By such means the practical bearings and relations of the studies of the school-room may be constantly kept in view; but I ought to guard the teacher, while on this subject, most distinctly against the danger of making the school-room a scene of literary amusement instead of study.  These means of awakening interest and relieving the tedium of the uninterrupted and monotonous study of text-books must not encroach on the regular duties of the school.  They must be brought forward with judgment and moderation, and made subordinate and subservient to these regular duties.  Their design is to give spirit and interest, and a feeling of practical utility to what the pupils are doing; and if resorted to with these restrictions and within these limits, they will produce powerful, but safe results.

Another way to excite interest, and that of the right kind, in school, is not to remove difficulties, but to teach the pupils how to surmount them.  A text-book so contrived as to make study mere play, and to dispense with thought and effort, is the worst text-book that can be made, and the surest to be, in the end, a dull one.  The great source of literary enjoyment, which is the successful exercise of intellectual power, is, by such a mode of presenting a subject, cut off.  Secure, therefore, severe study.  Let the pupil see that you are aiming to secure it, and that the pleasure which you expect that they will receive is that of firmly and patiently encountering and overcoming difficulty; of penetrating, by steady and persevering effort, into regions from which the idle and the inefficient are debarred, and that it is your province to lead them forward, not to carry them.  They will soon understand this, and like it.

Never underrate the difficulties which your pupils will have to encounter, or try to persuade them that what you assign is easy.  Doing easy things is generally dull work, and it is especially discouraging and disheartening for a pupil to spend his strength in doing what is really difficult for him when his instructor, by calling his work easy, gives him no credit for what may have been severe and protracted labor.  If a thing is really hard for the pupil, his teacher ought to know it and admit it.  The child then feels that he has some sympathy.

It is astonishing how great an influence may be exerted over a child by his simply knowing that his efforts are observed and appreciated.  You pass a boy in the street wheeling a heavy load in a barrow; now simply stop to look at him, with a countenance which says, “That is a heavy load; I should not think that boy could wheel it;” and how quick will your look give fresh strength and vigor to his efforts.  On the other hand, when, in such a case, the boy is faltering under his load, try the effect of telling him, “Why, that is not heavy; you can wheel it easily enough; trundle it along.”  The poor boy will drop his load, disheartened and discouraged,