(^mmll Hmrmitg Jilrmg ,THE GIFT OF A.U'JXi>'J -.:-!. J5px Ify Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031388402 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT: A PRACTICAL TREATISE, PEESENTING A THOROUGH DISCUSSION OF ITS FACTS, PEINCIPLES, AND THEIR APPLICATIONS; OEITIQTTES UPON CURRENT THEORIES OF PUNISHMENT, AND SCHEMES OF ADMINISTRATION. FOB THE USE OF NORMAL SCHOOLS, PRACTICAL TEACHERS, AND PARENTS. By FREDERICK S. JEWELL, A.M. The government of the child ahonld be kingly. — Abihtotls. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY A. S. -BARNES & CO., ill & 113 WltLIAM ST., COR. JOHN. 1 86~6. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by FEEDEEICK 8. JEWELL, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, Stereotyped by Buna & MoDoitoal, 82 & 84 Beekman St., K. T, Printed by Gbokgk W. Wood, 2 Dutch Street. PREFACE The work here presented to the public was under- taken under the deep conviction that a thorough and practical examination of the field of thought involved, was pressiagly demanded by the wants of teachers and the interests of our public schools. It has, therefore, been expressly prepared with a view to meet that particular demand, and, hence, has taken upon itself some features which otherwise the writer would have chosen to avoid, as unfavorable to logical exactness in order and execution. Thus, knowing the difficulties in the way of mastering an extended discussion, hkely to be encountered by the great body of pubhc school teachers, and growing in- evitably out of the close employment of their time, the wide diversion of their attention, the exhausting nature of their duties, and their lack of philosophical familiarity with the topics suggested, the following general method has been adopted as both just and necessary. The introductory topics have been considered more in detail than might otherwise have been proper ; a com- paratively discursive method in discussion has been, though somewhat reluctantly, adopted ; objections have been particularly considered, and, as naturally suggested, instead of being left to the necessary inferences of indi- vidual reflection ; at the risk of some criticism, princi- IV PEEFACE. pies have been repeated in different connections, that their relations may always be immediately apparent, and that their nature may be more clearly apprehended ia the Ught of the relations thus evinced ; and studied ex- cellence in style has been steadily made to give place to a diction chiefly intent on simplicity, earnestness, and force. It is hoped that the practical advantages sought to be Secured for the leds favored class of readers, by the pur- suit of this method, mil so far apptove it to the good sense of those endowed with higher learning and leisure, as rather to add to their interest in the work, instead of detraetiiig from it. Let us sow, that the many may reap rather than the few. Prosecuted under the pressure of peculiar perplexities, and discussing a subject of peculiar difficulties, it is not for one moment fancied that the work is without its de- fects. Doubttess, here and there, the individual teacher will look for a minute elucidation of some specific diffi- culty, — ^some question of casuistry, case Of discipline, or particular method, — with reference to which his own mind has been exercised, but which has not here been fully discussed. It would not be strange if the cottager should look in vain in the artist's best transfiguration in color of the overshadowinig Alp, for the distinct dehnea- tion of the particular deft or crag which, as hovering around, or hanging over his own dv?elling place, seems to him the object of especial mark. It will, however, occur to such teachers, upon proper reflection, that it must be impossible within the brief practical compass to which this work has, for obvious reasons, been restricted, to discuss in detail an entire PB.EFACE. V field so mazy and manifold in its particulars, as must be that of school government. The only consistent effort must be that of establishing broad principles, and indi- cating clear lines of inference and application, leaving still something to be done by the teacher in his own thought and experiment. It is proper to remark here, that while the wort has been, as treating of School Government, more especially prepared for the teacher, it is one which cannot but be highly suggestive and helpful to the parent. The atten- tion of the latter class is earnestly called, therefore, to its claims upon their interest and examination. Such as the work is, it is now offered to the public, in the belief that it is calculated to render important service to those for whose benefit, and in sympathy with whose labors, perplexities, and trials, it has been written. State Nobmal School, Albany, Febbitaby 22, 1866. OOE'TEl^TS. CHAPTEE I, PAOB Introduction 9 CHAPTER II. Obstacles in the wat of Good School Government Speci- fically Considered 24 CHAPTER III. Derivation of School Government prom Parental Authoritt. 34 CHAPTER IV. The Characteristics of School Government as Derived from that of the Parent 43 CHAPTER V. School Government as Related to the School, and its Con- sequent Characteristics 68 CHAPTER VI. General Elements of School Government in Itself Consid- ered 101 Vm CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. General Elements Continued. — Discipline. — Requirement... 129 CHAPTER VIII. General Elements Continued. — Discipline. — Judgment 141 CHAPTER IX, General Elements Continued. — Discipline. — Correction or Enforcement, Preventive 168 CHAPTER X. General Elements Continued. — Discipline. — Penal Correc- tion, — Theories op Punishment 189 CHAPTER XI. General Elements Gominued. — Discipline. — Penal Correc- tion, or Punishment 218 CHAPTER XII, Application or Principles to Specific Schemes of Discipline AND TO Departmental Schools 253 CHAPTER XIIT. School Government. — General Resume op its Species ; their Charaotbeistics, and the Qualifications Requisite to their Administration , 282 SCHOOL GOYEEMENT. CHAPTEE I. IN-TRODXTCTION. <}eneral definition of School Government — Importance generally granted —Results of its absence — Eeal necessity of government — General maxim — Improvement to have been expected — Expectation not real- ised — Proofs of depression and neglect of government — Rude forms of punishment — Teaching exclusively taught — Learning made the test of qualification in teachers — Should be examined in government — Em- ployment of young teachers — High culture and experience needed for governing — Teachers absorbed in the work of Instruction — Causes (jT this neglect and d^ression of School Government — ^Incidental obstacles in the way of governing — False theory of education — Theory diverts attention from government — The moral element suppressed— -EiiidcMces qf the fallacy of tite t/ieory — Experience shows it — Shown from the laws of the intellect — Injurious results of overlooking these laws — Shown from the order of the human faculties — Causes oftfds neglect of the moral nature — Learning more easily appreciated than moral cul- ture—Prejudices against moral instruction in schools — Disparting of the intellectual and moral nature in science — Ignoring of the religions clement in the soul — Absurdity of this neglect of the moral nature — School Government more closely defined — Definition condensed. School Goteenment, as that brancli of practical art to whicli the attention is to be given throughout this wort, may be defined ia general terms, as that Just ordering of the affairs of the school, which is necessary to the successful attainment of its proper ends. Of its general importance in some reasonable 10 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. and effective form, we apprehend few persons of in- telligence or experience entertain any doubt. Even those, who are most disposed to take exceptions to its specific applications as pressing upon their children or wards, are quite ready to cry out against its marked absence from the school. Indeed, it needs no great sharpness of observation to reveal to any one, disposed to know the truth, the fact that the lack of it can only be productive of serious evils, such as the failure of the pupils to make satisfactory pro- gress, the destruction of the teacher's influence, and the prevalence of disorder and iU feeling throughout the school. Accepting, then, even the current notion as to the nature of education and the functions of the school, ill calculated as that notion is to favor or secure right views of the importance of school gov- ernment, it will be seen that that government is more than merely important to the succcessful completion of the daily round of instruction, and to the main- tenance of general harmony throughout the httle commonwealth ; it is a thorough necessity. Indeed, in the school, as elsewhere, the general maxim is, " Order is heaven's first law ;" to which may not in- consistently be added this other, " government is the soul of order." From the general fact of its evident importance, it would naturally be supposed that government in the schools would be marked by a high order of excel- lence. Whatever might have formerly been its char- acter, with our other advances in educational matters, improvement in school government was, as a matter IKTKODUCTION. 11 of course, to be counted upon. As tlie old and some- what nebulous luminaries, Murray and Morse, Pike and Daboll, descending tlirough a rigbt parabolic curve, sank at length " slowly and aU reluctantly," below the horizon ; as other and better lights began to brighten in the East, and men were seen casting about for better teachers and more enlightened methods of instruction, it was to be expected that the system of control and discipline existing in the schools, would come up for a corresponding interest and attention. This expectation cannot, however, be said to have been realized. True, school government may not be found remaining in the exact chaos which prevailed in that earlier period, when the school entire was " without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Yet it is quite certain that this important part of the scholastic creation has not kept pace with other things. It has not with equal interest and endeavor been evoked from the waste and darkness, and been reduced to true consistency and order. It has been rather neglected and left to its own chance of uncared-for growth and develop- ment. Hence, it still remains in a sadly depressed condition. Of this neglected and depressed condition, there are various indications which deserve to be noticed on accoimt of their practical bearing upon its correction. As the first, we notice the fact that the tide of pro- gress has not yet swept away the older, ruder, and simply violent fonns of government, which, while not 12 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. altogether false in principle, were yet most rude and base in their application. The pitiless rod, the glancing ferule, the burdensome biUet of wood, the stooping posture, and others of the banging and bad- gering devices of the former age, wMle passed some- what into decrepitude and disesteem, are, neither in their more flagitious instances extinct, nor in their really legitimate instrumentalities, reformed and Christianized. Again, even where these evil forms of government have gone into disuse, where better methods of in- struction have sprung up, and where, consequently, especial means are employed for the training of teachers, it is quite commonly the case that the ab- sorbing topic is teaching. We see no good reason why an educational school should not give the subject of government an important place in its curriculum ; no reason why it should not as distinctly have a pro- fessor of the " Theory and Practice of Governing," as well as of the " Theory and Practice of Teaching ;" at least, no good reason why the two should not be dis- tinctly and equitably conjoined in one department, the " Department of School Government and Instruc- tion." And yet, so far as we know, such an organ- ization is not to be found in our normal schools, either in form or substance. In quite the larger por- tion, school government is taught inferentially, and even that as an incidental matter. In the third place, were there nothing else to show that the proper government of the school elicits little it any attention on the part of the public, the fact INTKODUOllON. 13 that teachers are commonly examined and approved upon the basis of mere scholarship, might suffice. That which, in so important a preliminary as the test- ing of the teacher's qualifications, is hardly inquired after, must hold no very high place in the public esti- mation. Certainly, if school government were looked upon as of the first moment, we should find school officers suspending their wise explorations in the direction of geography, grammar, and arithmetic, in order to ascertain whether the prospective teachers axe possessed of correct and adequate views of the nature and importance of school government. Aiter they have been learnedly led through the mazy toils of describing the method of finding the least common denominator; of designating the barbarous boun- daries of sundry ill-begotten chiefdoms in Asia ; and of unfolding Brown's singularly philosophical and exhaustive mode of parsing " tweedledum and twee- dledee," woidd it not be the next most natural thing to submit for their solution questions Uke the fol- lowing : "What are the ends to be sought in school government? By what means are those ends to be secured ? What are the respective relations of force, authority, and influence, in the government of the young ? What facts should be taken into account in the administering of discipline? How is the cor- rectness of a penalty to be determined? What course should be pursued with extreme or seemingly incorrigible offenders?" But no such questions are asked ; and the conclusion already suggested is inevitable. 14 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. Anotlier proof of the neglected and depressed con- dition of school government is, we think, afforded by the fact that young and inexperienced teachers find so ready and so general employment. The wise and effective government of the school is reaUy a delicate and difficult work. For, consider how few are the accessible guides to the successful accomplishment of that work ; how subtle and often profound are the principles embraced in its philosophy; how varied and perplexing must be its practical adjustment; how manifold the difficulties to be encountered ; and how sad may be the results of failure to govern wisely and well. Is this, then, a work proper to be undertaken by any other than a person of broad culture, of thorough self-discipline, of estabhshed character, and of ma- ture experience ? Can any other than such a teacher expect to succeed in it? "What then must be the effect of entrusting it so commonly to young and in- experienced teachers ; of entrusting it to those who, to the very possible, as very common want of native fitness, superadd the lack of any acquired fitness for the work of governing ? This is the evil of which old Thomas Fuller complains, when he charges it as one of the causes of the defective performance of the duties of the schoolmaster, that " yoimg scholars make this calling their refuge ; yea, perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university, com- mence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up in the profession but only a rod and a ferule." In such hands, what ex- INTEODUCnON. 15 cellence can school government hope to attain ; how can it, in fact, escape being well nigh destroyed? Why then place it in such hands ? There can be but one answer to the question. It is because the im- portance of the goTemment is not realized ; the pub- lic concern themselves little about its fortunes ; and, hence, the practical conclusion is, it may be entrusted to almost anybody. As a final indication of this neglected condition, we notice the almost universal absorption of the teacher's ambition and the public interest, in the work of instruction. Few thoughtful educators can have failed to observe the fact that in our schools the matter of government has not merely dropped into a subordinate place ; it has sunk almost out of sight. How very infrequent are the indications that the teacher has made the control of his school, and the wholesome discipline of the pupil, the subjects of careful study and systematic preparation? "Where are the pupils found possessed with the idea that one of the first objects of their ambition should be to develop into noble subjects of the school government ? "Where do you find patrons or parents, upon the oc- currence of school examinations, evincing a lively interest in the moral, as well as the intellectual pro- gress of the child ? On aU hands, the interest taken is altogether in the results of the instruction ; the pride evinced is altogether in the amount of know- ledge that the child has gained, and his readiness and brilliance in exhibiting it. The • government of the school, which should have made the child 16 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. patient, persistent, high-principled, obedient, noble, — that is held as purely incidental and unimportant ; it is " out of miud as soon as out of sight." We pass now to notice some of the causes of this depressed and neglected condition of school govern- ment. And this must be done somewhat carefully, since, upon the conclusions reached, must depend the proper elucidation of points subsequently involved in the discussion. Of these causes, the first to which the attention may be directed are incidental in their character and influence. Under this head, we summarily include all those accidents of our school systems and school opera- tions, which throw obstacles, either mechanical or moral, m the way of the iustitution or maintaining of true and effective government. Those defects, therefore, in the accommodations of the school; those errors in its organization; that ignorance or neglect of school officers ; that antago- nistic influence of parental government ; and that in- bred insubordination and lawlessness of human nature, which counteract or oppose the teacher in his efforts to institute, perfect and maintain good government in the school ; — all these tend to defeat his efforts and, by mating school government a failure, depress it, and cause it to be neglected. The principle ap- plied here is a plain one. Man everywhere rever- ences success. Success is always an end ; often an idolatry. Hence, the common tendency to treat whoever or whatever is attended with failure, as worthy of little attention or regard. Whatever INTEODUCTION. 17 then, by interposing obstacles in its way, goes to make the government of the youth, in our schools either a partial success only, or, what is more often the case, a practical failure, tends to bring it into contempt. Passing from these incidental and minor causes, we find back of them aU, another altogether more profound and influential. We refer here to what we shall endeavor to show to be a thoroughly false theory of education. The mis- taken views which have long prevailed with regard to the nature and object of education, are not wholly un- known to our more sound and earnest educators. To such, no fallacy can be more apparent than that in- volved in the common notion that education is sim- ply the development of the intellect, through the ac- quisition of knowledge. Its evil results are spread broad-cast over the whole field of public instruction, and the so-called development effected in the schools. Its direct influence, which, however, seems not so distinctly to have attracted notice, has been to create that diversion of the attention from the subject of school government, already mentioned. This unfortunate result it has effected, not merely by elevating intellectual development too exclusively, but by altogether ignoring moral culture. Discharge education of the moral element or simply reduce it to a secondary position, and where have you any place for school government ? "What can it be other than a mere horse-boy to the work of instruction, — that is, a mere means of holding the wOl in obedient 18 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. waiting upon tlie iatellect ia the prosecution of its exclusive demand upon the opportunities and appli- ances of the school? Not for one moment, we in- sist — ^not for one moment — can school government take its true place in that system of education in which the moral nature does not stand side by side ia privilege, with the intellectual powers ; in which the discipline of the susceptibilities and the will is not held equal, (we had almost said paramount) to the development of the sense, the imderstanding, and the reason. That the theory which thus, to the discredit and damage of the school government, dissevers the moral disciphne from the intellectual instruction, and indeed almost ignores it, — ^that this theory is a false one, will be quite evident without extended discussion. The practical workings of instruction iu the schools show most clearly that the development of the iatellect caimot proceed successfully except under the aus- pices of that thorough order which the proper dis- cipline and control of the susceptibilities and the wiU can alone secure. In other words, the pupil will make progress in learning, only as the school is efficiently governed. This is the testimony of ex- perience. Besides this, the necessary laws of mental growth and progress are in proof. The development of the intellect must be the product of its self-activity. Such self-activity must owe both its inception and contiauance to the susceptibilities and the wUl. What the pupil is led to desu'e, he purposes ; and INTEODUCTION. 19 ■wHat he purposes underlies and determines the na- ture and extent of his intellectual application. Quite clearly then, that application and the consequent intel- lectual progress can attain the highest character and the most successful results, only as, under proper con- trol and discipline, the combined desires and purposes are brought into a cheerful, steady, and growing ac- cordance with the highest want of the intellect. It is the very common overlooking of this impor- tant principle, which occasions so much waste of time and labor in our schools, so much tinsuccessful study on the part of the pupil, and so general a prevalence of a crude or one-sided culture and development among those who have ostensibly been educated. Higher than this, is the proof found in the relative order and end of the faculties. The end of aU rational activity is, internally, the attainment of the highest dignity or worthiness ; externally, the highest bene- volence. Hence, as the sense is for, and only for the intellect ; so the intellect is for, and only for the sus- ceptibilities and the wiU. Clearer perception is no end in itself ; it is only a means to higher knowledge. Higher knowledge is no end in itself; it is only a means to the attainment of purer and more intelli- gent desires and loftier purposes. Develop, then, the intellect as completely as you will without mak- ing that development conduce to a corresponding discipline of the heart, and the product is either haH abortive or fairly monstrous ; it is either a crude Hercules or a dread Lucifer. Hence, whatever theory of education inverts this order, and subordi- 20 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. nates tlie moral to the intellectual, is clearly and in- trinsically false. It is important here that we give some attention to the causes of this failure to do justice to the moral nature in our school training. We shall briefly no- tice three. First, then, it is to be remarked that the economic value of the mere intellectual training makes itself more directly apparent to the vulgar mind. The advantages resulting from the boy's proficiency ia " reading, Tvriting, and ciphering," all can appreciate. How those acquisitions work into the business pur- suits of life, and how they bear upon success in those pursuits, they know. But not so readily do men, — of whom the mass have no higher conceptions of the objects of life than the getting of a living or the making of money, — ^not so readily do they discover the value of true principles and a just self-control as parts of the boy's attainments and character. The bearing of these upon the price (so to speak) wliich he wUl bring in the market-place of men, or upon the success of his life-career, they cannot well esti- mate. We can hardly expect them to do it. Agaia, a strange, an unwarrantable (we had almost said cowardly) prejudice against what has been called moral instruction in schools, has quite gen- erally prevailed, and has, doubtless, in some part produced the evil to which we aUude. How many, affected by that, for a free and brave people, pitiable fear of " sectarianism" and " priestcraft," have stood ready, not only to decry any attempt to introduce INTKODUCTION. 21 moral instruction into the schools, but to sacrifice outright the child's intellectual training, rather than to haye proper pains taken to instill into his mind those moral and religious principles ■w'hich are the crown of aU learning, and to develop in his heart that manly and virtuous strength which is essential to a just education and a true weU-being, — without which, indeed, not even that proper government, so necessary to the favorable prosecution of the intel- lectual training, can be secured! And yet, this is tantamount to entertaining so great a fear of some Pharisaical or fanatical cleansing of the cup and platter, that it is preferred that they should remain intact in their original or accumulated vileness, so as to be neither endurable to the touch nor capable of containing anything pure ox pleasant. A third cause, perhaps less direct, but not less miSchievotiS, may be found in the fact that almost aU the current philosophies have studiously dissev- ered the consideration of the moral nature, from the study of mind, than which nothing can be more imphilosophical. It were bad enough to compound ethics with the philosophy of the moral powers ; but to dissever the latter from the intellectual faculties, in the study of mental science, is an outrage upon the truth of the human soul. Were it possible to suc- ceed in such an attempt to " Distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and southwest side," the only effect would be, as we have already seen, to 22 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. restrict or distort the views entertained of the intel- lectual nature, and to cast discredit upon the moral nature as neither essential to the former, nor of dominant importance in the soul. . Even in those treatises devoted ostensibly to the study of the moral powers, there has been a too common avoidance of all distinct reference to the spiritual or rehgious element in the soul, into which the moral element must ultimately be drawn up and absorbed, unless it is doomed, as if invested with the curse of the serpent, to go prone upon the dust in actual abandonment and degradation. The natural effect of this course must be, as may be clearly seen, to cast discredit upon that moral training which should form a recognized and revered constituent of all true education, and the essential basis, if not the complete substance, of aU true school government. But whatever may be the causes of this failure to do justice to the moral nature of the child, and to provide for his moral instruction, the failure is in the highest degree absurd and pernicious. What is your education, with all its intellectual completeness, if it does not secure that the child shall become the true man, the pure friend, the worthy parent, the noble citizen, to say nothing of the exemplary Chris- tian? These are really what the self-conscious spirit, the dearer associates, the rising generation, the community, the organized state, seek. Without these, " the rest is leather and prunella." And yet, these higher qualities are to be secured only through the thorough disciplining of the moral nature under INTBODUCTION. 23 the mse control and the just sanctions of a proper govermnent in the schools ; not, however, as a sub- stitute for, but as cooperative with, the government of the family. The latter is prior, and should be superior, instead of being, as is too commonly the case, both inferior and adverse. From all this, it wiU be seen that school govern- ment is not only the proper controlling of the school, so as to make it practicable to secure the ends of true instruction, as looking toward the development of the intellect ; but it is also, and in a higher sense, the effective disciplining of the school, so as to bring the appetites, desires, and passions of each individual imder rational and virtuous control, so that they shall be as perfectly subject to the right, as, by in- struction, the perceptions and judgments are made obedient to the truth. School government is, then, the proper ordering of both the organic and individual action in the schools, so as to secure in the pupils the best possi- ble development of the mind and discipline of the heart. CHAPTEE II. OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF GOOD SCHOOL GOTEBNMENT, SPECmOALLY CONSIDEEED. Importance of specific notice — Obstacles accidental, organic, and social — The accidental, external and internal — External contingent — ^Defective accommodations — The beautiful tends to order — Internal contin^ent-^ Insufficient apparatus— Oj'anM obstacles, external and internal^ Ma- ternal organic — Improper distribution of departments and labor — Excessive labor demanded-^Paralyzes the teacher's energies — Internal organic — Imperfect classification and want of system — ^Want of com- petitive examinations — Social obstacles — Parental opposition to good school government — Neighborhood antagonism — Olflcial unfaithful- ness — ^Radical insubordination of human natures-Practical inferences — Difficulties demand improvement the morB-^Effi)rt should be com- prehensive — Duty belongs not to the teacher alone — Too much not to be expected. In the preceding chapter, allusioii was made to certain incidental obstacles which stand opposed to the improTsment and perfection of school goTern- ment, and which, as such, are a cause of its present depressed and neglected condition. Those obstacles deserve more than a passiug allusion, for their impor- tance is such that, without their removal in good part, even the general prevalence of just views of the nature of that government, will not avail to secure the desired reformation. Indeed, the efforts to re- move the one and improve the other, must run parallel, to be either consistent or successful. Furthermore, a proper examiaation of these ob- OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF GOOD GOVEENMENT. 25 stacles bears directly upon some of the points to be subsequently discussed, affording, in case of some of tbem, a partial elucidation. Proceeding with tliis examination, we find these obstacles to be threefold, those which are accidental, those organic, and those social, in their origin and character. Under the head of contingent or accidental ob- stacles to good government in the school, we include aU those that may be said to involve the material condition of the school. These are properly of two kinds, the external and the internal ;' the former in- cluding whatever pertains to the external accommo- dation of the school : the latter involving whatever may relate more directly to the convenience of its internal operations. Among the obstacles of the former kind, the ex- ternal contingent, must be included the unsightly location of school houses, bad or insufficient play- grounds, rude and ill-conditioned buildings, (" Gaimt, ghaistly, ghost-aUuriag edifices," as Burns would style them) ; buildings not only an outrage upon the possibility of architecture, but utterly insufficient in size to prevent the necessity of crowding the pupils ; rough, unfinished floors and walls; imcurtained or unshaded windows, and a hard imcomfortable style of desk and seat. The direct tendency of all such insufficient and unworthy accommodations is to pro- duce a rough, ill-tempered, insubordinate nature. And so directly do they tend to this savagery, and to the consequent destruction of all genial Or humane 26 SCHOOL OOYESNMENT. control, tliat only tlie blindness which grows out of mere greed, can fail to perceive their balefal influ- ence, and the pitiable folly of the "penny-wise" economy which allows them existence. The true correction of some of these evils, that is, that correction which does not stop with attaining the nearer limit of mere comfort, doubtless comes within that nobler field which it is so much the fash- ion to decry, the culture of the bea,utiful. But decry it who will, the influence of the beautiful is human- izing, and, as such, it tends always to order. Of those obstacles which grow out of internal con- tingencies, we may enumerate the lack of proper or sufficient appliances for carrying on the practical, or in other words, the demonstrative and illustrative portions of the work of instruction. The want of ample blackboards, of numerical frames, of explana- tory cards or charts, of maps and drawings, of mathe- matical blocks, indeed, of apparatus generally, can not but so far narrow down the student's work to the simple book and the mere recitation, as to furnish no proper or pleasing outlet for his surplus activity and ingenuity. In some cases, that activity and ingenuity win doubtless sink back into sheer duUness and stag- nation. But more often it wiU unfortunately work itself out in acts of disorder, mischief, and, perhaps, overt acts of insubordination, and thus burden or counteract the effort of the teacher to maintain good government in the school. Passing to the obstacles which are organic in their origin and- character, we define them as being those OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 27 whicli belong to tlie constitution, or to tlie working of the school itself. These may also be subdivided as external and internal ; the former including such as are determined to the school by the will of its patrons or local officers ; and the latter, those that fall more immediately under the jurisdiction of the teacher. Under the external organic, we include such evils as the want of a thorough system of grading, and of a consistent distribution of the departments, wherever such an organization is made practicable by the size of the school; the assignment of several teachers to one room ; and what is, especially in our city schools, the most common, and everywhere a- most intolerable evil, the want of a sufficient number of teachers for the aggregate of the pupUs to be con- trolled and taught. These evils aU tend directly to discourage every attempt at good government, by the unnecessary labor which they impose, and the inevi- table confusion they create. A simple reference to the underlying principle as unfolded by PoUtical Economy ; namely, that of the necessity for a distribu- tion of labor, wiU suffice to show the correctness of the position here taken. With regard to the last of the evils specified, there is still a more serious cause of complaint. The diffi- culty is not that there is simply an unwise distribu- tion of labor ; it is rather that the amount of labor required, in order to any proper instruction or gov- ernment, is utterly preposterous ; for the teacher to accomplish any satisfactory portion of it, is among the practical impossibilities. Overwhelmeid, as many 28 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. teachers are, with such an excess of mimbers as to preclude the possibihty of individual observation, at- tention, and effort, and of any direct and adequate per- sonal influence over the pupil, what can be the result other than that the attempt at government should be altogether in the direction of vague, irregular, and arbitrary generalities ? And, under the burden of an enterprise so perplex- ing and so hopeless as that of attempting to secure, in the face of such obstacles, a consistent order, gen- eral interest, close application, quiet obedience and habitual respect and subordination, what can be ex- pected other than that the teacher's ambition will become utterly broken down, and his energies hope- lessly paralyzed ? If this is not the result, then you may safely set down his as no ordinary character ; it is little less than heroic. Under the head of evils which are intomal as well as organic, and which, as such, stand in the way of good government, we include such as the lack of a proper classification of the pupils as to studies or relative advancement, the absence of a definite and fixed order of studies, the absence of a systematic order of study, recitation, and exercises, and the failure to provide for the school a system of special examiaations determinative of excellence, and condi- tional to advancement. Some of these, it wiU be seen, directly counteract the interests of good gov- ernment, by inducing general confusion, habits of irregularity or disorder, and, in one instance, posi- Uve self-will in the free choice of studies. The last, OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF GOOD GOVEENMENT. 29 in failing to provide the highest possible stimulus toward superior application and attainments, indi- rectly leads to the same injurious result. It does this by not opening sufficient channels for the coun- ter-diversion of the pupil's activity. In the case of every restless and enterprising nature, each new encouragement offered to a noble ambition is just so far an influence tending to withdraw the attention and the energies from what is petty or culpable. Every such influence favors successful government. "We pass now to the consideration of those obstacles in the way of school government, which are of social origin. We fear it is not generally realized that society is practically opposed to all really good and effective government of the young. And, among all the evils which such government is called to encounter, we apprehend this social counter-current is the most wide-spread and persistent. Considered with refer- ence to its immediate sources, it may be designated as three-fold, parental, social proper, and official. To begin with, good government in the family is the exception and not the rule. Parents indulge their children at home, nay, indirectly train them to titter lawlessness. Hence, the impressions of both parents and children, as to the nature and necessity of good government in the school, become perverted, and their feelings under its more personal and press- ing operation become reaUy demoralized. They neither think rightly of it, nor appreciate the good in it. The natural consequence of this is, they set themselves against such government just so soon as it 30 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. touches them. "When the lawless will of the child is put under restraint, or his insubordination subjects him to discipline, he rebels and appeals to the parent. When the indulgent or ungoverning parent finds his child under arraignment for his transgression, or suffering the just penalty of the law he has broken, he rebels and, at once, joins issue with the teacher. This done, the evil spreads, " Like fire in heather set." Other children and other parents are in danger. Their feeling is, "Why stand we in jeopardy?" Their sympathies aroused, and their fears excited, they make a common cause in the conflict. And now Gog and Magog all in commotion, what chance has the teacher or his government? Either his cause must be so transparently just that even the dense dust-cloud of the general excitement cannot hide its merits ; or he must possess both a consummate tact and firmness ; or he must have seated himself too firmly in the confidence of the school officers, or a few considerate and influential patrons ; or his cause is practically lost. But how many of our public school teachers can command all or any one of these con- tingencies ? Comparatively few. With the rest, then, the case is clear ; the government of the school must succumb to the home government, and must become as depressed and neglected as that. Nor is this all. It is too often the case that the school officers, being of the community and quite in sympathy with it, fail to sustain the teacher; per- haps they even oppose him. Instead of standing up OBSTACLES IN THE WAY 01' GOOD GOVEENMENT. 31 like men, and, true to their official responsibilities, checking and reversing the popular current, away they go with it, sometimes even drifting down on the fore- most wave, perhaps adding to its destructive rush, by ostentatiously exercising their " little brief authority," in either censuring or removing the teacher. But what can the government of the school ever be under such treatment other than so despicable a thiag that there can be found " none so poor to do it reverence ?" And this social cotmter-ourrent is the more formi- dable because it is no mere surface-evil. It is the surface-manifestation of a deep underlying principle of insubordination in the human soul. Whatever theory may be chosen as accounting for its origin, there is little enough room for doubt as to the exist- ence of the fact that the native position of the human will is one of incipient rebellion against moral re- straint and authoritative control. From the beginning, the outworking self prefers its own way, even to the countervailing of its own best welfare. And, as the general law, oidy the long-continued pressure of self-interest, the hard discipline of bitter experience, or the constant and constraining influence of acknowledged government, ever serve to correct, to any adequate extent, this " false nature." But not even these are sufficient to the work of completely restoring the moral nature to a true and loyal subjection to reason and right, and thus securing in it an abiding readiness to yield obe- dience to the demands of all just authority. Here is the " ineradicable taint." 32 SCHOOL GOYEEKMENT. There are certain practical lessons wticli it were well to learn from tlie foregoing. The natural effect of discovering such obstacles in the way of all at- tempts to institute and maintain good government in the school, will be to create discouragement. To the enlightened and resolute spirit, however, they will only serve as additional proofs of the need of a more determined effort toward the desired improvement. They, in fact, reveal the province of school govern- ment as, ia a pre-eminent sense, the true field for the master spiri);. But it should be borne in mind, as has been al- ready suggested, that aU efforts in this direction should be comprehensive ; they should not be con- fined to an internal manipulation of the government itself, but should also embrace a reformation of the outside influences which are so adverse. The scheme of order and the system of discipline must, of course, have their share of the attention, and must be made as nearly perfect .as may be under the circumstances. But, parallel with this should constantly be kept the effort to remove whatever in the accommodations, appliances, and organization of the school, or in the condition and operation of society, interferes with the attainment of that perfection. And this is broadly suggestive of the fact that not alone is the teacher responsible for the existence of good government in the school. Upon school officers and patrons of schools, upon every member of the community, rests a share of that responsibility. It is for them to see that whatever can be done to re- OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 33 move tlie external obstacles of wliicli we have spoken, is done. It is for them to advance means, and to second measures for improvement in the condition and organization of the schools. It is for them to exercise a wise self-control and reticence as to med- dling with the management of the school. It is for many of them to learn to be governed, and to ac- quire the power of governing well at home, before they presume to sit ia judgment upon the teacher as governor. And, still further, neither patrons nor teachers should expect too much. Great improvement may, by proper eJffort, be effected. To accomphsh aU that can be done in that direction, should be the persis- tent, life-long aim. But let it be borne in mind that many of the evils of human condition are remediless. Hence, perfection is not to be expected ; and when perfection is not attainable, failures should not al- ways be condemned as faults. CHAPTEE III. DEEIVATION OF SCHOOL GOTEENJnENT FEOM PAEENTIL AUTHORITY. Importance of this derivation — School government and tlie education of the young, united — That education an onerous work— Not to he undertaken hy every one — Must be Inspired by parental instinct and love— Necessary reaction on the child's nature — Child-education do- mestic—The idea often considered as Utopian — Not due to a fallacy in the theory — Due to a lack of knowledge and leisure among the poorer classes — To a lack of will rather than capacity among the rich — Tlw causes of these deficiencies twofold — Too little rational love for the child — None live properly for society — The claims of society para- mount — Society demands the proper training of the child — These causes proofs rather than objections — The government of the child goes with his instruction — Parental government the source of school government — It is in fact the key to school government School government re-defined. Befoee proceeding to tlie diseussion of the nature of school government, it is important that its origin, or derivation be ascertaiaed. From that source, whatever it may prove to be, we may naturally look to obtain hght sufficient for the distinct revelation of its more profound principles and of their practical apphcation. In that direction, at least, we must look for the earher indications of its radical charac- teristics. From what source, then, is the govern- ment of the school derived ? School government, from its very name, and from its definition as already given, must be seen to be inseparably connected with the education of the DERIVATION OF SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. 35 young. It starts with the first attempts to institute that work; it grows cotemporaneously and parallel with it ; and only with its completion can -it either be superseded or expire. The proper education of the child, commenciug as it must, with the earher developments of its intel- lect, and extending over so large a portion of its existence ; covering, as it must, a period of so much dependence and weakness, and inevitably encounter- ing so many obstacles and adverse influences, is necessarily a lengthy and onerous work. Indeed, it is safe to say that, whenever it has been undertaken with any intelligent and realizing sense of its true nature, it has been felt and found to be one of the most trying that can fall to the lot of imperfect humanity. But a work of this kind, especially one so removed from the chances of pecuniary gain or immediate reward of any kind, will not be ventured upon by those who are governed by no higher incentives than those of personal advantage. A work hke this, which must be wrought out slowly year by year, amidst constant discouragements, " And all for love and nothing for reward," must find its potential inducements in the deeper instincts and the purer affections of human nature. For such instinct and affection, it needs little argu- ment to show, we must look alone to the parental nature and relation. Only in the parent's heart, may we expect to find the forces at aU adequate to the 36 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. inception and prosecution of this work. Out of the natural relations of the parent as parent and pro- vider, must grow a sense of abiding obligation for the present support and development of the child; out of parental love and ambition, must spring pa- rental concern and effort for the future welfare of the child ; out of both this obHgation and concern, must emerge the primitive attempt at the child's educa- tion ; and just in proportion to the full sense of that obligation, and the intelligent maturity of that con- cern, wHl that attempt develop into an earnest and thorough system of domestic culture. This parental derivation of his culture is also most necessary to the development of a proper iilial tem- per in the child. Out of the child's habitual refer- ence to the parent for the fulfillment of this responsi- bility ; out of his daily dependence on the parent for his intellectual sustenance and development ; out of his growing confidence in the ampKtude of the pa- rent's capacity as a " source and fount of Hght ;" — out of all these, must grow that deep, abiding, and much needed regard and reverence which no other being can claim, and which should not be even shared with another. As the voice of the parent's heart must be ; " Those whom I so love must be anxiously trained for their highest weU-being, and by myseK alone, since no work so solemn and so sacred may be intrusted to another ;" so the answer of the child's heart must be ; " To my parents I owe that developed knowledge, virtue, and power which are the very crown and blessedness of being ; and to DEEIVATION OS SCHOOL GOVEBNMENT. 37 those to whom I owe so much, I am first and forever most in debt, and that beyond all possibility of too large a return of love and service." And so should the education of the child, as domestic, reduplicate the force of domestic care and sustentation, and the two bind together, as " with a two-fold cord not easily broken," both parent and child. Thus would the household be blessed with the only possible realiza- tion of a perfect and lasting unity. Hence, we urge that the primary view of educa- tion, notwithstanding all that is contrary to it in the existing order of things, must be that of a purely domestic training. But to many, doubtless, this idea of education wiU seem fairly Utopian. As they look over the whole field of society, and everywhere find the intellectual training of the child so, completely transferred to other hands, and so many schemes on foot, and those often so vast, for its accompHshment elsewhere than in the home, they can hardly conceive any other sys- tem than that of parental abdication and scholastic vice-royalty to be the true one. The feeling cannot but be strengthened by the fact that, imder existing circumstances, certain advantages, such as a higher mental stimulus, more extended acquirements, and general harmony in the popular intelligence, are the common results of the prevailing method. These impressions are due, however, not to any fallacy in the theory, but to certain practical difiicul- ties in the way of its reahzation, which grow out of the existing erroneous conformation of society. So 38 SCHOOL GOTEBNMEKT. grave are those difficulties, that we even admit that it would be quite impossible to make the educa- tion of the young conform to the true idea. "What they are may readily be shown. For example, among the humbler classes in society, where less ambitious aims and greater simplicity in the style of living might seem to allow opportunity for the performance of this work, insurmountable ob- stacles are to be found in the lack of the culture necessary to the parent's becoming the teacher, and in the lamentable absorption of the energies in mak- ing provision for mere physical comfort or material advantage. Hence, they have neither capacity nor time. So the greater interesfe are swallowed up of the less, — the seven fat kiae are devoured by the seven Mne lean and ill-favored. Among the more independent and more highly cultivated classes, where the requisite learning and capacity might be found, either the energies are ab- sorbed in the pursuit of the more ambitious ends of life, or the style of hving adopted is such as to mul- tiply to an excessive degree the fictitious wants of both the individual and the household. Hence, the heart is altogether pre-occupied, and the requisite leisure wholly forbidden. And so, ample tithes are paid in mint, and anise and cumin, in the merest fashion and frivohty, while the weightier matters of the law of parental obligation are neglected. And the grand cause of this is two-fold. Near at hand is that of too httle inteUigent and real love of offspring. Love, merely instinctive or animal, there DEHIVATION OF SCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. 39 may be ; but that which grows out of a careful and self-denying regard for the higher claims of the child's nature as spiritual and immortal, Kttle enough is there of that. So far as these higher wants of the child are involved, and the parent's rational obliga- tion to provide for them is concerned, the mass are Uke the ostrich, " which leaveth her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers : her labor is in vain, without fear; because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her under- standing." Somewhat less immediate, but not less serious, as a cause, is the fact that comparatively aU live for themselves and not for society. Settiag aside, as be- longing to another and higher field, the religious aspect of the thing, we think it may be consistently urged that, in that associated form of being for which man was designed and adapted, and to which he is, in fact, so necessitated ; namely, the community or the state, that sovereign selfishness which makes every man his own chief end of concern and activity, must be pronounced altogether abnormal and false. Doubtless, he owes somewhat to himself. The prin- ciple of self-love so pronounces. Self-preservation demands it. But, to look only at that side of the question, every man has interests vested in society, and those of the most vital character. Indeed, so close and important 40 SCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. are the relations of society to all Ms interests, that upon the condition and character of that very society, de- pends the welfare of most of those individual iuterests in which he is so apt to become selfishly absorbed. No man can be blind to the best interests of society, or wilfully neglectful of them, without offering a pre- mium upon his own damage. But beyond this, society has a claim of its own as pre-eminent, and, by just so much as the whole is greater than a part, is the claim made urgent. The true dignity and the true happiness of rational humanity requires that, ia society, each individual should benevolently prefer the interests of the whole to his own. Men owe it to their own rational wisdom and moral excellence, that they live for society rather than for themselves. But, we think it cannot but be seen, that, in a very important sense, to live for the proper .training of children is to live for the perfected well-being of society. The children of to-day are to constitute the society of to-morrow; and he who may have Httle power to amend society among those who now com- pose its fuUness and strength, may labor very effec- tively and hopefully among the young, for its future regeneration. The parent who, rising above mere sordid pursuits, and turning a deaf ear to all the seducements of ambition or frivohty, wisely and faithfully trains his child for the intelligent, able, and virtuous discharge of the duties, parental, social, and civil, which may ultimately devolve upon him, is doing society, as well as himself, his best service. Men, however, do not live for society, and hence, they DERIVATION OF SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. 41 do not thus give themselves to the education of the yonng ia accordance with its primitive and perfect idea. While, however, these causes aje enough to make the reahzation of the true idea as thus advanced quite impracticable, a little reflection will suffice to show that they are practically proofs of the validity of that idea. They urge, and with no slight force, the native consistency and excellence of the. domestic theory of education. In all the facts which they present, it cannot but be apparent that they lead directly back to the position that the education of the chUd should be domestic, and to the conviction that it is because men are either ignorant of their primal relations to the race, or are unequal to their pro- per care, or wilfully ignore them, that education is not the thing it should be. Having thus traced the education of the young to the domestic circle as its original and proper terri- tory, and to parental authority and duty as its primal source, we are prepared to assume the position that so soon as, for any cause, "the work of education passes out of the house and into the school, just so soon does the moral discipline, or the government, which is one of its essential parts, go with it. The government must domicile with the instruction. This, however, reveals the fact, of which we have been in search, that school government has its origin in parental government ; it is, in fact, a contingence and growth of parental government, and, as such, must, in many points of character, be determined by the stock 42 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. from whichit springs. School government as tlius de- termined, is tlie temporary and conditional txansfer to the teacher, of aU that part of the parent's authority which is dependent upon his exercise of the function of the domestic instructor, and which would be neces- sary to the successful education of the child in the home circle, according to the primitive idea. In parental government, then, we are to look for the key to the real nature of school government. The latter must be, in the temporary and specific, much what the former is in the continuous and total. In the parent must the teacher find in good part his own prototype ; and in the teacher must the parent cheerfnlly recognize his own natural vicegerent. And so closely will the authority of the two be found affiliated, that, to a most important extent, they must stand or faU together. Hence, school government may be defined, as the exercising of that authority in the control and discip- line of the child, by the teacher as the parent's sub- stitute, which would be the right and duty of the parent were he to undertake the work of educating the child in his own part, supplemented, however, by such increase of power as wiU make it commensurate with the larger necessities of the school, as involv- ing greater numbers and requiring a more stringent order. CHAPTEE IV. THE CHAEACTERISTICS OF SCHOOL GOVEENMENT, AS DE- BIVED EKOM THAT OE THE PABENT. The authority of the teacher as delegated — The delegation or transfer complete — ^luterference with it suicidal — The authority enhanced by the transfer — Parents bound to second and strengthen it — T!us transfer a finality — The authority not to be resumed — The child not to be with- drawn from under it — Such a remedy worse than the evil — Positively injurious to the child — Disregards even his natural rights — The one possible case of exception — School Government not necessarily invali- dated by errors — The authority of the teacher absolute — The authority leg- islative pec se — The school no democracy — Successful experiments in this direction not an objection — Self-government in the school involves a delusion — School Government looks forward to self-government, but should not formally institute it — False ideas as to self-govern- ment — Tlie authority of the teaclier imperative — Decisions to be au- thoritative, unargued — Logic not always invincible — Keasonings may be used as a supplementary means — Decisions of ilie authority final — ^Appea,l or reversal reprehensible — Would destroy parental govern- ment — Interference of school authorities deprecated — The teacher must stand his ground against it — If overborne, must resign — The teacher may himself reverse — The teacher may himself refer to the authorities — This subject to objection — The School Government to he lenevolent — Parental government too often selfish — School Govern- ment not exposed to this error — Too little wise forecast in school management — The ultimate good must be paramount — Temporizing expedients and present ends inadmissible — Passionate or vindictive measures reprehensible — Degrading or annoying measures objection- able — Ridicule restricted in its use — Satire condemned — School Gov- ernment catholic in scope and spirit — The welfare of the whole the paramount consideration — Parental demands for specific privileges objectionable — The general economy of the school as a whole to be carefully studied. Haying thus traced tlie govemment of the school to that of the family as its natural source, we are now 44 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. prepared to inquire what, ia tlie light of this deriva- tion, are the characteristics of the government which the teacher is to institute and administer in the school. And, here, we observe, first, that the authority vested in the teacher, and exercised in governing the school, is substantially, though not formally, a dele- gated authority. It is in substance delegated, since it is identical with that exercised by the parent, and would in fact remain in his hands, but for his transfer to another, of his original functions as instructor. It is, however, not formally made over, since the transfer is no matter of stipulation, the whole being not an act, but a necessary consequence of the pa- rent's demission of the power to teach. This result- ant lack of formality in the transfer of the authority to govern the child, so far from abating any of the derived characteristics of the authority, only serves to add a new and necessary force to them. Were the authority formally made over to the teacher by the parent, the exercise of it might be assumed to be subject to either the expressed or implied stipulations of the transfer ; but going over to him, with the edu- cational functions as their necessary concomitant, it carries with it all its original attributes in their best and strongest character as not arbitrary, but inevi- table. Hence, out of this unrestricted delegation of the authority of the parent to the teacher, grow certain positive and practical conclusions. And, first, the transfer is complete, and the teacher's right to exer^ DERIVED CHARACTERISTICS. 