Part 2 — DIVISION V (continued 2)

Ere long the principal began his interview. He spoke with voice of thunder: “Well, what are you in here for? I saw you here last week, didn’t I? Come, now, tell me your story.”

“I knocked a man’s hat down.”

“Yes, I know you knocked a man’s hat down. But tell me about it. What did you do it for?”

“I was sailing in the east door and struck his hat—”

“Now, just tell me why you knocked his hat down and why you went on without picking it up.”

“I just hurried and didn’t see—” John felt very little like doing anything more about excusing himself, he could not tell why.

“You may go. If I catch you again acting like that I’ll tan you right.” The boy was dismissed with a shove that showed but the faintest trace of friendliness.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Miss Maile can easily keep this matter out of the superintendent’s hands by inviting the gentleman into 422her room, appointing a committee to apologize for the room, since one of its members has committed a breach of good manners. The words can be very few.

“We are sorry to have been rude. Please excuse us.”

We would suggest also in a school where there is a strong tendency toward bad manners, that you apply the principles of suggestion and approval. Some morning when the pupils are in a good mood, say:

“I want to tell you how proud I am this morning.” (Smile at this point, allowing your pupils to wonder what you are going to say next.) Then, after waiting four or five seconds, continue: “I have been watching pupils in my classes lately, both here in the school and outside, and I have noticed many pupils who are very polite. It looks fine to see a pupil pick up something another has dropped. I remember a boy—a fine looking fellow—everyone liked him, and I used to wonder why it was that everybody spoke to him and why everybody liked him so well. I noticed that whenever he saw a chance to do a kind act for anybody he always did it. If he happened to annoy anybody, he always stopped and told the person he was sorry; whenever he walked in front of anybody he always said, ‘Excuse me,’ and he always made everyone feel happy because he was so kind. That is the kind of a person I like, and I believe that is the reason he was liked so well. I visited a school once in which all the pupils were just as polite as could be, and the teacher seemed to be proud because the pupils showed such good manners. I tell you, I am going to watch from now on to see 423how many boys and girls in my room are polite. It is certainly fine to do a kindness for someone. I like the boy or girl who does it.”

The next day, smile again and say, “I’m even prouder than I was yesterday morning. I saw several kind acts yesterday by my pupils. I tell you, I appreciate it very much.”

COMMENTS

If acts of courtesy can be made a social affair, a powerful impetus will be exerted toward reform. So long as a boy thinks he acts exceptionally well if he is polite, and so stands in a class by himself, he will give only grudging attention to matters of etiquette. Just as largely as possible we should use the group to teach the individual.

In the case cited, the superintendent and teacher taught more ill-manners by their example than they did good manners by precept. They were brusque, rude, unsympathetic, tactless, and ineffective.

Strict conformity to rule can be as clearly required and uniformly enforced by methods that are not dictatorial and terrorizing. The latter may secure a few immediate formal results; the more cultured methods will draw out a pupil’s interest and hearty response.

ILLUSTRATION (SEVENTH GRADE)

Accidental Injury

Robert and Josiah Nash are thirteen-year-old twins. Their present sport is kite flying. Yesterday they were intently gazing skyward and backed up into Mrs. Scudder’s star flower-bed on the north side of her house. The quickest way out was to continue their backward 424course. They left a path of destruction as they emerged on the opposite side.

Mrs. Scudder saw them as they left the premises, and was thoroughly angered with them as she rushed to view the remains of her precious flowers.

The boys were too much concerned with their fun to attend to the damage they had done, but just before supper time, the two appeared at Mrs. Scudder’s front door. Her face fell into a troubled appearance at once, but the boys got in the first words:

“We came to settle for the damage we did this afternoon,” was their first sentence. “How much do we owe you?”

“Now, would you think it damage! I should say there is damage! I saw you boys go on and I thought that was the last I’d see of you. Come out here and I’ll show you.”

All of their courage fled for a moment at these words. But they obediently followed her, not knowing what next to expect. The three stood about the beautiful flower-bed, as Mrs. Scudder resumed.

“Now you boys have done the manly thing and I am going to meet you more than half way. Let us all quickly straighten up these poor trampled things and water them. If you’ll help me do that, I shall thank you very much, and we’ll consider everything square.”

The task was soon accomplished. On the way home the boys vowed that they did not wish to be so careless again since Mrs. Scudder had, after all, shown such a good spirit toward them.

In a system of schools organized with any approach to thoroughness the most serious problems of politeness 425have been solved long before the grades are completed. Repeated associations and the formation of friendships with persons of dignity, refinement and culture, no doubt will necessitate more adjustments as time goes by. How to acquire the manners of a new environment, and the necessity for so doing are fully worked out in the grades. But too often, something remains for the high school to do in the direction of training in good manners.

CASE 74 (HIGH SCHOOL)

Reforming Manners

Mr. Robertson found enough trouble on his hands when he took the Allentown High School without giving any special attention to such matters as politeness and good manners, generally.

His first assistant, Miss Sibley, finally overcome with disgust, fairly demanded of him that he do something to improve conditions.

“These people are perfect boors. They have no more caution about the commonest courtesies than street Arabs.” In fact many of them did roam the streets with no home restraint.

Aroused from apathy, Mr. Robertson set his machinery into action. The next morning he gave a long talk in the assembly period, mentioning about twenty forms of courtesy which he insisted they must adopt.

“You must be careful to tip your hats, boys, when you meet ladies. Don’t talk loud on the street. Don’t shove people about when you hasten through a door,” etc.

Several whispered remarks showed how the talk was taken.

426“What’s this he’s stuffing down us?” “Something’s come over him. He’ll get better!” “We can’t take on all that gaff.” “I get all of that at home that I want; shut him up!” Finally some one turned the laugh on the affair, after getting permission to speak.

“People around here wouldn’t understand us if we tried to go through all those motions. Can’t you tell us something easier?” Mr. Robertson dropped the matter and began to watch for results thereafter. He saw none except some crude mockeries of courteous behavior.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Correct the blunders of this man, by thinking out a plan of action with some care. If it seems best to make a public speech on politeness first, point out instances where the school has shown excellent breeding. Cite cases of ill-breeding with pupils in another school as the subjects. Point out prominent persons of the community who have shown you marked courtesies. Take up but four or five points at a time, briefly, and with dignity so as to compel respect. A little raillery need not be taken seriously, as it may easily conceal genuine respect for what you propose.

COMMENTS

Building on the ground already gained convinces pupils that the new habits recommended are not a novelty but an extension of something they already respect. Only so can unfamiliar customs of courtesy be introduced, especially if some of the children come from uncultured homes. It requires real pedagogical 427skill to convince the untaught that acts of courtesy are not necessarily hypocritical and affected.

Good manners come naturally to the adolescent, since this is the period of display of the person. When once the novelty can be forgotten there is a warm response in courteous forms of behavior. Hence, the cautious teacher does not hold up a pupil to scorn or shame, but deals gently with him on the assumption that he knows no better.

Imitation is the best agency for teaching courtesy. An administrator should watch every teacher to ascertain if he treats the pupils courteously. In bringing visitors into the school, one can select models of courtesy and immeasurably stimulate student interest in good manners.

ILLUSTRATION (HIGH SCHOOL)

Dramatizing

Arthur Scudder left Vernon College with all the polish that four years in a coeducational school could furnish him. He was tall, finely proportioned, perfectly groomed, easily poised, and fitted to win the attention of any one who came to know him. Withal, he was quite unassuming and wore his good manners with a gracious innocence.

After a week at Wellington, he said to himself:

“Something is to be done here. These young bloods and lassies need a little training in good manners. I believe I’ll try to connect it up with several other matters and make no separate item of it.”

Accordingly he brought together the English teacher and the teacher of history for consultation. “I want,” said the principal, “a play that will exhibit a modern 428situation, involving Americans, in considerable numbers, on foreign soil. The plot must involve a political issue and the characters must exhibit very conspicuously faultless observance of a large number of the rules of courtesy. Can we find such a thing?”

It took a month to answer the question. Finally, “Ethel Proctor’s Peace” was found, examined and accepted. The cast required forty-one characters; no one of them was burdened with a very heavy part. It suited Mr. Scudder’s purpose entirely. The scene was at The Hague and the plot interwove fragments of the great European conflicts, diplomacy and love. It took two months to prepare it, owing to the chorus practice that was a necessary feature.

Was the principal disappointed in his scheme? By no means. He coached his pupils with rare enthusiasm and drilled them into characters they had never assumed before. He refused to fix the cast finally, until he had made several shifts; thus he put certain individuals through some very much needed practice.

The effect was marvelous. In fact the entire school was profoundly molded by the work done in preparing and giving this splendid play.

Children’s eyes follow their interests. Their attention is absorbed in that which makes the strongest sense impression. A room full of children can be managed only by teaching them self-control.

