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 Boys and their management In school, 
 
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BOYS 
 
 AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
BOYS 
 
 AND 
 
 THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 BY 
 
 H. BOMPAS SMITH, M.A. 
 
 HEAD MASTER OP QUEBN MARV'S SCHOOL, WALSALL 
 FORMERLY ASSISTANT MASTER AT SHREWSBURY 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1905 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
PREFACE 
 
 '' I ^HE aim of this small volume is to offer some 
 -■• aid to junior masters in dealing with the 
 problems of form management, I have through- 
 out had the form-master specially in mind, but the 
 suggestions I have given will, mutatis mutandis, 
 apply to the case of any master who has charge 
 of boys. 
 
 The more general chapters of the book may 
 perhaps prove of interest to some readers who, 
 without being schoolmasters, are yet called upon 
 to deal with boys. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE HUMAN BOY 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Boys Between the Ages of 8 and 13 . i 
 II. Boys Between the Ages of 13 and 16 . 7 
 
 III. Boys Between the Ages of 16 and 19 . 17 
 
 PART II 
 THE BOY IN SCHOOL 
 
 IV. Physical Conditions 22 
 
 V. The Authority of the Master and its 
 
 Source 30 
 
 VI. The Acquisition of Authority— The Pre- 
 vention of Disorder .... 34 
 
 VII. The Need of a High Ideal ... 42 
 
 VIII. The Need of Keenness .... 45 
 
 IX. The Need of Understanding Boys . . 50 
 
 X. The Exercise of Authority in a Junior 
 
 Form 55 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XI. The Exercise of Authority in a Middle 
 
 Form 6i 
 
 XII. The Exercise of Authority in a Senior 
 
 Form 70 
 
 XIII. Some General Principles of Punishment 75 
 
 XIV. Some Forms of Punishment ... 85 
 XV. The Reformation of the Culprit . . 95 
 
 XVI. Untruthfulness and Swearing . . loi 
 
 XVII. On some Black Sheep 108 
 
 XVIII. Epilogue. The Master by Himself . 112 
 
 A Shelf of Books 117 
 
BOYS 
 
 AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 PART I. THE HUMAN BOY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 8 AND 13 
 
 A BOY'S life at school may be conveniently 
 divided into three periods — from the age 
 of 8 to the age of 13, from 13 to 16, and from 16 to 
 19. All such divisions suffer from the defect of 
 introducing artificial breaks in what is a continuous 
 process. Moreover, the development of individual 
 boys is subject to such variation that the ages 
 given can be regarded only as roughly indicating 
 the time of life at which certain characteristics 
 may be expected to appear. Still, so far as our 
 present knowledge goes these periods seem, to 
 some extent, to correspohd to real stages of 
 physical and mental growth in the normal boy. 
 Growth. — From 7 to 13 the average increase in 
 
 B 
 
2 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 height and weight is less rapid than it afterwards 
 becomes ; the statistics vary slightly, but all ob- 
 servers agree that the years 7 to 8, and 11 to 12 
 are times of marked retardation in growth.^ On 
 the other hand, the growth of the brain is more 
 rapid than at any later age,^ and any table of 
 mortality will show that there is a large decrease 
 in the number of deaths, from which one would 
 infer an increased power of resisting disease. 
 
 Activity. — Boys at this age are full of life and 
 activity. We all know how soon a form of ten- 
 year-old boys gets tired of sitting still. The 
 automatic movements of early childhood, licking 
 things, clicking, twirling in the hands, and the 
 like, are, to a large extent, replaced by movements 
 called forth by what the boy sees or hears. If 
 you mention something known to the boy, he at 
 once tries to tell you all about it. If he sees 
 another boy climb a tree, he wants to climb it too. 
 As soon as an idea enters his mind he instinctively 
 begins, unless prevented, to carry it out into 
 action. 
 
 This impulsiveness leads the typical boy to 
 be up to all sorts of mischief, and provided his 
 heart is right it is well that it should be so. " He 
 
 ' See Dukes : " Health in School," p. 90. See also Warner : 
 " Study of Children," p. 32 ; and Stanley Hall : " Adolescence," 
 I, pp. 7, 66. 
 
 ''■ Stanley Hall, ibid., p. 106, 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 8 AND 1 3 3 
 
 is not depraved, but only in a savage or half- 
 animal stage. Something is amiss with the lad 
 of ID who is very good, studious, industrious, 
 thoughtful, altruistic, quiet, polite, • . . who 
 turns away from stories that reek with gore, 
 refuses all low associates, and speaks standard 
 English."! 
 
 Productive power. — For the same reason, this 
 period is one of great productive power. Es- 
 pecially is this true of the years from 8 to 11 or 
 12. The boy loves, for instance, to draw any- 
 thing that comes into his head — people, horses, 
 battles, any scenes he has heard described. His 
 pleasure, however, is derived from the process of 
 drawing, not from his interest in the finished 
 picture, which is often cast aside. At about the 
 age of II he grows critical ; he sees that his 
 efforts do not adequately represent his thought, 
 and his delight in drawing declines.^ The same 
 love of production may be seen in the boy's 
 manual work, where this is allowed to follow his 
 natural bent. Most boys at this age are fond of 
 telling or writing original stories, and some con- 
 struct elaborate fictions connected with the places 
 in which they live. 
 
 Imagination. — All this points to the strength 
 
 1 Stanley Hall: "Adolescence," II, p. 453. 
 ^ See for examples McMillan : " Education throug-h the Imag-i- 
 nation," chapter vi ; and " Paidologist," November, 1904. 
 
4 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 during these years of the constructive imagination. 
 The boy combines the images given him by his 
 experience in new ways ; he may draw a man's 
 face and a cat's body, or he invents a new species 
 of giant. At 7 or 8 he will do this freely, with 
 little reference to the possibilities of actual exist- 
 ence ; this is the age of fairy stories and of all 
 kinds of wonders. But by the time he is ii or 1 2 
 his creations are less fanciful ; he will be more 
 inclined to draw real objects and to read or write 
 of adventures which might possibly be true. The 
 power of drawing imaginative inferences from 
 facts increases rapidly between 9 and 12.^ 
 
 Senses. — The reason of this change is the boy's 
 growing appreciation of the world of sense. At 
 8 his powers of observation are small ; show him 
 a picture, and though he will be quick to pick out 
 the details which strike his fancy he will fail to 
 see a curious number of salient points. At 12 or 
 13 the case is different ; his senses themselves are 
 more accurate,^ his power of combining im- 
 pressions greater, and his interest in the actual 
 things he sees or touches much more vivid ; his 
 manifold experiments and other experiences have 
 so far systematized his knowledge of the external 
 
 ^ Barnes : " Studies in Historical Method," p. 69. 
 
 " For instance, normal vision is attained only at 10 or n. 
 Visual defects are very common at 7, and have largely decreased 
 by 12 or 13. 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 8 AND 1 3 5 
 
 world that the casual curiosity of childhood has 
 grown into the desire for definite information 
 about the things of sense ; he no longer asks, Why 
 does not the wasp sting the window-pane? but, 
 How long is a torpedo boat? or. How does wind- 
 ing up the clock make it go ? He knows enough 
 of the ordinary processes he meets with to make 
 him able to distinguish anything unusual, and in 
 this he is keenly interested. Animals, the stars, 
 or machinery, attract his earnest, and in some 
 cases prolonged, attention. 
 
 Reason. — He is not, however, yet able to press 
 below the surface of things ; his reasoning is still 
 largely from particular to particular, with few 
 abstract concepts. His ideas of many things are 
 still confused ; he is often misled by superficial 
 resemblances or some similarity of name. He is 
 still in the stage of accumulating varied experi- 
 ence, and has not reached that of coherent 
 thought. 
 
 Social relations. — In the same way the boy's 
 social world is chiefly made up of individual per- 
 sons. He imitates his elder brother or other boys 
 whom he admires, especially their ways of speak- 
 ing, their gestures, dress, and other outward 
 characteristics. The commands of his parents or 
 masters are normally received as of unquestion- 
 able authority, though they often be disobeyed. 
 Hence his conduct is guided by the influence of 
 
6 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 individuals, not by general principles of action. 
 "Mr. So-and-so says we are not to talk" is a 
 sufficient reason for knowing we ought not to do 
 so, though we may very likely forget to obey. 
 
 To say that boys of this age are selfish is a 
 misuse of ^erms. They are indeed absorbed in 
 their own interests, and are hardly able to think 
 of others as having equal rights with themselves ; 
 such a point of view is only gradually acquired. 
 They are easily influenced by the circumstances 
 of the moment, may be quixotically generous and 
 then grossly unjust without any sense of incon- 
 gruity. But the typical boy finds pleasure in 
 doing things for others, and will often take im- 
 mense pains to teach or amuse a baby brother or 
 sister, or a dog or cat. He has also a large fund 
 of reverence for an elder to whom he can look up 
 as beyond comparison wiser, stronger, and better 
 than himself. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 13 AND 16 
 
 THE outstanding characteristics of the period 
 between the twelfth or thirteenth and about 
 the sixteenth year are a rapid growth in mind 
 and body, and a corresponding imperfection of 
 control over the impulses and muscles. 
 
 Rapid gromth. — In the case of boys the physical 
 development is remarkable. The very large 
 number of measurements undertaken by a com- 
 mittee of the British Association showed an 
 average annual increase in height between the 
 ages of 10 and 13 of 1*69 in., between 13 and 
 16 of 4*47 in. In weight the average annual 
 increase between the ages of 10 and 13 was 5 lb., 
 between 13 and 17, i2'i lb. After the ages 
 mentioned the average increase rapidly declined.^ 
 The increase in physical strength keeps pace 
 with the increase in weight; at 12 the ratio: 
 weight divided by strength, is given as i -98 ; 
 
 ^ See the report of the Anthropometric Committee in reports of 
 British Association for 1883, p. 290 seq. 
 
8 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 at IS it is I 'ly.^ Agility and the power of resisting 
 fatigue also show a marked improvement,^ and the 
 various senses become more acute, especially those 
 of seeing and hearing. 
 
 As a result the boy is filled with a delight in the 
 exercise of his bodily powers : he revels in strong 
 sensations from the outer world, loud noises, 
 brilliant colours, and vivid impressions of any 
 kind. We all know the high spirits and super- 
 abundant energy of the healthy boy of 14, though 
 his joy in living is apt to alternate with times of 
 physical depression. 
 
 Mental development. — There is a corresponding 
 growth in the powers of the mind. With ado- 
 lescence the memory is strengthened — notably in 
 the case of girls. Statistics indicate that the 
 memories for different classes of concepts attain 
 their greatest strength at different ages. Adoles- 
 cence is the golden age for memories of objects, 
 actions, and sensations ; while all the tables show 
 a marked development in all types of memory 
 between the ages of 12 and 15 for boys, and 
 II and 13 for girls.* Again, the imagination 
 grows more powerful, though it is engaged rather 
 with the actual world of sense than with the 
 
 ' The ratio varies somewhat for different years, ibid. p. 295. 
 2 See the statistics in Stanley Hall : " Adolescence," I, pp. 
 
 133. 150- 
 
 ' See Stanley Hall: "Adolescence," II, p. 488 seq. ; Colegrove : 
 "Memory," Holt, 1900. 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF I3 AND 16 9 
 
 distant fairyland of youngef children and some 
 of riper years. Henty and Jules Verne take the 
 place of Andersen or Grimm. Or it may take a 
 wider range and dwell on some hypothesis in 
 science or some gorgeous castle in Spain. With 
 the growth of the imagination comes the power 
 of drawing inferences which seems first to appear 
 in any strength about the thirteenth year. The 
 boy is no longer content with vague general 
 reasons, but seeks for definite causes. He begins 
 to reason more correctly in science or mathematics, 
 and to exercise his judgment in history or litera- 
 ture.^ 
 
 Personality. — The same rapid development 
 marks the boy's inner life. The age of puberty is 
 the most fruitful time for the development of 
 personality. We instinctively feel that the boy 
 has become a person who demands to be treated 
 with respect, as one having a definite place in the 
 world, with definite rights and duties. He begins 
 consciously to compare himself with others, and 
 though the result is in some cases a feeling of 
 inferiority, it is more often an increase in self-con- 
 fidence and a desire to show in some way that he 
 
 ' Mrs. Barnes collected answers from children of all ages to the 
 following' question : If you found on a desert island an old house 
 of logs, part of a boat with broken arrows in it, what would these 
 tell you ? The number of legitimate and imaginative inferences 
 rose markedly at 12 for boys and 13 for girls. — Barnes: "Studies 
 in Historical Method," p. 64 seq. Isbister, 1897. 
 
lO BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 is better than his neighbours. This may lead 
 merely to some tricks of manner, or speech, or 
 dress, or, in deeper natures, to some act of daring, 
 some attempt to do what his companions have not 
 done, and to succeed where they have failed. 
 Most boys have felt the impulse that made Tom 
 Brown and East carve their initials on the hands 
 of the school clock. The spirit of emulation 
 becomes potent in work and play, and is often the 
 strongest stimulus to action. Or the boy's ambition 
 may refuse to be limited to his new surroundings ; 
 he may think of himself as hereafter performing 
 some great work and achieving a famous name. 
 In other cases his ideal will be usefulness rather 
 than honour ; we have most of us known boys 
 who, like Anselm, " before they were 15 began to 
 consider how best they might shape their lives 
 according to God." Sometimes no definite ideal 
 is reached, and the boy is stirred only by occasional 
 longings for a vague goodness or greatness which 
 he is unable definitely to conceive. 
 
 These thoughts he will keep a secret perhaps 
 from all about him, or at any rate from all but his 
 nearest friend. They minister to his sense of 
 separateness from other people, for in them he has 
 a possession which others cannot share. For the 
 same reason his sense of ownership becomes more 
 pronounced ; he grows more eager to acquire and 
 more prone to hoard. It is an almost universal 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF I3 AND 16 II 
 
 characteristic of boys at this age to make collec- 
 tions of eggs, or stamps, or postcards, often for 
 the simple joy of ownership. In these and other 
 ways the boy emphasizes his own individuality, 
 but he may go further and be filled with a spirit 
 of hostility to those about him. He will be always 
 ready for a fight, easily roused to wrath, though 
 often not less easily appeased. Or he may be 
 seized with the longing to free himself from the 
 bonds of civilized life, and thirst for a state of 
 society in which there should be none of the 
 irksome restraints of stated hours, and Sunday 
 clothes, and codes of manners. In school there is 
 not infrequently a tendency to revolt against all 
 forms of discipline.^ 
 
 Interest in things. — But in proportion as the 
 boy's own individuality develops, his correlative 
 experience of the world around him grows in 
 breadth and depth. The things he sees arouse, 
 not the vague curiosity of earlier years, but a 
 desire to really know : it is a great time for trying 
 experiments ; bicycles or watches are taken to 
 pieces, any new toy or trick is eagerly tried. 
 Some boys rather show their interest in nature by 
 
 ' In an interesting return made for the Russian Government as 
 to the pupils in the military gymnasium whose anomalies of 
 character made their education difficult, it is stated that for the 
 ages of 13, 14, 15, there were about three-and-a-half times as 
 many of these pupils as for any other age. — Stanley Hall : 
 "Adolescence," I, p. 326. 
 
12 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 long country walks, or by their observation of 
 birds or stars. In some cases they are suddenly 
 conscious of the beauty of what they see. Banks, 
 the botanist, was idle till 14, but was one day 
 struck with the beauty of the flowers, and was 
 thenceforth devoted to their study. An apprecia- 
 tion of the beautiful in art is similarly not un- 
 common. 
 
 Intellectual interests. — Further, his intellectual 
 interests take a wider range. Some boys become 
 great readers of all kinds of books, many read 
 the newspapers and develop views on politics ; 
 nearly all absorb with avidity accounts of dis- 
 coveries or adventures. Under favourable condi- 
 tions there may spring up an enthusiasm for some 
 serious study, such as a branch of science, or 
 some period of history. 
 
 Friendships. — Still more do most boys thirst for 
 the experience that comes from fellowship with 
 their kind. In spite of their occasional self-suffi- 
 ciency, boys at this age are very dependent upon 
 others. This is the age at which devoted friend- 
 ships are often formed, or the boy may delight to 
 be with some one older than himself for whom he 
 feels a boundless admiration. Such close relation- 
 ships are the manifestations of the fundamental 
 instinct of love, which first shows its strength in 
 adolescents. 
 
