The Teacher / Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young

by Jacob Abbott

The boys hesitate.

The teacher names successively several numbers, and asks whether they think the real number will be greater or less. He notices their votes upon them, and at last fixes upon one which seems to be about the general sense of the school. Then the teacher himself mentions the number which he supposes will be found to be disorderly. His estimate will ordinarily be larger than that of the scholars, because he knows better how easily resolutions are broken. This number, too, is recorded, and then the whole subject is dismissed.

Now, of course, no reader of these remarks will understand me to be recommending, by this imaginary dialogue, a particular course to be taken in regard to this subject, far less the particular language to be used. All I mean is to show by a familiar illustration how the teacher is to endeavor to enlist the interest and to excite the curiosity of his pupils in his plans for the improvement of his school, by presenting them as moral experiments, which they are to assist him in trying—experiments whose progress they are to watch, and whose results they are to predict. If the precise steps which I have described should actually be taken, although it would occupy but a few minutes, and would cause no thought and no perplexing care, yet it would undoubtedly be the means of awakening a very general interest in the subject of order throughout the school. All would be interested in the work of arrangement.

All would watch, too, with interest the progress and the result of the experiment; and if, a few days afterward, the teacher should accidentally, in recess, see a disorderly desk, a good-humored remark made with a smile to the by-standers, "I suspect my prediction will turn out the correct one," would have far more effect than the most severe reproaches, or the tingling of a rap over the knuckles with a ratan.

I know from experience that scholars of every kind can be led by such measures as these, or rather by such a spirit as this, to take an active interest, and to exert a most powerful influence in regard to the whole condition of the institution. I have seen the experiment successful in boys' schools and in girls' schools, among very little children, and among the seniors and juniors at college.

In one of the colleges of New England a new and beautiful edifice was erected. The lecture-rooms were fitted up in handsome style, and the officers, when the time for the occupation of the building approached, were anticipating with regret what seemed to be the unavoidable defacing, and cutting, and marking of the seats and walls. It was, however, thought that if the subject was properly presented to the students, they would take an interest in preserving the property from injury. They were accordingly addressed somewhat as follows:

"It seems, young gentlemen, to be generally the custom in colleges for the students to ornament the walls and benches of their recitation-rooms with various inscriptions and caricatures, so that after the premises have been for a short time in the possession of a class, every thing within reach, which will take an impression from a penknife or a trace from a pencil, is covered with names, and dates, and heads, and inscriptions of every kind. The faculty do not know what you wish in this respect in regard to the new accommodations which the trustees have now provided for you, and which you are soon to enter. They have had them fitted up for you handsomely, and if you wish to have them kept in good order, we will assist you. If the students think proper to express by a vote, or in any other way, their wish to keep them in good order, we will engage to have such incidental injuries as may from time to time occur immediately repaired. Such injuries will, of course, be done; for, whatever may be the wish and general opinion of the whole, it is not to be expected that every individual in so large a community will be careful. If, however, as a body, you wish to have the building preserved in its present state, and will, as a body, take the necessary precautions, we will do our part."

The students responded to this appeal most heartily. They passed a vote expressing a desire to preserve the premises in order, and for many years, and, for aught I know, to the present hour, the whole is kept as a room occupied by gentlemen should be kept. At some other colleges, and those, too, sustaining the very highest rank among the institutions of the country, the doors of the public buildings are sometimes studded with nails as thick as they can possibly be driven, and then covered with a thick coat of sand dried into the paint, as a protection from the knives of the students!!

The particular methods by which the teacher is to interest his pupils in his various plans for their improvement can not be fully described here. In fact, it does not depend so much on the methods he adopts as upon the view which he himself takes of these plans, and the tone and manner in which he speaks of them to his pupils.