LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 ALMA WILLIAMS 
 UCSB
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF 
 THE SCHOOL 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCES M. MOREHOUSE 
 
 SUPERVISOR OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHING 
 ILLINOIS STATE NORMAL UNIVERSITY 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION 
 BY 
 
 LOTUS D. COFFMAN, PH.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914, 
 BY D. C. HEATH & Co. 
 
 IBS
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFC 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 TO HIM WHOSE FAITH IN ME 
 
 MAKES THIS AND ALL OTHER WORK 
 
 I MAY BE GRANTED TO DO 
 
 A SLIGHT TRIBUTE: 
 
 MY FATHER
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 
 
 IT was not the daring of my own spirit which first conceived 
 the idea of practically denying an old pedagogic maxim which 
 says that, given lessons well taught, the order of a school 
 will take care of itself. Neither was I the first to gainsay 
 the truth of the cheerful superstition that no specific help 
 upon questions of discipline may be given a teacher; that 
 each situation, as it presents itself, must be met in the light 
 of certain general principles which are doubtless very sound, 
 but which do not always readily come to mind in the nick 
 of time. Nevertheless these new doctrines met a ready 
 response from one to whom experience and observation have 
 combined to show that the management of behavior is in 
 itself a definite phase of school work, and a definite problem 
 to be solved; and that fairly concrete means of achieving 
 good results may be passed from one teacher to another, as 
 truly as a concrete manner of teaching a geography lesson 
 may be taught one teacher by another. 
 
 The first chapters of this book deal with the general as- 
 pects of the situation, and with the theory of discipline. The 
 latter chapters take up the concrete problems of school life 
 and offer suggestions for their solution. A constant effort 
 has been made to keep the subject matter practical, suggest- 
 ive, helpful. At the same time, there has been no attempt 
 to evade the necessity for real thought, for thorough analysis, 
 and for that grasp of the big plan without which no teacher 
 can really succeed as a disciplinarian. An illuminating con- 
 ception of the social organization not only of the school, but 
 of the world, underlies the new discipline, which errs neither 
 on the side of that soft pedagogy which ignores social obliga-
 
 vi AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 
 
 tion, nor with the older blind severity which denied social 
 advantages. It is inexorable, sure of its authority, and sternly 
 firm; but it recognizes the right of self-government which 
 comes as the reward of trustworthiness, and the joy that 
 comes from happy cooperation. It is this conception of the 
 nature of school management and discipline, applied to cases 
 which most teachers know by heart, which forms the subject 
 of this book. 
 
 So many people have helped in the making of the book, 
 that it is quite impossible to make adequate acknowledg- 
 ment of my debts to them. But I wish especially to thank 
 Dr. L. D. Coffman, at whose suggestion the work was under- 
 taken, for helpful criticism and encouragement. A number 
 of people have given time and thought to the answering of 
 questions bearing upon their experience and knowledge of 
 school affairs, notably Miss Sallie H. Webb of Cincinnati, 
 the late WUliam J. Morrison of Brooklyn, and Miss Kate 
 Smith of Los Angeles. To Miss Charlotte Reichmann I am 
 especially indebted for hearty and helpful cooperation in 
 translating German treatises and in criticizing and proof- 
 reading. Several of my colleagues in the Training School of 
 the Illinois State Normal University, notably Miss Lora 
 Dexheimer and Mr. Edwin A. Turner, have given me helpful 
 suggestions. Two of the chapters have appeared in The 
 American Schoolmaster. To others I have given due credit 
 in the body of the text.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 I. THE PLACE AND WORK OF THE SCHOOL IN MODERN 
 
 LIFE i 
 
 The functions of the school; its relations to other institu- 
 tions; the source of its authority; the school and parents. 
 
 IE. THE MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 13 
 
 Different modes are the result of our complicated relations. 
 
 I. The mode of Absolute Authority its origin; its 
 
 weakness; cases in which it may be used; types of pupils 
 
 with whom it should be used; the merging of imposed 
 
 authority into voluntarily accepted authority. 
 
 13. The mode of Appeal to Personal Interest the use of 
 
 incentives; ideals of self-advancement; its use with 
 
 adolescents; its effect upon the curriculum; its effect 
 
 upon the choice of studies and of conduct; the danger 
 
 of this mode. 
 
 III. The mode of Control through Personal Influence 
 its power; its temptation to the teacher; use and exer- 
 cise of personal influence; the process of socialization; of 
 generalization; its use in the High School. 
 
 m. THE MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT con- 
 
 . tinued 35 
 
 IV. The mode of Wholesome Repletion the impenetra- 
 bility of attention and interest; busywork; motivation of 
 studies. This mode in the high school two kinds 
 of organization; the interests of adolescents; reasons for 
 the failure of this mode; high school fraternities; 
 interest as a basis for organization; the nature of or- 
 ganizations; means of realizing these characteristics; 
 some of the interests utilized; manner of administration.
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 The psychology of this mode its use of ceremony; of 
 intellectual stimuli; of emotional stimuli; of ambition; 
 of the instinct for leadership. 
 
 IV. THE MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT continued 53 
 
 V. The mode of Appeal to Social Consciousness 
 making the social relation conscious; rewards and punish- 
 ments for social and unsocial conduct; principles govern- 
 ing social conduct. 
 
 Special forms of school government founded upon the 
 mode of Social Consciousness self-government as 
 an ideal; systems aiming to help establish self-govern- 
 ment; the four types of pupil-government plans, with 
 examples; arguments for and against such schemes. 
 
 V. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICAN LIFE AS 
 
 THEY AFFECT THE QUESTION OF SCHOOL DIS- 
 CIPLINE 74 
 
 The motive for the inquiry; feminization; interest in 
 school work; two sides to toleration; democracy and 
 its effect; the cultural ideal; the passing of the bully. 
 
 VI. THE PRESCRIPTION OF DISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 81 
 
 The question of formal discipline; the position accepted 
 as a basis in these pages; definition of terms; pre- 
 scription of habits, mental training, and social aims. The 
 crystallization of race experience in prescription; the 
 present revolt; what teachers may do to effect a recon- 
 ciliation; the object of prescription; its application; 
 its outcomes. 
 
 VII. THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 92 
 
 Definition of the word "discipline"; an adequate con- 
 ception of the phases of discipline; the ideal in the 
 teacher's mind; in the minds of the pupils; establish- 
 ing the ideal by assumption, by definition and clarifi- 
 cation, by correlation, and by illustration. Realization 
 of the ideal by cooperation of teacher and pupils, by 
 habits founded upon instincts wisely adapted, by the 
 development of judgment.
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 VIII. THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL 109 
 
 Elements in determining this spirit in teachers; in pupils; 
 the school environment as a factor; its characteristics; 
 the practicability of having a good spirit; means of 
 curing it; by kindness, by industry, by obedience, by 
 joy, by school unity. 
 
 EX. AN ANALYSIS OF OFFENSES COMMON IN AMERICAN 
 
 SCHOOLS 121 
 
 The basis of classification; offenses of misdirected energy 
 whispering, note-writing, school mischief of many 
 kinds. Offenses rising from a resentful resistance to im- 
 posed control disobedience and truancy, 'deliberate 
 annoyance of teachers. Offenses due to physical con- 
 ditions, both in the environment and in the pupils them- 
 selves bad results of wrong temperature, bad air, poor 
 light, dirt, poor equipment. Obscenity, lack of atten- 
 tion, indifference. Offenses due to untrained moral judg- 
 ment and perverted ideals influence of the community; 
 fighting, shielding evil-doers, lying, stealing, cheating, 
 gaming. Offenses of sensationalism bad odors, animals 
 in school, ingenious misdeeds, misleading appearances. 
 Offenses of imitation impudence and defiance, law- 
 lessness, ridicule, profanity and obscenity, hazing, strikes 
 and walkouts, fraternities, tobacco, alcohol and drugs. 
 Offenses due to untrained manners vandalism, im- 
 pudence, horseplay. 
 
 X. PUNISHMENT 163 
 
 Its justification. The motives for punishment retalia- 
 tion, expiation, prevention, reformation. Individualiza- 
 tion of punishment; term as used by criminologists; 
 another interpretation; when not to punish. Imme- 
 diate and delayed consequences; advantages of each; age 
 as a factor in the decision; the nature of the offense as 
 a factor; certainty as a factor. 
 
 XI. PUNISHMENT continited 178 
 
 Undesirable punishments threats, tasks, detention, 
 taking away earned marks, personal indignities, satura- 
 tion, the "appropriate punishment," sarcasm and ridi-
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 cule. Justifiable punishments isolation, reports to 
 parents, socialization of penalties, deprivation of privi- 
 lege, restitution, suspension, expulsion. Corporal pun- 
 ishment justification, methods, and substitutes; ap- 
 peal to higher authority, and moral suasion; tongue 
 lashing. 
 
 XII. DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 210 
 
 Preventive devices founded upon the mode of Absolute 
 Authority The importance of prevision and provision; 
 the school's conception of the teacher's position; the 
 teacher's benevolent despotism; pedagogical coopera- 
 tion; doing away with bad influences. 
 
 Preventive devices founded upon the mode of Personal 
 Influence Pleasing the teacher the emotionalization 
 of ideals; teaching ethics systematically; strengthen- 
 ing the personality of the teacher the lesson of the 
 parochial school; elements of strength in teachers; the 
 voice; types of teachers who fail. 
 
 Preventive devices founded upon the mode of Wholesome 
 Repletion Three sets of extra-curricular activities; 
 pupil-officers and their duties; recreation tune; home 
 time. The fundamental problem of interest; a ques- 
 tion-begging substitute; the element of fatigue; reasons 
 for failing interest; lack of interest is no excuse for 
 failure. 
 
 XIII. DISCIPLINARY DEVICES continued 233 
 
 Corrective devices founded upon the mode of Absolute 
 Authority For undue absence from the room; for 
 whispering; library rules as a standard; wilful inatten- 
 tion; impertinence; the complaint book; the pupil's 
 record book; the benefit of system. Rules. 
 
 XIV. DISCIPLINARY DEVICES continued 249 
 
 Corrective devices founded upon the mode of Personal In- 
 fluence Judge Lindsey's work as an example; reminders; 
 
 the parole system; motivating good conduct; negative 
 incentives; the appraisal of conduct; trusting pupils; and 
 training the public.
 
 Devices founded upon the appeal to Personal Interest 
 Prize-giving; a classification of incentives; preeminence, 
 privileges, holidays, excuse from examinations, charac- 
 ter-development. 
 
 XV. DISCIPLINARY DEVICES continued 268 
 
 Devices founded upon the mode of Conscious Social Ap- 
 peal Class loyalty and its extension; school charac- 
 ter; means of unification. Pupil-government; distin- 
 guished from self-government; as an extension of the 
 monitorial system; its good points; cautions with regard 
 
 to pupil-government; the ideal of service. Morning 
 exercises; an outgrowth of daily work; devotions; gen- 
 eral participation. 
 
 XVI. THE SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 285 
 
 The selection of able teachers, and their improvement hi 
 service. The supervisor's duty to weak teachers; ana- 
 lyzing the situation; giving the ideal; finding the cause 
 of trouble; the analysis of motive; first aid to teachers. 
 Strengthening the will; the detection of signs of mis- 
 chief; the value of good routine; making requirements 
 clear; utilizing the system; utilizing experience. Sug- 
 gestions for classroom management. The supervisor in 
 the community. 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 I. A Classified Bibliography 305 
 
 II. Questions for Study 312 
 
 III. Blank Forms for Use in Securing and Maintaining 
 
 Good Order 327 
 
 Index 341
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE most important cause of teacher mortality is 
 weakness in discipline. It is responsible for approxi- 
 mately twenty out of every one hundred failures. Al- 
 though this fact has been recognized for many years 
 there has not heretofore been any attempt to formulate 
 the principles underlying this important phase of a 
 teacher's work. Tradition and the exigencies of the 
 situation have furnished teachers their criteria for dis- 
 posing of disciplinary cases. The unsupervised appli- 
 cation of such criteria has ofttimes been the only way 
 by which young teachers could discover their futility. 
 Although much of our progress in teaching has been 
 made by "cut and try" methods they are, neverthe- 
 less, the most expensive methods that teachers can 
 employ. Certainly nothing will pay larger dividends in 
 the field of school economy than an interpretation of the 
 experiences of successful teachers relating to discipline. 
 
 There are no changes in the field of education more 
 striking than those that have been occurring in the 
 field of school discipline. At one time there was an 
 effort to adjust disciplinary affairs mathematically; 
 the offender was punished to the extent that he had 
 caused suffering; an equation was struck between the 
 guilt and the suffering, and thus an indemnity was 
 secured for past conduct. An exact agreement be-
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 tween the punishment and the offense is not always 
 obvious, nor can it always be established. Moreover, 
 the view point of this primitive notion of punishment 
 is wrong, for it stresses the crime or offense but over- 
 looks the character of the offender; the attention of 
 the one inflicting the punishment is turned to the past, 
 never to the future. 
 
 Somewhat later human ingenuity was exercised to 
 its utmost in devising forms of punishment for in- 
 timidating and deterring others; but penalty as a 
 deterrent, in the opinion of the criminologist and 
 penologist of this and other countries and in the opinion 
 of wise teachers, has not succeeded in making good 
 its claim. It is not the laws upon the statute books, 
 the rules of the school, or the occasioned visitation of 
 harsh punishment, but the certainty of punishment that 
 deters others from violating the law. 
 
 Punishment as a deterrent has been, and no doubt 
 still is, resorted to in some schools. For evidence one 
 only needs to refer to the historic dunce-cap, to making 
 children toe a mark, requiring them to stand upon 
 some unstable elevation, to sit with a pencil or stick 
 beneath their tongues for whispering, or to the public 
 administering of corporal punishment. Fortunately all 
 sane educators are unanimously desirous of getting rid 
 of these inane practices. 
 
 There are, however, certain evidences of the in- 
 quisitional age that have shown signs of persisting. 
 Worse perhaps than public disgrace, "saturation," and 
 tasks, all of which are mediaeval in origin, is the pub- 
 lic use of vituperation. Such opprobrious epithets as 
 "loafer" "numskull," "fool," and the like, are more
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 than inelegant; they are calculated to antagonize the 
 child or to break his self-respect. 
 
 The chief weakness of the doctrine of repression was 
 that it wholly disregarded the worth of the individual. 
 Repression of dangerous and instinctive evil tendencies, 
 inherited from the race, will always be necessary for 
 the fruition of a beautiful character, but repression as a 
 means of public disgrace will seldom produce positive 
 qualities of character or be successful in preventing 
 others from committing similar offenses. 
 
 The inadequacy and barbarity of these earlier 
 methods began to dawn upon sensible people and atten- 
 tion was centered more and more upon the individual. 
 It was recognized that the guilty are not all irredeem- 
 able, that reformation, except in extreme cases, is far 
 better than incapacitation. The rehabilitation of the 
 individual became the goal of action. 
 
 Naturally it was but a step from this to the notion 
 that the way to prevent trouble is to stop the operation 
 of those causes which permit the origination of the 
 impulse, its gratification, and its spread by contagion 
 of sympathy. This point of view has been responsible 
 partly for the liberalizing of the course of study, the 
 improving of methods of instruction, and the enrich- 
 ment of the school libraries. Perhaps the recognition 
 of the value and necessity of promoting and supervising 
 the numerous activities that children more or less 
 spontaneously engage in, was the most important 
 outcome of this point of view. The clubs, parties, 
 entertainments, and games of young people, even when 
 not subject to supervision, are powerful disciplinary 
 agencies. For a child to be chosen or not to be chosen,
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 to be invited or not to be invited, to act as a leader or 
 as a follower, teaches him to respect authority. But 
 when under the guidance of a wise teacher, the social 
 activities are made to conform to established usage, 
 the individual engaging in them, learns not only to 
 respect authority but to appreciate certain important 
 refinements of justice. Those teachers who are the 
 successful leaders of their pupils and their communities, 
 consider it a part of their legitimate function to see 
 that the social activities of both are kept upon a high 
 plane and are distinctively educative in character. 
 
 Perhaps the best preventive measures in a school 
 are good organization and excellent instruction. Much 
 of the organization of a school may be attended to 
 before the school actually opens. All the more or 
 less mechanical and routine matters, such as the 
 program, the seating of the pupils, the monitorial 
 system, the plan of government, and the like, if prop- 
 erly provided for before the opening day, will serve 
 from the outset as powerful hindrances to questionable 
 conduct. By the "plan of government" I do not 
 have reference to the making of rules. Whenever 
 rules are made uniformity of discipline becomes a 
 principle of the school. This is not always desirable. 
 To have a fixed and definite punishment for all offend- 
 ers or for all of a kind, will eventually compromise the 
 disciplinarian. There must be moderation in some 
 cases and constraint in others. 
 
 Lucidity of instruction, perhaps the greatest pre- 
 ventive agency of bad conduct, depends upon the 
 personal qualities of the teacher, his tact, sympathy, 
 disposition, knowledge, and command of the tech-
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 nique of teaching. The amelioration of discipline is 
 due not only to better teaching but to better build- 
 ings, better libraries, and better school equipment. 
 The relation of these factors to the problem under 
 consideration is so remote or indirect or obvious as to 
 make an analytical treatment of them unnecessary. 
 
 Any discussion of discipline and its attendant con- 
 sequences would be inadequate if it did not involve 
 a treatment of that hoary but nevertheless unsolved 
 problem of the relation of authority to obedience, for 
 it must be admitted that both are traditionally sanc- 
 tioned and indisputably unnecessary in the govern- 
 ment of any school. At times the school has attempted 
 to imitate some form of municipal or state government, 
 but there are few successful attempts of record, except 
 where some powerful personality has been back of 
 them. At other times the school has attempted to 
 imitate an ideal home where every phase of conduct 
 is controlled though the manifestations of affection, 
 but obviously such a basis of control is not equally 
 applicable to all grades of the school. The school is 
 not society, nor can it exactly duplicate any institu- 
 tion of society. It is a society and as such has its 
 own strengths and limitations for doing certain kinds 
 of work. Its work depends to some extent upon obe- 
 dience to authority. Authority, wisely used, inspires 
 confidence in the child and cultivates that feeling of 
 respect which should dominate all well-ordered schools. 
 