 Or again, there is the growth of the general 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 1 3 AND 1 6 1 3 
 
 sense of solidarity. The boy begins to realize his 
 membership of his form or school, and his relation 
 to the other members. To his schoolfellows he 
 may grumble and abuse their common masters, 
 but woe to boys outside who should say anything 
 against them. The traditions of the school he 
 regards as binding, and regulates his behaviour 
 by them rather than by the wishes of any master 
 or superior. In his games he comes to play more 
 for his side and to care more strongly for success. 
 Religion. — The years between 12 and 15 also 
 often witness a deepening of the boy's religious 
 experiences. He feels the need of the presence of 
 God, and of His help in the storms of life. He 
 begins to realize more vividly the gulf between 
 things as they are and things as they ought to be. 
 His sense of sin may be at times profound and 
 lead to great depression of mind. The statistics 
 of conversions are not altogether satisfactory, but 
 at least they show that a large number of men and 
 women attribute their first serious thoughts on 
 religion to these years, and date from them a 
 change in their whole spiritual life. That religion 
 at this stage should be usually emotional and 
 subject to variation is only to be expected, but it is 
 often profoundly real. There are many boys out- 
 wardly careless, and even irreligious, who would 
 prove, if we knew their hearts, to be at times 
 deeply stirred by religious motives. 
 
14 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 Energy in action. — Finally the energy de- 
 veloped at adolescence necessarily seeks a vent in 
 action. More than at a later age, any vivid im- 
 pression tends at once to produce a corresponding 
 movement. The boy sees a trick performed and is 
 fain to perform it himself; he examines a steam 
 engine and then wants to make a model ; he hears 
 of any feat of strength or daring and attempts the 
 like himself. He does not stop to think of con- 
 sequences. No sooner said than done is the adage 
 of the schoolboy. Any attempt to close this 
 natural outlet is apt to prove disastrous ; it will 
 encourage discontented brooding or else recourse 
 to secret acts of sin or violence. Hence the great 
 importance at this age of physical exercise, and 
 particularly of games. Not only do these provide 
 a valuable training in the discipline of the body 
 and the temper, but they act as a strong antidote 
 to any tendency to secret sins. 
 
 Drawbacks of this rapid growth. — That all this 
 physical, moral, and intellectual development 
 should often involve much waste of energy, and 
 fierce inner conflict, must be regarded as inevit- 
 able. 
 
 In body, the boy not infrequently grows tall and 
 lanky, and may for a time be awkward or un- 
 gainly in his movements. In any case muscular 
 accuracy does not increase in the same ratio as his 
 strength ; this may be seen from the performances 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 13 AND 16 15 
 
 of many boys, both in games and in their writing 
 or their drawing. 
 
 Again, although, as has been said, a boy's 
 vigour as a rule keeps pace with his increase in 
 size, this is not always the case. Some boys out- 
 grow their strength, and the result is often a tem- 
 porary weakening of their mental as well as of 
 their physical powers. Such boys are specially 
 liable to suffer from over-exertion of any kind. 
 
 Similarly, in a boy's mental life this is often a 
 period of faulty co-ordination, prolific in blunders, 
 ill-digested impressions, and strange lapses of 
 memory. But this only means that the boy has 
 absorbed more fresh experience than he is able 
 thoroughly to assimilate, and that he needs time to 
 reduce his growing mind to order. 
 
 More important still are the signs of inner con- 
 flict characteristic of the age. These years are apt 
 to be a time of storm and stress, of violent fluctua- 
 tions in thought and feelings. Often periods of 
 great energy and activity are followed by intervals 
 of lassitude and depression ; keen interest alter- 
 nates with listlessness, sound judgment with 
 stupidity, right conduct with childish folly. More- 
 over, the boy's nerves are apt to be overwrought, 
 with the result that he is liable to fits of terror, in 
 which the fear of some disgrace or pain takes sole 
 possession of his mind. At this age the most up- 
 right boy may tell a lie, being as it were beside 
 
l6 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 himself with fright. Or the strain may show it- 
 self in an air of hopelessness and weariness of life. 
 The statistics of crime and suicide show that the 
 years between 13 and 16 are the period during 
 which juvenile criminality is most frequent. 
 
 Bcfys and knights. — Alike in his strength and 
 in his weakness, the boy of 15 bears no remote 
 resemblance to the knights of the age of chivalry. 
 He has the same delight in physical strength and 
 activity ; the same admiration for courage and love 
 of adventure ; the same loyalty to his order and 
 contempt for those outside it ; the same reverence 
 for externals ; the same generosity mingled with 
 selfishness ; the same devotion to a code of honour 
 to which all kinds of casuistical exceptions can be 
 made ; and, above all, the same capacity for hero- 
 worship and for growth in moral insight : so that 
 the boy who never bullied one smaller or turned 
 his back upon one bigger than himself is not unfit 
 to be the compeer of du Guesclin or Walter 
 Man nay. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 
 i6 AND 19 
 
 AFTER the period of rapid growth, both 
 -ti. physical and mental, between roughly the 
 ages of 13 and 16, comes a time of comparative 
 repose. 
 
 Increase in strength. — The rate of increase in 
 height and weight is markedly less, especially 
 after 17;^ but between the ages of 16 and 18 
 there is a marked access of strength,^ as any one 
 who has had experience of school teams will 
 testify, and as all athletic records show. 
 
 Bodily movement is now more purposive. A 
 boy of 17 does not kick a football for the sake of 
 kicking it, but for the pleasure of kicking it well. 
 At the time he may have fits of wild activity, 
 simply as an outlet for his physical energy, but 
 these grow rarer with the advance of time. 
 
 ' See the statistics quoted p. 7. 
 
 ^ Stanley Hall ; "Adolescence," I, pp. 133, 137. 
 
 c 17 
 
1 8 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 Greater mental balance. — In the same way the 
 seventeenth year generally marks the beginning 
 of more regular habits of mind. There may still 
 be outbursts of irresponsibility — witness some 
 scenes of undergraduate life — but on the whole 
 conduct will be guided by an increasingly coherent 
 system of motives. The supposed fact that this 
 year is the one best remembered by men in after 
 life ^ is a sign of its importance as the first begin- 
 ning of manhood. 
 
 In this age violent fluctuations of thought and 
 feeling become less frequent, though when they 
 occur they are often very pronounced, and may 
 last for a considerable time. The statistics of 
 crime show a marked diminution in the total 
 number of offences, but a rise in the number of 
 acts of violence against persons. In school, cases 
 of disorder grow less frequent ; but a really 
 unruly boy of 17 is difficult to quell. 
 
 The boy's bearing shows greater dignity and 
 self-possession. He generally gives the impres- 
 sion of knowing what he is about ; he has con- 
 sciously adopted certain principles of conduct, 
 and in most cases will continue to follow them 
 for the remainder of his life. If he is at all a 
 thoughtful boy he will take an interest in arrang- 
 
 ' Stanley Hall, ibid., II, p. 494. 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF l6 AND 19 19 
 
 ing the details of his daily life, and will train 
 himself in definite habits, with some conscious 
 aim. Some boys spend a good deal of time in 
 private thought. 
 
 Memory and imagination. — The growing coher- 
 ence of the mental life is marked by a change in 
 the character of the memory ; the verbal memory, 
 and, in general, the power of recollecting isolated 
 particulars, tends to decline, but the memory for 
 logical relations and for personal experiences 
 grows in strength. Again, the imagination is 
 now concerned with definite realities ; the boy 
 occupies himself with plans for his own future, 
 or with theories in theology or science, and less 
 with the fanciful imaginings of earlier years. 
 Many boys lose their taste for narratives of im- 
 possible adventure, and incline to books which 
 deal with facts. 
 
 Desire for knowledge. — In boys who are not 
 obliged to devote themselves to earning their own 
 livelihood there is often developed a strong desire 
 for knowledge and self-improvement. From 17 
 onwards is a great age for reading. Many boys 
 awake to the pleasures of the intellect, and revel 
 in some form of literature or science. Philo- 
 sophical and theological questions often begin 
 to exercise an attraction. Debating societies are 
 frequented, or essays on some difficult problem 
 
20 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 written. If a boy is not speculatively inclined 
 he may very likely take a keen interest in politics 
 or social ethics. 
 
 Relations with society. — His social relations also 
 undergo a change. His friendships are now 
 based upon a community of aims and interests 
 rather than on the more superficial qualities. He 
 comes to admire strength of character or ability 
 as well as physical prowess. He is less inclined 
 to take any individual as his guide, but realizes 
 more fully his membership of the community. 
 Hence his appreciation of the rights of others 
 who share this membership increases, and he is 
 inclined deliberately to adopt the standards of 
 the society to which he belongs. He is generally 
 more careful to conform to these standards in 
 points of behaviour or dress. He is usually very 
 conservative, and dislikes radical changes. But, 
 on the other hand, he feels his responsibility to 
 the school of which he is now an important 
 member. He will, under favourable circum- 
 stances, be anxious to help in organization and 
 government, and where he sees the need of 
 alteration and improvement he will show himself 
 in the light of a reformer. 
 
 Is it fanciful to think of him at his best as 
 sharing some of the characteristics of the Eliza- 
 bethan age? In one point, at any rate, the com- 
 
BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF l6 AND I9 21 
 
 parison will hold, viz. the possession by the 
 typical seaman of the sixteenth and the typical 
 schoolboy of the twentieth century of a sense of 
 the value and interest of life and of its untold 
 possibilities. 
 
PART II. THE BOY IN SCHOOL 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 
 
 INATTENTION to the elementary laws of 
 physiology is a fruitful source of wasted effort 
 and unnecessary friction. Where there are so 
 many things to think of, ventilation and tempera- 
 ture may easily be forgotten. Yet it is not un- 
 likely that the form is dull and your broadest 
 jokes fall flat simply because some villain has shut 
 the ventilators, or some nefarious colleague has 
 failed to have the windows opened at the end of 
 the preceding lesson. 
 
 Ventilation. — In cold weather the problem of 
 combining a reasonable supply of fresh air with 
 an absence of draughts and a temperature of 
 about 50° Fahrenheit is in many form-rooms by 
 no means easy of solution, but it is worthy of the 
 master's serious attention. If it is really impossible 
 to keep the ventilators open wide enough to keep 
 the room from getting close, a pause should be 
 made in the course of the lesson, the windows 
 opened, and the boys put through a few extension 
 
 22 
 
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 23 
 
 motions to keep them from catching cold. The 
 extreme importance of thoroughly changing the 
 air between each lesson cannot be emphasized too 
 strongly. 
 
 Intervals. — Intervals between the lessons are 
 not however necessary only in order to air the 
 rooms. They are needful also to enable the boys 
 themselves to get fresh air and exercise. Think 
 how you feel after a three-quarters of an hour 
 sermon, and you will understand how irksome it 
 must be for a boy to sit upon a form for an hour 
 at a time, and how badly he will need the oppor- 
 tunity of stretching his limbs, expanding his lungs, 
 and restoring his circulation. Boys should never 
 be allowed to stay in the room during the interval 
 crowding round the fire or sitting on the pipes : 
 make them go and play at something, even if it 
 is only for two minutes. If however it is unhappily 
 impossible to clear the room,you must perforce have 
 recourse to open windows and extension motions. 
 
 Change of posture. — In the case of small boys, 
 intervals between the lessons do not provide suffi- 
 cient opportunity for movement. A junior form 
 should never be kept long without some change 
 of posture. Every half-hour, at any rate, the boys 
 should be made to stand up or move about. The 
 system of standing up and taking places has been 
 discredited in some quarters, but if properly 
 worked it affords a welcome change and tends 
 
24 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 at the same time to make the form smart and 
 lively. With older boys changes may be less 
 frequent, but they are not less needed. A few 
 minutes spent in breathing or other simple exer- 
 cises will often prove a saving of time in the 
 end, and the regular practice of such exercises 
 will be found to have an appreciable effect in 
 increasing the alertness of the form.^ 
 
 Sitting posture. — But, after all, there must be 
 a great deal of sitting at the desks, and it is 
 of importance that the boys should habitually sit 
 in the attitude most conducive to mental and 
 physical efficiency. In the first place this attitude 
 will not be one of unnecessary constraint. It has 
 been said that an inspector, looking in at the 
 windows of a form-room, could tell from the 
 attitude of the boys what kind of work was being 
 done. This is perfectly true so long as it is not 
 implied that the sign of good work is for the boys 
 to be sitting erect, with folded arms, feet together, 
 and eyes front. The whole idea that boys should 
 be made to sit in unnatural positions in school 
 is a mistake. What we want to avoid is physical 
 fatigue. If you are going to have a serious talk 
 to your friend, you settle him in your easy chair, 
 
 ' A number of sound remarks and useful sug^gestions on this 
 point will be found in the " Report on the Model Course of 
 Physical Exercises,'' Cd. 2032. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1904. 
 Price 6d. 
 
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 25 
 
 not on a form without a back, and in the same 
 way you should encourage your boys, when they 
 have to listen, to sit in a comfortable attitude, 
 leaning back. Folding arms in front is particu- 
 larly objectionable, as it inevitably tends to con- 
 tract the chest. Of course, there must be no 
 lolling — that is neither physically desirable nor 
 consonant with the dignity of the form ; but a 
 posture can be unconstrained without any ten- 
 dency to slackness. 
 
 Stooping. — Against the evil habit of stooping we 
 must be carefully on our guard. Stooping may 
 be due to temporary weakness or to fatigue, but 
 it is generally the result simply of habitually 
 sitting and standing with a rounded back. If 
 the boy's back is really weak, special measures 
 may have to be concerted with the parents or 
 the doctor ; in ordinary cases it is the business 
 of the master to see that the boy when sitting 
 in school never stoops over his book, or lolls 
 on the desk, and that he leans back whenever 
 he can conveniently do so. The form should 
 be encouraged to take a pride in holding up their 
 heads ; if stooping is unfashionable it will tend 
 to die out. 
 
 Desks. — Nothing, on the other hand, is more 
 likely to lead to stooping than a faulty type of 
 desk. There are a number of excellently de- 
 signed desks on the market, giving support where 
 
26 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 it is needed, viz. in the middle of the back ; but in 
 some schools the old types of backless desks still 
 linger. In such cases the only thing to do is to 
 give each boy a desk behind him to lean against. 
 
 The desk should be so arranged that the light 
 comes from the left-hand side as the boys sit ; 
 even if this is not possible, no boy should be 
 allowed to sit facing the light. 
 
 Physical defects. — To deal even cursorily with 
 points so obvious as the above may appear a 
 waste of time, but not a single point has been 
 mentioned which has not been disregarded by 
 some master within my own experience. But the 
 chief value of anything that can be said upon the 
 subject is that it may serve to call attention to the 
 importance of keeping the physical condition of 
 the boys constantly in mind. A master should 
 train himself instinctively to note any signs of 
 flagging and any bodily defects, such as imperfect 
 eyesight or hearing. Some masters are so de- 
 ficient in the power of noting details of this kind 
 that they regard their form as stupid or lazy when 
 it is really only in want of fresh air, or fail to 
 notice that Brown minor, sitting on the back row, 
 cannot see a word of what is written on the board, 
 in spite of the cheerful look on his genial face, or 
 that Smith's apparently silly answers are due to 
 his inability to hear the question. 
 
 Eyesight. — The question of eyesight is one of 
 
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 2^ 
 
 great importance. In the case of boys with 
 normal sight it is only necessary to take care that 
 whenever they read they should have a sufficiency 
 of light, coming if possible from their left, and 
 that no boy ever brings his face to within ten 
 inches of his book. But unfortunately there are 
 in every school a number of cases of short or 
 defective sight, and every master should find out 
 whether there are any such among the boys he has 
 to teach, both in order that he may make the short- 
 sighted sit where they need not strain their eyes 
 when looking at the board, and that he may, in 
 case of need, induce the boy to obtain proper 
 surgical advice. Parents are often curiously ig- 
 norant of even grave defects in their children's 
 vision, and it is much to be desired that a system- 
 atic testing of eyesight should be the rule in every 
 school. 
 
 Hearing. — Of equal moment is the question of 
 deafness. Boys are often unwilling to confess that 
 they cannot hear, perhaps from an apprehension 
 of seeming inattentive. Hence it is not always 
 easy to find out whether their hearing is really 
 defective. All doubtful cases should be carefully 
 tested. 
 
 Individual observation. — But besides defective 
 eyesight or hearing there are many other ailments 
 which may or may not be serious in themselves, 
 but which are quite enough to interfere with the 
 
28 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 boy's work. In the case of any boy whose work 
 appears unaccountably unsatisfactory, a master 
 should always try to discover whether there is not 
 some physical reason for his apparent slackness. 
 We have most of us known instances in which the 
 neglect of this obvious precaution has led to gross 
 injustice, and even to the injury of the boys' 
 health. On the other hand, a master will find it a 
 great help in the treatment of individual boys to 
 have a regular system of physical examination of 
 all boys entering his form, A record of the obser- 
 vations will be kept, and additions or corrections 
 made from time to time. The following form is 
 suggested as a convenient one.* 
 
 Name 
 
 Date of Birth 
 
 Form and Place 
 
 General Physical Condition : — 
 
 Height 
 
 Weight 
 
 Development 
 
 Colour 
 
 General Appearance 
 
 Bodily Organs : — 
 
 Head 
 
 Face 
 
 Eyes 
 
 Ears 
 
 ' Adapted from Warner's " Study of Children." 
 
