[11]. Welton and Blandford, op. cit., p. 169.
Both Good and Bad Traits Are Copied
This introduces the distinction between conscious and unconscious instruction. The teacher by planned and immediate efforts, by definite and formal instruction, draws the pupil into his own more perfect thought and life; but much of the influence exerted by the teacher is unconscious and without forethought; effort and purpose would diminish it. Pupils are so susceptible to the silent influence of the teacher that they are supposed to make some permanent change each time they come into the presence of the teacher. There is a reason for this belief. Experience and observation have taught that personal contact works marvellously on the young who are continually in the presence of those whom they admire. Pupils instinctively copy the teacher, even in the case of mannerisms. Thrice fortunate is the teacher who possesses a strong personality, if his life incarnates all that is ideal and beautiful. Pupils assimilate both the evil and the good. How expedient it is then that they find only beautiful traits and a wholesome spirit which, like a fragrance filling the air, surrounds the noble-minded and warm-hearted teacher. Not so much by the daily task imposed and the instruction meted out as by the silent worship of the heart, does the child flower into beautiful life, and ripen into worthy manhood or womanhood.
Every teacher should be to the child a worthy model. Thus, by admiration and worship directed toward a superior, would the pupil realize the worth and beauty of all the good in the true teacher’s life. Using the wisest and most precise method of instruction does not fill the measure of the teacher’s responsibility. After all the pupil is circumscribed and continues to walk on earth among common things, unless quickened by a touch from the hovering spirit in the higher life of a teacher.
In a former chapter it has been pointed out that the school, as a home for the child during his school career, definitely molds character. Also, the teacher’s intellectual qualifications have been fully set forth. But meeting these requirements alone cannot insure success for the teacher. In this chapter the moral influence of the teacher has been clearly explained as an agency in the character building of the child. Discipline has been interpreted as a training in self-control, and self-control as a prime element in character. Then it must be evident that discipline is the teacher’s one great function. When the teacher has directed his every effort and energy toward discipline, he is doing his utmost to build permanent, worthy character, providing that he possesses every attribute of the true teacher and uses those underlying principles of discipline, that alone can make true discipline possible.
“In childhood the trainer makes the child; during adolescence the youth makes himself. In childhood habits are forged by the unreasoned processes of reiteration; during youth they are made by voluntary acceptance of an inner ideal and the conscious nurture of that ideal. For the child habit-making should be as unconscious as breathing; for the youth it should be his deliberate and high-born duty. A wise teacher will never talk habits to children; before they know it, he will have them chained—no, that is a hateful and vicious figure—he will have them free as the wings of a bird in the unconscious and happy regulations of their lives.”[[12]]
[12]. Arthur Holmes, op. cit., p. 216.
Summary
1. Discipline is defined as a training to act in accordance with established moral principles.