Pedagogists make this the main feature of their treatment. All admit more or less the need of some external stimulus to induce school-children to study and behave well, although some are of opinion that it would be well to instil into the child the love of good for its own sake, and that a sense of duty rather than the fear of punishment should deter from evil. This opinion is generally recognized as lofty, but impracticable. To imagine that the child could be stimulated to work merely by a desire to do his duty is a "pedagogic absurdity"; nor is it credible that a child could persevere in the paths of industry and good conduct merely with a view to a distant end, such as the fine social position he might some day win for himself in the world by means of study. Some direct stimulus, some immediate token of approval, is necessary. True, it has been deemed advisable to make punishments less rigorous and the bestowal of prizes less ostentatious, and such modifications have now become general. Indeed, those fustigations and corporal punishments which not very long ago were usual in prisons, lunatic asylums, and schools have been abandoned in schools; the penalties of to-day are slight: bad marks, reproofs, unfavorable reports to the family, suspension of attendance. The ceremonial prize-giving is also a thing of the past, the solemn function at which the scholars mounted the platform as in triumph to receive their prizes from the hands of the noblest and most distinguished persons of the neighborhood, who accompanied the presentation with amiable words of encouragement while the public, consisting mainly of proud and agitated parents, murmured their approval and admiration. All these superfluities have been abolished; the prize, the object, is simply handed to the winner in an ante-room of the school. The important matter is that the child shall receive the object he has deserved. The medals, too, with which pupils were formerly able to adorn their breasts, are now abolished; the prize is a book, a useful object. A sense of the practical has found its way even into our schools. Perhaps the good children will presently be rewarded by the presentation of a piece of soap, or the material for an apron, in a _tete-a-tete_ between giver and recipient. But a prize there must needs be. However, throughout all the discussions of the pedagogists and the evolutions of punishments and prizes, no one has dreamt of asking himself what is the good which is rewarded, and what the evil which is punished, or whether, before urging children on to an undertaking, it would not be well to cast a glance at the undertaking itself, and judge of its value.