Now how different are these two methods in their actual results!  In the latter case the whole class are thoroughly examined.  In the former not a single member of it is.  Let me not be understood to recommend exactly this method of teaching spelling as the best one to be adopted in all cases.  I only bring it forward as an illustration of the idea that a little machinery, a little ingenuity in contriving ways of acting on the whole rather than on individuals, will very much promote the teacher’s designs.

In order to facilitate such plans, it is highly desirable that the classes should be trained to military precision and exactness in these manipulations.  What I mean by this may perhaps be best illustrated by describing a case:  it will show, in another branch, how much will be gained by acting upon numbers at once instead of upon each individual in succession.

Imagine, then, that a teacher requested all the pupils of his school who could write to take out their slates at the hour for a general exercise.  As soon as the first bustle of opening and shutting the desks was over, he looked around the room, and saw some ruling lines across their slates, others wiping them all over on both sides with sponges, others scribbling, or writing, or making figures.

“All those,” says he, speaking, however, with a pleasant tone and with a pleasant look, “who have taken out any thing besides slates, may rise.”

Several, in various parts of the room, stood up.

“All those who have written any thing since they took out their slates may rise too, and those who have wiped their slates.”

“When all were up, he said to them, though not with a frown or a scowl, as if they had committed a great offense,

“Suppose a company of soldiers should be ordered to form a line, and instead of simply obeying that order they should all set at work, each in his own way, doing something else.  One man at one end of the line begins to load and fire his gun; another takes out his knapsack and begins to eat his luncheon; a third amuses himself by going as fast as possible through the exercise; and another still, begins to march about hither and thither, facing to the right and left, and performing all the evolutions he can think of.  What should you say to such a company as that?”

The boys laughed.

“It is better,” said the teacher, “when numbers are acting under the direction of one, that they should all act exactly together.  In this way we advance much faster than we otherwise should.  Be careful, therefore, to do exactly what I command, and nothing more.

“Provide a place on your slates large enough to write a single line,” added the teacher, in a distinct voice.  I print his orders in Italics, and his remarks and explanations in Roman letters.

“Prepare to write.

“I mean by this,” he continued, “that you place your slates before you with your pencils at the place where you are to begin, so that all may commence precisely at the same instant.”