“Is it not right to allow prejudice to have influence over our minds as far as this? If any thing comes to our knowledge with which wrong seems to be connected, and one in whom we have always felt confidence is engaged in it, is it not right to allow our prejudice in favor of this individual to have so much influence over us as to cause us to believe that all is really right, though every circumstance which has come to our knowledge is against such a conclusion? I felt this influence, not many weeks since, in a very great degree.”
“The disposition to judge favorably of a fraud in such a case would not be prejudice; or, at least, if it were so, it would not be a sufficient ground to justify us in withholding blame. Well-grounded confidence in such a person, if there was reason for it, ought to have such an effect, but not prejudice.”
The above may be considered as a fair specimen of the ordinary operation of such an exercise. It is taken as an illustration, not by selection, from the large number of similar exercises which I have witnessed, but simply because it was an exercise occurring at the time when a description was to be written. Besides the articles quoted above, there were thirty or forty others which were read and commented on. The above will, however, be sufficient to give the reader a clear idea of the exercise, and to show what is the nature of the moral effect it is calculated to produce.
The subjects which may be advantageously brought forward in such a way are, of course, very numerous. They are such as the following:
1. DUTIES TO PARENTS.—Anecdotes of good or bad conduct at home. Questions. Cases where it is most difficult to obey. Dialogues between parents and children. Excuses which are often made for disobedience.
2. SELFISHNESS.—Cases of selfishness any of the pupils have observed. Dialogues they have heard exhibiting it. Questions about its nature. Indications of selfishness.
3. FAULTS OF THE SCHOOL.—Any bad practices the scholars may have observed in regard to general deportment, recitations, habits of study, or the scholars’ treatment of one another. Each scholar may write what is his own greatest trouble in school, and whether he thinks any thing can be done to remove it. Any thing they think can be improved in the management of the school by the teacher. Unfavorable things they have heard said about it out of school, though without names.
4. EXCELLENCES OF THE SCHOOL.—Good practices which ought to be persevered in. Any little incidents the scholars may have noticed illustrating good character. Cases which have occurred in which scholars have done right in temptation, or when others around were doing wrong. Favorable reports in regard to the school in the community around.
5. THE SABBATH.—Any thing the scholars may have known to be done on the Sabbath which they doubt whether right or wrong. Questions in regard to the subject. Various opinions they have heard expressed. Difficulties they have in regard to proper ways of spending the Sabbath.