Many precepts, beautiful indeed in intention, were crammed into the pupil, the process being repeated until they often became irksome, and he was expected to become moral and religious.  I saw that precepts were of little use unless those whom they were meant to benefit were educated, fortified, and disciplined in the practical means of observing them.

It was at that time painful to see children, with many good natural tendencies, leave school with bad habits, and vices so marked and developed, that even the exertions of the most skilful physicians, the discourses of the most learned of our clergy, failed to effect a cure.

The first thing necessary was to devise effective—­it may be said unerring—­means to search out the characters and dispositions of children.

I created the office of “character-divers,” and selected for the discharge of its duties eminent men of great sagacity and gentleness, skilled in the knowledge of the mind and heart, their sole occupation being to discover the qualities, tendencies, and incipient faults of children, and act accordingly; to dive, as it were, into the secret imaginings of the child; to detect the early germ of evil, and note the presence of good; to indicate measures for eradicating the one and developing the other.

These character—­divers, called in our language “Djarke,” are distinct from the masters, called “Zicche,” or fathers of knowledge, able men, who have charge of the boys’ studies.

The qualities which enable a preceptor to impart literary and scientific knowledge differ widely from those fitted for searching out, discriminating and correcting faults of character, interpreting the real qualities that nature has implanted in the youthful aspirant, and devising the measures to be taken for correction or development.

Even if the necessary qualities for both duties were united in one master, there would be many objections to the duties being entrusted to the same person.

The character-divers are as it were moral physicians, skilled in the detection and cure of the hidden germs of mental maladies; for, as you will see hereafter, I was not content to wait till a disease, whether of the mind or body, had developed itself, spreading contagious poison through the veins and arteries of society, and propagating evil without end; the germ was destroyed before it had acquired force to injure.

In our planet neither the faults nor the good qualities of children show themselves in the same way; the indications vary in each child according to his temperament and the circumstances in which he may be placed.  Faults and qualities are often of a kind seemingly opposed to what they actually demonstrate to the character-diver—­particularly in children endowed with genius.

Fair and even beautiful outcroppings are sometimes indications of noxious weeds hidden below the surface.  Weeds are not unfrequently born from the very richness and exuberance of the soil, whilst many a dark and seemingly sterile stem conceals the embryo of fruit and flowers which a genial sunshine will call into life and beauty.