CASE 75 (SECOND GRADE)

Staring at Visitors

The Mapleton primary room was in the hands of a genius for the first time in years. Miss Tenney was in her first year of teaching, but had put into it an uncommon 429amount of vim and sense. She sifted out the best things from new methods and put them through with tact.

As a consequence, early in the year, visitors began to drop in and observe her work. They were looking for her weak spot and found it: the boys and girls could not stick to their work when visitors were present. For example, Miss Tenney was reported to have said in Mrs. Wm. Van Kirk’s presence:

“Walter and Clarence, go on with your work now.” “Eleanor and Pearl, don’t look that way. Look at your book.” “You must go right on with your school work.”

It was such a delicate matter to handle that no one dared speak to her about it, so the unfortunate and unnecessary situation is prevalent to this day.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Give instructions on how to behave when visitors are present at a time when no stranger is in the room.

Lay the stress on showing some good work to the friends of the school.

Repeat some of the words of praise that have been spoken regarding “our work,” and promise a good many more visitors before long.

Name the children beavers or bees and tell them how well they have worked and what they may hope to accomplish if every child will work hard.

Apply the principles of suggestion and approval. Some morning, say tomorrow morning, when all the pupils before you are fresh and in a good mood to have suggestions lodged, rise from your chair, walk 430around in front of your desk, smiling, and say something like this: “I want to tell you how proud I am this morning.” Pause at this point, allowing your pupils to wonder what you are going to say next. Then continue: “A visitor came in to one of my classes a few days ago and I noticed a good number of my pupils kept right on with their work—their heads straight forward, instead of turning around and bending their necks out of joint trying to see the visitors, as they do in some schools. Now, a visitor always notices this. I went into a school once where everyone twisted his neck so much that I wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with all of them. Then I have visited other schools where the pupils kept right on with their work and it looked just fine. The teacher seemed to be proud because the pupils showed such good manners. I tell you I’m going to watch from now on and when I see everyone in the room continuing his work when visitors come, I’ll feel like going to my desk and raising every one of the grades a notch or two because it’s a good trait in any school.”

The next time a visitor comes, a greater number of pupils will pay attention to their work than before, so on the following morning, again approve your pupils for their good manners in the presence of yesterday’s visitor, bringing out the point that you noticed several more yesterday than you ever did before.

One of the most important points about this method is that those who stare are practically ignored. They are not approved nor even talked about. In order for them to be included in that class which is noticed, they must fall into line.

431It is important that you spend the smallest amount of time possible with the visitor when he comes. Simply show him a good seat and then go about your work as if he were not present. Many teachers are responsible for their pupils paying so much attention to the visitor because they are continually going back and talking with the visitor, explaining various things to him during a class recitation. In other words, the direction of the teacher’s attention largely determines the direction of the pupil’s attention.

COMMENTS

Too much attention can easily be devoted to a small matter of this sort. Miss Tenney, by a little manipulation, could have placed this staring at visitors where it belonged—in a subordinate relation to the remainder of her work. Her own absorption prevented her from properly instructing her pupils when guests were absent. A small neglect of this sort may nearly undo a very fine piece of work; surely this will be the case if the children discover that they have free rein under certain circumstances.

ILLUSTRATION (RURAL SCHOOL)

Greeting the Visitor

Rose Holden had charge of the Pines Hill district school for the summer term. Having taught in the same district in another settlement, she was well known before her school opened. Visitors came in somewhat frequently, and provision for courteous treatment of them was necessary, but such as would not disturb the school.

432“I wish to make the following announcements about visitors,” she said one day. “When visitors knock I will meet them at the door. Since there is no space for them to sit in the back of the room, I shall bring them to the front and shall introduce them to the school. You will stand and say together: ‘We are glad to see you, Mrs. ——.’ After that you and the visitors will take seats and you are to go on with your work. This means that you are to forget that any stranger is in the room. I shall repeat these instructions now and then so that all may understand.”

Miss Holden’s pupils all happened to be small children. With an older class of pupils she would not have requested the formality of rising. With the little ones, however, the act afforded a brief rest for the pupils, satisfied their desire to share in greeting the visitors and made them more willing to return quietly to their study.

CASE 76 (FOURTH GRADE)

Gazing at Visitors

Miss Olney had heard that her new room in Virden was not a very good one, but she had no idea how awkward and ill-bred children could be until she saw their actions on the first day, when two mothers and one father came with new pupils to the school. Visitors were evidently a new experience for this third grade room, for the pupils stared constantly at the trio seated on the platform, where they had been placed with much politeness by Miss Olney.

“You’ll have to pardon the way those children stare at you,” she said to the visitors. “They don’t seem to be used to company. Children, let’s see every eye 433on the lessons, now. It isn’t polite to stare at company.”

The children opened their books, and gazed at them unseeingly. Miss Olney turned to Mr. Turner, whose little daughter was a new pupil, and explained to him the course she would take. “We don’t have history in this room, I’m sorry to say. Perhaps we can put it in later. Harvey, do you have your problems? Then why don’t you go to work? Our guests are not visiting you; they are visiting the room, and they want to see the room at work.”

Presently she turned to Mrs. Albright, another of the trio, and began to explain her ideas of teaching. But in the midst of her explanations she saw Mary Hill and Sara Bly watching her and her guest.

“Mary and Sara, this is time to get lessons. Dear me, Mrs. Albright, I do hope you’ll come to see us later, when we have learned to be better behaved. These children certainly do need some training, and I intend to give it to them. Look at those little Johnsons; they are fairly staring a hole through you, Mrs. Young.”

Mrs. Young laughed with her at the staring little Swedes, who quickly looked at their books in confusion at the evident discussion of them, and flushed very red. Feeling that they were interfering with the program of the school, the three visitors soon left, and then Miss Olney was freer to give her attention to her pupils.

“Now see here,” she began, “there is one thing we might as well understand first as last. When company comes, I want you to go right on with your regular work, and I’ll entertain the visitors. Above all else, 434don’t stare at them. You get your lessons, or else you’ll fail right before company, and then think how ashamed you’ll be. I know you all want to show off before company, don’t you? And instead of showing off, you all look as countrified and awkward as a lot of little geese,—just as though you never had company at home.”

Miss Olney did not have much company during the year, but when she did she went through about this program each time. Her pupils did not improve in manners; at the end of the year they were as awkward, self-conscious and ill-bred as in the beginning. She had utterly failed because she did not know that good manners are largely taught through imitation.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Usher guests quietly into the room, and place chairs, or allow pupils to place chairs for them in some part of the room where their presence will not interfere with school activities. Talk to them, if at all, so quietly that pupils will not be disturbed in their work. Go on with school work as though guests were not present; they want to see the school routine. Your own quiet acceptance of the presence of guests will help the pupils to regard the visit as less of an event. If the children stare at guests, attract their attention by some exercise or talk to them about their work, or let them do some favorite task that appeals to them strongly. Then, when the company has gone, talk to them frankly about the matter of staring, and show them how much more courteous it is not to look at people intently. Never talk about your pupils to visitors, unless you can say something pleasant of them; and even compliments 435should be paid with caution, as the sweet grace of unconsciousness is easily spoiled in little people. By your own easy, matter-of-fact politeness to guests, set the pupils a good example to imitate.

COMMENTS

Miss Olney made several mistakes. First of all, she made her pupils very conscious of the visitors by putting them upon the platform and spending her time during lesson-hours talking to them. Company should never be put upon a platform unless they are to be looked at; for any child feels that an unusual object, placed directly before him, must be meant to be seen. Miss Olney had no business asking her pupils to do what she did not herself do; she spent her time with the visitors, neglecting her regular program, but asked her pupils to attend to their lessons. She should have known that voluntary attention is weak in early childhood, and needs every help to growth. She made Harvey, Sara, Mary and the little Johnsons very self-conscious by correcting them before guests, then reproved them for not going on with their work in complete unconsciousness of anything unusual. In short, she ignored the value of example in every way.

Dramatic exercises are a most effective means of reaching small children, since they offer the elements of vividness and repetition.

ILLUSTRATION (RURAL SCHOOL)

“Hey, there, teacher!” called out Johnny Scott to Miss Strong, whom he spied across the road. “Say, you didn’t lick me today, did you? Pa said you would, but I told him where he got off at.”

Loud Manners

436The men lounging before the postoffice laughed good-naturedly as Johnny yelled this greeting to his teacher. She was embarrassed, but not angry, for she knew Johnny and fine manners had never had a fair chance to become acquainted. She dreaded going to the postoffice for her letters, but as she could not have them without making the trip, she finally mustered up courage and ran the gauntlet of staring idlers. One of them, Ike Masters, spoke to her as she came out.

“Well, the first day’s done, ain’t it?” he asked with kindly interest. “An’ you ain’t sorry, now, I’ll bet. If my boy gives you any trouble just lick the stuffing out of him, an’ I’ll do it again when he gits home if I’ve hearn about it.” His friends nodded and guffawed their approval, and Miss Strong escaped with a murmur and a smile. The smile came because she realized that these mountain people were kindly disposed toward her and her work, and that their crudeness was that of ignorance and not that of viciousness.