 Obedience does not destroy independence. It lays 
 the only true foundation for independence. Certainly 
 one of the rights of every child is to have the benefit 
 of the will of his elders concerning things about which
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 he has no will. There is no justification in psychology 
 for the theory that children should be allowed to 
 follow unrestrictedly their impulses and instinctive 
 tendencies and that, if left alone, they will grow up 
 into intelligent, civilized, moral beings. There can 
 be no freedom in any institution except by obedience 
 to those conditions or laws that are necessary for the 
 perpetuity of the institution. The only natural rights 
 any one has are the ones he uses for collective welfare. 
 Freedom in adulthood calls for the exercise of a certain 
 amount of authority in childhood. The great work of 
 civilization and of education has been that of over- 
 laying certain primitive tendencies so that all might 
 more satisfactorily satisfy the conditions necessary for 
 good citizenship, for neighborhood and family life. 
 
 Mere spontaneous activity never in itself produced 
 reflective thinking. It is simply overflow, undiffer- 
 entiated and disorganized. Unless something arises 
 to disturb and check the flow of events, to make 
 us conscious of some maladjustment, to intensify the 
 sensation of strain between what we are and are not 
 but ought to be, no thinking is done. The person who 
 is the victim of a thousand and one chance stimula- 
 tions of his environment is characterless; but the 
 person who has learned to choose his stimuli or his 
 responses as the result of wise teaching has acquired 
 the fundamentals of character. 
 
 As efficiency in language is not measured by the 
 number of mistakes one makes, but by the correctness 
 of his speech, so the test of efficiency in school dis- 
 cipline is not the number of offenses committed but 
 the freedom from offenses.
 
 THE 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PLACE AND WORK OF THE SCHOOL IN 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 SCHOOLS are so important and universal a factor in 
 modern life that few people think of trying to justify 
 or explain them. Nevertheless, at a time when the 
 most universal and time-honored institutions are called 
 upon by thoughtful people to give a reason for the 
 faith that men have in them, even the school may be 
 put in question. For the reliable intuition of society 
 at large, it is enough that the experience of centuries 
 has established the school as one of the taken-for- 
 granted adjuncts of civilization; but for the pragmatist 
 whose questionings are a saving antidote to the inertia 
 of conservatism, there must be a provable justification 
 for even this well-established institution. That the 
 school has such a justification in its function and its 
 service must be conceded by practically all people, 
 including those who differ most as to just what that 
 function and service should be. 
 
 There are three social institutions which take it upon 
 themselves consciously to train children for their work 
 in the world. They are the home, the church, the 
 school. At different times in the world's history each
 
 2 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 has borne the greater burden of responsibility; at present 
 the school has been rather reluctantly forced to under- 
 take duties either voluntarily given up, or taken by force 
 of circumstance from the other two. In general, the 
 The two school recognizes two great duties devolving upon it: to 
 the C schooi prepare children for living, by making them intelligent 
 sharers in the life of their time; and to prepare them for 
 the task of adding something to the sum of human 
 welfare. The first function has for its aim to help the 
 child catch up with the race; the second, to aid the 
 race in its efforts at progress. The school, then, stands 
 with the home and the church as a great unifying force, 
 reconciling the individuals in its care to their environ- 
 ment, and then stimulating them to realize in that 
 environment their individual ideals. 
 
 But the school was never intended by men to usurp 
 the whole responsibility of the training of the rising 
 generation; nor should it, though never so urgently 
 stimulated by the need of the day, try to attend to 
 The Whole Duty of Man. There is a set of duties 
 which belongs inherently to it, because it can perform 
 these better, more economically, and more skillfully, 
 than can the home or the church. There are other 
 duties which it should leave to the institutions whose 
 proper care they are. Religious training, for instance, 
 is as important as any part of a child's education; and 
 yet it is manifestly impossible for the public schools of 
 a country in which all shades and varieties of religious 
 belief find adherents and protection, to give specific in- 
 struction in that subject. At a time when the advo- 
 cates of a hundred additions to our already crowded 
 courses are urging that the curriculums be extended to
 
 THE SCHOOL IN MODERN LIFE 3 
 
 include new studies growing from new aims and func- 
 tions, it is very necessary that practical people keep 
 in mind the natural limitations of the school's duties. 
 Incidentally, no school worthy the support of society 
 can fail to contribute to the ethical, religious, economic 
 and aesthetic education of its pupils; but directly, 
 its duty is plainly within a wide but not unlimited sphere 
 of intellectual and social training. 
 
 The child starts even the most favored child, Catching up 
 with every advantage of inheritance and environ- race 
 ment exactly where the child of the Stone Age 
 started. He is as helpless, as ignorant, and as pliable 
 as the baby in a Paleolithic cave. But when he 
 becomes a man, there will be required of him, if he 
 is to take his place in the world of his day, a variety 
 and scope of information, of skill, and of trained 
 ability of which the cave-man could have no con- 
 ception. His childhood, however, has not been length- 
 ened in proportion to the greater preparation for 
 maturity necessary for him. Obviously, he must have 
 help in accomplishing so great a task. He is to learn, 
 by the time he is grown and ready to do a man's part, 
 a sufficiently large proportion of all that men have 
 learned since time began, to enable him to understand 
 the life of his own day and to enter into it intelli- 
 gently. Much of this learning he acquires uncon- 
 sciously, absorbing incidentally from his environ- 
 ment and his companions; but a great body of the 
 required training is such that only organized, well- 
 planned, and directed instruction can impart. Some 
 standard of preparation, some body of information 
 upon which men agree as most necessary for the
 
 children of any given age, must be adopted. Curricu- 
 lums are not thoughtlessly or arbitrarily fixed by chance 
 authorities. Despite the representations of some 
 would-be reformers engaged chiefly in tearing down 
 what has been accomplished, it is true that no chance 
 pedagogical despot ever laid down courses of study 
 for the torture of future generations. Accepted 
 subjects are those which an instinctive feeling for 
 what children need for their work makes traditional. 
 They have the inertia of all accepted things, however; 
 they follow after the real needs of their era oftener 
 than they anticipate them. But, with the new thought- 
 fulness and conscientiousness which is taking the 
 place of tradition in education, we are approximating 
 the ideal of the first great function of the school: we 
 are preparing the child to take his place in his age. 
 The school's We are succeeding fairly well in putting him in posses- 
 a sion of the great typical experiences of the race. The 
 first function of the school then is to furnish a short- 
 cut to the net result of the world's long, hard road to 
 knowledge. It is to give him an epitome of the pro- 
 gressive experience of the race. 
 
 Preparing The second function of the school is to make its 
 the race pupils socially serviceable. Since there are other 
 institutions which properly assume part of the re- 
 sponsibility, the school may specialize here, undertak- 
 ing the more intellectual side of the required training, 
 while the home and the church work especially with 
 the more personal of the social relationships, religion, 
 and the finer points of culture. A hard and fast 
 limitation to the work of any one institution is no 
 more possible than the division of the child's identity
 
 THE SCHOOL IN MODERN LIFE 5 
 
 into separate bundles of faculties or characteristics. 
 But, in general, it may be said that society at large, 
 which authorizes and furnishes the school as an econom- 
 
 . . . expected of 
 
 ical way of paying part of its debt to the oncoming the school 
 generation, expects the school to fit children for social 
 efficiency by 
 
 1. Furnishing them the information that will enable 
 them to interpret the world about them. 
 
 2. Teaching them a set of skills which they will 
 need in social intercourse such as reading, 
 writing, etc. 
 
 3. Training in appreciation. 
 
 4. Fitting them for social service by familiarizing 
 them with socially serviceable methods of work, 
 and by building up those prejudices, attitudes, 
 and ideals that give the proper bias for such 
 service. 
 
 To these, popular opinion has lately added a fifth: 
 Teaching them a set of skills which will give 
 them economic independence. 
 
 The school has been established and is supported 
 by society especially for the foregoing purposes, and 
 is justified because it has at least partially fulfilled 
 them. It seems to be entering upon a period of much 
 more efficient helpfulness than it has ever given, but 
 its enlarged usefulness lies in a fuller realization of its 
 purposes, rather than in an extension of these purposes. 
 It can never take the place of other institutions, and 
 no permanent good is to be realized from shifting to 
 the school, at a time when it is straining every nerve 
 to satisfy the legitimate demands of society, the real 
 work of home, church, or government.
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 It is necessary for our study of the place and part 
 of the school in modern life, to consider beside its 
 
 The school 
 in its rela- 
 tions to 
 
 institutions P^ ace an d function, its relations to the other con- 
 trolling influences in the child's environment. It 
 should form part of an articulated and harmonious 
 unity of constructive forces, which combine to furnish 
 the necessary varied and correlated stimuli to whole- 
 some and all-round development. In the nature of 
 things it is obvious that the school bears a more or 
 less fixed and definite relation to the state, to the 
 parents of the children it trains, to the children them- 
 selves, and to several social institutions, notably the 
 home and the church and those modern would-be 
 substitutes for both home and church which have to 
 some extent taken over their work and responsibilities. 
 An inquiry into the nature of these relations is perti- 
 nent to our subject, for only by understanding with 
 some degree of exactness just where it stands as a 
 force in the world, can we gauge the nature and extent 
 of the school's authority the point upon which 
 depends the whole question of school discipline. 
 
 The state is an economical device by which men 
 unite to effect certain desirable ends which no one 
 man could secure for himself. It is first protective 
 and afterward advantage-seeking. As an organiza- 
 tion seeking the advantage of its members, it has 
 taken over the business of formal education from the 
 home, which yields its claim to control readily because 
 the state can do the work more effectively and more 
 economically. The state has created a special de- 
 partment, with its own revenues, equipment, and 
 officers, to attend to this work; and we call this depart- 
 
 The school 
 and the 
 state
 
 THE SCHOOL IN MODERN LIFE 7 
 
 ment of the state the School System. Properly speak- 
 ing, the public school is not a separate institution, 
 as is the church in the United States. It is a part of 
 the state, maintained, as are laws, courts, postoffices, 
 for the protection and service of the people. 1 
 
 It is imperfect and faulty in its organization and A social 
 requirements, as are the laws; but such as it is, it 
 represents the will of the society which has created it, 
 and demands the support of all citizens. It is con- 
 trolled in our country by the various state govern- 
 ments, or the lesser units to which they delegate 
 this function to towns, cities, counties and school 
 districts. The teachers, principals, and superinten- 
 dents are rarely officers in a technical sense, being 
 employed under contract instead of being elected. 
 They are obliged to serve, as all officers do, subject 
 to laws and regulations, and also to enforce all laws 
 and regulations that pertain to their work and positions. 
 Their relation to their schools is a legal one, and the 
 schools themselves are legally controlled. 2 The status 
 of the school as a part of the state will often be referred 
 to in these pages, as its right to the authority it claims 
 is based upon this relation. 
 
 The school does not derive its authority from the Parents and 
 parents of the children who attend, as the popular 
 phrase in loco parentis has led many to suppose, but 
 from the whole body of organized society. There- 
 fore the parents of children have no inherent right what- 
 ever to dictate to the school what its methods shall 
 
 1 Felix Adler, The Moral Instruction of Children, N.Y., 1902, 
 page u. Woodrow Wilson, The Slate, Boston, 1904, page 638. 
 * A. C. Perry, The Management of a City School, pages 25-34.
 
 8 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 be. Teachers are responsible, not to the parents of 
 their pupils, but directly to the state, which is society's 
 representative power. Since the state has, in estab- 
 lishing the school and assigning to it certain duties, 
 taken from parents the responsibility of furnishing 
 their children the training which the school offers, 
 the state assumes also the dictation of means and 
 methods. The only way in which a parent can logi- 
 cally change school policies is to act through the state. 
 Practically, of course, a hundred considerations of 
 interest, of expedition, of friendly cooperation and 
 community of ends, operate to bridge this red-tape 
 gulf of the state that lies between teachers and parents. 
 For although as an element in the whole fabric of 
 social organization, the state stands between parent 
 and school, as an element in the training of citizens 
 the school stands between parent and state, an in- 
 stitution for protection and development, combining 
 Parental the motives of love and justice. But in case of appeal 
 ence to ultimate authority, and as a basis for formulating 
 school policies, every teacher should remember that 
 authority is of the state, and that the policies used in 
 schools are not subject to parental veto or parental 
 control. 1 The logical recourse of a parent who objects 
 to the manner in which the school furnishes his child 
 with the training that the state requires, is to remove 
 
 1 This principle is commonly recognized in any case of disagree- 
 ment where the matter at issue is referred to the local school board 
 for adjustment. The result is often so unjust in its operation as 
 to afford the best possible argument for the substitution of a larger 
 political unit in the management of school affairs. Political or 
 family influence has had a notoriously demoralizing influence in 
 the local management of school matters in the United States.
 
 THE SCHOOL IN MODERN LIFE 9 
 
 him from school and furnish that training from his 
 private means. But the relations of parent and child, 
 and teacher and pupil, have so much in common that 
 a meeting-ground of friendly cooperation is rarely 
 hard to find. The opinionated parent is not half the 
 obstacle, in fact, that the indifferent parent is, al- 
 though the opinionated parent is usually harder to 
 reform. Most teachers agree that the securing of interesting 
 
 .. fl Trt-iri- th parents 
 
 parental cooperation is one of the most difficult of their 
 problems. Parents' Clubs and Mothers' Clubs enable 
 the teacher to secure reenforcement at home for his 
 efforts at school, and to reenforce at school what may 
 be attempted at home. An idealist from Mars, be- 
 coming acquainted with our social institutions, might 
 suppose that the parents of a given community, upon 
 surrendering their children to a public institution for 
 that training which Nature and society originally 
 required of them, 1 would voluntarily organize a super- 
 visory and cooperative association, with a view to 
 keeping tab on all the methods used and all the results 
 obtained. He would be surprised to learn that such 
 organizations spring, not from the efforts of parents 
 but from the efforts of teachers, and that parents must 
 usually be begged, cajoled, and preached at to make 
 them attend. It is among teachers as a body, 
 rather than among parents, 'that there exists a 
 
 1 But see A. J. Todd, The Primitive Family as an Educative 
 Agency. The author says that the family is a developed institution 
 and that society from the first took the initiative in training children. 
 Homes have not degenerated of late years, but among a majority 
 of the human race have never developed to the point considered 
 typical by the writers of the past. The theory is interesting and 
 not unsupported by evidence.
 
 io DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 compelling sense of responsibility toward the next 
 generation. 
 
 The school must take the initiative, then, in estab- 
 lishing the close bond that should exist between it and 
 the parents of its pupils. It will find a fairly ready 
 response wherever great wealth or great poverty do 
 not dull the sense of parental responsibility or prevent 
 its exercise. The end for which both are working 
 should be kept constantly in evidence, not only because 
 it furnishes the basis for cooperation, but because 
 parents so seldom realize its full significance, and need 
 to have their own part of the child's training con- 
 sciously squared to it. 
 The school The school exercises a benevolent despotism toward 
 
 HUG the i i *i i * i i f 
 
 child its pupils. Each child is placed in it to perform its 
 
 bidding implicitly, though not unquestioningly. It is 
 a world in itself, which articulates with several other 
 worlds in which he moves and to which he belongs, 
 and it is subject to a great power called the state, which 
 represents the power and will of the greatest world 
 of all, which is society. This world of the school is 
 organized by society for the benefit of children, that 
 they may be able to benefit society in turn, and be 
 themselves the happier for what they learn there. 
 The teachers are in the school for the purpose of 
 helping them to become intelligent, happy, helpful. 
 All that makes boys and girls intelligent, happy, and 
 helpful in the school is right, and therefore permissible. 
 When children act in a way that defeats the purpose 
 of the school, and so harm themselves, the teacher, 
 who represents the state, which represents society, 
 must correct them, and keep them from repeating the
 
 THE SCHOOL IN MODERN LIFE n 
 
 offense. He has a perfect right to do so, because no 
 one person can be permitted to clog the wheels of 
 progress, to defeat the good purposes of society. 
 
