The business ended here, and it put a stop, a final stop, to all malicious tricks in the school. Now it is not very often that so fine an opportunity occurs to kill, by a single blow, the disposition to do willful, wanton injury, as this circumstance afforded; but the principle illustrated by it, bringing forward individual cases of transgression in a public manner, only for the sake of the general effect, and so arranging what is said and done as to produce the desired effect upon the public mind in the highest degree, may very frequently be acted upon. Cases are continually occurring, and if the teacher will keep it constantly in mind, that when a particular case comes before the whole school, the object is an influence upon the whole, and not the punishment or reform of the guilty individual, he will insensibly so shape his measures as to produce the desired result.
(4.) There should be a great difference made between the measures which you take to prevent wrong, and the feelings of displeasure which you express against the wrong when it is done. The former should be strict, authoritative, unbending; the latter should be mild and gentle. Your measures, if uniform and systematic, will never give offense, however powerfully you may restrain and control those subject to them. It is the morose look, the harsh expression, the tone of irritation and fretfulness, which is so unpopular in school. The sins of childhood are by nine tenths of mankind enormously overrated, and perhaps none overrate them more extravagantly than teachers. We confound the trouble they give us with their real moral turpitude, and measure the one by the other. Now if a fault prevails in school, one teacher will scold and fret himself about it day after day, until his scholars are tired both of school and of him; and yet he will do nothing effectual to remove it. Another will take efficient and decided measures, and yet say very little on the subject, and the whole evil will be removed without suspending for a moment the good-humor and pleasant feeling which should prevail in school.
The expression of your displeasure on account of any thing that is wrong will seldom or never do any good. The scholars consider it scolding; it is scolding; and though it may, in many cases, contain many sound arguments and eloquent expostulations, it operates simply as a punishment. It is unpleasant to hear it. General instruction must indeed be given, but not general reproof.
(5.) Feel that in the management of the school you are under obligation as well as the scholars, and let this feeling appear in all that you do. Your scholars wish you to dismiss school earlier than usual on some particular occasion, or to allow them an extra holiday. Show by the manner in which you consider and speak of the question that your main inquiry is what is your duty. Speak often of your responsibility to your employers—not formally, but incidentally and naturally, as you will speak if you feel this responsibility.
It will assist very much, too, in securing cheerful, good-humored obedience to the regulations of the school, if you extend their authority over yourself. Not that the teacher is to have no liberty from which the scholars are debarred; this would be impossible. But the teacher should submit, himself, to every thing which he requires of his scholars, unless it is in cases where a different course is necessary.
Suppose, for instance, a study-card, like the one described in a preceding chapter, is made so as to mark the time of recess and of study. The teacher, near the close of recess, is sitting with a group of his pupils around him, telling them some story. They are all interested, and they see he is interested. He looks at his watch, and shows by his manner that he is desirous of finishing what he is saying, but that he knows that the striking of the bell will cut short his story. Perhaps he says not a word about it, but his pupils see that he is submitting to the control which is placed over them; and when the card goes up, and he stops instantly in the middle of his sentence and rises with the rest, each one to go to his own place, to engage at once in their several duties, he teaches them a most important lesson, and in the most effectual way. Such a lesson of fidelity and obedience, and such an example of it, will have more influence than half an hour's scolding about whispering without leave, or a dozen public punishments. At least so I found it, for I have tried both.
Show then continually that you see and enjoy the beauty of system and strict discipline, and that you submit to law yourself as well as require submission of others.
(6.) Lead your pupils to see that they must share with you the credit or the disgrace which success or failure in the management of the school may bring. Lead them to feel this, not by telling them so, for there are very few things which can be impressed upon children by direct efforts to impress them, but by so speaking of the subject, from time to time, as to lead them to see that you understand it so.
Repeat, with judicious caution, what is said of the school, both for and against it, and thus endeavor to interest the scholars in its public reputation. This feeling of interest in the institution may very easily be awakened. It sometimes springs up spontaneously, and, where it is not guided aright by the teacher, sometimes produces very bad effects upon the minds of the pupils in rival institutions. When two schools are situated near each other, evil consequences will result from this feeling, unless the teacher manages it so as to deduce good consequences. I recollect that in my boyish days there was a standing quarrel between the boys of a town school and an academy which were in the same village. We were all ready at any time, when out of school, to fight for the honor of our respective institutions, each for his own, but very few were ready to be diligent and faithful when in it, though it would seem that that might have been rather a more effectual means of establishing the point. If the scholars are led to understand that the school is to a great extent their institution, that they must assist to sustain its character, and that they share the honor of its excellence, if any honor is acquired, a feeling will prevail in the school which may be turned to a most useful account.
(7.) In giving instruction on moral duty, the subject should generally be taken up in reference to imaginary cases, or cases which are unknown to most of the scholars. If this is done, the pupils feel that the object of bringing up the subject is to do good; whereas, if questions of moral duty are only introduced from time to time, when some prevailing or accidental fault in school calls for reproof, the feeling will be that the teacher is only endeavoring to remove from his own path a source of inconvenience and trouble. The most successful mode of giving general moral instruction that I have known, and which has been adopted in many schools with occasional variations of form, is the following: