But the pupil in such cases understands, or at least he believes, that the teacher applies to religious truth only to eke out his own authority, and of course it produces no effect.

Another teacher thinks he must, to discharge his duty, give a certain amount, weekly, of what he considers religious instruction.

Pie accordingly appropriates a regular portion of time to a formal lecture or exhortation, which he delivers without regard to the mental habits of thought and feeling which prevail among his charge.

He forgets that the heart must be led, not driven to piety, and that unless his efforts are adapted to the nature of the minds he is acting upon, and suited to influence them, he must as certainly fail of success as when there is a want of adaptedness between the means and the end in any other undertaking whatever.
The arrangement which seems to me as well calculated as any for the religious exercises of a school is this: 1.

In the morning, open the school with a very short prayer, resembling in its object and length the opening prayer in the morning at Congregational churches.