BSEANAING THE RULE. 17

 Here are boys playing marbles. You that is right and proper. You do not
all know that there is scarcely any play call it, perhaps, a rule; but to play fair
in which boys so often dispute and quar- -just as you wish others to play-is the
rel. One reason is they do not regard rule.
the rules of the play-they do not play But our picture gives us a scene in a
" fair "-they try to cheat. This is true, school-room. We can see only one desk
to some extent in playing ball and some with two scholars. They are very pleas-
other games In most games, if every ant, fine looking boys, but they are break-
one carefully observed the rules of the ing a rule of the school, and their very
game, there would seldom be any quar- looks show that they know they are trans-
rels or even disputes. grossing. There the rule is, and they
 There is, we ought to say, a special have seen it a hundred times. No
reason why playing marbles for keeps," TALKING ALLOWED
as boys say,-that is if they win to keep Now, why does the master have such
each others' marbles,-causes such fre- a rule ? Is it to interfere with the liberty
quent contentions. When you win a and happiness of his scholars? Surely
boy's marbles you take away from him not. It is to aid every one in making
his property without any equivalent, with- the school, what it is designed to be, a
out any thing of equal value in return, benefit to him. Supposing there was no
You obtain them because you happen to such rule, what a bedlam a school-room
snap your marbles better than he. That would at once become! Who could study
is gambling-! when you get a boy's knife and derive any good from the school, if
or apple you give him what it is worth in all were whispering and talking just
money or something else in return. That when they chose Suppose you were in
is a fair trade. But when you win his the midst of a difficult sum in arithme-
marbles you give him nothing. That is tic, and a boy, like the one in the pic-
just what the gambler does when he ture, were to speak to you, another shy a
wins another gambler's money. And spit-ball" into your face, another leave
when a boy, or any gambler, finds he is his seat and come up behind you and hit
about to lose his marbles or his money, you a nudge in the back, or rub out your
he tries to make it out that the other has sum. All this might be done, if there
not played "fair," and so there is a dis- were no rules. Some of these things are
pute, perhaps a bloody fight. But suppose done, notwithstanding there are rules,
every one played fair" and observed all that is, there are some who break the
the rules of the play, and did not play rules. And it is not only in the school-
"for keeps," there would seldom be a room, among boys and girls, that such
quarrel, even in playing marbles, improper conduct as "shying spit-balls"
 In the baby-house every little sister at each other, is sometimes seen, but, as
knows there is a certain way to play it seems from the following statement in