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 29 
 
 Movements : — 
 
 Carriage of Body and Head 
 
 Expression of Face 
 
 Response to Stimulus 
 
 Involuntary Movements 
 
 Signs of Nervousness 
 
 The comparison of a boy's physical and intel- 
 lectual records is often extremely interesting as 
 well as practically useful, and the whole field is 
 one in which a careful observer can do valuable 
 work. This is particularly the case with the 
 critical years between 12 and 15, when the inter- 
 action of body and mind is sometimes of para- 
 mount importance. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF THE MASTER 
 AND ITS SOURCE 
 
 YOU find yourself face to face with your form ; 
 you desire to be their guide, philosopher, 
 and friend ; your ambition will be not merely to 
 instruct, but to educate in the truest and widest 
 sense ; you hope that in future years some man 
 will recall the hours spent with you as a time 
 fruitful of good. Nor, if you are successful in 
 your work, need your hopes be disappointed. 
 But you must needs remember that the first 
 condition of success is the possession of the power 
 to influence the boys before you, to direct their 
 conduct as you consider best, to make them in 
 some things submit their wills to yours. 
 
 The master represents the school. — This author- 
 ity, so needful to your work, is yours in the first 
 place in virtue of your office. You are the repre- 
 sentative of the school, and the wielder in your 
 sphere of its authority. This constitutes the 
 strength of your position, though it may seem 
 to circumscribe your powers. As an individual 
 
 30 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE MASTER 3I 
 
 only too conscious of his fallibility you might 
 have some hesitation in imposing your own will 
 upon the form, but as the representative of 
 authority of the school you are not only entitled, 
 but absolutely bound, to do so. A master who 
 tolerates disorder or disobedience of any kind in 
 his form is disloyal to his office and its trust. It 
 may take him a long time to secure the habitual 
 prompt obedience he desires, but his efforts to 
 secure it must be strenuous and unceasing. 
 
 Again, it is this representative character of your 
 authority which prevents your action in maintain- 
 ing discipline from being misconstrued. The 
 average boy is quite aware that it is your business 
 to make him obey your orders even, if you have to 
 resort to unpleasant methods of compulsion ; and 
 he will bear you no ill-will, but rather the reverse. 
 In return you cannot be too careful to treat all 
 breaches of order as offences against the school, 
 and not as implying personal disrespect. We all 
 know that a boy may be both a good fellow and 
 a gentleman and yet be capable of holding up 
 a gross caricature of our noble features to the gaze 
 of an admiring form. Nevertheless, some masters 
 whom one meets have a tendency to regard all 
 such misdemeanours as insults to themselves ; 
 they tell their boys that they expect them to 
 behave like gentlemen, and talk of their own 
 professional reputation. It is only by habitually 
 
32 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 thinking, not of himself, but of the school, that 
 a master can avoid that fatal feeling of irritation 
 which savours more of offended personal dignity 
 than of righteous wrath at an act of disobedience 
 to the school. The same prescription may be 
 recommended to those masters who have any 
 tendency to a pompous, autocratic manner by no 
 means unknown in our class-rooms, but intensely 
 irritating to all right-minded boys. 
 
 Importance of personal force. — Is the master, 
 then, it may be asked, to sink his personality and 
 degenerate into a cross between a policeman and 
 magistrate in his efforts to enforce obedience to 
 a system of external rules? Nothing could be 
 more hopeless than such a course. A master can 
 do effective work only if he brings the full force 
 of his personality to bear upon the boys. The 
 mechanical enforcement of stated rules is of little 
 value. " I never knew a juster master or one who 
 was more hated," said a great head master of a 
 man who administered his form upon such lines. 
 
 And if all your force of character is called into 
 play in the proper enforcement of school discipline, 
 how much more will it be needed when you have 
 to deal with moral questions ? A lie is not merely 
 an offence against the school ; it is a sin, and 
 must be treated as such. Your right to intervene 
 and rebuke or punish the boy who tells the lie is 
 derived from the fact, not that you represent the 
 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE MASTER 33 
 
 authority of the school, but that you are older, 
 wiser, morally more developed than the boy ; you 
 are the representative of the moral order of the 
 world. 
 
 Of this aspect of a master's work it will be 
 necessary to speak separately ; in the next few 
 chapters we shall consider simply questions of 
 form discipline. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ACQUISITION OF AUTHORITY 
 THE PREVENTION OF DISORDER 
 
 THE first condition of successful work is, as 
 we have seen, for the master to establish his 
 authority over his form, but in the case of many 
 men when they begin to teach this preliminary 
 step is by no means free from difficulty. You go 
 into your form-room with the best intention in the 
 world, but find to your disgust that the boys be- 
 come increasingly disorderly, and that satisfactory 
 work grows correspondingly impossible. What 
 is to be done? 
 
 Authority must rest on fear. — In the beginning 
 you must base your authority on fear. There is 
 no getting over the fact that a new master will, as 
 a rule, be promptly obeyed only if he inspires a 
 wholesome dread of what he will do in cases of 
 disobedience. 
 
 Now if you are a born disciplinarian, your un- 
 feigned anger at any disobedience will be in most 
 cases sufficient, and this chapter is not for you. 
 
 34 
 
THE ACQUISITION OF AUTHORITY 35 
 
 But if you find a real difficulty in keeping order, 
 the following suggestions may prove of use. 
 
 The beginning of a lesson. — Suppose that at 
 the beginning of a lesson, when you enter the 
 room, the boys do not stop talking, or that they 
 are not sitting quietly in their places. There is, 
 perhaps, a studied inattention to your presence on 
 the part of some or all the boys. 
 
 In such a case the first thing you need is 
 courage ; do not let the boys think that you are 
 afraid. Do not come into the room with your 
 eyes cast down, but look the form in the face. 
 Great is the influence of a steady eye. We have 
 all of us known some quiet, strong-nerved man 
 whose gaze had a strange power over untamed 
 animals, and you want to gain the same kind of 
 influence over untamed boys. Then, do not be in 
 a hurry to begin. The boys may see that you 
 have your wits about you, and the disturbing sense 
 of possible eventualities may make them stop their 
 talking and disorder. If the noise persists, do 
 something to attract the attention of the form. 
 Probably a distinct command will be enough. 
 Their attention once gained, it may be possible to 
 begin the work, or it may be necessary to quietly 
 intimate that the next boy who talks or turns 
 round will get loo lines, or be given a deten- 
 tion, according to the system of the school. Only, 
 do not begin with loud calls to order, and a 
 
36 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 general display of ill-directed energy. Nor is it 
 good to adopt a vaguely threatening tone, or in- 
 dulge in worthless exclamations, such as " I can- 
 not have that talking," or "Stop that turning 
 round," and the like. 
 
 Having definitely stated what the results of the 
 next breach of order will be, you must be ready to 
 make good your words. Keep your eyes open, 
 and your mind prepared to pounce upon the first 
 offender. As soon as you are reasonably sure that 
 a boy has spoken a single word, you will give him 
 the detention he has earned. You will do it as a 
 matter of course, without any unnecessary explana- 
 tion. At the same time it is essential to keep cool, 
 and to act only when you are fairly certain of your 
 ground if you are to avoid acts of gross injustice. 
 
 One difficulty often is that a boy will go a very 
 little way on the road to disobedience. Suppose, 
 for instance, that the form has had a fit of cough- 
 ing and has been warned against it. Perhaps a 
 boy who has really got a cold ventures to clear his 
 throat. The question is, Was there any intention 
 to annoy? It is sometimes hard to say, and the 
 inexperienced master is easily misled. Speaking 
 generally, one would say that it is the boy's busi- 
 ness to avoid all appearance of wrong-doing, and 
 that the fear of being involuntarily unjust must 
 not prevent you from treating a probable act of 
 defiance as it deserves. 
 
THE ACQUISITION OF AUTHORITY 37 
 
 Interruptions. — But suppose the initial diffi- 
 culties have been overcome or have not arisen ; 
 your lesson has begun, but is subject to interrup- 
 tion by some individual boys. If a boy has clearly 
 made up his mind to be a nuisance, beware of 
 dallying with him. In serious cases send him out 
 of the room and report him to the Head, or visit 
 him with the severest punishment in your power. 
 Any sign of real insolence should, of course, be 
 dealt with in this manner. In less serious cases 
 a quiet word of warning may be given, but beware 
 of a policy of pin-pricks ; never warn more than 
 onoe, and when you strike, strike hard. The not 
 uncommon form of annoyance which consists of 
 asking needless or ill-timed questions may be met 
 by a temporary rule requiring all boys to hold up 
 their hands and obtain leave before asking any 
 question. 
 
 Loss of control. — There may, however, be no 
 outstanding acts of disorder, but yet you feel your 
 power of control is slipping from you ; your 
 teaching becomes less and less effective, and some- 
 thing must be done. There is, perhaps, a general 
 tendency to shuffle or talk or titter, or the form is 
 surreptitiously interested in something you cannot 
 understand. The great thing in such cases is not 
 to get flurried, and to let your annoyance be as 
 little apparent as possible. Briefly warn the form 
 that the nuisance must be stopped, and that you will 
 
38 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 punish the next boy whom you see doing so-and- 
 so. Then collect your thoughts, go on with the 
 lesson, and come down with decision on the next 
 offender. 
 
 Punishment of the whole form. — In extreme 
 cases the whole form may have to be punished. 
 This is not a good method of procedure, except 
 as a last resort. It rouses the ire of the innocent, 
 who are confounded with the guilty, and is gener- 
 ally less effective than the exemplary punishment 
 of the arch offenders. If you have to do it, keep 
 the whole form in, and keep them long enough 
 to make them remember it. It is often a good 
 plan to give them something to write, and to 
 let each boy go when he has finished it to your 
 entire satisfaction. 
 
 The following maxims may seem common- 
 place, but experience shows that it is well to call 
 attention to them. 
 
 1. Never lose your head or your temper. 
 
 2. Make up your mind beforehand exactly what 
 you will and what you will not allow. 
 
 3. Make it perfectly clear to the form what your 
 standard is. 
 
 4. Always appear to take for granted that you 
 will get what you want. 
 
 5. Having said what you will do, do not change 
 your mind if it can possibly be avoided. 
 
 6. Never let a boy off from kindness of heart. 
 
THE PREVENTION OF DISORDER 39 
 
 7. Never threaten vaguely or indulge in general 
 declamations. 
 
 8. Do not grumble or implore. 
 
 9. Do not be always nagging. 
 
 10. Never let a boy argue about his punish- 
 ment. If he approaches you in a proper way, 
 listen to what he has to say and make him see that 
 you desire to be reasonable, but never embark 
 upon an altercation. 
 
 The prevention of disorder. — So far we have 
 been speaking of the suppression of disorder 
 when it occurs ; but its occurrence is itself an 
 evil which you must do all in your power to 
 prevent. A good deal can be done by a little 
 care in organization. See that you stand where 
 you can overlook all the boys. Do not let them 
 choose their own places, but make the villains 
 who love to crowd on the back row come and 
 sit in front. Separate talkative neighbours, and 
 so forth. The less fuss the better, but the form 
 will appreciate a few judicious measures of this 
 kind. 
 
 Again, the boys may be disorderly because 
 their minds are not properly occupied. You do 
 not hold their attention, and, being bored, they 
 are ready for any unlawful amusement. Hence 
 it is a good maxim to keep them as busy as 
 possible. By preference give them a good deal 
 of writing to do ; it is easier to see which boy 
 
40 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 is talking or misbehaving when all are supposed 
 to be busy with their pens. Obviously, the more 
 interesting you make the lesson, the less trouble 
 will you have in maintaining discipline. 
 
 Mistakes at first unavoidable. — Needless to say, 
 you will make mistakes at first, but as the boys 
 come to know you better, and you them, mis- 
 understandings will grow fewer, and your mutual 
 relations will improve. Progress may seem slow, 
 but this may be partly because your standard 
 rises. It is usually said that a master who has 
 had no special training may be allowed a year 
 in which to learn to keep order. On the other 
 hand, there is urgent need for him to make 
 strenuous efforts to put an end to a state of things 
 at once unsatisfactory to himself and mischievous 
 to the school. Most men will find their main 
 difficulties will end with their first term if they are 
 in earnest in their work. 
 
 Ask advice. — One of the gravest mistakes a 
 beginner can make is to try and keep his diffi- 
 culties to himself from shyness or a false sense of 
 shame. It is probably always quite impossible 
 to do so, but, apart from this, the advice of a 
 sympathetic head master or experienced colleague 
 is simply invaluable. A suggestion for meeting 
 some special difficulty, or a hint as to the treat- 
 ment of some individual boy, may be the means 
 of averting, not only waste of energy, but in- 
 
THE PREVENTION OF DISORDER 4I 
 
 justice, and a master must never forget that his 
 failure to keep order is a sin against the boys. 
 
 Use school punishments. — Similarly, it is a fatal 
 error to refuse to make full use of the means of 
 coercion provided by the school ; to be unwilling, 
 for instance, to send boys to the Head, or to enter 
 their names in the punishment-book. To refrain 
 from doing one's duty on account of one's fear 
 of what others may think or say, is a pitiable and 
 unworthy weakness. 
 
 But, useful as are all the aids the system of the 
 school can give, it is upon yourself that you must 
 finally rely. It is your will which must find ex- 
 pression in all you do, in every command you 
 give and punishment you inflict. The only sure 
 foundation of order is the acknowledged supre- 
 macy of your will, representing as it does that of 
 the school. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE NEED OF A HIGH IDEAL 
 
 IN this chapter I shall assume that the master 
 has so far gained control over his form that 
 obedience is the rule and acts of disorder ex- 
 ceptional. No boy openly disputes his authority, 
 and it is not very often necessary for him to have 
 recourse to punishment. All this is good so far 
 as it goes, but it is only the first step towards the 
 attainment of that complete control which is 
 exercised over his form by a true master of the 
 craft. 
 
 A low standard fatal. — Some men unfortunately 
 are satisfied with this standard of achievement. 
 They have their weekly list of punishments for 
 talking or inattention, and occasionally they have 
 trouble with a boy ; they speak of the want of 
 energy and lack of intelligence in their form. 
 But so long as the work goes on without serious 
 interruption and their rule is tolerated by the 
 boys, they are content to let things drift. No 
 more absolute bar to the acquisition of any real 
 authority can be imagined than this lowness of 
 
 42 
 
THE Need op a high ideal 43 
 
 ideal. The most hopeless of all masters is the 
 man who does not know how bad his teaching is, 
 and who, therefore, makes but little effort to 
 improve it. If such a man could only realize 
 something of the zest and energy that characterize 
 the work in the next room to his, where no 
 punishment is needed for talking or inattention 
 save an occasional rebuke, where the master 
 stimulates the boys and the boys the master, 
 where acts of disorder are almost unknown because 
 no one wishes to disturb the pleasant relations 
 between the teacher and the taught, and where 
 the air is full of serious moral purpose, not often 
 spoken of, but felt by all, he would begin to 
 understand how little cause he had to rest content 
 with his own performance. 
 
 The stimulus of hearing other masters. — It is an 
 excellent practice, which might with advantage 
 become more common than it is, for junior masters 
 to be given the opportunity of hearing their more 
 experienced colleagues teach, and I would strongly 
 urge all masters never to miss the chance of being 
 present when a good teacher, with whose methods 
 they are not thoroughly familiar, gives a lesson. 
 They are sure to find much to imitate as well as 
 probably something to avoid, and will draw fresh 
 motives for effort from a comparison of their own 
 work with that of another, who is perhaps strong 
 in just those points in which they themselves are 
 
44 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 weak. There can be no more effective safeguard 
 against a lapse into unintelligent routine. Should, 
 however, opportunities of this kind be denied 
 them, much may be done by the study of the 
 classical writers on education, of which I have 
 spoken elsewhere, and also by discussions of 
 method with like-minded colleagues, which, under 
 favourable circumstances, may be a fruitful source 
 of inspiration. 
 
 Supposing, then, that you are resolved to be 
 content with nothing short of a high degree of 
 excellence, and that you make use of every means 
 of keeping your standard high, how shall you be 
 able most nearly to approximate to your ideal ? 
 I answer, mainly by the cultivation in yourself of 
 keenness and sympathy. In the case of masters 
 who are really men of high moral purpose, partial 
 failure in form management is generally due 
 either to a want of energy or to a lack of 
 sympathy. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE NEED OF KEENNESS 
 
 UNDER the general head of keenness or 
 energy of mind I include such qualities as 
 those of decision, alertness, thoroughness, and the 
 power of rousing enthusiasm. 
 
