this time?”

“No, sir,” was the answer.

“I suppose you will not.  Some, I am afraid, may not really be determined to keep it, and others will forget.  Now I wish that every one of you would keep an exact account to-day of all the instances in which you speak to another person, or leave your seat, out of the regular times, and be prepared to report them at the close of the school.  Of course, there will be no punishment; but it will very much assist you to watch yourselves, if you expect to make a report at the end of the forenoon.  Do you like this plan?”

“Yes, sir,” was the answer; and all seemed to enter into it with spirit.

In order to mark more definitely the times for communication, I wrote, in large letters, on a piece of pasteboard, “STUDY HOURS,” and making a hole over the centre of it, I hung it upon a nail over my desk.  At the close of each half hour a little bell was to be struck, and this card was to be taken down.  When it was up, they were, on no occasion whatever (except some such extraordinary occurrence as sickness, or my sending one of them on a message to another, or something clearly out of the common course) to speak to each other; but were to wait, whatever they wanted, until the Study Card, as they called it, was taken down.

“Suppose now,” said I, “that a young lady has come into school, and has accidentally left her book in the entry—­the book from which she is to study during the first half hour of the school.  She sits near the door, and she might, in a moment, slip out and obtain it.  If she does not, she must spend the half hour in idleness, and be unprepared in her lesson.  What is it her duty to do?”

“To go,” “Not to go,” answered the scholars, simultaneously.

“It would be her duty not to go; but I suppose it will be very difficult for me to convince you of it.

“The reason is this,” I continued; “if the one case I have supposed were the only one which would be likely to occur, it would undoubtedly be better for her to go; but if it is understood that in such cases the rule may be dispensed with, that understanding will tend very much to cause such cases to occur.  Scholars will differ in regard to the degree of inconvenience which they must submit to rather than break the rule.  They will gradually do it on slighter and slighter occasions, until at last the rule will be disregarded entirely.  We must therefore draw a precise line, and individuals must submit to a little inconvenience sometimes to promote the general good.”

At the close of the day I requested all in the school to rise.  While they were standing, I called them to account in the following manner: 

“Now it is very probable that some have, from inadvertence or from design, omitted to keep an account of the number of transgressions of the rule which they have committed during the day; others, perhaps, do not wish to make a report of themselves.  Now as this is a common and voluntary effort, I wish to have none render assistance who do not, of their own accord, desire to do so.  All those, therefore, who are not able to make a report, from not having been correct in keeping it, and all those who are unwilling to report themselves, may sit.”