“We are going to play a game,” she announced the next day, when regular lessons were done and the happy play-hour had come. “We’re going to play we are going along the street, and meet each other. We’ll practice the right way to greet our friends.” She told a little story of a boy who started out one morning and met various people,—a lady, whom he greeted with lifted hat; an old man, whose basket he carried; a stranger, whom he directed; and a lost baby, whom he took home to his mother. She illustrated graphically the various stages in this small paragon’s progress, and then asked who wanted to play that he was Ben Blossom (the name of the model boy). Two hands 437went up; really all wanted to play, but games were a new thing and the children were shy. So these two boys were allowed to put on their hats and play the little drama of good manners. She herself took the part of the woman, and greeted the boy who lifted his hat with sweet courtesy. She hobbled along like an old man, with her satchel for a basket, and she selected the smallest girl to be the lost baby. They were all so excited about the play that they forgot to stop at four o’clock; and Miss Strong promised that they might play it again.

When they played it the second time, Bob Everly took the part of Ben, and Dicey Snively was the lady. “Good morning, Miss Snively,” Bob called out cheerily as soon as he entered the room. “How d’ you do?”

“Aw, that ain’t the way to do it,” Bud Hawkins complained.

“’Tis too,” returned Bob, hotly. “Ain’t it, Miss Strong?”

“Let’s talk about that,” said Miss Strong. “Bob, do you think Ben Blossom shouted at the lady as soon as he saw her, or did he wait until he was near her and then spoke in a rather low voice?”

“He waited!” Bud Hawkins put in virtuously.

“I don’t know,” said Bob. “What did he do?”

“He waited until he had almost reached her, and then he lifted his hat with the hand that was on the other side of her. See if you can show Bud just how it was done.”

Bob did it beautifully. “Now,” said Miss Strong, “I want to see if you can bow and lift your hats to me, next time you pass me on the road, as nicely as 438Ben Blossom did to that lady he knew. And you’ll wait until you are near me before you begin to tell me things, won’t you? I like that so much better than calling out to me.”

“My pop don’t lift his hat,” said Bud. “He says it’s stuck-up.”

“I think it’s stuck-up not to lift your hat,” said the new teacher. “If you don’t lift your hats, I might think you didn’t like me.”

By means of such little plays Miss Strong taught her mountain boys and girls the more obvious points of good manners. Gradually they learned not to shout to her across the road, to address her by name instead of by the title “Teacher,” and to raise their caps punctiliously when she passed. A few of the fathers, as eager as their children to learn the ways of the world, also learned to salute her courteously; but most of them merely tolerated this innovation as a harmless fancy of the new teacher’s.

COMMENTS

The use of the dramatic method in dealing with faults based on the exercise of imitative faculties has these recommendations:

1.

It presents the new ideal for imitation vividly; it brings it before the children in action, with words and gestures.

2.

It overcomes the physical inertia of unusedness through practice. Any one can remember cases in his own childhood in which he resolved to do a certain thing, but failed when the chance came through sheer lack of practice; the unschooled 439muscles refused to do a new, strange thing. Teachers should be careful to practice the game several times before suggesting that the action be made a part of daily life.

3.

It gives a pleasant association to the new idea; the association of play is far more pleasant than that of didactic instruction. Games and plays can be made very interesting and little children love them.

ILLUSTRATION 2 (THIRD GRADE)

Slouching

Another example of the effectiveness of the teacher’s own influence in correcting bad habits formed through imitation, is the experience of a teacher in a primary room in Ohio. She noticed the bad posture of her little people on the first day, but was not surprised, as she had known her predecessor to be a woman of slouchy appearance and stooped shoulders, although an excellent teacher in other respects. She said nothing about posture for two weeks, although she took especial pains to stand and sit correctly herself. She hoped that her silent example would effect a change.

Silent example does sometimes effect a change, without the need of any word. This is when the imitators are either startled into attention through the spectacular nature of the model offered, or are sensitive to differences in models. In this case the children did not even notice that their new teacher stood differently from their former one, for they were not at all sensitive to the difference between good and bad postures. So Miss Sturdevant began to make her example effective by making it vivid.

440“I want you to look at me a moment,” she said one morning, as she seated herself before her pupils with her profile turned to them. “Please notice my shoulders. Do you see anything wrong with them?” She was badly round-shouldered at that moment. But the children were so completely unconscious of the problem to be dealt with that they saw nothing wrong. So Miss Sturdevant straightened her shoulders quickly.

“Do you like to see my shoulders this way, or as they were before?”

“We like you this way,” one little boy volunteered.

Miss Sturdevant again rounded her shoulders, straightened them, and showed them how much better she looked with her chest well out and her shoulders back, than when humped over. When the children had become sensitive to the difference in her appearance, she called their attention to their own round shoulders and crowded chests. There followed a great straightening up, of course. The teacher drew two pictures upon the blackboard, one showing chest and shoulders in a good position, and the other showing a boy badly humped over his desk. Under the first she wrote: “This boy will have a good figure when he grows up.” Under the second she wrote: “What kind of a figure will this boy have?” When all this had been done, the children began to notice Miss Sturdevant’s erect posture, and to straighten up when she threw her chest out or held her shoulders back suggestively.

When the first matter of correct sitting posture had been made clear by repeated example and explanation, 441good standing posture was taken up, then position when lying in bed, sitting in an ordinary chair and so forth. In every case, example was clarified by explanation and reasons were given. As Miss Sturdevant was a sweet and attractive woman and loved by her pupils, they eagerly followed her example and directions, and the bad effects of the former imitation were practically eliminated by the end of the year.

Sometimes imitation and instruction can be effectively reinforced by suggestion and approval. For example, some morning when the pupils are fresh and in a good frame of mind to accept suggestion, the teacher might say: “I want to tell you how proud I am this morning” (pausing, allowing the pupils to wonder what will come next), then continue: “A visitor came into one of my classes a few days ago and I noticed a good number of my pupils sitting up just as straight as could be, with their shoulders back like this.” (Here she should put her shoulders back decidedly.) “Now, a visitor always notices this. I have visited some schools where the pupils didn’t seem to have good postures at all, while in other schools where I have visited, the pupils were all healthy looking, robust, with big, broad shoulders kept well back. They made a fine appearance. I’m going to watch from now on and just see how many I can count who keep their shoulders back. It’s mighty fine to see everyone in the room sitting up straight. I like to see a straight physique and I am going to tell you tomorrow morning how many I count today.”

The next morning the teacher should again approve the pupils regarding how straight they sat the day 442before, bringing out the fact that she noticed several more yesterday than ever before.

The skillful use of imitation is a particularly good means of bettering conditions in schools in which there is no real badness, but in which quietness and order are absent. It is not enough that children mean well; they must also learn to work economically and efficiently, or they are not being educated truly. One reason for the noisy school-room is that quietness has not been held before American children as a universal need. There have been teachers enough who have insisted on a death-like solemnity in school-room routine, but few that have seen that training in quietness must have a bigger end in view than mere school-room order. Young people, having strong nerves and stronger motor impulses, are not naturally quiet; therefore, the advantage of quietness must be shown them conclusively, and ways of being quiet, of doing things without unnecessary noise, must be made concrete by illustration. With the desirability for quiet and the definite ways of attaining it both made clear to them, imitation of quiet ways of accomplishing their ends will follow.

CASE 77 (SIXTH GRADE)

Quiet Manners

After three weeks’ work following the holidays, Miss Herbert found school-room conditions in Farmerstown gradually declining. A series of annoyances was instituted; certain troubles seemed to become the fashion, then die and give place to new ones, none very serious but all disconcerting. Awaking finally to the 443situation, she decided to watch for the next outbreak and deal with it severely.

“Louis Fischer, you dropped your pencil on purpose, I just believe!” and before she was done with the sentence another and another went clattering on the floor.

Her eye fell next on Arthur Boyd. “Now, Arthur, I’ve stood this just as long as I can. You two can just as well begin behaving properly at once. Get up, both of you! Stand on your seats until I give you permission to get down.”

With open-mouthed wonder, the two mounted their seats as ordered and watched with glee the complete absorption of the other pupils in this novel sight. Some pretence of work was maintained for fifteen minutes until the two were ordered down from their seats.

The results were not satisfactory. The children felt somewhat insulted at this form of punishment, at the same time some of them wanted to star as the object of general attention.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

The best remedies for noises of this sort are intense drive on interesting work, and indifference to the noise, if there is an apparent concerted movement to annoy the teacher.

In case you find it needful to speak privately to any pupil, assume that his motives are good all the way through and that he would like to lay his pencil down properly. Perhaps the following words will be appropriate:

444“I see you have some difficulty in keeping your pencil. My own desk has a slant and sometimes gives me trouble on that account. If we will lay our pencils down carefully in the groove, they will surely stay where they belong.”

