In the case supposed, the teacher concluded to appeal to emulation.  While I describe the measure he adopted, let it be remembered that I am now only approving of the resort to ingenuity and invention, and the employment of moral and intellectual means for the accomplishment of his purposes, and not of the measures themselves.  I am not sure the plan I am going to describe is a wise one; but I am sure that the teacher, while trying it, must have been interested in his intellectual experiment. His business, while pursued in such a way, could not have been a mere dull and uninteresting routine.

He purchased, for three cents apiece, two long lead pencils—­an article of great value in the opinion of the boys of country schools—­and he offered them, as prizes, to the boy who would write most carefully; not to the one who should write best, but to the one whose book should exhibit most appearance of effort and care for a week.  After announcing his plan, he watched with strong interest its operation.  He walked round the room while the writing was in progress, to observe the effect of his measure.  He did not reprove those who were writing carelessly; he simply noticed who and how many they were.  He did not commend those who were evidently making effort; he noticed who and how many they were, that he might understand how far, and upon what sort of minds, his experiment was successful, and where it failed.  He was taking a lesson in human nature—­human nature as it exhibits itself in boys—­and was preparing to operate more and more powerfully by future plans.

The lesson which he learned by the experiment was this, that one or two prizes will not influence the majority of a large school.  A few of the boys seemed to think that the pencils were possibly within their reach, and they made vigorous efforts to secure them; but the rest wrote on as before.  Thinking it certain that they should be surpassed by the others, they gave up the contest at once in despair.

The obvious remedy was to multiply his prizes, so as to bring one of them within the reach of all.  He reflected, too, that the real prize, in such a case, is not the value of the pencil, but the honor of the victory; and as the honor of the victory might as well be coupled with an object of less, as well as with one of greater value, the next week he divided his two pencils into quarters, and offered to his pupils eight prizes instead of two.  He offered one to every five scholars, as they sat on their benches, and every boy then saw that a reward would certainly come within five of him.  His chance, accordingly, instead of being one in twenty, became one in five.