The boys hesitate, look at one another, and presently say that they had rather sit together.
"Well," said the teacher, "it is immaterial to me whether you sit together or apart, if you are only good boys, so you may take your seats and try it a little while. If you find it too hard work to be studious and orderly together, I can make a change hereafter. I shall soon see."
Such a conversation will have many good effects. It will make the boys expect to be watched, without causing them to feel that their characters have suffered. It will stimulate them to greater exertion to avoid all misconduct, and it will prepare the way for separating them afterward without awakening feelings of resentment, if the experiment of their sitting together should fail.
Another case would be managed, perhaps, in a little different way, where the tendency to play was more decided. After speaking to the individuals mildly two or three times, you see them again at play. You ask them to wait that day after school and come to your desk.
They have, then, the rest of the day to think occasionally of the difficulty they have brought themselves into, and the anxiety and suspense which they will naturally feel will give you every advantage for speaking to them with effect; and if you should be engaged a few minutes with some other business after school, so that they should have to stand a little while in silent expectation, waiting for their turn, it would contribute to the permanence of the effect.
"Well, boys," at length you say, with a serious but frank tone of voice, "I saw you playing in a disorderly manner to-day, and, in the first place, I wish you to tell me honestly all about it. I am not going to punish you, but I wish you to be open and honest about it. What were you doing?"
The boys hesitate.
"George, what did you have in your hand?"
"A piece of paper."
"And what were you doing with it?"