"Perhaps it depends a little upon the question whose hat it was. Do you think it does depend upon that?"
"Yes sir."
"Well, suppose then it was not his own hat, and he was throwing stones at it without the owner's consent, would it be plain in that case, whether he was doing right or wrong?"
"Yes sir; wrong," was the universal reply.
"Suppose it was his own hat, would he have been right? Has a boy a right to do what he pleases with his own hat?"
"Yes sir," "Yes sir," "No sir," "No sir," answered the boys confusedly.
"I do not know whose hat it was. If the boy who did it is willing to rise and tell me, it will help us to decide this question."
The boy knowing that a severe punishment was not in such a case to be anticipated, and in fact, apparently pleased with the idea of exonerating himself from the blame of wilfully injuring the property of another, rose and said,
"I suppose it was I, sir, who did it, and it was my own hat?"
"Well," said the master, "I am glad you are willing to tell frankly how it was; but let us look at this case. There are two senses in which a hat may be said to belong to any person. It may belong to him because he bought it and paid for it, or it may belong to him because it fits him, and he wears it. In other words a person may have a hat, as his property, or he may have it only as a part of his dress. Now you see, that according to the first of these senses, all the hats in this school, belong to your fathers. There is not in fact a single boy in this school who has a hat of his own."
The boys laughed.
"Is not this the fact?"
"Yes sir."
"It certainly is so, though I suppose James did not consider it. Your fathers bought your hats. They worked for them, and paid for them. You are only the wearers, and consequently every generous boy, and in fact every honest boy, will be careful of the property which is intrusted to him, but which strictly speaking is not his own."
2. MISTAKES. A wide difference must always be made between mistakes arising from carelessness, and those resulting from circumstances beyond control; such as want of sufficient data, &c. The former are always censurable; the latter never; for they may be the result of correct reasoning from insufficient data, and it is the reasoning only for which the child is responsible.
"What do you suppose a prophet is?" said an instructer to a class of little boys. The word occurred in their reading lesson.
The scholars all hesitated; at last one ventured to reply:
"If a man should sell a yoke of oxen, and get more for them than they are worth, he would be a prophet."
"Yes," said the instructer, "that is right, that is one kind of profit, but this is another and a little different," and he proceeded to explain the word, and the difference of the spelling.
This child had, without doubt, heard of some transaction of the kind which he described, and had observed that the word profit was applied to it. Now the care which he had exercised in attending to it at the time, and remembering it when the same word, (for the difference in the spelling he of course knew nothing about,) occurred again, was really commendable. The fact, which is a mere accident, that we affix very different significations to the same sound, was unknown. The fault, if anywhere, was in the language and not in him; for he reasoned correctly from the data he possessed, and he deserved credit for it.
3. TARDINESS. "My duty to this school," said a teacher to his pupils, "demands, as I suppose you all admit, that I should require you all to be here punctually at the time appointed for the commencement of the school. I have done nothing on this subject yet, for I wished to see whether you would not come early, on principle. I wish now however to inquire in regard to this subject, and to ascertain how many have been tardy, and to consider what must be done hereafter."
He made the inquiries and ascertained pretty nearly how many had been tardy, and how often within a week.
The number was found to be so great, that the scholars admitted that something ought to be done.
"What shall I do?" asked he. "Can any one propose a plan which will remedy the difficulty?"
There was no answer.
[Transcriber's Note: The footnote marker for the following footnote is missing.] [Footnote D: The above, and one or two of the succeeding articles have been before published, in periodicals.]
"The easiest and pleasantest way to secure punctuality, is for the scholars to come early of their own accord, upon principle. It is evident from the reports, that many of you do so; but some do not. Now there is no other plan which will not be attended with very serious difficulty, but I am willing to adopt the one which will be pleasantest to yourselves, if it will be likely to accomplish the object. Has any one any plan to propose."
There was a pause.
"It would evidently," continued the teacher, "be the easiest for me to leave this subject, and do nothing about it. It is of no personal consequence to me, whether you come early or not, but as long as I hold this office, I must be faithful, and I have no doubt the school committee, if they knew how many of you were tardy, would think I ought to do something to diminish the evil.
"The best plan I can think of, is that all who are tardy should lose their recess."
The boys looked rather anxiously at one another, but continued silent.
"There is a great objection to this plan from the fact that a boy is sometimes necessarily absent, and by this rule he will lose his recess with the rest, so that the innocent will be punished with the guilty."
"I should think, sir," said William, "that those who are necessarily tardy, might be excused."
"Yes, I should be very glad to excuse them, if I could find out who they are."
The boys seemed to be surprised at this remark, as if they thought it would not be a difficult matter to decide.
"How can I tell?" asked the master.
"You can hear their excuses, and then decide."
"Yes," said the teacher, "but here are fifteen or twenty boys tardy this morning; now how long would it take me to hear their excuses, and understand each case thoroughly, so that I could really tell whether they were tardy from good reasons or not?"
No answer.
"Should you not think it would take a minute apiece?"
"Yes sir."
"It would undoubtedly, and even then I could not in many cases tell. It would take fifteen minutes at least. I cannot do this in school-hours, for I have not time, and if I do it in recess, it will consume the whole of every recess. Now I need the rest of a recess, as well as you, and it does not seem to me to be just that I should lose the whole of mine, every day, and spend it in a most unpleasant business, when I take pains, myself, to come punctually every morning. Would it be just?"
"No sir."
"I think it would be less unjust to deprive all of their recess who are tardy, for then the loss of a recess by a boy who had not been to blame, would not be very common, and the evil would be divided among the whole, but in the plan of my hearing the excuses, it would all come upon one."
After a short pause one of the boys said that they might be required to bring written excuses.
"Yes that is another plan," said the teacher, "but there are objections to it. Can any of you think what they are? I suppose you have all been, either at this school, or at some other, required to bring written excuses, so that you have seen the plan tried; now have you never noticed any objection to it?"
One boy said that it gave the parents a great deal of trouble at home.
"Yes," said the teacher, "this is a great objection; it is often very inconvenient to write. But that is not the greatest difficulty; can any of you think of any other?"
There was a pause.
"Do you think that these written excuses are, after all, a fair test of the real reasons for tardiness? I understand that sometimes boys will tease their fathers or mothers for an excuse, when they do not deserve it, 'Yes sir,' and sometimes they will loiter about when sent of an errand before school, knowing that they can get a written excuse when they might easily have been punctual."