 So soon as children can be trusted to carry on their 
 part of society's great work without being watched and 
 without fail, they have reached the responsible estate 
 of grown people and can govern themselves. Part of 
 the school's work is to help them to reach this stage 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 It were beside the point and superfluous to try to The school 
 make clear the relations of morality to religion. We 
 live in a land whose dominant religion offers no teach- 
 ing that conflicts with the finest ethical code yet 
 devised; indeed, the highest word we have to say of 
 such a code is that it is one of practical Christianity. 
 The schools are for obvious reasons not to teach reli- 
 gion; but they are just as obviously bound to incul- 
 cate, directly and indirectly, the principles of morality. 
 The relation of the school to the church, in all its vari- 
 ous branches and divisions, is an absolutely unofficial 
 one, and can never, while American principles are 
 recognized and supported, be otherwise. No teacher 
 who uses his influences for or against any denomination 
 or cult, has a defensible place in the American school 
 system. But it is the place of the school to rationalize 
 moral instruction, as it is the office of the church to 
 give to moral instruction the motive force of high 
 emotional appeal. Morality appears reasonable and 
 profitable to the child who has been rightly instructed 
 at school; it is, for the child who has had the right 
 kind of religious instruction, an obligation enforced 
 by the deepest feelings of reverence, gratitude, and
 
 12 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The school 
 and the 
 church are 
 comple- 
 mentary 
 
 love. The school's duty, moreover, is to clarify man's 
 relation to man; the church's, man's duty to God. 
 As the two phases of duty can not conflict, and as all 
 interpretations of Christianity are supposed to har- 
 monize with fundamental ethics, the school may be 
 considered the ally of all the branches of the church, 
 supplying that rational basis for moral judgments which 
 every thinking human being demands at one time or 
 another. Indeed, the very efficacy and dependability 
 of religion is sometimes contingent on just the sort of 
 rationalized prejudice which the school can and does 
 impart to its pupils. The practical value of moral 
 instruction, on the other hand, is immensely increased 
 by the emotionalization of religious conviction and 
 aspiration. Capable of so immensely strengthening 
 the work, each of the other, it is important that teacher 
 and priest, as well as the laymen of both institutions, 
 use all possible means of establishing and keeping up 
 this friendly cooperation of the two great instructive 
 forces of modern times. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The school is delegated by the state to prepare 
 children for efficient living and service. Other phases 
 of this preparation are assumed by the home and the 
 church, but it is the sense of society that the state, 
 through its schools, can best attend to the training of 
 mind and hand. Since all the forces which go to de- 
 velop a whole man or woman must work simultaneously 
 and should work harmoniously, it is very important 
 that the school be in close touch and friendly relations 
 with state, home, church, and all the institutions and 
 forces which influence childhood.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 
 
 ALL the training which society gives to individuals, 
 which helps them better to control their powers, may 
 be called disciplinary. This disciplinary control springs 
 from a variety of relationships and principles, which 
 may be divided for the sake of convenience into five 
 general classes, giving rise to five types or modes of 
 government. While each mode is distinct in its origins, 
 nature, and results, few concrete instances of school Fivc 
 
 fundamental 
 
 government can be classed exactly with any one mode, modes 
 owing to the complex nature of schoolroom life and 
 aims. In actual practice the modes overlap, merging 
 imperceptibly or passing sharply one into another. 
 They represent nodal points in methods of school 
 management, however; they are types of the means 
 used to secure and keep good order and a good spirit 
 in a schoolroom. They predominate at various periods 
 in the development of any one child ; they are variously 
 emphasized by different teachers, communities, and 
 ages; they supplement and strengthen one another 
 in a thousand ways. Through all their elaborate 
 inter-relations, however, the fundamental differences 
 in these five modes remain unchanged. In the follow- 
 ing discussion they are treated approximately in the 
 order of their historical development, and in the 
 reverse order of their probable worth in bringing about 
 ideal school conditions.
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The natural 
 origin of 
 school 
 authority 
 
 I. THE MODE OF ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY 
 
 Pedagogy in its simplest form is the oldest science 
 practiced by man. The man who mastered the first 
 rude art taught it to his children and his neighbors, 
 and because he knew more than they, found himself 
 in a position of authority among them. Greatest of 
 all men was Prometheus; and every unknown fire- 
 bringer, with his circle of learners about him, shared 
 his glory and his penalty. The authority of the 
 teacher usually coincided with the paternal preroga- 
 tives, and was so the more easily established. When 
 schools were established, the authority of the teacher- 
 father carried over naturally into the institution. No 
 one reasoned why; it was a matter of tradition and 
 development, an inevitable part of the sequence of 
 events, a concession to the eternal fitness of things. 
 That the teacher stands in the place of the parent has 
 been one maxim universally accepted; and the nature 
 and workings of the teacher's authority have shown an 
 interesting tendency to imitate the methods of control 
 in vogue in the home. The era of stern discipline and 
 severe corporal punishment in both was coeval; and 
 when parental severity was relaxed in favor of more 
 gentle means, the school was forced to fall into line, 
 and somewhat reluctantly to concede its right to 
 paddle and whip. 
 
 The mode of control by appeal to its absolute au- 
 thority is, then, the school's oldest, simplest, and most 
 direct of all ways of securing good order. Combined 
 with the type which rests its power on the personal
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 15 
 
 appeal of the teacher to the child, it is the mode which 
 has been consciously employed until very modern 
 times. 
 
 Nor is it by any means an outworn and discarded 
 type of school government. Not only in practice but 
 in theory, it rests upon a justification so sound that it 
 will never become obsolete. Its acknowledged exist- 
 ence and righteousness gives dignity and stability to 
 all other forms of control. As a starting point if 
 possible, as an ultimate appeal if necessary, the teach- 
 er's authoritative control of the situation, as society's 
 rightful representative, makes his position tenable. 
 He controls his domain within the reasonable limits 
 set by custom and public opinion as rightfully as 
 other civil officers execute the statute law. 
 
 That this mode is to be abandoned in favor of others inherent 
 when possible, then, is not because it rests upon any of 
 
 untenable principle, not because it is inherently un- 
 just or harmful. It is because it is not the mode which 
 is best calculated to teach pupils to be self-governing, 
 and so to order their conduct that it gives the best 
 service to society. The use of authority is at best 
 society's necessary temporary expedient, when it finds 
 itself confronted with many classes of people whose 
 wishes do not conform to the general good. So the 
 teacher's authority is to be exercised as a concession 
 to actual conditions, keeping always in mind the 
 possibility of attaining an ideal condition in which it 
 will not be needed. Its use may well be limited to the 
 following cases: 
 
 i. When pupils are not sufficiently advanced for the 
 use of other modes.
 
 1 6 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 2. When the need of quick action and speedy and 
 clear-cut decision preclude the slower methods. 
 
 3. When the use of authority will have a good effect 
 upon public opinion. 
 
 4. In cases of anarchy, with those who deny and 
 defy authority. An actual demonstration of 
 the superiority of authorized and organized 
 power over the will of the individual is usually 
 that power's best argument. There are few who 
 do not recall the regenerating effects of a sound 
 whipping upon some school bully who thought 
 the teacher didn't dare. 
 
 With whom The pupils with whom it is advisable to use this mode 
 mode may be divided into three classses the very young, 
 
 the socially untrained, and the abnormal. The reason 
 for its use with the very young is obvious enough. Since 
 habit-forming is the type of educational training for 
 them (the period of rationalization not having arrived), 
 and since curiosity usually gives a sufficient impetus 
 for new activities, constant and detailed direction is 
 needed. Very little people must simply be told what 
 to do, and punished in some reasonable way for not 
 obeying, until the habit of obedience becomes fixed 
 and its discretion clear. Self-direction comes naturally 
 with the acquiring of fundamental habits and the 
 ability to think, and so other modes normally supplant 
 that of absolute authority as the child grows older. 
 But little children must learn that some things are 
 wrong and must not be done, or being done bring swift 
 and sure punishment. "The first thing the child has 
 to learn about this matter," says the philosopher of 
 The Breakfast Table, "is that lying is unprofitable
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 17 
 
 afterwards that it is against the peace and dignity of 
 the universe." 
 
 Perhaps the most appalling single condition facing The socially 
 American teachers in these days is the lack of home 
 training shown everywhere. As one function after 
 another, formerly vested in the home, is yielded up by 
 that emancipated institution, the school is urged 
 Once more into the breach, kind friends ! 
 
 to take up the neglected duty. The German teacher 
 finds his beginner already grounded in a deep respect 
 for authority, a fixed habit of implicit obedience, and 
 a growing consideration for others. With this founda- 
 tion laid, the superstructure of formal training is easily 
 and solidly built. American teachers, especially in 
 strictly American communities, must often lay this 
 foundation themselves. They receive year after year 
 sets of pupils who are not only socially untrained, 1 
 but whose lack of social training extends, so far as the 
 home is concerned, throughout childhood and into 
 maturity. It is trite and profitless to remark upon the 
 decay of family authority of which, as has been said, 
 "there is as much as ever, but it has changed hands." 
 It is absolutely necessary, however, that we recognize 
 this condition and its effect upon the discipline of our 
 schools. It interferes seriously with their efficiency 
 by forcing teachers to expend time and energy in giving 
 their pupils a training which they might reasonably 
 expect them to have received from their parents. 
 
 1 The term " social training" is a somewhat vague one, but is 
 used here to mean that training which makes consideration for 
 others habitual, and which teaches individuals to plan their lives 
 with reference to the good of society.
 
 1 8 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Socially untrained pupils, of whatever age, are in the 
 same stage of development as the kindergarten pupil 
 or the first-grader, and must be led through submission 
 to authority, and personal influence, and wholesome 
 interests in auxiliary activities, to the point at which 
 the school appeal outweighs the personal one. 
 The misuse Among the socially untrained none are more given 
 to misunderstanding and misusing liberty, than those 
 from whom it has been long and unjustly withheld. 
 Freedom granted to men who have been long oppressed 
 is especially likely to degenerate into license. The 
 children of European immigrants escaping from long 
 suppression and persecution in their own land, and the 
 children who are cuffed into scared inactivity at home, 
 are often children who take advantage of every relaxa- 
 tion of authority, of every freedom from oversight and 
 direction. They do not know how to use freedom with 
 temperance, but are intoxicated with it to the point of 
 lawlessness. They confuse liberty with license in a 
 way that is natural and perhaps excusable, but it is 
 the greatest of all mistakes to allow them to persist 
 in this misunderstanding. Until they have learned 
 self-control, until they have learned that they belong 
 to an organic whole whose members are interdependent, 
 and in which injury is reflexive, they can not be trusted 
 with much personal liberty. Even those children 
 whose parents enjoy and understand the true uses of 
 liberty, those who may reasonably be expected to 
 absorb from their environment the knowledge of rea- 
 sonable limits and restraints to personal freedom, must 
 be led carefully from one exercise of self-direction to 
 another. For those unfortunates who can have no
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 19 
 
 real conception of the kind of freedom which insures 
 the rights of all, there must be much restraint before 
 the difference between liberty and license is plain. 
 This problem of the alien and of the repressed child 
 is especially important in great cities, and furnishes 
 a chief reason for retaining there, unimpaired, con- 
 servative ideas of the absolute authority of the teacher. 
 
 Teachers recognize two types of pupils with whom Authority 
 the usual means fail of usual results. These are con- forthe 
 
 abnormal 
 
 stitutional and temporary abnormals. Markedly ab- 
 normal pupils have properly no place in the ordinary 
 public school, but while our eleemosynary systems 
 remain imperfect and inadequate for our needs, they 
 will continue to complicate the teaching problem. 
 The use of simple and direct authority as the quickest 
 and most effective way of securing results is usually 
 justifiable when such pupils are admitted to public 
 schools. It is not right to take from the normal pupils 
 in the school, the time necessary for dealing with these 
 cases in the proper way. Every effort should be taken 
 to have them removed to the special institutions where 
 they belong; failing that, it is clearly not the duty of 
 public school teachers to expend upon them more time 
 than they are fairly entitled to, more than would be 
 needed by normal children, and more than others re- 
 ceive. The great aim of the school is to improve 
 the race, to better society; the palliation of the mis- 
 takes and blunders of the ignorant or the vicious is 
 a secondary matter. The teacher should expend his 
 effort where it will pay. What, then, may be expected 
 from public school teachers entrusted with the train- 
 ing of subnormal or abnormal children? If they be
 
 20 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 An emer- 
 gency 
 method 
 
 Imposed 
 
 authority 
 
 passes into 
 
 voluntarily 
 
 accepted 
 
 authority 
 
 so trained that they can from habit follow direction, 
 if their powers be turned into some channel which is 
 at least harmless, and helpful if possible, about as 
 much has been accomplished as can be done, and as 
 much as can be expected without expert treatment. 
 
 The temporarily abnormal are to be found at times 
 in every schoolroom. They are the pupils who, usually 
 tractable and amenable to all good influences, become 
 unmanageable because of some passing circumstance. 
 The power of a sudden infatuation, of ill-health, of 
 any absorbing interest, may make a temporary anarch- 
 ist of the schoolroom's most law-abiding citizen, by 
 overmastering all his customary standards and com- 
 pelling absolute obedience to its demands. At such 
 tunes the incentives to social conduct fall to lowest 
 ebb, and the most generously disposed child becomes 
 a thorough and ruthless egoist. Putting aside the 
 higher modes which usually prove efficient, his teacher 
 may find it necessary to exercise his bare authority 
 in such a crisis. 
 
 As in the case of control through personal influence, 
 the control of absolute authority should definitely 
 appoint its successor. Good citizens submit to law 
 because they believe in its righteousness, and, in a 
 democracy, because they realize that it is made by 
 themselves and their neighbors, who are in turn to 
 benefit by it. Good citizens in a school, in like manner, 
 conform to its customs, observe its limitations, and 
 help with its machinery, because they know that ma- 
 chinery to be devised for their own good. The point 
 of accomplishment in the making of a good citizen- 
 pupil is that at which he begins to cooperate with,
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 21 
 
 where formerly he submitted to the imposed authority 
 of, the teacher. Authority is then no longer imposed, A changed 
 but is accepted voluntarily. This point comes to 
 some children very early, and to others late in their 
 school career or not at all. As children are poor 
 generalizers, it needs sometimes to be learned specifi- 
 cally many times before it becomes a principle for 
 general application. Even then, tradition and habit 
 may produce some surprising cases of defiance of law. 
 
 II. THE MODE OF APPEAL TO PERSONAL INTEREST 
 
 Following the instinctive obedience to parental 
 authority and its substitutes, and closely allied to that 
 first allegiance, comes the selfish motive for conduct. 
 At first the desire for self-gratification leads usually 
 to defiance of authority, for children see the immediate 
 outcome and strive for it. As the power of thinking 
 develops, however, and reasoning gives them an in- 
 sight into final gains and losses, children learn to deny 
 themselves an immediate gratification for an ultimate 
 gain. When this point in development has been 
 reached, it is possible to appeal to the child's sense of 
 self-interest. He begins to do things because he 
 knows it is good for him either because he reaps 
 some reward that is pleasant, or because he has faith 
 that a given course will bring him pleasure in the future, 
 as some one has told him it will. He learns to balance 
 values, and to choose the one which his training and 
 disposition hold most worth while. 
 
 There is one motive which may be used at all ages, The hope 
 although it is probably most active and potent during of rewards 
 adolescence. It may be endlessly varied and general-
 
 22 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 ized. This motive is the hope of reward, the aim 
 of self-improvement or gratification. There exists a 
 great and mistaken prejudice against it, however, 
 which has weakened the work of countless conscien- 
 tious teachers, who fear that they encourage selfish- 
 ness and love of personal gain in emphasizing the old 
 and universal law that good begets good, and that 
 virtue brings a reward beside its recognition of itself. 
 Surely the reward in kind of good and evil is one prin- 
 ciple that may safely be abstracted from human ex- 
 perience, and is safely taught to the young. Indeed, 
 its apparent contradictions form one of the most pro- 
 Afear lific of all sources for inquiry into fundamentals, and 
 
 fallacy* consequent establishing of truths that do not appear 
 superficially. No better, no more universal, varied, 
 and obvious illustrations of the complexity of life, of 
 the unity of the social fabric, or of the far-reaching 
 effects of every human act, can possibly exist than the 
 answers to the questions that arise daily in every 
 home and schoolroom concerning the truth of this 
 law. Every illustration of its application in their 
 own lives, tends to strengthen a faith in its univer- 
 sality and dependableness, which must function con- 
 stantly and healthfully in controlling conduct, both 
 in the school and outside and beyond it. 
 
 Provided care is taken to call attention to the fact 
 that rewards are sometimes long delayed, diffused, 
 or subjective in character, the use of the immediate 
 and concrete reward is harmless and commendable. 
 There is nothing in the rewarding of a deserved honor 
 that does harm, if the nature of the reward is such as 
 to be unobjectionable. It is the failure to recognize
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 23 
 
 and emphasize the unseen rewards that holds danger; 
 the ignoring of that compensation to virtue which is 
 real but indirect, sure but perhaps long delayed. 
 Every time a child receives a recognized reward for doing 
 right, his faith in the paying qualities of goodness is 
 increased. And this faith in the absolute equity of 
 life's give-and-take, in the indestructibility of the 
 moral law, is not the sordid and unworthy thing that 
 many teachers are disposed to call it. All our faith 
 in the ultimate justice of human events and in the 
 goodness of God is bound up in it; why should we 
 blindly deny it to children? The question-begging 
 injunction to "do right because it is right" has, in an 
 effort to establish an impracticable loyalty to a truth 
 too abstract for trained thinkers to comprehend, done 
 incalculable harm to any number of inquiring young 
 people. 
 
 Conversely, the punishment of evil as an unescap- Punishment 
 able aftermath can not be too much emphasized. of eva 
 Here, owing to the stern customs of our ancestors and 
 the rigorous traditions of the schoolroom, there is not 
 the same prejudice to be overcome as exists with regard 
 to the careful reward of well-doing. Children expect 
 to be punished if they do wrong at school; teachers 
 expect to mete out justice, or at least retribution, to 
 sinners. 
 
 This sense of self-interest is an immensely valuable TWO ideas 
 asset to the teacher. It may be used also in a way j 
 to work great harm to pupils, if selfish ends are justified 
 in the incentives held out to children. If the ends 
 represented as desirable are such as build up fine 
 ideals, the method of appeal to self-interest is justifi-
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The 
 
 subjective 
 
 reward 
 
 A mode for 
 adolescents 
 
 able. If material rewards are over-emphasized (as, 
 for example, they have been in the popular statistics 
 showing the money value of honesty and good character 
 and education), or preeminence is held up as a thing 
 to be striven for, the results will be deplorable. For 
 instance, to urge a child to study that he may win a 
 prize or stand first in his class is to appeal to instincts 
 that need inhibition rather than encouragement; but 
 to urge him to study that he may become a useful 
 man, a helpful and noble citizen, is to encourage the 
 sort of ambition that children ought to have. The 
 mode is the same in both instances, but the ideals 
 differ fundamentally. 
 
 That is to say, that while there are material and 
 immediate rewards for doing right, which we should 
 not deny nor conceal, nor withhold unless they are 
 really harmful, there are subjective rewards which are 
 of far more value and permanence. These subjective 
 rewards are the ones which should be constantly 
 emphasized as the rewards worth most earnest effort, 
 and the ones most surely to be received. At the same 
 time, there is no inherent wrong in the statement of 
 the law that right brings reward and wrong incurs 
 punishment in some form, inevitably. 
 
