OBEDIENCE AND IMITATION.
The teacher or parent, therefore, should endeavor to hold something like the Divine relation to the child,—should show a superiority of knowledge, an inflexible firmness, an unvarying love, and irresistible attraction, ever endeavoring to win love, while enforcing the supremacy of his will, so that obedience may be a pleasure. Thus may a woman with a masculine strength of will, or a man with feminine strength of love, develop that willing obedience which insures the moral elevation of the pupil. But whenever the teacher fails to elicit both respect and love, his power for good is lost. In this evolution of good the power of the teacher is vastly enhanced by that of music, especially in the form of song, when the pupil is made to sing songs of exalted sentiment; and there are very few natures so depraved as to resist long the combined power of exalted music and a superior teacher, to which should be added the social influence of numbers already elevated by such influences.
In such schools, the power of the third element, imitation, is very great, for the pupil is generally more influenced by the example of his numerous associates in the school and family, with whom he is continually in contact, than by that of his teacher.
To get the full benefit of imitation requires not only the influence of well-trained schoolmates, but systematic exercises in reading, singing, declamation, and deportment, the teaching being given by example.
When a boy or girl is taught by example to express a noble sentiment in a natural manner, he is thereby compelled to feel the sentiment in some degree with sincerity. When he is required to imitate and practice certain forms of politeness which express the best sentiments, those sentiments must gradually become a part of his nature. The acts of respect, of kindness and courtesy to which he may be naturally averse, cannot be daily practised without rousing in his nature the sentiments to which they correspond.