"I don't think I have played so much since then."
"Nor I. You have improved a little, but you have not decidedly and thoroughly reformed. So I was obliged to take the next step which would be least unpleasant to you, that is, talking with you alone. Now you told me when we began that you would deal honestly and sincerely with me, if I would with you. I have been honest and open. I have told you all about it so far as I am concerned. Now I wish you to be honest, and tell me what you are going to do. If you think, from this conversation, that you have done wrong, and if you are fully determined to do so no more, and to break off at once, and forever, from this practice, I should like to have you tell me, and then the whole thing will be settled. On the other hand, if you feel about it pretty much as you have done, I should like to have you tell me that too, honestly and frankly, that we may have a distinct understanding, and that I may be considering what to do next. I shall not be offended with you for giving me either of these answers, but be sure that you are honest; you promised to be so."
The boy looked up in his master's face, and said, with great earnestness,
"Mr T. I will do better. I will not trouble you any more."
I have detailed this case thus particularly because it exhibits clearly what I mean by going directly and frankly to the individual, and coming at once to a full understanding. In nine cases out of ten this course will be effectual. For four years, with a very large school, I found this sufficient in every case of discipline which occurred, except in three or four instances, where something more was required. To make it successful, however, the work must be done properly. Several things are necessary. It must be deliberate; generally better after a little delay. It must be indulgent, so far as the view which the teacher takes of the guilt of the pupil is concerned; every palliating consideration must be felt. It must be firm and decided in regard to the necessity of a change, and the determination of the teacher to effect it. It must also be open and frank; no insinuations, no hints, no surmises, but plain, honest, open dealing.
In many cases the communication may be made most delicately and most successfully in writing. The more delicately you touch the feelings of your pupils, the more tender these feelings will become. Many a teacher hardens and stupefies the moral sense of his pupils by the harsh and rough exposures to which he drags out the private feelings of the heart. A man may easily produce such a state of feeling in his schoolroom, that to address even the gentlest reproof to any individual, in the hearing of the next, would be a most severe punishment; and, on the other hand, he may so destroy that sensitiveness that his vociferated reproaches will be as unheeded as the idle wind.
If, now, the teacher has taken the course recommended in this chapter—if he has, by his general influence in the school, done all in his power to bring the majority of his pupils to the side of order and discipline—if he has then studied, attentively and impartially, the characters of those who can not thus be led—if he has endeavored to make them his friends, and to acquire, by every means, a personal influence over them—if, finally, when they do wrong, he goes plainly, but in a gentle and delicate manner, to them, and lays before them the whole case—if he has done all this, he has gone as far as moral influence will carry him. My opinion is, that this course, faithfully and judiciously pursued, will, in almost all instances, succeed; but it will not in all; and where it fails, there must be other, and more vigorous and decided measures. What these measures of restraint or punishment shall be must depend upon the circumstances of the case; but in resorting to them, the teacher must be decided and unbending.
The course above recommended is not trying lax and inefficient measures for a long time in hopes of their being ultimately successful, and then, when they are found not to be so, changing the policy. There should be, through the whole, the tone and manner of authority, not of persuasion. The teacher must be a monarch, and, while he is gentle and forbearing, always looking on the favorable side of conduct so far as guilt is concerned; he must have an eagle eye and an efficient hand, so far as relates to arresting the evil and stopping the consequences. He may slowly and cautiously, and even tenderly, approach a delinquent. He may be several days in gathering around him the circumstances of which he is ultimately to avail himself in bringing him to submission; but, while he proceeds thus slowly and tenderly, he must come with the air of authority and power. The fact that the teacher bases all his plans on the idea of his ultimate authority in every case may be perfectly evident to all the pupils, while he proceeds with moderation and gentleness in all his specific measures. Let it be seen, then, that the constitution of your school is a monarchy, absolute and unlimited; but let it also be seen that the one who holds the power is himself under the control of moral principle in all that he does, and that he endeavors to make the same moral principle which guides him go as far as it is possible to make it go in the government of his subjects.