COMMENTS

For these minor noises it seems safe to recommend for children in any grade the methods just outlined. Nothing is surer to provoke disrespect for a teacher than excessive attention to small annoyances. On the other hand the best remedy for these trifling troubles is plenty of hard work.

In nearly every instance the noisy pupil is not a vicious child, but an active child. Let us recall how eagerly children produce interminable noises of all sorts when left to their own devices—banging, whistling, drumming, screeching noises. In school hours the noise-hunger takes secondary place. The pleasure of creating a sensation is the chief cause of the annoyance.

ILLUSTRATION (FIFTH GRADE)

Experiments

Miss Miller came into a very noisy fifth grade room, where the pupils were good-natured and docile, but unused to orderly methods and untrained in self-control. She won their liking at the outset by her courtesy and her real mastery of her teaching subjects; therefore she found herself in a good position, after the first fortnight of establishing her authority, to attack 445her great problem of reducing the school-room routine to quietness and economy of nerve-force.

“I want you to help me make an experiment,” she said one day. “Yesterday was a rainy day, and we had more than the usual amount of noise, I think. You spent the whole of your twenty minutes in studying your mental arithmetic, and yet you made eighty-two mistakes out of a total of one hundred thirty questions; I kept count carefully. That was too many by far, wasn’t it? I tried to think how we could bring up our bad record, and I decided that we make too much noise in study hour. So I thought we would experiment, and see if we can get our arithmetic better when we are quiet. I’m going to select ten pupils today, and let them go off by themselves in quiet places to study by themselves. Who wants to go? And the rest of us here will be as quiet as we can be, and we’ll see what the effect will be on our lessons.”

The children were eager for the novelty of an “experiment,” and of course it proved to them, as Miss Miller planned it should, that quietness brings better lessons and that they are learned in less time.

“I wonder if we can reduce the time spent on our arithmetic lesson to fifteen minutes, and thus have five minutes more for our music, or for the story hour?” she said. “Of course, we shall need to have the room very quiet, to do that. Who can suggest ways in which we can control the noise during study hours?”

Many suggestions came from the children. “We can remember not to move our feet around after we have placed them on the floor.” “At home, when baby 446is asleep, mother has us walk on tiptoe if we have to cross the room.” “We can have it quiet if everybody makes up his mind not to whisper once.” “I keep dropping my pencil on the floor, and I’ve thought of a way to stop that. I’m going to have a string on it and fasten it to my buttonhole, and then if it does drop it can’t reach the floor and make a clatter.”

Miss Miller suggested other ways, and they made a list of them on the blackboard, so as to keep them all in mind. Under the teacher’s sympathetic leadership, there ensued a campaign to eliminate noise from study hours. Without mentioning it, Miss Miller enlarged the scope of their efforts to include quieter ways of passing materials, walking about the room, and putting away books. Mutual imitation strengthened the movement; just as these pupils had before imitated the thoughtless, careless, noisy way of doing things, now they imitated a thoughtful, controlled method of accomplishing results. What mischievous noise there had been disappeared automatically through the force of public opinion; for when the room as a whole saw the results of a quiet regime, saw that it brought them more time for the recreational part of the school program, a prejudice against unnecessary noise developed which rendered the maker thereof unpopular.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Do not treat noise as a crime. Consider it a disease, or rather a lack of development, a failure to acquire a desirable skill. Follow this plan:

1.

Show that quiet is really a desirable thing for the pupils themselves—too often they have an 447idea that it is merely a cranky demand of the teacher’s, with which, of course, being healthy young animals, they have little sympathy.

2.

In a spirit of coöperation, devise and clarify means of securing quiet habits. Show the pupils how to lift their feet in walking, do not simply command them to walk quietly. If pencils fall, have them tied. Teach pupils how to handle books, pencils, tablets (in really up-to-date schools the dirty, noisy slates are no longer used) and erasers, so as to minimize the chances of their falling on the floor. If pupils fall noisily into their seats, show them how well-bred men and women sit. They will never learn anything more valuable than these lessons in good manners, even if an occasional spelling lesson has to be sacrificed for them.

Not infrequently it happens that what, on the face of it, appears to be bad manners or impatience, is really due to pathological nervousness. In such a case the teacher has a further duty than the mere teaching of good manners.

The impatient child is but a nervous child. Nervous children often spill and drop things and are easily excited. What will tend to control and quiet one condition will control and quiet the other. Firmness will be needed in either case.

Find out the cause of the pupil’s nervousness if possible and seek to remove that cause. You may need to speak to the parent. Approach him or her in a kind spirit which the parent can not possibly mistake. Suggest 448that you noticed some point about the child’s behavior at school which perhaps the parent had not as yet observed. Be very careful not to exaggerate any statement—instead be very conservative. For example, after commenting on some good point about Mary, say something like this: “I have noticed that Mary is beginning to show just a little nervousness at times and I thought you would appreciate it if I would tell you. I wondered if she might have eaten too much candy or too many rich things, or whether she might have failed to get enough sleep.”

This method will bring about the coöperation of the mother, who will do all in her power to help you with the child. You can, in the course of your conversation with the mother, incidentally remark that you have always found that a daily warm bath, plenty of rest, some exercise, and plenty of fresh air will generally make a pupil feel like himself or herself again. Avoid the suggestion that the nervousness is at all serious with this child; assume, rather, that this is just a little time in which the pupil is not feeling as well as usual.

At school, see to it that the nervous child gets plenty of exercise on the playground and plenty of fresh air in the school-room. It is also very important that you say pleasing things to the nervous child, words which have a soothing effect. Even strain a point to approve the work which the pupil does. Faultfinding will unnerve a child more quickly than almost anything else. So be very patient and encourage the pupil even more than you would an ordinary child. The impatient child tends to get through with his work 449before other children do. The teacher should always have at hand some pictures, picture books, boxes of curios, colored pencils, stencils, colored blocks, building blocks and many other things that interest children in primary grades. But whatever the grade of the nervous child, avoid so far as possible all sources of irritation; never lose a chance to commend effort; let your attitude toward him be one of sympathy.

(9) Cleanly habits and care of school-room. Every first grade teacher knows what it is to have one or more pupils who are disposed to be uncleanly. This condition can not be termed a misdemeanor. It is more. It is both annoying and unsanitary. What is still worse is that the situation is not one of the child’s own choice, but it is due to circumstances in the home; and too often, any measure that is taken to reform the child gives offense to the parents. If parents do not know what cleanliness really is, how can they teach it to their children?

Appeal to personal pride. This can be done without the pupils knowing that the teacher is making an effort in that direction. The teacher may give a talk about a clean school-room and incidentally say:

“Cleanly pupils live in cleanly school-rooms. I am proud of all my boys and girls when they keep their clothes and themselves clean.”

She can give some little talk about cleanliness each day for several weeks and in a casual manner make the application to the pupils. By thus appealing to their pride most cases of uncleanness will be remedied.

In very stubborn cases the teacher can have a private talk with the pupil. Should there be more than 450one such pupil, the teacher must not make the mistake of talking to both at one time; that would humiliate each, and hurt the pride of both.

To the little boy who is in the habit of keeping his face and hands soiled, the teacher may say:

“You have such red cheeks, Harold! What silky hair and what lovely little hands you have! I like to see hair like yours combed this way!” and then she can comb the little boy’s hair in an attractive way.

“How I do like to see red cheeks like yours, round and clean!” Then the teacher can kindly wash the child’s face and hands and comment on how fine they look. With a little straightening of the boy’s collar she may say, “Oh, Harold, how sweet you look!” If she has a small mirror she may let the boy see himself. Finally, she may propose that he do this each morning before he comes to school. To please the boy she may say:

“Now, I am going to walk home with you because you look so fine.”

On the way home she should talk about the things they see. When she comes to the home, she may bid the boy a cheery “Good night, Harold.” Should she see flowers in the yard she may say:

“Harold, when you come to school tomorrow, I wish you would bring me one of those flowers to wear on my waist.” Harold will bring the flower, and the teacher should wear it with great pride. A teacher who will do this can win any dirty little urchin to her and often induce him to make every effort to keep clean. Several such private lessons may be necessary.

As a last resort, but not wholly advisable, because it 451irritates and offends the parents often, is the method of having a talk with parents and explaining to them that they are expected to keep their children clean. One teacher who had a few stubborn cases of uncleanliness, purchased a wash basin, some soap, and several towels. Whenever the pupils that were habitually uncleanly came in she had them wash their faces and hands and comb their hair. She had little trouble, but not every teacher could do this.

