If, however, exactness and precision in all the operations of a
class and of the school are introduced and enforced in the proper
manner, that is, by a firm, but mild and good-humored authority,
scholars will universally be pleased with them. They like to see the
uniform appearance, the straight line, the simultaneous movement. They
like to feel the operation of system, and to realize, while they are at
the school-room, that they form a community, governed by fixed and
steady laws, firmly but kindly administered. On the other hand, laxity
of discipline, and the disorder which will result from it, will only
lead the pupils to contemn their teacher and to hate their school.
By introducing and maintaining such a discipline as I have described,
great facilities will be secured for examining the classes. For example,
to take a case different from the one before described, let us suppose
that a class have been performing a number of examples in Addition. They
come together to the recitation, and, under one mode of managing
classes, the teacher is immediately beset by a number of the pupils with
excuses. One had no slate; another was absent when the lesson was
assigned; a third performed the work, but it got rubbed out, and a
fourth did not know what was to be done. The teacher stops to hear all
these, and to talk about them, fretting himself, and fretting the
delinquents by his impatient remarks. The rest of the class are waiting,
and, having nothing good to do, the temptation is almost irresistible to
do something bad.
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