45 cise tlie authority is entire. While there are author- itative rights vested in the parent, as parent and providential guardian of the child, which he may not abdicate, and which the teacher may not assume, yet all those which the parent might possess and exer- cise in the control of the child under the process of education at home, belong, under a system of educa- tion in the school, to the teacher alone. If, for ex- ample, the parent in training the child himself might insist upon punctuality or regularity ; if he may de- mand implicit submission and without appeal; or if he may administer discipline or punishment in this or that form, — aU this may the teacher do, and without subjection to question or interference. The parent has no right to refuse these prerogatives to the teacher, nor to disturb him in his necessary ex- ercise of them. Indeed, such interference with the teacher's pre- rogative is worse than improper; it is suicidal. Inasmuch as the school government is but a trans- ferred part of the home government, by just so much as the parent restricts the teacher, he practically retrenches his own authority; and by so much as he disturbs the teacher's exercise of authority, he practically damages his own administration of government. Hence, it is commonly seen to be the fact that all such parental interference in the govern- ment of the school re-acts upon that of the home circle, and so, that which began by distressing the former, ends by hastening the demorahzation of the latter. Thus, the parent plays the part of a principal 46 SCHOOL GOYERNMENT. wlio distresses an agent, but cMefly to his own detriment. One very important principle eTolved in this con- nection, is very generally overlooked. The prevailing impression is that the authority transferred by the parent to the teacher, is in some part diminished by the transfer. Few parents feel that the authority of the teacher is as important as their own. But the fact is, it is, withia its sphere, even more important. The transfer of the authority is such as to intensify rather than to depress it. "When it passes from the family to the school, it passes to a field in which its situation is more critical, and its success a matter of wider concern. The larger number grouped under one control, the wider diversity of dispositions and habits, the more stringent demands of the one com- mon object, for perfect order and thorough discip- line, — all these caU for a stronger hand as well as a clearer head than are imperative in the simpler and more restricted field of the home. The inference to be drawn from this fact is then necessarily, that, so far from any attempt on the part of parents or patrons, to disturb and thus weaken the authority of the teacher, their first and most impera- tive duty is to sustain and strengthen that authority to the full extent of its rightful demand as, for the time being, superior to their own. Hence, the only impression conveyed to the child's mind by either their opinions or actions, should be very distinctly this ; no interference will be attempted except to sec- ond the efibrts of the teacher, and sustain the law of DERIVED CHAEACTEEISTICS. 47 the scliool. Complaint is, therefore, worse than use- less, and rebellion only ensures a more complete subjection. Out of the completeness of this transfer of the parental authority, grows another principle ; namely, that, except in a single case, the transfer must be in an important sense a finaHty. The functions and prerogatives of instruction and government, as we have seen, go together. If now, because of his own incompetence, the parent transfers these to the teacher, he has no right iinder ordinary circum- stances, to resume the one without resuming the other; nor may he resume both without providing for their better reinstitution elsewhere, and more, for their reinstitution in substance and form, enough better to counterbalance all the evils of change. "When then the child has been consigned to the teacher's charge, it is equally for instruction and dis- cipline as one and inseparable. Nor is it competent for the parent or guardian to withdraw the child from under this instruction and discipline which go to make up his education, without providing so much better for his enjoyment of their advantages at home or elsewhere, that the evils resulting from the arbi- trary change, such as the child's loss of time, the destruction of his confidence in teachers, the strength- ening of his tendencies to insubordination, and the perfecting of his faith in his power to control the parent as well as the teacher, shall aU be overbal- anced by the greater good secured through the pa- rent's transfer of him to some other field of training. 48 SCHOOL GOYEBNMENT. Unless the alternatiye here suggested is secured, it is evident that in most cases the remedy is worse than the evil which is the subject of complaint. Send the child to some other school, and, though he may have been practically in the right before, he is now, from the lesson of insubordination which has been taught him, quite sure to be thoroughly ia the wrong at the first opportunity. In this case, either the original battle has to be fought over and fought out at last, or the doubtful experiment of change has to be attempted again, and under circumstances more dubious than before. KetaiQ the child at home, and without securing that the parent's exercise of the functions of instruc- tion and discipline shall be comparatively faultless, and the gain is altogether ambiguous. The parent has practically discharged a quack from abroad, in order to turn empiric himself, at home. Even though the latter were in some respects better than the former, the disease may be aggravated by the loss of time, and so the patient is the worse for the change. So in the case of the chUd, it is a cardinal principle that the steady and sustained application and enforcement of even a less perfect tuition and nde, are better than a sudden and fractious change to those assumed to be better, or even really so. If, however, as is more commonly the case, the child is simply withdrawn from the school without provision for his education at home, the whole is of the nature of a direct trespass upon his higher rights and necessities. Carlyle has somewhere said. DERIVED CHAEACTEEISTICS. 49 " For one to possess capacity for knowledge, and die ignorant, — this, I call tragedy." Yet for the enact- ment of this Tery tragedy, he makes direct prepara- tion, who thus withdraws the child from such oppor- tunities of training as he has, and leaves him where he has none. It has been intimated that there is one case, and only one, in which the parent's resumption of the au- thority demitted to the teacher, is admissible. That occurs in the extremity of a prevailing abuse of the authority on the part of the teacher, or his compkte failure to administer it effectually. But let it be ob- served that the conditions of the resumption are solely a prevaihng abuse or a complete failure. The grounds for this hmitation are plain. In almost every instance in which this resumption of the autho- rity is attempted, it is based upon some partial ill- success of the teacher, or some isolated instance of faulty discipline. But here, as everywhere, action so radical and violent, upon premises so narrow and unsettled, is not only erroneous but reprehensible. He is not far from being the greater transgressor who, for a natural error or a single fault, makes a man an offender beyond both the enjoyment of rights or the chance of reclamation. There are defects in the administration of the best governments. But until it is quite certain that a per- fect government, and its faultless administration are immediately attainable, it is not wise to denoimce the government we have, or to inaugurate actual revolution. Hence, occasional slips of the teacher in 50 SCHOOL GOATSENMEKT. the exercise of discipline, while they of course mar his government, do not cancel or cut short in one iota the teacher's authority. Adopt the priaciple that they do, and you bring parental government, also to the block, for, as a matter of fact, it is itself noto- riously mde of this very perfection. Indeed, bad as school government is, it is, in the aggregate, much better than the aggregate of domestic government ; and it only fails to reach a still higher standard of excellence, because the latter, in its defectiveness, acts upon it as a perpetual check and counteraction. The parent or guardian, therefore, who pursues the course here reprehended, practically condemns him- seE, and only needs to carry out that course iu order to be speedily " hoist with his own petard." The second essential characteristic of the teacher's authority as derived from that of the parent, is that it is absolute. By this we do not mean that it is absolute in the highest sense as underived and irresponsible, but only that it is absolute with refer- ence to the relative position of the teacher and the pupil. The authority of the teacher as sovereign in the school is in no way derived from, or dependent on the will of the pupil as subject ; nor is the teacher in any way amenable to the pupil for his mode of exercising it. So far as the pupH-subject is con- cerned, the teacher is, in the better sense of the term, a true autocrat, and may both take his stand and carry himself as such. Out of this essential principle grow certain practi- cal inferences which not only go far towards deter- DEHrVED GHASAGTEKISTICS. 51 mining the character of school gOYemment, but which decisively settle the false nature of some of the methods of goyemment current. Of these infer- rences, this is to be observed, first, that the authority of the teacher in governing the school, is legislative per se. From that authority, as the sole origiaatuig source, springs the entire law for the school. Here, as elsewhere, true government originates of natural right, in the higher, more specific, and somewhat ex- clusive field of the superior intelligence and will, and goes down thence, according to its own clearer dictates and steadier purposes, to, and upon those who, as constituting the broader, less intelligent, less seK-sustaining and self-controlled mass, are the proper subjects of government. To install the teacher in the school upon any other assumption, is both absurd in. itself and false to the nature of school gov- ernment as determined by the law of the domestic government ; indeed, we may add, false to the nature of that domestic government as determined by the law of the divine government which is its natural an- tecedent. It is, then, for the teacher as the select one, and as the superior intelhgence and the abler vdll, to originate the whole scheme of law for the school, and to wield its sanctions throughout the entire field of discipUne. And these functions are imperative upon him. Except temporarily, for cer- tain specific ends, he may neither suspend nor trans- fer them. Hence, school government cannot, according to any true view, be taken as a democracy, either pure 52 SCHOOL GOVEKNMENT. or representative. Its subjects are neither capaci- tated for the exercise of the functions of government, nor naturally entitled to them. To suppose other- •wise is to assume that those, who are yet confessedly unequal to the work of seK-sustentation and seM- culture, are capable of self-government ; that those, ■who could not originate the school, can wield its organization when it has been provided for them. It is here freely granted that experiments have been made in this direction, and sometimes with no inconsiderable success. These, however, do not in- vahdate the principle. The democracy in these cases is practically a fiction, though a seemiagly fair one ; and its success, however promising, is equivocal if not deceptive, and otherwise fallacious in theory. It is due altogether to the tact and skill of the gov- ernor, and not to the self-active intelligence or power of the governed. Indeed, in such cases, the whole cast of the government is taken from the conception and leadings of the teacher. He is the power that wields the long arm of the lever, while, by his art, the pupU who sits astride of the short arm is induced to exert himself strenuously, as if he were really lifting the weight, instead of being himself the weight lifted. There is perhaps no harm in his making this deceptive effort, no harm in his indiilgnig that flatter- ing fancy ; possible even, some incidental good may, by the skiU of the teacher, be induced from both. Still it may be doubted whether it is consistent for the philosopher to assume the appearance to be the fact. DERIVED CHAEACTEBISTICS. 63 Neither is the weight self-lifting, nor is the governing self-government, for such an assumption. It is granted here, that school government, as per- haps every government should, looks forvrard-to seH- govemment, and, wisely managed, does prepare the way for it. But it does this rather by maintaining its own autocratic character, than by abdicating the throne and setting up a . supposititious self-govern- ment, under the auspices of a delusive democracy. It prepares the way for ultimate seK-government, by developing, through the observation and reflection stimulated by a true control, a just conception of the nature and applications of law and its sanctions. Still more significantly does it prepare the way for that self-government, by training its subjects to an habitual reverence for true superiority and to an im- plicit submission to the rightful authority which already is. The idea of self-government irrespective of a con- stant and loyal reference to a government prior to, and higher than that of self, is one of the dangerous fallacies of the times which school government should vigorously endeavor to correct, rather than to weakly countenance. So also, the idea of the possibility of the fair institution and sustained exercise of self- government, previous to establishing the habit of sim- ple obedience to the higher authority, is another fallacy as common and as fatal in its tendencies. He who has hot learned to obey, has not learned to govern ; and he who has not acquired the habit of reverencing the just requisitions of a higher inteUi- 54 SCHOOL GOYSBNMEm'. gence and will tlian his own, cannot render a true obedience to tlie self-imposed regulations of Ms own moral impulses and energies. And how few are thus fitted for the work of self-government, is clearly indi- cated elsewhere in that significant and divinely au- thoritative maxim, " He that ruleth his own spirit is mightier than he that taketh a city." Again, the teacher's authority as absolute, must be imperative, rather than dehberative or demonstra- tive. His requirements and decisions, in whatever form presented, whether that of request, demand or mandate, must be unargued. What he resolves upon and pronounces law, should be simply and steadily insisted upon as right per se, and should be promptly and fully accepted by the pupil as right, on the one ground that the teacher, as such, is governor. The faith of the pupil in the equity of the law must be begotten of the authority and the law themselves, and not of any reasonings thereupon. When the occasion rightly serves, some pains may be taken to demon- strate the Tightness of the authority, but not the rec- titude of the decisions. If that rectitude is neither accepted on the basis of simple faith in the authority, nor on the ground of its own self-evident claims, (which it will be, if the pupil is at all properly dis- posed,) your argumentation will be either thrown away, or it will only serve to suggest objections cal- culated to strengthen and embolden the rebellious spirit. It is a great inistake to fancy that the sound con- clusions of the logical understanding are necessarily DEEI^'ED CIIAEAGTEmSTICS. 55 invincible. That is or is not, altogetlier as the will may be positioned. Reason with the will accordant, and all goes "merry as a marriage bell:" reason against the iacHnation or fixed purpose of the will, and your logic "wastes its sweetness on the desert air." Especially is this true of the impulsive and imreasoning multitude ; and the child's nature is pre- cisely that of the multitude. With both, your reason- ing has force only as it accords with the inclination. Hence, in the school, as in the family, faith in the authority is a far better basis for enforcing the de- cisions arrived at in governing, than any display of their logical consistency. Hence, further, the thorough subjugation of the wiU to the authority as absolute should always antedate any resort to discus- sion or demonstration. When effective discipline has reduced the subject of government to cheerful obedi- ence, conclusive logic may sometimes happily foUow up the work, and complete it by compelling the un- derstanding to endorse the surrender of the will. Once more, in the government of the school, as in that of the family, the decisions of the authority as absolute must be final, or in other words, must be substantially beyond appeal or reversal. To aUow any such appeal or reversal as a recognized element in school government, is to conspire its speedy over- throw. Any such reference to the outside authority of parents or patrons is no more to be countenanced or endured than it would be in the case of the home government. Against its subversive influences, pa- rental authority could not long make head ; no more 56 SCHOOL GOYEKNJIENT. can the authority of the teacher. The principle is of equal apphcation to both: here, they stand or fall together. This is, in a certain shape, one of the very obstacles that parental goTemment has to encounter. Many a conscientious parent understands its working. Some stringent but "wise restriction is imposed upon his children. It soon gets to the ears of the neighbor- hood. It is at once caught up as indicative of pride or exclusiveness," or as inTolving a tacit rebuke of the ungovemed state of other families. Then it is openly condemned so that the censure passes from child to child until it reaches those under restraint. To them it comes with all the force of a sustained reference or appeal. Up springs from this an incipient rebellion. To meet this, the government of the parent is, per- haps, put upon its defense, and thus its authority is irreparably damaged. As with the domestic govern- ment, so with that of the school,, only that, in the latter case, the mischief is the greater, since school government is more often, by both children and parents, held as a lawful subject of animadversion. Nor is an appeal to the school authorities, whether it be informal or legally regular, less injurious. The teacher may err in his decisions, and, at times, his exercise of authority may be unhappy; yet, in the sight of the school, both should be fairly sustained. Reverse the one or denounce the other, and you attack his government in its most vital part ; you im- pair its capacity to command respect and submission even where its demands are intrinsically perfect. DERIVED CHAEACTEEISTIOS. 57 Everywhere among our youth, the spirit of insubor- dination is so predominant that it is not safe to relax the reins of government at all, not even when they have been improperly tightened. Doubtless, some incidental evils may result from this unyielding grasp of the authority; but let those who are governed charge them where they belong, that is, to their own insubordination. Hence, rather than touch the gov- ernment of the school, let the school authorities, while, perhaps, privately counsehng the teacher against future errors, promptly refuse to entertain any appeal against his authority. Let them bear in mind, that errors in government are nowhere tin- avoidable except in the fancies of fools, and that invariably a defective government is better than none. Hence, also, the teacher who finds his authority thus, through the error or the weakness of school officers, made subject to appeal and counteraction, should, out of regard both to the preservation of his own dignity and the maintenance of government in the school, coolly stand his ground, and insist upon the enforcement of his decisions. If he finds this made impracticable by the stubborness or the mag- nitude of the opposition, let him -promptly resign. To remain under such circumstances, is to acknow- ledge himself a subject ; is to confess himself defeated, and, hence, he can expect but little more than to be treated as a conquered enemy. To maintain his au- thority and secure good government in spite of these adverse influences, will be found a difficult and a doubtful task. Both self-respect and just pohcy. 58 SCHOOL GOYEENJIEKT. then, dictate the one course. A change of base will tend to re-estabUsh his character as a strategist, and secure a clearer field of operations. "While we object to any appeal from the authority of the teacher to any other extraneous source of power, we by no means cut off the teacher himseK from the right to reverse his own decisions, or reform his own administration of government. As absolute, he may both make and unmake law, only let him bear in mind that the latter is the much more dehcate work of the two. To take a position is easy, but to retrace the steps taken, that is the work. This retrac- tion is, however, sometimes both a necessity and a necessary evil. Jn such a case, great must be his ad- dress who can effect it gracefully and with unimpaired influence. If he can do this, let him do it by all means ; only let him carefully count the possible cost beforehand. Always, too, let it be undertaken at his own instance, and as his own exclusive prerogative. Beyond this case of positive reversal or retraction, it may sometimes occur that the teacher himself chooses to refer the points in question to the consti- tuted authorities. He may, for instance, be well as- sured of being sustained by those authorities, in which case, a reference only completes the discomfi- ture of the refractory pupil. He may also, in the case of matters which he does not consider vital, and as to which he has no choice, prefer a reference as a means of escaping a direct responsibility. Both of these are, however, open to the objection that the action of the teacher is politic and evasive, rather DEBri'ED CHAKACTEEISTICS. 59 than frank and independent. In the first instance, the pupil is partially imposed upon, for there is no real intervention in his behalf ; and in the second, the idea of a divided authority is directly countenanced. For these reasons, while the right of the teacher to allow the reference is clear, the propriety of resorting to it is doubtful. On these general grounds, then, and with these ex- ceptions, it is urged that the decisions of the teacher, as absolute in his authority, must be accepted and maiatained as a finality. Eetuming to the characteristics of the school gov- ernment as derived from that of the parent, it is urged finally, that it must be benevolent. The end for which the authority is exercised in the case of the teacher, as ia that of the parent, lies whoUy out of, and beyond himseH. The control and discipHne of the. child are not for the parent, nor for the teacher, but for the child only. An incidental good may ac- crue to both the former, but the good directly sought is that of the child alone. And that good must be sought even though no such incidental good, but rather a positive e-vil, seems to be the reward of those who govern. In this principle, is summed up the grand humanity of both domestic and school govern- ment. They are, neither of them, " finely touched. But to fine issues," and of those issues, this benevo- lence is the noblest. But plain as this principle is, it is too often over- looked in both parental and school government, though most signally, as we believe ia the former. 60 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. In the vast majority of cases, parental authority is exercised in pure selfishness. Not what is for the diUd's real injury is condemned and punished, but what is productive of inconvenience or loss to the parent. For example, the child, disregarding the parent's caution against carelessness, breaks a win- dow. The fault, now, which is brought home to his conscience, and for which he is made to believe him- self punished, is simply the loss he has occasioned by the brealdng of so much glass. The real fault, how- ever, was solely his disregard of the warning given him against carelessness. That warning was given altogether, (or, at least should have been so given,) to prevent his acquiring the always mischievous habit of being careless. And yet, little pains is taken to impress upon the child's heart a sense of his guilt in this direction. Not thus is he made to feel : "It was unfilial and unkind in me to give so httie heed to that wise and loving caution against carelessness." More commonly the only feeling awakened amounts to this, " Confound th.at old window ! I wish glass did'nt cost anything ;" a finahty that would be su- premely ridiculous, were not the error it reveals so fatal. In the government of the school, the tendency to this evil is not so great. The combination of syste- matic instruction with the exercise of authority? necessarily keeps the teacher's mind steadily under the influence of an object that can only be sought for the good of the pupil. Thus, the steady purposes of the iastruction as a benevolence, serve to correct the DEBIVED CHARACTERISTICS. 61 possible tendency of the discipline towards selfish- ness ; and so strong is their pressure in this direction, that it wiU be only a narrow and haK-brutal nature, such as, we believe, is seldom to be found among our teachers, that can fail to be controlled by them. Hence, it is not, and cannot be at all common for teachers to govern according to the mere dictates of personal convenience, or to administer discipline un- der the irritated impulse of some sense of incurred discomfort or damage. K, however, the teacher's temptation to such departures from the spirit of true school government be less, it behooves him' to see to it the more carefully that aU his action is ordered the more perfectly ia accordance with the truest good of the pupil as the only end to be sought. But there is a point of great importance beyond this. There is in all our school operations, a lack of forecasting wisdom and beneficence, and a dominant content with such provisions and attainments as aref altogether present and temporary. The child ia the school is seen and held, only as the child he now is. "What he is to be as the final growth of his present being is altogether overlooked. The school is nothing beyond its present necessities and effects. Its need, as looking forward to the largest ultimate result, is of no account. Hence, everywhere the insufferable school-house, the crude furniture, the naked walls, the absence of maps, blackboards, and apparatus, and the old books. Hence, also, the cheap teacher, the unstudied methods of instruction, and the tem- porary devices in government. But, were it borne in 62 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. mind tliat the child is growing to be a man, and that under the training of these mean and miserable ia- fluences ; were it realized how much these may have to do with making him in recollection, spirit and ac- tion, the very man he should not be, it would seem incredible that the provision made for the merely present in the school, should not be raised so as to conform to the necessary demands of the future. All this should impress upon the teacher the im- portance of the grand principle, that in. all his bene- volent control of the pupil, he is to give the first and most anxious concern to his ultimate welfare. Pres- ent considerations may have a certain importance; but they must never come into competition with the graver elements of a future and more imperative good. What the child is to-day must not, either in the instruction or the government of the school, be overlooked ; but what he is to be hereafter, as having been molded by that instruction and government, must be the paramount consideration. Not then what wiU suffice for the immediate pleasure or profit of the pupil, should be the teacher's guide, or his measure of content in determining the direction of the law or the sum of the discipline in the government of the school. The controlling question with the teacher must be, what, notwithstanding its cost to me, or its pressura upon the pupil now, is best for the prospec- tive welfare of the latter as a member of society and a subject of civil government ? From the foregoing, the foUy and the vice of all temporizing in disciphne will be evident. The teacher DEBITED CHiRACTEEISTICS. 63 is sometimes induced to rest content with temporary expedients and half-way measures. But the very sources of this 'inducement might suffice to reveal his error in yielding to it. Those sources are generally his own indolence or sensitiveness. The rationale of their influence is this ; foreseeing a conflict as the result of adopting the latter, but more severe, course in discipline, the teacher is unwilling to make the strenuous and persistent effort necessary to a success- ful issue, or he shrinks from the pain which he must, for the present, both cause and endure, and so he falls back upon measures that promise the compara- tive attaiament of the immediate end with less ex- pense to the energies and the sensibilities. The natural result, however, of all such evasions of duty is " ovij evil and that continually." They commonly fail to secure even the present end which the teacher has in view ; and the painful but important conflict which he seeks to avoid, is only deferred until the occurrence of some future and aggravated complica- tion, in the adjustment of which, the labor and the pain incurred v/ill often be more than doubled. And the failure to secure the truest welfare of the pupil in the direction of moral discipline and develop- ment is equally complete. Instead of learning the salutary lesson at once, and being thus enabled to grow from day to day, under its fashioning influence, into the perfect subject of just government, he goes on until the final struggle, unsubdued, stimulated by delay to a more stubborn resistance, and roused by the ultimate but unexpected overthrow, to the indvil- 64 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. gence of far more bitter and revengeful feelings than would have been possible under a contrary treat- ment. Of the unhappy influence of all this upon the after ideas and temper of the man, every teacher can judge for himself. As another inference from the benevolent charac- ter of the school government, aU passionate, violent or vindictive measures must be condemned. Of these, little need be said. Act directly as an influence and an example, on the pupil's evil passions, to counte- nance, aggravate, and perpetuate their indulgence, they assuredly will. As certainly wiU they re-act un- favorably on the teacher's character, on his influence in the school, and on the authority of his government. The least that can be said of such measures, is that they are iinwise and injurious. The truth more nearly is, they are unmanly and inhumane. Not less severely must aU means or appliances of discipline, which are of a merely degrading character, or which are simply calculated to badger, and exas- perate the pupil, without leading to real subjection, be reprehended. As it is inconsistent vidth the pa- rent's self-respect that he should basely humihate himself in the person of his child, and as his wisdom and benevolence must forbid all seeming effort at mere petty annoyance or retaliation, so must both these be inconsistent and reprehensible in the teach- er's administration of government, resting, as that government must, upon the parental basis from which its derivation has just been traced. Perhaps, also, no more fitting place will occur for DERIVED CHAEACTEEISTICS. 65 a proper reference to the use of satire or ridicule. It is true the topic is closely related to the consideration of child-sensibility, as developed in the foUo-wiag chapter. But commonly the use of these two ele- ments is rather a matter of self-indulgence or self- gratification, and so bears directly against the princi- ple of benevolence or unselfishness in government. A free use of ridicule or satire, regardless of their species and influence, is pure selfishness. Here, then, there is occasion for discrimination and self-control on the part of the teacher. Within a cer- tain restricted limit, a simple scholastic ridicule; namely, that employed purely for the purpose of cor- recting needless error in knowledge, or persistence in self-neglect, and where, from the pupil's known char- acter, or from the nature of the error, no other means will subserve the desired end so weU, — such a ridicule is legitimate. But whenever ridicule becomes purely personal, and touches defects which are not due to the failure of the voluntary nature, but are constitu- tional or excusable ; whenever it is indulged in for the purpose of mere self-gratification, is mingled with any irritation of feeling, and is enjoyed with the keener rehsh because it is seen to sting and wound, — when- ever any of this is true, ridicule is to be utterly con- demned. As to satire, much the same is true, saving only this difference, that as satire is usually more ex- tended and caustic in its character, it is even more dangerous than misguided or malicious ridicule. As- suming this as correct, it follows necessarily, that all harsh, discourteous, vituperative language is to be 66 SCHOOL GOVEEN.^IE^'T. utterly reprobated, and for reasons the more evident, because it can not involve a particle of either bene- volence or self-respect ; it is more properly the very embodiment of coarse incapacity and incipient ma- levolence. Lastly, like the parental government, that of the school should be cathoHc in its spirit and administra- tion. Always considerate with regard to individual v^ants, the teacher must, nevertheless, order and gov- ern the school for the whole rather than for a part. This is his only consistent and safe rule. Some things which are individually desirable may even be prom^otive of the general welfare. In addition to the specific comfort or advantage which they secure, they may reflect general credit on the government for dis- crimination and kindliness. Other personal provis- ions may not noticeably interfere with the broader in- terests of the whole. Others, again, may, as inter- fering with the general regulations, or as establishing subversive precedents, directly conflict with the wel- fare of the whole. In aU these cases, the application of the principle of catholicity is clear. In the first, it fully sustains the propriety of the individual provis- ions ; with reference to the "second, it is silent ; as to the third, its voice is a decided prohibition. The general law is, then, this ; while, as wiU be shown elsewhere, aU proper discrimination as to individual nature or need must be made, the general welfare must ever be the dominant consideration. Ignorance or disregard of this principle often leads parents and guardians into the grave error of de- DEFvIVED CHAltACTEiaSTICS. 67 manding individual privileges for the child whicli are inadmissible because inconsistent with the good of the whole. Thus, for example, an irregular choice of studies is demanded for one ; for another, a priv- ileged class or seat ; for another, release from some prescribed duty ; for another, exemption from some specific restriction or exercise of discipline. These, while, perhaps, in certain isolated cases possibly unob- jectionable, may, and more commonly must, as dis- turbing the general order or establishing dangerous precedents, be positively injurious. It will, then, doubt- less, be the wiser course to prefer no such claims. But in case, on mature reflection, they seem desira- ble, let them not be pressed upon the teacher against his convictions. Let him be left free to act according to the demands of catholic unity in the school, and catholic rectitude in its government. From this, it vnU be seen, that the teacher, instead of acting from bhnd impulse or specific impressions, needs to study carefully the economy of his school and its system of government, as a whole, so that in their clear and full comprehension, he may be enabled to prevent any maladjustment or undue prominence of parts, to the disadvantage of the whole. Hence, also, his constant effort should be to impress upon the mind of the entire school, a sense of its prevail- ing unity, and of the rightful predominance of the general interest over every other. CHAPTEE V. SCHOOL GOVERNMENT, AS BELATED TO THE SCHOOL AND ITS CONSEQUENT CHAEACTEBISTICS. Importance of considering government witli reference to its subjects — All government to be adapted to those controlled— True particularly of school government — School government to be applied to two classes, children and youth, more especially to children — More such in our schools — Children more governed than youth — Too much license allowed the latter — This practice reprehensible — Ghild-c?iaracter in the school — Method of discussion — Careful classification necessary — Traits classified as individual and general — Individual traits classified as inher- ent and contingent, mental and physical — Mental characteristics — Act- ivity considered — Mischief often a legitimate result of activity — ^Activity must be provided for— Neglect of this in public schools — Objectivity — Objective representations necessary — Indirect utility of apparatus — Direct application of objective means — Christ's use of this means — The objective n. means, not an end — Spontaneity — EflTect on observa- tion, attention and memory — Inferred laws — Care as to involuntary impressions— Suggested particulars — Care in presenting things — Rep- etition necessary — Careless repetition injurious — Lack of method — Method indispensable — Government must be systematic — Intellect read/y hut not strong — Inferences prompt but invalid — Explicitness de- manded — Principles especially applicable to the child's reason — " Do right" an insuflacient rule — Practically deceptive^ — Its only advantages — Sensibilities naturally acute — Child often abused for feeling — Govern- ment must be sympathizing and gentle — Feelings to be diverted rather than suppressed — ^Double utility of their diversion — Child sensitive to praise and blame — Love of esteem radical and deej) — Exceptional eases due to abuse — Government must be stimulating, not depressing— Stim- ulating kindness especially adapted to the worst cases — Method of its application— 2%« child's purposes fitful — Fitfulness impairs development — Increases the teacher's labors — Government must counteract lack of persistence — Failure to do this a prevailing defect — Defect aggravated by so-called improved methods of instruction — ^Particularly by the exclusive object system — Physical characteristics — Activity or restless- RELATIVE CHAEAOTEEISTICS. 69 ness — Origin both mental and organic — The latter cause more espe- cially considered — Exercise to be secured — No flxed rule for exercise possible — Common sense on gymnastics — Gymnastics restricted in their field — Absurd in case of young children — Nature's gymnastics superior — These principles applied to girls — Military drill compared with gymnastics — General inference as to kind, and management of exercise — Child^s frame immature — Violent usage to toe avoided — Evils possible — General cTiaracteristics contingent on t/ie constitution of the school — Mingling of the s&ms— Constitutional differences of the tw o to be regarded — Influence of these differences increases with age — May become the only means of control — Effect of contrasted sex between teacher and pupil — Error in instructional organization of boy's and girl's schools — Heterogeneousness of pupils — Variety extensive and complex — Organic adaptation consequently impracticable — Au- thoritative discrimination the only reliance — Discrimination not partiality. The study of scliool government as derived from that of the domestic circle reveals to us some of its original and more comprehensive characteristics. But the study of its nature in the opposite direction, as determined by the body politic to which it is to be applied, is equally important as calculated to unfold to view some of its more specific and practical traits. No government, however perfect in theory, can be a true and proper government unless, in all its prac- tical elements it is so framed as to be fitted as far as possible to the peculiar character and consequent wants of the commonwealth over which it is to be in- stalled as supreme. That which is a true and good government for an intelligent and virtuous commu- nity, cannot be the same for a body ignorant and vicious ; nor can one adapted to the wants of the mature, the considerate, and the self-controlled, be 70 SCHOOL GOTEKNMENT, expected to answer as well for those wlio are young, inexperienced, and dependent on others for both pro- tection and guidance. Hence, while school government must have its fixed original characteristics, it must also possess those which are in some sense acquired, that is, which must grow out of the character and condition of those who are to be subjected to its authority. School government, then, as related to the school, we find applied to two classes ; namely, to children and to youth, or those who have advanced so as to stand midway between childhood and early man- hood. Of these classes, the more prominent must be the former, since for several reasons, it is more generally appHed to that class. First, it is quite evident that as our schools are constituted, our primary and pubhc schools, or those chiefly made up of children, must constitute the largest class, so that even though their individual numbers may be less, their aggre- gate of pupils must exceed that of the youth, or the older class embraced in our higher institutions of learning. Secondly, it is, we think, the fact, though an anom- alous and unreasonable one, that the government is practically made to be more for the children than for the youth of the community ; that is, it is made more continuous, systematic, and rigorous for the former than for the latter class. Indeed, it is one fault of the higher schools, that their government instead of increasing its demands with the increased capacity RELATIVE CHARACTEEISTICS. 71 and responsibility of tte pupil, tends contrarywise to greater irregularity and laxity, iu many cases amount- ing to little more than an apology for government. Indeed, in the management of these youth, according to the usages of many of our higher schools, the only end directly sought seems to be that of acquired learn- ing, the matter of discipline in training being treated altogether as secondary and incidental, — ^in fact, as a sort of necessary evil. The sum of the teacher's anx- iety and inquisition is the mere result in recitation ; the student's methods and habits of study, matters far more important to his after success, are left to his own ignorance and unconcern. If the student recites the prescribed amount correctly, his wort is accepted as done, and the teacher's duty as discharged ; and yet the student's study may have been exceedingly desul- tory and vicious, a thoroughly ragged compound of application and skylarking, to the correction of which the teacher has given no thought whatever. Now, the least that can be said of this lax system of controlling the youth in our schools, is that it is exceedingly questionable. Instead of this general presumption in favor of the teacher's release from re- sponsibility for the student's habits, and in favor of the student's capacity and disposition for self-control and discipline, it is a question whether it v.-ere not wiser to bring these haH-grown candidates for future lawlessness and misrule, under the same exr^ct disci- pline which is meted out to their younger, but no more needy, associates. It is a question whether, of the two evils which mark our management of our 72 SCHOOL GOVEBKMENT. youth ; namely imperfect government, and too early emancipation from -what government there is, the lat- ter is not the least excusable, and the most pernicious. Against the former, human nature migh.t offset its own weakness ; but over against the latter, it has nothing to place but its own culpable foUy and indulgence. Finding school government practically applied to cliildi'en rather than youth, we pass to the considera- tion of child-character in the school as determinative, in some pai"t, of the character of the government re- lated to it. In a former portion of this work, we dis- cussed the derivation of school government, and its consequent characteristics, in separate chapters. In considering, however, its application to children ia the school, it is practically more convenient and ef- fective, to present the facts and inferences together, so that the characteristics deduced shall be foimd in immediate dependence on the personal traits which give rise to them, and with which they are closely in- terwoven. Inasmuch, now, as the field upon wliich we are eutering is somewhat iatricate, a close and somewhat formal classification of the facts wiU be necessary. Aside from this, the importance of tlie conclusions to be reached, makes a certain degree of thoroughness imperative. The facts or traits of child-character, to be consid- ered ia this connection, may be primarily classified, as individual and general ; or those which belong to the child as an individual, and those which mark the children of the school as a body. The class termed individual may be further divided into two species ; RELATIVE CHAEACTEEISTICS. 73 the inherent and the contingent, — ^the former including such characteristics as belong to the child's nature iu itself considered, and the latter embracing those traits which have been fastened upon that nature by pecu- liar external influences. Without running iuto the trite and, for our purpose unnecessary, threefold di- vision of these characteristics, into the physical, in- tellectual, and moral, we shall content ourselves with distributing them, summarily vdthout definition, un- der the two maia heads, the mental and the physical, and with considering the inherent and the contingent together. We are now prepared to enter upon the consideration of the characteristics of the child's mental exercises. Of these characteristics, the first in order, and perhaps the most noticeable of aU, is activity. There may be cases in which the child's mind appears to be either sluggish or inactive. This, however, should be assumed to be altogether an ab- normal condition. In" most cases, it can be directly traced to physical malformation or debility. In proper health, mental activity is at once the symbol of the health, and the law of the child's mind. Idle, it cannot and will not be. Its whole nature revolts from it. What is currently stigmatised as mischief, is but the perpetual protest of the child's nature against lack of proper and sufficient employment. So far from being blameworthy for the ingenious and indefatigable inauguration of so much of this so- called mischief, the child is innocent, and, in the light of nature, even praisworthy. He is but exercising as ■ 4 74 SCHOOL GOVEBNMENT. lie best can, the powers lie was designed to exercise, and through exercise, develop. It is the parent or the teacher who is at fault ; and, in censuring the child, he stands really self-condemned, for he prac- tically pleads guilty to the knowledge of active facul- ties, for which he has taken no" care to furnish proper and sufficient employment. The principle to be deduced from these facts, is unmistakable. The teacher must, in his management of the school, make ample provision for this super- abundant activity. It is impossible, otherwise, for his government to be just. If he leaves the child to idleness during any portion of the school session, or throws him upon his own resources for proper em- ployment or amusement, it will certainly not be com- petent for him to hold that child amenable to strict disciphne, because, forsooth, his self-apphed activity, in any part fails to accord with the aims or regula- tions of the school. But, inasmuch as it cannot con- sist with the teacher's duty or policy to license any such discordant activity, it is imperative on him to provide for it outlets that are both proper and profit- able. In the case of the more active and somewhat restless minds, this must be a subject of careful study, and an object of ingenious and patient effort. In this direction, lies one of the gravest faults of our pubKc schools, in their treatment of primary pupils. Not advanced enough to employ their time profit- ably or pleasantly in the study of assigned lessons, they are condemned, during the intervals between their exercises, to sit in irksome idleness, upon seats RELATIVE CHARACTEKISTICS. 75 or benches wliicli are only adapted to tlie purposes of torture, waiting painfully for the next exercise, or longing for the comuig of the recess. With nothing provided for their pleasant emploj-^ment, — no slates and pencils, no alphabet blocks, no picture cards, not even scissors and paper, or peas and sticks, they might weU be pardoned, not only for occasioning dis- order, but even for ojjenly revolting against a system which seems expressly designed to oppress their nat- ural activity. A second characteristic of the child's mind, to be noted for its bearing on the government of the school, is its tendency to objectivity. Things taken in the ab- stract, or considered with sole reference to the sub- jective idea, are thorouglily foreign to his, nature. Bring before him the objective form of which he may take cognizance through his ever active senses, and in which he may see symbohzed the inward idea or the dry abstraction, and he is at once at home and on the alert. The world of sensible forms with aU their variety, beauty and mystery, is eminently the child's world; in it, he dwells with living delight; upon it, his craving mental activity fastens for suste- nance ; through it, his perceptions feel their way to hidden truths ; and out of its elements, his restless though simple and somewhat barbaric fancy is ever struggling to build new combinations of his own, often the prototypes of the ultimate creations of the manly imagination. Out of this, arises the necessity of the teacher's avaihng himseK, as far as is practicable, of objective 76 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. reference or illnstration, in Ms presentation of facts, principles and relations, in order that the child's ob- servation may be attracted towards that which may be otherwise abstract or alien to his thought; and that his attention may be happily aided in its attempt to fasten upon, and fix in the apprehension, things that must be otherwise vague and unsatisfactory. While the common idea is that blackboards, dia- grams, maps, and apparatus generally} are only ap- plicable to the purposes of instruction, a truer view discovers in them an important susceptibihty of application to the uses of government. Certainly, just so far as the proper employment of these objec- tive instrumentalities meets the wants of the child's mind, and absorbs all its activity in the new interest created, just so far does it divert his attention from unlawful objects, and forestall his temptation to in- dulge in idle mischief or actual disorder. To one conversant with school operations, no truism is clearer than this ; the more interesting aU the exercises of the school, the more easy its general control. But still further, it is even possible to make a direct use of objective means in the' administration of the government of the schooL It is quite within the power of the skillfol teacher to lead the child's mind, by some seemingly remote reference to objective facts, to an unconscious admission of principles that are ultimately discovered to have a close and conclu- sive personal application. Take as illustrative of this, Christ's reference to the tribute-money and his de- mand; "Whose image and superscription is this?" EELATIVE CHARACTERISTICS. 77 How readily he eKcited tlie fatal admission tliat the currency in use as legal tender among the Jews was of Eoman coinage! And this granted, how unan- swerable the conclusion that the nation, being thus confessedly subject, might rightfully be laid tinder tribute ! The consequent duty was thus put beyond all cavil. Again, objective allusion or illustration, may often be employed .to give additional vividness to the ap- prehension of truth, and consequently increased force to the resultant law. In exemplification of this, let us refer again to the same great teacher. Observe, how, when his disciples were contending for an idle supremacy, he adroitly " toot a child and set him by him," and then, in the light of this objective lesson, proceeded to unfold to them, and to enforce upon them, the combined laws of personal humility, mu- tual condescension, and child-like obedience. Without further exemplification here, which indeed our space does not allow, it is perhaps sufficient to refer the teacher to the scripture account of Christ's mission generally, as affording some of the finest in- stances on record, of both the intellectual and moral application of this method. Did his life possess no higher claim for dUigent and reverential study, its value as affording models for the teacher, so sagacious and authoritative, might well commend it to the earn- est investigation of every student in didactics. Before leaving this topic, let one other thought be carefully impressed upon the teacher's mind, that is, that while he is to avail himseK of the objective ten- 78 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. dency in the child's mental exercises, he must guard against perpetuating it. Tliis objectivity is a primal condition of the child's mind ; but it is not designed to become a permanent or ultimate state. The facts of the outward world, and the exercise of the sense, are, of course, necessary to the development of the mind and to the uses of temporal existence. But there are higher faculties in the soul than the sense ; and there is. a world of fact within the thought, more refined and subtle, but not less real, than the sensible creation. The exploration of this field lays the high- est claim upon the human energies, and the develop- ment of those faculties only, can lead the soul to its highest triumphs. Hence, in aU objective training, there should be a constant endeavor to lead the mind from the sensible to the abstract, in order that its growth may be steadily towards a profound subjec- tivity, (if we may so speak,) in exercise and attain- ment. Objective instrumentaUties must be kept rigorously subordinate as a temporary means to be steadily reduced from their maximum use in juvenile training, to their minimum employment in the ma- turer discipline of the adult mind. "We pass from this, to notice the third characteristic of the child's mental exercises ; namely, spontaneity. Few observing minds can have failed to discover that rarely does the child think, feel or purpose under the guidance of antecedent reflection, or in obedience to dehberate self-controlled conviction. Some imme- diate object or incident serves as an occasion for those exercises, and detennines their direction ; and KELATTVE CHAEACTEBISTICS. 79 then comes the instantaneous and nncontrolled im- pulse, and arouses the faculties to action. And so generally is this true of aU the child's activity, that it may be safely affirmed that in his nature, reflec- tion is at the minimum, spontaneity at the maximum. As a necessary consequence, observation, attention and memory, in the child, will be found subject to important modifications. So far as the exercise of those faculties is casual and spontaneous, it wiU be found marked by a not unfrequently singular sharp- ness and vigor. Whatever has come accidentally before the child's mind, or at least in the natural track of his unpremeditated activity, even though utterly unobserved by the mature looker-on, generally produces a somewhat. permanent impression. But, on the other hand, whatever is brought before his mind for voluntary and controlled observation, atten- tion, or retention, is subject to quite the opposite result. It will be seized upon by the observing spirit with less avidity ; its construction in the atten- tion wiU be more vague and incomplete, and its hold upon the memory will be altogether forced and tran- sitory. From these facts, there may be deduced several laws which must be recognized by the teacher in the government of the school. And here, first, it wUl be seen that it is not enough for the teacher to be watchful as to whatever is di- rectly set before the pupil's mind in the ordering of the school. It is necessary for him to exercise great watchfulness over everything that may appeal inju- 80 SCHOOL GOYEENjIUBNT. riously to this sharp thinking spontaneitj. The pecu- liar Tividness and permanence of the impressions produced unexpectedly under its auspices, make it imperative that objects and facts, principles and ac- tions, that may create false impressions, should he zealously sought out and be carefully removed or corrected. It is, of course, not possible for the teacher to anticipate the existence or counteract the influence of all of these occasions of evil impressions, for it is their nature to exist and to operate unexpectedly. But he should not lack the mil to be ■watchful, nor should he stint his endeavor to accomplish all that may be practicable. AH this is strongly suggestive of -what has already been referred to ; the importance of securing in all the external accommodations of the school a predom- inance of whatever is comfortable and attractive, and hence, naturally productive of refined, happy, and grateful impressions. Not less suggestive is it of the necessity of securing the earhest possible correction of such character and example in the leading spirits in the school, as must be malevolent in both their un- seen and their outstanding influence. And if this, then what as to the teacher's own manners and bear- ing, and what as to the evident temper of his govern- ment ; — ^what as to these, other than that the same jealous watch should be kept over them so as to se- ciu'e.in himself an example of whatsoever things are lovely and of good report ? In the second place, it fol- lows from the laws of the child's exercises as sponta- neous, that great care must be taken in presenting to his EELATIYE CHAEACTEEISTICS. 