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highest improvement. When he had finished his line, he ascertained how
many had preceded him and how many were behind. He requested the first
to write slower, and the others faster; and by this means, after a few
trials, he secured uniform, regular, systematic, and industrious
employment throughout the school. Probably there were, at first,
difficulties in the operation of the plan, which he had to devise ways
and means to surmount; but what I mean to present particularly to the
reader is, that he was _interested in his experiments_. While sitting in
his desk, giving his command to _begin_ line after line, and noticing
the unbroken silence, and attention, and interest which prevailed (for
each boy was interested to see how nearly with the master he could
finish his work), while presiding over such a scene he must have been
interested. He must have been pleased with the exercise of his almost
military command, and to witness how effectually order and industry, and
excited and pleased attention, had taken the place of listless idleness
and mutual dissatisfaction.

After a few days, he appointed one of the older and more judicious
scholars to give the word for beginning and ending the lines, and he sat
surveying the scene, or walking from desk to desk, noticing faults, and
considering what plans he could form for securing more and more fully
the end he had in view. He found that the great object of interest and


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