The consequences of such a relation to the pupils has been for the teachers that they did not consider that method best which they knew, but tried to discover other methods, became acquainted with other teachers for the purpose of learning their methods, tested new methods, and, above all, were learning something all the time. A teacher never permitted himself to think that in cases of failure it was the pupils' fault,--their laziness, playfulness, dulness, deafness, stammering,--but was firmly convinced that he alone was to blame for it, and for every failure of a pupil or of all the pupils he tried to find a remedy. For the pupils the result was that they learned readily, always begged the teachers to give them evening classes in the winter, and were absolutely free in the school,--which, in my conviction and experience, is the chief condition for successful progress in instruction. Between teachers and pupils there were always established friendly, natural relations, with which alone it is possible for the teacher to know his pupils well. If, from a first, external impression of the school, we were to determine the difference between the church, the German, and my own school, it would be this: in a church school you hear a peculiar, unnatural, monotonous shouting of all the pupils and now and then the stern cries of the teacher; in the German school you hear only the teacher's voice and now and then the timid voices of the pupils; in mine you hear the loud voices of the teachers and the pupils, almost simultaneously.