81 mind, matters wMch call for tlie deliberate and some- what arbitrary exercise of observation, attention and memory. Always, so far as may be, they should be brought forward in some way calculated to appeal to his feeling of interest. And if that be to any degree impracticable, they should be announced with a delib- erateness, clearness, and positiveness that cannot fail to fix the attention and secure their thorough ap- prehension. To this should be sometimes added such a repetition of that presentation as will leave no doubt as to its immediate apprehension, and no ex- cuse for any subsequent slips of the recollection. There is reason to fear that children, through the haste or carelessness of parents and teachers in this direction, or, perhaps, through their too ready as- sumption of the child's actual reception of the facts, are sometimes positively made transgressors, and are subjected to consequent punishment, when the al- leged fault was simply an induced failure of the in- tellect, and not at all a willful trespass upon the reason and the conscience. Let it be observed, how- ever, that the repetition which is suggested as tending to prevent this serious error just alluded to, is a thor- oughly deliberate and pointed repetition, — a repeti- tion with an earnest and well-defined purpose in it. Mere idle repetition, that which is ill-considered, hasty, and perhaps, confused, is injurious. So far from fix- ing the attention upon the matter presented, -its only practical effect is to induce inattention. The law here, is the law of the school in everything else ; what- 32 SCHOOL GOVEBNaiENT. ever is not done deliberately and to a definite end,, is done to little or no good purpose. Another of the characteristics of the child's mind bearing upon the nature of the school gOYemment, is irregularity or want of method. Method is by no means a common trait among mankind at large. Of the two faults, ignorance of things to be done, and ig- norance of a methodical way of doing them, the latter is certainly the more uniTersal. In the child, we dis- cover the germ of this prevailing evil. It is not strange that it should be so. It is the natural prod- uct o| the objectivity and spontaneity already no- ticed. He whose thinking is determined by the mere contingency of objective occasion for thought, and whose mind ever follows the unsettled track of his own uncontrolled spontaneity, must be unmethodical. Method is a subjective accomplishment, and the re- sult of discipline. It must be based upon penetrating and self-controlled thought. It must be antedated by analysis and classification. These, however, are ope- rations both beyond the child's capacity, and contrary to his undisciplined nature. But nothing can be clearer than that orderliness is indispensable to the harmonious and successful opera- tion of the school. Just so far as the teacher can secure it, just so far he facilitates his management, and lightens the burden of discipline. Quite gene- rally too, with the development of orderliness, or reg- ularity of method in the pupils of the school, there will occur the simultaneous development of easy ac- quiescence in the system of control established by the KELATIVE CHAEACTEEISTICS. 83 teacher, and spontaneous conformity to its move- ments. Nor can there be any question as to the truth of this, so long as common experience testifies that it is the wild, impulsive, unorderly nature that is forever unexpectedly running athwart the legitimate track of the school order, and introducing some errant clash and jar into its other^sdse harmonious movement. Out of these facts grows the requisition that the whole ordering of the school should, both directly in its methods and requirements, and indirectly as an example and an influence, tend to the correction of this element of irregularity and disorder in the child's mind. Whatever the teacher himself does, and what- ever he requires the child to do, should be carefully systematized, so that both the pupil's observation and action shall lead steadily in , the direction of methodical habits. This, both the immediate claims of the school government, and the ultimate wants of the pupil clearly demand. To pass from these more general characteristics of the child's mind, to those more restricted, we may remark that in the intellect proper, his conceptions and judgments, while rapidly forjned, are apt to be vague and erroneous. From his very impulsiveness and disinclination to severe thought, the child is too ready to accept statements on faith, to the entire negl^t of any search after their certainty, and of any examination of the details involved. For simUar rea- sons, adopting premises hastily and with little ques- tion as to their soundness, it is quite common for him'. 84 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. iiotwitlistandiiig lie draws conclusions with cxuions directness, to reach results altogether deceptiye. In short, the child's intellect is ready rather than strong ; acute rather than comprehensive, and trustful rather than searching. Hence, it behooves the teacher, in the government of the school, to see to it that every principle advanc- ed, every regulation proposed, and every considera- tion urged, is made thoroughly expUeit, and is un- mistakably apprehended. Equal care must be taken to secure that the pupil is not misled by mistaken in- ferences the result of his own imperfect procesess of reasoning. It is quite possible for the pupil to be led through these very errors and misapprehensions, into transgressions of rule for which discipline may be adjudged necessary, when, after all, the teacher may be the original occasion of the whole. These principles are especially apphcable to the reason in its apprehension of ultimate truths of either beauty or virtue. As the child's notions of the beau- tiful are essentially crude and barbaric, so also are his notions of rectitude. The gaudy and ihe glitter- ing are to him, the beautiful, more often than the subdued, the natural, the harmonious. So also are the desirable or convenient more often to him, the right, than the just, the worthy, and the benevolent. This finds ample ilLustration in the well-known indefi- niteness of the child's ideas as to the right of privi- lege or of property. Indeed, generally in his mind, the rational faculty is either in the germ or but feebly EELATIVE CHAEACTEEISTICS. 85 operative, and, hence, left to itself, it is by no means a safe guide for his action. Hence, we are inchned to regard the generalized principle, " Do right," sometimes laid down by teach- ers as the sole law of the school, as, of itself insuffi- cient, deceptive and dangerous. That it is insuffi- cient, may be seen from the fact that is not in any proper sense a law for the school, but only a funda- mental principle, the basis for all law. Moreover, it leaves the specific applications, which are practically the law for the pupil, to his own judgment or reason, both of which, as has been seen, are unreHable. That it is deceptive, may be seen in the fact that, instead of really leaving these applications to be de- termined by the pupU, the teacher practically reserves that right wholly to himself, inasmuch as he develops the general principle into specific rules, as fast as he finds occasion in the pupil's delinquencies for doing so. In this light, the so-caUed law verges closely upon an imposition, since, instead of being the sole law, it is more of the nature of a temporary device, and furthermore, ostensibly endows the pupil with a prerogative which is seeming and not real. Thus in- sufficient and deceptive, it needs not that we demon- strate the danger of depending upon it. The only advantage that can result from the pro- posing of this principle at the outset ave, first, that it enables the teacher to defer the promulgation of spe- cific rules, imtil circumstances seem to present a natu- ral demand for them. This enables the government of the school to conform itself. to the principle of 86 SCHOOL GOVEKNMENT. growth or development, and thus to adapt itself the better to the unfolding capacities of the pupils, and to the evident wants of the school. And, secondly, properly set forth, it makes itself as a general law, appear to be of the nature of a reason for each speci- fic rule; indeed, wisely applied by the teacher, it becomes demonstrative of the rectitude of each indi- vidual provision. Hence, it should be proposed only with these ends in view. Passing now to the sensibilities, it is important to notice the fact that in the child's nature, these, while fluctuating and transitory in their exercises, are yet peculiarly acute. How slight the word or tone, how seemingly trivial the act or circumstance, that sad- dens the young face and fills the eyes with tears ! And thus it should be. It is the natural product of that delicacy of feeling which is yet a fresh and un- wasted legacy to humanity, from the lost Eden to which the child is so much nearer than the man. In his normal state, the child must be a creature of much sensibility. If he is not found "to be such, it may be depended upon that his sensibilities have been impaired by malconformation ; or they have been deadened or brutalized by bad treatment. The latter is the more sure to be the case, from the commonness of the practice of abusing children for giving vent to their feelings. Nothing is more com- mon than for their outburst of sorrow to be made an occasion of false consolation, or of ridicule ; or still more detestably, of angry crimination. Some- times this abuse is visited upon them because their EELATrVB CHAEACTEKISTIOS. 87 outcries are productive of inconvenient disturbance ; or sometimes because they create apprehension of censure ; sometimes even out of pure irritability, or, possibly, of intrinsic male\o.ence. In every case, it is unnatural and inhuman. From this arises a natural demand that the govern- ment of the school, while just and firm, should always be marked by a sympathizing spirit and much gen- tleness of manner. Let the teacher sedulously avoid that current frigidity and folly which attempt to im- pose on the childish conviction, the belief that the ills lamented are unreal; and which would salve the wounds of the juvenile sufferer with consolatory false- hood or pitiless stoicism. It is the part of both true courtesy and sincerity, to accept fairly the child's trials according to the child's estimation of them, just indeed, as the teacher would desire his own afflictions to be entertained in the apprehension of his friends. Having done this, let him, without exaggerating those iUs, or weakly humoring them, both unfavorable to the development of true patience and fortitude, pro- ceed with mingled tenderness and tact to apply the proper remedy. In all such cases, the legitimate mode of reaching the desired end, is through diversion of thought rather than suppression of feeling. As the sensibili- ties were reached before through the intellect, so the feelings, being the after-growth of the thought, must be reached again through the same avenue. Let the teacher, then, first enter into the feelings of the child, in a genuine sympathy, and then proceed OO SCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. adroitly to lead the attention to other and more pleasing subjects. Jnst so far as he can succeed in effecting this transfer of the thoughts, (and such is the child's Tolatility that it is not a difficult task to ac- comphsh,) he wiU succed in abating the feelings which ■were the object of his immediate concern. In effecting this result, the teacher secures a two- fold gain. It is something to have soothed the feel- ings of the distressed child ; it is no less an advantage to have enshrined himself in the child's heart as a true and trusted friend. In this direction, the occur- rence of these youthful trials are, it rightly improved, golden opportunities for the teacher. Out of them, he may develop the sweetest and kindhest regard of the pupil for himself, and a genuine and effective re- gard for his system of control. Thus employed, they will quite invariably prove that, in gaining the true mastery of the pupU and the school, an ounce of sin- cere sympathy, skillfully employed, is worth a pound of authoritative discipline. In this connection, it is also worthy of remark, that while the child's sense of moral obhgation, foUowiug in the wake of his yet uniUumined reason, is by no means ready or acute, he is, nevertheless, more or less sensitive to praise or blame. Now, it is not assumed that the feelings he may evince in this direc- tion are purely the product of his moral susceptibili- ties. They are more Ukely the combined product of his constitutional sensitiveness, and his insatiable craving for esteem and love. Whatever may be ac- cepted as to their source, they are certaialy a fact in KELATIVE CHAEACTEBISTICS. 89 the child's nature ; and they possess a power over his conduct which cannot but make them an important element as related to the goTemment of the school. This latter feeling, the child's love of esteem, is peculiarly desei-ving of notice as one of the most deeply rooted in his nature. Seeming to be bom of his instinctive sense of inferiority and dependence, his looking and longing for esteem and love, are like the reaching forth of the apprehensive spirit after the token and assurance of that concern in its behalf, among the higher and ruhng natures around it, which may serve it as a sure ground of kindred feeling and peaceful truSt. Imbedded thus in the very instincts of the feeble and dependent spirit, it wiU be found generally very tenacious in its hold upon the impulses, lingering about them long after the external aspect has been case-hardened by neglect or abuse. That there are many children in our schools who appear to be comparatively insensible to praise or blame, and who appear destitute of the love of esteem, is doubtless true. This, however, by no means invalidates the main principle. Such cases are ab- normal in their character. Some of them are very possibly due to an original moral obtuseness, just as there are cases of a constitutional stolidity of intellect. But much the larger proportion are solely the hard growth of unnatural training at home, — training in which the longing for love has been mocked with stony-hearted coldness and neglect, and the grateful emotions, ready to be warmed into life by the genial breath of approval, have been blighted and beaten 90 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. down by tlie blasts of ridicule, censure or angry vituperation. The influence of these facts should be to impress upon the teacher the importance of guarding the government of the school against degenerating^ through the predominance of ridicule and satire, criti- cism and censure, into a mere engine for depression. Bather let him see to it that it everywhere evinces a delicate regard for the finer feelings, a watchful desire to discover the first traces of true merit, a hearty appreciation of the feeblest endeavor to do well, and a cheerful readiness to bestow upon the humblest and least promising claimant, every just meed of encour- agement and praise. In this way, it is possible to make the government of the school a living and effec- tive stimulus, by its steady appeal to the better aspi- rations of the child's heart, provoking it "to love and good works.'' Especially let it be borne in mind, that this system ^ of encouragiag appeal to the love of approval and esteem is pre-eminently adapted to those who be- longing to the hardened class above referred to, are seemingly the most incorrigible. This is so, fiirst, be- cause of the inherent power of that principle in the human heart, of which society every day furnishes the most striking examples. What alone has ever surely saved the drunkard? The clear, stm-bright evidence that he has yet a hold upon some one's esteem and confidence, and may regain that of others which he had fancied to be hopelessly lost. What alone prevents the glad redemption of the pitiful vie- RELATIVE CHAEACTEKISTICS. 91 tim of seductive wiles ? The crushing consciousness that a villainous proscription by a pharisaical virtue, has cut her off from all generous regard or hope of re-established esteem and confidence. Still further, the method referred to is the best for the more vicious pupils, because, secondly, it is so entirely opposite to 'their experience and expectation, that it, as it were, takes them unawares, and upon the side of their na- ture least fortified against approach, and therefore most susceptible to iafluence. The truth of this is amply illustrated in. the history of every reformatory effort for the reclamation of abandoned youth. Bag- ged schools, schools of reform, industrial schools and the like, have everywhere been successful, just so far as they have skillfully availed themselves of the child's desire of approval and love of esteem. A proper ap- peal to those principles has ia. it the true magician's art ; it will disenchant and restore to his better form the enthralled victim of demoniac wiles. The method to be employed ia applying this appro- batory stimulus is exceedingly simple. In the first place, let the teacher avail himself of the first occa- sions, whether real or only seeming, for bestowing praise and evincing confidence, and carefully follow up each attained success, by judicious but increas- ing demonstrations of that character. In the second place, where, from the extremity of the case, no occasion seems to offer, let him adroitly create one. This he may do by politely appealing to the child's love of activity, or ambition to be helpful (a powerful feeling in most children), for some incidental but os- 92 eCHOOL GOVERNMENT. tensibly important aid. Here is, at tlie outset, an un- expected exhibition of confidence which may at first puzzle the pupU, but which will ultimately and the more surely, because it puzzles him, beguile him Kke a fascination into the bestowment of the required assist- ance. This done, the way is open for a kind and deferential acknowledgment on the part of the teacher. The course is now clear. Carefully repeat the pro- cess until the pupil grows into the feeling that he is of some real value. This effected, you may openly and confidentially appeal to his ambition to become more useful and worthy. The utility and certain effi- ciency of this whole process might easily be illus- trated by specific cases. Space, however, does not allow their introduction here; and, besides, to the minds of many teachers, they wiU occur spon- taneously. Passing from this discussion of points bearing on the susceptibilities, it remains for us to notice one characteristic of the child's voluntary nature, and that is, the prevailing fitfulness of his purposes ; in other words, his lack of true persistence. Resulting, as this does, from the traits already noticed, it is not necessary to regard it as a fault, as is too commonly done. It is, however, a deficiency, to the correction of which the government of the school should be carefully adapted. And this, first, because unsteadiness, or lack of persistence, must always stand in the way of the child's best development. Indeed, it might not in- consistently be urged that failure to develop a proper EELATIVE CHAEACTEEI8TICS. 93 persistence is failure to develop tlie first manly ele- ment in the child's mind, — ^failure to develop in Mm the master-requisite to his future success in the active walks of life. This conclusion, all the current max- ims of men relative to the power of perseverance amply sustain. These all show that whUe intelligence and perseverance are both necessary, the latter bears the palm as, single-handed, the better champion. But, further, this lack of persistence tends directly to increase the demands made on the teacher's energies ia the control of the school. It certainly stands in the way of his readiest attainment of the proper object of the school. When, for example, the pupU recoils from the determined pursuit of his study, he will either fall back on some schoolmate for aid, which at once tends to confusion, or he must resort to the teacher, in which case, the latter must imdertake the pupil's work, as his substitute, or he must task himself to bring up the flagging energies of the little straggler, and command his faltering spirit again to the persistent attack. Or, if in another case, the pupil fails through lack of steadiness, as is the more common fact, to maintain a course of in- tended obedience, either the teacher must give him- self promptly to the work of girding up the relaxing purposes, or he will have to address himself to the work of administering discipline in the correction of overt transgression. Hence, it follows, that while the government of the school must recognize this lack of persistence in the child as a constitutional weakness for which in all 94 SCHOOL GOYERNMENT. judgments, due allowance is to be made, yet it must, in all its example, influence and requirement, work steadily for the counteraction and correction of the defect. In order to do this, it must, while always both properly helpful and hopeful, carefuUy avoid any relaxing' of its own demands. It must be itself a model of considerate steadiness and inflexibility. So too, it must set itself persistently against aU vicarious performance of duty. Duties should be judiciously assigned, but once thus assigned, by mingled encour- agement and quiet demand, they should be pressed steadily home upon the pupil for his sole and un- flinching performance. The failure to do this, we believe to be a common vice in the goveroment of our schools. The conse- quence is that no true foundation is laid in the wiU, for steady and thorough scolarship in the pupil's sub- sequent educational course, or for manly decision and persistence in his after business career. And so we find perpetuated throughout the community, a fitful- ness of purpose, an unsteadiness in application, and an entire uncertainty as to the persevering attairmient of proposed ends, which necessitate constant fluctua- tion in the currents of society, and ever recurring personal failure and disaster. This lack of persistence is, we fear, constantly en- couraged by the methods of instruction becoming every day more prevalent. No thoughtful educator can have failed to observe that the entire tendency of our assumed improvement in teaching is to simplify books, to elaborate all the processes of reasoning for KELATITE CHAEACTEBISTICS. 95 the pupil, and to made the teacher more minutely helpful. In short, we are practically running into a system of study made easy. Now while it is clear that aU. the difficulty attending the work of leamiag, which grows out of preposterous or ill-adapted requi- sition, and needless obscurity or complexity in the presentation of truth, should be fully obviated, it is to be doubted whether that simphcity or helpfulness, which relieves the pupil from close apphcation, earn- est thinking, and resolute self-assistance, is anything less than a positive evil. There is every reason to believe that, while the youth who emerge from our schools may know more, and may be more sharp and confident than those of the former generation, they will lack that power of persistent application, of in- dependent thought, and thorough self-rehance, which are only to be developed under the seemingly hard but yet salutary discipline of a system which compels the pupU to do for himself, instead of leading others to do for him. Not that which is the easiest and most agreeable, is always the wisest or the best. In this connection, a grave question arises as to the influence of a too exclusive use of the " Object System," so prominently, of late, set forth before the public. Involving as it does an almost constiint pres- ence and prominence of the teacher as the author of the derived knowledge, how can it other than insensi- bly and surely lead the child into utter obH-dousness of his own independent acquisitive power and purely individual duty ? Always flinging around his attain- ment of the conveyed knowledge, the halo of the yb SCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. teacher's presence, interest, and attractive still, how can it do other than envelop his solitary and unaided application, with a sadly contrasted cloud of dulness and uninterest? Our own observation leads us to the almost inevitable conviction that pupils who have been, to any great extent, trained upon this exclusive method, may really be quite acute and observing as to whatever appeals to the senses, or comes through some living source of presentation, but will, when thrown upon books and their own powers of reflec- tion, be foimd painfully lacking in capacity for sober and persistent self-application. Turning the attention now to those physical char- acteristics which the government of the school must recognize in the child, and to which it must adapt its management and discipline, we find two that require at least a brief notice. It needs but little observation to show that in the child, while there is a lack of enduring strength, there is a high degree of physical activity ; in fact, in pro- portion to his real power, his physical activity is at the maximum. So marked is this peculiarity, that it may not inaptly be styled the leading characteristic of his bodily nature, and the symbol of its proper conformation and perfect health. This activity may be traced to two sources, the mental activity of which we have before spoken, and the superabundant vitality bestowed upon the youthr ful organism. Necessarily, the restless objectivity of the child's mind must call for a constant employment of his physical powers in ministering to the wants of EELATIVE CHARACTERISTICS. 97 his intellect. Then, too, the child, instead of holding the physical powers in abeyance in his thinking, from his very impulsiveness, commands them into the ser- vice of his thoughts, as vehicles of expression. Hence, we might almost say, he thinks with his whole body. It is thus that the child is naturally a pantomimist. The more important aspect of its origin, however, is found in excess of vitality as subservient to bodily growth. Necessarily, as the child's frame must be a growing one, there must be in all its organic elements a vital energy more than adequate to the claims of mere sustentation. There must be in them a power capable of adding to what is, that which is to be, and so, adequate to the building up of the child into the man. And as this requires not only accumulation, but a growing assimilation, compactness and hardi- hood, there must also be the abundant exercise of all the maturity and power already attained. Nutrition adds, but exercise adjusts and estabhshes. Hence, exercise is one of the ruling instincts of the child. However much inconvenience, then, this activity may occasion to the teacher, it is idle for him to either disregard it or quarrel with it. It is a fixed fact in the child's nature, and must be provided for. Hence, in his management of the school, the teacher must see that adequate provision is made for this physical want. He should, as far as he can, have a care that the confinement of the pupils during the daily sessions is not so lengthy or rigid as to produce a languor and exhaustion from which they do not readily recover. In the case of the yoimger class of 5 98 SCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. pupils wlio are not able to study, those of a feebler class whose tendency is to morbid inactivity, and those who are constitutionally over restless and ac- tive, he should strive to make especial provision. What these need, however, is not so much specific artificial exercise, as release from idle confinement, and opportunity for natural amusement. With re- gard, then, to aU his pupils, the teacher's manage- ment must be governed by the general principle that, while the child's physical nature must experience some natural inconvenience from the necessary con- finement and restraint of the school-room, his bodily health and development must not be made to suffer by allowing that confinement and restraint to be un- duly extended or severe. Beyond this, no fixed or invariable rule is possible. For example, in the rural districts, where the freedom of nature is enjoyed, and people are brought up to wholesome industry, school children rarely suffer for want of exercise. It is abundantly supplied by their home amusements and avocations, their journeys to and from school, and the recesses customarily allow- ed them dui'ing the daily sessions. But in the case of the children in the schools of our larger towns a,nd cities, whose opportunities for natural, open air amusement and development are more restricted, greater attention must be given to the matter of arti- ficial exercise. But whatever may be the locality, school, or class of children, the teacher must, to a greater or less extent, discriminate for himself as to the time, quantity, or quality of the exercise. No RELATIVE CHAKACTEEISTICS. 99 specific rules can be given him. His guide under the general law indicated above must be simply sound common sense. The reference, which has just been made to artifi- cial exercise, suggests the importance of raising some question as to the utility of gymnastics. And this the more particularly, because, reacting from our former complete neglect of physical culture, there is among our educators, a growing tendency to swing to the extreme of maldng this species of artificial ex- ercise everything. That gymnastics, like military drill, have their place and utility, it is useless to doubt. For example, given a class of pupils who have been trained in habits of physical indolence and inac- tivity ; one precluded by the false feminine usages of society from active out-door pursuits or amusements ; or one, by absorption in study, made oblivious of the physical wants, — given either of these classes, and an established order of gymnastic exercises is probably the only thing that can effectively supply the defi- ciency. Here, their use may be set down as a neces- sity ; for, where natural means fail or are fooUshly discarded, a resort to those which are artificial is inevitable. But from this, it is quite apparent that the field within which gymnastics as an established mode of exercise and culture are applicable, is restricted. In the case of the pupils in our country schools, who enjoy the facilities for physical activity and develop- ment, afforded by rural life and industrious habits, and even in that of the children of the laboring 100 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. classes of our larger towns and cities, wlio, when not industriously employed, enjoy the wild freedom of the streets, — ^in the case of both these classes gym- nastics are practically superfluous. What need of stares, or rings, or dumb-bells, or Indian clubs, to the young " sans culotte" of the streets and alleys, or to the farmer-boy, who, in addition to the games of the recess and noon-spell, has his mile walk in going to and from school, and his " chores to do" morning and night at home ? This, however, is not the Umit of their restriction. In the case of young children, their application is little other than absurd. And this because, with a " Vaulting ambition whicli o'erleaps itself," it claims to be a wisdom above nature. Nature has indicated with unmistakable clearness, the means by which the young child is to secure the physical ac- tivity requisite to a proper development of its bodily powers. Its own spontaneous vivacity, its own rest- less curiosity, its own ever-ready imitation of the movements of men, its own insatiable love of asso- ciated sports, — these are nature's occasions for exer- cise. Through the activity thus secured, she has provided for them a means of physical development more accessible, more varied, more extensive, more practical, more completely pervaded by an intelligent interest, and to the child, every way more delight- some. To all this class, formal gymnastics are a forced and unnatural work. Their simple appearance under its processes is a continual protest against EELATIVE CHAEACTEEISTICS. 101 these factitious de-dees. Their difficulty in effecting accurate movements, their strained and anxious look of attention, and their lack of hilarious interest, show- that nature's law for the child's exercise is spon- .taneous and unconscious activity. Now, if the indi- cations of nature are worth anything, (and the attempt of some modem educators is to make them para- mount,) this is the very field where they are most clear and decisive. Beyond this, we question whether these principles should not be applied to another class to whom the modem gymnast holds out his exercises as a desidera- tum ; we mean to our incipient and precociously de- veloped young ladies. Give them open grounds, a common-sense attire— one adapted to both activity and cleanliness — fuU liberty of action, and the choice games of their brothers, and we verily believe nature wotdd soon eviace the superiority of her modes over all systems of artificial traiaiiig. Put into the girl's hand the hoop and stick instead of the staff, the ball and bat instead of the dumb-bells ; let her run and jump instead of striding extravagantly by rule, in prescribed dirctions; get her enlisted in "hide and seek," "prisoner's base," or "I spy," instead of twist- ing and twirling herself in unimaginable curves and spirals, and depend upon it, the physical development will not be found lingering like " a laggard in a lady's chamber," but will speedily show itself foremost in the field. The only difficulty in the way is this; gymnastics are fashionable ; games for girls, vulgar ! It is, perhaps, not improper that some reference 102 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. should here be made to military drill as a means of physical culture, since, in the minds of many educa- tors, it has come to hold an important place. Of this we think it may be said, that, wheneyer it is appHca- ble, it has its advantages, and is, in some respects,, superior to' mere gymnastics. In the first place, it has that moral superiority v^hich ia a cardinal virtue in any exercise; namely, a recognized end beyond itself, and beyond that of mere bodily development. The influence of this to create a sustained and sus- taining interest, and to dignify its whole routine, is unmistakable. Beyond this, it is impossible for it to run into mere conceits or absurd and repulsive exag- gerations in movement. Hence, also, its influence on the mien or carriage generally, is more manly and en- nobling, than it is possible for that of gymnastics, with its larger hcense and purely material ends, to be. Lastly, its power to establish habits of implicit obedi- ence is necessarily greater, inasmuch as that obedi- ence is not merely enforced by the present command, but is also fixed by aU the associated ideas of the sub- lime art to which it is subordinate, and in which that obedience is seen to be a beauty and a power. But, as was suggested, the apphcation of military drill is limited, for it requires numbers, a certain degree of maturity, and is altogether a masculiae exercise. The general inference to be drawn from these facts is, that while gymnastics may be employed where they are adapted, more attention should be given by teachers to the natural means of exercise enjoyed by their pupils. Hence, the teacher should recognize it RELATIVE CHAEACTEEISTICS. 103 as one of his duties, not only to provide proper and sufficient occasions for relaxation and amusement, but also to personally oversee tlie out-door or play- house sports (for every school should have its play- house) of his pupils. He should do this, in order that he may influence them in the choice of their games, advise with them as to the conduct of those games, secure to all a proper participation, guard any against excess, or exposure, or serious accident, and provide against the occurrence of injustice or angry contention. We believe that the common neglect to perform this supervisory service is a great mistake both as to duty and policy. Not only do physical evils result from it, but not unfrequently moral com- plications arise, which affect the harmony of the school, and, in the end, severely tax its government. Returning from this somewhat divergent discussion, to the child's physical characteristics, it is important to notice that, even when healthy or stoutly built, the child's frame is not mature or weU knit, and that, in the majority of cases, it is even slender or positively feeble. It is consequently not at all adapted to ex- cessive physical effort, or to rough and violent usage. Hence, where either of these evils is allowed, serious mischances may not only result, but milst rather be expected. This, it will at once be seen, enforces the duty just suggested, — that of carefully supervising the sports of the pupils. It renders it equally imperative upon the teacher to be watchful agaiast roughness or sud- den violence in the administration of discipline. 104 SCHOOL GOYESNMENT. Nothing is, however, here determined as to the ques- tion of corporal punishment. It is only affirmed that, if it be accepted as legitimate, it should be adminis- tered in such ways as wiU not endanger the child's frame as yet immature or slender. No sudden and ■violent jerking of the pupil or whirling him about the room should be tolerated. Either may easily result in the dislocation of some joint, the fracture of some of the small bones of the hmbs, or in the infliction of some injury to the spine, ultimately producing weak- ness in the back. Nor should any heavy implements ever be employed in inflicting blows upon the child ; and, above all, no blows should ever be inflicted upon any part which, from its direct connection with the nervous centres, must be dangerously sensitive to any severe shock or contusion. AU such treatment of the pupil is undignified and brutal. It is simply the outbreak of passionate unreason. It is not discipline. Having thus somewhat fully discussed the indivi- dual characteristics of the child's nature, as subject to the government of the school, we have to turn the attention to those which are general, and contingent on the constitution of the school. These traits, unlike the preceding, must mark the many rather than the few, and, hence, require the children in the school to be taken into view as a body. Here, then, it must be observed that, necessarily in the great majority of our pubhc schools, the children must be of both sexes. Even were it the better course to separate the sexes, which admits of question, in the larger number of cases it would be impracticable. EELATrVE CHAEACTEEISTICS. 105 Hence, in these schools, boys and girls must be taught and trained together; and the teacher who ■would govern justly or most successfully, must re- cognize this necessity, and adapt his government accordingly. But to do this, he must keep in mind the fact that there are distinctions in the character of the two, which render a common adaptation insufficient. There are specific traits in each, which require speci- fic modifications. In the earliest or comparatively infantile period, the divergence in these traits is less marked, and a common method wiU avail equally for both boys and girls. But as they advance to child- hood, the divergence is marked, and demands dis- crimination. For example, the boy's nature responds more readily to appeals made to his manly ambition ; the girl is more sensitively alive to personal appre- ciation and love. The boy will better bear a frank and somewhat bluff manner ; the girl instinctively craves an approach marked by the sympathizing look, the gentle word, and the kind caress. And these influences grow severally stronger as the two advance to the keener seU'-appreciation of youth ; for both then comprehend more clearly the import of the teacher's bearing toward them. The boy dis- covers in it the distinct and generous recognition of his manhood ; and the girl feels in its fine coiurtesy and considerate regard, the first dawn of the homage her womanhood may always claim from the true man. It is quite possible also for these means of influ- ence to become of the first importance, since, with 106 SCHOOL G0VEEK3IENT. growtli in years, the force of mere authority over the mind diminishes. Hence, the feelings just indicated in the boy or girl, may come to be the only available sources of control. Happy, then, mil be the teacher who has fixed himself in the hearts of both, as a gen- erous and appreciative friend, — ^in that of the boy, by a hearty confidence in his trustfulness, and pride in his manly energy ; and in that of the girl, by a re- fined and chivaWc attention and esteem. A fact, by no means to be overlooked here, is this ; that in the exercise of this infiuence, a contrast of sexes between the teacher and pupil, reduplicates its pov/er. Hence, often, a boy, who would be quite in- sensible to the confidence or praise of a man, will be completely taken captive by the same means skill- fully employed by a genial and attractive woman. ; and, contrariwise, a girl, whose supreme deHght would be to contemn and caricature a teacher of her own sex, wiU evince a most considerate and obedient re- gard for a preceptor who gives her, by his tact and courtesy, the always pleasing assurance that he both understands and appreciates her character. Hence, it is seriously to be questioned, whether a grave mis- take is not made in our boys' schools, by employing tutors exclusively, and in our female seminaries, the corresponding one of placing the pupils almost whoUy under the instruction and control of lady teachers. The natural tendency of this course, we believe to be, the perpetuating in the former, of rough manners and unamiable passions ; and in the latter, the thorough consummation of boarding-school diablerie. EELATIVE CHAEACTEEISTiCS. 107 But we pass, in conclusion, to notice the hetero- geneousness of the school, as giving rise to contingent traits of character, that bear a vital relation to the government. As our schools are constituted, it is well known the pupils must be marked by the great- est possible diversity of age, constitution, tempera- ment, character, social condition, and antecedent training. Some are hardly past sheer infancy ; while others are verging upon manhood and womanhood. Some are slender, even to helplessness ; and others are hardy and domineering. Some are sensitive ; while others are rough and unfeeling. Some are ready and versatile ; and others slow and even pitia- bly obtuse. Some are burdened with conscious poverty ; others are full of pride of position. Some have been humored, and perhaps enfeebled, by over indulgence ; while others have been hardened and almost imbruted by passionate and unnatural abuse. And between these various extremes, the in- dividual character may run through a whole gamut of the most perplexing gradation. Now, it is quite clear that no government that does not in some way, and to a good degree, reach these differences, can be either just, merciful, or effective. And, yet, it must be quite impracticable to frame a government that shall in its organic structure be able to effect this object. A surface of collective charac- ter so tortuous in its corrugations can not easily find any organic whole that will readily touch it at all points. To endeavor then to secure adaptation by specific provisions would result in such multipHoation 108 SCHOOL GOTEBNMENT. of details as woiald destroy all simplicity, intelligibil- ity and effectiTeness. The great want can tlien be met only by tbe appli- cation, under the teacher's absolute prerogative, of the one principle of authoritative discrimination in the application of either requisition or discipHne. In deahng with the individual pupil, as comprehended in his condition and character by the teacher, the various provisions of his government must be fear- lessly suspended or modified according to the case, so as to make the pressure, as far as may be, practi- cally equal. Hence, from the beginning, the teacher should explicitly avow his right and his determina- tion to do this ; and the school should be made to see and feel, not perhaps the justness of each specific ap- plication, that must rest on the teacher's simple au- thority, but that of the general principle. Nor should such discrimiaation be charged as par- tiality. While it is not to be doubted that the gov- ernment of the school should be comprehensive, that is, that it shoijld be a government for the whole, and not for a part to the detriment of the whole, nothing can be clearer than that to neglect or refuse to dis- criminate in behalf of any part according to its natu- ral claims, whenever that can be done without injury to the whole, is to dispense with both adaptation and justice, and make the government the iron engine of blind theory and arbitrary will. Hence, the teacher who exhibits a deference or regard for a thoroughly good pupU, which he would not evince toward a vicious and disobedient member of the school ; who extends a KELATIVE CHARACTEEISTICS. 109 lenity to a feeble and uncared-for child, wHcli he withholds from one robust, or possessed of ample ad- vantages; who bestows a painstaking kindness and labor upon the duU, the timid, or the easily depressed, which he denies to the ready, the resolute or the for- ward ; who allows priTileges to the infantile members of his flock, which he refuses to grant to the older ones ; who, in a hundred such ways, while planning for the whole, discrimiaates for the benefit of the parts ; — such a teacher is not partial ; he is simply sensible and just. PartiaKty is discriminating or showing favor without, or against, just reasons. But discriminating or showing favor for wise and suffi- cient reasons, although often thus stigmatized, is no partiality ; it is rectitude. Let the teacher, then, see to it that his government is neither from ignorance nor fear, undiscriminating ; nor from blind prepossessions or prejudices, simply partial. CHAPTEE VI. GENERAL ELEMENTS OF SCHOOL GOYERNMENT IN ITSELF OONSIDEKED. Main theme resumed — General elements classified, as Order and Disci- pline — Necessity for the two, common — Order defined and classified, as Arrangement and Management — Arrangement d^ned — Characteristics of arrangement — Simplicity necessary — Definiteness considered — Kules a necessity — School, mechanical as well as moral — System important — Secures harmony — Secures thoroughness — System liable to abuse- Must be practical — Specijic applications of arrangement — To juvenile class exercises — To outside study — To recesses — Management defined — Its eharaeteristies — Promptness — EvUs of tardiness — Causes loss of time and confusion — Promptness induces general pimctuality — Steadi- ness — Fluctuation a prevailing evil — Steadiness produces respect — Creates faith — Cultivates popular stability — Samestnesa — Promotes proper confidence of manner — Creates enthusiasm — Geniality — ^Pleas- ure as well as profit of the pupil to be studied — Importance of sympathy — Induces a loving regard — Quietness — Not mere sluggish unconcern — Quietness favors intelligent apprehension — Tends to quiet order in the school — ^Favors proper reticence in the teacher — Induces higher respect for the teacher — Good management promotive of general order — Reduces the need for discipline. The preceding topics, which were in some sense general and preparatory, have been abeady seen to be of vital importance. As possessing such impor- tance, and yet, as too generally secnring only a pass- ing notice, it was judged proper to discuss them with a good degree of thoroughness. In doing that, some points belonging to the main subject were, of neces- sity, anticipated, and that at the risk of subsequent repetition. Notwithstanding that fact, they will be GENERAL ELEMENTS : OEDEE. Ill noticed in what follows, in their proper place, and according to the just demands of the occasion. This ■will be considered as fully justified by the too com- mon neglect of them ; by the new light thrown upon them by their immediate relations ; by their iatriasic importance ; and by the necessary claims of our whole scheme to systematic completeness. "We pass then, after so much delay, to the consid- eration of the main theme, or school government in itself considered. Bearing in mind the fact, as before stated, that school government is the proper ordering of the organic and individual action in the school, so as to secure in the pupils the best possible develop- ment of mind and discipline of heart, with reference both to present and future weKare, we proceed to the consideration of its general elements viewed as those distinct parts of the teacher's exercise of his intelli- gence, skill, authority and virtue, which make up his entire system of control. These we classify under two general heads ; namely, Order and Discipline. A very common error of the public, and probably of a majority of teachers also, is that of regarding the government of the school as summed up in the discipUne alone. This is possibly due to the fact that the discipline is the higher and more striking' element, and as such, appeals more forcibly to the apprehension of the common miud. Were the esti- mate rested upon this comparative superiority, and the discipline accepted as simply representative of the whole, there would be no particular ground of complaint. But when it is allowed to overshadow 112 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. and conceal the other element, the thing is altogether inconsistent and injurious. For a variety of reasons, both of these elements, though in some features distinct, are inseparable and alike necessary. That they must be so taken, will appear from the following, facts stated in brief ; their general institution and conduct must run quite paral- lel ; their perfection must depend on the same exe- cutive qualities; and their facts are, all the time, mutually emerging fcom, or re-acting upon, each other. Indeed, nothing can be clearer than that the right ordering of the operations of the school must bear strongly, both upon the amount of the discipline required, and upon the ease with which it may be ad- ministered. Certainly, no ill-ordered school can be, without a corresponding multiplication of offenses ; nor can those offenses be corrected without a corres- ponding draft upon the power to be exercised. Con- trariwise, also, the just discipline of offenders must re-act powerfully upon the regular operations of the school, making the mere conduct of its daily system the more easy and successful. The thorough defeat of misrule in any school, is the certain triumph of its general order. ■ By the order of the school, we mean that which includes its general system, or which covers all its ordinary operations as determined by the teacher. This will, of course, include the two subdivisions, Arrangement and Management. Arrangement is inclusive of all that pertains to the systematic disposition of the sessions and recesses of GENEBAI, ELEMENTS : AERANGEMENT. 113 the school, of its studies, recitations and exercises. Of the absolute importance of arrangement, little need be said. As being simply the nice adjustment of the regular machinery of the school, it bears too directly upon its daily running, to be at all obscure or doubtful in its influence. Nothing can do more to secure the movement of the whole machine against irregularity, friction or jar, and retardation. Indeed, a proper arrangement may justly be styled the better haK of good management. A proper arrangement must be marked by four leading characteristios ; simplicity, definitencss, sys- tem and practicality. First, it must be simple. Such is the defective organization of our public school systems generally, that, in most schools, any disposition of the daily operations wiU be complicated enough. But that the arrangement may not burden the teacher's mind to the detriment of other parts of his work, and that it may not, through any needless cumbrousness, be pre- vented from being successfully carried out, it is quite clear that it shoidd involve as few parts, and be sub- ject to as few rules as possible. Whether the teacher is able to reach any ideal, or prescribed model of simplicity or not, let simplicity be carefully studied and persistently sought. While, however, simphcity is to be a constant aim, let it not be secured at the expense of definitemss, There should be no vagueness or uncertainty in the operations of the school. Purely incidental matters may, of course, be left to an incidental or impromptu 114; SCHOOL GO\TERNMENT. adjustment. This will serve to cultivate in the teacher, both tha,t quick perception and ready skill which are necessary to his perfect mastery of his position, and to secure in the adjustment effected, a truer adaptation to the immediate wants of the occasion. But for everything else, there should be a well-deter- mined time and place, otherwise the scheme of the school will operate somewhat and somewhere to the discredit and, perhaps, the embarrassment of the teacher, and to the disadvantage or the injury of those under his charge. From this, it will be quite apparent that rules vdU be necessary. Certaiuly, the teacher can have no fixed or definite arrangement, without laying down specific rules for himself ; nor can he expect to secure conformity to his own laws of arrangement, among his pupils, without laying down rules as specific for their guidance. Some educators are accustomed to set forth with an ostentatious fiourish of supposed philosophy, the doctrine that the teacher is to make no rules for the school, and that he who does it is, per se, unfit for his business. As is usually the case with superficial thinkers who would be wise over- much, they fail to discover one very important fact ; namely, that as an organized body, the school is mechanical as well as moral ; it has parts and opera- tions that must be fixed by positive regulations, as weU as those which must be determined by moral principle. The general law, " Do right,'' upon which these theorists lay so much stress, and which has been somewhat carefally noticed elsewhere, even if GENBSAL ELEMENTS : AEEANGEJIENT. 115 it answered tlie ends of the moral element in the school, would be utterly absurd if applied to its me- chanical operations. For example, such questions aSj where, or ia what order pupils sliaK attend to such and such exercises, are questions of scholastic econ- omy, and not personal rectitude. They are to be de- termined by the judgment, and not by the reason. They find their claim to obedience in the positive au- thority of the teacher, and not ia the enhghtened im- pulse of the pupil's conscience. The same is true of many other requisitions which will be noticed here- after under this general head. Again, both for the sake of its own perfection, and in order to secure various important ends, the ar- rangement of the operations of the school must be systematic. Some of these have already been noticed in the discussion of government as appUed to the child-nature. Another will be foimd in the simple power of system to reflect the teacher's capacity as a practical analyst and cemprehensive manager. Fur- thermore, system in arrangement favors the sim- plicity and definiteness to which reference has just been made. Indeed, it is only through the clear analysis which must antedate and determine the sys- tem chosen, that the teacher becomes able to simplify his arrangement by jrejecting non-essentials, and to render it definite by applying rules according the relative demand of its various parts. Beyond these, system is necessary to harmony both in the arrangement and the conduct of the school operations. Not until every part is adjusted in its 116 SCHOOL GOTEKNMEST. place under the inspiring spirit of true system, can the whole become a self-consistent unit; and not until this pervading unity is attained, can the whole movement be secure against possible friction or con- flict. System is thus in the school, as elsewhere, "The hidden soul of harmony." But to this very harmony, tJiorotighness, or compre- hensiveness is necessary. It is only imder the light of a systematic classification of the facts of the ar- rangement, that the whole field stands clearly revealed in aU its parts, their proportions and relations, so that the judgment may determine whether aught is wantiag to the just completeness of the whole. And the importance of this completeness is seen in the simple fact that it is the only safeguard against spe- cific or incidental legislation, which is always waste- ful of power and injurious to harmony. As in build- ing, the thrusting of modifications into the origiaal plan, always enhances the cost disproportionally, and endangers the ultimate symraetry of the edifice ; so is it with the thrusting ia of impromptu regulations to meet overlooked contingencies in the order of the school; they endanger its consistency, and unduly bur- den its movements. While, however, the teacher must hold system as essential, he must not forget that it is susceptible of abuse. He must not forget that just in proportion as it aspires to perfection, it is in danger of withdrawing itseK from the conservative influence of circumstances, and of becoming consequently alto- gether speculative and impracticable. Such a system is necessarily unfitted to the wants of our schools, in GENERAL ELEMENTS: AEBANGEMENT. 117 whicli, SO generally, stubborn facts both confront and confound fine-spun theories. It is also the more to be guarded agaiast, because under the existing and growing passion of education for absolute schemes based upon exhaustive analyses, the, perhaps, domi- nant and most dangerous tendency of popular educa- tion is to swing to impracticable or vicious extremes, and not unfrequently, through arcs of oscillation either tremendous or absurd. Hence, the arrangement of the school operations, while systematic, must be practical. While in con- stituting it, the teacher may be guided by well-con- sidered theory, he must stUl see to it, that the insuffi- ciencies or aberrations of his theory are constantly corrected by a careful induction of facts, — the very facts which his method must meet and master, or prove a failure. Better, if need be, sacrifice some- what of theoretical perfection than come short of practical adaptation. As illustrative of what we mean in this connection, take the following specific appHcations of the princi- ple. In every public school, there are commonly, some general exercises in which the larger portion of the pupils may engage simultaneously. Eightly managed, these are quite desirable, as they serve to develop skill and energy in the teacher, and unity of feehng and harmony of action among the pupils. The studies adapted to such exercises are gymnastics, singing, spelling, and reading. Now the principle of arrangement, under consideration, requires that these should be set apart for the opening or the close of 118 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. school, for the reason that they will then least inter- fere with individual appHcation to study, the pupils having either, not begun their work upon their lessons, or having already finished it. So too, of these exer- cises, those should be set down for the openiag, which require the least antecedent preparation, because there has yet occurred no time for such preparation. StUl further, those that are most exhausting should come in the same connection as the preceding, be- cause at that time, the physical powers are most fresh and vigorous. Again, the training of the juvenile classes in the alphabet and reading, the object exercises if there be any, and the reading lessons of the larger classes, should occur ia the early part of each session, so as to afford time for the preparation of the various les- sons to be recited by those who are mature enough to study. Among the first of these, may also be in- cluded the recitation of lessons prepared the evening beforehand, at home, for the obvious reason that they are in readiness, and should be put out of the way of the daily study. The assignment of those lessons to be learned at home should not be made without regard to principle. They should embrace studies which the pupil can pursue independently to the best advantage, and which will require the least transportation of appa- ratus or materials, or those which require results in writing rather than those in abstract retention. In the distribution of exercises or studies between the two sessions, those should be assigned to the GENERAL ELEMENTS: MANAGEMENT. 