 As children grow older, and plan their lives more 
 consciously, this mode of control becomes more im- 
 portant. Combined with that of personal influence, 
 it may be instrumental in changing the whole course 
 of conduct of a thoughtless or antagonistic pupil. 
 Its most powerful allies are the imagination and the 
 idealizing qualities that are strong in youth. To 
 arouse an indifferent pupil from his narrow absorp-
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 25 
 
 tion in what he is and enjoys, to a conception of what 
 he may become and accomplish that is the miracle 
 that, once performed, may readily change him into an 
 alert, interested person with a motive for working. 
 In adolescence, when imagination is alive, it means 
 much to have presented the material that may furnish 
 a vision of the future. A pitifully large number of 
 men and women lead spiritless, humdrum lives, because 
 no vision of the possibility of life came to them in the 
 days when they might have gone on to its realization. 
 No inspiring speaker, no book written from a great 
 heart, no trip from the sheltered and quiet home into 
 the big world of action and achievement, no picture 
 or song or heroic act, fired the ready soul at the critical 
 time to set a goal for itself that would make all effort 
 and sacrifice worth while. 
 
 A realization of the responsibility of the school in AS it affects 
 this matter is showing itself in the movement for 
 vocational guidance. Skillful teachers who under- 
 stand the possibilities of their incomparable calling 
 have long utilized it, directly for the final gain of their 
 charges, indirectly for the improvement of school 
 order. It furnishes an incentive of high order if the 
 right ideals of accomplishment are united with it, 
 and combined with the mode of appeal to social re- 
 sponsibility makes the best basis for motivation. 
 Translated into concrete terms for pupils, it offers 
 these aims for good conduct: 
 
 a. The development of a good brain, capable of 
 doing the thinking that may be required of it. 
 
 b. The development of skill of hand and quickness 
 of eye.
 
 26 
 
 c. The ability to make a good living, growing out of 
 
 the first two. 
 
 d. The ability to appreciate fine and beautiful things. 
 
 e. A strong and noble character. 
 
 /. The ability to serve one's generation well. 
 The choke jf this all-round aim be kept before both students 
 
 of studies . ', 
 
 and teachers, it means that they will choose, in plan- 
 ning courses of study, a variety of exercises and activ- 
 ities, not one narrow set of studies. There will be 
 some of subjects requiring earnest application and real 
 thought, for even if such do not develop a general 
 intellectual facility, they at least prove ability for 
 hard work and clear thinking. There will be no 
 neglect of manual training; writing, drawing, the 
 playing of some musical instrument, carpentering, 
 ceramics, sewing, cooking, or metal work a fair 
 degree of skill in several of these the all-round man or 
 woman has. 
 
 Mental power and physical skill combine to make 
 men and women economically independent, but that 
 is not all they need. The fatal fallacy of the trade 
 school lies in its neglect of the heart, out of which are 
 the issues of life. The failing of the conventional 
 school curriculum is that it trains mind and heart to 
 the appreciation of good things which mind and hand 
 may not be able to furnish. The boy or girl with an 
 eye to his own interest, therefore, will plan to include 
 in his course of study much that will develop taste, 
 appreciation, and hunger for fine and beautiful things. 
 He will wish to learn something of social service, of 
 the ways in which he may help his generation to do its 
 work. Above all, he will include as much of ethical
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 27 
 
 culture of a formal kind as may be, and keep mind and 
 heart awake for the incidental inspiration that comes 
 to the watchful. 
 
 It is in this last choice that the bearing of conscious The choice 
 self-interest upon conduct and discipline appears. The of conduct 
 youth who sincerely wishes to make himself as noble 
 as he can, must understand that he must choose, not 
 once but time after time, the best response to the 
 situations that present themselves. He must know 
 that the only assurance he can have that, when a 
 great temptation to do wrong comes to him, he will 
 resist it, is that he has habitually resisted a thousand 
 little temptations to dishonesty, discourtesy, inat- 
 tention, laziness, familiarity, intemperance, imper- 
 tinence. He must understand that much of his future 
 happiness or misery depends upon his conscious choice 
 of immediate or ultimate ends, of present fun that is 
 without the law or within it. Good disciplinarians 
 learn early to impress the duty of the right choice 
 upon students by showing them the inexorable laws of 
 cause and effect. 
 
 There is a danger, it is true, in using this mode of The danger 
 appeal to self-interest. It is that boys and girls may 
 acquire an idea that virtue exists mainly for its re- 
 wards. They are good then for revenue only, and 
 feel justified in forsaking what is right if the promised 
 rewards are not forthcoming, or if they see law-breakers 
 enjoying prosperity and evident happiness. There is 
 a possibility that our ethical training may degenerate 
 into some such bargain with The Powers as the Romans 
 had in their state worship. It may become a matter 
 of bargain and barter, unless personal ideals of the
 
 28 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 highest nature animate it and dominate it. Religion 
 furnishes the surest antidote to this tendency, but 
 religion is a thing that may not be taught in public 
 schools. Next best are the ideals of personal honor 
 that the greatest literature and the greatest historical 
 ideals for characters give. To gain, after years of effort, the 
 purity of Arthur and the devotion of Antigone, the 
 patriotism of William the Silent, the self-mastery of 
 Jean Valjean, is the goal which, kept steadily before 
 their eyes, will give to our youth the strength to choose 
 to do what is right. 
 
 III. THE MODE or CONTROL THROUGH PERSONAL 
 INFLUENCE 
 
 In its total power through the formative period of 
 the life of a child, consciously exercised personal in- 
 fluence ranks among the first of the elements in edu- 
 cation. All good teachers wish to possess personal 
 influence over their pupils; there are frequent occasions 
 when it is necessary to exercise it. Many teachers 
 abuse it ignorantly, or fail to use it to the highest 
 and most permanent ends. It is a primitive and a 
 dangerous method of control, a universal and wonder- 
 fully potent one, and one capable of the best possible 
 use. 
 
 Its danger lies in the temptation to the teacher to 
 magnify his own power through its exercise, and to 
 fail to appeal to the social consciousness of his pupils. 
 Vanity is a failing from which teachers are not exempt; 
 indeed, the continued preeminence which schoolroom 
 experience gives to the teacher, is liable to develop any 
 latent tendency to undue self-esteem which he may
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 29 
 
 possess. Few human beings are above appreciating 
 the flattery of those who order their conduct to please 
 them. In almost any school building are to be found 
 teachers who are not averse to having people know 
 that pupils who later gave trouble to other teachers, 
 were in their grades tractable and industrious. They 
 were good for them owing, usually, to some charm 
 of manner, personal appearance, or trick of amuse- 
 ment, such as captivate the easily aroused admiration 
 of childhood. The use of such personal assets in the 
 schoolroom as an initial means of securing results is 
 wholly legitimate; but to continue to build on so 
 narrow a foundation is a fatal mistake. 
 The use of personal influence is to be nicely differ- Use and 
 
 . . . ,... ," . exercise of 
 
 entiated from its unconscious and incidental exercise, personal 
 which in itself forms one of the great elements in i 
 schoolroom control. The mode of control through con- 
 scious personal influence is justifiable in the teaching 
 of young children, with whom it must be employed 
 constantly, and with older children who have not been 
 aroused to a consciousness of their duty toward others, 
 nor received a sufficient emotional impulse to insure 
 a response. Wherever, in fact, the modes of govern- 
 ment by substitution and appeal to social consciousness 
 are impracticable, and the mode of authoritative 
 control is not necessary, there the personal influence 
 of the teacher may advantageously be used. The 
 strength of its appeal lies in an emotional connota- 
 tion, usually very wholesome, but applicable only to 
 the case and persons in point. Herein lies the essen- 
 tial weakness of this mode of control. In itself it 
 establishes no ideal and no habit which functions
 
 30 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 outside the schoolroom, or in similar situations in 
 other schoolrooms where a different teacher is in 
 control. 
 The process g ut j t j s p oss ible so to merge the individual into 
 
 of socializa- 
 tion the social appeal, so to broaden the loyalty which 
 
 urges the sought-for judgment, that this method 
 becomes a powerful help in establishing the ultimate 
 mode of self-government through motives induced 
 by social consciousness. It shares this preparatory 
 function with the still older mode of appeal to bare 
 authority, or to the force with which that authority 
 is armed. It is not so ultimate, so ideal a method, 
 but it may be used for entirely righteous ends and in 
 the interests of the ideal and ultimate method. 
 General!- The process of generalization in the mind of the 
 
 zation . . 
 
 pupil is not necessarily a conscious one. From the 
 motive of doing right to please his teacher, or his 
 mother, or his father, he may be led easily and quickly 
 to wish to do right to please his schoolmates as a body. 
 Much is being done in kindergartens and primary 
 schools, especially in games and exercises devised for 
 the purpose, to develop a recognition of the corporate 
 nature of the school; and the child so trained, even 
 at the period when the personal influence of the teacher 
 is strongest, is beginning to put the needs of society 
 above his own pleasure or that of his personal friends. 
 
 At a period a little later, especially in the upper in- 
 termediate and grammar grades, loyalty to a "crowd" 
 or "gang" often supplants the child's first loyalty to 
 mother or teacher. The problem here is a harder 
 one, for while the personal influence of mothers and 
 teachers is usually exercised in the interests of good
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 31 
 
 school government, that of school children's cliques 
 is often directly adverse to it. Sometimes the fervid 
 devotion is to a single chum or to a trio or quartet. 
 In any case, the problem is not to do away with the 
 relationship which has captured the child's inherent 
 capacity for devotion, but to transform its personal 
 influence into a wholesome and healthful one. Pres- 
 ident Diaz, organizing his efficient rurales from the 
 idle desperadoes of his Mexican cities; Mr. George, 
 teaching the waifs of New York City to be good citizens 
 at Freeville; Sir George Baden-Powell with his Boy 
 Scouts all have recognized the instinctive nature 
 of crowd-loyalty and its possibilities. To substitute 
 in the clique interests and ideals that shall be construc- 
 tive and not destructive is often a really Herculean 
 task, for it amounts to remaking a whole set of social 
 ideas. It often involves the education of the parents 
 and the community as well as the group of children 
 directly involved. 
 
 In the high school the situation is always a com- Intlie 
 plicated one. To the old loyalties to teachers and ^gh school 
 cliques are added new ones to any number of organi- 
 zations, to chums and sweethearts, and even to adored 
 authors, public characters, and "causes." To make 
 these varied allegiances and influences potent for good 
 school government is a complicated task, the more so 
 because adolescence is inclined to be reticent with 
 regard to the influences which are at the time most 
 powerful. Some personal influences are so harmful 
 that no ingenuity can devise a means of turning them 
 to good account. They must simply be inhibited if 
 possible. Others, long regarded as evil, are now
 
 32 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 coming to be recognized as natural and good, but 
 needing direction and training. 
 
 But for practical purposes, that influence which 
 still remains in the high school of most use to the 
 teachers in securing good order, is the teacher's own, 
 consciously and unconsciously exercised. The beauti- 
 ful idealism of youth, that sees so often in a teacher 
 the inspiring personality which it is a joy to follow, 
 lends itself with equal pleasure to the joy of pleasing 
 so charming a mentor. Thousands of boys and girls 
 in American high schools meet for the first time in a 
 teacher a person of refinement, of intellectual leader- 
 ship, even of attractive personal appearance. These 
 qualities open to the eager search of youth a new world 
 of beauty and worth, and the directing deity has but 
 to point the way and the enamored discoverer follows. 
 Even where poverty and ignorance do not give so 
 pathetic a background to these personal enthusiasms 
 of pupils for teachers, they are among the strongest 
 of all influences upon adolescents. 
 
 An example The writer recalls one gracious white-haired lady, 
 for years principal of the high school in a town of the 
 Middle West, whose personal influence over two gener- 
 ations of boys and girls unquestionably did more than 
 anything else, not only to fix standards of conduct in 
 the high school, but to sound the social keynote of 
 that town. Her ideas of good taste, courtesy, and 
 honor moulded the public opinion and the customs of 
 her high school to such an extent, that during her 
 regime there was never any serious trouble on account 
 of disorder. She failed, however, just where a teacher 
 of strong personality is liable to fail in generaliza-
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 33 
 
 tion. The younger, less experienced, and less in- 
 fluential principals who succeeded her had a most 
 unhappy experience with a set of young people who 
 had been been kept too strictly in moral leading strings. 
 Without the strong and wise personal guidance and con- 
 trol to which they were used, they "ran wild." Appeal 
 to school loyalty was useless; no such sentiment 
 existed. They had been brought up, first by their 
 parents, then by the principal herself, in the nurture 
 and admonition of a personal loyalty to a woman whose 
 word was admittedly final. No person new to the 
 community could possibly have had her personal hold 
 upon pupils and parents. Two principals failed in 
 that high school before a man was found with suffi- 
 cient personal charm to manage things in the accus- 
 tomed way. At present the school is on its old footing, 
 with a calm and unruffled exterior, and with an inner 
 life fully as free from the disturbing commotion of 
 growth. When the fortuitous circumstance of a prin- 
 cipal with a winning personality is no longer respon- 
 sible for its smooth-running, the school will "go to 
 pieces" again. Its peace and order and industry are 
 founded upon no stable principle, its students base 
 their law-abiding on no conscious loyalty to an insti- 
 tution or to the will of society at large, which made 
 the institution. 
 
 To effect the transfer of allegiance from the teacher 
 to the comparatively abstract conception of the good 
 of the school, or even to the pupil's own future, is no 
 easy process. It is, moreover, one requiring some 
 self-abnegation. It involves a very old kind of sacri- 
 fice, in which individual preeminence is given up to an
 
 34 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 ultimate social gain. And it is a sad fact that teachers 
 are found in our schools who deliberately and selfishly 
 cultivate personal devotion in their pupils, making no 
 effort whatever to divert it from themselves to more 
 general channels. 1 
 
 The period of adolescence is one which especially 
 demands wise personal guidance. "To neglect the 
 child at this time," said Plutarch long ago, "unbars 
 the doors to vice." Sympathy and encouragement, 
 restraint and guidance, must be offered tactfully and 
 administered skillfully. Boys need men teachers of 
 good sense and honor; girls require women teachers 
 who understand them, and who are personally attrac- 
 tive enough to win their confidence. One sincere 
 friendship for a wise teacher, emotionalized by admira- 
 tion to the point where the approval of the beloved 
 guide is worth every effort, will do more to establish 
 good habits and inspire high ideals than all the lectures, 
 self-government schemes, good literature, and speech- 
 making that the best high school can give. 
 
 1 This remark applies only to personal devotion functioning as a 
 motive in promoting right conduct in school. Of course there can 
 be no possible condemnation for the closest personal friendship 
 between teachers and pupils.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT (Continued) 
 
 IV. THE MODE OF WHOLESOME REPLETION 
 
 IT is said of General Arney, a leader in the move- Theimpene- 
 ment for the relief of Kansas in the '50*3, and later J5Sn f 
 governor of Oklahoma, that he could write two letters 
 simultaneously, one with each hand, and carry on an 
 animated conversation at the same time. Such in- 
 stances of the division of attention always arouse 
 incredulity before, and wondering admiration after, 
 their verification. They occur rarely, even among the 
 most gifted and versatile thinkers. Young children, 
 as well as the great majority of adults, can give atten- 
 tion to but one thing at a time. The attention of 
 children is easily diverted, and the rapidity with which 
 it changes may give a false appearance of its simultane- 
 ous direction toward several different interests. But 
 stimuli act in succession, and the constant choice 
 between them gives to the judgment its greatest exer- 
 cise and means of development. 
 
 This incompatibility of directed attentions, which Theimpene- 
 may be called to borrow a term from Physics the Merest ^ 
 Impenetrability of Attention, gives rise to the corollary 
 of the Impenetrability of Interest. One interest at 
 a time holds the exclusive attention of the simple, 
 directly-working mind of a child. To train the child
 
 36 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 so that these periods of exclusive attention shall be 
 long enough to give appreciable results, is one of the 
 chief aims of imposed disciplinary activities. But the 
 initial and fundamental condition is not the result of 
 training; it is an inherent psychological characteristic. 
 It gives to the teacher of children one of the principal 
 means cf directing the development of good habits, 
 since it is possible to make desirable stimuli so obvious 
 that attention must perforce respond, to the exclusion 
 of those stimuli which have been made as unobtrusive 
 as possible. Since the child can give attention to but one 
 thing at a time, the prominence given to stimuli to whole- 
 some action tends to inhibit response to unwholesome 
 stimuli. This law lies at the root of the third great 
 mode of school government, that which, for want of a 
 better term, we are calling the mode of Wholesome 
 Repletion. 1 It is that method of control and develop- 
 ment which seeks to kill unhealthful and destructive 
 tendencies by disuse; to crowd out the bad by the good, 
 until habit and taste are so fixed that those stimuli 
 that might once have excited a ready response have no 
 effect. 
 " Busy- Concrete examples of this mode of government are 
 
 work " as a 
 
 help to without number. They include all the devices em- 
 good order ployed f rom time immemorial to keep children out of 
 mischief. The "busy- work" of the primary grades, 
 which really affords a variety of positive and desirable 
 training for hand and brain, confesses in its name its 
 aim and origin, which is the purely negative one of 
 employing attention during the intervals between 
 
 1 The inaccuracy of the term is granted, but its application to 
 the mode described is too close to be sacrificed.
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 37 
 
 concentration on lessons. Busy-work may defeat its 
 own purpose, and become a hindrance rather than 
 an aid to good order, under certain conditions: 
 
 1. It is not helpful if it lacks an essential intrinsic 
 appeal that is stronger than the always ready stimuli 
 to voluntary attention. It must be interesting. 
 Bright colors, beautiful texture, the reasonableness of 
 the task or problem, the challenge to successful imita- 
 tion, the desire of making a present to mother or some 
 other dear one these are some of the characteristics 
 or incentives that give interest to busy-work. The 
 appeal must be simple, direct, and strong to compete 
 successfully with the call of schoolroom fun, the con- 
 stant play of surrounding movement and event, that 
 appeal to a child to give his attention to the life about 
 him. 
 
 2. It must be changed frequently, lest attention, 
 jaded by too long application, recoil so far as not 
 willingly or easily to be brought back. 
 
 3. It must be quiet and orderly, or it causes more 
 confusion than it cures. Teachers have been known 
 to employ children not engaged in lessons by having 
 them clean blackboards, sort pencils, or distribute 
 materials. The movement and noise disturb others 
 who are trying to concentrate on lessons. 
 