 Decision. — Of these qualities decision is one of 
 the most fundamentally important. If you are 
 going to impose your will upon your boys, you 
 must in the first place have a clear idea of what it 
 is you are resolved to have, and must also be pre- 
 pared to face almost any inconvenience in order to 
 achieve it. Make up your mind beforehand 
 exactly what standard of work and discipline you 
 are determined to maintain, and the precise prin- 
 ciples on which you mean to act ; you will then be 
 prepared for almost any emergency, and will be 
 able to act with promptitude and calmness. Any 
 hesitation or perplexity on your part will be put 
 down by the boys to weakness, and is bound in 
 any case to greatly lessen the force of your final 
 decision. This is a point in which not a few in- 
 tellectually able men are weak ; they see the 
 
 45 
 
46 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 double-sidedness of things too clearly to be able 
 easily and at once to form a resolution. Hamlet 
 would have made an exceedingly bad school- 
 master, far worse than many a man with not a 
 quarter of his brains. The very looks and gestures 
 of a master thoroughly in earnest diffuse an atmo- 
 sphere of deiiniteness and determination which acts 
 as a salutary tonic upon the most casual form. 
 The effect is very great of giving all your orders 
 in a decided tone and in a definite form without 
 unnecessary verbiage. You can be perfectly polite 
 and yet use few periphrases. 
 
 Consistency. — Again, decision will make your 
 rule consistent. A double-minded master may 
 easily go through his work day after day without 
 making up his mind what rules he will enforce. 
 He will permit a practice one day and forbid it the 
 next, or allow it in the case of one boy and object 
 to it in another, according to his changing mood. 
 And even if you are not subject to such weakness, 
 you may be impelled by the circumstances of the 
 moment to lay down some general rule which you 
 will afterwards find it necessary to change. Yet 
 by constantly changing your methods and stand- 
 ing orders you tend to diminish the boys' feeling 
 of reverence for law as represented by your 
 authority. Careful consideration before the formu- 
 lation of a rule and persistence in abiding by it 
 are of the essence ot good government. Changes 
 
THE ISTEED OF KEENNESS 47 
 
 you no doubt will make as your experience widens, 
 but they will represent deliberate efforts to attain 
 your unchanging aim, new applications of the 
 same underlying principles, not the incoherent 
 impulses of the moment. Further, you will be 
 strict in your own obedience to the rules that you 
 have made. You will be liable to the temptation 
 of all autocrats to set yourself above the law, but 
 such a course is at once contrary to the conditions 
 on which you hold your authority as representing 
 the authority of the school and subversive of true 
 obedience on the part of the boys. " Legum ipse 
 auctor at subversor " ought not to be the epitaph of 
 any master. 
 
 Alertness. — Another quality allied to keenness 
 is alertness of mind. One has sometimes gone 
 into a class-room and seen a boy on the back row, 
 or even a boy under the master's very nose, occu- 
 pied with some private business quite unconnected 
 with the lesson, while the master in sublime un- 
 consciousness pursues the even tenor of his way. 
 You may be sure that you are not teaching pro- 
 perly unless you are in touch with every individual 
 member of the form. By practice you will acquire 
 a kind of extra sense which will tell you at once if 
 any boy in any part of the room is not attending ; 
 you will feel a sort of physical discomfort which 
 will prevent you from going on with the lesson 
 until the offender has been called to order. This 
 
48 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 sense, however, will not be acquired until you 
 habitually have your eyes, not fixed upon the book, 
 but ranging over the form. Whether you are 
 hearing a lesson or explaining something on the 
 blackboard or looking over the boys' own work, 
 never let your eyes and mind be diverted for more 
 than a few seconds from the form as a whole. If 
 Brown on your right is reading, the boy to glance 
 at is Jones on your left. Always prepare your 
 lesson well enough to be able to dispense with 
 anything more than an occasional glance at your 
 book or notes. 
 
 Fussiness. — It is, on the other hand, possible to 
 run into the opposite extreme, not of seeing too 
 much, but of making too much fuss about what 
 you see. A good master notices a great many 
 things which he keeps to himself for future use if 
 occasion should arise, but it is not difficult to get 
 into a habit of constantly finding fault with little 
 things and of continually nagging at the form. 
 Few habits are more annoying to the boys or tend 
 less to edification. 
 
 Thoroughness. — Another effect of keenness is to 
 make you see that your commands are exactly 
 carried out. It is perfectly possible to get into the 
 way of telling a boy to come five minutes before 
 the time and then not turning up yourself to see 
 whether he is there, or of giving him a word to 
 write so many times and then not checking the 
 
THE NEED OF KEENNESS 49 
 
 result. But the effect need hardly be insisted on. 
 Any slackness of this kind is so pre-eminently an 
 example set to the boys that, even at the cost of 
 some individual hardship, thoroughness must be 
 made the unvarying rule. 
 
 Keenness contagious. — Lastly there is the conta- 
 gious effect of keenness, perhaps the most import- 
 ant point of all. A keen master is bound to some 
 extent to make a keen form ; he may not inspire 
 all, but he is sure to inspire some. Such inspiration 
 is worth a great deal in teaching. Your object is 
 not to be an impassive dispenser of rewards and 
 penalties, but a living man acting on living boys, 
 and keenness alone will enable you to be day after 
 day, not a servant of routine, but an inspirer of 
 moral energy. Go into one form-room and you 
 will find the boys dull and listless, though the 
 order may be perfect and the standard of the work 
 not low, while in another you will meet perhaps 
 with faults of method, but the form will be bright 
 and interested, at times even enthusiastic, owing 
 to the saving grace of keenness in the master, who 
 therefore makes even the dullard feel that life is 
 worth the living, and that his work at school may 
 be an entrance to a fuller life. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE NEED OF UNDERSTANDING BOYS 
 
 NO faculty is more essential, both to a master's 
 happiness and to the efficiency of his work, 
 than the power of getting on with boys. Unless 
 you have some natural liking for boys as such, it 
 is doubtful whether you will ever find a pleasure 
 in your work. But fortunately this liking is 
 rarely altogether absent, and it is apt to grow with 
 widening knowledge of boy life. 
 
 Interest in boys. — For, speaking generally, you 
 will get on with boys in proportion as you under- 
 stand them — that is, can enter into their ways of 
 looking at things, their moral standards, their 
 personal interests and ambitions. The power of 
 doing this is in some men a natural gift ; others 
 acquire it gradually only after many failures. It 
 is, however, a power which every master should 
 seriously set himself to gain or to develop. Take 
 an interest in individual boys ; find out all you 
 can about them ; try to understand their views of 
 life ; discover what motives appeal to them, what 
 qualities they most admire, and the like. Only you 
 
 so 
 
THE NEED OF UNDERSTANDING BOYS 5 1 
 
 must beware of looking upon them as merely 
 subjects for psychological experiment. They are 
 persons, and therefore have the right to be always 
 treated as ah end and not a means, and you will 
 do no good unless you take an interest in them as 
 individuals, making it your ambition to become 
 their friend and helper. The commonplace that 
 the way to acquire an interest in a person is to try 
 and do him service is nowhere more true than in a 
 master's relations with his boys. 
 
 Assuming, therefore, that you really desire to 
 understand and to take a personal interest in your 
 boys, this attitude of mind will dominate your 
 whole system of form management. Your authority 
 will depend, not so much upon the fear which you 
 inspire as upon the recognition by the boys of the 
 fact that your aim is their welfare and the credit of 
 the form. The atmosphere of your room will be one 
 of mutual confidence and co-operation, resulting in 
 a spirit of comradeship which will strengthen, not 
 undermine, your rule. 
 
 Courtesy. — This spirit will show itself in the first 
 place in the habitual courtesy with which you 
 treat your boys, reflected in their courtesy towards 
 you. There is, indeed, an old tradition that boys 
 should be treated differently according as they are 
 in or out of school, and many a master whose 
 company was the delight of his boys upon the 
 cricket-field has thought it his duty to be stern and 
 
52 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 peremptory in school. But such a distinction is 
 based upon the heresy that school and life outside 
 must be kept carefully apart. You would never 
 think in private life of speaking to a boy except as 
 to a fellow-gentleman, neither ought you to do so 
 when he is in school. Such a habit of politeness 
 is not always easy to maintain amid the worries of 
 a master's work, yet it is essential for the attain- 
 ment of your purpose. Boys' insight into charac- 
 ter is quick but not profound, and they will not 
 without difficulty be brought to believe that a 
 rough and dictatorial manner can co-exist with real 
 goodwill and a keen interest in their welfare. 
 On the other hand, there are few traits which 
 they value more highly in a master than consist- 
 ent courtesy. ' ' He is always decent to you " was 
 a boy's supreme commendation of a popular 
 master. 
 
 Self-control. — Another closely related habit is 
 that of self-control. However righteously in- 
 dignant you may be, never f&il to keep your 
 anger rigidly in hand. Your wrath will be far 
 more terrible if it is the expression of your con- 
 centrated will and reason, and not merely of the 
 feeling of the moment. It is the few calm words 
 charged with half-suppressed emotion that the 
 boys will dread, not the stormy outburst of 
 passion which, if it impresses them at all, will 
 do so rather with an unreasoned fear than with 
 
THE NEED OF UNDERSTANDING BOYS 53 
 
 a sense of their offence. Moreover, an angry 
 man is apt to look a fool, and it would be a 
 humiliating, though perhaps a salutary, experience 
 for many masters to hear the boys' version of their 
 conduct when they had lost their tempers. And, 
 more important still, anger is always blind ; you 
 may have to rue with bitter remorse the injustice 
 done by some hasty word. Both in dealing with 
 your form as a whole, and in your treatment of 
 individual boys, justice and expediency alike 
 demand that you should look before you leap. 
 You may easily enter on some course of action, 
 begin to threaten or scold or punish, when a 
 moment's thought would have shown you the 
 unfairness and futility of what you were about 
 to do. Make it, therefore, from the first your rule 
 never to let your temper gain the mastery, and 
 always carefully to review the case before you act 
 or speak. 
 
 Tact. — Again, consideration for your boys will 
 develop in you that most excellent gift of tact. 
 Most of us have met the master with a strange 
 gift for outraging the feelings of his boys by 
 treading on their moral corns ; who by his in- 
 judicious treatment of a delicate situation often 
 precipitated a catastrophe which a word in season 
 would have averted, and who with the best in- 
 tentions in the world not infrequently confounded 
 the innocent with the guilty. Tact, by its very 
 
54 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 nature, is subject to no stated rules ; it is born 
 of the happy inspiration of the moment, but it can 
 be to some extent acquired by any one who is in 
 earnest in trying to understand his boys. 
 
 Interest in the form. — Finally, the right kind of 
 sympathy with your boys will help you to identify 
 yourself with the form and with the school in a 
 way that they can understand. We have seen 
 that a master owes his authority to the fact that he 
 is the representative of the authority of the school, 
 but if you think more of your own position or 
 wishes than of the boys you will be likely to 
 forget this fundamental fact. If, on the other 
 hand, the boys feel that you regard yourself as 
 one with them in so far that you and they alike 
 are members of one school and of one form, they 
 will recognize that your commands have for their 
 object, not your own convenience or personal 
 gratification, but the welfare of the whole of 
 which you acknowledge yourself a part. The 
 fact that you regard any serious wrong-doing as 
 bringing discredit upon yourself no less than 
 upon the boys in the form will have a wonderful 
 effect in adding force to your rebukes. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 
 
 A. In a Junior Form 
 
 THE great thing to remember in dealing with 
 boys between the ages of 8 and 12 is that 
 your authority over them rests upon their respect 
 for you as a person older, stronger, and wiser than 
 themselves. They have no conception of law in the 
 abstract, and for them the authority of the school 
 is simply that exercised by you. Hence your 
 will is their standard of school morals, and their 
 primary school duty is obedience to your orders. 
 
 The right attitude, therefore, for you to take 
 is that of the benevolent despot. You must, as 
 a rule, issue your commands without qualification 
 or explanation ; they are to be obeyed without 
 further question and as a matter of course. Hence 
 they must be very definite and easy to understand. 
 Any attempt at evasion, even in little things, must 
 be quelled absolutely and at once. 
 
 Have a system. — It follows also that in a junior 
 form it is desirable to have a definite system in all 
 
 55 
 
56 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 the details of routine. Make all the boys get out 
 their books at the same time ; wait till every boy 
 has done this before telling them to find the page, 
 and so on. The small boy's faculty for losing 
 things and for misunderstanding orders may make 
 such a system difficult but need not make it un- 
 workable, and the resulting habit of orderliness is 
 well worth the trouble. Further, all such con- 
 certed action should be as smart as possible. If 
 you make the boys stand in a line, let it be for a 
 short time only, but make them stand straight, 
 with their hands behind them. 
 
 Allow much liberty. — Nor is this kind of dis- 
 cipline incompatible with a large measure of free- 
 dom. You will check as little as possible the 
 overflowing energy natural to boys of this age. 
 To exact the same kind of order from boys of 8 
 that you would from boys of 14 is contrary to all 
 sound method. Young boys develop largely 
 through instinctive movements ; hence you should 
 allow as much talking to you, as much interrup- 
 tion even, as is compatible with good manners. 
 In the same way, the boys should be permitted to 
 move about or to change their posture up to the 
 limit of interference with the lesson. If it is defi- 
 nitely known what movements have to be executed 
 with military precision and when the boys are 
 free, within well-defined limits, to give the rein to 
 their impulses, the fesulting alternation of smart- 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 57 
 
 ness and liberty will be salutary and pleasant for 
 both boys and master. 
 
 Be cheerful. — But you will not rest content with 
 avoiding unnecessary inhibition ; you will also 
 seek to stimulate and guide. In order that you 
 may succeed in doing this, your manner must be 
 friendly and cheerful, and also brisk and stimulat- 
 ing. In dealing with small boys, manner is of the 
 first importance. A man with a repellent or phleg- 
 matic air is not the right teacher for a junior form. 
 If you are not gifted by nature with an attractive 
 manner, it is still perfectly possible, provided you 
 are fond of boys, for you to cultivate a pleasant 
 way of speaking. I have met men whose nor- 
 mally somewhat gloomy faces grew quite bright 
 on entering a form-room, in the same way that 
 there are men whose cheery smile becomes a frown 
 when they are confronted with a class. 
 
 Be patient. — Secondly, you will have need of a 
 fund of patience which is almost inexhaustible. 
 Most of us who have to spend much time with 
 junior forms find that the small boy's restlessness, 
 both of mind and body, has a tendency to get on 
 our nerves, and we grow harsh or irritable. 
 Against this tendency the surest safeguard is a 
 lively interest in the individual boy and an ap- 
 preciation of the impulsive frankness character- 
 istic of this age. 
 
 Appeal to their imagination. — Besides cheerful- 
 
58 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 ness and patience, you must, in order to teach 
 small boys well, possess the power of appealing to 
 their imagination. The ability to fascinate by 
 story-telling or by drawing pictures on the board 
 is a most desirable accomplishment, and even if 
 you do not by nature own this gift you can do 
 something towards acquiring it. Any man who 
 understands his boys and will exercise his ingenu- 
 ity will be able to produce all kinds of interesting 
 illustrations of the lesson in the way of pictures, 
 models, or it may be only items of information, 
 which will rouse the wondering admiration of the 
 form. The glory that will accrue to a master who 
 is able and willing to organize and direct the 
 games need hardly be insisted on. 
 
 Assuming, then, that the possession of these 
 qualities enables you to exercise a strong influ- 
 ence over your boys, there are three points which 
 it is well to bear in mind. 
 
 Exhortation. — The first point is that young boys 
 are very impressionable, so that a brief but earnest 
 moral exhortation will prpduce a great effect, at 
 any rate for the moment. This will be especially 
 the case if you speak about some definite act of 
 virtue or some definite offence. It will give you 
 confidence, and help you to avoid unnecessary 
 punishment, if you realize that your praise or 
 blame will be taken seriously to heart, more seri- 
 ously than would be the case with older boys. 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 59 
 
 Such exhortations ought, as a rule, to end with a 
 practical application. If a boy has been bullied, 
 tell two or three of the bigger boys to see that no 
 one teases him in future. They will generally be 
 glad to do so, and will at any rate stop teasing 
 themselves for a few days. A boy will be de- 
 lighted to be commissioned to see that every one 
 wipes his boots when coming into the room, and 
 so forth. If a personal interest in some virtuous 
 habit is aroused, the temptation to commit the 
 opposite offence grows we^k. 
 
 Avoid over-exciting young b(^s. — In this connec- 
 tion it may be well to utter a word of warning 
 against giving a young and nervous boy too 
 severe a shock by some reproof or punishment. 
 It is not always the boy who shows the greatest 
 agitation that really suffers most, and only careful 
 watching and an intimate knowledge of your boyS 
 will enable you to judge which are sensitive and 
 do not show it, and which are really callous. You 
 will remember that it is much easier to over-excite 
 a boy of 8 or lo than it is a boy of 13 or 14. 
 
