"Well, what would that motive be?"
"Money." "The quarter of a dollar." "Love of money," or perhaps other answers are heard, from the various parts of the room.
"Yes, love of money, it is called. Now suppose I should call another boy, one with whom I was particularly acquainted, and, who, I should know would make an effort to please me, and should say to him, 'For a particular reason, I want you to copy this poetry'-giving him the same-'I wish you to copy it handsomely, for I wish to send it away, and have not time to copy it myself. Can you do it as well as not?'
"Suppose the boy should say he could, and should take it to his seat, and begin; neither of the boys knowing what the other was doing. I should now have offered to this second boy a motive. Would it be the same with the other?"
"No sir."
"What was the other?"
"Love of money."
"What is this?"
The boys hesitate.
"It might be called," continues the teacher, "friendship. It is the motive of a vast number of the actions which are performed in this world.
"Do you think of any other common motive of action, besides love of money and friendship?"
"Love of honor," says one "fear," says another.
"Yes," continues the teacher, "both these are common motives. I might, to exhibit them, call two more boys, one after the other, and say to the one, I will thank you to go and copy this piece of poetry as well as you can. I want to send it to the school committee as a specimen of improvement made in this school.
"To the other, I might say; 'you have been a careless boy to-day; you have not got your lessons well. Now take your seat, and copy this poetry. Do it carefully. Unless you take pains, and do it as well as you possibly can, I shall punish you severely, before you go home.'
"How many motives have I got now? Four, I believe."
"Yes sir," say the boys.
"Love of money, friendship, love of honor, and fear. We called the first boy A.; let us call the others, B. C and D.; no, we shall remember better to call them by the name of their motives. We will call the first, M. for money; the second, F. for friendship; the third, H. for honor; and the last F.;-we have got an F. already; what shall we do? On the whole, it is of no consequence, we will have two F.'s, we shall remember not to confound them.
"But there are a great many other motives entirely distinct from these. For example, suppose I should say to a fifth boy, 'Will you copy this piece of poetry? it belongs to one of the little boys in schooclass="underline" he wants a copy of it, and I told him I would try to get some one to copy it for him.' This motive now would be benevolence; that is, if the boy, who was asked to copy it, was not particularly acquainted with the other, and did it chiefly to oblige him. We will call this boy B. for Benevolence.
"Now suppose I call a sixth boy, and say to him, I have set four or five boys to work, copying this piece of poetry; now I want you to set down and see if you cannot do it better than any of them. No one of them knows that any other is writing, except you, but after the others are all done, I will compare them and see if yours is not the best.' This would be trying to excite emulation. We must call this boy then, E.-But the time I intended to devote to talking with you on this subject for to-day, is expired. Perhaps, to-morrow, I will take up the subject again."
The reader now will observe that the grand peculiarity of the instructions given by this last teacher, as distinguished from those of the first, consists in this; that the parts of the subject are presented in detail, and in particular exemplification. In the first case, the whole subject was despatched in a single, general, and comprehensive description; in the latter, it is examined minutely, one point being brought forward at a time. The discussions are enlivened too, by meeting and removing such little difficulties, as will naturally come up, in such an investigation. Boys and girls will take an interest in such a lecture; they will regret to have it come to a conclusion, and will give their attention when the subject is again brought forward, on the following day. Let us suppose the time for continuing the exercise to have arrived. The teacher resumes the discussion thus.
"I was talking to you yesterday about the motives of action; how many had I made?"
Some say, "Four," some "Five," some "Six."
"Can you name any of them?"
The boys attempt to recollect them, and they give the names in the order in which they accidentally occur to the various individuals. Of course, the words Fear, Emulation, Honor, Friendship, and others, come in confused and irregular sounds, from every part of the school-room.
"You do not recollect the order," says the teacher, "and it is of no consequence, for the order I named was only accidental. Now to go on with my account; suppose all these boys to sit down, and go to writing, each one acting under the impulse of the motive which had been presented to him individually. But in order to make the supposition answer my purpose, I must add two other cases. I will imagine that one of these boys is called away, a few minutes, and leaves his paper on his desk, and that another boy, of an ill-natured and morose disposition, happening to pass by and see his paper, thinks he will sit down and write upon it a few lines, just to plague and vex the one who was called away. We will also suppose that I call another boy to me, who, I have reason to believe, is a sincere Christian, and say to him, 'Here is a new duty for you to perform this afternoon. This piece of poetry is to be copied; now do it carefully and faithfully. You know that this morning you committed yourself to God's care during the day; now remember he has been watching you all the time, thus far, and he will be noticing you all the time you are doing this; he will be pleased if you do your duty faithfully.'
"The boys thus all go to writing. Now suppose a stranger should come in, and seeing them all busy, should say to me,
"'What are all these boys doing?'
"'They are writing.'
"'What are they writing?'
"'They are writing a piece of poetry.'
"'They seem to be very busy; they are very industrious, good boys.'
"'Oh no! it is not by any means certain that they are good boys.'
"'I mean that they are good boys now; that they are doing right at this time.'
"'That is not certain; some of them are doing right and some are doing very wrong; though they are all writing the same piece of poetry.'
"The stranger would perhaps look surprised while I said this, and would ask an explanation, and I might properly reply as follows.
"'Whether the boys are, at this moment, doing right, or wrong, depends not so much upon what they are doing, as upon the feelings of the heart with which they are doing it. I acknowledge that they are all doing the same thing outwardly,-they are all writing the same extract, and they are all doing it attentively and carefully, but they are thinking of very different things.'
"'What are they thinking of?'
"Do you see that boy?' I might say, pointing to one of them. His name is M.' He is writing for money. He is saying to himself all the time, 'I hope I shall get the quarter of a dollar.' He is calculating what he shall buy with it, and every good or bad letter that he makes, he is considering the chance whether he shall succeed or fail in obtaining it.'
"'What is the next boy to him thinking of?'
"'His name is B. He is copying to oblige a little fellow, whom he scarcely knows, and is trying to make his copy handsome so as to give him pleasure. He is thinking how gratified his schoolmate will be when he receives it, and is forming plans to get acquainted with him.'
"Do you see that boy in the back seat. He has maliciously taken another boy's place just to spoil his work. He knows too that he is breaking the rules of the school, in being out of his place, but he stays, notwithstanding, and is delighting himself with thinking how disappointed and sad his schoolmate will be, when he comes in and finds his work spoiled, because he was depending on doing it all himself.'