119 morning session, -which are the least interesting or the most severe, since dnriag that portion of the day, the powers of both the teacher and the pupils are most fresh and vigorous. The assignment of the recesses should also be care- fully regulated by this principle of practical adapta- tion. Nothing can be more absurd than the common custom of having one and the same recess for the older and the younger pupils ; for those who can, and those who cannot study. The latter should have two or three recesses rather than one, for it is little other than cruelty to compel them to sit idly and wearily waiting the coming of the, to them, long-delayed re- cess. Of the former class, there are frequently some to be foiind who should almost be ashamed to take one recess, as if it were practically an impeachment of their power of fixed application. The principle of practical adaptation will also raise the inquiry, whether the recess should occur precisely in the middle of a session, at which time, while the pupil has not become fatigued, his mind has only just got most closely and vigorously at its work ; or nearer the close when his study is done, or is nearly so ; when he is actually fatigued ; and when a recess wiU refresh his powers preparatory to the work oi recita- tion. But we pass from these illustrations of the bearing of practicality upon the arrangement, to the subject of management. Management is that part of order which includes all that belongs to the proper conduct and complete carrying out of the system of arrange- 120 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. ment adopted. It hence, covers tlie wtole of the teacher's bearing and action during the progress of the various parts of his system, and in carrying his school through them, whether they are sessions or recesses, exercises or recitations. A proper management must be marked by five general characteristies ; namely, Promptness, Steadi- ness, Earnestness, Geniality and Quietness. First, it must be prompt. Generally in the public schools, there is an excess of work, and hence, a de- ficiency in time. It is rarely, if ever, the case that the teacher is able to carry the whole daily order through with sufficient or invariable thoroughness. Either all of the parts must be somewhat abbreviated or hurried, or some of them must be practically neg- lected. Promptness, then, as a means of saving time, is indispensable, for this saving of time is necessary to the perfection of the teacher's work. Hence, the teacher must be instant to the time, as the peal is to the flash. Then, again, tardiness is necessarily confusion. An exercise delayed is either an exercise cut unduly short, or inconsistently crowded upon its feUow. Whichever it may be, the order of the school is out of joint, and so far the result is confusion. Not un- frequently, too, the first pressure caused by the loss of time, throws the teacher into a nervous hurry for the whole session, and thus the disorder is perpetuated. The only preservative against such hurry and con- fusion is promptness. Still further, promptness in the teacher operates GENERAL ELEMENTS : MANAGEMENT. 121 both indirectly and directly to secure punctuality and readiness throughout the whole school. Of the bear- ing of these upon the general harmony and success, little need be urged. Prevailing dilatoriaess is little better than prevailing insubordination. It is the necessary concomitant of lack of interest ; and lack of interest is lack of order. Hence, it is always safe to conclude that unless the teacher's management is prompt, his discipline must be defective, if not a failure. Again, the teacher's management must be steady. One of the most common evils in both parental and school government is that of constant fluctuation. There is no steady and continuous pressure of the authority, in the direction chosen, and to the very end of a complete attainment. To-day decisive measures are adopted and pressed with vigor. To-morrow the effort is relaxed, and the preceding pohcy practically contradicted. It may be even worse than this; through fickleness of purpose or love of novelty, the old measures or methods may be summarily aban- doned, and new ones fitfully introduced in their place. One of the necessary results of this unsteadiness is loss of respect for him who hais the management of affairs. Unsteadiness argues either ignorance, lack of forecast, or weakness of purpose, any one of which is enough to secure the just condenmation of the teacher. But, very, clearly, the finest attainment of order must depend very largely upon the respect which the teacher commands. Without that respect, he can carry neither methods nor measures to a 6 122 SCHOOL GO'i'EBNMENT. happy completion. His sole dependence must be mere arbitrary authority, perhaps what is still worse, mere brute force. But however proper these may be in their place, without the concurrence of respect, the success they may Avin is half failure. Beyond this, unsteady management destroys faith in the certainty of things. Few principles are more productive of uniform and orderly action among men than that of the invariable uniformity of nature. Siuce the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Ma- homet must go to the mountain. Nature wiU not change, hence, man conforms to nature. So the reg- ularity of nature begets regularity in man. Thus, in the school, the inflexible steadiness of the manage- ment creates among the pupils, unwavering faith in the certaiaty of results, and a fixed conviction of the necessity of conformity to the consequent condition of things. This is itseM order. Order thus begotten is habit. And habit is self-controlling. Hence, steadiness itself is power. But aside from its direct bearing on the manage- ment of the school, this steadiness has a most impor- tant prospective influence. As tending to the creation of habitual steadiness.of action among the pupils of our schools, it operates ultimately as a corrective of one of our worst national characteristics, popular in- stabihty. "With us, everything, from the action of individuals to the gravest matters of national legisla- tion, is in a state of constant fluctuation. Violently receding from one extreme, only to rush as violently to another; up for a measure like a flood-tide or an GENEEAL ELEMENTS : MANAGEMENT. 123 inundation, and then, tmder thQ influence of some counter excitement, subsiding, or ebbing until, in the old direction, nothing is -visible but dreary mud-flats or barren sand-spits ; it becomes a question whether we are really susceptible of becoming stable. This much, however, is certain, that if that stability is ever to be established as a national trait, its foundation must be laid in the individual character as developed in the home and in the school. And yet there is reason to fear that unsteadiness in. management is one of the most common and most incorrigible faults of both. Again, the management of the school must evince earnestness. Promptness and steadiness carry with them the appearance of mere power, and are, hence, liable to give to the teacher's bearing and action an air of stiffness and coldness, which can never prove favorable to the best development of the young mind. This evil can only be countervailed by the presence and pervading influence of some heart-principle in the management. Hence, it is every way important that all that the teacher does should be characterized by thorough earnestness. For more particularly, a thorough earnestness always produces in the teacher an air of firm assurance that carries to the mind of the pupil a full conviction of the teacher's ability. Proper self-reliance, or confidence, is itself a source, as well as an evidence, of power. This is eminently true of the confidence or assurance begotten of true earnestness. But, for the possession of that earnest- ness, the teacher's entire business is a continual plea. 124 SCHOOL GOTEBNMENT. Hence, for the lack ef it in lis management, lie has no excuse. Stm further^ this earnestness on the part of the teacher, in all the various exercises of the school, is contagious. It passes beyond himself. It flies from heart to heart throughout the little commonwealth. It finds and arouses in each a kindred spirit. Up springs through aU ranks and classes a kindred zeal. This general earnestness, or zeal, at once commits the whole school to the order which the teacher has instituted, and in which he is so deeply and evidently interested. In this way, the teacher's earnestness, by commanding spontaneous co-operation, reduplicates his power and ensures success. Partly out of this demand for earnestness, grows the demand that the management should be genial. That earnestness is supposed to be generous, not wrapped up in the attainment of ends concemiag the teacher alone, but ever looking forward to the wel- fare of the pupil as the highest good. A genuine in- terest ia this latter object will naturally shed over the teacher's whole bearing and action in the conduct of the school, the light of a constant and considerate good will. Hence, so far as it can be done without destroying dignity or infringing upon order, the teacher should come down pleasantly to the pupil's level, evince a sympathetic feeling for him, and skill- fully adapt things to the production of his pleasure, as well as his profit. This, by no means argues that he should humor the pupU in what is weak or inju- nous, nor that he should stoop so far as to mingle in GEKEEAL ELEMENTS: MANAGEMENT. 125 his rougli sports, — ^himself a mere boy among boys. But it does imply that he should comfort the child when he is in trouble, encourage him in his efforts to do well, evince -an interest in his amusements, and lend him a helpful aid in planning or perfecting such as are really wholesome and gleeful. The natural influence of aU this, it is easy to see, •■ftill be to enlarge the pupil's confidence in the kindh- ness, as well as the ability, of the teacher, and to draw both together in the bonds of a common and a grow- ing love. The effect of such a love is to secure on the part of the pupil, a hearty co-operation in all the plans of the teacher, and to ensure to his manage- ment a perfect success. It is in reaching the sources of this love, as will be elsewhere shown, that the teacher attains the seat of his highest influence and power. There is, however, one tendency of high earnest- ness which must be guarded against, and the more carefully, because the influence of aU this pressure upon the teacher in the direction of perfect manage- ment, goes to increase that tendency. We speak here of the liability of the teacher to a sort of over energy in his management, degenerating, perhaps, into mere boisterousness. As opposed to this, it is demanded that the management be quiet. And by this is intended, not the quietness of shiggish unconcern, not the quietness that grows out of a fear of trouble, a dishke of labor, or a love for the comfortable but debasing recesses of an easy chair. The quietness proposed is not so much con- 126 SCHOOL GOTEKNMENT. stitutional or involuiifcary, as deliberate. It is the quietness of one who has carefully taken his own measure, and that of the objects he seeks to effect ; and who, confident of the end, calmly moves on, with- out haste, without perturbation, without tumult, without violence, towards its attainment. Nor is there anything in this which conflicts with the pene- trating glance, the firm tone, the animated move- ment ; it conflicts only with whatever is fussy, voci- ferous or violent. As a result of this quietness, it will be seen clearly that it favors the most intelligent understanding on the part of the school, of what is desired, or what is being done. All needless noise or parade of energy, by distracting the attention, and, perhaps, stunning the senses, tends to impair the distinctness of the pupil's perceptions, and so stands in the way of his receiving the clearest and most enduring impressions. Aside from this, as in the preceding instances, the tendency of the teacher's manner is to reproduce itself in that of his pupils. A quiet teacher may have noisy pupils, but it will be because the quietness is negative, and is, hence, coupled with positive ineffi- ciency. It is, nevertheless, the natural effect of the true quaHty, to rejjress the noisiness so common among children. Eightly employed, it is one of the most powerful means of securing an orderly silence in the school. Again, this rational quietness is favorable to the exercise of proper reticence, and may even produce it. By this reticence, we mean a wise reserve in the GENERAL ELEMENTS: MANAGEMENT. 127 teacher as to the antecedent betrayal or proclama- tion of his intentions or plans, to the school. There are, as has been stated, cases in which this pre^vious annoimcement of measures, as a means of intelligent understanding among the pupils, and as guarding them against unwitting errors, is necessary. But the object here, is to guard the teacher against a thoughtless habit of gossiping about his proposed measures, or of conceitedly flourishing them before the school. It cannot but be seen that it adds Httle to his credit, to be unable to keep his own govern- mental secrets. Besides, any such heedless or ostenta- tious parade of his plans much beforehand, leaves no room for unobserved modifications in case of diffi- culty or disappointment ; it operates directly, by tak- ing off the edge of novelty or newly expectant interest, to impair their effectiveness ; and it sometimes actu- ally leads to graver complications in the matters in- volved. A reticent quietness is, therefore, one of the finest attributes of the teacher's management. As a last excellence, this quiet management tends directly to create a higher respect for the teacher. To the observing pupil, nothing in the teacher can be more suggestive of manly self-control, and of power in re- serve. It is easy for him to see occasions enough for very natural outbreaks of vehemence in voice, or haste and disorder iu action. It is easy for him to see how the teacher, by means sudden and startling, al- though tending to disquietness and violence, might summarily secure the ends he seeks. But when he sees all this calmly forborne, and unmoved quietness, 128 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. and qtiiet immobility still tlie teacher's sole reliance, he can not but feel a profound reverence for a char- acter BO self-poised, and an authority so significantly reticent. The influence of such a reverence, on the teacher's success in the order of the school, is too ap- parent to need further discussion. It only remaias then, for us, under this general head, to urge upon teachers a closer attention to the arrangement and management of the operations of the school, as a part of their government, eniinently adapted to reduce the occasions for any uprising need of discipHne. It is, indeed, the proper field for the finest exercise of judgment and tact ia the apph- cation of the old maxim ; " An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." DiscipHne is chiefly cura- tive : arrangement and management are eminently preventive. They are the shrewdest alHes of that master-art ia the control of the young, — ^the art of counter-diversion, to which, as apphed to individual cases, reference has already been made. What is true of its power over the child as an individual, is as true of its influence on the school as a whole. Hence, it is quite possible for the school when ready, either from prevaUing weariness or general irritation, to break out into overt acts of subordination, to be, un- suspectingly to itself, swept by some skilful counter- diversion, into a new channel or new current of aroused interest or restored good feeling. For the attainment of such results, the teacher's management is responsible. OHAPTEE VII. GENERAL ELEMENTS CONITNOED — DISCIPLINE — KEQtHEE- MENT. Order and discipline related — Discipline disHnffidsJied from order — ^Dis- cipline deHned — ^Elements classified, as Requirement, Judgment and Enforcement, or Correction — Discipline as specifically related to school government — Eequirement (?wfa'M^«isA«d— Specific duties of the pupil classified ; as, Personal, Associated, and Filial and Scholastic — Claims of these self-evident — Sequirement restricted — IJlustration — Duties required out of school — OfTences in transitu — School jurisdic- tion limited — Influence hut not authority to bo employed — Excep- tional cases considered— Characteristics of requirement, moderate- ness, naturalness, fairness and firmness — Moderateness distinguished and enforced — Naturalness distinguished and enforced — Fairness dis- tinguished and enforced — Firmness considered. In passing to the consideration of discipline, it must be premised tliat it is so closely related to order, that it is difficult to treat them so far separately as to have no points in discussion common to both. And yet, general convenience and the real dijBferences that exist in their nature, require them to be thus separated. But in order that their points of approximation and divergence may be clearly distinguished, we shall place the two in careful contrast, as follows. Order in the government of the school, embraces whatever is merely mechanical, or organic ; discipline is in- clusive of whateA'er is moral in its nature or ends : order has jurisdiction over the field of practical G* 130 SCHOOL GOTEKNjniKT. economy or convenience ; discipline extendB its sway over tliat of personal responsibility or duty : order stands upon the claims of positive authority ; disci- pline is founded upon the ultimate principles of rec- titude : order regulates the exercise of the faculties as aU subsidiary to the development of the intellect ; discipline exerts control over the moral faculties, the conscience and the mil, as determinative of their own conditions, or of character. Hence, finally, the grand law of order is expediency ; that of discipline is rec- titude. Discipline, in its highest sense, may then be defined aa the proper control of individual power and responsibility in the school, with reference to the higher laws and aims of pure morahty. The elements of discipline, as thus defined, may be arranged under three general heads ; the legislative, judicial, and executive, and, as thus classified, may be specifically designated as ; Bequirement, Judgmerd, and Enforcement, or Correction. In the light of this classification, it will be seen that disciphne, as here treated, while bordering closely upon government as commonly understood in the state, is only a specific part of government as requir- ed for the school. The reason why government in the school is thus made more comprehensive than government in the state is clear. In the state, the maturity and independent capacity of the citizen, the necessary variety of his pursuits, and the freedom of application demanded, render a fixed and comprehen- sive method of action inconsistent, if not impractica- ble. In the school as a commonwealth, from the GENERAL ELEMENTS: BEQUIBEMENT. 131 immaturity and dependence of its members, and the necessity for the united and harmonious pursuit of a specific end, order becomes an essential part of the general control, and, hence, miist be included as the first grand element of the government, as discipHne is the second. Under the head of requirement as the first gen- eral element of discipline, must be included aU de- mands made upon the pupil as susceptible of moral relations, and subject to moral obligatio;a in the school. In other words, whatever the teacher may either posi- tively or negatively require as based upon principles of morahty ; as apprehended by the reason and felt in the conscience to be obligatory, — all this may be made a matter of disciplinary demand. Requirement, then, covers the whole ground of the pupil's moral obHgation as a member of the school. The specific duties embraced under the head of re- quirement may be classified thus : 1. Personal, or those the chUd owes to himself as pupil, as, for example, self-improvement : 2. Associated, or those the pupil owes to his com- panions as members of the school ; namely, Equity and Kindness : 3. Filial and Scholastic, or those the pupU owes to the parent so far as his commands reach the school, and those he owes to the teacher as its ruler, — or Obedience and Eeverence. Upon these duties severally considered, httle need be said. The obhgation of the pupil to fulfill them to the best of his ability is self-evident. That he should 132 SCHOOL GOAfEHNMENT. be a member of tbe scbool, necessarily involves his hearty co-operation in the effort of the school author- ity to secure his best development and disoipHne : he could not be anywhere associated with his compan- ions, much less in the intimate and imjjortant rela- tions of the school, without being bound to respect the rights and feehngs of all : from the duties of filial obedience and regard, no place or position can re- lease him, much less his membership ia the school which the parept has provided for the better advance- ment of his highest interests : and his obligation to obey and reverence the teacher as the specific repre- sentative of the parent, for the time being, and as the rightful and necessary head of the school and soul of its operations, is founded on the very nature of things. It will be observed, however, that the moral obli- gation involved in all these duties, is restricted, as if bounded by the pupil's relation to the school. This must be of necessity. School government is specific in its aim, and limited in its field of appUcation. "While, then, ethics entire may be properly embraced in the instruction given in the school, only such of its principles as are distinctly appHcable to the control of the child as a member of the school, can be pro- perly embraced in its system of government. These principles as constituting the body of school ethics, are all those which may be consistently noticed here. As illustrative of this restriction of school ethics, the following specific cases may be taken. The prin- ciples of ethics bearing upon " Duties to the Stats," GENESAL ELEMENTS : -EEQUIEEMENT. 133 can have no place whatever among the requisitions of school government ; for, neither is the child yet a citizen, nor would the school be held responsible for his treatment of those duties, even if the pupil had attained his majority. All that belongs to the rela- tions the pupil (if he be of age) holds to the state, and hence it is altogether within the province of civil government. The state, it is true, recognizes the school, but surrenders to the school none of its pre- rogatives. Again, the " Duties to the Parent" belong in gen- eral to the domestic relation, and properly come under the cognizance of the home government alone. It is quite clear, however, that out of the relation which the parent holds to the child in the school, and out of the relation which the teacher, as his agent or substitute, holds to the parent, there may arise spe- cific duties to the latter, which the former must re- cognize in his government. The parent may, for in- stance, with the consent of the teacher, lay certain specific requisitions upon his child as a member of the school ; and the government of the school may claim and enforce obedience to these requisitions. The duty of obedience in this case, while a quasi duty to the teacher, is primarily a duty to the parent. Such, and such only of the child's duties to the parent come within the jurisdiction of the teacher. Similar illustrations might be drawn from the duties of the pupil to the teacher, to his associates, and to himself. It is not necessary, however, to cite them, since the general principle is sufficiently clear ; name- 134 SCHOOL ■ GOATIKNMEIC;. ly, that whatever the duties may be, to fall properly under the cognizance and authority of the school government, they must both practically come •within its reach, and must evidently pertain to the facts and relations of the school as the commonwealth con- cerned. This general principle may be profitably applied to the solution of the question often raised as to the teacher's jurisdiction over the pupil's duties out of school, and especially pver offences occurring in irarir situ. With regard to any school duties required to be performed at home, it must be clear that the teacher has no original prerogative whatever. His right to assign such duties or to enforce their fcdfil- ment, must rest wholly on an understanding with the parent, either tacit or explicit. Even in this case, his application of authority must be indirectly to the de- ficiency evinced by the pupil in the school, rather than directly to the delinquency that occurred at home. For instance, in the case of lessons to be learned at home, it is competent for the teacher only to take cognizance of the fault of failure in recitation ; it belongs to the parent alone to correct the indolence or misappropriation of time at home, which was the real offence. The question as to offences occurring during the the period of the pupil's transition from his home to the school, and vice versa, is more intricate. And this, for the simple reason that the limits of the school jurisdiction are somewhat obscure. But the very cause of the difficulty is suggestive of the direction GENERAL ELEMENTS: EEQTJIKEMENT. 135 in •vrhich we are to look for the chief responsibility ia such cases. We may accept this, then, as a first principle; that where the limits of jurisdiction are the broadest and most definite, there is to be found the direct responsibility for the correction of the of- fences in question. Any other responsibility in this direction, must be whoUy conditioned and incidental. It needs now no argument to show that only the authority of the parent is thus comprehensive and complete in its application. The parents' jurisdiction over the child, and responsibility for his conduct, are subject to no restrictions of either place or time. Not merely within the precincts of the home, nor during certain set periods of employment, is the child held to the duty of obedience to parental law. It is a duty for all time and place. But it wiU certainly not be urged that the jurisdic- tion of the school government is thus far-reaching and comprehensive. limited ahke in its object, time, and place of action, nothing can be more evident than that the apphcation of its authority must find a necessary circumscription within corresponding limits. Not for the child's general conduct in society, at the home nor any more in the highways ; not for his be- havior upon holidays, at morning or at night, nor any more; during any time not within the immediate neighborhood of the school sessions, can the teacher, as teacher, be justly held responsible. The parent's authority may rightfully maintain its hold upon the child until he comes under the eye of the teacher, and within reach of his voice and hand ; but the teacher 136 BCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. has no right to extend his rule contrariwise over the child until the moment when he passes into the sacred precincts of the home, and into the parent's presence and power. It is demanding for the less, what can only be due to the greater. This, however, is not to take ground that the teacher may evince a stohd unconcern as to the conduct of his pupils elsewhere than within the precincts or the periods of the school ; nor is it taking from him the power to do anything outside of those limits; to ef- fectively subserve the pupil's welfare and the ends of good order. As a citizen and as a friend, he may, so far as he can, keep a kindly and careful eye upon the pupil's conduct during the periods of transition from the home to the school, and vice versa, and may exert all his influence to prevent the occurrence of offences, or to secure atonement for them ; but it is influence which he is to exert, and not authority. And not only inay he do much in this way ; but it is beheved that the very regard which he thus evinces for the rights of relative jurisdiction wiU add weight to his influence, and secure in the end better results than would be possible under what must necessarily be an arbitrary exercise of power. This, however, must not be construed in any sense, as ignoring the possibility of exceptional cases. For example, flagrant outbreaks of injurious violence for which there is no parental preventive or coiTec- tion, may come to the immediate notice of the teacher. Here it may be necessary for him to interfere, and the interference may be justified on the gi-oimd that GENERAL ELEMENTS : EEQUIEEMENT. 137 arbitrary rule is better than licentiousness. So, too, cases may occur in whicli evil-disposed pupils may avowedly take advantage of tlie supposed absence of jurisdiction, to do after school, what the teacher has forbidden ia school. In this case, the teacher may take cognizance of the act as an insolent evasion equivalent to quasi iasubordination. The case some- times cited, of a pupil's playing by the way, and so becoming late to the detriment of the school order, is not properly an exception ; for while the teacher may not claim jurisdiction over the act of loitering which was the major fault, the tardiness itseK is an immediate and legitimate occasion for disciphne. The distinction and the method involved in this case, will be found apphcable in many others, and their proper appHeation wiU enable the teacher to avoid the two injurious extremes of arbitrary jurisdiction and allowed disorder. Having thus defined the proper limits of require- ment as a department of the school government, we pass to the consideration of its general characteristics. These may be enumerated as chiefly four ; Moderate- ness, Naturalness, Fairness, and Firmness. The propriety of these characteristics, especially as determined by the traits of the child's nature as subject to the government of the school, has been partially considered under a previous head. It is, therefore, only necessary that they should be briefly noticed here and more especially with reference to their bearing on the government in itself considered By moderateness in requirement, we mean that the 138 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. teacher should, in all his demands upon the pupil as subject to moral obKgation, study to avoid severity or excess. It is better poKcy for him to fall somewhat under the full measure of exact requirement, than to incur any risk of overgoing it. Aside from lenient adaptation to the child's feebleness or imperfection, it is far easier to secure the perfect enforcement of moderate demands, or if need be, to bring them up to the full standard of just requisition, than it is to maintain those which have bean strained at the out- set, to their farthest limit, or to abate successfully those which have been found to be excessive. In school government, as in every other, practical excel- lence is to be determined, not so much by the abso- lute perfection of the laws, as by their capacity to be perfectly administered. By naturalness in requirement, we mean, not so much naturalness in the demands themselves, as in the method of their successive development. It is here considered as tantamount to that progressive- ness in school legislation, which has been elsewhere noticed. The ground consequently taken, is that of the inexpediency of pre-enacted codes of requisitions; or laws for the moral government of the school. And this, for the general reason that no such code can be made for any commonwealth, as it were to order, and be either wise or just. Law for the government of any community, has its grand principles which are co-existent with the possibility of a community. But beyond those principles, law is the creature of the common need ; and what that need is can only be GENEKAL ELEMENTS: KEQUIEELIENT. 139 determined by the developing power of circumstances. Hence, all specific lav/s should be, as it were, the nat- ural growth of circumstances. So in the government of the school, specific rules, to have a natural origin, fitness, and power, should be made, only as facts de- velop a need for them. Let the teacher pursue the opposite course, and Le will burden his system of discipline ■nith minute and ill-digested provisions, many of which he will either have to repeal or violate as unreasonable or oppressive. This, however, is not to be interpreted as contravening the careful promul- gation of general principles, elsewhere urged as ne- cessary. Beyond this, it is demanded that the teacher's re- quisitions in governing be thoroughly fair or honest. By this we mean, first, that all the means and ends of the requirement should be transparently what they purport to be. No subject of the school government should ever have occasion to suspect that he has been misled or overreached by policy or artifice. Any such impression wiU prove destructive to his confidence in the teacher, and respect for him ; and when those are wanting, authority may compel sub- mission, but it cannot command true obedience. Again, the requirement shotdd be expHcit so as to be beyond the possibihty of misconception. Pains should be taken, not only to unfold the demand fuUy and fairly, but also to ascertain whether it has been as fuhy and fairly understood. The government which, failing in this direction, exposes the pupil to unwitting transgression, stands itself impeached as 140 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. first in the fault. Still furtter, there should be no sudden revival and application of rules 'which, having lain dormant or lacked recent use, have passed out of the pupil's mind, or have been practically accepted by him, as inoperative. AH such action will assume the aspect of ex post facto legislation, and wiU appear, if it is not even what it appears, narrow and unjust. The government of the school must then in aU its re- quirements, be thoroughly frank and fair. The presence of the foregoing qualities in the school government, it wiU be seen, prepares the way for the existence of that firmness without which it hardly deserves the name of government. Given, requirements which are moderate, the product of a natural want, and thoroughly sincere and fair, and the teacher may press the demand for obedience, with the most inflexible firmness. Nay, in such a case, the greater, the more stubborn, the firmness, if we may so speak, the higher the rectitude of the school govern- ment, and the more absolute its claim to obedient re- gard. It is in the power of this unalterable firmness to dignify even the dying struggles of a bad cause. Much more is it able to gather about the upright front of righteous rule, the radiant symbol of divine excellence. Not only, then, for the pupil's sake, as has elsewhere been urged, but for its own, let the government of the school, in the firmness of its re- quirements, be " Constant as the northern star. Of whose true-fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament." OHAPTEE VIII. GENEEAL ELEMENTS CONTINUED. DISCIPLDIE — JtJDGMENT. Judgment defined — Importanee considered— Elements classified, as De- tection, Investigation, Judgment Proper or Decision — Detection dis- tinguished and classified, as Spontaneous, or Immediate and Mediate, or Circumstantial — Kinds distinguished — Spontaneous detection jus- tified — Its rtdee stated— 'Eyery offense not to be known — Knowledge of offenses, not always to be betrayed — Offenses to receive the most favorable construction — Mediate detection classified, as Incidental and Concerted — Importance of the latter — ^Especial difliculty arising from the school code of honor — Folly of condemning the code summarily— Course to te pursued — Pupils must be taught right views — Severer pun- ishment in case of conspiracy to conceal — Rules for concerted detection ' — Must be the sole means of discovery — Offenses must be of a flagrant character — Detection must be prosecuted for no inferior or private ends — -Grounds of consistency — Detection demanded for the general safety — The offense is necessarily covert — ^It is one of practical out- lawry — Metlwd to be pursued — Detection should be devolved on a sub- ordinate agent — Propriety of setting a. trap for offenders — Caution against seeking personal ends — ^Against the use of positive deception — Against undue exposure of the innocent — Objection to the use of temptation answered — Investigation described — Importance of investi- gation — ^Need of attention to practical logic — ^Logical process in inves- tigation considered — Evidence classified, as Personal and Circumstan- tial — Kinds distinguished and illustrated — Testimony the chief reliance — Confession iy stratagem unwarrantable — ^Practically dishonest — Impairs the teacher's self-respect — Demoralizing to the pupil — Particular caution as to the evidence of personal appearance — Bequir sites in witnesses — Opportunity, direct knowledge, capacity, veracity, freedom from prejudice — Caution as to the testimony of children — Kinds of testimony — Simple, Accumulated and Concurrent — Defined — General characteristics of testimony — Must be definite, accumulative, concurrent — Grounds of strength in concurrent testimony — Logical and 142 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. practical illustration — Decision — Defined — Characteristics — ^Miist be positive, overt, explicit — General cha/racieristics- of judgment — Must be deliberate, comprehensive, righteous and decisive — Popular decisions in the school condemned. Passing now to the second general element in the discipline of the school, we observe, that under the head of judgment, must be included whatever be- longs to the decision of cases involying discipline. The importance of this element will be readily in- ferred from the fact that, not only does the influence and success of the discipline depend on its proper performance, but, without its antecedence, no disci- pline in any just sense, is practicable. In fact, this judgment bears much the same relation to the correc- tion of wrong, that the diagnosis of a disease, in medicine, bears to the subsequent treatment. De- pending upon shrewd intuition and well-defined ex- perience, rather than upon rules and authorities, that diagnosis is the work of the physician, — the work which most tries and eyinces his skill. Indeed, the measure of diagnostic accuracy is the measure of suc- cess in the treatment. So, we may say, the proper judgment of the case in discipline determines quite as fully the course of the subsequent correction ; and as such, it is one of the highest and most important elements of the teacher's art of governing. The elements of judgment may be classified as threefold ; Detection, Investigation, and Judgment Proper, or Decision. Of these, first, detection is simply the discovery, by the teacher, of offenses and offenders. It may be GEiMEAL ELESTENTS : DETECTION. 143 of two general kinds ; namely, Spontaneous or Imme- diate ; and Mediate, or Circumstantial. In the former, the teacher comes to a knowledge of the offense and the offender, personally and directly, through the ex- ercise of mere ordinary vigilance in observing the operations of the school : he spontaneously witnesses the original act himself. In the latter species of de- tection, the teacher either alone or through his agents, in the exercise of some extraordinary scru- tiay, reaches a satisfactory knowledge of such related circumstances as, to a practical certainty, fix the offense upon the offender. This involves the employ- ment of circumstantial evidence. It differs from in- vestigation, to which it is nearly related, ia the fact that it stops short of any open inquiry and public measures, and, hence, in its operations and results, may be whoUy unknown to the school. Of the propriety and importance of spontaneous detection, there can be no question. It is clearly the duty of the teacher to be always in a position of discovery. It is necessary that he should have some correct knowledge of so much of whatever transpires in his little commonwealth, in the shape of responsi- ble action, as will enable him to understand fully the general drift of conduct in the school, and will thus fully empower him to make proper preparation for possible emergencies, and to Avisely select for disci- pline, such offenses as may have a noticeable bearing on the general welfare. This, however, is not to take ground that the teacher is to be suspiciously on the alert, or always watching 144 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. for the occurrence of offenses. Tliis is to be vigilant at tlie expense of some of tHe finest qualities of his true character, almost at the expense of his manhood. Such a suspiciousness the teacher is, by all means, to avoid. It is a vice of weak minds and weaker governments. Hence, let the teacher carefully observe the fol- lowing rules as bearing on spontaneous detection. First. It is neither necessary nor wise for him to know aU the minor misdemeanors, or peccadilloes of his reckless, unthinking, and ill-trained subjects, es- pecially those of the younger class. A knowledge thus minute, wiU only tend to impair his confidence in his pupils, and may thus induce in him a con- sciousness of evil character and conduct, calculated to affect his manner unfavorably, perhaps even to the extent of impairing their confidence in him. Secondly. Even if he knows so much, it is all im- portant that he shoidd not evince his knowledge of it. To do this is practically to compel himself to take judicial cognizance of the offenses involved, since hardly anything can be more demoralizing in its in- fluence upon the moral sense of a school than a teacher's evident neglect of known infractions of law. And yet, as many of these offenses may be altogether venial and quite destitute of any important bearing on the general order of the school, for the teacher to subject them to discipline, would only be to harrass himself and his pupils with an over government hardly less injurious than insufficient government. For a teacher to do this, " is wasteful and ridiculous GENERAL ELEMENTS : DETECTION. 145 excess." Of either extreme, it is better to govern too little than too much. Except in the family, no- where more than in the government of the school, is there need of that noble charity which covers a mul- titude of sins, — ^nowhere so much advantage in its wise and patient exercise. And, lastly, with reference to all facts which, as ostensible misdemeanors, reaUy come to his knowl- edge, let the teacher, while retaining them in thought, as possibly susceptible of grave but yet undiscovered relations, carefully guard against assuming their worst interpretation as a foregone conclusion. Let him rather, habitually assume the probability of a fairer explanation, and generously hold to that opin- ion until it is, by subsequent developments, rendered either dangerous or impossible to do so. Passing to mediate, or circumstantial detection, which has already been defined, it may be classified as of two species ; namely, incidental and concerted detection. These rest ahke on the same basis of ob- served facts, but differ in the manner of reaching the facts. As is iadicated by their names, the circum- stances involving detection under the former species, come to light of their own accord, in the teacher's exercise of ordinary watchfulness, and are only volun- tarily woven, in his judgment, into a web of satis- factory evidence : under the latter species, they are, upon pre-determiuation and by concerted action, dragged from their concealment and set in such array as effects full detection. Of the former species, nothing further need be 146 SCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. urged in this place, since its specific laws are the same with those already considered under the head of spontaneous detection. Of the latter, distinct and thorough notice must be taken both for the reason that it is more complicated in its nature, and far more difficult in its proper exercise. Indeed, in the pre-determined exercise of the function of detection, the teacher will find occasion for the employment of his largest knowledge of human nature, and his high- est skill in dealing with character and circumstance. Instances wiU. not unfrequently occur, which will, for a time, perhaps even finally, baffle his most strenuous efforts. A special cause for this difficulty is often met with in the prevalence of a false sense of honor among pupils, which leads them to conceal the misdeeds of their associates. Sometimes, even where there is a better conception of duty, native lack of resolution, or fear of retaliatory abuse, strengthens the tendency to connivance or concealment. In this forced absence of the only direct testimony possible, the teacher is left altogether to circumstantial indications or the developments of time, and wiU not unlikely find even these insufficient. In cases of this kind, it is altogether idle for the teacher to take ground before the school, that this concealment is a wrong, and to insist that those cog- nizant of the offender's criminality shall expose him ; and it is the height of impolicy for him to betray any uneasiness or irritation (if he be indeed so weak as to allow such feeling) at the persistent adhesion of GESTEKA-L ELEMENTS : DETECTION. 147 the pupils to the school code of honor. Nor does the fact that there can be no more question as to the pupil's duty in the premises, than there is in the case of the citizen cognizant of crime committed against the laws of the state, mend the matter. The evil is the result of a misguided conscience ; and, tmtil the teacher can correct the misguiding cause, he must be content with the exercise of patience rather than justice. In endeavoring to correct this evil tendency to shield offenders from justice, the teacher may adopt two methods. First. He may labor to impress upon his pupils correct views of their relation to the gov- ernment of the school, and a sense of their duty to sustain its authority as superior to any possible con- sideration due to their delinquent companions. Gen- erously excusing coiicealment in the case of a first transgression, in which the witnesses have given the culprits no warning of the course that must conscien- tiously be pursued, he may urge it as due to their own manly courage, moral honesty, and just convic- tions of the general necessity, that, on any proposed repetition of the offense, they shall hold themselves absolved fi'om aU duty to become partic&ps criminis by shielding wilful offenders, and shall give the same, unmistakable assurance that they wiU be de- nounced as such without fear or favor. In the second place, in all such cases of conceal- ment of flagrant offenses which ultimately come to light so as to admit of correction, the teacher may, upon previous announcement, punish the offenders 148 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. with the greater severity, on the ground of having not only transgressed, but also of having insti- tuted a conspiracy against the order of the school. He should also, by a distinct -withdrawal of confi- dence from the accessories, until their future amend- ment becomes probable, indicate his sense of their practical disloyalty and partial guilt. This course, if frankly explained and firmly pursued, will tend to produce better views and feelings in the school, with regard to the whole question, and it gives the only promise of any ultimate removal of the evil under consideration. It has already been observed that no question can be raised as to the consistency of spontaneous, or in- cidental detection. With regard to pre-determined, or concerted detection, the case is difierent. Involv- ing the exercise of extraordinary scrutiny, extending perhaps beyonds the periods and precincts of the school, and even involving a species of espionage, it is of a more serious character, and not unfrequently gives rise to grave and anxious questionings iil the minds of earnest and conscientious teachers. The position is, nevertheless, here squarely taken, that within certain limits, this species of detection is thor- oughly legitimate and necessary. The restrictions to which its use must be subjected are these. Pirst. It must be resorted to, only in those cases in which detection is in no other way possible. Detection itself may be a necessity ; and, while we may not accept the maxim ; " Necessity knows no law," we must urge that, as a general prin- GENERAL ELEMENTS: DETECTION. 149 ciple, necessity must be a law unto itseK. Hence, that detection cannot be a necessity to the weKare of the school, without inyolving the means necessary to its accompKshment. Secondly. The misdemeanor must be one of a pos- itive and flagrant character. It must be of the nature of actual vice or crime, and must be clearly demoral- izing in its influence upon the school. No mere pec- cadillo involving the simple occasioning of disorder, or only productive of individual annoyance, can be a sufficient warrant. Grave measures are to be insti- tuted that can only be countenanced by grave offen- ses. Of this class of misdemeanors, perhaps the best illustration is to be found in that, sometimes petty, sometimes serious theft so painfully common in cer- tain kinds of schools. Not only is it illustrative of the criminalty referred to, but also of the difficulty of detection specified under the previous head. Often the vice of pupils from the better families, and the direct product of the prevailing social extravagance and home indulgence ; infecting not only boys, but, sad to say, an older class of girls, who are even worse than boys, it is by the very force of family pride, the more studiously concealed in its perpetration, and the more dangerous to the teacher in his efforts at detection, — so dangerous that its occurrence and ex- posure are ahke his terror. Thirdly. The detection of such offenses must be solely and sincerely prosecuted for no inferior or pri- vate ends, but only for the sake of the general wel- fare. It must also be carefuUy guarded so as to touch 150 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. for the sake of discipline, . only tlie actual culprit. For reasons which will appear as we advance, others who may possibly become involved in its disclosures should be proceeded with, only in the way of salutary instruction and warning. Apphed -ndthin these limits, the considerations which estabhsh the propriety of this concerted detec- tion, are brief and positive. First. The moral or organic welfare of the school is of paramount impor- tance. Crimes so demoralizing can not be tolerated, and the teacher is set forth " for the punishment of evil doers" no less than " for the praise of them that do well." Hence, cost what it may ; strike whom it vnll, the detection of the offender is no matter of mere option ; it is imperative. Secondly. The offense is necessarily covert, and as such, admits of no other species of detection. But it is a recognized principle in criminal law that the capacity of a crime to be concealed so that detec- tion becomes difficult or next to impossible, aggra- vates its character, and justly operates to enhance the penalty. This is founded on the fact that, while not intrinsically worse than others, it is vastly more dangerous to society. But it is clear that this very accession to its dangerous character, renders the de- mand for detection the more pressing, and justifies all means really necessary to that end. Lastly. The act of the offender is one of practical outlawry. In its commission, he puts himseK beyond any claim upon the school government, other than that of strict justice, of which the first element must GENEEAL ELEMENTS: DETECTION. 151 be his own clear exposure. Besides this, -wliatever means of detection may be employed, the culprit has no right to complain of them. In the case supposed, ■were he seized under the criminal laws of the state, his punishment would be condign. But under the government of the school, nothing farther than ex- clusion is proposed. The detection that seeks ends thus lenient, takes its measure somewhat from the Hmit within which it contents itself. With reference now to the means which maybe em- ployed, two questions arise. Frst. May the teacher institute a course of espionage, or himself act the part of a spy ? So far as the mere effort at detection is concerned, undoubtedly. But if there be taken into consideration, the probable influence of such an office-work to induce a biassed judgment or a sus- picious temper, the wisdom of his undertaking it him- self may be questioned. It is of the first importance that, as having ultimately to sit in judgment upon the offense, the teacher should be kept free from aU such biassing influences. A mere detective habitually assumes the guilt of the alleged offender. The con- trary course is imperative on the teacher. Besides, as has already been suggested, a suspicious habit is, in his case, almost a vice. Hence, it will be far bet- ter for him, wherever it may be practicable, to em- ploy some other person as his agent in this species of detection. If, for example, he has reliable subordi- nates, let that work be devolved upon them. And this, not at all that he may escape a painful oflice- work, but because they are not involved in the ulti- 152 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. mate responsibility of judgment ; their state of mind is by no means vitally important in its bearing on the issues of justice ; and they are not exposed to its more dangerous reactions. Secondly. May the teacher provide an occasion for the repetition of the act, under proper observa- tion ; in other words, may he set a trap for the of- fender ? We answer, certainly, provided in the first place, he seeks the detection of the guilty, solely for his reclamation, or for the expurgation of the school. Provided, further, he carefully guards himself against positive deception or falsehood either overt or covert. In yielding to evil desires, the pupil may deceive himself as to the facts involving his detection ; but the deception must be his own work, not that of the teacher. For example, the teacher may leave a coveted book, or a reticule containing valuables, in the way of the supposed thief. The fancy of the of- fender that he is not observed is his own. He has had no assurance that he will not be watched ; nay, he is to expect that sooner or later he will be dis- covered ; his own caution is a confession of the pos- sible danger ; hence, he is only self-deceived. Provided again, lastly, that the teacher takes all possible care to avoid exposing the innocent to this temptation ; or if they chance to be overcome of it, that he distinguishes the act carefully as a first and induced offense, and makes use of it only for their salvation from further transgression. " But," says the objector, " this is putting tempta- tion in the way of others." To this we reply, first, the GENERAL ELEMENTS : DETECTION. 153 teaclier has tlie right, as in the case supposed, to put any such articles where he chooses. The school- room is his proper domaiu, and property is presumed to be justly safe anywhere within the school precincts. Again, the real temptation Hes in the depraved pro- pensity of the offender; "He is drawn away of his own lust and enticed." Still further, the induced act, as leading to his detection, is the only means of rous- ing him, before some final and fatal crime, to a sense of the peril and certain ruia of the course he is pur- suing ; it is the only hope of his salvation. Once more, even in the case of the innocent, much the same is true. If he can yield so easily to the com- mission of crime, his only safety hes iu the prompt discovery of this liability, and the consequent coun- sel and warning made possible through it. And, lastly, it is quite clear that temptation is not neces- sarily an evil. " Temptations," says Bishop Butler, " render our state a more improving state of disci- pline than it would be otherwise ; as they give occa- sion for a more attentive exercise of the virtuous principle, which confirms and strengthens it more than an easier or less attentive exercise of it could." Were this otherwise, and temptation intrinsically a wrong, then the trial of our First Parents in the gar- den of Eden, which was practically just as much a temptation as any of the acts heretofore supposed, would stand. utterly reprehended as evU and ma- licious. Passing now to the second general element in judg- ment ; namely, investigation, we observe that it is in- 154 SCHOOL GOVEENKFAT. elusive of all that formal examination of the truth of facts bearing upon any supposed ease of discipHne, either as determinative of its actuality or its relative demerit. It will be seen from this, that it differs from detection, ia being always premeditated, but without involving any concerted scheme of forced dis- covery ; it applies to cases in which a partial detec- tion is already attained, which however needs to be tested and made complete ; it is formal and open iu all its processes ; and it attains its ends only through logical conclusions resting altogether on the basis of evidence. These characteristics of investigation, and the evi- dent difficulty to be experienced iu determining, through a logical process, both the actuality of the offense and its relative demerit, are at once sugges- tive of the extreme importance to be attached to this part of discipline. Were not this enough, a simple reference to the laws and usages of civil courts would argue the same. AH this array of witnesses and jury- men ; all this careful educiag and sifting of testimony ; aU these elaborate reasonings upon the evidence, and all this patient deliberation upon the whole case preparatory to the rendering of a verdict, are so many grave indications of the importance to be everywhere attached to the proper investigation of offenses. "While the extrinsic interest may be the more pressing in the applications of civil government^ the intrinsic importance to the school, of well-guarded and certain decisions under its government, cannot be overesti- mated. In the state, an erroneous decision is inju- GENERAL ELEMENTS : INVESTIGATION. 155 rious ; in the school, from the comparative helpless- ness of its subjects, a false judgment is tyranny. From this, it follows that inasmuch as, in the ad- ministration of school government, the teacher must be sole jury and judge ; and inasmuch as he be- comes himself an offender if he trusts to the blind guidance of mere impressions, or the doubtful reason- ings of a crude understanding, it becomes imperative on him to possess some consistent knowledge of prac- tical logic, at least so far as it involves a knowledge of the laws of evidence and the deduction of sound conclusions. Hence, not only should a specific train- ing in this direction be afforded to the teacher, by our normal schools, but a concise treatise on evidence should be regarded by him as an indispensable part of his library. And this is the more imperative, from the fact that throughout the community, so many evils result from the prevailing ignorance of the very knowledge to be derived from such works. What those evils are, is patent to every one conversant with the proceedings of our civil, and especially our eccle- siastical courts. As has been already intimated, investigation, or judgment proper, involves a logical process. In fact, in every such case of discipline, the teacher has be- fore him the proper consideration of the disjunctive proposition; "Either A is innocent or lie is guilty," which proposition we have taken express pains to state, so that it shall conform to that necessary and noble maxim ; " Every man should be presumed to be innocent until he is proven to be guilty," since, above 156 SCHOOL GOYEBNMENT. all other adjudicators, tlie teacher should be most mindful of its observance. The evidence upon which the teacher is to rely in the solution of this proposition, is two-fold : Personal Evidence, or Testimony, and Circumstantial Evidence. Personal evidence, or testimony proper, as employ- ed by the teacher, must be understood in a restricted sense, and as embracing only the statements made vnth reference to the oifense itself, by his pupils or others, claiming to have a direct personal knowledge of its occurrence or non-occurrence. This is evidence direct and positive. Circumstantial evidence, as employed by the teacher, embraces the statements made by his pupils or others, with reference to such remoter facts as do not involve a direct knowledge of the offense itself, but which are, in the nature of things, related to it, and which so concur in their relation to it, as to find their best, or their only explanation in either its reahty or non-re- ality. This evidence is indirect, and may be either corroborative, or, in itself, sufficient. It is, however, not to be accepted as positive evidence. To illustrate this, let X be charged with cutting his name on his desk. If it is in testimony that A saw him do it ; or that B saw the desk just before X took his seat, and it had not been cut then ; B or C saw him doing something unlike anything belonging to his proper business, or only like the work of cutting the desk ; and B, or D noticed the name as freshly cut immediately upon X's leaving his seat ; — this would be of the nature of direct or personal evidence. GENEKAl ELEMENTS : INVESTIGATION. 