CASE 78 (SECOND GRADE)

Soiled Face

Miss Gebhard had been teaching in the Lowell School for a week. Every one of the five days little Hazel Jordan had been a blemish to the group of beautiful children with whom she associated. Hazel was ugly of face, ungainly in movements, dull of intellect and unaccustomed to the regular use of soap and water. This was Miss Gebhard’s first year of teaching. She had read that teachers must see to it that their pupils have clean hands and faces. During her first week she was so busy with organizing her school that she felt unable to cope with lesser problems. As she reviewed her week’s work and recalled the characteristics of her various pupils, she said to herself, “That little Jordan girl must be made cleaner next week.”

Accordingly, on Monday morning when Hazel entered with dirty hands, face and clothing, Miss Gebhard said, “Hazel Jordan, go home and wash your hands and face and come back here clean.”

Perfect stillness reigned over the school-room for a moment after this command was given, and Hazel, 452eyeing Miss Gebhard as she went, passed out of the room and ran breathlessly home.

Now, Hazel’s mother was a widow who washed so much for other people that she had neither time nor strength to care for her own children; besides, Hazel had few dresses, and on this Monday morning all of them were soiled. When the child reached home and told Mrs. Jordan what Miss Gebhard had said, her mother wept in self-pity.

“Nobody cares how hard I work,” she wailed; “all the notice I get is to be insulted. You just stay home from school and I’ll go and see Tom Ellis and ask him if a widow has got to dress her children up fine before she can send them to public school.”

As soon as the washing she was then doing was “on the line,” she went to see Mr. Ellis, a member of the school board, and told him that Hazel had been sent home from school because she wasn’t dressed up to suit the teacher.

Miss Gebhard was a little alarmed because Hazel did not return, and was agitated when she saw Mr. Ellis, the most influential member of the school board, standing in the doorway of her school-room. All of the pupils stared while Mr. Ellis catechized Miss Gebhard as to why she sent Hazel Jordan home. In vain she explained that she said nothing about her clothes. She could see that Mr. Ellis thought she had acted unwisely, as he reiterated, “Her mother’s a hard-working widow, you know, and her feelings are hurt.”

It seemed clear to Miss Gebhard that she had blundered. She called upon Mrs. Jordan, who wept at her 453own poverty and seemed unlikely to be able to distinguish between cleanliness and richness of dress.

Miss Gebhard decided that the matter of cleanliness was too difficult for her to handle and made no further recommendations on the subject during the year.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Examine the hands and faces of several other children before inspecting Hazel. If more than one needs to wash his hands, send all to the lavatory, or to the pump, and ask them to return to the school-room clean.

COMMENTS

If children are spoken to kindly about the condition of their hands and several are sent at once to wash, they will take less offense. It will seem then a matter of school-room practice rather than a personal affront.

Drills or plays are often used to bring about habits of cleanliness.

ILLUSTRATION (FIRST GRADE)

“Sanitary Brigade”

Miss Barry organized her first grade room into a “Sanitary Brigade.” Every one’s own ten fingers were the private soldiers over which each one’s face was the captain. One child in each row, appointed by the teacher each Monday morning, was the Lieutenant General of his row, and Miss Barry was the Major General of them all.

Each captain inspected his ten soldiers and demanded that each one—right and left Thumbkin, right and left Pointer, right and left Longman, Ringman and Littleman—be perfectly clean. Then the Colonel inspected the captains and finally the General had a 454grand review of all the troops. The captains and colonels made daily inspections. If they failed to do their work well they were sent to the ranks and new officers appointed in their places. In other words, if one did not keep his own hands clean, some one else was appointed to be inspector and reporter of his hands. If any one was found with unclean hands or face, a new colonel was appointed for the row in which that child was found.

Inspection was made every morning and any reported disorder was remedied in the lavatory. When there was no further need of scrutiny as to clean hands and faces and when therefore the game had lost in interest, a similar game was instituted that required clean teeth, brushed hair, and clean shoes.

CASE 79 (THIRD GRADE)

Use of Handkerchief

Miss Burr, the third grade teacher, sighed as Elma Colders passed her handkerchief to her twin sister Zelma. This was a daily, almost hourly, occurrence. The handkerchief wasn’t absolutely clean. These twins seemed to take turns having colds, and Miss Burr believed the common handkerchief was largely to blame for the transferred infection, but she dared to say nothing about it.

Near to her desk sat Asa Kramer, who sniffed momentarily for want of a handkerchief, while Fannie Black had a habit of often wiping her nose with an upward stroke that was fast causing her nose to have a decided skyward slant at the end.

One day she saw Morris Millspaugh repeat his habit of wiping his nose on his coat sleeve and the following 455quotation popped into her head, “Ye gods! Must I endure all this?” As if in answer to her question, Annie Daily, in the back row, lowered her head and used the under side of the bottom of her dress for a handkerchief.

“My query is answered,” groaned she. “Annie’s action says, ‘All this? Ay, more!’”

Miss Burr said to a teacher friend, “If I were the family doctor of these children, I’d be free to give their mothers a lecture on sanitation, but since I’m not, I must keep within my prescribed field.”

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Correct these disgusting habits of your pupils. This can be done by asking each child to bring a clean handkerchief every morning. A certain teacher each morning asked all who received a grade of one hundred in spelling or arithmetic the day before to stand and walk to the front of the room. She then asked the other children who had clean handkerchiefs to give them the Chautauqua salute, and the children in front were asked to return this salute. The children enjoyed this immensely and demanded from their mothers clean handkerchiefs every morning in order that they might be allowed to take part in this exercise.

COMMENTS

Miss Burr was wrong to conclude that it was not her business to protect the health of her pupils.

There were several beneficial results accompanying the Chautauqua salute program described above. Those who did good work were rewarded and those 456who cheered them were given drill in the hard task of praising their fellows who had succeeded where they themselves had failed.

This salute was given in the morning, so that all handkerchiefs would be clean for it.

Enlist the Mothers

Teachers can do no better than tactfully to enlist the aid of mothers in matters of cleanliness.

ILLUSTRATION (FOURTH GRADE)

Miss Shaw, who taught the fourth grade in a very poor district in New York City, organized a mothers’ meeting to convene alternate Fridays after school hours. At one of these meetings she asked a trained nurse to talk about cleanliness especially.

After the nurse had clearly explained the danger of infection in the care of the nose, a mother who was a good shopper was delegated to take orders for handkerchiefs from all present who needed them for their children, to buy by the dozen and to deliver to the mothers at cost.

By teaching and helping the mothers in this way, Miss Shaw bettered conditions in her own room and established a wholesome community spirit among her patrons.

CASE 80 (FIFTH GRADE)

Decaying Teeth

Something was the matter with Dora Payne. Miss Hubbart, her teacher, was astonished at her stupid answers and generally inattentive attitude. Usually Dora was alert and smiling; today she was morose, even to tearfulness. Miss Hubbart finally said, “What is the matter, Dora?”

457“My tooth aches,” said Dora.

“Did it ever ache before?”

“Yes, it ached last week and mamma took me to the dentist.”

“Charlotte, you may go with Dora to the dentist to see if he can stop her toothache,” said Miss Hubbart.

The girls were gone only about half an hour, for it was but a few blocks to the office of the only dentist in the village. After they came back Dora was relieved and went on with her school work as usual.

When Miss Hubbart returned to the schoolhouse for the afternoon session that day, she was greeted by Mr. Payne, Dora’s father, who said:

“Dora says you sent her to Dr. Hammond’s office today.”

“Yes, she was suffering with toothache.”

“What I want to know is, who is going to pay the bill?”

“Surely you wouldn’t want Dora to suffer with toothache.”

“That tooth has troubled Dora before and my wife took her to Dr. Hammond and he said that she’d lose this tooth in a year or so, and we concluded not to have it worked on. When she gets her last set of teeth it will not be money thrown away to have them filled.”

“But you wouldn’t want Dora to suffer for a year, surely.”

“Maybe we know how to take care of our own child without the help of a stranger. I’ll thank you to keep on your own ground after this.” And Mr. Payne stalked away with anger showing even in his walk.

458

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

When you feel assured that, from a health standpoint, a child is unfit to do school work, send him home and as soon as possible thereafter consult with his mother as to his health, giving advice only when you see that his parents are ignorant or neglectful.

In the matter of the care of the mouth and teeth, give instruction as to the age a child should be when the several kinds of permanent teeth appear. Name the causes of decay of teeth and show children how to use their tooth brushes to the best advantage.

COMMENTS

Rhythmic Drills

Teachers should never send children to a doctor without the consent of their parents. A teacher’s help can be rendered in instituting preventive measures better than in administering or advising curative remedies. The harm done to the teeth by allowing them to decay through the use of improper food, also the proper use of the tooth brush, and the value of a sterilizing mouth wash can easily be taught and come within the teacher’s legitimate province. In many towns she may also secure the coöperation of the school nurse.

ILLUSTRATION (FIFTH GRADE)

Miss Stow, who taught the fifth grade at Deadwood, made up this motion song which the children sang occasionally, suiting the proper motions to each verse:

This is the way we brush our teeth

At morning, noon and night,

Keeping them free from food and germs,

Making them clean and white.