 Boys learn by doing. — The second point is that 
 young boys especially are trained largely by what 
 they do. Hence you will influence your form by 
 getting them to do things even more than by 
 making them listen to your words. One applica- 
 tion of this principle has just been given, another 
 is to keep your form in ordef not so much by 
 
6o BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 exhortation as by giving them plenty of employ- 
 ment. Let them, if possible, have something for 
 their hands to do, or at any rate something to look 
 at. We shall see when we come to deal with 
 methods of teaching that the best way to get a 
 young boy interested in anything is to give him 
 something to do in connection with it. 
 
 Constant stipervision. — Lastly, the fact that boys 
 of this age are so much governed by impulse 
 renders it necessary to keep your eye constantly 
 upon them. Only this supervision should not be 
 felt by them as an irksome restraint, but rather as 
 the companionship of an older and wiser friend, 
 who is ready to be appealed to in all cases of 
 difficulty or doubt. It need not tend to hinder 
 their growth in moral independence. On the con- 
 trary, it is only by wise and careful guidance that a 
 boy is prevented from becoming the slave of his 
 own impulses. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 
 
 B. In a Middle Form 
 
 WHEN considering the characteristics of boys 
 of different ages we saw how rapid was the 
 growth, both physical and mental, between the ages 
 of 12 and 15 or 16. The boy during this period 
 is full of abundant but often ill-directed energy, 
 which it is the master's business to help him to 
 control. 
 
 Be firm, but give scope for the boy's energies. — 
 In the first place the boy of 13 or 14 is apt to be 
 rampagious if you let him ; hence a firm hand is 
 specially needed in the middle forms of a school. 
 But the master's object will not be to lessen the 
 energy which is seeking for an outlet ; he will 
 rather strive to guide it into useful channels. He 
 will, for instance, keep his boys fresh and keen by 
 giving them plenty of movement ; it is a good 
 plan sometimes to make them stand in a line when 
 you are asking questions, or if the form is sitting 
 down to make the individual boy stand up to 
 
 61 
 
62 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 answer. If they seem getting restless, make them 
 go through a few extension motions. I have 
 found it pay to give a form two or three minutes 
 in the open air in the middle of a lesson which 
 demanded hard and continuous thinking. See as far 
 as possible that all the boys get a proper amount 
 of physical exercise out of school ; we all know 
 how restless boys are wont to become after one 
 or two rainy days, on which exercise has been 
 difficult. 
 
 Play the game. — More important still is it to 
 take advantage of the boys' feeling of physical 
 well-being. To depress their spirits by harsh or 
 unsympathetic treatment is worse than the imposi- 
 tion of unnecessary bodily restraint. The atmo- 
 sphere of the form-room where boys of this age 
 are taught should approximate to that of the foot- 
 ball-field during a hotly contested game. There 
 should be the same spirit of keenness, the same 
 striving for the mastery, the same good-humour in 
 defeat, the same observance of the rules of the 
 game, the same determination to do everything as 
 well as possible, both for the sake of improving 
 one's own skill and for the honour of the side. 
 This is an ideal state of things, not easy of attain- 
 ment in this world of toil and worry, but any 
 master may make some progress towards it if he 
 can understand his boys and enter into their sense 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 63 
 
 of physical exhilaration. Dr. Arnold's well-known 
 dictum as to the ability to go upstairs two steps at 
 a time is capable of wide application. 
 
 Cultivate life and humour. — It follows that in 
 teaching boys of this age the unpardonable sin 
 is to be dull. Dullness is the antithesis of life, 
 and life must be the dominating note of such a 
 form. The advantage of a brisk and energetic 
 manner need not be insisted on, but a fund of 
 humour is hardly less important ; an occasional 
 smile or laugh will be good for master and 
 boys alike. Do not, therefore, be afraid of amusing 
 your form, provided always the amusement does 
 not interfere with the respect due to graver matters. 
 You will find that different forms appreciate differ- 
 ent kinds of fun, though the point must always 
 be an obvious one if it is to be thoroughly enjoyed. 
 Also, your humour must be kindly, and, if personal, 
 must avoid the possibility of giving even un- 
 reasonable offence. But a hearty laugh at some 
 broad jest or comical blunder often makes all the 
 difference to the spirit of a lesson. 
 
 Boys of this age difficult. — The rapid develop- 
 ment of the boy's inner life is the source of more 
 delicate problems for solution by the master. 
 How is this mental and moral growth to be kept 
 on the right lines? How best can we help the 
 boy to remain master of himself by learning to 
 
64 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 control the various phases of incoherent thought 
 and feeling which sometimes threaten to dominate 
 his life? 
 
 Problems such as these cannot be solved by any 
 rules, but only by the help of sympathy and tact. 
 Especially is this the case in dealing with boys 
 during the early years of adolescence, when strong 
 individual peculiarities are so frequent. Endless 
 differences and new difficulties will have to be 
 faced by the master who feels how necessary it is 
 to understand the character of a boy if he is to be 
 really helped. All that can be attempted in a 
 book like this is to give a few hints on possible 
 methods, and a few warnings of possible causes 
 of failure. 
 
 Treat them as possessing rights. — In dealing with 
 boys of the age we are considering you instinc- 
 tively feel that you have to do with a person who 
 should be treated with respect. With young boys 
 you can be courteous and yet speak to them as 
 children bound to accept your views ; in the case 
 of older boys your courtesy is based upon the 
 recognition of the fact that they are moral persons 
 having within certain limits the right of choice. 
 Save in exceptional cases you will avoid wounding 
 their self-respect ; you will never speak to them 
 as if they were your slaves ; you will show that 
 you are ready to trust their honour ; hardly ever 
 will you doubt their word. You will take pains 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 65 
 
 to briefly indicate the reasonableness of your 
 demands, and try within proper limits to get their 
 sense of justice on your side. 
 
 Respect their privacy. — Again, no feature is more 
 characteristic of this age than the desire to veil 
 deep thoughts and feelings from the gaze of others. 
 The scene in Kipling's "Stalkey and Co." in 
 which the lecturer from London theatrically un- 
 furls the banner before the blushing boys is a 
 striking description of this aspect of boy life. A 
 master will therefore always be on his guard lest 
 he should seem to wish to pry into the thoughts 
 the boy desires to hide. If he preaches at all he 
 he will generally preach indirectly, hinting at 
 things too sacred for ordinary speech. You will, 
 of course, try to lead your boys to play the game, 
 both in and out of school ; but that does not mean 
 that you will always be consciously trying to exert 
 a moral influence upon them by bringing their 
 minds into subjection to your own. ^ Hear Edward 
 Bowen : "The experience of teachers has not 
 generally brought the conviction that specially 
 directed efforts can do much to change a boy's 
 nature. It does most of the changing for itself. 
 The building grows, like the temple of old, with- 
 out sound of mallet and trowel. What we can do 
 is to arrange matters so as to give virtue her best 
 chance. We can make the right choice a little 
 easier, we can prevent tendencies from blossoming 
 
66 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 into acts, and render pitfalls visible. How much 
 indirectly and unconsciously we can do, none but 
 the recording angel knows." ^ 
 
 Insist on self-control. — This indirect moral influ- 
 ence will, in the first place, be exerted by our 
 preventing the boy from breaking off, under the 
 stress of some strong impulse, any right habit he 
 has acquired. Boys of this age sometimes feel 
 impelled to defy authority. We can help them 
 by insisting on obedience. Or they may be in- 
 clined to give way to fits of temper ; we can force 
 them to control themselves, and it is a psycho- 
 logical fact that if the outward expression of an 
 emotion is restrained, the emotion itself is 
 weakened.^ In the same way, the best cure for 
 sullenness or dreaminess is the enforced necessity 
 of getting one's work done properly. 
 
 And on good habits. — Similarly we may help the 
 boy to acquire new habits of right action. Be- 
 tween 12 and 14 he begins to form many 
 habits of thought and conduct which will remain 
 with him through life. But this is also the period 
 when a boy is apt to let himself drift along or be 
 carried hither and thither, with no definite plan or 
 principles of conduct. Here we can help him by 
 leading him to the regular performance of little 
 duties, for their own sake if possible, but if not, 
 
 1 Ed. Bowen in the "Journal of Education," April, 1897. 
 
 ^ See, for instance, James : " Text-book of Psychology," p. 382. 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 67 
 
 for the sake of some lower motive, such as public 
 opinion, desire for reward, or fear of punishment. 
 If you compel a lazy boy to come to school in time 
 you may not teach him to love punctuality, but, at 
 any rate, he will gradually find getting up less 
 difficult. 
 
 Get the form on your side. — This formation of 
 right habits will now, however, be more dependent 
 upon the public opinion and traditions of the form 
 than was the case with younger boys. Hence, in 
 a middle form the master will devote special 
 thought and care to the development of sound 
 rules and customs. We have seen that this age 
 is usually a time of a good deal of corporate 
 action among the boys themselves. You will 
 probably find it less easy to rouse enthusiasm 
 now that the boys are older. Your exhortations, 
 once so effective, now seem to fall on unwilling 
 ears. Hence, your best course will often be an 
 indirect one. Try to get the leading boys upon 
 your side ; make special opportunities, and so 
 forth. By perseverance, ingenuity, and tact, much 
 may be achieved. 
 
 Find right vents for energy. — ^Again, the prin- 
 ciple of not suppressing energy, but directing it 
 aright, will find abundant application. Many a 
 boy would have been kept from going wrong if 
 he had been led to take an interest in some special 
 subject or hobby which would have occupied his 
 
68 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 leisure and prevented his superfluous energy from 
 finding a vent in undesirable directions. From 
 this point of view games are often of the greatest 
 value ; but it is to be regretted that many schools 
 do not provide a sufficiently large choice of in- 
 tellectual interests outside the limits of the ordinary 
 curriculum. Further, many boys grow ambitious 
 at this age, either to distinguish themselves in the 
 life of the school, or in the wider world they will 
 enter when they leave. Rightly directed, this 
 ambition may become a motive for strenuous 
 exertion, not for the sake of winning personal 
 glory, but in order to fit themselves for the 
 accomplishment of some worthy purpose. Try 
 and make them understand that the first step is 
 to do their present duty well, and so to begin 
 to make themselves the kind of men they hope 
 one day to be. 
 
 Finally, as we have seen, this age is often 
 marked by temporary moral failure. Sikorski, 
 when commissioned by the Russian Government 
 to study the pupils in the military gymnasium 
 who presented anomalies of character that made 
 their education difficult, found that nearly 65 per 
 cent, of these occurred between the ages of 13 and 
 16.^ In particular, a tendency to rebel against 
 school rules may make boys either unruly or 
 sullen. Some hints as to the treatment of such 
 
 ' Stanley Hall : "Adolescence," Vol. I, p. 327. 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 69 
 
 cases have been given elsewhere ; but the pecu- 
 liarities of this time of life must always be taken 
 into account. A loss of moral balance at this age 
 does not by any means imply that the failure will 
 be permanent. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 
 
 C. In a Senior Form 
 
 THE management of a senior form is generally 
 easier than that of forms lower down the 
 school. Questions of order ought not to arise, 
 and a master can usually allow himself to speak 
 and act in the friendly informal manner of ordinary 
 life. Further, when he begins to teach he nearly 
 always finds it easy to get on with the elder boys ; 
 the difference between his age and theirs may not 
 be very great, and probably his recollections of 
 what it felt like to be in the sixth are more vivid 
 than the memories of his earlier days at school. 
 
 Necessity of discipline. — The more intimate rela- 
 tions thus rendered possible are, however, not 
 without special difficulties of their own. Dis- 
 cipline may sometimes become relaxed because 
 a junior master does not feel equal to exacting 
 prompt obedience from boys at the top of the 
 school. Other masters, again, who keep excellent 
 order with younger boys, allow liberties to be 
 
 70 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 7 1 
 
 taken in an upper form, partly from good nature, 
 partly from a desire to treat senior boys with 
 respect. Any relaxation of the ordinary rules 
 of form discipline is, however, always a grave 
 mistake. Formalities should be few but rigor- 
 ously enforced. A boy, whatever his position, 
 must cap you in the street ; he must not interrupt 
 the work in form ; in short, he must conform to 
 the ordinary regulations of the school. If a 
 prefect, with an exaggerated sense of his im- 
 portance, fails in the outward marks of respect 
 due to a master, the matter is sometimes one 
 demanding a good deal of tact. If he violates 
 no rule, it is often better to bear with him for a 
 time, until he either comes to feel ashamed of 
 his want of manners, or, on the other hand, 
 commits some open breach of discipline. In the 
 latter case, action will probably have to be taken. 
 A few words in private will often be enough ; if 
 he is a decent fellow he will apologize and sin 
 no more. But should he prove defiant, either 
 deal strongly with him yourself or else report 
 him to the head master. No open defiance of your 
 authority can be tolerated from any boy whatever, 
 and in the case of an elder boy it is a much more 
 serious matter than it would be if he were young. 
 For a boy of 17 to show a rebellious spirit is not 
 merely the expression of a wayward impulse, but 
 a sign that his whole mind is antagonistic to the 
 
72 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 principle of obedience to the school. Hence it 
 must be a battle to the death ; either he must 
 unconditionally surrender, or he is no fit member 
 for the school society. Only, take care that in the 
 struggle you do not render victory more difficult 
 by any ill-considered words or acts. Try to make 
 submission easy, and be ready to give way on 
 minor details if once your main point is gained. 
 
 Again, respect for a boy's position in the school 
 can only be shown by the master if the boy shows 
 respect for it himself; if he presume upon it, no 
 sentiment must interfere with your reprehension 
 of his conduct. The fact that when a boy is 
 17 or 18 years of age his mental life is still 
 in process of taking a definite shape in settled 
 habits prepares us for occasional outbursts of 
 folly, or even worse, and boys of this age are 
 sometimes extraordinarily childish on occasion, 
 even if they are ordinarily pillars of the state. 
 That such outbursts must be repressed goes 
 without saying, but their significance should not 
 be exaggerated. 
 
 Avoid petty punishments. — It need hardly be said 
 that petty punishments are altogether out of place 
 in dealing with senior boys. Punishment in the 
 strict sense should be rarely, if ever, necessary, but 
 if you should have to punish, make a very serious 
 matter of it, even if the punishment is not in- 
 trinsically severe. 
 
THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY 73 
 
 Use your intellectual ability. — Your influence 
 will, however, depend, not upon your official 
 powers, but upon your personal character and 
 your mastery of your subject. Boys of 17 or 18 
 have generally a great respect for intellectual 
 ability and special knowledge, and if your teach- 
 ing is good they will probably give you little 
 trouble. 
 
 Moreover, your knowledge may bring you an 
 opportunity of entering into closer relations with 
 some of the boys. Most of our secondary schools 
 are excellent training grounds of character for 
 the boys who have the organization of the games 
 and other institutions ; they are often less success- 
 ful in fostering an interest in intellectual things. 
 Here is the chance for a master fresh from the 
 stimulating atmosphere of the university. He will 
 find it one of the most congenial parts of his work 
 to help some clever boy, by his teaching in school 
 and conversation in his rooms, to follow up some 
 line of special study. The value of such help 
 is often very great. 
 
 Encourage originality. — One of your main objects 
 will, however, be to encourage independence of 
 thought and feeling. All that was said in the 
 last chapter regarding attempts at intrusion into 
 the boy's secret thoughts applies to these older 
 boys with even greater force. You will abstain 
 from interfering with the life of the form, and will 
 
74 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 not even try to find out everything that is going 
 on. If the boys tell you spontaneously of their 
 doings, it will be a valued mark of confidence. 
 You will encourage the free expression of differ- 
 ences of opinion, and may find it possible to do 
 much to stir up formal or informal debates, either 
 in form or among the boys out of school. 
 In the same way, as much of the routine as 
 possible will be looked after by the boys, with- 
 out your aid. By this and other means you will 
 try to cultivate in the form a sense of its dignity 
 and position in the school. This sense will 
 strengthen the tradition of good work and conduct, 
 and will have no small effect upon the characters 
 of the boys. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF 
 PUNISHMENT 
 
 PUNISHMENT is a forcible means of com- 
 pelling obedience to the authority of the 
 school as represented by the authority of the 
 master who gives it. Incidentally it may act 
 as a warning to others, but its essential purpose 
 is remedial ; the reformation of the offender by 
 inculcating respect for law and order, and by 
 tending to prevent a repetition of the mis- 
 demeanour. 
 
 From the nature and purpose of punishment 
 three conclusions follow. 
 
 Punishment exceptional. — Firstly, all punish- 
 ment is a confession of weakness, for it shows 
 that the moral influence of the school and master 
 has proved insufficient to prevent the commission 
 of the offence. Under normal conditions, there- 
 fore, punishment must be regarded as an ex- 
 ceptional resource. When a master first begins 
 to teach it may be necessary for him to punish 
 freely, and it is a thousand times better to give 
 
 75 
 
76 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 your punishments right and left, rather than 
 to acquiesce in any state of rebellion against your 
 rule; but for a more experienced master to have 
 often to resort to force is universally acknow- 
 ledged to be a sign of weakness or of faulty 
 method. 
 