 Any motive which gives an intrinsic interest to the Motivation 
 regular school tasks tends to direct a degree of atten- 
 tion to them which excludes illegitimate interests, 
 Therefore all devices and varieties of motivation are 
 properly classed with the methods of the mode of 
 Wholesome Repletion. The vividness given to school 
 studies by thorough equipment and the best methods
 
 38 
 
 of presentation gives a pleasant connotation to the real 
 work of the school, which tends to outvalue the call of 
 fun and mischief. 
 
 THE MODE OF WHOLESOME REPLETION IN THE 
 HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 The character of the school as a preparatory institu- 
 tion becomes less pronounced as the possibilities of its 
 preparatory function unfold. That is to say, as we 
 realize how various and how efficient its training may 
 be, that training acquires more and more of intrinsic 
 interest, and the life of the high school gains an im- 
 portance entirely aside from its value as preparation. 
 The preparation is more, not less efficient than formerly, 
 but the immediate value and pleasure of its activities 
 eclipse their final purpose in the minds of the students. 
 The high school is a place wherein people live, not an 
 ante-chamber and waiting-room to life. As its life 
 becomes richer, more complicated, more and more a 
 replica of the great life beyond and outside it, organiza- 
 tions devoted to the cultivation of specific interests 
 spring up within it. Literary societies, athletic asso- 
 ciations, class teams and school teams in tennis, de- 
 bating, rowing, clubs for everything from Browning to 
 folk-dancing, and even secret societies that imitate the 
 Greek-letter fraternities of college life, have followed 
 the introduction of a broader spirit and an enlarged 
 curriculum into the secondary school. 
 TWO kinds The tendency to organization is of two kinds. There 
 are children who, left to themselves, organize as nat- 
 urally as they breathe; and there are others who 
 require as definite a tutoring in this art as in reading
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 39 
 
 and writing. The spontaneous type of organization 
 expends its energy largely in the fascinating business 
 of exclusion; it is negative rather than positive, and 
 gives us the gang and the clique, with rites and secrets 
 and an exaggerated personal loyalty to members. On 
 the other hand, positive and constructive organization 
 among young people is almost wholly imitative. Much 
 of the great value of high school organization lies in 
 the opportunity of teachers to supervise and direct. 
 Here teachers may come into close personal contact 
 with pupils upon the common ground of voluntary 
 interests; and through the medium of those interests 
 exert an influence impossible to the more formal pur- 
 suits of the classroom. 
 
 A certain small proportion of high school students The 
 find in lessons alone an absorbing interest. These adolescence 
 students these "digs" who would rather make a 
 star recitation than take a city are rarely disposed 
 to give any trouble to teachers. Their moral digres- 
 sions, like their numbers, are negligible. But the 
 great majority of high school boys and girls regard 
 the curriculum as a necessary excuse for a variety of 
 delightful relations and pursuits, which appeal per se 
 to their imagination and love of action. The motives 
 for study are often remote and artificial, accepted on 
 faith as presented by parents, teachers, and long 
 established custom. Even where they are real, they 
 appeal rather to a cold-blooded self-interest than to 
 any immediate need or wish. But athletics and social 
 affairs and fascinating arts like photography have a 
 direct appeal. A hundred new things beckon to the 
 aroused spirit of youth; a hundred voices call, all
 
 40 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 strange and sweet, and youth will answer to the most 
 insistent. If free choice be given among as many special 
 activities as the size and equipment of the school permit, 
 and then freedom to divert into the channel of these special 
 interests all the energy remaining from the thorough 
 performance of regular school duties, there will be left 
 little of youthful spirits to be kept from evil. 
 
 With all its possibilities, this mode of control requires 
 very careful planning and still more careful manage- 
 ment. Under careless or tactless supervision it may 
 produce disastrous results. Here are some reasons for 
 its failure, partial or complete, in some high schools 
 where it has been tried and found inadequate or un- 
 satisfactory: 
 
 Why high i. Inexperienced children and youths are permitted 
 organiza- to organize and manage their extra-curricular activities 
 tions fail without close and wise supervision. 
 
 2. There is an absence of the strict rule that only 
 those who are carrying their studies satisfactorily can 
 engage in athletics or other special activities; or the 
 rule is not conscientiously enforced. Consequently 
 these secondary recreative activities come to take 
 first place, and scholarship suffers. 
 
 3. Students do not have freedom to turn their atten- 
 tion immediately to recreative activities, upon finishing 
 their regular tasks. This flaw in management is 
 responsible for more of failure, perhaps, than any 
 other one thing. If John, finishing his Latin, has 
 permission to leave the room at once and go to the 
 gymnasium, where he is in training for an indoor meet, 
 he will work hard, leave the assembly room quietly, 
 and disturb no one. If Louise, having written and
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 41 
 
 copied her theme, is free to go to the rest-room and 
 embroider the front of her new blouse, she will not 
 spend her spare time in writing notes to the other girls, 
 who have not finished their themes yet but who do 
 not object to interruption. John and Louise have not 
 only aided in upholding schoolroom order, but they 
 have had a motive for learning to work with concentra- 
 tion and energy. The iron-bound rule of "No passing 
 between classes" probably lessens confusion in the 
 halls to promote it in the assembly-room. 
 
 4. Some high school clubs do not offer open member- 
 ship to all who can qualify. It destroys the democracy 
 of the high school to allow young people to elect or 
 reject members. It encourages snobbishness by giving 
 full play to the often blundering judgment of youth. 
 A posted statement of the membership qualifications, 
 dues, and duties of each high school society or team, 
 with limited membership decided by supervised com- 
 petition, seems the fairest and best way of controlling 
 membership. The natural tendency of human beings 
 to flock in congenial cliques, with a penal system by 
 which offending members are denied privileges, may 
 be depended upon to keep the membership fairly 
 homogeneous and friendly. 
 
 Without entering into an extended discussion of 
 them, a word may be said here about high school nigh school 
 secret societies. They exist with no thought of the sec f e * 
 
 J societies 
 
 good of all the school, nor do they answer any real 
 need of high school pupils that can not better be 
 met in other ways. It is true that they do absorb 
 practically all the time of their members that is not 
 spent in school work, and that by setting up a distinct
 
 42 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 line of cleavage between Greeks and "barbs," they 
 may even lessen the tendency to schoolroom disorder. 
 It is usually true that members of high school Greek- 
 letter societies do not indulge in the foolish tricks and 
 pranks to which other students are given; their absurd 
 imitation of their elders extends to premature sophisti- 
 cation that scorns all childish things. Their mischie- 
 vous instincts are expended in ways far more injurious 
 to them, and far harder for school authorities and 
 parents to combat. 
 
 They can The intrinsic evil of the high school fraternity lies 
 not be partly in the impossibility of its effective supervision. 
 
 regulated ^ r , 
 
 Left to themselves, its members are pretty sure to adopt 
 the superficial hall-marks of the more spectacular of 
 the college models; the real objects, like the real need, 
 of the college fraternity do not enter into their con- 
 sciousness. As an aid to good order and a good spirit 
 in the school, the secret society has shown itself a 
 clear failure, both with regard to its own members 
 and to outsiders. Where they do not exist, teachers 
 will do well to allow them no foothold; where they 
 are to be found, the problem of their management or 
 expulsion must be dealt with as local conditions indicate. 
 The end Fortunately a growing public sentiment against 
 
 insight them presages their extinction at no very distant 
 date, even without the united influence of the college 
 fraternities and sororities, which is now directed 
 against them. This attitude of the college societies 
 will probably accomplish what all the arguments of 
 good sense and expediency have not been able to effect, 
 and the next few years will see the end of the fraternity 
 obsession among high school boys and girls. The
 
 43 
 
 evil of caste consciousness, however, which is the 
 backbone of such societies, will remain when this 
 especial manifestation is done away, unless care is 
 taken to build up healthy ideals of school equality and 
 courtesy. 
 
 The social organizations in any high school should utilizing 
 be answers to a real need, growing out of that need and interests of 
 
 of the consciousness that the school authorities stand Wg ^ 8ch o1 
 
 students 
 
 ready to sanction and foster whatever is for the real 
 pleasure and benefit of the students. Existing in- 
 terests, wholesome in nature and effect, when extensive 
 enough to warrant it, should be able to effect organiza- 
 tion with the hearty cooperation of the faculty. It is 
 a foolish waste of energy and time to try to effect 
 organizations to create interests. These were better 
 developed quietly by individual effort of teachers and 
 students, until enough pupils are really interested to 
 demand a club or committee or team. 
 
 Any activity flourishes better under the care of a interest, 
 regularly organized body than when left to the hit- ^sodS* 
 or-miss direction of a group of irresponsible people, organization 
 however, and when enough people to form a club have 
 become actively interested in it, it is best to organize. 
 Organization is usually the least of the anxieties of 
 teachers who want to improve school spirit and be- 
 havior by wholesome occupation of time and attention. 
 The more difficult part of the process is the arousing 
 of the initial interest that warrants organization. Un- 
 failing tact, energy, and enthusiasm are needed for the 
 task of creating new channels for youth's "long, long 
 thoughts," and redirecting into these more wholesome 
 ways energies that are being spent to no good purpose.
 
 44 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Establishing The first step is to find where the interests of students 
 lie. In many rural communities and small towns 
 there seems to be a lack of adequate activities, and the 
 young people exist in a semi-comatose state, deterred 
 from actual mischief by Puritanic tradition, but equally 
 inactive along the line of the healthy enterprises that 
 they should be carrying on. In larger places the 
 activities of adolescence have often been badly directed, 
 perhaps by those who profit by commercializing 
 entertainment. Here they need redirection, while in 
 the case of country children they must be created or 
 at least stimulated. Some organization is often 
 necessary even in the first stages of establishing a 
 new enterprise, as for instance in starting the game of 
 tennis where it has not been played before. A division 
 into teams is a device that arouses the interest that 
 comes from emulation. But this initial organization 
 is an imposed one, to merge after a time into a more 
 thorough one suggested by the students when their 
 interest has been deepened by pleasurable experience. 
 That is to say, it is useless to attempt to base this 
 mode of control upon artificial interests; they must 
 be genuine and intrinsic or any good results obtained 
 through the charm of novelty will soon pass away, 
 proving the waste of time and effort involved. 
 
 Nature of Being satisfied, then, that there exists enough in- 
 terest to justify an organization, the question of its 
 nature and form is next to be decided. Three require- 
 ments for students' societies need constantly to be 
 kept in mind: 
 They must be democratic. 
 They must be effective.
 
 45 
 
 They must be so managed as to keep the auxiliary 
 interests of the school subordinate to its main 
 purpose. 
 
 The first of these conditions is fulfilled if the member- Regulating 
 ship of a society be open to all who have met the m embership 
 entrance requirements, decided upon by the faculty or 
 by faculty and members acting together. Scholarship 
 is the most important of these, for it is a regulation 
 that appeals to the common sense of everyone that no 
 student should be permitted to engage in extra-curri- 
 cular activities unless he have carried his regular 
 studies. In some schools the further qualification of 
 congeniality is so highly valued that members are 
 given the right to blackball an applicant in certain 
 clubs without giving any reason for their action. 
 This is a practice to be discouraged, for it leads almost 
 inevitably to snobbishness and the growth of foolish 
 prejudices. Members may be given the right to 
 blackball an applicant in certain clubs, providing the 
 members are willing to give the reason for their action 
 to their faculty adviser. In a majority of cases even 
 this privilege were better withheld, especially in the 
 large athletic and literary organizations. For similar 
 reasons, it is better not to allow high school societies 
 to extend invitations to membership, except where 
 such invitations are directly contingent upon the 
 attaining of high rank in some subject, or the render- 
 ing of signal service to the school, when they become 
 honors that are open to all. The knowledge that any 
 society in the school is open to any student who can 
 satisfy the requirements of scholarship and of the 
 special ability needed, is a valuable spur to effort and
 
 4 6 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Effective- 
 ness 
 
 Keeping 
 them " in 
 their place" 
 
 an assurance of a healthy democratic spirit in the 
 school. 
 
 The second necessity, that of effectiveness, is not so 
 easily disposed of. A good general rule for those who 
 are treading new ground is to keep the first organiza- 
 tion very simple, appointing or electing officers for 
 whom there is real work to be done, and carefully adapt- 
 ing the usual functions of such officers to the present 
 needs. Similar societies in other schools offer good 
 suggestions, but should not be copied slavishly, since 
 the initiative and persistence of students differ so 
 widely. Small administrative bodies, of course, are 
 the most effective; but on the other hand, the success 
 of young people's societies depends so largely upon 
 giving all something to do, that a large number of 
 officers and committees are usually included in the 
 management. Standards of efficiency, established care- 
 fully at the beginning, with provision for the dismissal 
 of trouble-making or lazy officers, are precautions 
 which it is wise to adopt. 
 
 The maintenance of the third requirement depends 
 upon the vigilance of the teachers. If checked at 
 regular intervals, and if methods are provided by which 
 students who fall below a fair standard are deprived 
 for a time of their special privileges, or even of active 
 membership in the societies to which they belong, 
 scholarship by which is meant here a fair degree of 
 accomplishment in studies may easily be kept in 
 its proper place as the leading interest in the school. 
 The machinery by which students are reinstated when 
 neglected work has been made up, should be as prompt 
 and sure in its workings as that by which they are
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 47 
 
 shut out of these activities when they fail to meet 
 requirements. A very large part of the trouble and 
 delinquency caused by overdone athletics and social 
 affairs, could be prevented by quicker and surer means 
 of controlling participation. Every school in which 
 there are several societies and athletic teams should 
 have sets of blank permissions and suspensions, to 
 faciliate this process of adjustment of privilege to 
 standing in classes. 
 
 The special interests utilized for social development The 
 in high schools are almost without number, but they in * e . rests 
 
 J utilized 
 
 fall easily into a few loosely defined classes. There 
 are those which are purely athletic, musical, literary, 
 or forensic. There are recreational clubs based upon 
 physical exercises of various kinds dancing, includ- 
 ing the folk-dancing so deservedly popular, tennis, 
 boating, "hiking," and camping. Added to these are 
 the clubs organized to encourage the dilettantism of 
 students: the camera clubs, the wireless circles, the 
 foreign language conversation meetings, societies for 
 the study of plays, pictures, and politics, travel clubs, 
 and social settlement associations, or other altruistic 
 efforts. Lastly, there are the purely social organiza- 
 tions, which are of two kinds: those which are elastic 
 and democratic in membership, and those which 
 gratify the tendency to exalt exclusiveness by organ- 
 izing it. The democratic sort of social activity may 
 be fostered best as a natural accompaniment to other 
 interests by permitting, for instance, each high 
 school organization to give one party, properly super- 
 vised and chaperoned, each year or each semester. 
 The second kind of organization leads to the fraternity
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Adminis 
 
 tration 
 
 Reports 
 
 or sorority, to whose evils reference has already been 
 made. 
 
 It is necessary that there be constant and friendly 
 supervision of all high school organizations. To this 
 end each one should have its faculty adviser, who is 
 expected to attend all meetings, and is responsible for 
 the measures and actions of the society. He may be 
 elected by the members or appointed by the principal. 
 To prevent any shadow of scandal in money matters, 
 there should be an auditing committee with at least 
 one faculty member, to go over the books of each enter- 
 prise, preferably twice a year. In some schools all the 
 societies put their funds into the hands of a faculty 
 treasurer, who looks after the finances of the different 
 organizations as part of his regular work. 1 
 
 A custom which lays emphasis upon earnest aims is 
 that of requiring each student enterprise to submit to 
 the school at least once a year a report of work accom- 
 plished. This puts a premium upon industry, encour- 
 ages the carrying out of a definite program, and exposes 
 the comparative fruitlessness of the purely social 
 organizations. It gives prominence to the incentive 
 of service. The school orchestra receives recognition 
 for its helpfulness in furnishing music for entertain- 
 ments, the glee club and the debating teams and the 
 cooking club see their work reviewed with fitting 
 acknowledgment. 
 
 1 This is the plan followed in the McKinley High School of St 
 Louis, which has a large number of student organizations.
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 49 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MODE OF WHOLESOME 
 REPLETION 
 
 The psychological explanation of the success of this 
 mode, expecially in the high school, is that of youth's 
 response to a set of especially attractive stimuli, which 
 flatter newly-awakened ambitions and emotions. The 
 response of youth to the call of responsibility, whether 
 confident or timid, gives a new consciousness of dignity 
 and worth. Many will bear witness to the reforms 
 that followed making a bad boy monitor of his row, 
 or captain of his team, or leader in a debate. 
 
 Similarly, the appeal of rite and ceremony is very ceremony 
 strong. The instinct for complete and perfect form, 
 for effective symbolism, and for beauty all unite to 
 make young people delight in the picturesque and the 
 formal. Social ceremony, which bores older people, 
 is to them a new and fascinating kind of amusement. 
 Pageants and tableaux delight them. 
 
 The play's the thing. 
 
 With the development of the reasoning powers that intellectual 
 comes with adolescence, there springs up in the minds s 
 of some young people a growing pleasure in their exer- 
 cise. To such students geometry and physics offer 
 realms well worth exploring, and debating is a battle 
 royal with big prizes at stake. The keen joy of solving 
 and proving a hard problem is not unlike that of the 
 skater who cuts a perfect 8 upon the ice; one has made 
 the ends of thought meet in a faultless line, through 
 the magic of a well-mastered art. 
 