459This is the way we brush our hair,

Making it smooth and clean,

Keeping it free from kinks and dust

And beautiful to be seen.

This is the way we brush our shoes,

Making them fairly shine,

Then we ever shun dirt and mud

And keep them looking fine.

When they sang the first verse she let them hold lead pencils in front of their mouths for tooth brushes and had them make the up and down motion that dentists recommend.

She noticed a marked improvement in the personal habits of her children after they had learned this song, and they very much enjoyed singing it.

CASE 81 (FOURTH GRADE)

Scattering Paper

Merrill MacFarland was elected to a position as teacher of the fourth grade after three years of experience in the country schools. He had found the circumstances in his former situation very unsatisfactory, and resolved that since he was entering upon work in a graded school, he would have some things different. Looking over the room after he had wrestled his way through the first week, and recalling the events of the past five days, he was strongly reminded of his former school experience, since there was really a disgraceful amount of waste paper all over the floor. The janitor had been complaining about the 460matter, but MacFarland had been too busy with other matters to give attention to it.

Monday morning, after the opening exercises, he made this announcement:

“Now, I want every one of you boys and girls just the moment you have a piece of waste paper in your hand to go to the wastebasket and throw it in. Last Friday our room was a perfect disgrace. On every desk there were slips of torn-up paper and some whole sheets. We can’t get along this way. George, you just this moment dropped a piece of paper in the aisle there at your left. Pick it up at once and put it in the wastebasket as I just told you.” George noisily moved his slow frame according to the order, hardly imagining what would be the case if the teacher’s idea were literally carried out and no more waste papers were thrown upon the floor.

As soon as he had reached the basket, Mr. MacFarland discovered that there were several pieces of paper on the floor in different parts of the room, and said, “Each one look about his desk now and see if there is any rubbish on the floor that should be taken away. If so, pick it up at once and throw it into the basket as I told you. This is the thing to do at any time when you want to throw something away.”

It need hardly be said that, with a great bustle, each one made the desired search, and about nine pupils soon were on their way to the basket with something or almost nothing that needed to be thrown away.

However unsatisfactory the noisy method had proved, it did bring about the condition desired, for 461at the end of the day there was really nothing that needed to be complained of regarding the cleanliness of the room, so far as waste paper was concerned.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

A wise teacher does not make so much ado about one aspect of school-room management. Mr. MacFarland could easily have foreseen that he was introducing another evil along with his reform. Reverse the process. Arrange that the wastebasket be passed around mid-way between intermissions according to a definite schedule. Let the passing of the basket be a privilege that is handed down from one pupil to another according as they are seated, beginning with the pupil who sits to the extreme right of the teacher’s desk. One pupil each day is appointed as guardian of waste. The privilege and honor will be appreciated, and with a word of caution, the service can be performed with the very slightest interruption.

The following instructions might be properly given to the children when the new system is established:

“We are going to save time as much as possible. Four times every day we shall pass the wastebasket and you may put into it whatever you have on hand to be thrown away. Nothing is to be said to the person who carries the basket. He will go quietly, promptly, passing down the aisles, doing a favor to everyone in the room by his careful attention to this matter.”

COMMENTS

It is of the utmost importance that the necessary organization of school-room conduct be established according 462to principles and policies that are useful to the child at home and in other situations outside of school life. He must be taught how to economize his own time, and the attention of his fellows, how to do necessary things in a way that shall be both effective and unobtrusive.

While the handling of waste is a small affair for one room in a school, taken on a larger scale for home, state and nation, the problem of waste is big enough to command the attention of every citizen; therefore, to dispose of the matter properly in school is a valuable lesson in civics and economics.

ILLUSTRATION (FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADES)

Supt. Kennelworth suffered the inconvenience of moving from an old building into the new one near the middle of a school year.

Bags for Paper

In the final plans for the proper use of the new plant, it had been agreed that each pupil must bring with him a small waste-paper bag to be attached to each desk. There were no very definite rules as to its size, but the warning was given that it must not be too large for the convenience of all concerned.

The matter was brought up only once, each teacher making the announcement in his own room according to the superintendent’s instructions.

Wallace Jackson made his announcement for the fifth and sixth grades as follows: “Each one of you is to bring a small, neatly made waste-paper bag, barely large enough to hold what you think is the waste paper that gathers at your desk every day. Are there any questions about this?” A hand went up and the question 463was asked, “Who is going to empty these bags?”

“Well,” said Mr. Jackson, “you will empty them yourselves. Just before the close of school each day the wastebasket will be passed; your bags will be laid down upon your desk, and in just a very few minutes every bag will be emptied and placed in your desk. Any more questions?”

Another hand and another question, “How are we going to decide who will carry the basket?”

This was answered by the statement: “I shall appoint some pupil to this task every day. The method of selection will be announced to you later. The only matter I want now to tell you about is the making of the bags. Further details will be given to you when we actually begin our work next Thursday in the new building.” Owing to the fact that some success in keeping a neat room had been attained already in the old building, Mr. Jackson’s announcement was received without surprise or anxiety.

(10) Imitation of wrong social standard. There is an imitation of mere precedent which is a sort of social instinct, that can best be handled socially. This is because the responsibility can be fixed on no one individual, and as all the members of the group are equally guilty, all should share in the needed lesson.

CASE 82 (RURAL SCHOOL)

Dropping Shot

George Marston went into the country as teacher in a school in which there had been much bad order. The directors were in earnest; they wanted a good school, but for the salary they offered they had not been able to secure a man who could handle the big 464boys who made the trouble. They were not especially bad boys; but the tradition of mischief in the school was so persistent that no teacher had been able to overcome it.

During the fall term there was no trouble, for then only meek little girls and small boys attended. But on the first Monday after Thanksgiving, corn-shucking being over, the older pupils came in an avalanche of good-natured noise. The room, before so sparsely populated by a few pupils, seemed to overflow with their energy. Trouble was not long in coming, and it took the shape of a shower of fine shot, which pattered down from the ceiling during the spelling lesson. George knew that the hour of trial had come, and he called out bravely:

“Who did that?”

There was no response. The little girls were peeping timidly from their books, but the big boys and girls frankly relished the coming fun.

“We may as well settle it now,” said George Marston. “We can’t have a school without good order. Of course I want to be just, and first of all I want to know who threw that shot. Will you tell me?”

No one spoke. Then the teacher went around the room, asking each one in turn if he had done it. Every one denied it. There was clearly an understanding among the pupils that gave the teacher no chance.

So Marston gave it up for the time being, and lessons were taken up again. But at four o’clock he asked four of the leading boys, those he suspected most, to stay after school. When the rest had gone, he conducted an exhaustive examination, trying to find who 465was responsible for the disturbance. The evidence was flippant, contradictory, mockingly frank; but he found out nothing. Still with his idea of locating the offense in one person, George held another trial the next night, with the same result. Then he took the matter to the board.

“One or two persons must have thrown that shot,” he said to the board members, “and if I can find the person who did it, and make an example of him, then I know I can manage the school without trouble. But so far I can’t find the offender. There doesn’t seem to be a ringleader; they all hang together so.”

“Why can’t you find the offender?” asked one member.

“Because they all lie about it—at least there’s one person who is lying. If only I could find that one person!”

“Why not lick them all, since they’re all mixed up in it?” This director was a coarsely practical man.

“Because one person did the deed, and he ought to bear the punishment,” George replied. “If I keep my eyes open and wait, in time I’ll be sure to catch the boy that threw that shot.”

So he waited and kept his eyes open, but he never discovered the shot-thrower. There was much more misbehavior during the days that followed, and the struggle to keep even a semblance of order made the term a nightmare to the harassed teacher. Little real work was accomplished. The board, anxious to have a good school, but ignorant of principles and methods, saw its desire come to nothing. Marston’s ideas of discipline seemed to be centered on “making an example” 466of some one offender, and the school took a mischievous satisfaction in shielding each offender from discovery.

Explosion

The crisis came late in January. Marston had just put a full scuttle of coal on the blazing fire in the big stove, when a sharp noise and a great puff of smoke and flame burst from it. The explosion broke apart the sections of the stove, and a serious fire was averted with some difficulty. When they had made things safe and could look at each other with smoke-grimed faces, teacher and pupils knew that a reckoning was at hand.

“John Coffey, you brought in that coal. Did you put the gunpowder in it?” John was fairly cool, and the reckless boys had been cowed and sobered by the extent of the mischief that had been done.

“No, sir, I didn’t,” replied John; and his denial rang true.

“Did you, Carl?”

“No, sir.”

Marston went around the circle, as he had many times before; and all denied their guilt. Finally Marston turned to the school.

“You may all go home now. We can’t have school until this mess is cleaned up, of course. I shall see the board at once.”

