Though at first you may experience a little inconvenience, you will soon take pleasure in the scientific strictness of the plan. It will gratify you to observe the profound stillness of the room where a hundred are studying. You will take pleasure in observing the sudden transition from the silence of study hours to the joyful sounds, and the animating activity of recess, when the Study Card goes down; and then when it rises again at the close of the recess, you will be gratified to observe how suddenly the sounds which have filled the air and made the room so lively a scene are hushed into silence by the single and almost inaudible touch of that little bell. You will take pleasure in this, for young and old always take pleasure in the strict and rigid operation of system, rather than in laxity and disorder. I am convinced also that the scholars do like the operation of this plan for I do not have to make any efforts to sustain it. With the exception that occasionally, usually not oftener than once in several months, I allude to the subject, and that chiefly on account of a few careless and unfaithful individuals, I have little to say or to do to maintain the authority of the study card. Most of the scholars obey it of their own accord, implicitly and cordially. And I believe they consider this faithful monitor, not only one of the most useful, but one of the most agreeable friends they have. We should not only regret its services, but miss its company, if it should be taken away.
This regulation then, viz., to abstain from all communication with one another, and from all leaving of seats, at certain times which are marked by the position of the Study Card, is the only one which can properly be called a rule of the school. There are a great many arrangements and plans relating to the instruction of the pupils, but no other specific rules relating to their conduct. You are, of course, while in the school, under the same moral obligations which rest upon you elsewhere. You must be kind to one another, respectful to superiors, and quiet and orderly in your deportment. You must do nothing to encroach upon another's rights, or to interrupt and disturb your companions in their pursuits. You must not produce disorder, or be wasteful of the public property, or do any thing else which you might know is in itself wrong. But you are to avoid these things, not because there are any rules in this school against them, for there are none;-but because they are in themselves wrong;-in all places and under all circumstances, wrong. The universal and unchangeable principles of duty are the same here as elsewhere. I do not make rules pointing them out, but expect that you will, through your own conscience and moral principle, discover and obey them.
Such a case as this, for example, once occurred. A number of little girls began to amuse themselves in recess with running about among the desks in pursuit of one another, and they told me, in excuse for it, that they did not know that it was "against the rule."
"It is not against the rule;" said I, "I have never made any rule against running about among the desks."
"Then," asked they, "did we do wrong?"
"Do you think it would be a good plan," I inquired, "to have it a common amusement in the recess, for the girls to hunt each other among the desks?"
"No sir," they replied simultaneously.
"Why not? There are some reasons I do not know, however whether you will have the ingenuity to think of them."
"We may start the desks from their places," said one.
"Yes," said I, "they are fastened down very slightly, so that I may easily alter their position."
"We might upset the inkstands," said another.
"Sometimes," added a third, "we run against the scholars who are sitting in their seats."
"It seems then you have ingenuity enough to discover the reasons. Why did not these reasons prevent your doing it."
"We did not think of them before."
"True; that is the exact state of the case. Now when persons are so eager to promote their own enjoyment, as to forget the rights and the comforts of others, it is selfishness. Now is there any rule in this school against selfishness."
"No sir."
"You are right. There is not. But selfishness is wrong,-very wrong, in whatever form it appears,-here, and every where else; and that, whether I make any rules against it or not."
You will see from this anecdote that though there is but one rule of the school, I by no means intend to say that there is only one way of doing wrong here. That would be very absurd. You must not do any thing which you may know, by proper reflection, to be in itself wrong. This however is an universal principle of duty, not a rule of the Mt. Vernon School. If I should attempt to make rules which would specify and prohibit every possible way by which you might do wrong, my laws would be innumerable. And even then I should fail of securing my object, unless you had the disposition to do your duty. No legislation can enact laws as fast as a perverted ingenuity can find means to evade them.
You will perhaps ask what will be the consequence if we transgress, either the single rule of the school, or any of the great principles of duty. In other words what are the punishments which are resorted to in the Mt. Vernon School? The answer is there are no punishments. I do not say that I should not, in case all other means should fail, resort to the most decisive measures to secure obedience and subordination. Most certainly, I should do so, as it would plainly be my duty to do it. If you should at any time be so unhappy as to violate your obligations to yourself, to your companions, or to me,-should you misimprove your time, or exhibit an unkind or a selfish spirit, or be disrespectful or insubordinate to your teachers,-I should go frankly and openly, but kindly to you, and endeavor to convince you of your fault. I should very probably do this by addressing a note to you, as I suppose this should be less unpleasant to you than a conversation. In such a case, I shall hope that you will as frankly and openly reply; telling me whether you admit your fault and are determined to amend, or else informing me of the contrary. I shall wish you to be sincere, and then I shall know what course to take next. But as to the consequences which may result to you if you should persist in what is wrong, it is not necessary that you should know them before hand. They who wander from duty, always plunge themselves into troubles they do not anticipate; and if you do what, at the time you are doing it, you know to be wrong, it will not be unjust that you should suffer the consequences, even if they were not beforehand understood and expected. This will be the case with you all through life, and it will be the case here.
I say it will be the case here; I ought rather to say that it will be the case, should you be so unhappy as to do wrong and to persist in it. Such cases however never occur. At least they occur so seldom, and at intervals so great, that every thing of the nature of punishment, that is, the depriving a pupil of any enjoyment, or subjecting her to any disgrace, or giving her pain in any way in consequence of her faults, except the simple pain of awakening conscience in her bosom is almost entirely unknown. I hope that you will always be ready to confess and forsake your faults, and endeavor while you remain in school, to improve in character, and attain as far as possible, every moral excellence.
I ought to remark before dismissing this topic, that I place very great confidence in the scholars in regard to their moral conduct and deportment, and they fully deserve it. I have no care and no trouble in what is commonly called the government of the school. Neither myself nor any one else is employed in any way in watching the scholars, or keeping any sort of account of them. I should not at any time hesitate to call all the teachers in an adjoining room, leaving the school alone for half an hour, and I should be confident, that at such a time order, and stillness, and attention to study would prevail as much as ever. The scholars would not look to see whether I was in my desk, but whether the Study Card was up. The school was left in this way, half an hour every day, during a quarter, that we might have a teachers' meeting, and the school went on, generally quite as well, to say the least, as when the teachers were present. One or two instances of irregular conduct occurred. I do not now recollect precisely what they were. They were however, fully acknowledged and not repeated, and I believe the scholars were generally more scrupulous and faithful then than at other times. They would not betray the confidence reposed in them. This plan was continued until it was found more convenient to have the teachers' meeting in the afternoons.