 Effects of punishment negative. — Secondly, 
 punishment is mainly negative in its effects ; it 
 may prevent a boy from doing wrong, it only 
 indirectly affords a motive for his doing right. 
 It hinders the formation of a habit, say of being 
 late, and makes the boy stop and think, but it does 
 not of itself make him anxious to do right except 
 in so far as this is necessary to enable him to 
 avoid further penalties. Hence, to give a boy a 
 punishment and then suppose that you have done 
 your duty, is a fatal misconception. Having 
 forcibly arrested his attention you must bring 
 other forces to bear upon him — exhortation, en- 
 couragement, tactful guidance, until he volun- 
 tarily chooses the right path. 
 
 Thirdly, if punishment is to be remedial it must 
 be given in such a way as to produce the desired 
 effect upon the offender's mind. It must not 
 rouse rebellious feelings by forcing him to submit 
 to what he knows to be a real injustice, but must 
 be the expression of the moral authority of the 
 school. It must also be calculated to make him 
 feel a wholesome dread of the consequences of a 
 
SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT 77 
 
 persistence in wrong-doing. In other words, it 
 must be fair and it must be adequate. 
 
 Punishment must be fair, i.e. legal. — Now, if 
 your punishment is to be considered "fair" it 
 must, in the first place, be in accordance with the 
 rules and practice of the school. Of this the boy 
 is generally a fairly competent judge, and will 
 probably be only too ready to make a grievance 
 of the smallest irregularity. Of all the boys who 
 have come to me with a " Please, sir, I don't think 
 it is quite fair," hardly one has been without some 
 deviation from the custom of the school on which 
 to base his plea. Hence, in setting punishments 
 it is well to exercise the greatest care to avoid any 
 unnecessary illegality, however small, for a boy 
 with a punishment he thinks unfair is a bear with 
 a sore head, and the effect upon him is rather to 
 excite rebellion than to inspire a reverence for 
 law. Every attempt on your part to approach 
 him will very likely only increase his feeling of 
 antagonism. 
 
 Not dependent on the master's mood. — Again, it 
 is a truism that in order to be fair a punishment 
 must not depend upon a master's mood or 
 personal preference, yet you will find that it needs 
 no little watchfulness over your thoughts and 
 words, as well as some insight into character, to 
 enable you to feel sure that you have rightly 
 drawn the line between the boy really in need of 
 
78 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 punishment and the one who is simply anti- 
 pathetic to yourself. There are boys whose every 
 look seems to call for stripes, and others with a 
 curious gift for throwing the cake to Cerberus. 
 You may find it a safeguard to have a private 
 code of punishment, from which you will depart 
 only for some special reason. In the same way 
 you will have your evil days, on which the wheels 
 drive heavily, and even the grasshopper is a 
 burden, days on which you will have need of all 
 your self-restraint if you are not to visit any 
 lapses with heavier penalties than usual. "Old 
 So-and-so was pretty shirty this morning," is a 
 description which fits most of us at times. Or, 
 again, even if your temper is not ruffled to begin 
 with, the whole lesson may go badly. As Sidg- 
 wick says, if the first three boys break down in 
 their construe there are few masters who will not 
 be unduly ready to ship the fourth. Yet it is 
 antecedently unlikely that all your boys have for 
 no special reason conspired to neglect a certain 
 lesson. Either the fourth boy is as likely to know 
 his work as at other times, or there is some special 
 circumstance to be taken into account. The 
 work may have been unusually hard or the time 
 for preparation in some way interfered with ; or 
 the lesson may be very dull, or the room too hot. 
 "You none of you know your work and I shall 
 have you all in," is not generally a satisfactory 
 
SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT 79 
 
 way of meeting the situation. Careful inquiry 
 may discover some who have not bowed the knee 
 to Baal, and whom it would be most unjust to 
 punish. 
 
 Audi alteram partem, — Lastly, if we are to 
 punish fairly we must remember that we are 
 plaintiff and judge in one. Hence, it behoves us 
 to pay great attention to the case for the defendant. 
 "Why did you not tell Mr. So-and-so?" I asked 
 a boy who came to me about a punishment which 
 was clearly a mistake. " Please, sir, he would 
 not listen," was the truthful but unpleasant 
 answer. Now I know that some boys are regular 
 sea-lawyers, but a little knowledge of character 
 will enable you to tell whether a boy is simply 
 trying to get his just punishment remitted, or 
 whether he is genuinely anxious to bring forward 
 an aspect of the case which he thinks has been 
 overlooked. A few words after the lesson will 
 probably suffice, only let the boy feel confident 
 that you have heard him with an open mind. If 
 he feels this he will, in nine cases out of ten, be 
 ready to accept the verdict even if he does not 
 appreciate the view on which it is based. 
 
 Punishment must be adequate. — But a punish- 
 ment must not only be fair, it must also be ade- 
 quate ; that is, it must be severe enough to make 
 the required impression on the offender's mind. 
 Only harm is done by giving a punishment which 
 
8o BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 is not seriously felt. You may perhaps be some- 
 times tempted to inaugurate a tariff of small 
 penalties ; five lines for talking, ten for turning 
 round, and so on. Such a course, however, will 
 attain no sure result beyond the irritation of the 
 boy, and is essentially in contradiction to all sound 
 principles of punishment. For your aim should 
 be not a constant irksome pressure, but a mental 
 shock which will cause the boy to seriously pause 
 and definitely change his conduct. Therefore, 
 when you strike, strike hard enough to make your 
 blow effective. 
 
 This effectiveness, however, does not depend 
 solely upon the intrinsic severity of the punishment 
 itself. It depends upon four things : — 
 
 1. The amount of moral energy it represents. 
 
 2. The frequency or infrequency with which 
 punishments are given. 
 
 3. Its suitability to the offence. 
 
 4. Its severity as such. 
 
 Punishment the expression of moral force. — 
 Firstly, then, punishment is effective in propor- 
 tion to the strength of the determination of 
 which it is the expression. Say to a boy in a 
 lackadaisical or nonchalant tone, " You have 
 been talking ; take fifty lines," passing on to 
 the next business as if nothing particular had 
 happened, and you will do more harm than 
 good. The essential aim of punishment is tq 
 
SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT 8l 
 
 make him feel that he must obey a moral force 
 stronger than his own weak will or momentary 
 impulse. Hence to punish like a machine is to 
 deprive your punishment of the quality which was 
 the main justification of its imposition. If, on the 
 other hand, you speak and act with deliberation, 
 your tone and manner corresponding to the 
 gravity of an offence which your unaided moral 
 influence was insufficient to prevent, you make 
 your punishment the vehicle for the action of your 
 personality upon that of the boy, and it becomes 
 a moral force capable of producing a moral effect. 
 There is no royal road to the reformation of the 
 boy any more than to that of other people ; the 
 only moralizing force is personal effort. 
 
 Hence, if you would punish rightly, you must 
 begin by realizing the gravity of the offence ; the 
 punishment must be the expression of your per- 
 sonal pain. This does not mean that you will 
 necessarily expatiate upon the enormity of what 
 the boy has done, but it does not mean that you 
 will not look upon the punishment as a "score," 
 nor as a simple matter of routine. Each fresh 
 case must involve a fresh expenditure of your moral 
 energy ; it is only by virtue going out of you that 
 good can be done. 
 
 Minor punishments bad. — But it will be objected 
 that it is absurd to treat minor punishments for 
 trivial offences in this serious strain ; if a boy 
 
 G 
 
82 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 talks and gets fifty lines, that is hardly a moral 
 question at all. To this the answer is that minor 
 punishments should be avoided altogether. Any 
 good teacher will tell you that when he is in gopd 
 form he has no need of punishment to keep down 
 talking, inattention, and the like; a look or a word 
 is quite enough. 
 
 Punishment should be rare. — Moreover, if you 
 punish for slight offences you will punish often, 
 and the efficacy of punishment varies inversely as 
 its frequency. A master who hardly ever punishes 
 will produce more effect by keeping a boy behind 
 for a quarter of an hour than another man who is 
 always keeping in will achieve by an afternoon's 
 detention. If you find that you are getting into 
 the habit of giving many punishments, you may 
 be sure that there is something wrong. 
 
 And appropriate. — Another important principle 
 is that the penalty should be appropriate to the 
 offence. This means in the first place that you 
 must treat each case to some extent on its own 
 merits. For a boy to talk in form may be, under 
 some circumstances, desirable, under others a 
 venial offence, while it may be a piece of impudent 
 effrontery. Of course, it is only the outward act 
 that you can punish ; but the question of a boy's 
 motive for acting as he did makes all the differ- 
 ence to the criminality of his deed. Did he talk 
 simply because he was bored? Or because his 
 
SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT 83 
 
 natural loquacity overcame his sense of duty ? Or 
 because he deliberately set himself to be a 
 nuisance? Generally speaking, school offences 
 are due to the boy's failure to keep his impulses 
 under control, they are not acts of deliberate wrong- 
 doing. Hence your object usually is to help him to 
 conquer his lower self, and to teach him to concen- 
 trate his attention on what is difficult rather than 
 on what is pleasant. In such cases, if you have 
 to punish, you will do it with evident reluctance, 
 and in a manner to make him understand and in a 
 sense approve your action. On the other hand, 
 you may have to deal with instances of direct dis- 
 obedience, wilful laziness, and the like. Here 
 your attitude will be that of the avenging judge, 
 and your punishment will be swift and stern. 
 
 Follow a definite plan. — It is essential, therefore, 
 that you should have a conception of the precise 
 results the course of action which you choose is 
 intended to attain. The failure to think out a 
 coherent plan and to carefully adapt means to ends 
 is one of thie most frequent causes of our want of 
 success in the treatment of our boys. Suppose a 
 boy has not done his work because he has stayed 
 in reading a novel instead of getting air and exer- 
 cise, and then settling to his lessons. If you keep 
 him in and so deprive him further of the exercise 
 he needs, that is hardly likely to prove a satisfac- 
 tory solution of the difficulty. Rather send him 
 
84 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 out, and make him take some form of compulsory 
 exercise. Or if a boy has shown a sullen disposi- 
 tion to neglect your orders, before you give vent 
 to your feelings in a lengthy exhortation, ask your- 
 self whether this will not simply make him more 
 sullen than before. It is not unlikely that the 
 fewest possible words and some definite punish- 
 ment may be the most promising method to 
 employ. 
 
 Punishment mtist be severe enough. — Lastly, 
 your punishment must be severe enough to make 
 the desired impression. If you cane, cane hard ; 
 if you keep in, keep in long enough. Only you 
 will remember that the severity of a punishment 
 depends not less upon the standard exacted than 
 upon the amount. If a boy has something to 
 write, see that it is written really well ; if you give 
 him something to learn, do not let him go until he 
 has said it perfectly. Make it a rule to which 
 there can be no exceptions that slovenly punish- 
 ments are never taken. 
 
 In this chapter it has been assumed that the 
 master has to deal with boys old enough to be 
 treated as responsible persons. In the case of boys 
 less than 12 years of age some of the principles 
 indicated will have to be modified. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 SOME FORMS OF PUNISHMENT 
 
 IN choosing the form which a punishment 
 should take, three considerations ought to be 
 borne in mind : — 
 
 1. A punishment should be prompt and decisive, 
 not long continued. We want to cause the boy to 
 pause, feel that he has done wrong, and then 
 make a fresh start. Let him, therefore, work his 
 punishment off as quickly as may be ; do not 
 make him feel that he has a weight about his 
 neck, and when the offence has been expiated do 
 not bring it up again against him. 
 
 2. A punishment should, if possible, directly 
 tend to make the boy's improvement easier. It 
 is an error to suppose that a punishment must be 
 necessarily useless in itself; it may often render 
 the offender physically or mentally more able. 
 All punishments are not fitted to do this ; but 
 even if, e.g., you cane a boy, the physical effects 
 must be carefully considered. In any case, reform 
 must not be made more difficult. 
 
 3. The punishment should, to some extent, be 
 
 8S 
 
86 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 similar in character to the offence. If a boy is 
 idle, give him work ; if he is obstreperous or 
 inclined to bully, cane him. 
 
 Bearing these principles in mind, we proceed to 
 briefly consider the applicability of some of the 
 commoner forms of punishment. 
 
 Measures of coercion, partaking more or less 
 of the nature of punishment, are : — 
 
 (a) Reproof. 
 
 This may vary in severity from a friendly 
 remonstrance to a public denunciation. It is 
 the most satisfactory method in ordinary cases 
 of bringing your personal influence to bear upon 
 the boy. Many masters lack confidence in the 
 power of their rebukes, and any doubt on this 
 point will inevitably produce the ineffectiveness 
 they fear. But if you have faith in the strength 
 of your own will, supported as it is by the 
 authority of the school, you will be astonished 
 at the results your exhortations can produce. 
 
 Of the form and manner of these exhortations 
 something has been already said ; here I would 
 only add a warning against the employment of 
 sarcasm or any attempt to score off the boy. 
 With boys of 17 or 18 sarcasm may occasionally 
 be a proper weapon to employ, though even then 
 it must be used with caution. With younger 
 boys it is, I believe, altogether a mistake. They 
 are not able to appreciate it and feel hurt without 
 
SOME FORMS OF PUNISHMENT 87 
 
 being impressed. It also offers too great an oppor- 
 tunity to the master to be smart at the expense 
 of truth or kindness. It is an old rule to praise 
 in public and blame in private; in any case public 
 reproofs should be dignified and restrained. 
 
 {b) Change of position. 
 
 Especially in the case of smaller boys it may be 
 found a useful aid to discipline to make a talkative 
 or inattentive boy change his seat or stand up for 
 a time. This serves as a simple and effective call 
 to order, provided it is not done too often. In 
 a higher form for a boy to have to change his 
 place should be regarded as a distinct disgrace. 
 
 Rather a law of nature than a punishment is the 
 rule of 
 
 (c) Refusing to take bad work. 
 
 This again may mean an3rthing from a sugges- 
 tion that the boy should make another attempt to 
 stern retribution for culpable neglect. The stan- 
 dard to be enforced will obviously vary with the 
 capacity of the boy, and will as far as possible be 
 one of effort rather than of success ; but no excep- 
 tions must be made without good reason. In 
 particular, no badly written or untidy work should 
 be accepted. Any boy can write with care, and in 
 many cases the writing will be a better test of the 
 pains bestowed upon an exercise than is its free- 
 dom from mistakes. 
 
 Next come certain measures having for their 
 
88 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 object the prevention of offences. Any master 
 can invent others for himself, but the following 
 are typical : — 
 
 (d) Translations or synopses to be brought written 
 out. 
 
 Very lazy boys may by this means be made to 
 do some work, but it is not a method to be used 
 too freely, or for too long a time. 
 
 {e) Homework notes. 
 
 In the case of day-boys doing their homework 
 at home it has been found a useful plan to provide 
 them with a form to be signed by some home 
 authority, on which is stated the time the boy has 
 spent on the prepartion of his work for the next 
 day. 
 
 (/) Daily or weekly reports. 
 
 A boy whose work or conduct is very unsatis- 
 factory may be given a card on which he enters 
 the names of the lessons for the day or week. He 
 has then to get the signature of the masters taking 
 these lessons, with the addition in each case of a 
 letter or sign conveying the master's opinion of 
 his work. The card is presented to the form 
 master or head master at the end of the day or 
 week. Further action can then if necessary be 
 taken. 
 
 Of punishments for definite offences inflicted by 
 the master himself, the following are the com- 
 monest. An ingenious master will, however, often 
 
SOME FORMS OF PUNISHMENT 89 
 
 invent some penalty more suitable to the particular 
 case than any of those generally recognized. 
 Such punishments should be neither ridiculous in 
 themselves nor such as to make the culprit look 
 absurd. To hold a boy up to the ridicule of the 
 form is not a likely means of reformation. 
 
 {g) Impositions. 
 
 In bad cases of negligence or idleness it may be 
 reasonable to give extra work to be done at home, 
 or better, before the boy leaves the school. Such 
 work should bear a direct relation to the lesson, 
 e.g., a word which has been missed may have to 
 be written out a certain number of times. It 
 must be strictly limited as to quantity, otherwise it 
 will be done carelessly, or else take too much 
 time. For inattention or disorder impositions are 
 not generally an appropriate punishment. In any 
 case they suffer from the serious defect of being 
 fatally easy to give. As a crude method of 
 making a boy learn certain facts they may be 
 sometimes useful, as a punishment in the strict 
 sense they should only exceptionally be employed. 
 
 (h) Keeping in. 
 
