A man comes home from his school at night perplexed and irritated by the petty misconduct which he has witnessed, and been trying to check.

He does not, however, look forward and endeavor to prevent the occasions of such misconduct, adapting his measures to the nature of the material upon which he has to operate, but he stands, like the carpenter at his columns, making himself miserable in looking at it after it occurs, and wondering what to do.
"Sir," we might say to him, "what is the matter ?" "Why, I have such boys I can do nothing with them.

Were it not for _their misconduct_, I might have a very good school." "Were it not for their misconduct?
Why, is there any peculiar depravity in them which you could not have foreseen ?" "No; I suppose they are pretty much like all other boys," he replies, despairingly; "they are all hair-brained and unmanageable.

The plans I have formed for my school would be excellent if my boys would only behave properly." "Excellent plans," might we not reply, "and yet not adapted to the materials upon which they are to operate! No.

It is your business to know what sort of beings boys are, and to make your calculations accordingly." Two teachers may therefore manage their schools in totally different ways, so that one of them may necessarily find the business a dull, mechanical routine, except as it is occasionally varied by perplexity and irritation, and the other a prosperous and happy employment.