"
The business ended here, and it put a stop, a final stop, to all
malicious tricks in the school. Now it is not very often that so fine an
opportunity occurs to kill, by a single blow, the disposition to do
willful, wanton injury, as this circumstance afforded; but the principle
illustrated by it, bringing forward individual cases of transgression in
a public manner, only for the sake of the general effect, and so
arranging what is said and done as to produce the desired effect upon
the public mind in the highest degree, may very frequently be acted
upon. Cases are continually occurring, and if the teacher will keep it
constantly in mind, that when a particular case comes before the whole
school, the object is an influence upon the whole, and not the
punishment or reform of the guilty individual, he will insensibly so
shape his measures as to produce the desired result.
(4.) There should be a great difference made between the _measures which
you take_ to prevent wrong, and the _feelings of displeasure which you
express_ against the wrong when it is done. The former should be strict,
authoritative, unbending; the latter should be mild and gentle. Your
measures, if uniform and systematic, will never give offense, however
powerfully you may restrain and control those subject to them. It is the
morose look, the harsh expression, the tone of irritation and
fretfulness, which is so unpopular in school. The sins of childhood are
by nine tenths of mankind enormously overrated, and perhaps none
overrate them more extravagantly than teachers.
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