A child comes to you, for example, and says,

“Will you tell me, sir, where the next lesson is?”

“Were you not in the class at the time?”

“Yes, sir; but I have forgotten.”

“Well, I have forgotten too.  I have a great many classes to hear, and, of course, great many lessons to assign, and I never remember them.  It is not necessary for me to remember.”

“May I speak to one of the class to ask about it?”

“You can not speak, you know, till the Study Card is down; you may then.”

“But I want to get my lesson now.”

“I don’t know what you will do, then.  I am sorry you don’t remember.

“Besides,” continues the teacher, looking pleasantly, however, while he says it, “if I knew, I think I ought not to tell you.”

“Why, sir?”

“Because, you know, I have said I wish the scholars to remember where the lessons are, and not come to me.  You know it would be very unwise for me, after assigning a lesson once for all in the class, to spend my time here at my desk in assigning it over again to each individual one by one.  Now if I should tell you where the lesson is now, I should have to tell others, and thus should adopt a practice which I have condemned.”

Take another case.  You assign to a class of little girls a subject of composition, requesting them to copy their writing upon a sheet of paper, leaving a margin an inch wide at the top, and one of half an inch at the sides and bottom.  The class take their seats, and, after a short time, one of them comes to you, saying she does not know how long an inch is.

“Don’t you know any thing about it?”

“No, sir, not much.”

“Should you think that is more or less than an inch?” (pointing to a space on a piece of paper much too large).

“More.”

“Then you know something about it.  Now I did not tell you to make the margins exactly an inch and half an inch, but only as near as you could judge?”

“Would that be about right?” asks the girl, showing a distance.

“I must not tell you, because, you know, I never in such cases help individuals; if that is as near as you can get it, you may make it so.”

It may be well, after assigning a lesson to a class, to say that all those who do not distinctly understand what they have to do may remain after the class have taken their seats, and ask:  the task may then be distinctly assigned again, and the difficulties, so far as they can be foreseen, explained.

By such means these sources of interruption and difficulty may, like the others, be almost entirely removed.  Perhaps not altogether, for many cases may occur where the teacher may choose to give a particular class permission to come to him for help.  Such permission, however, ought never to be given unless it is absolutely necessary, and should never be allowed to be taken unless it is distinctly given.