The Rhode Island Schoolmaster (19) (English, Latin, Paperback)

. 1873: ... to seek for deeper foundations than the aesthetic instincts. The moral intuitions can soon be appealed to. And this appeal can be mae, not merely in the case of the pupils' quarrels with each other, or when they are guilty of some flagrant moral wrong, but also when their wrong-doing is merely the transgression of the school-room proprieties. It will be difficult, however, to justify to the reason or the conscience of a young child any attempt to enforce the discipline of a martinet. A rigid discipline is not a good sign in a school, because it is surely a confession, on the part of the teacher, that he is incapable of bringing about a state of discipline that is better than rigid; that is, reasonable and intelligent. Ouly so much of discipline is good for anything as pertains to the education of the pupils' habits and consciences. The rest is what the teacher adopts, probably, to please his committee; but, perhaps, because he has found that he, himself, does not know how to give an inch without giving his pupils opportunity to take an ell. In the later portion of the grammar school course, the pupils are growing rapidly into the most receptive period of their lives. Only a strong adult character can match their unrestrained youthful natures. To hold in subjection a large school of these creatures is no easy task. But'look at the men or the women who arc notably doing this well. We shall find such, if we know where to go. Without corporal punishment, without visible punishments of any kind, in perfect tranquillity and ease, the genuine master of the situation brings his school into that attitude, physical and mental, in which he can best convey to it the instruction he has to impart. The discipline hardly appears at all. These busy, restless natures are so fully engaged in the master's plans that they, for the time, have no plans of their own. So much of disorder as proceeds from the restlessness of idle pupils is at once checked by allowing no pup...