Shut
your eyes for a day or two to their faults, if possible, and take an
interest in all their pleasures and pursuits, that the first attitude in
which you exhibit yourself before them may be one which shall allure,
not repel.
2. In endeavoring to correct the faults of your pupils, do not, as many
teachers do, seize only upon _those particular cases_ of transgression
which may happen to come under your notice. These individual instances
are very few, probably, compared with the whole number of faults against
which you ought to exert an influence. And though you perhaps ought not
to neglect those which may accidentally come under your notice, yet the
observing and punishing such cases is a very small part of your duty.
You accidentally hear, I will suppose, as you are walking home from
school, two of your boys in earnest conversation, and one of them uses
profane language. Now the course to be pursued in such a case is, most
evidently, not to call the boy to you the next day and punish him, and
there let the matter rest. This would, perhaps, be better than nothing.
But the chief impression which it would make upon the individual and
upon the other scholars would be, "I must take care how I _let the
master hear me_ use such language again." A wise teacher, who takes
enlarged and extended views of his duty in regard to the moral progress
of his pupils, would act very differently. He would look at the whole
subject.
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