157 If howeTer it is in testimony, rather this, that A saw the freshly cut name soon after X left his seat ; B or C saw fresh whitthngs adhering to his clothes after he left the seat ; D found the point of the knife blade broken off in the wood, which point corresponds with a broken blade in X's knife ; E found blood about the cutting, and X's finger proves to have been freshly cut about that time ; these, with the fact that it was X's name, or that the carving resembles other carving of his name indisputably done by himself, and no evidence appears that any one else did, or could have any motive for doing the mischief, would be of the nature of circumstantial evidence. From what has been thus far suggested, it must be evident that in the government of the school, circum- stantial evidence, elsewhere in the administration of justice admitted as affording sufficient proof, ought not, except in rare cases, to be received as in itself conclusive. In a commonwealth whose subjects are so often weak and helpless, and over whom the au- thority is so absolute, probability however strong can not afford safe ground for the inihction of punishment. Hence, the teacher's main reliance for proof should rather be placed upon personal evidence, or direct testimony. It is true, in cases of even grave offense, it may be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to obtain such evidence. Shall then the offender " shove by justice ?" Doubtless : so long as cei-tainty in judg- ment cannot be attained, disciphne must be su8j)ended. But the influence of impunity in the commission of nfffinsfis ia fivil nArtninlv. were RiicTi cases the com- 158 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. men rule. They are, however, more likely to be in- cidental, and ■will, to some extent, be counterbalanced by the moral effect of an evident determination on the part of the teacher, to forego even justice until it is competent to stand forth, in its severity beyond doubt or challenge. In this connection, it is important to caution the teacher against an error into which some unhappily fall ; namely, that of compassing a confession by stratagem. It is sometimes the case that, in the con- scious absence of sufficient testimony, the teacher, in laboring with the accused, puts on the show of having estabUshed the fact of his guilt, in order to produce in his mind, a conviction of the uselessness of further concealment, and thus to induce an actual confession of the fault. This course is objectionable on several grounds. In the first place, it is practically dishonest. It in- volves falsehood by implication. The teacher says by his action ; " I know all the facts. I am fuUy as- sured of your guilt. I do not need your confession. I only seek it for its influence on yourself, and its bearing on the amoimt of the punishment." But not one particle of this is true. Now the teacher should take good heed that he does not attempt to estabhsh virtue through the intervention of an immoraHty. In the second place, the use of such means cannot but impair the teacher's own upright self-conscious- ness, and so must naturally tend to destroy that clear open sincerity and confidence of maimer upon which so much of his influence over the school depends. GENERAL ELEMENTS : INVESTIGATION. 169 He -who can resort to sucli means, without himseH wearing the look of a conscious culprit, is either to be pitied or detested; certain it is, that if he "deals much in such base artifices, he wiU not long retain in aspect, the fine upright glory of conscious purity and honor. Hence, the teacher may better forego the administration of presumptive justice, rather than de- moralize himself. Lastly, the pupil is not always so obtuse or simple as not to penetrate the deceitfiilness of the artifice. H he does pry into its hidden secret, an irreparable blow has been inflicted upon the teacher's character and influence. Even if the pupil does not clearly discover the imposition, he will, in confessing his fault and being punished, rebel in heart against both however just, as having been reached in some way, to which he has imwisely and haH-iaexphcably al- lowed himself to be made an accomphce. The influ- ence of any such conviction cannot but be injurious. The civil law wisely relieves the accused from the necessity of testifying against himseK, and not merely that he may be saved from the temptation to perjure himself, but that, when he is condemned, he may the more deeply realize the certainty of justice and the righteousness of the authority. This lesson from civil affairs should not be lost upon the teacher. Let his discipline wait patiently until it is able to stand on its own proper basis — sufficient evidence. It remains only to give expression to a caution or two in the use of circumstancial evidence, and we pass from it. Regarding it chiefly as a species of 160 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. mere corroborative proof, it is incumbent on the teaclier always to accept it with great caution, and to sift it with the utmost care. Especially let him be upon his guard against that species of evidence supposed to be found in personal indications of con- scious gmlt. A look of surprise, of apprehension, or even of seeming shame, so often taken as proofs of a child's guilt, is, by no means necessarily such. Nay, iu the case of children of a nervous, timid, or aspiring character, it may be rather the natural and conclusive indication of innocence. Let, then, such appearances be searchingly scanned, and be clearly discovered to be the foreboding shadow of a clouded conscience, before they are allowed to fling their darkness over the frowning judgment. Bevertiug now to testimony proper, it will be ob- served that its validity must rest upon the existence of proper qualifications in the witness. A brief state- ment of those qualifications will suffice for the present purpose. Their propriety will be more or less self- evident. They are these : First. The pupil testifying, must have been clearly in a position enabhng him to be personally cognizant of the facts whereof he affirms. Secondly. He must claim to have been, and to all appearances, must have been, thus directly cognizant of those facts. Thirdly. He must be of sufficient capacity to really know, and to correctly make known, the facts he claims to have witnessed. GENERAL ELEMENTS : INVESTIGATION. 161 Fourthly. He must be generally accepted by those ■who know him, as properly veracious. Fifthly. He must be free from any especial induce- ment, from either impulsiveness, interest, fear, or personal animosity, which might naturally cloud his perceptions, or bias his representations. Under this last head, it is necessary to caution the teacher particularly against the peculiar tendency of the child's haste in judgment and vividness of imagi- nation, to control his convictions and shape his testi- mony. Nothing is more common or natural, than for the child, on finding facts leading to a conclusion, to overleap, at once, the remaining steps, and assume what is reaUy to be proved, and then to create, as it were, in his own conceptions, the very appearance which he assumes to have witnessed. Any one who has observed how perfectly the child's imagination effects the most radical transformations in his con- ceptions, and the absolute faith in which he wiU deal with the transformation thus effected, as reality, wiU realize the force of the caution here uttered. WhUe, however, the teacher keeps this caution in mind, let him not fall into the error and injustice of charging such perversion of fact to a want of truthfulness in the child. Their source is, as suggested above, in the intellect, and not in the heart. The testimony obtained from proper witnesses may be of three species ; namely. Simple, Accumulated, and OoTicurrent Testimony. Simple testimony is that which stands by itself, 162 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. and wliich is unsustained by anything beyond the character of the single witness. Accumulated testimony is that which, going beyond the single witness, stands with other testimony of a Hke kind obtained from multiplied witnesses. It is sustained not only by the character of each witness, but by the very fact of its accumulation. Concurrent testimony, Kke accumulated testimony, involves a multiplication of witnesses, and is, Hke that, the stronger for this multiplieation. The evi- dence involved, does not, however, like that of accu- mulated testimony, rest for its verity or force upon the character of the witnesses, but only upon their ccmcur- remx,. This is because the concurrence, in this way, involves the fact ; namely, if the fact reaUy occurred, then such a concurrence becomes clearly possible ; if it did not occur, then a concurrence is, as the case may be, either not probable or not possible. The characteristics of the testimony as a whole, upon which the teacher may rest a decision, may now be briefly stated. They are as follows : First. It must be definite ; not vague or general. Secondly. It must to a reasonable extent be accu- mulated. Simple testimony should not be deemed sufficient to conviction. No more ia the school than in the state, should the fate of the culprit lie in the hands of a single vntness. Thirdly. It should be generally concurrent. A proper concurrence is in fact the crowning element in its strength. This may be seen as follows. The grounds of the strength of concurrent testi- SENEEAL ELEJIENTS : INTESTIGATION. 163 mony are twofold : namely, first, the impossibility or improbability of coUusion on the part of the wit- nesses : secondly, the absence of any motives in the individual witnesses, which are adequate to lead to the given testimony, without supposing the reaHty of the fact to which they testify. If both these points can be estabhshed, or if it is impossible to detect any- thing to the contrary, the evidence is valid and con- clusive. And this will be so, unimportant differences in the individual testimony, to the contrary notwith- staiiding. Nay, so long as there is a clear concur- rence as to the main facts, the evidence is really the stronger for these divergencies. This may be illustrated by a simple formula. For example, let the several testimonies be represented by A, B, and C ; the main fact by D ; and the unim- portant divergencies by e, f, and g. We have then the following : A = D + e, B=D + f, and C=D+g. Combining these by addition, we have : A + B + C=3D + e+f+g. Here it is clear that D, in which there was a con- currence, has acquired a threefold strength iu itself, and so much further importance as is embraced in the sum of e, f, and g. Even if the divergencies in minor points, are con- tradictory, the residt is stiU decisive. Let A=D + e, B=D— e, and 0=D + f. 164 SCHOOL GO-nEKNMENT. Combining as before, we have : A+B + C=3D+f. In this case D's force in itself is redupKcated as before, and is still further supplemented by f, so that it is stronger for the diTergencies, although some of them were contradictory. To apply this to a practical case. Suppose that, as in a previous illustration, X has been charged with cutting his desk. Now, A testifies that he saw him do it, and with the Httle blade of his knife ; B testi- fies that he saw him do it, but with the big blade in- stead of the little one ; and D that he saw him do it, did not see which blade he used, but heard the blade break, and knows that the point found in the desk be- longs to a large rather than a small blade. Here the main fact is raised to a threefold certainty; and the certainty is the greater because the divergence in the individual testimony evinces intelligence and inde- pendence in the witnesses. Nor does the contra- dictory divergence of A's and B's testimony impair the force of the evidence, since it is every way prob- able that both are correct. For it is easy to see that C might have first used the smaller blade, and after- wards, from fear of breaking it, changed it for the larger one, before B's attention was called to the act he was perpetrating. Other illustrations might be given, but we think the teacher will now be able to apply the foregoing principles for himself. We have taken the pains to develop these logical points so that, in the absence of other sources of information, he may have at hand GENERAL ELEMENTS: DECISION. 165 enough to answer any sucli individual and immediate want. The element in judgment as a part of school gov- ernment which remains to b.e considered, is Decision. Decision is the final determination in the teacher's mind, of the innocence or the gnilt of the accused ; and, if the latter, of its relative demerit and proper measure of punishment. This decision to be valid and complete, must be marked by two characteristics ; namely, it must be positive, overt and explicit. As positive, it must embrace either the one or the other result, either that of actual innocence or actual guilt. No halfway conclusion should be accepted. If the guilt be not estabhshed, whatever may be the possibilities, assume, as has been before demanded, that the accused is innocent. We hold this principle to be even more imperative in school government than in civil government. It is necessary, too, that the decision, when distinctly attained, should be pubHcly declared. It is neither just to the culprit nor good for the school, that it should be allowed to remain delayed or concealed and consequently inoperative. The steps of the in- vestigation are known : so should be the end reached. And the aimouncement of the decision should be prompt and. explicit. Any halfway, dilatory, or equiv- ocal statement of the teacher's real conviction and determination is discreditable to him and injurious to the school. Let the teacher, at once, kindly but fearlessly render a clear verdict and pass the just 166 SCHOOL GOYEBNMENT. sentence. Nothing can well be more unreasonable and even hateful than the timid or maUcious procras- tination or prevarication involved in the too common announcement ; " I cannot attend to the matter now :" or " I will let you know my decision by and by." It not only impeaches the teacher's judgment or his courage, but it aggravates the pupil's spirit and per- haps determines him upon a fiercer resistance to the subsequent discipline. From what has thus far been urged, it will be quite evident what must be the general characteristics of judgment in the government of the school. It must be, beyond a doubt, deliberate, comprehensive, rigJiteovs, and decisive. Without proper deliberateness there can be in the teacher, neither that air of quiet strength nor that evident care to secure even-handed justice, which are necessary to his highest influence as a ruler. Without such comprehensiveness in judg- ment as embraces both sides of disputed questions and all the facts bearing upon their full elucidation, no teacher can be secure against undue bias, and against the ultimate impairing of the general con^ fidence in the candor and rectitude of his deci- abns. And without that prompt and explicit deci- siveness which, after due investigation, brings a case to a clear and luunistakable conclusion, his govern- ment will fail to command that conviction of its strength and determination, which must underlie just reverence and implicit submission. On these points, no further enlargement is necessary. It only remains to add, that it wiU, be seen that no GENERAL ELEMElSfTS : DECISION. 167 proYision whatever is made for wliat may be termed popular decisions in the school, — that is decision by the Toice of the pupils. This has been for the reason that, while it is not denied that, in certain limited cases, and for the attainment of ininor ends, they may be admissible, they are held to be incompatible "with the true view of the school government as auto- cratic ; with the just duty of the teacher as sole ruler ; and with his proper dignity as truly capacitated for his place. Any common or important resort to them must therefore be either deceptive, or if not deceptive, practically absurd, and dangerous. The specific de- velopment of this in application must, however, be reserved for another place. CHAPTEE IX. GEKEBAL ELEMENTS CONTINTIED — ^DISCIPLIOT! — COKBEC- TION OK ENFORCEMENT, PEEYENTIVE. Correction defined and classified as Preventive and Penal — Preven- tive correction defined — Related to arrangement and management — Specific measures — Bernards defined and claused as ConsequenMal and Avthoritative — Kinds distingnislied — General grounds of lawfulness — Authoritative rewards of the nature of positive institutions — Desire of approval inherent — Abstract virtue beyond the child's comprehen- sion — Authoritative rewards classified as Public Approval, Conferred Privileges and Formal Gifts — Public approval considered — Its use of sym- bols — Requisites to effectiveness — Must be formally expressed— Must be protected against discredit — Conferred privileges distinguislied — Superiority of this class — Classified as privileges of Regard ; of Com- fort; of Recreation ; and of Improvement — Kinds exemplified — Bequi- sites to effectiveness — Must obtain the teacher's interest — Must be held as resumable — Oifts classified, as Gifts of Pleasure and Profit — Kinds distinguished and compared — Gifts of pleasure appeal to the fancy or the imagination — Superiority of the latter — Gifts of profit classified as, aflTording recreation, real advantage, and aesthetic improvement — Kinds distinguished, and. worth compared — Grounds of bestowing gifts twofold ; as the basis of mere achievements, and of worthy effort — The latter superior — Manner ofbestowment — Must be bestowed pub- licly — Must evince interest— Must be bestowed with discretion— With cPA'cful adaptation — Common failure as to adaptation — Bestowed as a grace, and not as a compensation — The error of offering prizes — ^Induce mercenary effort— Are not resumable— System of " Demerit Marks" deferred to a subsequent chapter. We come now to the last of the general elements of discipline in school government ; namely, Correction or Enforcement. GENERAL ELEMENTS : PEEVENTITE COERECTION. 169 Correction we understand to be inclusive of what- ever means tlie teacher may employ to secure the freedom of the school from offenses against its order and welfare. Correction will, hence, naturally re- solve itself into two kinds ; namely, Preventive and Penal Correction. Preventive correction naturally includes aU the measures adopted by the teacher, to preclude the oc- currence of occasions for transgression, or to counter- act any positive temptations to wrong-doing, which may exist or arise in the school. Of these measures, many of the more general cast will be found included under the head of order, as previously discussed. Hence, nothing more will be needed here, than simply to call the attention of the teacher to the fact that whatever he may do to secure sxifficient employment or proper relaxation, for his pupils ; whatever he may do to awaken their interest or secure their respect ; whatever he may do to make his regulations simple, explicit, and reasonable, and to render his management animated, reliable, and genial, vnU, while bearing more directly upon the order of the school, operate effectively also upon the discipHne, to prevent the occurrence of either oppor- tunity or inducement to the perpetration of otherwise unthought of misdemeanors. And thus wiU the wise and masterly ordering of the school serve as admira- ble and, to an important extent, effective jneans for the prevention, or precautionary correction, of proba- ble offenses. But, besides these general means, opportunity .may 170 SCHOOL GOYERNMENT. occur for the wise adoption of specific measures not definitely provided for in tlie foregoing suggestions. For example, the teacher may find certaia contin- gencies of location, association, amusement or per- sonal feeling, practically ofiering a premium upon mischief or violence. Thus, a pupil of a mischievous habit may be occupying a seat which so screens him from observation as to favor his roguish projects, and thus multiplies them. Again, two of a like restless and disorderly nature may, by being seated together, become the very flint and steel of mischief in active contact, from which, " like fire in heather set," nothing can be expected but speedy and, perhaps destructive, conflagration. Or, a child of feeble and yielding nature may be so situated as to fall un- der the constant influence or control of a vicious boy who will lead him into evil he would not otherwise have contemplated. It is also quite pos- sible for certain sports, in themselves innocent enough, to favor the rise of disturbances which could not occur in the case of others that might be sub- stituted for them ; or pupils, from antecedent col- lision, may be so affected towards each other that, for them to be left to go their way at the same time, or to get together away from under the teacher's eye, will lead to new difficulties. In all such cases, the teacher must promptly anti- cipate the jnovements of the enemy, and, if possible, flank his position. This he may do, by, for fair rea- sons, or without indicating any reasons, changing the seat of the secluded rogue, bringing him " to the GENERAL EUSMENTS : PREVENTIVE CORRECTION. 171 front;" by separating those pupils whose influence on each other will be detrimental ; by directing the school amusements into better channels, and by shrewdly preventing communication or simultaneous and unobserved movements on the part of bellige- rents. No detailed directions can be given him for effecting these objects successfully. The method must be his own, to be either legitimate or effective. A still more important preventive means of cor- recting the possible occurrence of offenses, must be found in the right use of rewards as a stimulus to application and obedience. Under the term reioards, we include whatever of either pleasure or profit, a person may, from either the constitution of things, or the positive provisions of authority, attain or win for his obedience or well- doing. Eewards may hence be classified under two general heads ; Consequential Rewards and Authorita- tive Rewards. Consequential rewa rds are such personal benefits in either condition of body, state of mind, or asso- ciated relations, as naturally foUow a course of action accordant with the laws of things. Thus, he who is frugal in his fare and temperate in his habits, is re- warded with sound health and physical comfort ; he who obeys the laws of rectitude, is blessed with an approving conscience and a miad at rest ; and he who conducts himself with uniform fidelity and good wiU, vnns the confidence and co-operation of others in his own behalf. All such rewards are commonly regard- ed as the consequences of right action, and, hence, are 172 SCHOOL QOVEENMENT. considered as rewards only in a restricted sense. This is due to (lie fact that they are the original and invariable results attached to primal and uniTersal laws, the institution of which is so far removed from our knowledge, that the whole appears in our con- sciousness, not so much the product of authority, (which it none the less is,) as the mere spontaneous ongoing of cause and effect. Authoritative rewards are such favors or benefits bodily, mental or social, as are bestowed in the right- ful exercise of authority by the higher power, upon those who are judged as especially meritorious, gen- erally, as meritorious beyond anything attaching to the naked performance of express duty. This species embraces those rewards commonly understood as such, _ and it is concerning the use of these in the school that there arises so much dispute among teachers, resulting simply in the unfortunate confusion of many minds, and the practical waste of much logic. Of the proper use of rewards in school government, as elsewhere, it is thoroughly certain that it is legiti- mate, and that, whether that be admitted or not, no efforts to the contrary will avaU under the present constitution of things, to dischairge it from its prac- tical place and power among the elements of human influence and control. And this, for the following reasons. First. Authoritative rewards are of the nature of positive institutions, or those institutions which, while they do not arise in the line, and under the laws of natural cause and effect, and are not, therefore, ne- GENEKAL ELEMENTS : PEEVENTIVE CORRECTION. 173 cessary to the existence or operation of things as cttiginally constituted, are still neither contradictory to that original constitution of things, nor in any- ■wise dispensable under its present modifications and necessities, but are the clear practical product of a potent and provident authority which, through them, rightfully meets and satisfies existing and other- wise unmanageable emergencies in the operation of the moral system. Of this nature, are aU such insti- tutions as the church, civil government, even the school organization itself; and also aU such regula- tions, as laws of marriage, laws of contracts, rules for political action, rules for judicial trial, and penal statutes ; and until all these, evidently not necessary under the original constitution of things, nor neces- sarily related to the natural operations of cause and effect, can be abrogated, the institution and use of rewards stands with them, immovable. Secondly. The desire of approval for well-doing finds an ultimate and steadfast foothold ia the very nature of the moral susceptibility. Until the spirit be constituted so as to abjure all claim for approval, and the conscience shall no longer assume the power of " accusing or else excusing" the moral agent, the desire for rewards, and the impulse to bestow them, mast remain imbedded in the first instincts of our nature. For what is a gift or a reward, other than an outward and substantial symboKzing of the in- ward approval of the course pursued or the act per- formed? Hence, always, the natural prompting of the highest satisfaction, gratitude or love, is to get 174 SCHOOL GOTERNMENT. out of mere fleeting looks or works, and into a some- thing more tangible and enduring, that, ia its pos- sessed and treasured substance, shall seem to set forth more fully the power of the inward affection, and shall, when the personal exhibition of that affec- tion has passed away, stand out clear and impressive before the sense, as its hallowed monument. Thirdly. Whatever may be possible in the mature man, in the hue of that sublime abstraction, " virtue is its own reward," the child is neither equal to such abstractions, nor are they demanded of him. They may, it is true, be gradually wrought by instruction into the body of his thought, for the sake of their ultimate effect on his principles as a man. But, em- braced as he is, in a world of perceived realities, and only capable of attaining the subtler ideals by pas- sing to them through the fine gradations of a pro- gressively reduced and subhmated reahty, it is absurd and tyrannous to rob him of the stimulus, guidance and aid of proper rewards as outward reaUties fore- shadowing the ideal of absolute virtue, and rendering possible both its conception and attainment. On these grounds, then, we hold the use of rewards to be legitimate and necessary, and regard the ob- jections commonly urged, as only valid when appHed to their misapplication or abuse. That such abuse is quite possible and, indeed, too common, we readily admit. Some notice of this abuse may be taken hereafter. But it is sufficient, here, to urge that the abuse of a thing, so far from demanding its condem- nation, is often indicative of a" higher excellence in GENEEAL ELEMENTS: PEEVENTIVE CORRECTION. 175 its proper use, since, as Luther has remarked : " The best of God's blessings are often the worst abused." Authoritative or positive rewards, as thus recog- nized, may be distributed into three kinds: Public Approval, Conferred Privileges, and Formed Gifts. By public approval, we mean such a marked re- cognition of merit, before the whole school, as dis- tinguishes the pupil from his fellows, and declares him to be worthy of general esteem and imitation. In the state, it finds its parallel in the dehberate vote of thanks, or the decree that the * citizen has deserved well of the commonwealth.' As in the state, such public commendation may be accompanied by some tangible symbol, such as medals, badges, or decorations ; so in the school, the teacher may make effective use of corresponding means for giving to his pubhc approval of the pupil's course, a sensible and permanent manifestation. In the case of the larger number of pupils, some such badge or symbol is almost necessary to a full appreciation of the reality of the praise bestowed. The grounds of this necessity wiU be readily apprehended by those who have carefully considered the child's nature as presented in a previous chapter. There are, however, certain requisites to the effectiveness of this species of reward, which, we think, are too generally disregarded, and the absence . of which is, we beheve, the real cause of the doubt which teachers entertain of its utihty. All such de- clarations of merit, to command the real respect of the school, must command the marked attention and 176 SCHOOL GOYEKNMENT. regard of the teacher. Given carelessly or informally, and vdthout his subsequent steady and respectful re- cognition, they ■wiU be regarded by the school as mere idle words, and, as such, wiU degenerate into mere occasions for mischievous innuendos, than which, nothing can exert a worse influence upon the meritorious pupU and others sincerely emulous of his example. Let the teacher then see to it, that due solemnity attaches to the act of pubhc approval, and that the use of its appropriate symbols is always protected against ridicule. Indeed, aU such ridicule should be treated as itseK an offense, not only against the rights of the pupil, but also against the respect due to the teacher. Private commendation is not here considered, not because it is excluded, but because it belongs under the head of natural or constitutional rewards, before mentioned. It comes more within the natural line of moral cause and effect ; for the worthy pupil has just as much right, and indeed the same right, to expect the private approval of his course by the teacher, as its approval by his own conscience. That such ap- proval, under only the restrictions of prudence, is to be bestowed when deserved, needs not be argued. It is a law of the moral instincts. Under the head of conferred privileges, we include all such liberties, favors or personal advantages, as may, in the teacher's wise exercise of his supreme authority, be, by positive provisions, confen-ed upon the meritorious pupil. These privileges must, of course, involve no subtraction from, or iufringement GENEKAi ELEMENTS : PEEYENTIVE COEEECTION. 177 of, the rights of others. They are simply of the nature of higher or tjupplementary individual rights, open to the ambition of all, but due only to those distinguished by specific and really attained merit. The bestowment of such privileges, it will be seen, involves a public approval, and is subject to the same requisites with that. It, however, transcends pubhc approval in rank and effectiveness, inasmuch as it involves more substantial tokens of recognized merit. Approval involving the use of some distinguishing symbol or badge, approaches these privileges some- what, but still differs from them in the fact that it is a mere honor conferred, and not a real advantage at- tained. This real or substantial advantage, or one regarded as such by the pupil, is a cardinal element in this species of reward. It must be the teacher's study to secure its actual presence in the conferred privilege. These privileges may be conveniently classified un- der several heads ; as, Privileges of Regard ; of Com- fort ; of Recreation ; and of Improvement. Without resorting to any formal definition, these kinds of reward may be briefly and practically pre- sented with sufficient clearness by simple illustrations. It will now readily occur to the thoughtful teacher how, according to the different susceptibihties of de- serving pupils, he may extend to one the privilege of sitting by, or walking with the teacher, or of being allowed to do him some special service ; to another, the right to occupy some favorite or peculiarly at- tractive seat ; to another, some additional means of 178 SCHOOL GOYEKNJIEXT. anmsement or time for play, or a part in some espe- cial scheme of pleasure or recreation projected by the teacher ; and to another, the right to engage ia some exercise or study beyond his ordinary course ; — in these ways distinguishing each as worthy, and practically rewarding him according to his merits. These rewards possess some pecuhar advantages. Eising, for example, above the possible emptiness of a mere honor, they involve a substantial benefit which appeals to the better feelings rather than to the mer- cenary impulses. Beyond this, there is the advantage resulting from the fact that they may be temporarily conferred, or may be resumed in case of delinquency. Thus they may not only be endowed with double value by the simple possibihty of their being forfeited ; but they may, by being conferred on others, be made sus- ceptible of a wider use and application. But in order that these rewards, too Uttle esteemed or employed in the government of our schools, may be made thoroughly effective, proper provision must be made for their apphcation, and a real interest in their bestowment must be evinced. This interest must also be not only evident but permanent, for necessarily the pupil's esteem for them can not be expected to rise above the manifest value attached to them by the teacher. At least, the expert in reading human nature wiU not expect the child to prize for any length of time, the things which he finds others, and especially those above him, holding as practically more or less worthless. What is held as dear by one, is very naturally held to be desirable by another. GENEEAL ELEMENTS: PBEYENTIVE COEEECTION. 179 In this direction also, important use may be made of the principle of resumption upon forfeiture, as al- ready indicated. A steady conviction of the possi- bility and the propriety of such a resumption of the conferred privileges, -will, not only serve to demon- strate the teacher's regard for their unimpaired worth and jnstice, but it will serve also to perpetuate in the pupil's mind a just idea of their true nature and end, and will also operate as a steady stimulus toward persistence in the meritorious course so a^us- piciously begun, — all of them objects too important to be, for one moment, overlooked or disregarded. We now come to the last class of rewards enumer- ated ; namely, Gifts, a species sufficiently defined by their title. These may be conveniently classed as of two kinds ; Gifts of Pleasure or Profit. Under the head of gifts of pleasure, may be includ- ed all articles bestowed as rewards, which are of a kind appealing to the child's love of amusement, or to his sense of the curious or the beautiful. These nat- urally arrange themseh'es under three divisions, in- cluding severally such as address themselves to the active powers, to the fancy or to the imagination. Of these, the two former are the more available in the case of the younger class of pupils ; but the latter are of the higher order both as it regards their relation to a purer taste and a more enduring influence. It is worthy of observation, however, that the child's im- apination is not so much cognitive as dramatic : he readily creates character and scenes in his daily amusements ; but he does not at all penetrate through 180 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. the outer stell of the beautiful, to the hidden soul en- shrined -within, by the exercise of the creative imagi- nation. Hence, whatever is addressed to his fancy, and to that fancy as somevrhat barbaric, in its charac- ter, ■vdU most commonly give him, for the time being, the greater pleasure. The value of such gifts, how- ever, is fancied rather than real ; and their capacity to produce pleasure is, consequently, limited and short-lived. Under the head of gifts of profit, we include what- ever rewards may be apphed either chiefly or purely to some economic or iiseful end. These may be briefly enumerated as of three kiuds. First, those which, while affording the child a means of proper amusement, carefully shape that amusement to some useful end of either development or improvement. As examples of these, we may mention the various his- torical, biographical and geographical games so abun- dant at the present time, and the numerous illustrated books upon useful subjects. Secondly, those susceptible of conducing to the supply of the child's substantial wants either bodily or mentally. Examples of this kind of gifts may be found in articles of apparel, (applicable in the case of the more destitute class of pupils) ; appHances for toilet use ; articles important in the hghter domestic employments of girls ; such as are useful in writing, drawing, or the care of books, and, lastly, books of sohd merit and practical utility. Thirdly, those gifts which are of a mixed charac- ter, possessing, not merely a substantial utihty, but GENERAL ELEMENTS : PllEVENTTVE COBEECTION. 181 giving large prominence to the demands of the ses- thetio nature as requiring culture and gratification. As examples of these, some of those mentioned under the preceding head, when they are of a peculiarly ornate or artistic character, may be cited. Others may be found in illustrated works on natural history, science or art, or works of a standard character in the field of polite literature, — the whole ranging from the simple engraving or oil painting, to the choicest specimens of the English classics. Of this last species of gifts, it is to be observed, that, within their proper field of application, they possess a marked superiority over aU others, and for the two reasons, that they extend their influence over more of the pupil's susceptibilities; and, touching the sesthetic faculty, they bring themselves into closer adjacency to the moral nature, towards which, as will be seen hereafter, aU such appUances of discipline must faith- fully and firmly look and labor. And this brings us naturally to the consideration of that most important topic, the ground upon which alone, rewards may be properly conferred. Its im- portance wiU appear in the simple fact that the reward often takes its substantial character from the cause for which it was conferred, or the principle which de- termined its bestowment. It is here, much as it is in the case of moral action, the character of which is often purely dependent on the inspiring motive. These grounds of bestowment may, we think, be twofold; the ground of achievement and that of effort ; that is, you may bestow rewards for something 182 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. that has been done, or for something that has simply been worthily attempted. In the former case, the measure of the reward must, of course, be the meas- ure of the amount accomplished; in the latter, it must be guaged altogether by the sum of the effort made. It is too commonly the case in our schools, that rewards are bestowed exclusively upon the ground of achieyement. Now, we grant that there may be oc- casions for the choice of this basis of bestowment as necessary to the attainment of desirable ends. But it will be quite clear to the obsernng manager and moraHst, that these should be sternly classed and considered as the exceptions, and not as the rule. And for this reason, that the measure of actual ac- complishment is by no means always the measure of true merit, since, either because of higher natural en- dowments, or because of manifold more helps and advantages, one pupil may, with even less regard for the law of the school, and with really no noble inten- tion or endeavor, accomplish more than another who finely exhibits these higher characteristics, but who has been less favored in both endowments and cir- cumstances. Hence, the bestowment of rewards upon the ground of the worthy effort made, must commend itseK to every one as, in aU respects, the better course, — ^nay, as the only one which can be either wisely or Justly adopted as the law of the schooL Tor, upon no other basis, can the discipline of the school as administered in the bestowment of these incentives to right action, GENERAL ELEMENTS : PEEVENTIVE COEIIECTION. 183 either place itself on a proper moral foimdation, or reacli those characters which, before all others, need and claim its correcting or elevating influences. Be- stow rewards upon this basis, however, and you re- cognize, not mere abstract results, but motive, spirit, character, which is, after all, the real thing you are endeavoring to reach and develop under your disci- pline. Bestow rewards on this basis, and you wiU reach and inspire with better hopes and aims, many a pupil susceptible of actual redemption from his worst failings and faults, who, under any other course, would sink into the complete stupor of hopelessness and self-abandonment. ^Before leaving this topic, some attention needs to be given to the characteristics which should mark the manner in which rewards are bestowed ; since, it is quite possible here, as elsewhere, for manner to outweigh matter in the production of results. Indeed, we are fuUy of the opinion that many of the objections urged, as it is often supposed with vahd force, against the use of rewards, hold good, not at aU against their use, but only against the manner in which they are bestowed. We urge then, that rewards, to have their best effect, must be bestowed publicly and with due cere- mony. From the objective tendencies of children, as before noticed, it must be seen that they are crea- tures of pomp and show, and borrow largely from the outward symbols of an act or an instrument, their ideas of its intrinsic worth and dignity. Hence, re- wards of whatever species they may be, if bestowed 184 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. in private or informally, mil come to be seriously cheapened in the child's estimation, and will not long be regarded as objects deserving of high ambition or strenuous effort. Besides this, the teacher, if at all possessed of his true place in the minds of his pupils, is their stand- ard : they conform their measures of value or impor- tance, to what they apprehend to be the teacher's estimate. Hence, let the teacher turn off the bestow- ment of rewards in a careless uninterested manner, and the pupil will, sooner or later, turn off his recep- tion of them in similar style. It is a fixed law of aU dealing with human nature, that, if you would make others count much upon anything, you must first make much of it yourself. Make as much, then, as you consistently can, of the bestowment of favors and rewards. Something in the direction of this deep interest can be done by after notice and inquiry as to their nature, the use that has been made of them, and the pleasure which they have produced. In the case of gifts possessing a hterary or artistic excellence, some paias should be taken to direct the pupil's attention to the pecuhar points of admiration. A gift, wisely chosen with reference to some such subsequent use, . may be made a means of especial interest and influ- ence in the school. Called up as a subject of pubhc remark, and skilfully presented in the Hght of its excellence or utihty, it becomes a double prize to its owner and a double incentive to the school Bestow your rewards also with great discref,ion. GENEKAL ELEMENTS: PKEYENTIYE COBKECTION. 185 They are an extraordinary means of attaining an im- portant, though not properly an extraordinary end. Hence, nothing can be more injudicious or absurd, than a lavish or undiscriminating bestowment of them. Confer them where there is not a clear and outstanding merit, and they become practically a lie : deal them out broadcast, as is too commonly done, and they become even worse than a lie : they are a mere farce. The former method, unjust as it is, is quite compatible with strength and character in the government of the school : the latter is only consist- ent with goodish weakness and want of sense in the teacher. Still further, let proper adaptation in the rewards conferred, be carefully studied. The only sensible law on this point,, is this : that just as age, condition, and character vary, so must the rewards. As weU fail to discriminate in requirement and correction, as ' neglect to discriminate in the specific adaptation of conferred privileges or gifts. Such a mark of ap- proval as would thrill the very heart of one pupil, would, to another, possess httle or no interest, and to stiU another, would prove only a subject of ridicule. It is, hence, both idle and wasteful to mete out gifts to all in the same style and measure. It wonld com- pare well with the wisdom and economy of the farmer, who should gather into one inclosure his entire stock of animals, from his trotting horse, down to his pet bantam, and should scatter broadcast before them the same general kind of provender. It is for the lack of a just observance of this prin- 186 SCHOOL GOVEKNMENT. ciple, that the rewards of merit, commonly conferred in our schools, so often fail to excite the interest or produce the salutary results expected. It is, hence, in this direction, that the teacher may, not only e-vince his nice discrimiaation of character, and his fine tact in touching individual pecidiarities, but may exert a most salutary power to give proper effectiveness to his means of precautionary correction, and to secure a truer appreciation of his measures, and a higher style of sentiment, throughout the school. Lastly. Let rewards be conferred purely as a gracx, and not as a matter of mere compensation. This in- volves two points ; namely, first, their bestowment as a free exercise of simple authority, and not as a ne- cessary duty ; and, secondly, their bestowment purely as a provisional consequent upon proper well-doiag, and not at aU as its stipulated price. It is neither inconsistent nor injurious for the pupil to receive the reward, feeling that it is an authoritative result of his well-doiag, and a positive symbol of his approved merit. But, for him to become impressed or influ- enced by the notion that he is to do well that he may obtain the reward, is utterly false in principle and vicious in effect. It is practically, to make the ful- fillment of duty a mere matter of barter. It is in this direction, that we are to look for the real objection to the offering of prizes. Offer a prize for the performance of any duty, or the accomplish- ment of any proper work, and, whether it be a mere honor won or a gain acquired, the pupil is subjected to a direjt and powerful temptation to sink all true QENEKAL ELEMENTS : PEEYENTIVE COKRECTION. 187 and noble motive in mere mercenary ambition and endeavor. He will be hardly human, if lie does not sooner or later, under their deceptive stimulus, de- generate into a mere hireling. And the natural con- sequence of such a submergence of principle, and such a practical degradation of character, wiU be the Uprising of that selfishness which so commonly, ia connection with the offering of prizes, develops itself in evil arts, in narrow rivalry, and iu subsequent heart-burning and recrimination. Hence, while we are not prepared to condemn the offering of prizes altogether — for, we can conceive of cases in which, with all their concomitant evils, they may appear as a necessary means to an indispensable though imperfect good — yet, we must urge that they are to be held as a purely occasional and extraordi- nary means, and not at all as a fixed or desirable element in discipHne. Eather than suffer them to usurp this latter place in the least degree, let them be proscribed altogether. It is proper to add further, that prizes bestowed as rewards, are subject, like gifts, to this grave defect ; that they are, in their very nature, irresumable ; they are beyond reach of forfeiture. However immedi- ately or grossly a rewarded pupil may abandon or reverse his praiseworthy course, you have no power to inflict censure by the retraction of the reward. You are, moreover, by the necessary finahty of its bestowment, cut off from the power to hold out the possibility of a forfeiture, as an incentive to contiuued and persistent weU-doing, the securing of which is 188 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. the real end sought in your approval. Hence, the superiority of the former species of rewards becomes evident. Hence, also, it becomes clear that prizes are more consistently ultimate ; that is, they more properly find their place at the end of a pupil's course under the school authority. It m^y occur to some, that under this general head, some notice should be taken of the so-caUed system of " demerit marks." The discussion of that system, like that of several others of a specific character, -will, however, be deferred for the present. And for the reasons, that it is somewhat mixed in its character, partaking both of the nature of rewards and of pun- ishments, — a fact which properly assigns it a place elsewhere ; and because the variety of considerations connected with its examination in detail, together with their somewhat diversified relations, and their grave importance, renders a distinct examination both more consistent and convenient. CHAPTEE X. GENERAL ELEMENTS CONTINUED. DISCIPLINE — PENAL COE- EECnON — ^THEOEIES OF PUNISHMENT. Penal correction defined — Punishment defined— Restricted use of the term — Theory of^^ natural reactions" (Spenceb's) stated — Oljectwns to the theory — Based exclusively upon assumptions with regard to reaction- ary discipline in physical nature — These assumptions unwarranted — The theory framed with reference to physical rather thati moral being — Hence, inadequate to reach the higher offenses — Illustration — It Ignores lixed distinctions between mind and matter — Ignores cardinal facts in the condition oj the moral nature — Depraved will may nullify internal moral reactions — The external reactions may he wanting — Moral reactions altogether contingent and uncertain — Theory fails to distinguish the authoritative from the consequential — Does not distin- guish the authoritative from the non-authoritative — Government can symbolize its displeasure only through positive inflictions — Cardinal distinctions between government of nature and of authority — Assumed superiority of the "natural reaction" scheme a fallacy — Humanitarian scheme— Relation to the reaction scheme — Animus of both — Infliction of pain as punishment, a necessity in nature — Pain in physical nature a means to a moral end — Human power to inflict pain under author- ity, not usurped or tyrannous — Non-infliction of pain not necessarily humane — Source of the objection to pain, excessive sympathy with the individual — BeformMory scheme — Discipline, not primarily, nor chiefly reformatory — The grand end, the protection of the innocent and the conservation of the body politic — No practical escape from the use of punishment in the school — How reduce its amount — By removing occa- sions for transgression — By the institution of exact and effective dis- cipline — By the use of moral instruction — The introduction of moral instruction into schools argued — As necessary to the attainment of the end of true education — This sustained by history, philosophy and common sense — Moral suasion schema. We pass now to the second general division of cor- rection or enforcement ; namely, Penal Correction. 190 ' SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. Under the head of penal correction, or the corrective enforcement of law, we include the use of all means calculated to suppress offenses ; to sustain the gov- ernment of the school against the encroachments of offenders ; and to prevent the lapsing of the innocent into transgression. These means, as such, are cus- tomarily termed punishm&nts. For the sake of guarding against error, we define punishments in precise accordance with the common apprehension of mankind, as being the authoritative infliction, by some properly constituted sovereignty, of some species of evil or suffering upon wilful offend- ers against the requirements of law. By a mere Heense in speech, growing partly out of convenience in expression, and partly out of a some- what obUque analogy in the mere condition of the transgressor of natural law, and that of the violator of the positive regulations of government proper, the term punishment is sometimes applied to the ordi- nary occurrence of consequential evils. Thus we say of the child who persists in playiag with fixe and gets burned, or of the person who disregards the laws of health, and incurs some severe illness, that he is richly punished for his misconduct. But it is simply a contradiction of the common sense, of mankind, and a perversion of proper lan- guage, to insist that this is, in any true or honest sense, punishment, or to covertly accept and treat it as such. No government has ever accepted the sub- jection of the transgressor to these consequential e^Tls, as, in any part, sustaining the majesty of its theories: natural reaction scheme. 191 laws, or fulfilling tlie ends of justice ; nor has law ever regarded the occurrence of these consequences as at all forestalling the application of penalty, or in one iota justly abating its measure of infliction. Hence, a somewhat noted modern theorist, while prac- tically treating them as the only proper species or standards of penalty, cautiously admits that "they are not punishments in the Hteral sense." Notwithstanding this admission, these consequen- tial results are, by that writer, practically pressed as the only legitimate species of penalty, and with so much plausibility and earnestness, that it becomes important to notice the theory critically. According to this natural reaction scheme, proper punishments " are not artificial and unnecessary inflictions of paia." It is their peculiarity " that they are nothing more than the unavoidable consequences oi the deeds which they follow." It is to " be further borne in mind that they are proportionate to the degree ia which the or- ganic laws have been transgressed." These natural reactions " a.re constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be escaped," and " they hold throughout adult life as well as throughout infantine life." In be- half of "this system of letting the penalty be in- flicted by the laws of things," it is assumed, "not only that the system by which the young child is so successfully taught to regulate its movements, is also the discipline by which the great mass of adults are kept in order, and more or less improved ; but that the discipline humanly devised for the worst adults, fails when it diverges from this divinely-ordained 192 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. discipline, and begins to succeed when it approxi- mates to it." Before entering upon the examination of those de- fects in the theory ■which bear most directly upon our main subject, we desire to call the attention to certain general positions taken by its author, which we believe involve mere unwarranted assumption^ and form the basis of much sophistical reasoning. The radical facts upon which these positions are sought to be established, are drawn from physical nature and its laws of cause and effect. Now it is assumed, first, that these natural reac- tions or punishments " are nothing more than the unavoidable consequences of the deeds which they follow ;" that is, they are not artificial or positive provisions of authority. But is this the ultimate truth? So far as man, the subject, is concerned, they are doubtless immediately apprehended as sim- ply consequences fixed in the ordinary round of na- ture. But, considered with reference to the origiaat- ing sovereignty, (and it is that with which we have to do,) were they not primaUy, in the act of creation, really positive provisions authoritatively introduced into the physical scheme of things? Man's short- sighted disposition to rest content with their imme- diate phase as merely consequential, by no means changes the fact that they are ultimately the pure mandates of the Divine will, and just as truly so as any specific provisions subsequently thrust into the system. Again, secondly, it is assumed of these consequences, TlffiOEIES: NATURAL EEACTION SCHEME. 193 that " these painful reactions are proportionate to tlie degree in wliicli the organic laws have been ti-ansgressed." But how wide this is of the truth, every day's experience fully and often painfully de- monstrates. For example, one child carelessly tum- bles over the door step and suffers consequences severe enough to remind him of the necessity of future cau- tion. But who does not know that another may ex- perience the same faU-jrithout receiving the least in- jury, while still another is well-nigh killed out-right? So too, one child wilfuUy, and ia flagrant disregard of express warnings, plays with fire, and escapes with impunity, while another, engaging in precisely the same act through pure ignorance, is actually burned to death. So far from these natural reactions being proportionate to the inducing acts, their singular dis- proportionateness is one of the most perplexing mys- teries of the present state of being. It is further assumed " that these natural reactions which follow the child's wrong actions are constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be escaped." But we have just seen that cases may easily occur in which the wrong act may be, and without the painful consequence at all. Beyond this, who does not know the power of mere repetition, to practically nullify or destroy the proper reaction ? For example, the boy takes tobacco, chews it, and he is made sick ; but he continues the practice, and finally ceases to experi- ence the reactionary penalty ; nay, he will be made sick by the attempt to abandon the hateful practice. Once more, it is assumed that the transgressor 194 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. " soon recognizing this stem thoiagli beneficent dis- cipline becomes extremely careful not to transgress." Now while this effectiveness of the natural reactions as a corrective, may be measurably true of the mere minor and aimless violations of physical laws, it is utterly untrue of all that higher and more dangerous class of transgressions, in which the incentives of pleasure or immediate gratification come into play. Society is full of examples of t^e most painful nature, in which the constant experience of the saddest con- sequences altogether fails to deter men and women from known violations of the laws of the physical nature. Without pausing to notice here the various and singular failures of the writer in question to discover the thorough inconclusiveness of many of his infer- ences ; his entire disregard of the most evident dis- tinctions between the facts of the purely physical system and one as purely moral ; and his sometimes winding and painful evasions of the real question at issue, we pass to those more vital errors which vitiate the whole system as one of moral discipline and gov- ernmental correction. In the first place, then chiefly, the theory is one developed from the physical constitution of things rather than from the facts and laws of the moral nature. It finds its predominant types and leading principles in the operation of physical causes, and the laws of their effects, or consequences, and not in the exercise of the moral powers and the necessary principles of their just control. Hence, unless there THEOEIES: NATURAL REACTION SCHEME. 