 The joy of thinking is a revelation; the possibilities 
 of thought startle the imagination. To such students,
 
 50 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 a wise teacher gives the greatest books he knows, 
 realizing that it is almost impossible to overestimate 
 the capacity for thought in an intellect so awakened. 
 The brain is eager for work, the mind hungry for food, 
 and a new consciousness of the meaningful world 
 that lies about, translates, illustrates, and questions 
 the words of books. That teacher does well, who, 
 finding a boy who likes Emerson, gives him Kant; 
 who introduces the lover of Shakespeare to Euripides. 
 To know greatness will not turn a healthy boy into a 
 mollycoddle, owing to the fact that incongruities do 
 not worry us in youth as in maturer years. "Consist- 
 ency is the hobgoblin of little minds" and of grown 
 people. The boy who has just been discussing the 
 theories of Mendel or the art of Sir Joshua is liable to 
 turn around to shoot a paper wad at Washington's 
 plaster nose, without any care for the incongruity of 
 his transfer of interest. Nevertheless, the free use of 
 intellectual stimuli, the engaging of busy brains in 
 big thoughts, does crowd out petty pleasures and silly 
 occupations, and simplifies the problem of school-room 
 order. 
 Emotional But while a few students in every school are affected 
 
 stimuli . .1-11 t 11 
 
 by strictly intellectual stimuli, all respond in greater 
 or less degree to emotional ones. It is the emotional 
 element in any study that gives it life, interest, appli- 
 cation. History and literature are the two studies 
 most rich in this content; civics, geography, compo- 
 sition, and languages may be taught in a way to make 
 their emotional worth felt. The beauty and mystery 
 of personal relationships, of religious aspirations, and 
 of the life of the great world, are open now to the com-
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 51 
 
 prehension of these growing boys and girls. They 
 acquire the new knowledge frankly or secretly, rev- 
 erently or flippantly, carefully or indifferently, accord- 
 ing to their different dispositions and training. But 
 their response to the emotional side of life, whatever 
 their attitude toward it, is bound to influence their 
 choice of interests, good or bad. It sends them to 
 the best lectures and the worst picture-shows. It 
 is the fundamental motive for a hundred things that 
 look unemotional enough. The successful appeal of 
 wholesome recreations, as of lessons themselves, de- 
 pends largely upon the amount of this element that 
 can be infused into the activity in question. 
 
 A new emphasis on practical preparation for wage- Ambition 
 earning is changing what has been an important extra- 
 curricular feature in some schools, into a chief end and 
 aim. This is that class of subjects of which the aim 
 is to teach an art or a trade, or to help in the choice of 
 a vocation. Making a strong appeal to ambition, 
 these subjects have much influence, especially upon 
 the older boys and girls, who are looking forward 
 definitely to the life that lies beyond the school. It 
 has led to the formation of high school clubs for the 
 study of telegraphy, photography, sewing, cooking, 
 millinery, ceramics, and cabinet-making. 
 
 Association with one another tends to strengthen 
 the hopes and define the plans of boys and girls who 
 have similar ambitions. The existence of a club for 
 the study of any art or science, moreover, calls atten- 
 tion to it, and may be instrumental in "placing" 
 some children in congenial employments, who other- 
 wise would drift aimlessly or take up an occupation
 
 52 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 in which they would be doomed to constant discontent. 
 There is inspiration in the very atmosphere of a school 
 in which a majority of the students are vitally inter- 
 ested in some hobby or specialty. There is much of 
 that friendly clash of championship which sharpens 
 wits and strengthens self-confidence. 
 
 Most important of all, there is in the high school in 
 which many clubs and societies exist, a chance for 
 leadership for all. Domination is demoralizing when 
 it is exercised by an immature youth, but wholesome 
 leadership develops confidence, the sense of responsi- 
 bility, ingenuity, tact, firmness, and patience. There 
 is a chance for various talents to work out for public 
 good, in the multiform activities of a well-clubbed 
 high school. Even the shyest may be entrusted with 
 the chairmanship of a committee or the preparation 
 of a program, or set to keeping records or taught 
 to preside over a meeting. Practically everyone else 
 is doing something of the sort, which is logical proof to 
 almost any child that he may do likewise. Super- 
 vision will eliminate dangers, and every success gained 
 is an encouragement to new efforts. The ambition 
 aroused reacts to give new personal dignity and re- 
 sponsiveness, which in their turn inhibit childish ten- 
 dencies to bad order or to sheer frivolity. Thus this 
 phase of the new order of school activities helps in the 
 solution of the old, old problem of school discipline.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT (Continued) 
 
 V. THE MODE OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 THE story of civilization is the record of the devel- Making the 
 opment of man's social consciousness. As successively Ration 
 larger groups have supplanted the individual, in man's conscious 
 long struggle for existence and for abundance, more 
 economical and beneficial ways of living, finer emotions, 
 and bigger-planned enterprises have grown. Follow- 
 ing the history of the race, each child born into the 
 world may pass from a stage in which its own wants 
 bound all the stimuli to action, to the highest pinnacle 
 of unselfish effort for all society. From the standpoint 
 of ethical training and of social efficiency, the most 
 important function of the school is the part it plays 
 in making the child's social relations plain to him. 
 But within the general end of clarifying to him his 
 relations to the whole social body, and awakening a 
 desire to serve that body, there is a consonant and con- 
 tributing specific aim, which serves the immediate 
 purpose of securing good school government. This 
 is the aim of establishing a definite consciousness of 
 each pupil's place in the organic body of the school, 
 that social institution in which, after the family, he 
 is most deeply and naturally interested. This estab- 
 lishing of social consciousness has begun, for the family
 
 54 
 
 relation, long before the first day of the first grade; 
 but as there is as yet no abstract conception to aid 
 in carrying it over into a new sphere, the work must 
 be freshly started for the new relation when the kinder- 
 garten or primary school begins. The process is pro- 
 gressive, variable, and unending. It goes on daily 
 at every stage of formal education. All moral effort 
 since schools began has consciously or unconsciously 
 been directed toward its development. Its establish- 
 ment is the fundamental condition for the mode of 
 self-government under direction, which is the ideal 
 sought. 
 
 Rewards of With this progressive clarification of social relations, 
 social 1 tne resu lts of conduct agreeing with, or antagonistic 
 conduct to, those relations, must be taught. In the school- 
 room, concrete illustrations of the gains and losses 
 of social and unsocial conduct are numerous. The 
 teacher's great work is to call attention to them. 
 When we do not whisper, the room is quiet, and we 
 learn our lessons more quickly; then we all have more 
 time for outdoor play, and home work is lessened or 
 eliminated. When we have our own drinking cups, 
 there is small chance of contagion from drinking; 
 and with a regular and full attendance we may easily 
 give a concert or a play that could not otherwise be 
 produced. Such statements of cause and effect seem 
 so obvious to most grown people, that they feel a sense 
 of foolish triteness in carefully recounting them to the 
 children in their care. But they are really new knowl- 
 edge at some point in the training of each child, and the 
 risk of being bromidic is not to be compared to the risk 
 of failing to establish that habit of thought or that
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 55 
 
 useful set of easily-recalled platitudes, that passes for 
 a habit of thought which will insure in even the most 
 self -centered a thrifty social spirit. 
 
 The fostering care of the teacher should work through The results 
 his social organization to the individual, as well as for conduct" 81 
 the social organization through the individual. This 
 is merely to say that the teacher must be a maker of 
 public opinion in his kingdom. Several conventional 
 understandings are necessary: that people have a 
 right to show their disapproval of behavior that in- 
 terferes with their happiness or usefulness; that it is 
 the duty of the properly selected officers of society to Four great 
 punish wrongdoers; that people who want the greatest pnnciples 
 good to the greatest numbers are bound to help these 
 authorities to find and punish offenders; and that 
 isolation (denial of the advantages that come from 
 social cooperation) is a fit reward for the human being 
 who abuses his social privileges. 
 
 These four ideas, which once established will give 
 the support of public opinion to any disciplinary meas- 
 ures a teacher may find it necessary to take, can be 
 taught best in the lower grades; and there is the place 
 where they should be thoroughly drilled into con- 
 sciousness. The third one is especially important 
 and especially difficult to teach, owing to the perverted 
 ideas of honor which have descended to us from our 
 ancestors, trained to loyalty to a limited group. These 
 medieval ideas seem to have found their last and most 
 stubborn stronghold in our public schools, where not 
 a few teachers aid and abet their perpetuation. Here 
 again the consciousness of the organic nature of society 
 is the fundamental need. We are all a part of the
 
 56 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 justice is judicial system, in some seen or unseen way; we are 
 business 8 a ^ vitally concerned in the punishment of wrong, in 
 the protection of our rights and our institutions. Our 
 own happiness and safety, consequently, are bound up 
 in its success, in ways usually untraceable, but some- 
 times so direct as to be apparent to the most thought- 
 less. Every boy and girl in the school is to some 
 extent responsible for its happiness, its order, its work. 
 The exercise of that responsibility, when occasion 
 demands, not only answers the immediate disciplinary 
 need, but tends also to develop character in a whole- 
 some way. 
 
 SPECIAL FORMS OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT FOUNDED 
 ON THE MODE OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 The ability to govern himself, to control his own 
 actions with the good of both himself and his fellows 
 in mind, is one of the ideals toward which the character- 
 building of pupils is to be directed. Little by little, 
 as they show themselves worthy of trust, the control 
 of authority is withdrawn and self-control takes its 
 place. There is much danger, in a society wherein 
 democratic ideals prevail, that self-management be 
 given before self-control has been gained. On the 
 other hand, to withhold the right of decision when 
 people are capable of exercising it intelligently is un- 
 just and foolish, fatal to development, productive of 
 discontent and violence. 
 
 Self-control What society has as a complicated problem, in 
 tne s ol ut i on of which it blunders pitifully but bravely 
 through every gradation of despotic repression and 
 democratic license, working, we may hope, finally to
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 57 
 
 a satisfactory end, the school, which is a little world, 
 the microcosm of society, has also as its problem of 
 the relative control of teacher and pupils. In an 
 ideal school system, in which ideal pupils work to the 
 highest end, each boy and girl at graduation would 
 be a citizen of the world, capable of taking upon him- 
 self all a citizen's responsibilities. Our aim is, then, 
 to bring each pupil as nearly as may be to the point 
 of full self-control and purely ethical conduct by the 
 time he is ready to leave the fostering of the school. 
 
 To aid in realizing this ideal, there have sprung up Purpose 
 during the last few years a number of systems of partial of pupa 
 
 * ( government 
 
 or complete pupil-government, by which the social 
 responsibilities of pupils may be brought to their atten- 
 tion, and practice given in their exercise. A consid- 
 eration of the wisdom of the use of such schemes is 
 given in a later chapter; at present, we shall consider 
 the four types into which all the self-governing schemes 
 now used may be divided. It will be noted that 
 most of them have two features in common: the at- 
 tempt to develop character through the imposing of 
 responsibility, and the teaching of civics through prac- 
 tice in the forms of government. In some, the latter 
 feature is kept strictly subservient to the main object, 
 which must always be that of increasing the spirit 
 of social loyalty and obligation. In other types, much 
 is made of the formal machinery which parallels that 
 of city or state. 
 
 Since responsibility comes both as a reward and as 
 a stimulant to worthy behavior, it is important that its 
 relation to each pupil's conduct be clearly understood 
 before teachers and pupils agree to live together under
 
 58 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 any formal scheme of so-called self-government. 
 Every plan which has, so far, proved successful, seems 
 to depend upon two things: thorough and continuous 
 preparation of the pupils by training in ethics, and the 
 guiding mind of some sane, powerful, and magnetic 
 leader. Given these two requisites, however, the 
 successful working of a school system is practically 
 assured without the imposition of an elaborate system 
 of pupil-government. Justice, kindness, and self- 
 realization through self-activity will prevail where 
 these two elements exist, as surely as in the most 
 elaborate school-city or school-state. It is largely 
 a question of the desirabliity of expending the neces- 
 sary time and energy usually a great deal. 
 Four pupy- There seem to be four methods, each capable of 
 types much modification, by which teachers may avail 
 
 themselves of the social instincts and ideals possessed 
 by their pupils, to impose on the pupils themselves 
 the responsibility of their own conduct, and at the 
 same time to teach them their responsibility for others, 
 hi relation to the general body. If we consider them 
 in the reverse order of their relative emphasis upon 
 the formal and spectacular phases of this mode of 
 government, the first type is that in which there is 
 practically no imitation of civic forms, but in which 
 the spirit of service to all is directed pretty thoroughly 
 by teachers. This is pupil cooperation with the modes 
 of control set up by the school authorities. There 
 may be a maximum of pupil responsibility here, but 
 the nature of that responsibility is defined by those 
 older than the pupils. It lacks the powerful stimulus 
 of decision-making vested in the school body. Per-
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 59 
 
 sonal accountability is made much of; high ideals 
 of honor in teachers and pupils are essential. A 
 faculty of fine feeling and great dignity and power 
 is the most helpful factor in making this mode a suc- 
 cess, for unity of feeling and unusual personal influence 
 must take the place of prescribed machinery. There 
 is a strong loyalty between students and faculty, and 
 a deal of popular devotion of both to the school. 
 
 Obviously, all this requires a condition of things 
 in general so nearly ideal that many principals despair 
 of realizing it, and turn rather to methods whose 
 greater novelty gives an initial impulse which carries 
 a long way to success. No specific examples of schools 
 thus managed need be given, for every well-managed 
 and successful school which emphasizes social obliga- 
 tion without adopting the special machinery of a 
 civic organization, is working under the plan of pupil 
 cooperation with the teaching force. It is simply 
 that method by which teachers and pupils work to- 
 gether in sympathetic understanding of their common 
 ends. 
 
 A very successful type of so-called self-government Formal 
 is that in which the pupils carry out the forms of civic 
 
 life under the direct control of the teachers. Some faculty 
 exercise of real judgment is allowed in the settlement 
 of the innumerable small matters that require constant 
 adjustment in every school, but always subject to 
 definite restrictions by the school authorities. The 
 system thus gives practice in the administration of 
 law, but no real legislative or judicial powers. As a 
 means of teaching civics, this scheme is usually very 
 successful, while it affords an opportunity for a sort
 
 60 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 of supervised habit-forming that is most valuable. 
 But it undoubtedly requires as much or more energy 
 on the part of teachers as a more direct form of govern- 
 ment would require, so that its chief value lies in the 
 habituation to forms of social conformity and the em- 
 phasis on a socialized attitude, which it brings about. 
 The An excellent example of this kind of supervised and 
 
 limited self-government is to be found in the Lagrange 
 School of Toledo, Ohio. Miss Brownlee, the former 
 principal, under whom the system was begun, says 
 of it: "It may be well to say that the Lagrange pupils 
 do not govern the school. The teachers believe they 
 are too lacking in experience and judgment to be self- 
 governing. The idea is to develop a spirit of coopera- 
 tion, to give them, so far as they are qualified, certain 
 duties to a faithful performance of which they are 
 rigidly held." Nevertheless, the school is thoroughly 
 organized as a school city, each room as a ward. The 
 four upper grades form the voting population, and 
 elections are held semi-annually. There is a mayor, 
 a sanitary chief, a treasurer, and a city clerk, with in- 
 spectors appointed by the sanitary chief, one for each 
 two wards. The council thus formed notes conditions 
 and reports to the principal, who communicates with 
 the teachers interested. 
 
 On the surface, this Lagrange plan looks very like 
 many other plans in which far more power is delegated 
 to the pupils. But it does not give the essential res- 
 ignation of power into the hands of the pupils, which 
 characterizes such schemes where self-government is 
 actual. Its successful working may largely be attrib- 
 uted, as Miss Brownlee says, to the fact that prin-
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 61 
 
 ciples of honor, self-control, kindness, and industry are 
 taught in that school systematically. 
 
 The sound principle of granting honors and respon- Actual 
 sibilities as a reward for good conduct and faithful P u P u -g v - 
 
 eminent as 
 
 service lies at the root of the Ray system, in use in the a privilege 
 John Crerar school in Chicago. 1 The system is used 
 in all the grades, the two tribunes being appointed in 
 the first two grades and elected in the rest. These 
 tribunes, who have much real authority, wear a badge, 
 and in many ways take the place of teachers. They 
 settle disputes, look after halls and courts, direct the 
 marching, listen to reports of offenses, take charge of 
 the room when the teacher is not present, and protect 
 the weak from imposition. All petty offenses are 
 carried to them, and only the more serious ones are 
 later referred to teachers. All the tribunes form a 
 council, which appoints administrative officers. 
 
 Not all the pupils are citizens in this little state. 
 Half or more of each room from the fifth grade upward, 
 as a reward for good scholarship and behavior, are 
 granted citizenship, which is forfeited upon misbe- 
 havior. Some are elected to citizenship, others are 
 appointed by teachers. They have the liberty of 
 the building, and may vote upon special questions that 
 arise. It will be noticed that this system sets up an 
 unusually powerful set of incentives to good conduct, 
 to which the stock objection to such incentives (that 
 they are artificial) can scarcely be urged. Sound 
 principles underlie the various provisions. 
 
 Finally, there is actual and universal pupil-go v- Actual seif- 
 ernment, usually modeled after municipal or state s ovtrnment 
 
 1 J. T. Ray, Democratic Government of Schools.
 
 62 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The city- 
 school type 
 
 A graded 
 system 
 
 forms. In these systems the final authority is not the 
 teaching body, but a set of rules which have been 
 fashioned by the pupils themselves. Naturally, much 
 teacher-influence goes into both the making and the 
 maintenance of such schemes, but nominally there is 
 a reign of law, administered by elected officers, inde- 
 pendent of pedagogic ruling. 
 
 A well-known example of the city-school type of 
 pupil mutual government is that organized at School 
 No. 3, Manhattan, New York City. The principle of 
 reward of merit has recognition here in the granting 
 of citizenship by charter to the upper four grades, and 
 to individual pupils in the fourth grade, for good 
 behavior. Disorder in the room endangers citizenship, 
 which may be revoked by the principal. Each room 
 is a borough, sending two aldermen to the Board, 
 which passes laws subject to the mayor's veto. The 
 mayor, popularly elected, conducts the morning as- 
 sembly and appoints the heads of the administrative 
 departments. These include a police department, 
 with a chief who appoints five squads, a health depart- 
 ment which inspects rooms and persons, a savings 
 department which conducts a school bank under the 
 direction of a teacher, and an educational department 
 to arrange for lectures and athletic events. There is 
 besides a court, having three elected judges, and a 
 jury if desired, with privilege of counsel. It tries 
 cases and administers punishment. A city attorney 
 and court clerk complete the list of officers. 
 