The board decided, at a called meeting, that it would best get a new teacher, and Marston resigned with infinite relief. The board sent to a state normal school, explained the situation, and asked for a strong man.

467

ILLUSTRATION (RURAL SCHOOL)

The president of the normal school sent them Isidor Thomberg, a man of experience and high scholarship. He came with the understanding that the board was to support whatever he did, and he agreed to reduce the school to order. He was confident, fearless, and told no one of his plans. But he did meet the board on the night of his arrival, and heard their full account of the troubles.

The next morning school opened as usual, with the new teacher and the new stove dividing the honors of attention. Mr. Thomberg made just one reference to the situation:

“Of course you know why I’m here,” he said. “I want to say one thing. I shall never waste a moment’s time trying to find out who does anything bad. We have to make up for a great deal of lost time this winter; you’ll have to work hard from now until spring. We shall have no school but a good one. Now we’ll go to work.”

Under the stimulus of his quiet confidence, the order was excellent that first day. The school needed organization, and much time was spent in showing the pupils economical ways of doing things. While the novelty lasted there was no tendency to disorder, and when things settled down into a regular routine the lessons proved so interesting under Mr. Thomberg’s teaching that the boys forgot for a time to have fun in the old way. A fancy skating club had been organized; a new era seemed to have dawned, when one day, quite unexpectedly, the old problem popped up again.

468A row of pupils, coming quietly forward to the recitation bench, found themselves stepping on a number of match-heads which had been scattered in the aisle. At the same moment Mr. Thomberg himself, who had stepped to a window to adjust a shade, exploded two of these little trouble-makers. Every one looked up in surprise, for bad order had been almost forgotten.

The teacher went to his desk. Very quietly he sent the class back to their seats. Then he told the pupils to put away all books, and they obeyed in a dazed way, afraid of they knew not what.

“I told you when I came,” said Mr. Thomberg, “that we couldn’t have anything but a good school. The reason that we can’t afford to have bad order is that we have too much serious work to do. I had begun to like you all so much that I’m sorry some one has had to spoil our pleasant beginning. But I meant what I said. So this school is closed, now, indefinitely. You are all, without exception, suspended from school until further notice. You will pass out as you always do.”

There was a breathless silence. Such a thing as suspending a whole school had never been heard of before. Mr. Thomberg gave the usual signals, and the boys and girls passed into the hall as though they had been at a funeral. Mr. Thomberg went to the nearest house and called the directors by telephone for a conference, which was scarcely begun when parents began to inquire indignantly why their children, guiltless of dropping match-heads, had been suspended from school. Mr. Thomberg dictated the answer:

469“Tell them,” he said, “that I have no time to ferret out the doers of silly little tricks in my school. When the school gives me the assurance that there’ll be no more trouble, then we’ll go back to work. Whoever dropped those match-heads thought the school liked that sort of thing, and you must show him that he is mistaken. I am a teacher, not a policeman.”

The parents really wanted their children in school, and guided by the suggestion, skillfully made by the teacher, they took steps to secure the concerted action which Mr. Thomberg knew was the remedy for the evil. He was reading the daily paper in the living room of his boarding house that evening, when the response for which he had planned came. There were seventeen of his twenty-six pupils in the party which called on him. One of the older boys, Felix Curry, was spokesman.

“We came to ask you if you’d have us in school again,” he said. “All our fathers and mothers want us to go back, and we’ll be good if you’ll let us. The boy that threw the match-heads will tell you about it himself. He told us he would.”

“There is no need of that, although he may do so privately tomorrow if he wants to. But I should rather not know who did it, if you’ll all be responsible for its not happening again. You see, I like you all so much that I’d hate to know who did so foolish and wrong a thing. And if you will agree that it is to be a good school, in which everyone works together in the right spirit, I’ll agree to stay until the end of the year. Otherwise I pack my trunk tonight.”

The pupils gave ample promises, which were not 470broken. Mr. Thomberg stayed through that year and the next one also, and had the best school in the county.

COMMENTS

This is an extraordinarily difficult situation. Mr. Thomberg’s success in dealing with this unusual case depended first of all on the fact that his knowledge of pedagogy enabled him to analyze the situation truly. He saw that the bad order was not caused by any one pupil, but was the result of a social tradition for which many persons, in and out of the school, were responsible. All the pupils upheld the disorder; therefore all the pupils were dealt with in a group.

In the second place he was independent, as a really first-class teacher can be. He set the standard of behavior, and required his students to come up to it or give up school altogether. Had the school declined to take the social responsibility he asked of them, he would really have packed his trunk and left. He was well prepared for his work, and was greatly in earnest about it, nor did he propose to do what he considered an undignified thing in probing for evil.

His personality was strong enough to set up a new standard for imitation, and to supplant the old one of inefficiency and mischief. The problem of order was for a time swallowed up in the greater one of securing real mental development in his pupils, and when it did show itself he treated it as a matter to be dealt with socially by the pupils. This seemed to put upon them a responsibility they had been used to having the teacher assume unaided, and they rose to the new honors imposed upon them. Mr. Thomberg utilized 471imitation in setting up a new regime, by requiring united action of his pupils. In this way he met a psychological situation with psychological weapons.

(11) Snobbishness. Snobbishness is a very hard thing to meet wisely, and a sin which is too easily learned by imitation.

CASE 83 (HIGH SCHOOL)

Joseph Lescinszky was a tailor in a small Middle West city, who lived in five small rooms over his shop, with his wife and seven children. He had plenty of patronage, for he was a good tailor, but he was unhappy, for one of the dreams long associated with his American citizenship had failed to materialize. His eldest son, Joseph Junior, was in the high school—a homely, awkward boy with great wistful eyes and an incurable shyness. He was a good student, but suffered constantly under the heartless, matter-of-fact ridicule of his American schoolmates.

Race Prejudice

This ridicule was but the echo of the attitude of the whole community toward the Polish family. They were the only foreigners in the place, and their appearance, habits and speech afforded unlimited amusement to everyone. Men who had had their suits made by the skillful, little, Polish tailor told funny stories in which his broken English figured as the chief point, and their sons and daughters in turn laughed at the shy and awkward children whom they met at school.

No one realized how this ridicule embittered the life of the tailor until Miss Swainson came to Hovey to teach in the high school. She took her old cape to the tailor one day, thriftily planning to have it made into a coat for school wear; and over the making of the coat, 472tailor and teacher began to discuss Joseph and his school life. No teacher had ever talked to him about Joseph before, and the little Pole voiced his feelings tremblingly.

“My Joseph does not like the school,” he confided. “He goes because I command him that he shall, but he has not his heart in it.”

“He does very good work,” comforted Miss Swainson. “His lessons are always excellent.”

“Ah, the lessons he gets with no trouble. But the boys, they like him not. They all time make fun on him, and my poor Joseph is not happy. He is Polack, they say. It is not true—we are Americans now; there is the paper,” and he pointed proudly to the naturalization paper, framed upon the wall.

“We’ll see if we can’t make Joseph happy at school,” Miss Swainson promised. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Now, Miss Swainson was one of the upright, downright people who go at things directly and openly. She began a campaign for the kinder treatment of Joseph Lescinszky, Junior. She had no doubt of her success.

An opportunity for beginning her kindly efforts in Joseph’s behalf came soon. Joseph was always the butt for practical jokes, and Charlie Owen was his particular tormentor. Therefore, when Joseph was tripped, going to the dictionary, by Charlie’s projecting toes, she kept Charlie after school and had a serious talk with him.

“Don’t you see what a contemptible thing it is for you to tease this bright boy just because he is of Polish 473blood?” she inquired warmly of smiling Charlie Owen.

“Why, Miss Swainson, he don’t mind. Everybody always laughs at those Lescinszkies, and they don’t care. If they ever showed fight like Americans I guess we’d let them alone, but they don’t. They’re not like us.”

“That’s just why you should treat them better. They haven’t learned that a boy has to fight in order to be decently treated,” Miss Swainson returned with fine scorn.

“No, ma’am. If they could only learn that, they’d be all right.” Fine scorn was wasted on Charlie.

All Miss Swainson’s efforts ended in this way. Secure in their feeling that traditional American means for securing respect were the only ones, smug with the provincialism of the small town, the school children continued to express to the alien boy the contempt they had imbibed from their elders. They merely smiled at Miss Swainson’s indignant efforts to win justice and kindness for their Polish schoolmate.

Toward the end of the year the young teacher thought she detected a shade of difference in the treatment given Joseph. This was due partly to her constant shaming of the thoughtless cruelty of their conduct, and partly to the respect he himself won by his good work in the classroom. But although this small degree of success comforted her somewhat, she felt still the defeat of her efforts keenly, not realizing that a change of conduct based on imitation must come through a change of example followed.

