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

by Jacob Abbott

The teacher must always expect that there will be such cases. They are always to be found in the best and most skillfully-managed schools. The following suggestions will perhaps assist the teacher in dealing with them.

(1.) The first point to be attended to is to ascertain who they are. Not by appearing suspiciously to watch any individuals, for this would be almost sufficient to make them bad, if they were not so before. Observe, however; notice, from day to day, the conduct of individuals, not for the purpose of reproving or punishing their faults, but to enable you to understand their characters. This work will often require great adroitness and very close scrutiny, and you will find, as the results of it, a considerable variety of character, which the general influences above described will not be sufficient to control. The number of individuals will not be great, but the diversity of character comprised in it will be such as to call into exercise all your powers of vigilance and discrimination. On one seat you will find a coarse, rough-looking boy, who openly disobeys your commands and opposes your wishes while in school, and makes himself a continual source of trouble and annoyance during play-hours by bullying and hectoring every gentle and timid schoolmate. On another sits a more sly rogue, whose demure and submissive look is assumed to conceal a mischief-making disposition. Here is one whose giddy spirit is always leading him into difficulty, but who is of so open and frank a disposition that you will most easily lead him back to duty; but there is another who, when reproved, will fly into a passion; and then a third, who will stand sullen and silent before you when he has done wrong, and is not to be touched by kindness nor awed by authority.

Now all these characters must be studied. It is true that the caution given in a preceding part of this chapter, against devoting undue and disproportionate attention to such persons, must not be forgotten. Still, these individuals will require, and it is right that they should receive, a far greater degree of attention, so far as the moral administration of the school is concerned, than their mere numbers would appear to justify. This is the field in which the teacher is to study human nature, for here it shows itself without disguise. It is through this class, too, that a very powerful moral influence is to be exerted upon the rest of the school. The manner in which such individuals are managed, the tone the teacher assumes toward them, the gentleness with which he speaks of their faults, and the unbending decision with which he restrains them from wrong, will have a most powerful effect upon the rest of the school. That he may occupy this field, therefore, to the best advantage, it is necessary that he should first thoroughly explore it.

By understanding the dispositions and characters of such a class of pupils as I have described, I do not mean merely watching them with vigilance in school, so that none of their transgressions shall go unobserved and unpunished. I intend a far deeper and more thorough examination of character. Every boy has something or other which is good in his disposition and character which he is aware of, and on which he prides himself; find out what it is, for it may often be made the foundation on which you may build the superstructure of reform. Every one has his peculiar sources of enjoyment and objects of pursuit, which are before his mind from day to day. Find out what they are, that by taking an interest in what interests him, and perhaps sometimes assisting him in his plans, you can bind him to you. Every boy is, from the circumstances in which he is placed at home, exposed to temptations which have perhaps had far greater influence in the formation of his character than any deliberate and intentional depravity of his own; ascertain what these temptations are, that you may know where to pity him and where to blame. The knowledge which such an examination of character will give you, will not be confined to making you acquainted with the individual. It will be the most valuable knowledge which a man can possess, both to assist him in the general administration of the school and in his intercourse among mankind in the business of life. Men are but boys, only with somewhat loftier objects of pursuit. Their principles, motives, and ruling passions are essentially the same. Extended commercial speculations are, so far as the human heart is concerned, substantially what trading in jack-knives and toys is at school, and building a snow fort, to its own architects, the same as erecting a monument of marble.

(2.) After exploring the ground, the first thing to be done as a preparation for reforming individual character in school is to secure the personal attachment of the individuals to be reformed. This must not be attempted by professions and affected smiles, and still less by that sort of obsequiousness, common in such cases, which produces no effect but to make the bad boy suppose that his teacher is afraid of him; which, by the way, is, in fact, in such cases, usually true. Approach the pupil in a bold and manly, but frank and pleasant manner. Approach him as his superior, but still as his friend; desirous to make him happy, not merely to obtain his good-will. And the best way to secure these appearances is just to secure the reality. Actually be the boy's friend. Really desire to make him happy—happy, too, in his own way, not in yours. Feel that you are his superior, and that you must and will enforce obedience; but with this, feel that probably obedience will be rendered without any contest. If these are really the feelings which reign within you, the boy will see it, and they will exert a strong influence over him; but you can not counterfeit appearances.

A most effectual way to secure the good-will of a scholar is to ask him to assist you. The Creator has so formed the human heart that doing good must be a source of pleasure, and he who tastes this pleasure once will almost always wish to taste it again. To do good to any individual creates or increases the desire to do it.

There is a boy in your school who is famous for his skill in making whistles from the green branches of the poplar. He is a bad boy, and likes to turn his ingenuity to purposes of mischief. You observe him some day in school, when he thinks your attention is engaged in another way, blowing softly upon one which he has concealed in his desk for the purpose of amusing his neighbors without attracting the attention of the teacher. Now there are two remedies. Will you try the physical one? Then call him out into the floor, inflict painful punishment, and send him smarting to his seat, with his heart full of anger and revenge, to plot some new and less dangerous scheme of annoyance. Will you try the moral one? Then wait till the recess, and while he is out at his play, send a message out by another boy, saying that you have heard he is very skillful in making whistles, and asking him to make one for you to carry home to a little child at your boarding-house. What would, in ordinary cases, be the effect? It would certainly be a very simple application, but its effect would be to open an entirely new train of thought and feeling for the boy. "What!" he would say to himself, while at work on his task, "give the master pleasure by making whistles! Who would have conceived of it? I never thought of any thing but giving him trouble and pain. I wonder who told him I could make whistles?" He would find, too, that the new enjoyment was far higher and purer than the old, and would have little disposition to return to the latter.

I do not mean by this illustration that such a measure as this would be the only notice that ought to be taken of such an act of willful disturbance in school. Probably it would not. What measures in direct reference to the fault committed would be necessary would depend upon the circumstances of the case. It is not necessary to our purpose that they should be described here.

The teacher can awaken in the hearts of his pupils a personal attachment for him by asking in various ways their assistance in school, and then appearing honestly gratified with the assistance rendered. Boys and girls are delighted to have what powers and attainments they possess brought out into action, especially where they can lead to useful results. They love to be of some consequence in the world, and will be especially gratified to be able to assist their teacher. Even if the studies of a turbulent boy are occasionally interrupted for half an hour, that he might help you arrange papers, or rule books, or distribute exercises, it will be time well spent. Get him to co-operate with you in any thing, and he will feel how much more pleasant it is to co-operate than to thwart and oppose; and, by judicious measures of this kind, almost any boy may be brought over to your side.