 In the State Normal School at New Paltz, New York, 
 there are three school cities, graded in respect of elab- 
 oration of detail to suit the abilities of students in
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 63 
 
 the normal, intermediate, and primary departments. 
 Here, among the older students, much is done to teach 
 political principles and practices. Conventions, elec- 
 tions, and inaugurations are held, and political parties, 
 the use of the recall, the initiative and referendum, 
 taxes, and proportional representation, add interest 
 and training value to the system. The administrative 
 departments attend to the fire drill and all needful 
 precautions, public works (including care of the flag, 
 the school garden, election booths, school entertain- 
 ments, and athletics,) health, and police service. 
 There is a sheriff with appointed deputies. The 
 faculty acts as a court of appeals, the principal pre- 
 siding. 1 
 
 In this special form of pupil-government, it will be 
 observed, there is opportunity for much dramatizing 
 of the work in civics. Dramatization is an especially 
 vivid method of presenting any subject, and its use 
 in a scheme for developing an ideal of self-control 
 may justify all the energy which goes into the building 
 up of these elaborate play-governments. 
 
 Another type of pupil-government is modeled after Thestate- 
 the state rather than the municipality. The best- sch o1 type 
 known example is the famous George Junior Republic 
 at Freeville, New York. This is a school for city 
 waifs, founded by Mr. William R. George. The 
 citizens during part of their time at this school, are 
 engaged in profitable work in field and workshop, by 
 which the school is partially supported. The boys 
 
 1 All the school cities together form a school state, with its 
 governor, legislature, and judiciary. For the charter of a school 
 city in full, see Bagley, Classroom Management, pp. 291 ff.
 
 64 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 elect a police force, executive officers, and a legislature, 
 which makes laws for the community. Law-enforce- 
 ment is strict and impartial, the penalties being very 
 real ones, such as detention in jail and the paying of 
 fines. The whole government, in fact, is far from being 
 a pretense; it exercises all the functions of a state. 
 Not a The boys in this institution, however, are boys whose 
 
 situation experiences have enabled them prematurely to assume 
 the responsibilities of men in almost every way. They 
 are the little men who have made their own way almost 
 from babyhood, and managed their own affairs from the 
 time they were able to walk. The trust imposed in 
 them, and the opportunities for exercising their abil- 
 ities in a wholesome way, appeal to the best in their 
 natures. The girls, who have their own round of 
 duties, are also girls from the city slums, to whom 
 trust and kindness are new and powerful elements 
 in the general scheme of things. The necessity of in- 
 dustry is a real one, as living expenses are paid from the 
 wages received for labor, furnished to all the citizens. 
 A special coinage, current only in the Republic, is used. 
 The laws are made by the legislature, and enforced 
 by the officers elected by the citizens. Mr. and 
 Mrs. George, while they were in charge at Freeport, 
 assisted with the inspection of work, and exercised 
 a kindly supervision of work and play. The school, 
 which has an attendance of 250 in summer, has been 
 instrumental in effecting the reform of a number of 
 its citizens. The power of Mr. George, back of the 
 authority of the government of the children themselves, 
 was of course unquestioned.
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 65 
 
 The adaptation of state government used in the High A workable 
 School at Warren, Pennsylvania, is probably more -^ sc 
 helpfully suggestive to the average school. 1 Pupil 
 government was adopted here in 1890, and is still 
 being used with satisfaction. All students are citizens, 
 the governing body being a senate, eligibility to which 
 depends upon good scholarship and deportment. Sena- 
 tors and faculty members report misdemeanors to the 
 principal, who in turn reports them to the senate. The 
 senate acts as a court, inflicting the lighter punish- 
 ments and making recommendations to the faculty in 
 the more serious cases. All offenses in connection with 
 examinations are dealt with by the faculty. Teachers, 
 however, do not belong to the governing board. 
 
 Other forms of actual student-government are not other types 
 modeled after the forms of either city or state organi- 
 zation. 
 
 At the Thirtieth Street Intermediate School, Los 
 Angeles, California, there are two committees, of boys 
 and girls respectively, who are held responsible for the 
 conduct of pupils while out of classrooms. These 
 committees are composed of representatives from class- 
 rooms, thus forming councils of boys and girls, which 
 discuss conditions and make rules. There is a presi- 
 dent for each council, also a vice-president and secre- 
 tary; these executives appoint from the membership 
 of the councils, yard, basement, and hall committees. 
 Each council has a judge elected by the whole school, 
 who hears cases affecting the common weal. 
 
 At the Polytechnic High School of the same city, 
 there exists an elaborate system (elaborate because of 
 1 C. H. Thurber, in School Review, vol. v, pp. 32-5.
 
 66 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 the large size and varied interests of the school) which 
 combines in an unusual degree the socializing elements 
 of the High School with a workable scheme of student 
 control. As in the Thirtieth Street School, the elected 
 representatives for boys and for girls manage affairs 
 in their respective spheres separately, a mode evi- 
 dently more in favor in the West than in the Eastern 
 and Middle states. The central committees are elected 
 as follows: One from the BQ, one from the Ag, and 
 two each from the Bio, Aio, Bn, An, Bi2, Ai2; and 
 one from the post-graduate classes. The president is 
 elected by the students in general and appoints as 
 active members of the committee elected by the various 
 classes, from five to eight more students who have 
 served previously on the committee, or who are recog- 
 nized as students who will be an addition to the 
 committee. 
 
 A committee Each of these central self-government committees is 
 divided into the following sub-committees: an execu- 
 tive committee, whose duty it is to meet once a week 
 and hear and judge cases of students who are referred 
 to it by members of the faculty or by students. They 
 have power to act in all cases, even to recommending 
 suspension to the principal. They keep a detention 
 room where students who have been sentenced to serve 
 hours are expected to remain. The president of the 
 self-government committee usually acts as chairman 
 of the executive committee. The yard committee 
 has charge of conditions in the yard during the noon 
 hour and all other free periods. The desk committee 
 has a student at the desk every hour of the day from 
 eight o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 67 
 
 to pass upon all cases of tardiness either to the building 
 or to recitation and to issue slips which admit to class- 
 rooms white slips for excused tardiness and blue 
 slips for unexcused and to keep a record of all 
 excuses. The building committee of three goes over the 
 building on an average of once a week and reports to 
 the office any writing or other defacement which should 
 be removed. The school bounds committee inter- 
 views students who are leaving the grounds, with a 
 view to the regulation of this privilege. 
 
 The entire self-government committee meets upon Articulation 
 call from the office to discuss questions of general school T^J*!' 
 interest. The members of this committee discuss authority 
 these questions with the boys in the different class- 
 rooms and at time of meeting on call from the office 
 give to the office the benefit of the discussion so 
 held. When decisions have been reached by the office 
 and self-government committee, the members again 
 discuss the matter with the different classrooms and 
 tell the students of the decisions reached. 
 
 The entire business of the school is under the manage- 
 ment of a board of control, composed of two teachers 
 and eight students, one from each class. A teacher 
 acts as treasurer, and a book-keeper is elected by the 
 board, whose president, vice-president, and secretary, 
 however, are elected by the students at large. Lunch- 
 room management, business management of athletics, 
 the business affairs of the school publications, and of 
 all school entertainments are directly under the control 
 of this body. All expenditures for the school except 
 the salaries and cost of repairs, and all moneys received 
 by the school, which during the year amount to between
 
 68 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars, must be 
 approved by this, board. 
 The The school clubs of all kinds are welded into a body 
 
 controlling . 
 
 committee capable of united action by the Associated Student 
 Body Organizations, to which the presidents belong, 
 and of which the principal is chief adviser. The senior 
 class elects the editor and manager of the school paper. 
 Members from each room, headed by a captain elected 
 by the school, compose the fire brigade, which con- 
 ducts the fire drills. The manager of the lunch room 
 is elected monthly by the board of control, while the 
 principal appoints a committee to aid in the recovery of 
 lost articles. The athletic committee consists of student 
 representatives from the board of control, scholarship 
 committee, and boys' self-government divisions, with 
 one appointed by the principal, and three teachers 
 elected by the faculty. An unusual feature is the 
 scholarship committee, made up of ten boys and ten 
 girls appointed by the faculty, grouped under two 
 chairmen elected by the students. Under the guid- 
 ance of this committee, able students help those who 
 need help, and deficient students are forced to give 
 extra time to their work until it is satisfactory. Weekly 
 reports must be made to the committee by failing 
 students until the work is made up. The committee 
 even directs that work shall be dropped when students 
 are overscheduled, and decides when failing students 
 shall be dismissed from school. This method of mutual 
 helpfulness and supervision has proved successful in 
 keeping the scholarship standard on a high plane, 
 through the activity of those whose approval means 
 most to the boys and girls their own schoolmates.
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 69 
 
 The foregoing outline of pupil-government schemes What is 
 shows the ways in which children may be organized 
 to promote their own administrative ability. What 
 the systems teach, however, is never so much self-gov- 
 ernment as the government of others. Such systems 
 develop an extraordinary degree of skill in manage- 
 ment, a maturity and quickness of judgment in children 
 which would scarcely have been thought possible a 
 generation ago. By finding work for all, moreover, 
 they doubtless prevent a great deal of the mischief 
 that springs from idleness; and by imposing responsi- 
 bility upon the more active pupils they hold them to a 
 loyalty to the system which turns their energies into 
 wholesome channels. There are, however, numberless 
 practical objections to such schemes, most of them 
 phases of the almost inevitably bad results of imposing 
 an essentially artificial condition upon any group of 
 people. The test of self-government lies not in the 
 ability to carry out an elaborate scheme, made pictur- 
 esque by the trappings of maturity, and appealingly 
 baited with honors and distinctions; but in doing daily 
 the real, fundamental work of school life, each pupil 
 frankly in his place as a learner, an apprentice still, 
 but gaining constantly the power to do the thing that 
 his teachers require, with less and less of their imme- 
 diate help. 
 
 The fact that these plans for utilizing the social con- 
 sciousness of students do not involve real self-govern- 
 ment to any great extent, however, is not in itself a 
 conclusive argument against them; for self-govern- 
 ment is an attainment that may be gained by many 
 paths, and is not to be secured by wholesale 6r by any
 
 70 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 magic formula of management. The crucial test for 
 pupil-government schemes is whether they afford a 
 more sure or economical means for reaching self-govern- 
 ment than do the older plans of government by regu- 
 larly instituted authorities. 
 From the On the part of the teaching force there is not a clear 
 
 teacher's . 
 
 point of case in favor of pupil government. It must not be 
 view forgotten that, for the successful examples given, there 
 
 are many failures, which do not appear in the educa- 
 tional journals but which have their effect upon our 
 educational history. It would be foolish to condemn 
 it in those cases in which teachers of strong personality 
 have felt that this form of government supplied just 
 the incentive needed in their particular schools. As 
 a temporary expedient, it has perhaps justified itself; 
 at least there are not wanting schools in which it has 
 been tried 'and abandoned, but in which a higher 
 plane of honor and responsibility has been maintained 
 after the experiment than before it. It is noticeable 
 that it has gained most spectacular success where con- 
 ditions are not normal, as in large city school systems 
 subject to the influence of unhealthy surroundings. 
 The adoption of the elaborate artificiality of school 
 states, cities, committee systems, and the like, may 
 sometimes be the question-begging compromise of 
 teachers who are not quite able to arouse the requisite 
 interest and ideals in connection with the school's 
 regular work. Hampered by the artificiality of tra- 
 ditional schoolroom customs, they add another artifici- 
 ality seven times worse, in the hope of enlisting the 
 support of pupils by making them accomplices in the 
 situation. Rather than attack the fundamental evil,
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 71 
 
 which is lack of respect for law (which, it is true, is so 
 prevalent that children learn it at home and on the 
 street faster than it can be corrected at school) they 
 bribe their pupils to support this law by identifying 
 them with it. 
 
 To a very old-fashioned person, the result seems to AS it 
 be an attitude of easy condescension toward all stand- affects * e 
 
 J conception 
 
 ards of right and wrong. He who makes the law is of law 
 greater than the law, obviously; he who obeys is less 
 than the law. Is it wise for young children to learn, 
 by daily practice, that law is a thing created by them- 
 selves, subject to change if a majority of them wish it? 
 In times perhaps gone by, children had an idea that 
 rules of right and wrong came from a higher power 
 from parents, from teachers, from elected represen- 
 tatives in congresses assembled, ultimately from God 
 Himself. If the old idea of the superiority of the law 
 over the wishes of individuals, the old reverence for 
 law as a controlling power, could be preserved or re- 
 vived, might it not be better than the newer idea that 
 law is but the collective wish of one's peers? 
 
 To recapitulate: The duty of each pupil so to order A summary 
 his actions as to conserve the good of all his associates, 
 may be so impressed upon children as to affect their 
 behavior for good. It is the highest of all motives for 
 good behavior, depending upon the will for realization, 
 and approximating the motives of social behavior in 
 grown people in the world at large. Four systems of 
 pupil-government based upon this mode are used: 
 
 i. That of pupil cooperation with teachers, in which 
 self-government is allowed to individual pupils as they 
 show themselves worthy or as conditions allow, but in
 
 72 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 accordance with regulations made by the teaching 
 authority. 
 
 2. That in which the teachers reserve all control, 
 but permit the pupils to help in the administration 
 of the school under the forms of some unit of civil 
 government. 
 
 3. That in which real self-government is granted to 
 such pupils as have earned it by good behavior. 
 
 4. That in which all the pupils of the school have a 
 real voice in the school management and control. 
 
 In a number of instances these schemes of pupil gov- 
 ernment have proved workable and highly successful. 
 But true self-government may be developed without 
 fundamental tnem > and it is doubtful if the elaborate dramatiza- 
 object tion of the forms of civil government is a necessary 
 
 means of teaching the duties of citizenship. The 
 ultimate decision of all school matters should lie with 
 adults, and with adults who have studied school ques- 
 tions carefully and in their many bearings in a word, 
 with teachers. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTERS ON MODES OF 
 CONTROL 
 
 The earliest mode of school government was that 
 based on force, which demanded that the teacher's 
 authority be regarded, without appeal to any motive 
 of pleasure or gain on the part of the pupil. 
 
 To this was added a milder mode in which the teacher 
 used his personal influence in persuading the pupil to 
 follow directions. 
 
 Pupils may also refrain from evil and do good through 
 interest in their own advantage and advancement.
 
 MODES OF SCHOOL GOVERNMENT* 73 
 
 A fourth mode of great practical use is that of filling 
 the life of the pupil so full of wholesome interests that 
 those antagonistic to good school discipline are crowded 
 out. 
 
 The highest motive for which pupils can be trained 
 to "be good" is that of contributing to the well-being 
 and happiness of the whole school. Teachers can so 
 guide their pupils that the lower of these motives will 
 give way to successively higher ones, and in this way 
 establish the better modes as fully as possible.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICAN LIFE AS THEY 
 AFFECT THE QUESTION OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 
 
 ONE'S best excuse for attempting to enumerate the 
 characteristics of our national life which have helped 
 to change school discipline, lies in the mutually re- 
 troactive nature of those influences and of school 
 discipline. By seeing clearly what forces have operated 
 to change so thoroughly the nature of school control 
 and management, we may to some extent judge how 
 far that change is a wholesome and a hopeful one, and 
 also perhaps predict the effect of our altered methods 
 upon the life of our people. 
 
 Feminize- The most direct and obvious influence, as has often 
 been pointed out, is doubtless the feminization of the 
 teaching force. The condition is a new one. Never 
 before in the world's history were schools given over 
 as they are now in America to women teachers. Pos- 
 sessed of a natural sympathy with children not so 
 generally characteristic of men, used to securing their 
 ends by diplomacy rather than by force, responding 
 more or less adequately to a constantly-preached ideal 
 in which soft voice, gentle manner, and angelic patience 
 are important ingredients, women inevitably fell short 
 of the Squeers standard of discipline, and early de- 
 veloped a teaching manner of their own. Frontier
 
 HOW AMERICAN LIFE AFFECTS DISCIPLINE 75 
 
 schools, demanding a teacher capable of administering 
 a drubbing to the overgrown backwoods boys who 
 attended them, rejected the woman teacher. But 
 westward expansion was on the side of the school- 
 ma'am, for when there were not masters enough to 
 teach the schools in the old way, the public was forced 
 to accept education at the hands of those who could 
 teach only in the new. The greater needs and greater 
 rewards in other fields for many years kept first-class 
 men largely out of the profession of teaching; and the 
 alert, energetic, responsibility-seeking American woman 
 stepped into the breach. She has done her work well, 
 and in bringing both her strength and her weaknesses 
 into the schoolroom has exerted a determining influence 
 upon educational methods. Probably her innate and 
 ineradicable preference for the methods of persuasion 
 has done more than any other one thing to discoun- 
 tenance harshness in American school management. 
 
 Another great influence is a diffused and indirect interest and 
 one which may be summed up in what is popularly disci P Une 
 known as the Doctrine of Interest. The enrichment 
 of content which has come to all the subjects in our 
 school courses, the conscious effort to make the school 
 work appeal to the present interests of the pupils 
 the idea, in short, of making school a part of life, and a 
 pleasant part too this movement has had a marked 
 effect in changing the attitude, and consequently the 
 behavior, of children in school. It has by no means 
 solved the problem of discipline, as some rose-be- 
 spectacled theorizers would have us believe: but it 
 has immensely simplified it. It has changed a prison 
 to a House of Life. It has revealed to children, where
 
 76 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 formerly they trod a hard path blindly, beauties by 
 the wayside, and a far, fair country to be won at the 
 journey's end. It has transformed slave-drivers into 
 friends, and masters into elder brothers. It has 
 unlocked with magic keys doors that were once fast 
 closed; and broken down the barrier that once sepa- 
 rated the interests of children from the interests of 
 the great world. For now, even in the beginning of 
 his days at school, the child realizes that his life has 
 elements in common with the lives of countless people 
 whom he never sees, and that new wonders, new ties, 
 and new responsibilites are to be shown him as he goes 
 on. School is a Friendly World. He has no cause to 
 know that injured resentment which lay at the root of 
 a large part of the insubordination of our fathers' days. 
 Who wants to fight his best friend? Who wants to 
 spoil tomorrow's fun? 
 