195 can be established an exact parallelism between tlie two, or unless the latter can be shown to be merely the ulterior development of the former, the analogy instituted between the two must sooner or later fail, or, if still pressed, must prove utterly deceptive. But no such parallelism or principle of continuous development can be proven. This may, perhaps, be more clearly seen in specific illustration. Thus, if one runs a pin into his finger, pain follows : the consequence is immediate and certain. But, if he teUs a He, the moral sequence, — conscious guilt and remorse, — is not, as aU experience shows, immediate and certain ; nay, it is more com- monly uncertain, and is reached only through inter- vening pressure and struggle. Again, if one tumbles over a door-step through heedlessness, the slight accident produces a slight pain, whereas a more serious accident would occasion a greater pain. But it by no means follows, that this gradation of effects holds good where action purely moral is concerned : it by no means follows, that he who steals fifty dollars will feel five times the self-condemnatory pain, or will incur five times the opprobium which falls to the lot of him who has taken but ten. Still further, he who spills boiling water on his hands may learn from the resulting scald, a lesson so effective that no persua- sion will induce him again to disregard the laws of his constitution in that way. But no man of common sense needs to be told, that it by no means follows from this, that he who has basely defrauded his neighbor, experiences so keen a pang in consequence, 196 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. or is visited by sucli naturally resultant evils, that no inducement of avaricious desire ■will persuade liim to do the same again. Nay, experience teaches that he •who has done it once, is, if anything, the more likely to venture upon a second experiment of the same kind, and that one stiU more flagitious. Without multiplying illustrations, it will, we think, be clearly enough seen from the foregoing, that this method of moral discipline must prove wholly inade- quate to the proper correction of the higher offenses. "While, as a subsidiary means, it may render important service in the treatment of all offenses which, involv- ing distinctly the violation of some law of material being, are subject to the vigorous imposition of nat- ural consequences ; when the transition is to the spir- itual being, and the offense becomes more exclusively moral, and, as such, is, in its consequences, not only more subtle, but more varied and uncertain, these natural reactions, as they are termed, must of neces- sity fall greatly short of most of the demands made upon disciphne. Thus, in the case of a child who has carelessly lost his knife, you may insist upon the continuance of the natural consequence, — ^his deprivation of the privilege of having one. But carry out the assumed intimation of nature when he has failed to acquire the knowl- edge embraced in a certain lesson, and insist upon his continued deprivation of that knowledge as a just punishment, and the whole is simply absurd. Again, suppose a man to have wasted his fortune in riotous indulgence ; and the resultant beggary and disease theories: natural eeaction scheme. 197 ■which are the natural consequences of his folly and vice, may serve as a species of discipline, to correct his false notions of pleasure or propriety, and deter him from a repetition of his wUd extravagance and destructive indulgence. But, suppose that he has by a base forgery reduced his friend to beggary ; or has by an act of perjury deprived an innocent man of character ■ or hberty ; or has with cool calcidation robbed an unsuspecting victim of life or limb ; — sup- pose any of these, and what natural consequence can you discover to be, with like certainty and severity, treading upon the heels of his transgression, as an adequate and sure corrective ? Nor win it avail to plead that, in such cases, the wants of discipline may be met by the use of the higher means, such as' the withdrawal of confidence, the demand for restitution, or deprivation of personal liberty ; for in the case of him who has gone to these extremes of crime, there may be an entire insensibility to the verdict of the public sentiment ; restitution may be a simple impossibility ; and as for the incar- ceration of the culprit as an unsafe person, that is not at all a natural consequence ; it is altogether an authoritative act, and one of those positive inflictions pronounced by the theorist, as artificial and useless punishments. By the very terms of his theory, then, the progress of the natiiral reactionist in this direc- tion is estopped. In this direction, then, the theory of moral disci- pline, chiefly through the medium of natural reac- tions, is reprehensible on the ground that it practi- 198 SCHOOL GOVEBNMENT. cally ignores radical and fixed distinctions that exist between matter and miad ; it quietly, but none the less positively, assumes that natural causes and free causes are confederate on the same basis, are bound by the same chain of consequential necessity, and are to be determined ia their practical laws and ap- plications by the same processes of investigation, and reasoning. In all this, it betrays its hearty sym- pathy with that pretentious modem philosophizing (we cannot dignify it as philosophy) which endows each corpuscle with an atom of intelligence, aggre- gates their force in a nervous system, culminates the whole in the cineritous matter of the brain, and thus, identifying mind with sublimated nerve force, ends in pure, though covert materialism. Still further, the theory, as just hinted, thoroughly ignores certain cardinal facts in the nature and. ope- ration of the moral powers, which underlie aU just and effective application of government to the ra- tional subject. Assuming complacently, as it does, that the intimations of natui-e in the chain of phys- ical causation are a sufficient guide to the conse- quential discipline of those higher offenses which are either chiefly or exclusively moral, it practically de- nies the following facts : First. That it is fuUy within the power of a de- praved will to destroy all natural reaction of the moral nature, so that no such moral pTinishment will be possible within the consciousness of the offender. Thus, a person may, from the influence of evil asso- ciations, fi'om the strength of habit, or from the power THEoraEs: natural keaction scheme. 199 of a depraved propensity, have come to have the reason so perverted in its apprehension, and the con- science so benumbed in its sensibility, that the com- mission of crimes of no inconsiderable magnitvide, may awaken no inconvenient consciousness whatever. For example, how often do profanity, falsehood, or petty theft, occur " and give no sign" of any painful sense of guilt, shame, or remorse ? But in such a case, where is the certain, the graduated, the inex- orable consequence, that, as natural reaction, is to serve as punishment ? But suppose the theorist appeals to the external effects of such misdeeds, — their influence to awaken displeasure and produce reprehension, in others. Who does not know that the same causes may have operated to make another, — a parent, a teacher, a friend, any person so situated as to become cognizant of the offense and to be able to visit his displeasure as a natural reaction upon the offender, — who does not know that he may have been made just as insen- sible to the criminal character of the act, and may have come to be just as much beyond the reach of any painful feehngs as a consequence of its commis- sion, as the offender himself ? How many persons are entirely unaffected by the utterance of an oath, or a petty falsehood, or the taking of some fraudu- lent advantage of another. In these cases, where is the chance for that displeasure, or withdrawal of confidence, or censure which as external natural re- actions may serve as punishment ? " But," says the theorist, " the offender is amenable to public senti- 200 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. ment." Suppose, however, your public sentiment, as it often is, is so far debased as to have no voice of condemnation, then what ? There are communities where sabbath-breaking, polygamy or licentiousness, do not shock the public sensibility at all ; nay, where the abuses are even justified : where are the natural reactions here ? The truth is, while the physical reactions, upon which the whole scheme is so plausibly based,'are somewhat certain and constant the world over, the moral reactions, whether internal or external, indi- vidual or social, are so subject to the contingencies of voluntary action, and are, hence, so variable and unceiiain, that it is difficult to see how the attempt could be made to reason conclusively from the former to the latter, with an intelligent or honest purpose. As a final objection to this theory, we urge this ; that its proposed provisions for the correction of of- fenses fail altogether to distiaguish the authoritative from the general, or non-authoritative, in disciphne : it wholly excludes the very idea fundamental and necessary to aU government ; namely, that of proper sovereignty. To present this more clearly, take, for example, the case of one who, having eaten to excess, becomes as a natural consequence violently ill. Now the phUosophical thinker may, in tracing out the line of causation, discover in the painful result of the excessive indulgence, an indication of the Divine will in favor of temperance as a virtue, and agaiast gluttony as a vice. But not so with the mass of mind. To such mind, the ultimate authority is prac- theories: natural eeaction scheme. 201 tically submerged in mere natural causation. The whole occurrence, being bounded within the fixed and every way ordinary circuit of natural laws, is, and we may almost add, can only be, apprehended as a thing in nature, and not at all in an authority or goTem- ment as .beyond and above nature. Hence, the al- most universal experience of mankind is, that such occnrrences are apprehended as involving simply an error in action, and serving as an admonition to the exercise of higher wisdom or prudence ; and not at all, as embracing direct guilt, and demanding atone- ment and subsequent obedience to rightful sover- eignty. Still further, take the case of a child who has been guilty of falsehood. The natural external reaction by which the offense is to be corrected, is a manifes- tation of displeasure and of withdrawn confidence in the reliability of his word. But suppose the oifense to have come equally under the cognizance of A, the parent, and B, a mere acquaintance. The former holds an authoritative relation to the offender ; the latter only a general relation. Yet the reaction is the same in kind in the case of both. How then is this reaction as penalty, to distinguish the authorita- tive from the non-authoritative ; how can it evince the superior rights and responsibilities of the proper sovereignty over those of mere association and gen- eral regard for virtue ? Hence, so far as the " indi- cation of nature" is concerned, the stranger is as competent to apply the corrective, or the punishment, as the parent. But this is abhorrent to the common 202 SOHOOL DISCirUNE. sense of mankind, and in direct conflict with tlie necessary ideas of order and justice. Lastly, we objecl; to this theory of natural reactions according to these assumed intimations of nature, that it disenables the collective authority of civil gov- ernment from the proper censure or punishment of offenses against its rightful sovereignty. So far as individual expressions of displeasure or manifestation of impaired confidence are concerned, we have seen that while they can not cover the required ground necessary for the recognition or maintenance of the authority, they are still possible. But collect aU the individuals in a commonwealth, and require them to be represented in a collective authority or govern- ment proper, and where are we to find those direct expressions, of- look, tone, word or natural action, which can effectively say to the offenders, you have committed an offense ; displeasure is felt ; confidence is withdrawn? Conceive of the culprit as under a government forbidden to go beyond the Hmit of these natural consequences and reactions, or any others possible in strict accordance with these assumed ia- timations of nature, as argued from the primary basis of necessary cause and effect and you conceive of him as in the very realm and paradise of viUainy. Con- ceive of a government so conditioned, and you may as well at once append to the law of its constitution the memorable item added by Luther to the twelve articles drawn up by the rebel fanatics under Mun- zer : " Erom this day forth, the honorable Council shall be powerless, — its functions shall bo to do no- THSOKIES: NATIJEAi EEACTION SCHEME. 203 thing, — ^it shall sit as an idol or as a log, — ^the com- mune shall chew its meat for it, and it shall be bound hand and foot." The truth is, the system of nature can only compre- hend and consider the being under her administra- tion, as simply creature: government must look farther, and hold him under her control and disci- pline, as subject. Under the former, the only conceiD- tion of that which Hes back of, and is installed above, being, is that of superior agency, as author : under the latter, it is distinctly that of supreme power, as authority. Under the former, therefore, the inflictions are necessarily causal, or consequential : under the latter, they must be positive and penaL Hence, it will be seen that- government proper is not the mere natural or constitutional concurrence -of creative power and product, cause and effect. It is rather a distinct positive institution, not in conflict with na- ture, but rising clearly and legitimately above nature ; adapted to the higher wants of associated moral be- ings, and providing for the attainment of ends which nature can" not reach. Of this character precisely are civil governments, and as such, they must both for their own manifestation and support, be privileged to em- ploy positive inflictions, — those very "inflictions of pain" which the theory stigmatizes as " artificial and unnecessary," and of which judicial condemnation, civil disabilities, "imprisonment or other restraint," are clear and well-defined examples, all plausible pre- tense to the contrary notwithstanding. Government is an artificial symbol of the collective sense and will 204 SCHOOL GOTEKNMENT. of the commtiiiity, and it must symbolize its own sense and "will to a greater or less extent, by corresponding artificial means. Hence, we urge that the theory of natural reactions is objectionable as practically, in its proper consummation, subversive of civil gov- ernment. Without going into a specific application of these facts, it wiU be seen generally that, inasmuch as these defects in the theory are radical, the assumed superi- ority of its application to the moral discipline of the child in the school, is whoUy fallacious. Under all the fair-seeming philosophy and ingenious reason- ings of its popular advocate, there lies a broad sub- stratum of error iu both premises and inferences. This error should not be allowed to escape the notice of the teacher. Left unconscious of its presence and nature, he wiU, not only be in danger of being divert- ed from the true theory of government, but he wiU be disenabled to make the wisest use of such just sug- gestions as the theory reaUy contains. But there is another species of error current in society, and largely affecting the views of educational reforms. It is not to be found so formally developed in theory as the foregoing; but is, perhaps, more widely and dangerously operative in fact. Super- ficially, its relation to the scheme of natural reactions, may not be readily apparent. But, substantially, the originating and animating principle is the same in both. "What that principle is, an"d how it leads to the two results, may be seen as follows. Given a con- sciousness in man of subjection to a divine moral THEOEIES : HUMANITAEIAN SCHEME. 205 govemment, and of incitrred guilt deserving of condign punislmient, the anxious problem to be solved, is, how to escape a just subjection to positive pains and pen- alties, beyond the present state of being. Now, very clearly, establish the principle that, under a system of moral discipUne among men, all the so-called arti- ficial punishments are unnecessary and unjust : or set up the claim that the authoritative infliction of positive pain, or the use of discipMne for any other than reformatory purposes, is inhumane, or, at least, inconsistent with perfect benevolence, and the case is apparently gained. Having thus shut up human gov- ernment within the narrow range of these me?e nat- ural consequences of transgression, and to the mere amiable ends of humane individual reformation, there is but a step from that to the application of the same laws and bounds to the moral government of God, the result of which, if successful, will be obvious. It becomes then important that this (for want of a better term) humanitarian scheme of discipline should be carefully examined. The substance of its outcry against its antagonistic system of government and disciphne, is that these inflictions of pain are unphilo- sophical, and inhumane, vindictive rather than re- formatory. With reference to the question of philosophical consistency, we urge the following considerations. First, the infliction of disciplinary pain is the very thing directly sustained by the indications of nature. Tn more express terms, the supreme authority in na- ture everywhere inflicts pain for violations of his de- 206 SCHOOL GOYEUNMENT. mands. Tme, he does it through the medium of what are called natural laws. But that neither makes the infliction less productiTe of pain, or less an act of the authority. It only makes it the clearer that, root- ed as this painful species of corrective discipline is ia the very substratum of nature, its general application under contingent modifications, is not arbitrary nor accidental: it is fundamental and necessary. It shows that the right to inflict disciplinary paia is in- herent in all just authority, and that authoritative subjection to such penal infliction is a necessary con- tingency of all actual transgression. Nor does the more manifest connection of these painful inflictions in nature with the physical side of being, invahdate the argument. God, in nature, no more inflicts pain for the mere physical results, than does man in society. It is done always as a natural and necessary means to a moral end. The blow struck upon the body, in the case of him who, tram- pling on the laws of temperance, suffers the pangs of indigestion or the horrors of delirium-tremens, is in- tended to react upon the soul, which cannot other- wise be reached so well. The outcry of nature in the pain endured is not against the hand which grasped the means of exce'ss, nor the mouth which took in the forbidden elements, nor the stomach which re- ceived and endeavored to appropriate them ; but it is raised against the sinful spirit which demanded the base subservience of these insti-uments in its bodily nature, to its sensual desires and depraved will. And thus the divine authority in nature stands as a proto- THEOEIES : HUMAOTTABLA.N SCHEME. 207 type for tlie human authority in society, in its strug- gle to repress the evil and preserve the good for the great ends of the common weal. Nor is it any just counter-plea, that, in nature, it is God who disciplines by pain, while under civil or social law, it is only usurping man. In nature, God has, for the necessary stabihty of being itself, main- tained himseK in immediate presence and active au- thority. But in human society, he has, for the sake of conferred free agency, and the development of voluntary capacity, responsibility and power, with- drawn himself, as it were, from the immediate control, and imposed its exercise, with all its prerogatives and liabilities, upon the human agency itself. Proper human government is, in this sense, a delegated vice- gerent of God himself ; and it is thus that " the powers that be," whether domestic, scholastic, civil, or eccle- siastical, " are ordained of God." And that such au- thorities can not discipline by natural laws, as does God in nature, is no argument that they must not administer correction by means of what are stigmatiz- ed as " artificial inflictions of pain." The prerogative of ruling is not delegated without the right to the means of discipUne ; and those means, as has already been seen, involve the positive reaching of the refrac- tory spkit, through the avenues of the bodily organ- ism, and in just such ways as are practicable and effective, whether in accordance with the ordinary laws of nature or not. Indeed, it is not yet in proof, that even the Divine Euler, in dealing with the more exclusive forms of moral delinquency, has restricted 208 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. himself to the narrow range of corrective means in simple cause and effect, as he does ia the case of the violation of physical laws. Iq the second place, as to the plea of inhumanity, which is sometimes urged in objection, it is equally fallacious. The withholduig of painful inflictions is not necessarily humane, for it is not clear to any ob- serving and candid mind, that pain is necessarily an evil. Nay, the natural reactionist himself, and in accordance with the common-sense of mankind, ad- mits the benevolent utility of pain in its physical re- lations, as a necessary means to a merciful end : in other words, it is, in the perfect circle of related being and action, an absolute good. Not less distinctly has it, in all human government, been accepted as the same, and both under the same general law, and for the same general reason. Furthermore, if in nature, where only the preservation of individual being is the cardinal end to be attained, the infliction of pain is a necessary good, much more, may it be reasonably argued, is it both just and true in the society or the state, where a broader and more comprehensive being than that of the mere individual is concerned, and higher and more imperative interests than that of mere existence, 'are at stake. It is a significant fact that these objections against the infliction of pain are due in good part to certain errors which characterize these humanitarian schem- ists, in general. One of these is, that, mth a vision narrowed by false sympathy with suffering, they see with effective sharpness, only the suffering individual, theories: kefoematoey scheme. 209 while all the broad suxrouncliiig circle of related life and interest is lost in vagne imperception. Or, if they at aU perceive the vital nature and claims of society as a whole, they have, by beginning with the study of the individual sufferer under law, so im- - paired the habit and grasp of the apprehension, that when it has even worked up and out to the surround- ing breadth of the social or civil organism, they be- hold it only as a thing reduced and remote. They have bent their gaze upon it, only through the in- verted glass. If they would but reverse the process ; if they would but begin with the greater interests of the organic whole, with the majesty and responsibility of government as the sole conservator of those inter- ests, and thence descend to the proper claims of the individual offender, they would obtain better and broader conceptions of the nature and prerogatives of discipHne ; they would discover how much greater the whole is than any of its parts, ho-n^ much more important to be avoided are the pangs of dissolute or dissolving society, than the pains of the individual transgressor who has fallen into the hands of human justice. With reference to the remaining error, — that of assuming the office of governmental discipline to be primarily and chiefly reformatory, — there occurs an inversion of the order of things, no less transparent than in the former case. Indeed a perversely upside down philosophy seems to be the peculiar penchant of these theorizers. Now the reformation of the guilty may, and should somewhere, be an object 210 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. souglit ; but rather within the sphere of individual philanthropy than governmental control. The phil- anthropic element in government, so far as it has a place, must concern itself rather with the general welfare. Hence, to aU true government, the first and highest end, is the twofold preservation of the loyal and innocent : first, their preservation as a body politic, intact and secure from the encroachments of the disloyal and vicious ; and secondly, their preser- vation generally from any endangered loss of their own purity and rectitude, as induced by the baleful presence among them of uncurbed example and crimes "un whipped of justice." The former, it se- cures by the restraints and disabilities it imposes upon transgressors, and the latter by the inflicted penalties and paias which stand as a perpetual warn- ing to those who have not yet fallen. And we are bold to say, further, that under no true theory of government, can any other than this first and highest end be directly proposed ; the reformatory end, where it is sought, being so properly, only as a means to the better preservation of the innocent. This it ef- fects by securing their more thorough protection against any further trespass upon their rights by the criminal as once brought to justice and through that, if reformed, restored to positive rectitude. The application of these broad and comprehensive principles to the use of disciphnary penalties and pains in our schools, as it regards both their utihty and natural consistency, is henceforth so clear that we mi"ht venture to leave its further consideration theories: EEF03MAT0EY SCHEME. 211 to tlie sound sense of the teacher himself. And yet, we doubt not there will arise in some miads, more tender in feeling than vigorous in thought, the pain- fully present and pressing question, " Is there, then, no escape from the necessity of employing means of -correction so seemingly pitiless and repulsive ?" ^ To this question, we can only answer frankly, no, not until there shall appear in the present state, some new and nobler incarnation of the human spirit with both a regenerated moral nature and a restored per- 'fection of the physical being. ISo long as man shall continue to exist as a free moral agent,'controlled, nevertheless, by a depraved will, and bound in sub- jection to a material organism ; so long it cannot be otherwise, than that, transgressing the higher laws of the spiritual essence within him, he must in some part, for both his own good and that of society, be reined in and driven back from evil doing, by those stem mandates which can only send their living utterances to the soul, through the roused sensibilities of the bodily nature. The only question, then, which the practical teacher can raise with just reasonableness, is, how can the necessity for the use of these penal inflictions in the school, be reduced to its minimum ? This question admits of a more hopeful and happy answer. That answer embraces several practical suggestions. First. The necessity for the use of penal inflictions in the school can be largely reduced by the careful institution of such a wise and noble order in both arrangement and management, as wiU, as has already 212 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. been shown, materially diminish • the occasions for transgression, and infuse into the minds of the pupils, a deeper interest and a higher ambition. Secondly. It may be further reduced by the insti- tution of such exact and effective discipHne, — ^to be fully discussed hereafter, — as wiU create a prevailing conviction through aU its ranks, of the inevitable certainty of detection and just punishment. Thirdly. The last and crowning means of com- pleting this reduction, — means, alas, too seldom and too feebly employed')' — ^is to be found in the earnest and prominent use of moral instruction in the school ; not the mere incidental enunciation of a stale and Ufeless ethics, — an ethics discharged of all reKgious principle, a mere moral cadaver with no divine in- dwelling and energizing spirit, — but the steady and systematic pressing upon the minds and hearts of the pupils, of those great laws and obligations which, as both moral and rehgious, are the sole foundation for all pure and perfected character. This, we are well aware, is broadly broaching the much-mooted question, whether or not, moral instruc- tion should be introduced into schools under the con- trol of the state, as a fixed part of its educational system, — a question the solution of which we regard as neither doubtful nor dif&cult. That solution, how- ever, is possible, only under the condition that a just . \'iew be taken of the end to be sought by the state in estabhshing a system of popular education. For, what the state must seek as its end, determines what THEOKIES: EEFOEMATOKY SCHEME. 213 the state must do with moral instruction as a means to that end. Let it then be understood at the outset, that inas- much as government is instituted, not by the individ- ual, but by the community; and inasmuch as it is estabHshed, not for the individual benefit, but for the public good, its entire province and prerogative must be limited by its responsibility to the commonwealth, for the common weal. Hence, government must be made to look municipally, — if we may be allowed the word, — at the state, and not individually at the man ; it must be moved by an economical regard for the good of the state, and not by a mere humane concern for the person ; it must act to the one comprehensive end, the conservation and advancement of the state, and not for the simple, prior or prominent object of benefiting of the individual. That these secondary objects concerning the mere individual man, may be, and, under any proper administration of government, must be attained, is freely granted ; but it is as firmly maintained, that they are not, and never may be, a proper end or direct object of government as such. The first, sole, proper and direct object of the state, then, must be its own conservation and advancement, its own perpetuity, its own prosperity, — ^these are its objects of concern, its ends of action. Hence, not at all for the simple direct sake of any person or persons as such ; not at aU for his or their advantage, other than as the merest consequent of its legitimate action, may any proper government provide schools and instruction for the people. Only to this 214 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. end may it- do that, — that there may be possible in the state, that highest and pm-est exercise of political rights among the people, which ■will ensure in the state the ■wisest constitution, the ablest administration, and the most enduring permanence of go^v^emment, and through these, the true dignity, stability and pros- perity of the state itself. In other -words, only to the end of its own conservation and advancement, may the state ever establish or maintain a system of public instruction. Here, then, the question, always pertinent, becomes actually vital ; is mere intellectual or scientific culture enough to meet the conditions of the case ; is that sufficient to render a state system of public instruc- tion either competent to the attainment of the desired end, or consistent -with it? Give the people such culture only, and wiU that ensure in them, and from them, such combined intelligence, virtue and loyalty, as will secure the state, for aU time, against its most dangerous enemies, popular ignorance, social corrup- tion, and political abandonment. Will such a culture make a people both intelligent and virtuous, and as virtuous as intelligent, — ^this is the question, and a vital one it is. "What now is the inevibable answer to this question ? Let us see. What says history ? All history teaches us, that popular advancement in the arts and sciences, without a corresponding gro-nHih in morality and re- ligion, has been always and only an increased refine- ment in individual and national wickedness, a more skilful and subtle abuse of power, and a change of the theories: eefoematoey scheme. 215 mere form of civil destruction, from external crusli and demolition, to a secret and subtle, yet sure sap and subversion. And what says philosophy ? All philosophy teaches, that, for every increase of power in the subjected ob- ject, there must be a corresponding augmentation of strength in the controlling agent, and that every advance in individual knowledge, is an augmentation of power, for which there can be no corresponding increase of control, other than that found in a corre- sponding growth and ascendancy of moral principle. And what says simple common sense ? Common sense urges, that it is the fact that in all enlightened countries and communities, intellectual and moral culture are, in some way or other, so associated or run parallel, that it is almost impossible to dissever them for the purpose of exemphfication and compar- ison ; and that this fact alone is enough to establish the existence of a relation between them,- at once so natural and necessary, that to ignore it either in theory or practice, and so to dissever moral instruc- tion from intellectual or scientific culture, is simply to make an educational system stultify itself. Without appealing to specific examples, and with- out pressing the argument from principles further, it must be seen from what has been advanced, that the original question ought never to have been entertain- ed at all ; and that the only consistent form in w-hich it can present itself, is rather this, ought moral in- struction ever to be neglected or even subordinated in our pnbUc schools ': What position, or what promi- 216 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. nence should be assigned to moral instruction ? may be discussed : that it should have some place anti im- portance, is a foregone conclusion. There are those, however, who wiU argue, that ob- servation by no means shows, that the lack of this distinct moral culture in our schools is productive of that uncurbed and therefore destructive iriteUigence to which reference has been made. The answer to this objection is immediately and conclusively this, that the non-occurrence of that dangerous result is not due to the non-existence of a natural cause for it ; but to the existence of important and, to a certain, extent, redeeming influences operatiag on our youth outside of the schools, and accidentally affording them a certain proportion of the lacking moral culture. Others may urge, that, even if the moral culture were not thus incidentally secured, the laws would afford the state an adequate protection against this unprincipled or demoralized intelligence. To this it is sulficient to answer, that, not only is there outside of the exact letter of the laws, a wide margin for the most vicious and dangerous exercise of such inteUi- gence, but there is in this very intelligence, and sim- ply because it is corrupt, a power equal to the most triumphant evasion, if not the actual defiance of the laws. As to those other objections, urged, perhaps, some- times honestly, but inteUigently perhaps never, that this necessary moral instruction can better be given elsewhere, and therefore should be, or that its intro- duction into our schools wiU make them sectarian ; THEORIES : MORAL SUASION SCHEME. 217 it is sufficient to say, that they do not commend them- seh'es" enough to the simplest common sense, to claim either a specific notice or a formal refutation. When it shall be shown that it is possible, not to say pro- fitable, to dissever the intellectual and moral faculties in their exercise and development, in this manner ; or when it shall appear that ethics, by being, for the sake of convenience, considered apart from mental science, becomes a body of sectarian dogmas, rather than a system of universal principles ; in other words, when it shall become clear, that we are to build. the most wisely and successfully, by first layiug up the brick, and then elsewhere, and by other hands, in- serting the mortar ; or when it shall have become manifest, that to lay the brick with the mortar, con- temporaneously and conjunctively, is to interfere with the rights of both builder and owner, and actually to destroy the catholic excellence of the masonry ; — when this shall be, the time for a formal notice of those objections may have come : come before it can not ; and till it can, we dismiss them. Of the exclusive Moral Suasion Scheme, so much harped upon by certain shallow theorists, no distinct notice wiU be taken here, for the reasons, that it is substantially identical in spirit and philosophy with those already considered ; taken by itself, it is a mere castle in the air ; and if it needs to be refuted at all, it is sufficiently met by the general principles herein urged at large. CHAPTER XI. GENERAL ELEMENTS CONTINIIED — ^DISCIPLINE — PENAI. COEBECnON, OE PUNISHMENT. Punishment defined — Its necessary elements — Anthoritative infliction — Act of proper authority — Infliction of an actual suffering — Procesg throvgh which effective — Enlightens the intellect — Arouses the sensibili- ties — Moves the will — Infliction must be for the support of law, and for the general welfare — Panishmemts classified a« Privative and Jbsitive —Deflned— Privative distinguished, as Primitive and Retractive — Right to punish by deprivation sustained — Consequent superiority of con- ditional rewards — Necessity for positive punishments — P>sitivepun- ishmerds defined — Relation to the privative — ^Positive classifled as Pri- vative, Coercive and Compulsive — Coercive described — Esuential points to 6e secured — Actual abandonment of the wrong — Correction of its evil results — Reparation to the government as such — Voluntariness in the whole — Coe>civectasslfi£d,as, reprimands, loss of privilege, restraint or confinement, corporal punishment, and final exclusion — Oenerdl Rules for infliction — Positive detection must precede — Punishment must be well considered- — Must be thorough — Administered with de- liberatcness — Must be public — Otjections to publicity considered — Spring from false sympathy or pride — ^Publicity necessai-y to the full effect of the discipline — Proper infliction of punishment not brutalizing — The infliction of the punishment to be followed by moral efforts — Evil of neglecting these — Specific method's — For correlative rewards and punishments — For public reprimands— For bodily restraint — Ob- jectionable restraints — Particular consideration of detention after school — Method for corporal punishment — Objectionable inflictions — Compulsive correction — ^Nature and use illustrated — Grounds of its reasonableness — Objection to involuntariness answered — Final exclu- sion — Occasion of its existence — Must be held as a last resort — ^Is less a common necessity than is supposed — Specific method — Must be followed by reclamatoty efforts — Summary abandonment of offenders a social vice. Proceeding to the proper discussion of penal cor- rection, we define punishment to be, — as it is accepted gejSTeral elements: punishment. 219 in the common sense of mankind, — ^the authoritative infliction, by some properly constituted sovereignty, of some species of pain or suffering upon offenders, because of their wilful violations of lawful require- ment, and for the sake of sustaining the majesty of government, and securing the common weal. In the thorough consideration of the several ele- ments embraced in the definition, it wiU be observed, first, that punishment must be an authoritative inflic- tion, as opposed to mere consequential results. In other words, for reasons already discussed at length, consequences are not to be accepted as, in any proper sense, punishments. Again, the infliction must be the act of a properly constituted authority. Proceeding from any other source than such authority, it loses all legahty and, in losing its legality, it becomes simply an abuse or, if you win, an outrage. Thus, suppose that the child committing some act in known violation of parental law, to be caught and chastised by a passer-by ; or a public offender to be seized and subjected to summary retribution by the private citizen, and in neither case would the act be held to be as legitimate, or the inflic- tion be coTinted as punishment. Nay, both of these self-constituted ministers of justice, would be them- selves held as transgressors. Nor, indeed, is this all, the act must be that of the proper authority, -and no other. Thus if, for example, the parent chastises the child for some violation of school regulations not at all embraced in his ovm rules or directions, or if, in a higher field, one state authority should inflict penal- 220 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. ties for crimes committed within the jurisdiction, or against the laws of another commonwealth, the act would, in both cases, be one of usurpation or tyranny. Punishment must, furthermore, involve the inflic- tion of something actually counted by the offender as an evil ; and as such t must be capacitated to occa- sion painful restraint or actual suffering. For reasons already noticed as existing in the depraved condition and vicious power of the will, if government be stop- ped short of this extreme of its prerogative in inflic- tion, its penal inflictions are, in the majority of cases, reduced to a sham and a failure. The susceptibilities of the culprit are, of course, not to determine the na- ture or the measure of the infliction ; but, whatever the government shall adjudge it to be, it must be a something real to the offender, and probably sufficient to reach his will effectively. This, however, is not to take ground that, in individual cases, in which it may fail to be thus effective, it is to be forborne ; for government has other ends in its infliction, other than that of the mere correction of the offender. The deterring of the yet innocent, from the commission of similar crimes, may be itself a sufficient ground for the infliction, even when the offender is already clearly hardened beyond the reach of its influence. The process through which the punishment is to reach and affect either the guilty or the innocent, in order that the ends of discipline may be attained, is as follows. In the first place, it is designed to bring the intellect to a consciousness of the reahfcy and the magnitude of the offense, by presenting to it a posi- GENESAL ELEMENTS : PUNISHMENT. 221 tive symbol of the vie"ws and feelings of the offended sovereignty. Its language is to this effect ; in the measure of the care taken to bring you to condign punishment, and in the measure of the pains inflicted upon you, behold the measure of that wrong which you haye inflicted upon pure rectitude, and of that outrage which you have committed against the maj- esty of law. Secondly. It is designed to awaken in the sensi- bility, a distinct feeling of the reahty and heinousness of the offense committed. This it effects, partly through the foregoing influence to enlighten the intel- lect, and partly through pressing upon the culprit, in a sense of the pains he bears, a feehng of the loss or the evil he himself incurs, and of the necessary fohy or turpitude of the act which was an adequate cause for the infliction of such suffering. Thirdly. Through the intellect and the sensibiH- ties as already affected, it is designed to reach the wiU, presenting to it motives, from either conviction, desire or fear, calculated to restrain or reverse its evU purposes, and thus operating to prevent, not only the repetition of the evil act for which the punishment is inflicted, but also the commission of others for which it may be justly demanded. The deterring effect of punishment upon the inno- cent, is reached through much the same process, dif- fering only in this, that the operation is one of obser- vation rather than experience. It is, in their case, the more hopeful, inasmuch as there is yet no actual guilt to cloud the apprehension, to warp the judg- 222 SCHOOL QOVEENMEUT. ment or benumb tlie feelings. Hence, the suffering, tbougll only -witnessed, sheds a clearer light upon the offended majesty of the law, upon the magnitude of the offense, and upon the bitterness of transgression in its iudividual consequences. Finally. The punishment must be inflicted for no merely Tindictive or even reformatory ends. Its grand object is, directly, the sustaiaing of law, and through that, the ultimate preservation of the common wel- fare. "Whenever it degenerates from this, and is made to compass individual or inferior ends alone, the punishment becomes less condemnatory of the culprit, than of the authority which applies it. Passing now to the specific consideration of pun- ishments, we classify them as of two general species : Privative and Positive. Under privative punishment, we include every au- thoritative deprivation of rights, privileges or honors, of which the pupil has, by his misdemeanors. Wrought just forfeiture. Of these punishments, it is proper to remark that they embrace all of the so-called natural reactions that are really valuable ; and their natural restriction to this head, is itself a proof of the insuf- ficiency of those reactions as a sole means of moral discipline. These punishments, hence, form a sort of connecting link between purely consequential evils and proper punishments. These privative punishments may be considered as of two kinds ; Primitive, or the subtraction of such rights or privileges as may, either naturally or by the action of some antecedent authoritv, have been confer- GENEEAL ELEltENTS : PUNISHMENT. 223 red upon the pupil ; and Retractive, or the resumption by the teacher of such privileges or honors as may have been authoritatiTely conferred by him, upon the pupil, either as specific rewards or otherwise. As illustrative of these, may be cited, the depriving of the pupil of the right to a recess or play spell ; of the privilege of holding some favorite seat, or some post of honor in a class ; or of the possession of some badge of distinction or token, of the teacher's ap- proval and esteem. Others wiU naturally occur to the thoughtful teacher, either as originally suggested, or as naturally indicated by the peculiar method of reward adopted in his own system of discipline. Of the right of the teacher to inflict such depriva- tion, there can hardly be any question. As the abso- lute conservator of those rights, and author of those privileges or honors, the teacher must as truly possess a negative, as well as a positive, control over them. He must have as truly the power to say, when the welfare of the school demands it, these shall not be, as to declare, they shall be. Furthermore, aU. rights are guaranteed and aU privileges are conferred only on the assumed ground that they are to be consistently held and employed. Everywhere, under proper gov- ernment, the malicious use of these rights or privileges to the disadvantage of others or the damage of the sovereignty itself, is naturally held to result in either their partial or complete forfeiture. Resting, as they neeessajrily do, upon a specific merit or worthiaess, as soon as that gives place to its opposite specific de- merit or unworthiaess, they must fall to the ground 224 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. for the mere want of foundation. Certainly, the ex- istence of character or conduct which would have precluded their creation, must prohibit their continu- ance. And to this law of resumption there can be no exception, save only in those cases in which either unavoidably or unwisely they have been, by the au- thority itself, made permanent or irrevocable. Herein, then, will be discovered a peculiar evil of bestowing permanent gifts as rewards of merit, in- stead of resumable privileges, marks of favor or hon- orable distiQctions, already urged as of superior con- sistency and excellence. Bestow upon the pupil such an absolute gift or prize, and, inasmuch as it cannot be resumed, the authority cuts itself off from the opportunity of indicating its displeasure at subse- quent transgression, in one of the most effective ways possible, and also from the power to hold the subject steadily to the principle of continued and progressive worthiness as the true law of excellence, in opposition to that of mere temporary or desultory goodness. Very clearly, any action on the part of the teacher which, as a needless finahty, limits his power to re- tain a disciplinary hold upon his pupils, so doubly important as both a stimulus and a restraint, must be, to say the least, exceedingly unwise. Hence, the teacher can not be too careful in all disciplinary action of this kind, not only to give his preference to resumable rewards, but also to make the school fully understand that they are held subject to such retraction in case of just forfeiture ; and that their sole object is not the mere temporary approval GENERAL ELEMENTS : PUNISHMENT. 225 of specific acts, but rather the public evincing of a desire to secure that permanent excellence of charac- ter of which these acts appear as the natural and steady outworking. The feeling sought to be aroused should be distinctly and invariably this ; these re- wards were given, not because this was done, but be- cause there was evinced a constant disposition to do it ; and so soon as that disposition is wanting, the right to hold them will be just as truly gone as would be the right to receive them. Wherever, also, this principle of conditionality, or this reserved right of retraction is understood, so that its exercise does not take the pupU by surprise, the resuming of the con- ferred favor more powerfully sets forth the equity of the teacher's administration than did the origiiial bestowment ; and for the reason that the latter was a grace rather than a duty, and was a natural occasion of satisfaction on both sides ; but the former is an act of duty alone, and, as productive of mutual pain, would naturally be shunned, but for the pressing claims of higher obligation. But it will be seen from the foregoing, that these privative punishments are necessarily Hmited ia their application to the smaller number of offenses, and those of the more venial character. To meet all its wants, and to be able to reach effectively the more hardened offenders, and the more flagitious acts of criminality, the government of the school must be empowered to go beyond mere negative punishment ; it must have access to those which are positive, and ■which produce, not merely deprivation and discom- 226 SCHOOL GOVEKNMENT. fort, but whicli occasion actual suffering, either bodily or mental. By positive punishments, or punishments proper, are to be understood all those actual inflictions by the constituted authority, which subject the pupil to pain either bodily or mental, and which are needful for the correction of wrong, and for the maiutaining of the teacher's sovereignty as the conservator of the school. The transition from privative to positive punish- ments is not abrupt. The one rather passes into the other by gradation. Hence, privative punishments may assume much the character of positive inflictions. For example, let the act of deprivation be a simple act, and let it occasion no other feeling than a clear consciousness of the loss incurred, and the punish- ment is purely privative. But couple the act of de- privation with circumstances which give it the force of a public censure, or a distinct degradation, and cause the feelings occasioned by it to be those of mortification or remorse, and the punishment becomes properly positive. Beyond its bearing upon the fol- lowing classification, this fact possesses a practical importance, as indicating to the teacher a means of giving effective force to punishments otherwise purely privative, and, as such not unfrequently found to be powerless. Positive punishments may be classified as of three kinds ; Privative, Coercive and Compulsive. The first of these has been indicated with sufficient clearness GENERAL ELEMENTS : PUNISHMENT. 227 under the pxeceding head. Its further consideration will consequently be waived altogether. Coercive punishments may be concisely described, as such inflictions of pain, either bodily or mental, as actiag upon the will through the sense, the intellect and the feelings, induce a voluntary abandonment of the wrong-doiag for which discipline is iastituted, and, as far as is practicable, a proper correction of the evils it has occasioned, whether they be individual or general. Upon four points herein mentioned, particular stress must be laid. First. There must be the ac- tual abandonment of the wrong-doing. This is op- posed to any merely partial correction of the evil course in question. There may be cases in which this partial correction is better than nothing ; in which that may even have to be accepted as practically all that, imder the circumstances, can be attained. But the government of the school is false to the claims of its own dignity, and of the general welfare, as well as to the true interest of the offender, if it rests satis- fied vdth the attainment of any such end. To be content with this, except upon practical compulsion, is to make itself, in one sense, a "particeps criminis" in whatever of the wrong-doing lies beyond that cor- rected. This is clearly illustrated in civil affairs, in the neglect of the state to restrain altogether the public sale of noxious drinks, instead of contenting itself with a system of restrictive licenses. Secondly. There must be the proper correction of the evils occasioned by the wrong-doing. Abandon- 228 SCHOOL GOTEKNMENT. ment without reparation, is mere external amend- ment. It contains no evidence that the real root of the transgression has been reached. It is perfectly consistent with pure hypocrisy. For the goYemment of the school to countenance this last, even indirectly, is a vice. In the disciplining of offenders by punish- ment, then, no pains must be spared to point out the possible modes of making proper reparation, and to bring the offender to the full and resolute under- taking of that, perhaps, self-sacrificing, but yet neces- sary work. We greatly fear, however, that teachers generally, either from a failure to apprehend its pri- mary importance, or fi-om indisposition to undertake the necessary moral effort, fail to do anything of the kind. Such a failure is, so far as it goes, a positive pronunciation against their fitness to govern. Thirdly. The reparation must just as distinctly embrace the wrong done to the government of the school, as that inflicted upon any of its individual members. Too commonly the offending member of the school attains no other idea of his act than that embraced in its relation to an individual, either some fellow-pupU, if it is a personal offense, or if not, then the teacher alone. He reaches no conception of its character beyond and above everything individual, as an offense against the whole school either as such, or as represented in its government. And yet this last is the vital point. In no organized community, can crime be crime, only or chiefly against the individual. Like a blow struck against any part of a compact body, it vibrates through the whole ; and by just so GENERAL ELEJfUENTS : PXINISHMENT. 229 mucli as that body stretches out on every side, by just so much do its vibrations tremble along succes- sive waves of concentric relation, more or less sensi- bly affecting the whole. It is the ignorant or the studious oversight of this principle, which inspires the pseudo-humanity of that dangerous class whose sym- pathy for public criminals is, at the present day, in- fecting and debasing the popular notions of justice. Let the teacher, then, bear this in mind, and see to it, that in the school, this higher idea of the relation of offenses is understood and felt, and the consequent reparation demanded and made. Lastly. Let not the voluntary element be over- looked or dispensed with. Amendment which is strictly forced, is sometimes all that can be reached. Even as such, it is better than none. It externally sustains the majesty of law, and shuts off the evil example. Sophistry sometimes pleads against this principle, the analogies of nature, as in the case of disease or danger, where mere external improvement may be itseK injurious. But it is a lying philosophy which reasons thus from the physical to the moral. Better is that reasoning which, appealing to the case of evils like those of licentiousness or drunkenness, profanity or sabbath-breaking, finds that though, in their secret hiding-places, they are beyond the reach of the law, yet, in their very seclusion, they attest the virtue and the power of the law, and are forced to forego the baleful exercise of a wide-spread influence and an unblushing example. Nevertheless, generally, and especially in those sa- 230 SCHOOL GOVEKJSMEST. cred precincts,-'— tlie family, tlie scliool, and the church, that correction which lays the ax " at the root of the tree," is better, and is to be studiously sought, Here, higher and hoHer aims than those of mere legahty, must predominate. In these, then, authority must not rest content untU, with its appliances and influ- ences, it has reached the heart and secured that that, in its voluntary obedience to the claims of pure rec- titude, shall " magnify the law and make it honor- able." And the lesson herein taught the teacher is this ; that while, in the use of legitimate punishments he more immediately coerces the offending wUl, he is not to rest satisfied, until coercion has become transfigured in true and permanent submission. Great concern, painful severity, and much benevolent and pains-taking afterwork may this entail upon him. But it is the law of his office, and let him cheerfully accept its issues. Passing from these considerations bearing on our definition of coercive punishment, we observe that in its several-species, it may consist of these general forms of infliction, namely : public reprimands either with or without temporary exclusion from rights and privileges ; subjection to personal restraint or incon- venience ; bodily chastisement, or corporal punish- ment proper ; and final exclusion from the privileges and precincts of the school. The specific nature, restriction and application of the several kinds of punishment will, for the sake of convenience be con- sidered together, under their respective heads. It will, however, be first iacumbent on us to attend GENEBAL ELEMENTS: PUNISHMENT. 231 carefully to those general principles whicli must gov- ern the teacher, in the iise of all the several species of coercive punishments. These principles are, to a qualified extent, appKcable to all the foregoing kinds of punishment ; but they are more especially consid- ered here with reference to those which, as positively coercive, are more important in their nature, and more serious in their contingencies. First. Whatever punishment it is proposed to in- flict, it must be preceded by positive detection or proper investigation. Without this, there can, of course, be no certainty that the teacher's decision is righteous, and the punishment just. Of the necessity of these, little need be said. They are vital to the interests of all concerned, from the government, down. Neither must unjust punishment be iaflicted, nor must punishment be unjustly inflicted. To this there is no alternative. And yet, it is not unfrequently the case that the latter wrong is perpetrated by the teacher. How often, — shame, that it must be said ! — does the blow fall upon the mere victim of mischief, rather than upon the real, though concealed ofi'ender ! Por ex- ample, how often does a day pass in our schools, with- out witnessing such justice as this ? A pupil natu- rally impulsive and brimful of giggle, is purposely set a-laughing by some cool-headed, long-faced rogue in his neighborhood, who carefuUy screens himself from the teacher's observation. Sequel, under these 'second Daniels come to judgment', — the helpless laugher is punished, sometimes regardless of his 232 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. defense, and tlie mischief maker goes scot-free. It is simply a falsifying of termis, to call this govern- ment. Secondly. AU such punishments must be well con- sidered, and with sharp reference, not only to their nature and apphcation, but also to their possible re- sults. This involves the exercise of special care that no material injury, either bodily or mental, shall re- sult to the pupU. It also demands that the teacher shall have taken a just measure, not only of the true merits of the case, but also of the possible demands of the infliction upon his own strength or firmness. Nothing can be more unfortunate, than for the teacher to attempt the infliction of punishment, and to dis- cover at length, that he has not rightly estimated the refractoriness to be subdued. He will either come out himself half-conquered, or if ultimately the victor, only such, at the expense of a painfully tmexpected conflict. Of the two evils of inconsiderateness, it is doubtful which is the worst, the infliction of punish- ment unduly severe, or that pitiably insufficient or half-successfully resisted. Thirdly. Punishment must be thorough and effect- ive. It must be no paltering sham. Once well-con- sidered and rightly began, it must go through to the bitter end. For example, it the pupil is to be sub- jected to detention after school, for the performance of some neglected duty, let that detention go on in- exorably tiU. the work is done, even if it runs out of the daylight into the evening shadows. This par- ticular point is pressed with great earnestness, be- GENEEAL ELEMENTS: PUNISHMENT. 