474

COMMENTS

Miss Swainson’s method did not go deep enough. Mere protest will occasionally effect a change, but not often. If she could have gotten behind Charlie Owen’s attitude, and found its roots, which were probably in the attitude of some member of his family or a powerful older friend, she might have truly converted Charlie to her way of thinking. His statement that “everybody always laughs at those Lescinszkies,” might have given her a clue, but she did not realize that she was only working on the surface.

ILLUSTRATION (RURAL SCHOOL)

Sallie Lou Pinkston came from Mobile, Alabama, to the small, northern town of Cade Mills, when she was ten years old. She was the only girl in an adoring family of brothers—a lovely, sunny-haired child, with the confidence in her right to rule her world which her happy family life had given her. She entered the fifth grade that fall, and scored an immediate success with the whole room, teacher included. Her southern accent was a continual source of delight; her matter-of-course assumption that everyone wanted to do the entertaining things she planned kept the whole room, with two exceptions, tied to her dainty apron-strings.

The two exceptions were Laurastine and Enameline Flack. Laurastine and Enameline belonged to the one colored family in town, and they had always attended the public school and had always been well treated by the other children. But when Sallie Lou cast her golden charm over the room, things changed. Sallie 475Lou didn’t understand why they should be there at all, and she surely didn’t intend to tolerate them as her social equals. Led by the irresistible charm of Sallie Lou, vying with each other to stand in her graces, the other children began to ignore the two little colored girls, or openly to laugh at them and pointedly to leave them out of their games.

Miss Stone, the teacher, being a northern woman and a believer in literal democracy, thought this a very bad state of things indeed. The two little girls were well behaved, wistful, little creatures, whose tears at the new turn of things went straight to Miss Stone’s big heart. She knew that the remedy must come in some way through Sallie Lou, who had caused the havoc; for there was no possible way to supplant her dominant influence, nor was such a thing desirable except for this one cause. Sallie Lou had wakened the room to a new interest in many things, and in everything except the treatment of the little “niggers” she was sweetness and docility itself.

Could Sallie Lou be converted? Miss Stone tried it, with doubt in her heart; she knew what prejudice is. She invited Sallie Lou to her house for supper one Friday night, and after supper they sat by the fire and had a long talk about it. Miss Stone presented the pathetic cases of Laurastine and Enameline as touchingly as she could, but Sallie Lou merely smiled divinely and told her, most sweetly, that of course she wanted to do what was right, but that it wasn’t right for “niggers” to mix socially with white people, and that the town should provide a separate school for them. She was firmly entrenched behind the prejudice 476of her rearing in a community which solved the problem this way.

Miss Stone reluctantly retreated from the attack, but she did not give up. She went behind the prejudice to its support, behind the example to its example. She cultivated Sallie Lou’s mother, her father, her four charming brothers. The parents, finding few cultured people in the little town, welcomed the well-read teacher and were very cordial to her. When she had won their respect and liking, Miss Stone asked for a frank talk with them about the conditions in her room, and told them just how the irresistible Sallie Lou was leading all the other children in the fifth grade to snub the two little Flacks.

At first the Pinkstons were amused, then they were indignant. They too felt that the two colored children had no business in a school for white children. But when Miss Stone had shown them that a separate school was impracticable in a town that had but one colored family, that conditions were very different from those of a southern city, and that a change in Sallie Lou’s attitude would avert a personal tragedy for two innocent little girls, the parents came finally to see the matter from her point of view. They promised to talk to Sallie Lou and to persuade her to change her tactics. Miss Stone thanked them, and changed the subject quickly and brightly to something else.

Sallie Lou, at first with formal and awkward condescension, but later with the same frank charm that won everyone to her, asked the two little outcasts back into the fold of fifth grade fun. The rest fell easily 477into their old democratic way of sharing things. Miss Stone had solved the problem of race prejudice by changing the example.

2. Play—A Second Form of the Adaptive Instincts

The child never reveals his whole nature as he does when playing. His physical, mental and moral powers are all called then into vigorous exercise. On the playground the boy begins to learn how to struggle with his fellow men in the great battle of life. His strength and his weakness both manifest themselves there, so that it pays to study him.

—Hughes.

Much school trouble is caused by the purely sportive impulses of childhood, impulses which are in themselves entirely innocent and wholesome. One of the most valuable parts of a child’s training is the acquiring of a set of notions as to appropriateness—the knowledge of when he may, and when he may not, rightly give rein to his wish to play. Some children acquire these ideas of propriety readily, and adapt themselves seemingly without effort to the customs of their environment; but most children stumble through the period of adaptation with many backslidings, for the instinct of play is stronger than the instinct of adaptation to requirement.

But let it be remembered meanwhile that this same play instinct is one of the strongest allies of the teacher in securing such adaptation, if the instinct is properly directed. What lesson of politeness, neatness, unselfishness, protection of the weak, promptness, responsibility, care of pets, coöperation, chivalry—yes, 478even of duty and religion—may not be taught through play! Draining off the play impulses into these legitimate channels will relieve many a wearisome, perplexing day for both teacher and pupils, and at the same time speed on the child toward conscious self-control.

Perhaps the greatest single help in teaching children the voluntary limitation of their play impulses, is the knowledge that play is only postponed, not forbidden. Most children have so strong a love of approbation that they like to do things in the proper way if the sacrifice be not too great. They are willing to put off their fun, but not to put it off forever. The teacher who says, “If you’ll wait until recess, I’ll show you how to play a new game with marbles,” will secure willing obedience, when she who takes the marbles away has only sullen submission for her reward. Here the teacher utilizes the instinctive love of novelty in teaching control of play impulses. During the period, when conduct is so largely a matter of instinct, wise teachers play off one instinct against another to the child’s gain, knowing that some impulses need encouragement and others need to be inhibited.

First Grade

(1) “Just mischief.” One of the most frequent ways in which the play instinct expresses itself in the first and even in higher grades is in the little annoyances which teachers group together under the general term, mischief. An energetic child, if he is not constantly employed, naturally vents his energy either in play or in trying to satisfy his curiosity.

The principle of suggestion alone will often be sufficient to control the child. The principle of substitution will work equally well. Coöperation can be 479correlated with either of these, and expectation that the child will do what the teacher desires should be used in whatever method the teacher may adopt.

The mischievous boy will be quiet so long as he is reciting, but while others are reciting he will immediately hunt for something else to do. He will drag his shoe on the floor, reach over and touch his neighbor, pull out a pocketful of string or help himself to his neighbor’s pencil.

It is not a case for punishment, but a time to apply one or more of the fundamental principles. The teacher, without even a word or look, may reach over and draw him to her side, asking him to look on her book, or better still she may look on his book (suggesting that he attend to his lesson). She may send him on some little errand—to bring a book or a piece of crayon—and by the time she whispers, “Thank you, you did that like a little gentleman,” he will have forgotten all about his mischief (substitution and approval).

When the class is dismissed, however, the teacher must see that the mischievous boy is kept busy and his work changed once or twice within the half hour. She must not fail to show an interest in his work. The comment, “That is so good, my boy, that I want you to put it on my desk where we can look at it,” will so elate the child that he will work industriously to do his best, and doing his best will keep him busy a long time. When on the playground or in the gymnasium the teacher must see that he gets plenty of “full-of-fun” play. It will use up some of his restless energy.

The teacher must have an abundance of busy work 480ready for the next restless period that comes, sorting blocks or marbles, straws or papers, cutting or coloring pictures, putting books on the shelf, and anything that will keep him innocently busy. Stencil cards, cutting out words or letters, the distributing of materials for the class to use, games for the recess and noon periods, frequent story periods during school hours, interesting lessons, vigorous exercise, generous approval of every effort to please the teacher—all these will gradually win the mischievous boy to habits of self-control and industry. All children like stories, and during the telling of the story, if it is at all worth while, the children will be quiet and attentive. The teacher may, however, call the restless child to herself, saying to him, “I like to have somebody stand by me.” Better still, she may gather all the pupils around her and say to the mischievous boy, “Robert, I am going to tell you a story. The other boys and girls may listen.” This will captivate the child, and when she has finished she may ask him to tell the story.

By this time the reader will sigh and ask, “Must all this be done to keep one mischievous boy at work?” Yes, but it is far easier to interest him than to be worried by his pranks. Then, too, by keeping him interested, the teacher is administering to his development, while to let him loll in his mischief would only tend to create in him habits of inattention and idleness. At the close of the day the boy will go home happy and the benediction of a happy teacher will follow him. Nothing adds more to a teacher’s usefulness and happiness than the thought of work well done.

In the above procedure the teacher has practiced 481suggestive control. She has led the mischievous boy into activities that interest him, that appeal and fascinate as well as satisfy that active mind, and that will mature into right action. It is far easier to deal with a child full of life, than to deal with a dullard. Direct properly the impulse that causes this mischief, and it will become a force for real good in the child’s life. The discreet teacher will look ahead and avoid difficulties, and nowhere will she get more valuable clues to a method of control than on the playground.