 By keeping a boy in you bring your will to bear 
 upon him more effectively than by giving him an 
 imposition. The punishment is worked off under 
 your eye, and the culprit feels that he must satisfy 
 you before you will let him go. The fact of your 
 staying in with him is a proof that you are in 
 
90 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 earnest and that the penalty was not exacted with- 
 out good cause. It need hardly be said that the 
 practice of constantly keeping a form or individual 
 boys for a few minutes after the lesson should 
 have ended is most pernicious. 
 
 (?) Loss of marks. 
 
 The marks a boy has fairly earned should never 
 be taken away on any pretext, 
 
 (j) Sending out of the room. 
 
 Under exceptional circumstances this may be 
 the right thing to do, but to make a practice of it 
 will only lead the boys to look forward to a period 
 of leisure. To send a boy out is a confession that 
 you cannot manage him, and is not likely in itself 
 to increase your influence over him. 
 
 (k) Physical punishments. Caning. 
 
 In a few schools punishments for disorder, in- 
 attention, and the like take the form of making the 
 offender run a certain distance, or do some other 
 physical work, and the practice might be intro- 
 duced elsewhere. With proper precautions the 
 punishment might be made sufficiently disagree- 
 able and at the same time beneflcial. 
 
 About caning a great deal of nonsense is talked 
 and written. Of course, some boys ought not to 
 be caned for physical reasons, and it is not always 
 the boys who try to get off who are the ones to be 
 exempted. Moreover, the caning should never be 
 given on the hand, nor be excessive in amount. 
 
SOME FORMS OF PUNISHMENT QI 
 
 But if administered with judgment, a sound 
 caning is, I believe, by far the most satisfactory 
 way of dealing with serious breaches of school 
 law. It is painful at the time, is soon over, and is 
 much more stimulating than a course of written 
 punishments or detentions. To speak of it as 
 degrading is to import an idea altogether foreign 
 to the healthy-minded boy. Obviously, a master 
 should not often cane, equally obviously he should 
 not cane when he is angry ; but if the principles 
 which govern all right punishment are carefully 
 observed there is no reason why an exaggerated 
 reaction from mediaeval methods should deprive us 
 of one of the most potent means of influencing 
 our boys for good. 
 
 (/) Punishment by the school. 
 
 Besides the punishments which the master exacts 
 himself there are others forming part of the system 
 of the school. Such are detentions, drills, re- 
 porting to the head, and the like. The authority of 
 the school should be invoked both in cases where 
 ordinary punishment has failed to take effect, e.g., 
 if a boy has repeatedly "forgotten" to stay in 
 when told, and to deal with serious moral offences, 
 such as deliberate lying. Again, especially in 
 large schools, it may be necessary to have general 
 school rules enforcing punctuality and other points 
 of order, the infringement of which carries with 
 it liability to a school punishment. 
 
92 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 (m) Routine punishments. 
 
 The punishments in this latter case have as 
 their aim the enforcement of law and order ; beyond 
 this they are not directly reformative. They are 
 therefore appropriate for offences not in themselves 
 morally wrong, but such as must be put an end to 
 in the interests of the community, e.g. noise at 
 the wrong time or in the wrong place, lateness, 
 and the like. It is better for them to take the form 
 of physical drill than of too much keeping in. 
 
 («) Detentions. 
 
 Besides these routine punishments most schools 
 have some system of detentions to which boys can 
 be sent to do their written punishments. The 
 arrangement is a convenient one, but it involves 
 the same defects as we noted in the case of imposi- 
 tions. As a rule it is more satisfactory to have 
 your punishments done in your own presence, 
 even at the cost of some personal inconvenience. 
 
 On the other hand, if you find your ordinary 
 punishments are ineffective, if, for instance, a boy 
 persistently neglects to do them, it may be neces- 
 sary to fall back upon school punishments as a 
 last resort. Further, you may have to deal with 
 grave offences either affecting the credit of the 
 school or beyond your power to adequately 
 punish. To meet these the authority of the school 
 should be invoked, either by reporting them to the 
 head, or at any rate by entering them in the school 
 
SOME FORMS OF PUNISHMENT 93 
 
 punishment-book with heavy penalties attached. 
 They are matters of which both the head and 
 other masters ought to be informed. If a boy has 
 simply made a great mistake and is filled with 
 remorse, it may be right to avoid publicity, but no 
 misguided kindness or mistaken sense of shame 
 should keep an assistant master from letting the 
 head master know of occurrences, acquaintance 
 with which is essential to enable him to fairly 
 judge of the characters of the boys. 
 
 In many schools the right to cane is reserved to 
 the head master. Where this is the case a master 
 will naturally send to the head the boys he would 
 otherwise have caned himself. Do not be afraid 
 that you will be suspected of weakness in so 
 doing ; it is not the master who knows how to 
 strike that is the weak spot in the school. 
 
 Punishments should be public. — Two points, in 
 conclusion, call for special mention. There is first 
 the need of publicity. All punishments should be 
 recorded. It is only fair to the boy that he should 
 not be punished in a corner, but that the amount 
 of his punishment, and the reason it was given, 
 should be known at any rate to the head. More- 
 over, the fact that a master is bound to record all 
 the punishments he gives acts as a salutary check 
 upon any tendency he may have to punish over- 
 much. And again, a very important point, such a 
 record enables the form master or head master to 
 
94 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 see whether any individual boy is getting so many 
 punishments from various masters that he is in 
 danger of becoming hardened or discouraged. 
 The proper co-ordination of the punishments 
 given by different masters is a vital problem, and 
 that some one man should have cognisance of 
 them all is an essential condition of its solution. 
 Serious punishments should be entered in a book 
 accessible to all the staff. In the case of minor 
 penalties it will probably be enough if they are 
 brought to the knowledge of the head or form 
 master, according to the system of the school. 
 
 Parents and punishment. — Secondly, there is 
 the question of the parents. How far ought they 
 to be informed of the punishments given to their 
 boys ? The answer to this question will vary with 
 the circumstances, but, speaking generally, it is 
 better not to give official notice of the infliction of 
 ordinary school punishments. Penalties for moral 
 offences are a different matter, and it cannot be 
 too strongly urged that the co-operation of the 
 parents is essential in any efforts to reform a boy. 
 Still, even in the case of some serious wrong- 
 doing, an informal letter, or, better, a friendly 
 talk, will often be found more effective than a 
 regular system of reports. Such a system is apt 
 to give the boy the impression that he is being 
 unfairly dealt with, if in addition to punishment 
 at school he is also involved in trouble at home. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 THE REFORMATION OF THE CULPRIT 
 
 THE importance of punishment as a moraliz- 
 ing agency, and also its liability to abuse, 
 have led us to treat its principles and methods at 
 some length ; but, after all, it is mainly negative 
 in its effects : it can to some extent prevent of- 
 fences ; it can only indirectly incite to virtue. 
 
 Punishment by itself not enough. — If you put 
 your trust in punishment alone, you will attain 
 one of three unsatisfactory results, which may 
 unfortunately be seen in too many schools and 
 forms. 
 
 Some boys will simply become hardened. I 
 heard of a school at which a mistake in Latin 
 Grammar was instantly punished with the cane ; 
 but the result was not to make the boys learn their 
 grammar well : they hated the lesson, and learned 
 it badly. Keep a boy in for three or four after- 
 noons in succession, and detentions cease to have 
 any appreciable effect. 
 
 Other boys will grow underhand. Their evil 
 propensities will not be eradicated, but will be 
 
 95 
 
96 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 indulged in secret instead of openly. Especially 
 will this be the case with boys who have a natural 
 tendency to secretiveness, shown often by a hang- 
 dog look and apologetic manner. Such characters 
 need the most careful handling, and a severe 
 course of punishment only increases their ten- 
 dency to deceit. 
 
 Other boys again will be thoroughly disheart- 
 ened. They think they cannot keep free from 
 punishments, and so they give up trying. For 
 them too, continual punishment will only be a bar 
 to any progress or reform. 
 
 These evil results will be avoided only if you 
 get the boys to understand that they are punished, 
 not because it is the system or because you cannot 
 manage them by other means, but because you 
 are really trying to help them to improve. Clearly, 
 therefore, you will use your best endeavours to 
 impress this upon their minds, by taking the fullest 
 possible advantage of other means of influence 
 more directly reformatory than punishment can 
 ever be. 
 
 Watch the effects. — In the first place, when you 
 have given a punishment you will not think that 
 the incident is at an end, but will carefully watch 
 the effects. If you see any tendency to repeat the 
 offence, you will at once have recourse to sterner 
 measures. It is a great mistake to treat a second 
 act — e.g. of disorder — as if it were merely a repeti- 
 
THE REFORMATION OF THE CULPRIT 97 
 
 tion of the first : it is really different in kind, 
 because it evinces a lack of the will to obey. 
 Moreover, it is a distinct step in the formation of a 
 habit of disorder, which must be stopped at once 
 at almost any cost. If, on the other hand, there is 
 any sign of a desire to improve, you must be ready 
 to welcome it, either by some public mark of ap- 
 probation or by some more private appreciative 
 word or look. You will remember that it is not 
 easy for a boy to turn over a new leaf all at once, 
 and that if he has a wish to do so he will greatly 
 need encouragement. Tell him that his work is 
 not so bad, or make some kindly reference to your 
 expectations from him in the future, and he may 
 brighten up and gird his loins for further effort. 
 It has been truly said that boys, like matches, 
 want rubbing gently, and in dealing with a boy 
 who has been punished and has felt his punish- 
 ment gentleness is specially important. You will 
 need all your tact and watchfulness if you are not 
 to quench the smoking flax. To treat a culprit as 
 if you expected him to offend again is an un- 
 pardonable error : nothing could more directly 
 tend to destroy any desire he may feel to improve. 
 Appeal to a counteracting motive. — Again, it is 
 sometimes possible to help a boy to overcome a 
 weakness by appealing to a counteracting motive. 
 If he is naturally dull or lazy, try to think of 
 some special inducement in order to get him into 
 
 H 
 
gS BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 working habits ; offer him some honorary reward, 
 or appeal to the spirit of rivalry : it is worth while 
 taking trouble to discover to what motive you can 
 effectively appeal. If he is untidy in his writing, 
 make him begin a new book, and do half the exer- 
 cises with the chance of getting special marks for 
 tidiness. If you can induce him to take a pride in 
 keeping even one book tidy, you will have initiated 
 a reform. 
 
 Or to some interest. — Sometimes the great point 
 is to rouse a boy from a state of mental and moral 
 lethargy. It may be possible to get him to take 
 an interest in some hobby outside his work — 
 natural history, model engineering, photography, 
 even stamp-collecting, may be of service in this 
 way. Or the boy may have intellectual capacities 
 lying dormant ; he may possess information on 
 some out-of-the-way subject, and only needs 
 recognition as the form authority upon it to 
 develop the keenness of an expert. A boy of 
 my acquaintance, noted for his idleness in school, 
 possessed a knowledge of the statistics of the 
 European fleets that was positively uncanny. 
 Another boy, generally looked upon as a dunce, 
 had a curious taste for antiquarian research, and 
 would have been only too delighted to spend his 
 leisure in digging for bones or other ancient 
 objects. If you discover any such inchoate in- 
 terest in a boy you will be able probably to use 
 
THE REFORMATION OF THE CULPRIT 99 
 
 it as a stimulus to his whole mental life. What 
 we so often do is to neglect it, or even to treat it 
 as an obstruction to the orthodox school work 
 which alone falls within our purview, to the great 
 detriment of any tendency to originality in our 
 boys. Again, if a boy has formed any plans for 
 his future life, it is often possible to get him to 
 take a lively interest in subjects likely to be 
 directly useful to him, and this interest should 
 not be treated as vulgarly utilitarian, but should 
 be widened to the greatest possible extent. 
 
 Develop self-respect. — But the most effective of 
 all methods is to raise a boy's self-respect. This 
 will probably be done without your aid if he is 
 good at games, and if he can get into the eleven, 
 or gain some other position of dignity in the 
 school. I have known an unsatisfactory boy 
 much altered by being made a non-commissioned 
 officer in the cadet corps. But though such dis- 
 tinctions as these do not fall to the lot of all, 
 it is very often possible to give a boy some little 
 thing to do in connection with the form or with 
 the school which will help him to feel that he 
 has a definite place in the world, and in which 
 he will take an unfeigned interest. Nearly all 
 boys are, or may be, good at something, and this 
 talent can be made to serve as a lever by which 
 to lift them out of their rut. 
 
 Be ready to help. — These are merely hints as to 
 
lOO BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 some of the ways in which a master may, if he 
 takes the trouble, help on the boy's reform. But 
 the root of the matter does not lie in the particular 
 devices you may adopt — these you will invent 
 to suit the circumstances of the case — but in your 
 attitude of unobtrusive sympathy. If a boy knows 
 that you are trying to be decent to him, he will 
 nearly always make some effort to respond, and 
 effort is the one thing needful. 
 
 Look at the case all round. — The physical side 
 of the problem has been alluded to elsewhere. 
 Here I would simply urge that in dealing with 
 a difficult boy it is essential to take into con- 
 sideration all the circumstances of the case — age, 
 physical condition, home surroundings, com- 
 panions, and past history. Only by so doing 
 shall we be able to form a judgment of any value 
 as to the course of treatment to adopt. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 UNTRUTHFULNESS AND SWEARING 
 
 Other types of offences 
 
 SO far we have spoken mainly of the prevention 
 or the cure of offences such as are committed 
 in the course of ordinary life in school. It is with 
 these offences that a master will primarily have 
 to deal, and they therefore serve as a convenient 
 type of wrong-doing of whatever kind. There are 
 of course wrong actions, such as acts of disloyalty 
 to the form or school, or such sins as private 
 swearing, to which school punishments may not 
 apply ; but the same general principles will guide 
 us in our efforts to eradicate them as underlay 
 our treatment of ordinary school offences. In 
 fact, the distinction between the two classes of 
 offences cannot be definitely drawn.^ 
 
 > It is an error to put offences against school order in a class 
 by themselves, as involvings little or no moral g^ilt. An offence 
 committed in school must be judged by precisely the same canons 
 as it would have .been if it had been committed anywhere else. 
 The traditional distinction is due partly to the perception of the 
 fact that a boy may be very disorderly and mischievous without 
 
 loi 
 
102 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 Untruthfulness. — As an illustration of the wider 
 application of the principles previously laid down, 
 the treatment of untruthfulness may briefly be 
 considered. The question is in itself one of some 
 importance. Untruthfulness may vary from a 
 slight tendency to prevarication, due to nervous- 
 ness or anxiety, to deliberate and repeated false- 
 hood. In its more venial forms it will hardly 
 be an object of school punishment. In any case it 
 is the moral attitude of the boy towards truth 
 which we shall try to alter. We shall aim at his 
 conversion from a faint-hearted time-server into 
 a stalwart champion of the truth. 
 
 Verbal reprobation. — We shall in the first place 
 treat the falsehood as the thing it is, viz. an act 
 against the boy's own better knowledge, making 
 him so far unworthy, not only of membership of 
 the school, but of any society whatever. We shall 
 not preach, but we shall speak as having con- 
 fidence in the effect of what we say ; a sudden 
 change from an atmosphere of confidence to one 
 of temporary mistrust will not leave the boy in- 
 different in his heart, however outwardly callous 
 he may be. 
 
 But simple denunciation will not be enough 
 
 being: gT^ilty of anything that can rightly be called a sin, and 
 partly to the fact that school offences are appropriately met by 
 special forms of punishment. As a matter of fact, all school 
 offences are moral offences, and their treatment by punishment 
 or otherwise ought to be a moral treatment. 
 
UNTRUTHFULNESS AND SWEARING IO3 
 
 and may be most unjust. We must try to discover 
 the reason for the lie. Was it fear of punishment 
 or disgrace ? or did he do it for the sake of some 
 advantage he hoped to gain? We must strike 
 at the particular motive he had for lying ; general 
 moral observations are of little use. Again, we 
 must be careful not to imply that the boy is an 
 habitual liar. Our object is to reinforce his better 
 self, and we shall not begin by denying its ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Other punishments. — But besides our verbal ex- 
 pressions of blame it may be necessary to mark 
 our sense of the boy's untruthfulness by some 
 definite sign, which shall at the same time make 
 the repetition of the offence less likely. If the boy 
 has told you that he was not talking when you 
 know he was, give him a seat elsewhere, perhaps 
 by himself ; if he has copied the answer to a sum, 
 deprive him for a time of the use of the answers 
 in his book ; if he has given up the wrong marks, 
 let another boy keep his marks for him. This 
 will probably be in addition to some more striking 
 punishment at the time. Only the greatest care 
 must be taken that the boy is not too much dis- 
 heartened, and the penalties should never be long 
 continued. 
 
