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will be pleased with the duty thus assigned them. They will learn system
and regularity by being taught to perform this simple duty in a proper
manner. After a week, the teacher may consider their term of service as
having expired, and thanking them in public for the assistance they have
rendered him, he may ask the scholars if they are willing to continue
the plan, and if the vote is in favor of it, as it unquestionably would
be, each boy probably hoping that he should be appointed to the office,
the teacher may nominate four others, including, perhaps, upon the list,
some boy popular among his companions, but whom he has suspected to be
not very friendly to himself or the school. I think the most scrupulous
statesman would not object to securing influence by conferring office in
such a case. If difficulties arise from the operation of such a measure,
the plan can easily be modified to avoid or correct them. If it is
successful, it may be continued, and the principle may be extended, so
as in the end to affect very considerably all the arrangements and the
whole management of the school.

Or, let us imagine the following scene to have been the commencement of
the introduction of the principle of limited self-government into a
school.

The preceptor of an academy was sitting at his desk, at the close of
school, while the pupils were putting up their books and leaving the


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