233 cause it is believed that no species of pimishment is more common ia our schools than this of detention, and that none can be found more commonly a prac- tical failure. And it is little to its credit, that it is imconsciously chosen because it favors au escape from the use of severer but more effective punish- ments, and because it admits of some ultimate eva- sion of its own real demands and just extension. It is no more to its credit, that its failure is due either to the teacher's want of firmness in carrying it out, or to his weak willingness to escape the pressure of its own inconvenience upon himself. If corporal punishment is to be applied, the same general principle holds good. All the proper pre- liminary steps having been taken, the wise and just penalty must be inflicted, and until the desired sub- mission is secured. Half-way punishment is a fatal blunder. It, not only fails of the true end, but ag- gravates the assailed evil. Two blows may only toughen the refractoriness, when ten would reduce it to tenderness and submission. Half-complete pun- ishment is, furthermore, false mercy. Ten blows may secure a finality, when two would only prepare the way for twenty in the future. A most pitiable conclusion of administered discipHne is that which compels the teacher to exclaim within his heart : " We have scotched the snake ; not killed It." Fourthly, The punishment must be administered with due deliberateness and resolution. This involves tliree points ; proper preparation, deliberat6ness in 234 SCHOOL GOVEENMEKT. application, and resolution in the manner of carrying it out. It is equally unfortunate for the teacher to undertake to inflict punishment without full prepara- tion for possible contingencies ; to proceed to the work in haste or passionate heat ; or to evince in its prosecution, anything like hesitation or half-regret. Hence, if a lengthy and persistent detention of the offender is to be instituted, let the parent be, if pos- sible, duly notified so that no undue anxiety will be occasioned at home ; let eTerything necessary to the cool carrying out of the teacher's purpose be provided at the school, and then let him proceed with calm and imperturbable patience and firmness to the end. Or if corporal punishment is to be inflicted, and the case bids fair to be a severe one, let the parent be notified or even consulted and made to feel the just demands of the case ; let the proper appliances be provided beforehand, and then let the whole, however painful, be carried through with immovable coolness and steadiness, to the very end. With re- ference to the second point especially, let no teacher resort to such pitiful devices (sometimes even osten- tatiously practiced,) as that of punishing impromptu, and sending pupils, on the instant, to cut the necessary rod for the occasion. It is the next vice to that of displaying a whip always, to use a heraldic phrase, " rampant gardant." Fifthly. With regard to publicity, the general law can only be : as is the offense, so must be the correc- tion. Given a purely private offense, if such can be, one exerting uo public influence and susceptible of GENERAL ELEMENTS : PUNISHMENT. 235 private correction, and the institution of open in- vestigation or the public infliction of punishment, must carry on its face the appearance of either an indiscretion or an abuse. But on the same principle, an open offense, affecting the general welfare, and exerting a pubhc influence, must, with few exceptions, be as publicly investigated and corrected. Hence, generally, there must be no discipline in secret, for offenses committed upon the house-top. And the law applies equally to the various species of punish- ment, reprimands, restraint, chastisement and ex- pulsion. We are aware that strong groimd is sometimes taken against this publicity. That ground, however, is not tenable. The secret occasion for taking it is itself significant. Sometimes it is Uttle less than a false sympathy for the personal pride of the offender. But if he had not self-respect enough to forbear the commission of the evil act, what claim has he to so sensitive a regard for his reputation under the inflic- tion of the just penalty ? Is not his truest, and, un- der the circumstances, only possible honor, that of manfully acknowledging the wrong and submitting to the full demands of justice ? Sometimes, again, the objection to the pubhc infliction of punishment, is either a similar regard for parental pride, or a con- cern with reference to parental vindictiveness. If it be the former, the answer is as before ; the true con- servation of family honor is to be found only in the thorough and manly endorsement of the fuU claims of justice, and the unflinching acceptcince of whatever 236 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. is necessary to a complete and final correction of the evil. So far as tlie second motive is concerned, it is unworthy in the teacher to regard it. Let him do justice though the heavens fall. Still further, the objections too often rest, really, though unconsciously, upon the mere reformatory- notion of disciphne, which has already been seen to be erroneous. If the administration of discipline is for the preservation of the innocent, no less than for the correction of the guily, manifestly, the pains and penalties incurred as the result of wrong-doing, must be as pubhc as the offense. Shut them up from the observing eye of the commonwealth, and how are its members to learn that " the way of transgressors is hard ?" The very " intimations of nature," more often than otherwise, sustain the general principle that, to secure the widest and best influence, the evil con- sequences of wrong-doing must, sooner or later, be- come pubhc. Indeed, nature sometimes visits even secret transgression, with open punishment. With regard to the public infliction of corporal punishment, the cry is sometimes raised, that it is re- prehensible, because brutahzing. To this we reply, that the conclusion is based upon a mere assumption. It is not the proper infliction of this species of punish- ment, that is brutalizing ; it is only its abuse. Let the infliction of such pimishment be characterized by undue frequency, by needless roughness or excess, or by fierce passion, and doubtless it will, in some part, go to harden and brutalize the nature. But so does the sight of human suffering and sorrow, when they GENEEAL ELEMENTS :• PUNISHMENT. 237 come to be pressed too frequently upon our sensibili- ties or are inseparably bound up with groveling and depraved associations. Even the death of the human being, when crowded upon the soul under the sweep of the pestilence or the clash of the battle field, or when it glares out from the drmiken carousal or the bed of vice and rottenness, — even that otherwise, tender and soul-subduing spectacle may, under such circumstances, exert only a benumbing and debasing influence. But who cries out and demands that na- ture and society should, therefore, fling the pall of isolation and secrecy over its legitimate occurrence ? There is, however, another grave oversight com- mitted by those who pronounce thus summarily against public punishment in the school. In their anxiety about the immediate, they ignore the ultimate. They fail to inquire whether in this proposed sub- traction from punishment, of one of its most effective elements of power as a means of general prevention, the way is not opened for a practical demoralization of the school, as it regards its notions of crime and its retributions, that is itself brutalization in fact, if not in the accepted form. Is he who, through a false pity, pride or fear, withdraws from active influence upon the school, the highest possible warning and safeguard against transgression, doing any less to brutalize its moral sensibility, than is done by him who, perhaps too rudely, shocks that sensibility to allow of its most wholesome reaction? We urge, then, that the objection has no valid force whatever against public punishment as properly administered ; 238 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. that is, justly, deliberately, thorouglily, and -with dii© pains to secure the subsequent moral results. Lastly. "Whate\er punishment is inflicted, the in- fliction must by no means be accepted as the end of the teacher's opportunity and responsibility. Hardly could a graver mistake be committed. As well might the physician who has by powerful remedies broken the fever, suspend all further treatment of the case. Mere coercion is not the highest end. That is rather persuasion. But coercion is often the necessary pre- parative for persuasion. Negotiations and amicable arrangements are often impracticable until after a satisfactory trial of arms. Punishments, then, are sometimes chiefly efi'ective as opening the way for the unimpeded appUcation of moral influences. Hence, they should be regarded by the teacher, rather as the rough ladder leading to the only hopeful landing place of moral suasion. Let him, then, see to it that he does not rest content with merely having reached that landing place, instead of zealously pressing up the new and nobler ascent which the former has just rendered practicable. Every infliction of coercive discipline must, then, be carefully followed up and supplemented by sound suggestions and friendly in- fluences, until, if possible, to the subjugation of the wiU, there has been added the winning of the heart. And this subsequent use of moral means rises in its imperative claims, just in proportion to the im- mediate severity or aggravating circumstances of the punishment inflicted. Certainly, the more critical the case, and the more violent the treatment, the more GENERAL ELEMENTS: PUNISHMENT. 239 pressing the need for the watchful and unwearied ap- plication of the subsequent restoratives. He, then, who fails to perceive this last responsibility, or who lacks either the patience or the firmness to press for- ward in its discharge to the complete result, practi- cally sounds a retreat in the midst of a haH-won bat- tle, and accepts the issue of a substantial defeat. And this is the fatal error of most of the discipline administered in our schools. To this alone, is charge- able much of the need of frequent ptmishment, much of its failure to prove effective, and much of its al- leged brutalizing tendency. Let te'achers ponder this weU. It may perhaps be objected by some, that all this is calculated to render the administration of disci- phne in the school, too complicated and laborious. We answer, not at all, if all this is necessary to its consistency, efficiency, and most benign success. Furthermore, the more of a real, pains-taking labor it is, the less Kkely will the teacher be to enter upon the work of disciplining offenses hastUy or for tri^dal causes. The grand law of the whole argument is summed up in this indisputably just maxim; less frequency but greater thoroughness. Beyond these general rules, there are ceriain spe- cific points bearing on these various kinds of punish- ment that claim attention. First. Correlative rewards and punishmenis should rest upon similar bases. If you bestow a reward for a specific excellence, you may punish by retracting the reward, but only for delinquency in the same direc- 240 SCHOOL GOYERMIENT. tion. Thus, you may punisli for bad scholarship by resuming a reward bestowed for good scholarship, but not at all by retracting one conferred for good behavior. The last would be a practical injustice. Secondly. Public reprimands, should set forth clearly the personal unworthiness and the pubKc in- juriousness of the act censured, and should, as the case may be, be more or less pointed and severe. But they should never be sarcastic or vituperative. No true force is gained by such means, and they seriously impair the teacher's dignity and dispas- sionateness of manner in the administration of dis- cipline. Care should be taken to guard the school against the error of summing up the censure in the act of its pronunciation. It must be understood to hold good imtil, upon amendment, the offender is formally released therefrom. In the meantime, while he is not to be treated unkindly, he is to be held as standing in disfavor. In this direction, some accom- panying restriction of privilege vrill be seen to be of service, inasmuch as it affords a sensible and abiding symbol of the existing censure. Thirdly. Bodily restraint or confinement as to either position or place must be simply such ; it must not be conjoined with contemptible, alarming, or mis- chievous adjuncts. Stand the offender upon the floor in noticeable isolation from his fellows, if need be ; but do not stoop to those abominations practiced of old time, such as adorning him with leather spec- tacles, split sticks, or a fool's cap, or loading him with billets of wood, or forcing him to stand with his GENERAL ELEMENTS: PTJNISHMENT. 241 finger upon some crack in tlie floor, — to him, in a very literal sense, the " crack of doom." These are not only needless, but also base and even cowardly devices. We say cowardly, for more often than otherwise, they are chosen because they are a means of dodging the infliction of corporal punishment, or because those upon whom they are imposed are either unable to resist, or dare not in any way protest against the indignity. So too, with regard to separate con- finement, avoid immuring the ofiender in some filthy or dark closet or apartment. It is not well, for any purpose of correction, to attack a pupil's constitu- tional courage, or his acquired habits of neatness. The reasons are obvious. We have already noticed somewhat particularly, the use of detention after school as a punishment. That the current method pursued with regard to it, is radically defective and needs to be reformed al- together, must be apparent to the thoughtful teacher. Instead of" resorting to it with foolish frequency, con- ducting it so that it is sure to be as great an annoy- ance to the teacher as it is to the pupil, and cutting it summarily short at the occurrence of the first pos- sible excuse for so doing, how much better for a course to be pursued, somewhat as follows. Having a just occasion for a thorough detention of a delin- quent pupil, let the teacher close his school, send notice of the detention to the parents, if he has not apprized them of it beforehand, and then calmly stating to the offender precisely what he intends and expects, let him set himself quietly about some ap- 242 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. parently consistent and earnest employment, and ■without concern or uneasiness, await the end. Sooner than stop short of its full attainment, let him, if need be, bring forward both lunch and lights, share them pleasantly with his prisoner, and go on as before. A cool preparation and persistence Kke this, will almost invariably bring the culprit to terms. When this point has been properly attained, let the teacher lay aside the stem character of the ruler, and as a friend calmly and kindly confer with the offender upon the evil nature of the course he has pursued, and exhort him to new and better things. Then let him put up his wort, close the school-house, and, if practicable, accompany the pupil home, by the way appearing only as the friend, and seeming to be utterly oblivious of what has just passed. His presence will keep the pupil thoughtful and under restraint until the period for any passionate outbreak has passed, and his for- bearing silence as to the discipline will tend to awaken grateful regard. And, subsequently, let nothing be said about the affair, to the school. It is not neces- sary. The details of the struggle and the result wiU find their own utterance, and with comments quite calculated to impress upon its members, the wisdom of prompt obedience. To some teachers, we doubt not, all this wiU seem like pure extravagance. But what a pity it is, that in the use of punishment, in both the family and the school, there is not more of the extravagance of thoroughness, and less of the extravagance of idle frequency and stupid faUiire. Fourthly. With regard to chastisement or corporal GENEEAIi ELEMENTS: PUNISHMENT. 243 piiaisliment proper, it is premised that we liere con- template only the legitimate and divinely established use of the rod. There have been found not a few who, without any warrant either rational or revealed, have gone beyond this and hit upon implements and appliances that might have made the users thereof exclaim : " Come seeling night. Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day." These were they who, finding a hard, rough-hand in readiness, brandished it hke Talus' iron flail about the ears and head of the pitiful culprit to the endan- gering of his very brains ; who, possessing a sinewy arm, grasped the helpless victim and, wrenching him from his seat, spun him around hke a demon-driven top, in indescribable gyrations upon the mid-floor, and perhaps ended with dashing him down more like a biUet than a human being ; or who, clutching the massive ferrule, either hurled it Hke Jove's thunder- bolt, at doomed heads in the distance, or, seizing the tender and half-knit hand, beat out with quick re- morseless blows the fiery grain of pain, if not of peni- tence, upon^the sad threshing-floor of the quivering palm. For such punishments there is no stint of condem- nation. Irrational and base, they might produce fear, but could create no reverence or regard for govern- ment. Indiscriminate and unsparing, they alike crushed the innocent and weak, and exasperated the robust and daring. Blind and dead to the presence and office-work of the understanding and the con- 244 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. science, they brutalized tlie feelings, and often beat down all that was sweetest and noblest in the child's nature. It is to be hoped that these are already numbered with the things that were. With regard to corporal punishment in its proper form as already indica.ted, much the same course is to be pursued as in the case of restraint or confine- ment. Whatever of antecedent preparation, of care- ful explanation, of calm dehberateness, of cool and thorough persistence, and of subsequent moral effort, was needed there, is still more necessary here. But it must all be natural and real, not pretentious or with a studied attempt at effect. Any display of preparations, or tantaUzing delay of proceedings, or pompous solemnity of manner, intended to alarm the offender or overawe the school, is worse than weak and ridi- culous ; it's " viUainous, and shows a pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it." From this, it will be seen that, for obvious reasons, no hasty infliction of punishment is here contemplated. Still it is not denied that cases may arise in vrhich summary punishment must be inflicted ; as, for ex- ample, when the offender is of a characterJikely to be strengthened in resistance by delay ; when there is a prevailing impression that the teacher's dehberateness is caused by a temporizing fear to punish ; or when, from lack of physical power, he must take his anta- gonist at an advantage. Here, it may be necessary for the stream to " be quick and violent." But these are the exceptional cases, and are to be avoided if possible. The teacher must be his own judge as to GENERAL ELEMENTS: PUNISHMEKT. 245 the real occurrence of any of these contingencies. In case lie accepts one of them as instant, let the blow be sudden and decisive, and only sudden that it may be decisive. It is sometimes both proper and necessary in the administration of discipline, in the school, to go beyond proper coercion, and make use of slieer com- pulsion. That is, the teacher, instead of bringing the pupil by coercive measures to the voluntary per- formance of the required act, may apply sheer force and, whether he wills or not wills, may compel him to do it. This species of discipline is quite restricted in its application, and is, only imder certain contin- gencies, and in a modified sense, punishment. But being a disciplinary corrective so far as it goes; tending to inculcate the necessity of submission to the higher power ; and not unfrequently causing the pain of feeling ignominiously overcome and justly compelled to submit, it is not improper to consider it under the head of punishments. The nature and occasion for such a species of in- fliction may be made clearer by illustration. Take, in the first instance, a very young pupil, who has yet no adequate idea of superior power as in authority over him, and who may be hardly mature enough to comprehend the just claims of authority as rightly constituted. Suppose such an incipient representative of our ungovernable democracy to set himself up pre- cociously as one of the sovereigns, — a by no means rare occurrence in either the family or the school. He is, for example, directed to take a certain seat. 246 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. or, perhaps, to sit down somewliere, and refuses to obej. Here it may be both proper and suffici ont for the teacher to take him and, by the simple exercise of force, compel him to take the prescribed place. A similar emergency may arise in the case of an older pupil who has been too exclusively controlled by force at home, or who, in the overweening sense of his own strength, doubts the teacher's possession of the power to master him, and to compel him to sub- mit. Here, as before, the teacher may with perfect consistency resort to simple compulsion ; he may, by the mere exercise of superior strength, force the delin- quent to perform the required act, — the act of course as in the former case, being one of a kind properly within reach of force. While on general principles, or if too largely em- ployed, such a species of discipline may seem objec- tionable, it is within the range above indicated, quite reasonable. It is not always desirable, as in the first case supposed, to inflict corporal punishment on the extremely young. Nay, in many cases there is no need of applying the rod at aU; the thoroughly attained consciousness that the teacher has ample power to enforce his demands, being quite sufficient to prevent further attempts at resistance. Beyond this, there are minds, not only juvenile but adult, in which the primary idea of supremacy is simply that of superior power. This is, of course, not the truest idea, nor the one ultimately to be established. But wherever it prevails, the capacity and the rectitude of the authority as resting on tliis basis alone, must GEKEEAL ELEMENTS : PUNISHMENT. 247 be practically demonstrated, otherwise the way is not open for the effective development of the higher basis of the authority as properly constituted and as essen- tial to the general welfare. Hence, satisfy the rebel- lious subject, that the power exists and will be un- hesitatingly applied, and one important point, — to him the one first important point, — ^has been gained. His apprehension, cleared as to the question of power, will be more open to the force of other and higher considerations, into the proper appreciation of which he will speedily grow. If it be objected that in such cases the submission secured is destitute of any voluntary character and is so far defective ; it is sufficient to reply, that under the force of the conviction already gained that re- sistance is futile, the subsequent obedience wiU. be- come voluntary, and that, whUe it is not voluntary upon the best or ultimate basis, yet the tendency of all voluntary obedience is toward a growing recogni- tion of the simple rightfulness of authority and of the worthiness of pure rectitude. One of the worst effects of unconquered insubordination is, not that it estab- lishes the will in its rebellion, but that it works a growing paralysis of the judgment and the reason, so that the offender becomes incapable of discovering the true relations of himself and his evil conduct, and of apprehending the nature and the claims of proper rectitude. The specific rules for the application of this species of discipline, both immediate and subsequent, being 248 SCHOOL GOVEEISIMENT. the same as in the case of the other kinds of punish- ment, their consideration here is mmecessary. With regard to final exclusion as a means of cor- rection, it is to be remarked at the outset, that so far as the great body of our pubhc schools are concerned, but Httle need be said of it in this place, since the prerogative of applying it, is lodged quite exclusively in the hands of the higher authorities, the teacher having little to do in the premises, beyond the mere making of the proper representation as to its necessity. In certain private schools, however, ■which are the sole property of the teacher, it may be otherwise. Here, the whole power lying iu the hands of the teacher, he may have the right to exclude, just as truly as to inflict any other species of pxmishment. In stiU another class of schools generally assumed as of a higher order, — iu this direction what they are only because of the higher pride or prejudice of the patrons, — ^the prerogative of exclusion passes whoUy into the hands of the teacher, and becomes common and necessary, simply because he is practically pre- cluded from the use of its only substitute and alter- native, corporal punishment. On these accounts, it is proper to bestow upon this species of correction, a somewhat careful consideration. First, then, final exclusion, which is a punishment only under the same hmitation which marked the last species, must always be held as a last resort and to be accepted as a necessity, only when all other and better appliances, faithfully apphed, have proved utterly futile. And for the two reasons, first, that it ■ GENEEAL ELEMENTS : PUNISHMENT. 249 not tmfrequently cuts the teaclier off from tlie power to benefit or save the offender ; and, secondly, because it involves a practical confession of failure on the part of the government of the school, to secure the best and noblest ends of discipline, just as the am- putation of a diseased limb is an acknowledgement of the failure and further powerlessness of the proper curative agency. It is, in short, a practical defeat, since whatever victory it may secure, it is not the one sought by the authority :. the result is not one of proper and wholesome subjugation ; it is the conquest of extermination. Hence, no true teacher will have recourse to it, except he is reduced to it as an absolute and somewhat humiliating necessity. Secondly. Excepting perhaps in those schools in which corporal punishment is forbidden, the occasions for its use are less common, than is often supposed. It is hardly to be doubted that it is often accepted as imperative, either because the teacher lacks real force in the use of other means of discipline ; because he is of too hasty or arbitrary a temperament ; or becaus.e he is indisposed to undertake patiently and resolutely, the perhaps lengthy and painful struggle necessary to a victory through the use of other and better means. We have in mind two cases occurring in our own early experience, which we can now clearly trace to the first of these causes, immaturity and lack of thorough acquaintance with the work to be done. We recall also a later case of a most maiked char- acter, in which a seemingly hopeless young man was, through the use of the proper patience and tact, re- 11* 250 SCHOOL GOVEBNMENT. duced to perfect control and won to a real and most friendly regard. And yet this very young man was, by his very next teacher, and for no greater insubordi- nation, summarily excluded from the school, with certainly no better results to the latter, and to the entire destruction of that teacher's influence over him. In this case, the course pursued was due to no lack of power or experience, for both were of a supe- rior order, but to an arbitrariness of temper growing out of an excessive sensibility to the claims of pure justice. We doubt not a careful review of their own experience would bring the conviction of most teach- ers to this same self-judgment. Thirdly. When exclusion has become a true neces- sity, if it be public, it is to be administered according to the same general rules already suggested under the head of coercive pimishments. Its specific method is the same with that of public censure. If the exclusion is to be private, as is most commonly the case in those schools in which it takes the place of corporal punishment, its form is so anomalous, that its specific method must be determined alto- gether by the judgment of the teacher, as guided by the particular circumstances of the case. Lastly. When exclusion has been resorted to, let the teacher by no means accept it as necessarily a finality. Possibly, he may yet in some way be able to reach the offender for the purpose of reformatory effort. If any such way be open, let him seek out the excluded member, and privately press upon him the unworthiness of sitting down either stubbornly GENEEAL ELEMENTS: PUNISHMENT. 251 or stolidly imder 'the burden of the inflicted disgrace ; open to his mind the practicability of reclaiming his position and redeeming his character ; and urge upon him the inherent nobleness of a resolute effort at amendment. When the teacher becomes reasonably assured that these considerations are properly felt, and that reparation and reformation -will be heartily attempted, let him take measures to secure the re- versal of the decree of exclusion, and effect the res- toration of the offender to his former place. In some cases it may be well, ■with the private consent of the proper authorities, to reinstate him quietly upon trial, reserving the formal restoration to such a time as may have sufficed to evince his sincerity and prob- ability of success in the direction of permanent amendment. If the teacher is successful in these endeavors, his victory is signal and cannot fail to sustain powerfully both the vigor and the benevo- lence of his administration. Still we insist that the better victory is that won, as previously counseled, before and ■ndthout exclusion. The overlooking of this last grand principle is not confined to the precincts of the school ; it is one too painfully common throughout society, to which fact the teacher is doubtless largely indebted for his own tendency in this direction. To the thoughtful mind, there will readily occur the sorrowful spectacle of many a difficult and abortive attempt at the reclama- tion of the fallen who have been summarily excluded ■by society from its pale, and abandoned to their fate. And the conviction can hardly be escaped that had 252 BCHOOL GOVEKNMENT. they been seized upon with the same resolution and benevolence, while they were yet within sight of the lost Eden of blessing, and painfully alive to their present degradation and impending ruin, the moment of imminent and priceless opportunity would have been won, and they would have been found despair- ingly eager to snatch at the feeblest chance of re- demption. But no ; the sublime and touching lesson taught by the Great Teacher in the case of the adul- terous woman, is lost upon the higher virtue and severer rectitude of human society; and so, multi- tudes of those, originaUy the noblest and the most lovely, are consigned to a doom which makes the pitying soul sicken and cry out with mingled indig- nation and anguish. It must not be understood, however, that in press- ing these considerations, the ground is taken that this noble reformatory effort is, in either society or the school, the proper work of government as such. It should be heartily countenanced and seconded by government : but is not to be authoritatively under- taken by it. It belongs properly within the province of individual or associated philanthropy. CHAPTEE XII. APPMCATION OF PBINCIPLES TO SPECIEIC SCHEMES OP DISCrPLraE AKD TO DEPAETMENTAL SCHOOLS. Occasion for examining epecific schemes — Self-yovemment method — Gen- eral objections — Self-government in the school of two kinds, — ^partial and complete — Objections to the first — ^Practically an imposition — 06- jections to the second — Still a delusion — Overburdens the teacher — De- stroys true ideas of government — Distracts the pupil's attention — Tends to dissatisfaction — Self-reporting scheme — General nature — Re stricted use allowed — Objections to the scheme — Teacher evades his own duty — ^Impairs the pupil's moral sense — Destructive of faith in the teacher's rule — Demerit mark scheme — ^Its features— Subdivided into Pure Merit Scheme, Mixed Form, and Pure Demerit Scheme — Merit scheme — Proper method characterized — Its practical difElcalties — Mixed form — General objections — To be treated as a demerit scheme — Pecvr liar features of the pure dement method — Mvils of the method — Based on the false principle of depression — Child apt to be left in ignorance of its real significance — Tempts the teacher to neglect to inform him — Leads to minute rules — Fails to evince the real relation of offense and jinnishment — ^Too liable to irregular, hasty, and unjust marking — Peculiar difSculty resulting from the use of two rolls, one of scholar- ship, and one of standing — Only proper use to be made of rolls of standing — The application of the demerit mark scheme to higher schools — Its difflculties — Sometimes, nevertheless, a necessity-r-Speciflc rules for its use — Proper governTnent for adult schools^ that of influence — Its obstacles and its aids — Departmental schools — Classified as Lower and Higher — Kinds distinguished — Differences in organization — Theoret- ical and current — Spenflc rules for goeernmeni in the loiter species — Subordinate should be the ruler in his own field — Should govern in harmony with the general method of the school — Principal should not make the subordinate a mere cipher— Should, in punishing, only act as an executive agent for the subordinate — General directions for 254 SCHOOL GOVEKNMENT. tlie higher order of departmental sc7ioo&— Offenses of two kinds ; claes offenses, general offenses — ^Proper method of adjudicating them. Before leaving the subject of discipline entirely, it is not improper tliat some attention slionld be given to certain specific schemes, sometimes devised for its administration, and to the particular application of the foregoing principles to those higher schools whose peculiar vrants have not thus far in the discussion been especially noticed. It is true that the general principles already laid down might seem a sufficient guide to the truth in those directions. But there are, nevertheless, points of particular importance or diffi- culty involved, which may escape the notice of the practical teacher, or which, if they occur to him, may not be so clearly accompanied by their proper solu- tion, as to prevent doubt and embarrasment. As a further reason for turning the attention in this direction, at this stage of the discussion, we urge that these schemes of discipline, and the difficulties of the schools referred to, are intimately related to the vexed question of the " to be or not to be " of corporal punishment, — the former, indeed, having their un- suspected but real origin in a desire to escape the necessity of using it, and the latter, substantially arising from obstacles, either natural or merely no- tional, thrown in the way of its employment, and not unfrequently amounting to its practical prohibition. And these facts with regard to the origin of the mat- ■ters in question, and which we believe have seldom occurred to our educators, have here a peculiar signi- ficance, and deserve to be kept constantly in mind SELF-GOYEKNMENT SCHEME. 255 during the progress of the discussion, since they are, to some extent, the secret key to the real nature of the schemes of discipline now to be examined. Of these schemes, that of 8df- Government comes first in order. So far as its relation to the fundamen- tal principles of school government is concerned, this scheme has already been briefly noticed, and its radical errors suggested. That it disregards the law of its derivation as originating in parental government; that it practically assumes the pupil to be capacitated for the exercise of such functions, and sufficiently disposed to render obedience, to be entrusted with the sovereign power ; and that it recognizes in the teacher the right to transfer the performance of his own chief duty or any important part of it, to others ; — ^that it does anything of this, is enough of itself to settle the character of its claims. There are, however, other considerations that pro- nounce against it. Self-government in the school must be of one of two kinds ; it must be either in- formal and partial or somewhat systematic and com- plete ; that is, it must be summed up in incidental and apparent references of questions and measures to the voice of the school for their decision and execu- tion ; or it must attempt something of a formal or- ganization of the school as a body politic, with power to detect, decide and perhaps even discipHne offenders. Now of these two methods, it has already been seen that the first is practically an imposition on the simple faith of the pupil ; for he exercises only a seeming, not a real power. The teacher either influences and guides 256 SCHOOL GOATiRNMENT. the decisions and consequent action, or he stands in instant readiness to interfere and to counteract the measures of the school, whenever they are likely to conflict with his own convictions of justice or necessity. Like the priest behind the miractdous image, he stands concealed behind the whole democratic ma- chine, and practically determines its movements. "Whether such a scheme is really worthy of the teacher's own soimd judgment or just integrity; whether it is really a peculiar benevolence to the pupils themselves; or whether it can be expected long to work well or to accomplish any very impor- tant ends; or whether it will not speedily be dis- covered to be precisely the mere sham it is, let the sober-thinking teacher judge for himself. But suppose that the second form is the one chosen ; how will the case stand? To begin with, no such formal democracy can be consistently practicable ex- cept in those schools in which the pupils are some- what advanced in maturity and knowledge. With- out the presence among the pupils, of a certain sound judgment and manly self-control, the real power and the actual labor must remain, as in the former case, with the teacher alone ; ostensibly a mere " primus inter pares," he is, after all, absolutely imperator. The whole scheme is thus eviscerated of any true reality or popular independence. But this necessary restriction of this system of school government to the maturer class of pupils, at once, decides the question as to its general adaptability or usefulness. Again, the work of governing, which, as having to SKLF-GOVERNMENT SCHEME. 257 be carried on conjointly witli the work of instruction, needs to be as simple as possible, is, tmder this scheme, necessarily complicated -with much new and really cumbrous machinery, — machinery, too, largely subject in its movements, to the notions of the multi- tude, and, therefore, additionally perplexing from its inherent imcertainty and need of constant watch and control. Now he must be a veritable Atlas, who can properly sustain himself amidst the multifarious duties and burdens of the school, with this new world of a scholastic democracy upon his shoulders. It is certainly competent for us to urge that he who can do this and properly carry out his scheme of self- government, is amply able to govern successfully upon the truer and simpler basis of pure absolutism, and consequently has no need of the scheme at aU ; and it is positively certain that he who cannot govern wisely and well upon this latter basis, is necessarily unequal to the use and perfection of any scheme of popular self-government in the school, and should, therefore, never attempt it. Still further, the natural tendency of the scheme must be to pervert the pupil's ideas of the nature of true government, to lower his conceptions of the just majesty of law, and to lay the foundation for restless- ness under any other control than that of his own will. For, is it not an error to, in any way inculcate the idea that government must necessarily originate in the wiU of the governed, however inferior in capac- ity, condition or virtue they may be ? Can it other than eventually belittle government and abase law, 258 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. to transfer the la-wgivership from the higher respon- sibility and capacity of the teacher, and bring it down to the level of an investment ia the child's sovereignty? Should not he who is to be governed, be able to look up with reverence to, and with faith in, authority as enthroned in superior power, wisdom and good- ness ? But can the child thus look up to, and believe in himself or in a government thus begotten of, and bounded by, himself ? Now as to the other question, — that of the influence of such schemes in the school to engender future restlessness under authoritative restraint, and general insubordination, — ^we are in- clined to the opinion that a salutary lesson may be learned from the necessity of our late tremendous struggle, to the preservation of the national unity and the integrity of its government, and to the awakening ^of the people to a just sense of the vital importance of undivided loyalty, reverence for constituted author- ity, and self-sacrificing obedience to law. But once more, finally. In whatever shape the scheme of popular self-government in the school may be put forward, it is subject to these other practical evils. Just so far as the details of government are imposed upon the pupil, their influence must be to divert his attention from that undivided interest and application necessary to his best progress in study. Still further, its tendency must be to create in him an over-critical propensity in judging of the proper aots of the teacher, and, from the habit of debatinp' matters of general moment ia his own mind, and of expecting to have a choice as to their decision, to SELF-EEPORTING SCHEME. 259 induce in him a disposition to be dissatisfied witli even the conclusion reached through the general suffrages of the body politic. Every one knows how easily a question, quietly decided at once for a class or a school, by the proper authority, becomes, when thrown open for general discussion and popular de- cision, an occasion for difference, contention, and xd- timate dissatisfaction. Hence, the weakness and foUy of teachers who are forever ready to resort to a pub- lic vote in the school, for the decision of matters of any real importance. Closely related to tliis scheme of self-government, is the 8df-Beporti7ig Scheme, a partial method, employed generally in combination with some other fancied system of discipline such as that of popular sover- eignty or that of demerit marks. It differs from the former scheme chiefly in that it devolves upon the pupH, not so much the prerogatives of legislation and execution, as that of seH-judgment. Its marked feature is, that it allows or requires him to report to the teacher the measure of his own merit or demerit, according to his own judgment. It sometimes even goes to the ridiculous extreme of devolving upon him the determination of the reward or the penalty to be attached. Now, the teacher may, ia his private conferences with the pupil, endeavor to draw from him his view of his own merit or demerit, not at aU as a basis of judgment, but only that, if his view be correct, the pupil may be made to feel that his own reason and conscience are to have a voice with regard to his con- 260 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. duct, either " accusing or excusing ;" or, if lie has judged improperly, that the teacher may be able to show him his error, and thus enlighten and guide him in his apprehension of truth and his convictions of desert. So, too, as merely an incidental act, not at all as a matter of regular or frequent occurrence, the teacher may, when he knows the precise facts in the case, even publicly call for a pupil's opinion as to his own effort or behavior ; not that this opinion may serve, in any part, as a basis for his own judgment in the premises, but that, by correcting its error kindly and without personal reference, he may impress upon the school their Hability to misjudge both as to the char- acter of their own conduct and the provisions of his government, and may thus give them moral instruc- tion of a most practical and important nature. But, employed in any other way, or purgued to any extent as part of a scheme of discipline, the method under consideration is both stupidly ingenious and transparently vicious. For, first, if this opinion of the pupil as to his own merit or demerit is sought as a basis for the teacher's judgment, the thing is false in its first principles. As ruler in the school, and knowing what to establish as law, what are you next to know but when, where and how to apply discipline for the support of law? To read the pupil's char- acter, to discover his merits, to detect his misde- meanors, and to divine the proper means for stimidus or correction, — this is the teacher's art of governing, most "express and admirable." As such. Me hold SELF-EEPOETIKG SCHEME. 261 that he has no right to throw it upon the pupil, either in earnest or in mere pretense. If he does the former, he impeaches either his own capacity or faithfulness ; if he does the latter, he imposes upon the simple faith of the pupH. In the second place, the direct tendency of this species of practice is to blunt the moral sense of the pupil, and to induce deception and falsehood. Nor is it of any avail to argue the contrary. Let the pupil suppose that you do in any part rest upon his decision, and how powerful is the stimulus to make out a fair case for himself, even though at the ultimate ex- pense of the truth ! Even suppose that he may start, and for a time continue honest, how long under such temptation, wiU he be able to retain a keen sense of the difference between the exact truth and a self-in- terested misrepresentation of facts ? Go beyond the child in the school, and apply the same practice to every John Doe and Eichard Eoe in our courts of justice, and how long would it be before every honest man would be compelled to exclaim with deeper feel- ing and graver cause than did Falstaff; "Lord !• how this world is given to lying!" But is it to be sup- posed that the heedless boy who does not so much discriminate between right and wrong, as between birch and not birch,- — ^is it to be supposed that he wiU be proof against the temptation thus thrown in his way ? We say to the teacher, with the profound- est feeling, before you thus- call upon the child to report for or against himself, see to it that you first 262 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. soberly repeat to yourself tlie prayer, " Lead us not into temptation." In the third place, there is another evil incident to the nse of this scheme, if not certain to accompany it. Suppose that the teacher, while making use of th:') pupil's self-reporting statement, does not accept it without qualification, as a basis of judgment, but corrects it by his own knowledge. Here, the trust of the first act is practically supplanted by the distrust of the second act, and how long will it be, before the pupil will penetrate to this secret of your strategy ? But you may depend upon it, that just so soon as he becomes satisfied that you go back of his untrustod word, after the trusted facts, the fair fabric of your whole scheme will dissolve like the frail frost-work of the night under the morning sun, and, what is worse, with it wiU vanish the pupil's better estimate of your character as worthy of his admiration and confidence. The fact is, in dealing with the young, no truth is more distinct and vital than that there is no safe half-way between distrust and faith. "We pass now to the consideration of the last of these specific schemes which involve a practical at- tempt to escape the use of penal infliction in the cor- rection of offenses. This scheme, which is a sort of double-entry affair, and, in its way, collects and pres- ents the debits and credits of the pupil's dealing in the school, will perhaps be most readily recognized as " The Demerit Marie System." This title, however, belongs properly to one of its extreme phases ; for a system of discipline through a record of standing, DEIDEEIT MARK SCHEME. 263 may iiiYolve tkree species; namely, that of Pure Merit; the Mixed Form; and the Pure Demerit System. The merit scheme should be marked by the folio-w- ing characteristics. It should start -with a certain average standard of character, or sum of merit, as- sumed as common to all the members of the school. This starting point, however, should never be zero. That would be like compelling an inexperienced man to commence a difficult business without capital ; to begin the building of a house without even foundation or site. On the contrary, every pupil should be made to feel that he possesses some actual merit that is appreciated, and that appears on the roU of standing, fairly credited to him. This gives him a hopeful foundation upon which to build ; an encouraging ac- cumulation to which he may add, the natural stim- idus nowhere so necessary as in the creation of char- acter, and above aU, in its formation and improve- ment among the young. Proceeding upon this assumed basis of merit, the teacher should carefully add to the credit of the pupil, upon his roU, the sum of everything vorthUy done beyond the regular order, or done above a mere average within it. That it should rise above a mere average in performance, is clear, since that alone in- dicates no real advance from the starting point ; and that whatever is done beyond the regular order should be credited entire, rests upon the fact that it is just so far an advance beyond mere ordinary merit. But no notice whatever is to be taken of acts of 264 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. demerit : it is foreign to tlie entire principle and spirit of the scheme. Tour object is to develop merit by encouragement. So far as you do that, you are, not only discountenancing, but reaUy supplanting demerit, and in a really more effective manner, because it is indirect and unobserved. Hence, it is of vital im- portance that the pupil's attention should be studi- ously kept fastened solely upon the more hopeful prospect, — ^that of increasing merit, or growing ex- cellence. The same law holds good here, that obtains in the case of generous approval and encouragement as opposed to depressing criticism and habitual censure, of which notice has elsewhere been taken. Of the general correctness of this scheme, there can be no doubt. "We suspect, however, that it is rarely, if ever, practically adopted. And, probably, for the reason that it is attended with the following difficulties : it is more congenial to human nature to interest itself in the faults of others than in their ex- ceRences ; it is really easier to detect and to measure the former satisfactorily to one's self than it is to properly discern and estimate the latter ; and, lastly, in the work of deciding upon the character and measure of a wrong, passion affords a powerful aid (we say nothing of its worthiness) which is not present or available when one has to sit in judgment upon a just or virtuous action. How far these difficulties should be suffered to have weight with the intelligent and earnest teacher, we leave for him to decide. Of the mixed form of the marking system, it is difficult to speak satisfactorily. In its general method. DEMERIT MAEK SCHEME. 265 it of course includes a recognition in the roll of stand- ing, of both merit and demerit. But this very fact subjects it to grave exception. From what has just, been urged, it will be seen that so far as it is a demerit scheme, it is necessarily false in principle, and un- happy in its tendencies. Besides this, it wiU be equally apparent that the combiniition of the two methods involves a practical incongruity in the whole, which is objectionable ; and further, if both the merit and demerit elements are equally developed, the scheme is rendered altogether too complicated to secure a just attention and application. A perhaps worse evil than even these is the fact that, for reasons already suggested, the demerit element wiU Uke Pha- raoh's kine, lean and ill-favored, practically devour the rest, and without becoming itself the fairer or the better for the operation ; that is to say, in the minds of both teacher and pupils, the demerit marking wiU come eventually to assume the chief, if not the sole importance and interest. The facts, just noticed, show this mixed form of the marking scheme to be so nearly related to that of fure demerit, that we shaU, proceed to the considera- tion of that, at once. The attention will first be directed to its characteristics as applied to schools for the younger class of pupils, in which the use of punishment is not ■vvhoUy discarded. The method here pursued is subst9,ntially the following. The slips and misdemeanors of the pupU, sometimes even those of a minute and trivial character, are carefully noted, and, by means of a set of symbols, charged to 266 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. his account upon a class roll. Sometimes, as a sort of refinement upon its already complicated proyisions, a weekly bill of the accumulating wickedness is made out upon a card, and transmitted to the parent for his examination and endorsement, generally with no accompanying explanation of its mysterious symbols or provisions. When the pupil has, in due process of time, either exhausted the patience of the teacher, or run up an amount regarded as sufficiently fla- grant, the account is balanced by inflicting the actual punishment, ostensibly for the last transgression, though perhaps really for the sum total. Now, to aU this, there are certainly grave objec- tions. First. The whole scheme is based on the false principle already suggested, — that of censure rather than approval ; of depression rather than stimulus and encouragement. Secondly. It is quite possible for the child to fail altogether of obtaining a clear idea of the real pro- visions of the scheme and of the symbols employed in marking the charges against him. Indeed, we have known the scheme to be employed with no de- cent, not to say adequate, pains on the part of the teacher, to explain it to him, so that he might under- stand his true position under discipline, and the real purport of the entries made against him. We have known a little fellow to be left so lest in its luminous provisions, that he represented himself as having "got a deportment," the precise nature of which disaster he was unable to state. We have seen an- other sorely puzzled about what he called " a minus DEMERIT MAEK SCHEME. 267 extra," when lie knew no more of tlie meaning of minus and extra, than he did of Minos and Ehada- manthus. We have overheard still another, who was dubiously balancing himseK upon the curb-stone after school, complaining to his companion that he had been marked by his teacher, and without his knowing for what. Now, it is an imperative rule in all discipHne of children, that they should be made to know unmistak- ably both the nature of their fault and the significance and justice of the penalty. But in the scheme under consideration, it is easy to see how painfully this very knowledge may be wanting. Nor is it any excuse to urge that, in such cases as the above, its absence is chargeable to the neglect of the teacher rather than to the viciousness of the scheme itself. For thirdly. We charge that it is ia the very nature of the scheme to induce this gross neglect. Removed from the necessity of immediately inflicting punish- ment, the registry of the charge which might justify it comes to be unconsciously regarded as a mere matter of marking down a certain symbol, and, hence, the inevitable tendency is to do the whole informally, and with no feeling sense of its real bearing upon the pupil, and, consequently, with no efibrt to impress upon him, its disciplinary nature and importance. It is not strange, then, that teachers who employ this method, rarely foUow up the use of demerit marks with those subsequent moral apphcations which are so essential to aU just and wholesome discipline. Fourthly. In the same direction lies another evU. 268 SCHOOL GOVEEKMENT. For the same reasons as in the preceding case, the teacher is subjected to the constant temptation to mark for trivial offenses, and will consequently mul- tiply minute rules to meet such offenses, and to justify the recorded censure. Yet, as has abeady been seen, aU such minute requisitions and inflictions are a con- tradiction of the fundamental principles of all good government, and a trespass upon the first elements of the child's nature. Their direct tendency is either to keep the pupil under a petty and perpetual ha- rassment, or to blimt the fineness of his moral sensi- bility. Still further, from this minuteness in requisition, and informality in attaching penalties, the pupil is trained to a feehng of contempt, not only for the punishment, but for the actual transgression, and so comes to entertain a low idea of the importance of law, and of the force of moral responsibility. Yet nothing can be clearer than, that discipline which does not, in the apprehension of the subject, magnify the law and make it honorable ; which does not set in clearer light the evil of transgression ; and which does not sharpen the sense of responsibility, is just so far demoralizing and vicious. And that all this is really the practical result of the use of this marking scheme in juvenile schools, we believe the experience of every observing teacher will attest. Fifthly. In case the pupil is finally punished, there arise these other evils. If he is punished simply for the last offense for which he is marked, inasmuch as no reason may appear for his not being punished for DEMEKIT MAEK SCHEME. 269 the others which preceded, either the teacher will seem unjust for not having inflicted punishment for the others ; or if they did not deserve it, then he will seem unjust in inflicting it for the last. If, however, he is punished for the sum total which, since the teacher cannot well keep out of miad the entire result of his marking, is hkely to be practically the fact, the pupil will fail to get any just idea of the relation existing between transgression and penalty. What he was marked for, — ^the actual fault, — ^he has forgotten. What he has in mind is simply the marks either separately or in their sum. Hence, associatiag the penalty only with what he immediately knows, he apprehends himself as punished for the so many marks. Yet, he is neither Hkely to discover any real crimiaahty in the existence of so many marks against him, nor is he capable of perpetrating such an ab- straction as to apprehend the sum total of the marks as a fixed symbol of the accumulated wickedness for which he is punished. Finally. Nothing can be clearer than that there can be no certainty of the exercise of cool and evenhanded justice in affixing the marks of demerit to the pupil's standing. Where there are several teachers, as in a departmental school, no two teachers can be expected to form the same precise judgment as to the character of the same act,' or as to its proper measure of de- merit. In one room or class, the pupil will be marked severely, and in another, Kghtly for the same offense. Besides this, even in the case of the single teacher, there is every probability that he wiU mark differ- 270 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. ' ently, at different times, for the same act. At one time, it will appear to Mm, and from tlie better con- dition of his judgment and feelings, quite justly, as comparatively trivial and unworthy of notice. At another, when he is harassed with the pressure of his other duties, or vexed with some unexpected com- plication of affairs, or, perhaps, simply ill or out of temper, down will go upon his roll a singeing token of his displeasure in the shape of a ten or a twenty, — we have even known a teacher call out to an offender in the class, " I give you eighty demerits for conversation," — the only effect of which was to set him at a ludicrous calculation of the particular per cent, effect of the operation upon his standing. A system open to such flagrant abuses, is certainly " more honored in the breach than the observance." There is another difficulty sometimes experienced in connection with this marking method which is al- together peculiar. By a refinement in details, the scheme is made to embrace two distinct rolls of standing, one for scholarship and the other for good behavior. Now in theory, it is not only right that conduct should be recognized in the marking, but it should stand foremost as the basis of merit or demerit. This principle has been fuUy presented in connection with the subject of rewards. And yet, here arises the difficulty. It is found that when two rolls are thus employed, not only does not the mark- ing for conduct enlist the first interest ; but, if the standing on the scholarship roll is low, a high stand- ing on the conduct roll is a cause of uneasiness. DEMEEIT MABK SCHEME. 