 Prevention of untruthfulness. — For the preven- 
 tion of untruthfulness we shall depend mainly 
 upon the traditions of the form. If a boy feels 
 
104 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 that the public opinion of the form regards all 
 lying as a disgrace, and truth -speaking under 
 difficulties as worthy of admiration, he will be 
 preserved from many temptations to untruth. In 
 the same way much can be done by the master's 
 conscientiousness and forethought. There must 
 be no avoidable temptation to dishonesty in the 
 methods of giving marks and punishments. It 
 must be made as certain as it can be that any lie 
 will be discovered, and no questionable excuse 
 must be allowed to pass without investigation. It 
 is, however, most important that a master should 
 never tempt a boy to lie by his tone or questions 
 when asking for an explanation of some dubious 
 point. If the boy gets the impression that the 
 master has prejudged the case, and that no state- 
 ment he can make will alter the sentence to be 
 passed, he will be strongly tempted to prevari- 
 cate. It has been truly said that a boy's lies 
 are often acts of manslaughter of truth, and a 
 fierce manner may easily frighten a boy into 
 a falsehood, or an abrupt question surprise him 
 into one. 
 
 Owning up. — In some forms it is difficult to get 
 offenders to own up. This is a question which 
 is worthy of the most serious attention. All 
 possible methods will be used for rendering 
 prompt confession habitual : exhortation, enlist- 
 ing the assistance of the better boys, making 
 
UNTRUTHFULNESS AND SWEARING TO5 
 
 confession easier by giving opportunities for it 
 in private, by avoidance of intimidation, and 
 perhaps by treating confession as in some cases 
 sufficient without further punishment. As a last 
 resort the whole form may have to suffer for 
 the cowardice of the individual. 
 
 Marking exercises. — In any form above the 
 lowest it should be possible for the boys to mark 
 some of their exercises themselves, but in such 
 cases it is only fair that the master should make 
 a practice of checking the results. Apart from 
 points, such as writing, or the methods used, 
 which only a master can rightly mark, there is 
 always the possibility of carelessness, as well 
 as of dishonesty, against which we have to guard. 
 
 Homework. — The question of help in homework 
 is occasionally somewhat complicated. May a 
 boy get help in his translation and not in his 
 written work, or where do you draw the line? It 
 should be laid down with the utmost clearness 
 what is allowable and what is not. If the home- 
 work is either too difficult or too much, the boys 
 are being tempted to dishonesty. 
 
 Besides untruthfulness, two other evil habits call 
 for a few words of comment, more particularly as 
 often lying almost wholly outside the master's 
 official cognizance. 
 
 Swearing.— The first of these is swearing. Of 
 course, if a boy should so far forget himself as to 
 
Io6 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 utter an improper word in school, you will at once 
 report the matter to the head ; but as a rule the 
 boy who swears will carefully keep the habit from 
 your knowledge. Supposing, however, that you 
 have reason to believe that some swearing goes on 
 in the form, you will try to stop it by, in the first 
 place, getting the boys to regard the use of certain 
 words as simply bad form. You will remember 
 that boys swear as a rule merely from a feeble- 
 minded notion that it is a manly thing to do, and 
 hence will very likely drop the habit if they are 
 told to do so by the leading members of the form. 
 If a straightforward talk without any artificial 
 exaggeration of the wickedness of expletives does 
 not have the desired effect, try to get the bigger 
 boys to make swearing a dangerous amusement. 
 
 Should you chance on the football field or else- 
 where to overhear a word evidently not intended 
 for your ears, the best course, as a rule, is to men- 
 tion the fact to the boy in private, simply saying 
 that you by accident heard a word, the use of 
 which was no doubt due to the excitement of the 
 moment. On the other hand, habitual swearipg 
 during games is a most serious matter, and should 
 be energetically dealt with by the proper author- 
 ities. 
 
 Unclean talk. — More serious than ordinary 
 swearing is the habit of unclean talk. A boy may 
 tell a bawdy story without being of an unclean 
 
UNTRUTHFULNESS AND SWEARING IO7 
 
 mind ; but once he has allowed his thoughts to run 
 upon such subjects, he will be sorely tempted to 
 think of them in an improper way. Such talk you 
 will try to stop in the same way as you would stop 
 boys swearing, but the greatest safeguard against 
 it is the existence of a thoroughly healthy atmo- 
 sphere in the form. Let the boys have plenty to 
 think and talk about, plenty of exercise, plenty of 
 games, and the temptation to indulge in dirty 
 talk will be felt by few. Try to help the bulk of 
 the boys so to fill their minds with wholesome 
 interest and ambitions that they will turn from it 
 with disgust. Should you really have cause to 
 suspect any individual of being truly of an impure 
 mind, it may be beyond your power to alter him, 
 and you can only speak to the head master, and 
 press for his removal from the school. In less 
 hopeless cases a serious talk may be of use ; if you 
 can remove some of the glamour of the mystery 
 which is often the source of the interest in these 
 matters for boys who are not really vicious, that is 
 sometimes a point gained. But speaking gener- 
 ally, you will do better by striving to divert the 
 boy's thoughts into a healthy channel. For a boy 
 to keep himself fit in body and mind is the best 
 cure for morbid curiosity. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 ON SOME BLACK SHEEP 
 
 Incurables 
 
 SO far we have habitually spoken of boys as if 
 it was possible for a master who is in earnest 
 to help them to become, in a greater or less degree, 
 decent members of the school. That this can 
 really be done in all save very exceptional cases, 
 is proved by the success which the best school- 
 masters have actually attained. Most of us, how- 
 ever, have occasionally met with boys upon whom 
 our most strenuous efforts seem absolutely wasted, 
 perhaps because they suffered from some moral 
 incapacity which it seemed impossible to remove. 
 
 Have patience. — Even in such cases we must 
 not, however, be too ready to despair. Some 
 boys are so reserved that it is very difficult 
 to discover what their feelings really are. Or a 
 sense of shame may make them disdain to change 
 their ways until, perhaps, some circumstance 
 alters the situation, and to our surprise we suddenly 
 find them doing better. Or again, they may be 
 
 io8 
 
ON SOME BLACK SHEEP ICQ 
 
 SO stolid that it takes weeks, or even months, 
 before any impression can be made. A master 
 told me how, time after time, he had talked seri- 
 ously to a boy, apparently without effect, until one 
 day, to his astonishment, the boy broke down and 
 began to cry, after which the fight was won. 
 
 Violent boys. — Roughly speaking, all violent 
 and headstrong boys can be influenced by care 
 and patience. If a master fails with them it is 
 probably d\ie to some mistake in method. Hence, 
 if you find that you are unsuccessful with such 
 a boy, try to discover what is the barrier between 
 you ; consult any colleague who seems to get on 
 better ; find out all you can about the boy's peculi- 
 arities, and in particular whether he has not some 
 better side to which it may be possible to appeal. 
 Very likely he may hate you, and be at no pains 
 to dissemble his dislike. Unless he outrages 
 sshool order, appear not to notice that anything 
 is wrong ; be scrupulously fair to him, and if you 
 get the chance of giving him a little help without 
 patronage or ostentation, do not lose the oppor- 
 tunity. On the other hand, any sign of weakness 
 will be fatal. You must compel his respect against 
 his inclination, and your cause is lost if he has 
 any excuse for thinking that he has the right 
 to treat you with contempt. Strength and 
 patience are your two sheet-anchors. 
 
 Weak boys. — Less hopeful is the case of a boy 
 
no BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 who suffers from some moral weakness or in- 
 capacity. A boy, for instance, may seem to have 
 no sense of honour ; he may be too skilful to 
 render himself liable to punishment for any gross 
 breach of trust, and yet you feel all the time that 
 if he can safely take any mean advantage he will 
 do so. Or he may seem to be absolutely devoid 
 of public spirit, so wrapped up in himself that he 
 will do nothing for his school or form. Or, again, 
 he may appear low-minded, with no power of 
 appreciating anything that is not coarse or vulgar; 
 in extreme cases his tastes may seem to be almost 
 entirely for what is vicious. Or he may be so 
 slack and with so little strength of character as to 
 appear incapable of any effort. 
 
 What is to be done with boys like these ? I can 
 only reiterate the counsel already given ; try to 
 make them physically fit ; try to discover some 
 redeeming feature or elevating interest ; do all 
 that is possible to arouse their self-respect. It will 
 very likely be heartbreaking work, but if you can 
 effect even a slight improvement your labour will 
 not have been in vain. 
 
 Sometimes, however, a complete change of sur- 
 roundings is the only hope. The boy from a 
 vulgar home must be sent away to school, or a 
 boy who has got into a hopeless state at one 
 school may possibly do better with a fresh start at 
 another, or should be put into some office where 
 
ON SOME BLACK SHEEP III 
 
 he will be made to work. There is a type of boy 
 who ought not to stay too long at school and who 
 can be brought to a better mind only when he 
 comes to battle with the world outside. 
 
 Expulsion from school, the last and sorrowful 
 resource, becomes imperative if the boy's presence 
 is not only useless to himself, but mischievous to 
 others. These unsatisfactory boys vary very much 
 in the extent of their bad influence upon others ; 
 one may be in himself as undesirable as is another, 
 and yet from faults of temper or lack of social 
 qualities have not a quarter of his influence. The 
 decision in such serious cases will, however, 
 hardly rest tvith the assistant master. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 THE MASTER BY HIMSELF 
 
 HAVING spoken of the various qualities 
 which should characterize a master in his 
 dealings with his boys, I would add a few words 
 of advice to my younger colleagues regarding 
 their private life behind the scenes. 
 
 Keep fresh. — The first point I would urge is the 
 importance of keeping fit not less in body than 
 in mind. The jaded master can never teach his 
 best. Hence the necessity of taking plenty of 
 regular exercise ; if possible, of playing some 
 game for the sake of playing it. For the same 
 reason, always try to get a thorough change of 
 scene and thoughts during, at any rate, part 
 of your holidays. Keep your mind fresh by 
 never giving up your reading ; do not let 
 correction and preparation absorb all your even- 
 ings. No master should be without some subject 
 in which he is interested, and in which he keeps 
 himself acquainted with the progress of research. 
 Again, do not think it waste of time to spend 
 
THE MASTER BY HIMSELF II3 
 
 occasional hours in talking of the larger world 
 outside your school. A weekly game of whist 
 or bridge, or periodic visit to the theatre, will 
 make your teaching all the better on the morrow. 
 
 Work hard. — But when you have done all that 
 in you lies to maintain your physical and mental 
 vigour, you must work hard. No master can 
 really influence boys who does not give them 
 of his best. Hard work will generally result in 
 keenness ; but if you feel the daily round begins 
 to drag, and that you are tempted to hurry 
 through your exercises or neglect the preparation 
 of your lessons, you must rouse yourself to take 
 a livelier interest in your boys, or try some change 
 of method in your teaching or some experiment 
 in discipline. The reading of some stimulating 
 book on education (such as Quick's " Educational 
 Reformers" or James' "Talks to Teachers") may 
 pour fresh oil into your lamp. An interest in the 
 theory of teaching, and especially in the evolution 
 of new methods, is a valuable safeguard against 
 deadness. 
 
 Colleagues. — Another point which will bear 
 emphasizing is the necessity of cordial co-opera- 
 tion between members of the staff. We all know 
 that for a few men to live so much together as 
 do the masters at one school involves innumerable 
 opportunities for friction. Common sense and a 
 cheery willingness to look on the best side of 
 
114 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 things will do much to grease the wheels, and 
 the observance of the minor courtesies of life will 
 go further than one might think to keep things 
 pleasant. 
 
 Loyalty to the school. — But the great bond of 
 union should be a common loyalty to the purpose 
 and even to the methods of the school. Hence 
 follows the duty in unessential points of self- 
 suppression. You may not approve of working 
 for examinations and yet have to prepare your 
 form for the Cambridge Local ; or you may be 
 bent on fostering an intellectual tone and all your 
 colleagues read the "Sportsman." In such cases 
 one would say, Be as independent as you can 
 consistently with being absolutely loyal to the 
 school. Never let your boys suspect that you 
 question the wisdom of the head or the methods 
 of any other master. In any decent school you 
 will find that there is much good work to be done, 
 and you will remember that, after all, this is a 
 world of second bests. On the other hand, that 
 does not mean that you will refrain from trying 
 to alter what you think is wrong. See if your 
 head master will listen to you ; try to convert your 
 colleagues. Probably you will find that there is 
 something to be said on the other side. But 
 should you, after a lengthy period of trial, really 
 feel yourself in opposition to the spirit of the 
 school, it will perhaps be better for you by 
 
 i 
 
THE MASTER BY HIMSELF II5 
 
 degrees to find a more congenial sphere else- 
 where. 
 
 Good courage. — Lastly, I would say, don't be 
 disheartened. Especially at first some things are 
 sure to go awry. Progress may be slow, or there 
 may seem to be no progress made at all. But one 
 thing is certain — the harder you try, the greater 
 is bound to be your reward, both in the increase 
 of your own skill and wisdom and in the growth 
 of your unconscious influence over your boys. 
 Amid the stress of little worries we are all apt to 
 lose sight of the great realities of life, and have 
 need at times to go along unto the mountain to 
 see the meaning of our work. Yet it is only faith 
 in these realities which will enable us to keep up 
 heart in spite of doubts and difficulties — the fruit 
 it may be of our own and others' blindness. But 
 after all, to quote the words of Emerson, "There 
 is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. 
 All is system and gradation. Every god is sitting 
 there in his sphere. The young mortal enters the 
 hall of the firmament ; there is he alone with 
 them alone, they pouring on him benedictions and 
 gifts, and beckoning him up to their thrones. 
 On the instant and incessantly, fall snowstorms 
 and illusions. He fancies himself in a vast crowd 
 which sways this way and that, and whose move- 
 ment and doings he must obey : he fancies him- 
 self poor, orphaned, insignificant. . . . Every 
 
Il6 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 moment, new changes and new showers of de- 
 ceptions to baffle and distract him. And when, 
 by-and-by, for an instant, the air clears, and the 
 cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting 
 around him on their thrones — they alone with him 
 alone." 
 
A SHELF OF BOOKS 
 
 The following brief list of English books makes 
 no pretence to being a bibliography of the subject. 
 It simply gives the names of some of the standard 
 works which every master should possess and 
 read, together with a few recent books which give 
 a convenient summary of the present state of our 
 knowledge of the subjects dealt with in the 
 preceding pages : — 
 
 ON THE THEORY OF EDUCATION 
 
 Laurie : " Institutes of Education," 2nd Ed. (Thin). 
 
 Herbert Spencer : "Education." 
 
 Herbart's " Science of Education," trans, by Felkin. 
 
 Rein : " Outlines of Pedagogics." 
 
 All important presentations of the subject from 
 different points of view. 
 
 Raymont : " Principles of Education " (Longmans, 
 1904). A convenient summary. 
 
 W. James: "Talks to Teachers on Psychology" 
 (Longmans, 1903). A suggestive treatment of certain 
 important points. 
 
 Quick : " Essays on Educational Reformers " (Long- 
 mans, 3s. 6d.). Very readable essays on great 
 teachers. 
 
 H7 
 
Il8 BOYS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL 
 
 ON FORM MANAGEMENT AND TEACHING 
 
 Fitch: "Lectures on Teaching" (Camb. Univ. 
 Press, 5s.). A standard book on the teaching of 
 elementary subjects. 
 
 Barnett : "Teaching and Organisation" (Long- 
 mans, 6s. 6d.). Essays on the teaching of various 
 subjects by different writers. Sidgwick on Form 
 Management specially good. 
 
 Sidgwick: "On Stimulus." An excellent lecture — 
 unfortunately out of print. 
 
 Thring : "Theory and .Practice of Teaching" 
 (Camb. Univ. Press, 4s. 6d.). Unsystematic, but 
 very suggestive. 
 
 Loudon : " Principles and Practice of Teaching and 
 Class Management" (Holden). Intended for primary 
 schools, but useful. 
 
 FiNDLEY : " Principles of Class Teaching " (Mac- 
 millan, ss.). Deals largely with questions of curri- 
 culum, and the general theory of teaching. 
 
 Suggestive articles often appear in the following 
 monthlies : — 
 
 "The School World." 
 
 "The Journal of Education." 
 
 "School." 
 
 ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BOY LIFE 
 
 Stanley Hall: "Adolescence," 2 vols. (Appleton, 
 1904). An epoch-making work. 
 
 KiRKPATRiCK : " Fundamentals of Child Study " 
 (Macmillan, 1904). A convenient summary. 
 
A SHELF OF BOOKS I ig 
 
 A large amount of information on special points will 
 be found in the books by Sully and Earl Barnes, and 
 in the " Paidologist," the organ of the British Child 
 Study Association. 
 
 ON QUESTIONS OF HEALTH 
 
 DuKKS : " Health at School " (Rivington). 
 Warner : " The Study of Children " (Macmillan). 
 
 ON THE MASTER'S PERSONAL LIFE 
 AND RELATIONS 
 
 Skrine : " Pastor Agnorum " (Longmans, 1902). 
 
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