_Address of the Author to the Pupil,--continued from Lesson 3d._
1. The fable of the old clock, which has just been read, is intended to
teach us a lesson, or moral, and that is, that whenever we have anything
to do, whether it be a long lesson or a piece of hard work, we must not
think of it all at once, but divide the labor, and thus conquer the
difficulty.
2. The pendulum was discouraged when it thought that it had to tick
eighty-six thousand four hundred times in twenty-four hours; but when
the dial asked it to tick half a dozen times only, the pendulum
confessed that it was not fatiguing or disagreeable to do so.
3. It was only by thinking what a large number of times it had to tick
in twenty-four hours, that it became fatigued.
4. Now, suppose that a little boy, or a little girl, has a hard lesson
to learn, and, instead of sitting down quietly and trying to learn a
little of it at a time, and after that a little more, until it is all
learned, should begin to cry, and say I cannot learn all of this lesson,
it is too long, or too hard, and I never can get it, that little boy, or
girl, would act just as the pendulum did when it complained of the hard
work it had to do.
5. But the teacher says to the little boy, Come, my dear, read over the
first sentence of your lesson to me six times. The little boy reads the
first sentence six times, and confesses to his teacher that it was not
very hard work to do so.
6. The teacher then asks him to read it over six times more; and the
little boy finds that, before he has read it to his teacher so often as
the six times more, he can say it without his book before him.
7. In this way, that little boy will find, that it is not, after all,
so hard work to get what he calls a hard lesson; because all that he has
to do, is to read a small portion of the lesson at a time, and to repeat
the reading of that small portion until he can repeat it without the
book.
8. When he has done this, he can take another small portion of the
lesson, and do the same with that, until, by degrees, he has learnt the
whole lesson; and then he will feel happy, because he knows that his
teacher, and his parents, will be pleased with him.
9. But some pupils say to themselves, when they have a lesson to learn,
I do not want to study this lesson now; I will study it by and by, or
to-morrow morning.
10. But, by and by, and when to-morrow comes, they feel no more disposed
to study their lesson than they did when the lesson was first given to
them.
11. Now, my little friend, if you wish your time at school to pass
pleasantly, do not say to yourself, I will get my lesson by and by, or
to-morrow, but set yourself about it immediately, learn it as quickly as
you can, and I will assure you will not only make your teachers and your
parents happier, but you will be much happier yourself.