271 Both the nature and the philosophy of the fact may be seen from an illustration. Let A stand on the scholarship roU at 2, on a scale whose maximum is 10, and at the same time stand at 8, on the con- duct roll. A is then one of the best boys in the school, but one of the poorest scholars. Now what is the inference on the part of pupU and parents? Simply this, A is one of the poorest scholars, not because he is a bad boy, but because lie is duU and stupid, his very goodness serving as a proof that he has done the best he can. Now the conduct roll, by eyincing his goodness, comes to stand as proof of his dullness ; for, without it, it might have been inferred that A was smart enough, but had been negligent. The evident tendency of all this must be not only to destroy the discipHnary utility of the conduct roll, but really to induce bad behavior in poor students. Now, unreasonable as this view of things may be, it is unavoidable. It grows out of the fact that men respect ability more than goodness. Hence, in their apprehension, ability, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. It is out of this, that there arises the ten- dency of teachers to mark lightly and with reluct- ance, the offense of a good scholar ; while, for the same offense committed by the luckless scape-goat of the class, they will slap down on the roU promptly and with a grim sort of satisfaction, the full charge of demerit. For the ^me reason, the parent will evince far greater complacency under the charge that his boy is a rogue, than is possible under the implication that he is a lackbrain. Whatever com- 272 SCHOOL GOVEBNMENT. plaint you may make of his behavior, give him the credit of being the best scholar in the class, and you salve the wound effectually. The scholarship gratifies the parent's pride ; the roguery he complacently dis- poses of as "wild oats," — a grain which we fear is getting to be the rule rather than the exception, among our youth. But assure the parent as warmly as you will, that, while the boy is one of the dullest of scholars, he is a very model of good conduct, and in nine cases out of ten you wiU inflict a, perhaps concealed, but yet mortal wound. The influence of aU this to complicate the marking system, and destroy its effectiveness, needs no farther illustration. With regard, now, to the use of the demerit mark scheme in schools for pupils of a maturer class, the reflecting teacher will at once see that many of the objections, just urged against it, hold equally good in this higher field. It is here, just as truly as before, opposed to the true theory of discipline, — that of ele- vation or encouragement ; and it is quite as certain to be irregular, capricious, and even unrighteous in its application. There wiU, of course, from the greater maturity of the pupils, be less room for ignorance or misapprehension as to its provisions and their imme- diate bearing on the offenses in question. But that very maturity, and the capacity it gives to compre- hend thus much, will also enable them to detect more easily its errors. It thus ensures the certainty that, unless the scheme be employed with a masterly skill, it will come to be held in still deeper contempt than DEMEEIT MARK SCHEME. 273 was possible in the case of younger pupils. And it cannot but be seen that this contempt must be the more certain and aggravated from the simple fact that the teacher is powerless to supplement its weak- ness, by the sterner sanctions of penal infliction. Here, then, arises the aU-important question, " What is the teacher in these higher schools to do ? He may not make use of penal inflictions; if he is not to employ this marking scheme of discipline, what resource has he?" To this we answer, first, "Necessity knows no law." Bad as the demerit mark scheme is, he may have to employ it. But if he does resort to it, let him, in the Hght of the foregoing considerations, correct its common defects as far as he can. Let him employ its symbols sohly as private memoranda which may serve as a basis for a just knowledge in laboring with the pupil in private, and for a righteous judgment in determining the propriety of final exclusion. Let thorough dispassionateness characterize all his marking, and, if he can not other- wise secure this, let hiTn never mark at the instant nor upon the immediate impulse. If he be indisposed or irritated, he had better not mark at all ; let not both teacher and pupil suffer at once for the infirm- ities of human nature. And, lastly, let him never announce the marking to the pupil in public : it is an error in principle, and an abomination in practice, which is only calculated to react in either exasperation or contempt, upon the discipline itself. Let not the teacher, even in his private conferences with the pupil, mention it in 274 SCHOOL GOVEKNilENT. form ; this is hardly less mischievous than the other. The roll is the teacher's private guide ; the pupil has no more right of access to it than he has to his "Daily Memorandum." The teacher's final de- cision as to the pupil's standing embraces general facts beyond the reach of the roU. If, now, he pre- viously announces the pupil's standing according to the mere roU marks, his subsequent judgment is cut off from modification ; or, if modified, is likely to be disputed by the pupil. Once more, announce the standing according to the roU marks with any degree of frequency, and the pupil will soon be taught to study merely for the mark standing, and not at all for the higher ends of duty and self-conscious worthiness. He becomes a mere mercenary laborer, as in the case of prizes. The truth is, aU that should come to the knowledge of the pupil is the substantial character of his con- duct, as it Ues in the teacher's mind, and as positively defined by his record. This may, and should, be as distinctly set before the pupil, as is needful to secure in him a just knowledge of his dehnquency and duty, and to afford a sufficient ground for the presentation of those moral considerations which are, in his case, the only real means of correction. This last thought naturally suggests the second answer to the main question. And that is, that just in proportion as the pupil advances toward maturity of age and capacity, the government of the school must pass from the lower to the higher species. The government of mere force must necessarily expire at DErAIiTMENTAL SCHOOLS. 275 an early period. The government of antliority en- dures longer. It may indeed be regarded as holding some important place throughout the whole of the pupil's career in the school ; latterly, not as the chief means or rehance, but rather as a sustaining element in the use of the higher species. In the last stage, the government of influence enters the field as the chief, and often sole means of hopeful and effective control in the schooL He, therefore, who, in the government of adult pupils, cannot sMlfuUy and suc- cesfully apply its provisions, will sooner or later be driven to an unconditional surrender of his preroga- tives as ruler. To this, there is but one alternative, and that too seldom practicable among us ; namely, the estabhshment of a purely military rule. The resort to the government of influence in our higher schools, tmsupported, as to a great extent it must be, by the direct sanctions of positive authority, will undoubtedly be attended with some difficulties. But, inasmuch as those difficulties are only such as always attend the proper management and control of men, they are no just cause for discouragement. Nay, rather, the field thus opened to the true teacher should be one of especial ambition, since here only is it that his highest executive sldll, his truest practi- cal greatness as a man, is to be developed or evinced. And, further, in this transition from the lower to this higher species of government in the school, there are, with the increased difficulties,, some peculiar attending advantages. That very maturity which compels a resort to influence, renders the pupU more 276 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. accessible to its effective use. He can now better understand and appreciate the genial good will which brings the teacher into closer association with him as a companion and Mend. He can more clearly com- prehend, the nature and force of the reasonings by which his true interest and obMgation are enforced upon his conscience. And his moral susceptibilities, though often sadly blunted, are yet, if properly approached and wrought upon, better adapted to substantial and permanent effects, than is to be ex- pected in the case of younger pupils. If, with these facts before him, the teacher is still incapable of applying himself patiently and resolutely to the use of this higher species of control, he is fitter to be governed than to govern. There are certain points connected with the govern- ment of departmental schools, which, while not ne- cessarily involved in this connection, may be more conveniently noticed here than elsewhere. We shall therefore give them such attention as their general importance demands, though necessarily in brief. By departmental schools we mean such as are under the conduct of a number of teachers, principal ..and subordinate, and as consequently appear in several divisions, either more or less distinctly organ- ized. They are of two kiads ; those of a lower order, in which the several teachers are not held as constitutiag a faculty proper, in Vhich the division of the school is not one of specific departments, and in which the pupils, during the school hours, are held to a fixed and common place of study ; and those of the higher DEPAETMENTAL SCHOOLS. 277 order, in which the departments are organized on the basis of specialties in instruction or distinct conrses of study, in which the teachers or professors form a proper faculty, and in which the pupils are congregated only iu class rooms and for the purpose of recitation. These last are departmental schools proper. With regard to the first or lower order of divided schools, there are some practical difficulties bearing upon their government, which it is not easy to reach. For example, the attainment of the most thorough supervision of the several pupils, the greater simph- fication of the discipline, and the more direct and effective individualizing of cases under treatment, would suggest the somewhat equal distribution of the pupils in different study-rooms under the different teachers, and the consequent equalization of the re- spective shares of the latter in the instruction and government. On the other hand, convenience in the movements of the pupils and the change of classes, economy in the provision of school rooms, and the difficulty of securing the proper governmental capacity iu aU the teachers, to which may be added the pubHc hostility to the infliction of the severer punishments except by the highest authority, — all these demand the general congregation of the pupils in one study- room, and the devolving of their general government chiefly upon one teacher, the others being restricted to the simple charge and control of classes in recitation. We shall enter into no discussion of the relative merits of these two forms, since it is a question of organization rather than government, and since its 278 SCHOOL GOVEEKMENT. decision must rest, not upon theories, but upon the practical facts involTed. But, inasmuch as the latter species of organisation is the one more . commonly adopted, and so far appears to be practically accepted as the best possible under the circumstances, we shall confine ourselves to its exclusive consideration. So far now, as, under this organization, the general government of the school as devolving upon the teacher permanently in charge of the study-room, is concerned, the principles of the art as herein set forth are of direct application, and constitute of themselves a sufficient guide. But there are specific questions that may arise with regard to the duties and prerogatives of subordinates, merely in charge of classes in recita- tion, that require a more definite solution. The fol- lowing considerations are, therefore, urged as chiefly important in the premises. First. So far as the teacher has the privilege of governing his class, he should be guided by the prin- ciples of school government in general as herein set forth ; and, so far as he can, within his limited field and with his restricted powers, he should faithfully endeavor to carry them out. This is essential to the welfare of his class as, for the time being, the body politic, and to the maintenance of his authority as ruler for the time being. Secondly. He should, nevertheless, endeavor, even though at the sacrifice of some personal convictions, to govern in substantial accordance with the general method established for the whole school. This is necessary that there may be no clash between de- DEPAKTMENTAL SCHOOLS. 279 partments, no failure on tie part of each department to supplement and sustain tlie rest, and no occasion for invidious comparisons of individual departments or teacliers. The work of providing such a general method and of harmonizing its specific application by the several teachers, should be one of the first and chief objects of concern on the part of the proper principal. Thirdly. Great pains should be taken by the prin- cipal not to denude the individual teacher of disci- plinary power so completely that he becomes, as is too commonly the case, a mere puppet before his class. A supervision which destroys the independ- ence of a subordinate, or an absorption of power which reduces him to a mere cipher, is narrow in policy and eventually destructive in practice. Reduce the clasB-teacher to the mere privilege or duty of re- porting offenses, — a practice peculiarly incident to the extended use of the marking system, — and you impair the teacher's sense of personal responsibility ; you encourage him to neglect the duty of laboring individually with offenders, and you offer a premium upon the exercise among his pupils, of a thorough and contemptuous disregard for his position and authority. Hence, so far as may be practicable, he should be empowered to investigate, decide, and discipline within his own sphere, subject only to the general restriction suggested under the second head. If, further, it may be, for any cause, necessary to with- hold from him the right to inflict punishment, let it 280 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. be done only with reference to the severer penalties whicli, as bearing more directly upon the delicate sensibilities of the public, may endanger the peace or safety of the school authorities. And, in inflicting those punishments at the instance of the subordinate, let the principal, by aU means, do it in the proper field and immediate presence of the subordinate, and substantially under his direction, so that, to the eye of the class, the latter shall practically stand forth as the authoritative ruler in his own department. In no other way is it possible for the principal to preserve the self-respect of the subordinate or hold him stead- ily to his proper responsibility ; ia no other way can he hold the class firmly to the exercise of a respectful regard for the position and authority of the subordi- nate, or a uniform obedience to the general order of the school. Of those higher departmental schools, in which there is a properly organized faculty and no fixed congregation of the pupils, during the school session, in a common study-room, little need be said. The offenses here are of course restricted to those com- mitted against the proper order of the recitation room, and those committed outside against the gen- eral order of the school. Of these, the former fall exclusively under the juris- diction of the teacher or professor proper, and should, in accordance with the foregoing rules for the lower schools, be adjudged and disciplined by him alone, except in case of reference or appeal to the faculty entire. For, obvious reasons elsewhere suggested. DEPAKTMENTAl SCHOOLS. 281 STicli discipKne should be always in substantial con- formity with the general order agreed upon for the whole school. Those general offenses which bear upon the gov- ernment of the school at large, should, as a matter of course, be properly considered and adjudged by the faculty as such. Only in this way can organic unity in oversight, responsibility, effort, and influence be secured throughout the whole corps. This, hoAv- ever, is by no means to relieve the individual teacher from his obligation to make direct personal effort for the correction of offenses of which he is cognizant ; nor is it to detract from the sovereign prerogative of the principal to have a voice and power over and above the wiU of the faculty, when in the exercise of a superior sagacity, it may seem necessary to trans- cend that will. Generally, however, when there is in the superior officer, the proper executive capacity, such a necessity will seldom occur. The exercise of what should be, in a principal, a characteristic good sense and tact, will usually succeed in commanding the reasonable acquiescence and support of all, with- out the need of overruling any. CHAPTER XIII. SCHOOL GOVEENMENT — GENERAL RESUME OF ITS SPE- CIES ; THEIR CHARACTERISTICS, AND THE QUALIFICA- TIONS REQUISITE TO THEIR ADMINISTRATION. Species classified, as those of Force, Authority, and Influence — General elements, means, ideas, and ends, severally stated — Belative order and importance of the species considered — Government of force, inferior, restricted, and insufficient alone — That of authority higher — Needs to be supplemented by the others — That of influence, superior — Insuffi- cient alone, in a depraved moral system — Government must combine all three species — Qualifications, why reconsidered, or stated anew — QitaliJicatioHS for the vse of force— Strength, promptitude, and resolu- tion — These severally considered — Qualiflcations for the exercise of con- troh-Gooi bodily presence — Includes physical exterior and mien or carriage — Power of these — Gross defects to which tliey are opposed — Illustration of the power of these qualifications — InteUectxud quaVfl- cations — Sound judgment — Its importance — Its elements, accurate per- ception of facts, ready apprehension of just method of treatment — Method of culture — Imperturbable temper — Evils of a lack of this — Faults sure to be aggravated unless thoroughly corrected — False apol- ogies for indulgence in hasty temper — Intelligent persistency — Not mere blind -stubbornness — Importance of rational persistency — QualiflcM- tions for th& use of the government of influence — Genial nature — Neces- sity to the existence of sympathy and love between teacher and pupil — Logical sMJ— Restriction in the use of reasoning with the pupil- Proper use — Rrsonal goodness— Not a weak easiness or indulgence — But positive worthiness, the result of self-conquest — Base character sure of ultimate detection and defeat — Tact — Its nature — Relation to good sense — Its utility — Means of development — Rrsistence — As dis- tinguished from authoritative persistence — Power of retraction — Diffi- culty of retracting successfully — Sules for retraction — Not every error needs correction' — Even important errors, when observed, not always to be corrected — Folly of petty apologies and constant retraction — Government must simply evince power aud williugiicss to correct EESUME OF SPECIES OP GOVEENMENT. 283 when best — ^Ketractiou to be made frankly, but unostentatiously — Sug- gested facts — Difference vf female qualifications — Woman's lack of the strouger physical and intellectual qualities — Her superiority in the more delicate moral qualifications- — Error of those who demand mere masculine viy^or in the woman as teacher — Differences in power and quaJr iflcation among me?i — All have not, and cannot acquire, the same — ^. elusive forms of government objectiondble — The best form that the man can best apply — Government summed np, not in the measnres, but the spirit of the man. "We are now prepared for our closing work, a com- prehensive resume of school government considered with reference to its general species, their character- istics, and the qualifications requisite to their suc- cessful administration. From the preceding discussion, it has been seen that the government of the school is practically of three general species : 1st, that of Force; 2d, that of Authority; and 3d, that of Love. The general elements of effect in these species re- spectively are, in the first, mere physical capacity, or Strength; in the second, Power, either bodily or mental ; and in the third. Influence, both intellectual and moral. The general means employed in each respectively are, in the first, Gompidsion ; in the second, Bequisi- tions or Mandates, either with or without reasonings or penal inflictions ; and in the third. Persuasion, either argumentative or pathetic. The general idea entertained of the subject, under each respectively, is as follows : under the govern- ment of force, he is regarded as a mere unreasoning creature ; under that of authority, he is held as an intelligent subject; and under that of love, he is 284 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. looked upon as not only an intelligent subject, but as capacitated for the exercise of a true and loving loyalty. The ultimate supremacy attained in the successful administration of the three general species respect- ively, is of different kinds corresponding. In the first, the supremacy is that of mere Mastery ; in the second, it is that of Sovereign Control, or Lordship ; and in the third, it is that of Moral SupreTnaey. This analysis at once reveals the relative import- ance of these species of government in the school, to be precisely that of the order in which they have just been presented, beginning with the lowest and ending with the highest. The government of mere force, resulting only in physical mastery, however just in its place^ or com- plete in its success, stands necessarily lowest in the scale. It is inferior in its governing idea, in the means it employs, and in the ends attained. Fur- thermore, although necessary and useful within its prescribed limits, it is insufficient of itself; it is unable and unfit to stand alone ; and if made the sole or chief reliance, must even be pronounced to be the necessary resource of mere incompetence to govern, and to be, in its essential character, base and despotic. Far higher in the scale stands the government of authoritative power, or true control. It is nobler in the idea cherished both of itself and of its subjects, more comprehensive in its capabilities and means, and more effective and salutary in its results. Yet EESUM£ 01? SPECIES OP GOVEENMENT. 285 even tMs species can hardly be considered as, in itself, sufficient or complete. Witliout the co-opera- tion of the first, it may sometimes fail for lack of material power to command universal obedience. Without the full alliance of the last species, the gov- ernment of love, it must often stop short of evincing the highest elements of excellence, and must fail to attain the truest and noblest results. It is, of itseK, adequate to the preservation of substantial order and organic harmony and prosperity. But it cannot reach that perfect crown of aU governmental success in the school, the thorough and benign transformation of character, and the permanent alliance of its subjects in the cause of its own perpetuation and perfection. The last, the government of influence, or true su- premacy, is, in its individual character, whether we look at its controlling, idea, its specific appliances or its ultimate achievements, doubtless the purest and best. Still, it must not be forgotten, that, taken as an exclusive mode, even this species of government is not without its defects. In a perfect moral system, yet unvitiated by the introduction of depraved passions and a disloyal wiU, it might, perhaps, be able to stand and rule alone. But where the opposite char~ acteristics are prevalent ; where the subjects of moral government are, not only imperfect in apprehension, but depraved in nature ; where there are endless counteracting notions, desires, examples, and influ- ences, it stands in reason, that the case is different. Here, it lacks the grand element which is alone able to secure free scope and fair play for the exercise of 286 SCPOOL GOVEKNMENT, " its own better appliances, and wMcli only can guar- anty it either safety or success. Able it may be, when the way is clear, to secure the desired trans- formation of character, and substantial order as con- sequent ; but it is not unfailingly competent to mate that way clear when once it has been obstructed. It may indeed go down upon the realm of a coirupted nature, and " Tempt with wand'ring feet The dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss ;'' but it can giye no sure pledge that it will not at the last be driven, " Bootless home, and weather-beaten back," Generous then may be the nature which espouses its cause, and seeks to rely on it alone ; but it is neither well informed nor practically wise. Hence, we are forced to accept the general conclusion, that in the school, as indeed elsewhere, the system of government chosen and administered must be eclectic rather than partial or exclusive : it must range freely through all three of the foregoing species, and, em- ploying them in their proper order and proportion, must perfect itself in a just alliance and harmonious co-operation of the whole. A just apprehension of the vaHdity and force of this conclusion would go far toward the effective correction of the too current ten- dency to assume the sufficiency and exclusive lawful- ness of the various schemes, of natural reactiona, moral suasion, and reformatory discipliae, — schemes, in themselves considered, not destitute of individual SPECIES : REQUISITE QUALIFICATIONS. 287 excellencies, but which, as commoBly taught and urged, are only deceptive and dangerous. "We are now prepared to notice the qualifications requisite to the successful administration of the gov- emment of the school, as set forth in this analysis. In doing this, we shall follow the order of the fore- going analysis as the most convenient, and as susceptible of presenting each class in the better light of its relations and comparative importance. Some of these will doubtless occur to the reader, as having been suggested in the previous discussion. These, however, cannot be entirely excluded here, without impairing the general classification and losing the benefit of such additional light as may be thrown upon them. But the notice taken of them wiU, for the reason just suggested, be comparatively brief. Others will be presented, not because the attain- ment of them is possible in the case of every teacher, nor because the effort toward such attainment is ob- ligatory on those naturally deficient ; but because they properly have their place in the complete scheme of qualifications ; because they are suggestive of direc- tions in which important culture and improvement may be- sought; and because the mention of them wiU evince the greater advantage and responsibility of those who have been, by a beneficent nature, thus nobly endowed. Let the earnest teacher, then, be upon his guard against being discouraged by the early discovery of his. natural or constitutional lack of any of these particular quaUfications ; and be equally careful not to form a hasty estimate of their 288 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. value, upon the unfair basis of a partial or ill-digested examination of the entire scheme. Our object is to explore faithfully the whole field before us, that, so far as it may be possible, everyone may be able to find something clearly adapted to his own individual necessities or responsibilities. To proceed, then, the qualifications requisite to the successful administration of the first species of gov- ernment, that of mere force, are few and simple, being primarily, mere physical strength ; and, second- arily, when the former is inadequate alone, alertness, or promptitude in action. Every one knows how potent an element this last is in a trial of strength, in which the parties are unequally matched, and how often it is itself sufficient to secure the victory. In cases in which both of these elements of mastery are either wanting or are inadequate to the task imposed upon them, there is no resource except " The mind and spirit remains Invincible." The higher strength must be found in aroused and determined resolution. Every one conversant with human conflict knows how possible it is for such res- olution to reduplicate, for the time being, even the physical powers. Indeed, here, as well as in the higher fields of struggle, it is often true that the measure of the will is the measure of the ability. The qualifications favoring the happy administra- tion of the second and higher species of government, that of control, or proper sovereignty, are more varied species: requisite qualifications. 289 and deserving of a fuller consideration. They are, first, a good physical exterior or bodily presence. This includes several distinct elements, such as size, just proportions, proper solidity of frame, an eye keen and penetrating or clear and commanding, and a voice full, distinct, and naturally authoritative. Milton recognizes the general principle when he says of Adam : " His large, fair front and eye sublime declared Absolute rule." As has been intimated, however, these quahties are not always at command ; nor is he to be judged ne- cessarily incompetent, who may be wanting in them. StiU it must be patent to every observing mind, that, other things being equal, he who possessing these, looks " Every inch a king," will, at once, command a respectful attention and a prompt obedience, which wiU be denied to a person of feeble or insignificant appearance, and which the latter must first conquer by the force of a subsequent development of hidden and unsuspected power, before he can confidently and surely claim them. Secondly. A becoming or noble mien, or carriage of one's self, is important, and, aside from the general reason, — its bearing upon the government, — because it is a direct symbol of the inward spirit which cer- tainly has some just claim to a fitting outward repre- sentation ; because it is to a good degree susceptible of development in every person of any force of char- acter ; and because, in some of its elements, Ameri- 290 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. cans are notoriously and culpably deficient. This quality embraces the several elements ; erectness of form; self-possessed steadiness in movement and certainty in action ; unembarrassed directness of look and address ; and a deliberate and unfaltering utter- ance. The faults to virhich these are opposed are an un- natural and unhealthy stoop, and careless or lounging postures,^ — ^both matters of the merest habit, and simply inexcusable ; undue haste or fitful irregularity in movement, either original or acquired; clumsy and imperfect action in doing things, not xmcommonly the result of conscious incompetence; a lowering, downcast, or averted look, either the product of con- stitutional timidity or mere mauvais horte ; a hesitating or bungling style of address, quite generally the just retribution of our common disloyalty to the study of our noble "mother tongue;" and a thick, feeble, or vulgar utterance, sometimes natural, but more often the base birth of the abominable neglect in our schools, of the noble art of reading. " From such withdraw thyself," if thou art either an earnest teacher or indeed but half a main. Contentment with them is a vice. Of the utility of this grand qualification, we urge nothing beyond its seH-evident claims, except by way of brief practical illustration. Let, for example, a command be issued, and with a cool, self-possessed mien, and a direct and confident look and tone, and who does not know that it carries with it, a clear conviction to the mind addressed, not merely of the species: eequisite qualifications. 291 necessity of obedience, but also of its own inherent rectitude. "Confidence," says Tupper, "was bearer of the palm because it looked like conviction of desert." So too, what skillful teacher has not wit- nessed the simple and effective power of a sudden pause, profound silence, and a steady and penetrating look fastened upon some thoughtless and disturbing member of the httle commonwealth? Looks, like gestures, are often mightier than words, and their right and effective use might well be more frequently a subject of study among our teachers. In practical deaUng with human nature, it is a cardinal maxim ; that manner is more vital than even matter. But nothing here urged is to be accepted as coun- tenancing a mere studied pompousness or preten- tiousness of maimer. Simple affectation or pretence in the teacher is a vice of no insignificant dimensions. But a properly cultivated or a naturally noble man- ner is quite another thiag, and is both legitimate and desirable. Passing, thirdly, to the higher and more exclusively intellectual qualities, the first to be noticed is sound judgment or, in common phraseology, good common sense. This is of the utmost importance. It is for the teacher, (as indeed for every man who has to deal with human affairs,) the touchstone of practical char- acter and endowment: it is the mastei attribute. No other good qualities which he may possess, can counterbalance any especial deficiency in this direc- tion. The best designs and the fairest plana may be hopelessly marred or foiled, by the simple lack, 292 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. on the part of the teacher, of good common sense. With it, those even intrinsically defective may count upon a reasonable success. Its elements are few and simple, beiag, first, a prompt and accurate perception of the facts in the case, and, secondly, a ready intuitive apprehension of their just relations to the probable treatment de- manded. They may be summed up, in a rapid and transparent survey of the whole field of the specific fact or measure concerned, irrespective of mere per- sonal prepossessions or considerations. It involves really the power of wholly discharging the observer himself, from the view taken, and of looking at things in their own nature and relations exclusively. In the lack of this power, hes the real secret of the failure of many persons to evince sound judgment or com mon sense. They cannot, in their judgments, get out of, away from, and above themselves. Hence, self-conceited and egotistical miuds must always be wanting in this quality. Good judgment or common sense is usually, to a great extent, a native endowment. Its attainment, when it is not native, is a matter of some difficulty ; in some cases, it is seemingly impossible. Yet teachers should guard against too readily accepting this last as the fact in their own case. For the quality ma/ be, to an important degree, either ac- quired or cultivated. The proper means to be employed in that direction are simple and within reach. They are first, a well- balanced culture of the intellect generally ; secondly, species: kequisite qualifications. 293 the habit of hearty association with others ; thirdly, the constant practice of close observation both of men and things ; and lastly, the thoughtful and con- tinued study of one's own experience. The last is, of itself, in many eases sufficient. Indeed the uni- versal value attached to experience is really due to the fact that it produces, not merely enlarged knowl- edge, but enlarged common sense. And these means, so simple and accessible, can neither be too highly esteemed, nor too assiduously employed. Teachers are, we fear, too prone, either from original indispo- sition to self-culture, or from entire preoccupation with books, to neglect them. But the error is a fatal one. Sooner or later, the price must be paid and to the uttermost farthing. Hence, (to vary the maxim) ; " caveat doctor ;" let the teacher beware. Fourthly. Let the teacher either possess, or fully, acquire a cool and imperturbable temper. Of the practical and pressing importance of this qualifica- tion, little need be said. Easy excitability or hasty violence are, of necessity, dangerous elements in the government of the school. Their tendency to weaken the teacher's influence ; to impair the accuracy of his Judgment ; to compUcate his administration of disci- pline ; to occasion positive injustice ; and to stimu- late and strengthen both by example and direct colli- sion, the fiercer passions of his pupils, is unmistak- able. Furthermore, these faidts cannot remain stationary. Unless efiectuaUy subdued, they must grow in fre- quency of exhibition and in power. The school will 294 SCHOOL GOYEENMENT. afford a thousand petty occasions for the aggravation of the one, and the stimulation of the other to un- seemly and destructive outbreaks. Correction is, then, the only safety. It is idle to plead that the teacher is naturally hasty, or to rely upon that shal- lowest of aU subterfuges that it wiU soon be learned that it " is his way." As to the first, he has no right as teacher to leave so public a fault uncorrected; and for the second, let him remember that he rules among those, who, in their yet unsophisticated views of consistency, are not likely to feel the force of the apology. There is no evading of this grand principle ; he who cannot or will not control himself, is not fit to control others. Lastly, under this second species of government, we notice as a requisite qualification, intelligent sta- bility of win, or persistency of purpose. We say dis- tinctly, irddiigent persistency ; for simple blind perti- nacity, or mere stubborimess is itself an infirmity, of which can come but little good, and if any, that only by chance. The famous, and often nauseatingly re- iterated maxim ; " perseverance conquers all things ;" is true only with limitations. Perseverance may possess this power, but only when it is rational, that is, when it is inspired and guided by proper knowl- edge and sound judgment. An ass may be conceived as kicking with the characteristic stubbornness of his race, against, for example, the Hoosic mountain, till " the crack of doom ;" but it does not therefore follow that he will eventually, by the mere virtue of his per- severance, either buffet back its iron walls, or con- species: keqtjisite quaohcations. 295 quer for himseK a successful subterranean passage to its farther slope. But of an intelligent, a rational persistency, all may be promised that is possible. Hence, let the teacher either have or acquire this important char- acteristic. He will have large and constant occasion for its exercise, as has elsewhere been shown. If he is naturally deficient, he may do more to correct the evil than many suppose. It is quite possible for him, by the simple practice of cateftilly considering before- hand the work he proposes to undertake, by repeat- edly and firmly bringing himself back from any ir- resolute lapsing therefrom, and by renewedly girding himseK up to the unfliaching endeavor, — ^it is quite possible through the use of those means, to almost recreate the wO. And a firm wiU is a powet in the school. Of the quahfications calculated to insure success in the administration of the third, and last species of government in the school, that of influence, or moral supremacy, the first in order is a genial nature. Influence can only be secured and exerted where there is a certain amount of mutual attraction ; and attraction involves mutual modifications, different, perhaps, in degree, but yet similar in kind. To ob- taia this power over the pupil, the teacher must be able to arouse and enlist in his own behalf the more genial side of the pupil's nature. The only direct means of effecting this is to disclose and apply the genial elements of his own nature. Certainly, if he be of a cold or distant temper ; if he stands aloof 296 SCHOOL GOYERNMENl'. from the most susceptible and sunny of all natures, — that of the child ; or if he approaches it, but with no near and sympathizing contact, mth no warm and radiant sunshine from his own heart, he cannot ex- pect to bring the child out from his isolation, distance, timidity, or antagonism, into the realm and atmos- phere of influence and regard. Unrelenting rigidity and frost have no business to look for the evoking of a bland and blooming spring. The importance, then, of the teacher's careful cul- tivation of a pleasant and kindly address, if he has it not by nature ; of his unbending himself at the proper times, from his sterner moods and duties, to seek a proper companionship with his pupils, and of his careful exhibition of a just but lively sympathy with them in their little joys and sorrows, becomes again not less apparent than it has been already else- where seen to be. Secondly. Under this general head, logical ablUty or skill must be iucluded as a qualification of no slight value. We embrace in this, not only a capacity to discover consistent reasons for things required, but also proper skiU in presenting them to the mind to be influenced. In the exercise of authority proper, the teacher has need, for his own sake as legislator and ruler, to be a clear and self-consistent thinker. But, as has elsewhere been hiuted, his logical con- clusions, are not, under that species of government, except to a very limited and guarded extent, to be applied directly to the understanding of the subject. Requirements and decisions are, by the very nature SPECIES : KEQUISITE QUALIFICATIONS. 297 of authority, to be generally unargued. But, under the rule of influence, it is often quite otherwise. Whenever the pupil is in a proper frame of mind ; is somewhat effectively drawn to the teacher by an in- cipient or substantial regard ; and is already meas- urably prepared to yield obedience for its own sake, the way is open for the generous unfolding to him .of the reasons which reveal the justice or benevolence of the claims laid upon him, and the dignity and beauty, not merely of obedience, but of hearty co- operation. And when this can be done, it is an ele- ment of the purest power. Here, then, the teacher who possesses this logical ability or skill will have a most important advantage over those not thus endowed or qualified. And it is in this direction, that that system of professional traiaiag which, despising a mere martinet drill in formal rules and methods, seeks to develop in the teacher the power of acute, -sagorous and independ- ent thought, at once reveals its just superiority. Let no teacher in process of professional training be con- tent with any other. To do so is simply slavish and suicidal. Mastery of form, avails him, only when the forms apply. Power to think makes him master of the entire position, at the very time of his need, and precisely as he needs it. A third qualification for the attainment and exercise of influence is personal goodness ; not a mere incon- siderate or weak goodishness, but that clear, strong, positive, rational worthiness which is more especially the product of pure self-conquv3st. He is, for the 298 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. use of this moral influence, the most truly and effectively pure, and good who, whatever may have been his original defects of notion or char- acter, has hunted them out and dethroned them ; and who has, for the sake of his own virtue, installed in their stead, traits and principles both admirable and sure-founded. Here, it is quite possible for the last to become signally the first. Constitutional amia- bility is, of course, lovely ; but acquired worthiness is the. most mighty, and the most to be revered. But, whether it be constitutional or acquired, the worthiness must be. Base character may by seK- concealment and artifice, attain and wield a potent influence. But that influence is uncertain. There is always lying under it the dangerous powder-heap, to which some unexpected revelation of the hidden de- formity may apply the igniting spark and fatally ex- plode the whole of the seemingly fair fabric. To command a true and abiding influence, there must be that near approach of character to character ;' that direct contact of thought, feeling, and sympathy, which renders no one permanently safe and sure, who cannot, in the fuU assurance of conscious rectitude say, and with a better principle and purpose than did the subtle lago : " I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at." In the fourth place, and pre-eminently, the teacher must possess tact. This quality, so often incompre- hensible to those who are destitute of it, is really no species: eequisite qualifications. 299 mystery. Tact is simply good sense skilfully opef a- tiTB. Between tlie two, the difference is that good sense is internal ; tact external : good sense is re- flective ; tact applicative : good sense is the subject matter ; tact is its just delivery. Indeed, the two are but necessary parts of a perfect practical duahty of powers. Good sense and tact are the two contiguous plates in the one electrical combination, — the one on the negative, the other on the positive side of the circuit, but both equally necessary to the evolution of the required force. Hence, tact is indispensable to the attainment and exercise of true and effective influence. Tact is the golden groove along which you ghde imperceived to the very gate of the human heart : tact is the cunning sap by which you press your way beneath its stubborn outworks to the inner citadel : tact is the master key that commands aU its complicated locks, and gives you entrance to its secret vaults and hiding places. Were every other power denied the teacher, tact might still avail to win an important success. The close relation just shown to exist between good sense and tact, will suggest the fact that much the same laws are true of the existence or the acquisition of the latter, as prevail in the case of the former. The difficulties to be encountered in the work of acquiring it, and the means to be employed in the prosecution of that work, are substantially identical with those already noticed under the head of good sense. They need not then be repeated. Much the same may be said of the last quality to 300 SCHOOL GOVEBNMENT. be considered under this head; namely, persistence. Essential to the highest success in the administration of the preceding forms of government, it certainly can be none the less so here. Indeed, the attainment of important ends through the use of purely moral means, or through influence and persuasion, is gen- erally a more circuitous, tardy, and complicated op- eration, than could be the attaimnent of the same . results through the use of mere authority. Its path, like " That, on whicli blessing comes and goes, doth follow The river's course, the valley's playful windings. Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines. Honoring the holy bounds of property ; And thus secure, though late, leads to its end." But this very circuitousness, this very regard for the rights of human feeling and imperfection, and this pure reliance upon peaceful, but indirect and slow-paced measures, renders the demand for patient persistence the more imperative. There is, however, this difference between the per- sistency of this last species of government, and that of the two former, which it is instructive to notice. The steadiness of purpose involved in the exercise of either force or authority, is, like all the attributes of those two forms of government, more positive and outstanding. It stands forth with unconcealed arms and unrolled banners of battle, on the very edge of the first onset. In pressing the milder plans and purposes of influence, it must be none the less pres- ent, but more quiet and undemonstrative. It lies, species: eequisite qualifications. 301 rather in abeyance, like a concealed but ready and powerful reserve. Its presence, if at once revealed, would only betray the whole projected movement to the hostile pupil, and would only tend to put him upon his guard, and stiffen his resistance. Hence, it should be rather unconsciously felt than immediately seen. It should rather shine out steadily in the quiet progress of the patient effort, than appear " Before the cloudy van. On the rough edge of battle ere it join." One more general qualification, belonging equally to all the various species of government enumerated, remains to be noticed, and we have done. This is the power of reiraudion, or the capacity to correct and atone for the errors which may have occurred in the teacher's administration of the government of the school. It is doubtless true in principle that errors should not be committed, especially those of a grave or far-reaching character. But inasmuch as the teacher is not infaUible, and is, moreover, hedged about by difficulties both complicated and constant, " it must needs be that offenses come ;" and, looking at the pain and peril incident upon the attempt to retrace the false steps taken, we may also add, " but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." He wUl sooner or later learn the truth of the ancient saying : " Facilis decensus Averni ; Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras. Hoc opus, hie labor est." 302 SCHOOL GOTEENMENT. In case, then, the hard necessity of retraction seems to be pressed upon the teacher, let him accept the issue fairly, and observe the following maxims. First. Not every error needs correction. Some may not have been observed by the pupils, and others may be altogether of minor importance. Here, the at- tempt at correction will only reveal errors before un- suspected, or will unfortunately exaggerate the im- portance of those discovered. The evils thus induced wiU more than coimterbalance the good proposed in the attempted retraction. The true course in such a case is for the teacher to stand quietly stiU upon his reserved rights, and leave the error to the natural correction of his subsequent administration of affairs. Secondly. Even where the errors may have been observed, or may possess some grave importance, the teacher is not to regard himself as scrupulously bound to make public amends for every one. One of the most pitiable of weaknesses in him who gov- erns, is that of ostentatiously engaging in the punc- tihous correction of his ovm short-comings, by per- petual declarations and petty apologies. Nothing can be more foreign to the evincing of true govern- mental capacity ; nothing more destructive to confi- dence in the government, and esteem for it. Its foUy may be seen in the fact that it is the product of either a pitiful timidity in ruling, or as pitiful a conceit of superior rectitude. It is as if the teacher should confess that he dare not steadily press forward to the attainment of the greater objects in view, undaunted by temporary faihues; or as if he should be con- species: eeqxjisite qualifications. 303 stantly crying out, " Behold the marvel of my unfail- ing and fearless conscientiousness." The whole is a vice, only inferior to sheer vanity or obsequiousness. What is Avanted in the teacher as governor, is not the correction of every noticeable fault, but the evin- cing of complete povfer and wiUingness to correct them, when, ia his higher judgment, that is truly de- manded by the general welfare. Evince this power and wiUingness, and the uncorrected errors will not only, not materially impair his authority or influence, but they wiU not unfrequently, by their very incor- rection, suggest to the pupil the possibiUty of higher capacity and superior reasons, unknown to himself, but determining the teacher's course. The tendency of this win naturally be to strengthen the general confidence in, not only his ability, but even his rec- titude. When correction is clearly just and necessary, let the retraction be frankly and fearlessly made, but without any needless comment or display, and above all, without personal reference, elaborate regrets, or unmanly whining. Let the teacher show that he still stands strong in conscious rectitude, and unimpaired in manly self-respect. Let him remember that what might be due between man and man, in the correction of faults, is not to the same extent demanded between government and subject. The broader claims, the far more difficult responsibilities, and the higher necessities of government as involving the welfare of the whole, are, in some part, an apology for its inci- dental failures. The preservation of its authoritative 304 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. dignity and power are too vital to the general inter- ests of the whole commonwealth, to be subjected to the needless humiliation of minute confessions and demure contrition. Let, then, enough appear in formal retraction to shed a clear and satisfactory light upon the subsequent amendment in governing, and, for the rest, let this latter correction be the sole rehance. The maxim of government in the correction of faults must be ; not words without deeds, but deeds rather than words. The power to institute such vdse and successful retraction, it will be now seen, is one of rare com- biaation and great importance. It involves a happy and effective blending of all the more important in- tellectual and moral qualifications which have just been set forth. Fortunate is he who finds this master combination instant in his nature, or solidly built up in his acquired endowments. In two directions, the foregoing considerations as to the qualification of the teacher, suggest facts de- manding a passing notice. It will doubtless have occurred to some, that of the qualifications demanded, there are those that are neither so native to woman, nor so easily to be acquired by her ; as, for example, those of physical strength, commanding presence and authoritative voice, and logical breadth and power. It is, however, by no means necessary that she shoxild either possess or seek to acquire these, at least in their more masculine or manly phase. She possesses, to a more eminent degree and excellence than man species: requisite qualifications. 305 can boast, others that more than counterbalance any loss accruing from want of these. In " Those graceful acts, Those thousands decencies, that daily flow From aJl her woids and actions," she is possessed of a power for the successful ad- ministration of that highest species of supremacy, — the supremacy of loving influence, which not unfre- quently, in its proper sphere, puts to shame man's more stem and positive capabilities, sometimes, even conquers them outright. Indeed, in her sharpness of perception ; her instantaneous certainty of intuition, sometimes amounting to even a prophetic instinct; her facile adaptation ; her winning grace ; her subtle tact ; and her pure and noble sympathies, she is, in this field of direction and control, without a peer. Let her, then, cultivate others so far as she may without disloyalty to her sex ; but let her rely rather upon these her own pre-eminent and altogether suffi- cient endowments. In this direction may be seen, at a glance, the stupidity of those who either possess or affect a con- viction of the superiority in the woman as teacher, of the more masculine traits of strength, courage, and so-called energy. They either fail to possess, or they foolishly ignore the knowledge of the highest, sweetest and most effective endowments of the sex. We say to such, " There are more things in heaven and earth, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 306 SCHOOL GOVEENMENT. Hence, a hundred times greater importance is to be attached to the quiet, all pervading and sweetly transforming influence of her, who in the school room moves on serenely from day to day, in all her pure proprieties and loving efforts, unconsciously both blessed and blessing, than can be attributed to the sturdy vigor and storming energy of those who either unthinkingly or unblushingly sacrifice the sweeter and more benign elements of their better nature, upon the altar of a masculine ambition. It may, furthermore, occur to some that, after all that may be done by teachers in the way of personal and professional culture and acquirements, there will still exist unavoidable individual differences in quali- fication, which must seriously affect them in their administration of the various species of government herein set forth ; and which may even preclude the possibility of the highest success in either as an ex- clusive form. One lesson taught by this is that of a necessary eclecticism in the choice of means and methods, which has already been touched upon. It remains, however, to suggest here, another im- portant and concluding principle. There is, doubt- less, a purest and best form of government. But as all are not adapted to be controlled by this theoreti- cally superior form ; so are aU no more adapted to its exercise. This superior scheme of government should, beyond qilestion, be so far understood and aspired to, as will secure its presence in the thought, as an in- spiring and informing influence toward the steady improvement of the method necessaiily chosen. But species: requisite qualieications. 307 it is not imperative, nay, it paay be simply a folly to aspire to its exclusive use and realization. The particular quaUfieations of some teachers may, not only render this an impossibility, but may render an attempt in that direction, only a source of constant embarrassment and failure in that especial province in which, though inferior, a signal success awaits them. All attempts, then, at imposing a one best and exclusive form of governing upon the teacher, are simply absurd and tyrannous. The general law in this direction, has been tersely and truly expressed by Pope : "For forms of government let fools contest, Whate'er is best administered is best." The substance of it is this : some government is better than none, and government is as truly relative to the capacity of the ruler, as to the condition of the sub- ject. The wise teacher, then, while carefully availing himself of the offered aid of all, wiU rely chiefly upon that species of government for which he intelligently discovers himself to be the best adapted. "The government of the school," said an able teacher to us once, " is summed up, not so much in the measures, as in the spirit of the man." But that clear and com- manding spirit is possible, and can be free and effect- ive, only in that field where he who rules is consciously at home. David was mightier with his sling and stone than he could have 'been, girt with all the panoply of Saul, and he had both the good sense to know it and the courage to avow it. Let the teachers learn from his example. 308 SCHOOL GOYEBNMENT. Nor let them learn from it only this one lesson. It is instinct with even nobler truth. Beyond his judi- cious preference for his own weU-approTed, though unpretending weapons ; beyond his modest, but self- respectful rehance upon his own seH-deTeloped pow- ers; beyond his prompt, but unostentatious accep- tance of the duty and the trial providentially imposed upon him ; beyond that imperturbable coolness and calmness which stamped him every inch a man, as well as a hero ;— beyond aU this, let the true teacher discover, and ponder well, that lesson of simple un- wavering faith in a divine guidance and support, which he, in his conflicts with ignorance and insubordination, needs not less than did David in his memorable com- bat with the giant of Gath ; and may he, in his time of need, both seek and find that guidance and support, and through them, come off conqueror indeed. Cornell University Library arVISSOl School government 3 1924 031 388 402 olin.anx