I know of hundreds of schools which are to all appearance thoroughly efficient,--schools in which the machinery of education is as well contrived as it is well oiled and cleaned,--and yet in which there is no vital movement, no growth, no life.

From highest to lowest, all the inmates of those schools are cheating themselves with forms, figures, marks, and other such empty symbols.
The application of the conventional motive force to the school children goes by the name of _Discipline_.

If the pressure at each tap is steady, constant, and otherwise effective, the discipline is good.

If it is variable, intermittent, and otherwise ineffective, the discipline is bad.

The life of the routine-ridden school is so irksome to the child, that if he is healthy and vigorous he will long to find a congenial outlet for his vital energies, which are as a rule either pent back (as when he sits still listening to a lecture), or forced into uninteresting and unprofitable channels.