 Toleration is a much-lauded trait which has its good 
 and its bad side. It has developed wholesomely into 
 healthy ideas of the equality of the rights of men, into 
 kindly sympathy with the unfortunate, into a surer 
 sense of justice toward all, including those who oppose 
 our interests or our views. It shows itself pathologi- 
 cally in a weak-kneed reluctance to interfere with those 
 whose ways transgress the rights of others or threaten 
 destruction to themselves. It permits a militant indi- 
 vidualism that out-Rousseaus Rousseau. It hesitates 
 ignominiously before the remedy of controlling the 
 actions of those plainly unfit or unwilling to contribute 
 to the social good. It endures inconvenience, lack of 
 progress, and actual vice, because of a mistaken code 
 which pays respect to things which are not respectable.
 
 HOW AMERICAN LIFE AFFECTS DISCIPLINE 77 
 
 Two widespread and wholesome outgrowths of the The influ- 
 spirit of toleration are democracy and altruism. (De- American 
 mocracy, too many-shaded a word ever safely to be democracy 
 
 on school 
 
 said without definition, is used in the sense of equality discipline 
 of opportunity for all.) The feeling for equal oppor- 
 tunity and equal rights, which grew almost into the 
 semblance of a national religion with the westward 
 expansion following the War of 1812, and which has 
 never wholly lost that exalted aspect, has given its 
 share to the change in methods of school discipline. 
 It was as incompatible with that fine reverence paid 
 the teacher in German schools, as was the American 
 master's limited training and uncertain social position. 
 It made it impracticable for the schoolmaster to be a 
 monarch; for no man, however kingly, could exercise 
 kingly prerogatives over a roomful of pupils toward 
 whom one of his chief duties was the exposition of the 
 Spirit of '76. Denied by the logic of his position more 
 arbitrary methods, the American schoolmaster, and 
 more particularly the American schoolmistress, has " 
 developed in a wonderful way a kind of relation between 
 teacher and pupils which is a new thing in the world. 
 
 It is, moreover, a very fine thing, embodying more of The 
 the ideal spirit of education than ever appeared in the 
 schools of the past. It premises a friendly leadership, 
 appealing to the interests and ambitions of the pupils, 
 developing in its best phases a sense of honor, of no- 
 blesse oblige, almost unique, by conceding their essential 
 equality. This spirit grew up for the most part in the 
 West, an instinctive and wise response to the situation 
 in a new and over-lusty country, and had become a 
 tradition before the machinery of organized society
 
 The cul- 
 tural ideal 
 and 
 discipline 
 
 78 
 
 gave to the schools that solid backing which they now 
 generally enjoy. The combination of the two, the re- 
 enforcement of friendly leadership by unquestioned au- 
 thority, gives an ideal condition for effective school 
 discipline. 
 
 The altruistic and socializing tendencies of today 
 have worked in numberless ways to modify school dis- 
 cipline. The doctrines of Froebel, long accepted in 
 theory, must wait before their full realization for a 
 more general acceptance of social rather than individu- 
 alistic motives. But the study of social ideals, exten- 
 sively carried on by teachers, will find expression in the 
 daily conduct of their classrooms. That children are 
 social beings, to be developed under social influences, 
 employing social relationships, and destined for social 
 service, must inevitably introduce into schoolroom 
 practice an element of cooperation once undreamed of. 
 
 In these days when vocational education looms so 
 large, it is hard to realize that the cultural ideal is really 
 growing in American schools, and influencing methods 
 of control. It is true that the school systems brought 
 from Europe by our ancestors were originally intended 
 only for the children of the well-to-do. But it was the 
 deliberate purpose of our forebears to adapt them to 
 the needs of all the children of all the people, and this 
 end has been largely accomplished. To use the schools 
 for the practical training of children for their future 
 vocations is no new ideal in America; it is only the 
 efficiency that approximates realization which is new. 
 From the first, the Western frontiersman sent his boy 
 to school that he might get on in the world when he 
 grew up; and his girl, that she might teach at first,
 
 HOW AMERICAN LIFE AFFECTS DISCIPLINE 79 
 
 thus proving her ability to take care of herself, and 
 later that she might "marry well." The purposes of 
 our schools were frankly utilitarian in the West, where 
 most things, in fact, had to show a utilitarian reason 
 for being in order to survive. The rapidly advancing 
 frontier had small patience with the purely ornamental, 
 and small understanding of the finer aesthetic and 
 spiritual aspects of life. Appreciation of these things 
 came, as they always have on the earth, with the 
 assurance of provision for material needs. 
 
 As an older type of civilization has replaced the when Latin 
 conditions of the frontier in America, cultural ideals, and Greek 
 
 were 
 
 without replacing utilitarian ones, have come to take vocational 
 their place with them. The decay of interest in the su jec 
 classics does not disprove this. A large proportion of 
 the classical students of an earlier day were ministerial 
 aspirants; Latin and Greek were part of their pro- 
 fessional equipment. With students of law and medi- 
 cine, they studied the classics for the same purpose 
 that today sends an agricultural student to the chemical 
 laboratory. In a large majority of cases the desire 
 for culture was a secondary motive where it existed 
 at all. But the agricultural student now takes three 
 or four years' work in English, and that avowedly 
 mainly for its cultural value. Slowly, steadily, stand- 
 ards of culture are rising in the country as a whole, as 
 any observant man past his fiftieth year will bear 
 witness. 
 
 This growth of the cultural ideal, which does not Culture 
 supplant but does supplement the lately-stimulated 
 and increasingly-realized vocational ideal of school 
 usefulness, is exercising its own good influence on
 
 8o DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 methods of school discipline. We are importing, with 
 other once despised British institutions, the ideal of 
 those English public schools which aim to "make 
 gentlemen" of the boys who attend them. Manners 
 and morals are taught more and more. The bully, 
 be he teacher or pupil, is a passing factor. He has 
 had his day. A better ideal of manliness has rid the 
 schoolroom of his presence; a higher state of culture 
 has reacted to discountenance him. And his methods 
 have gone with him a good riddance. 
 
 Signs of All the change in disciplinary methods is registered, 
 
 the times f or tne justification of optimists, in ways that he who 
 runs may read. It is patent in the sometimes foolish 
 legislation against corporal punishment, a thorough- 
 going reaction often productive of more harm than 
 good. It shows in the attitude of the public, in that 
 of educational bodies, and in the press. It has helped 
 to establish special schools for incorrigibles and ab- 
 normal children, where severe treatment may be 
 administered when advisable without demoralizing 
 effects upon normal children. Above all, it is supply- 
 ing courses which have an intrinsic appeal, to children 
 who respond naturally and eagerly to this new "square 
 deal."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PRESCRIPTION OF DISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 
 
 ONE who is not a psychological expert approaches The formal 
 the question of the reality of discipline with a diffidence controversy 
 appropriate to those traditional spots whereupon angels 
 fear to tread, and where trespass may call down upon 
 one the proverbial alternative appellation. Upon the 
 battlefield of Formal Discipline many a wise man has 
 met defeat; and many a teacher, confident of his 
 ground because of his own unscientific observations 
 and the traditions of his cult, has been appalled and 
 discomfited by the learned. For the warning of the 
 wise be it said, therefore, that the conclusions in this 
 chapter are based, truly or falsely as the case may 
 hereafter be shown to be, upon the author's under- 
 standing of the probable facts as to the reality of 
 formal discipline. These facts can not be said to be 
 definitely established, although supported by some 
 fairly conclusive experiments and an immense popular 
 conviction, growing from common experience and 
 tradition. There is, of course, much scientific data 
 to support an opposing opinion, and the whole question 
 is in a condition of flux which precludes finality in the 
 stating of conclusions. 
 
 A statement of the conclusions upon which a working A bas1 ^. 
 
 3 generaliza- 
 
 theory of prescriptive discipline may be based is as tion
 
 82 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 follows: From a multitude of duplicated or similar 
 experiences, a rationalized generalization or ideal is 
 finally crystallized in the mind, from which new applica- 
 tions are readily made to suit new situations in which 
 there are easily recognized similar elements. The transfer 
 of habit is not a direct one, but is practically sure if 
 the disciplinary series has been thoroughly followed 
 and its generalization secured by thoughtful considera- 
 tion. A concrete illustration of this is the process of 
 training children to a considerate silence in rooms in 
 which other people are giving close attention to study 
 or instruction. A child is trained to refrain from 
 talking in school, and also in church; but unless he 
 has, beside this concrete training, been led to abstract 
 the general principle that wherever people are doing 
 something that requires quiet for concentrated thought 
 or reverent attention, others should yield them that 
 quiet, he may disturb readers in a library until forced 
 by others to stop talking. The boy who is corrected 
 for throwing snowballs and paper-wads, and stops, 
 but thinks himself blameless if he throws green apples 
 instead, has not been led to generalize from his specific 
 experiences. 1 
 
 Definition A disciplinary activity is any activity in which one 
 engages, not primarily for its own sake or the sake of 
 its immediate outcome, but for a desirable subjective 
 effect that is, for the training value it may have 
 upon one's self. Since people are most easily influenced 
 
 1 Ruediger, " Indirect Improvement of Mental Functions through 
 Ideals," Educational Review, xxxvi: 364-71 (1908). A list of refer- 
 ences bearing upon this controversy, so important in fixing upon 
 justifiable methods in school management, is given in the classified 
 bibliography in an appendix.
 
 DISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 83 
 
 during the formative period of childhood, disciplinary 
 activities are peculiarly valuable before maturity 
 brings fixed habits and fundamental training has been 
 acquired. Grown people, as well as thoughtful and 
 earnest children, often make disciplinary requirements 
 of themselves, that they may attain some end which 
 they see to be desirable. But all young children, and 
 a majority of older children and grown people, have 
 neither the conception of their need nor the power of 
 volition to choose for themselves the disciplinary activ- 
 ities which will contribute to their training. For all 
 such, the forces of social authority prescribe disciplinary 
 activities, justifying their course by the end of social 
 advance, and exacting obedience to their requirement 
 by whatever force it may be necessary to use. 
 
 The prescription of disciplinary activities begins in illustrations 
 babyhood and extends throughout the formative 
 period. It is a universal law of social life, in fact, and 
 to deny it is essential anarchy. In a majority of cases 
 the demands of authority find ready response from 
 children, for they are eager to have new experiences, 
 full of curiosity, and anxious to please where kindness 
 is shown. But where response is reluctant, there the 
 prescription is still imperative. A mother, trying to 
 teach her child to eat his bread-and-milk with a spoon, 
 does not give up her requirement because the baby 
 prefers to use his ringers; nor does the teacher yield 
 to a boy's desire to go on playing ball when the school- 
 bell rings for lessons; nor does the policeman permit 
 a tipsy cowboy to shoot his revolver into the air on the 
 main street of a town, even when that street is empty 
 of traffic. No immediate harm is done by any one of
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Mental 
 discipline 
 
 Discipline 
 in habit 
 formation 
 
 these acts, but the children will never learn table- 
 manners or lessons if permitted to follow their own 
 wills, and the cowboy must be taught to respect the 
 desire of men to feel safe from stray bullets. 
 
 Discipline is a word of many applications. Mental 
 discipline, that doctrine beloved of the older educators, 
 that blanket justification for unlimited courses in 
 mathematics and languages which could find excuse in 
 neither pleasure nor use, is still far from being an ex- 
 ploded theory. Frowned upon by psychologists and 
 grudgingly tolerated by practical experimenters, it 
 still flaunts a triumphant tenure of popular belief in 
 the faces of its enemies. A sort of universal intuition 
 stands by it, and advises a suspension of sentence 
 until a more advanced psychology may render de- 
 cision. Meantime, its direct bearing on questions of 
 school discipline is yearly becoming less, as curricula 
 approximate more nearly a fulfilment of immediate 
 and undisputed demands. 
 
 The great function of prescription is to make easy 
 the forming of good habits. Habit-forming is by far 
 the greatest part of elementary education. Reading, 
 writing, numbers, singing, memorization of all sorts, 
 manners, the skilful and graceful management of the 
 body, cleanliness, orderliness all are habits. They 
 are acquired largely through prescription. Curiosity 
 and the desire to excel, love of motion and instinctive 
 imitation, all play their good parts in this pleasant 
 drama of development, but prescription must be 
 the prompter, and see that the play goes on when 
 the actors forget their lines or refuse to carry on the 
 "business."
 
 DISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 85 
 
 Unselfishness may become so thorough a habit that Prescription 
 it ceases to be a virtue. If this condition of things 
 were general we should be ushering in a millennium, 
 but it is really rather rare as yet among individuals. 
 Both as a virtue and as a habit, however, it must be 
 suggested to the self-centered child, and when volun- 
 tary response fails, it should be prescribed. Consid- 
 eration for others is not a superfluous virtue, but a 
 duty. "Only those acts of kindness which come from 
 a willing heart are truly virtuous" is a false sentiment. 
 The most virtuous acts include those wrung from an 
 unwilling heart by stern self-discipline or the authority 
 of others. Consideration for others should find ac- 
 knowledgment and appreciation, but it should also be 
 expected and required. Lovely indeed is the child 
 who loves to divide his candy among his brothers and 
 sisters, but if he does not he may be required to, and 
 so helped to form a specific habit of unselfishness. It 
 is not claimed, of course, that these specific habits form 
 general habits directly; but that their practice makes 
 it easy to form other habits which grow out of general 
 ideas easily formulated by the child to whom con- 
 sideration has become habitual. 
 
 RACE EXPERIENCE AND ITS CRYSTALLIZATION 
 
 IN PRESCRIPTION 
 
 Every father decides his boy's problems largely in 
 the light of his own experience. He wishes his son to 
 do what he did, if he imagines that those things helped 
 him; or plans to enable his boy to avoid them, if he 
 thinks they stood in his own way. So a group of 
 men of similar experiences will prescribe for their sons
 
 86 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 those things which their joint experience dictates as 
 wise. A man of influence and distinction, to whose 
 opinions ordinary men defer, will probably think that 
 the processes and experiences which made him a man 
 of eminence, are most helpful to others. So Aristotle, 
 founding a new school whose success was largely due 
 to his use of the syllogism, prescribed syllogisms for 
 others, and such was his authority that the youth of 
 centuries were trained to reason in syllogisms when 
 they should have learned to plow, to see, and to think. 1 
 In general, this is the history of curricula. The men 
 of any given era rise to a certain accomplishment 
 through hard experience and effort, and some one of 
 them or a group of them crystallizes the typical ex- 
 perience by which the highest attainment of their 
 time and class has been reached, in a prescribed course 
 of study for youth. This is adopted, usually after 
 some delay. Once adopted, it becomes entrenched 
 in tradition, and only when its inadequacy becomes 
 apparent to even the most careless, is it changed 
 by a new leader or group of leaders to a new set of 
 requirements. 
 
 The present Such conflicts between the established order and 
 
 prescription the insurgents in education have occurred more than 
 
 once. The Renaissance in its stimulus to the studies 
 
 of the humanities is the most notable example. There 
 
 is such a conflict today, and the effect upon education 
 
 and civilization promises to be no less far-reaching. 
 
 The revolt Two distinct elements may be discerned in the 
 
 present conflict with the conventional school program. 
 
 There is, first, the conflict of individual experience, 
 
 1 Aristotle, The Organon.
 
 DISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 87 
 
 and its resultant conception of need, with the pre- 
 scribed course. This is rife among the people, both 
 parents and children. The children can not see how 
 all the things they are called upon to study are going 
 to be of use to them in the future, or pleasant at the 
 tune. They may seek the interest that lessons lack in 
 illegitimate fun, or find a sweet revenge in unlawful 
 deeds. Finally, when the call of more alluring in- 
 terests and the compulsory age limit coincide, they 
 leave school altogether. Parents, who find that the 
 schools give their children no direct training for the 
 work they are to do in the world, add their objections. 
 
 Moreover, the most advanced educators agree with The revolt 
 the common people that the old prescriptive courses schoolmen 
 are inadequate. Such men acknowledge that the claim 
 of the child and his parent is well founded; but they 
 go farther, and looking into the future, say that radical 
 changes must be made if the school is to play its part 
 faithfully in the world. Such men are usually those 
 for whom the schools, hi the days when they trained 
 the intellect almost exclusively, were well suited as a 
 means of development. They are not those whose 
 personal ends conflict with the conventional program. 
 But, with a previsionary and constructive conception 
 of a new social order, they have a new conception of 
 the need which the schools exist to satisfy. They 
 join the number of those who demand that schools 
 prescribe and furnish new studies to suit the specific 
 needs of their pupils. 
 
 The prescription of courses, then, while justifiable The 
 and necessary, is at present mistaken in many of its p ^ e 
 applications, and results in waste and loss. Teachers
 
 88 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 face the task of readjusting requirements. Their 
 work is to select from the whole mass of experience 
 and knowledge that has accumulated in the world, 
 not those experiences and that knowledge that served 
 a past generation best, but what will be most valuable 
 to the children now growing up. Teachers are the 
 race-givers, the almoners of humanity in its largess to 
 its children. 
 
 The But prescription by others is at best but a temporary 
 
 prescription expedient, one great aim of education being to develop 
 the child to the point where he will select his own. 
 As children grow older, also, the proportion of ac- 
 tivities of a strictly disciplinary nature grows less and 
 less, while those with a direct, obvious, immediately 
 desirable outcome increase. When shall the child 
 begin to choose his own? When shall the teacher 
 cease to select and prescribe, and confine himself to 
 teaching what the child elects to learn? Clearly, the 
 arts and knowledge which ordinary intercourse de- 
 mands, must be acquired, whether the pupil wants 
 them at the time or not. Reading, writing, the use of 
 the language, useful computations, and a reasonable 
 knowledge of geography, civics, and history are neces- 
 sary foundations that good citizenship, irrespective of 
 vocation or position, requires. 
 
 Beyond that, the prescription of specific pursuits 
 may be limited to a choice of means to an end chosen 
 by the pupil, if the pupil is ready or able to make his 
 choice. But if neither necessity nor interest dictate 
 an immediate specialization, common sense suggests 
 that a general course, which has a maximum of points 
 of contact with various special fields, offers the best
 
 DISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 89 
 
 work for the student until he is ready to choose his 
 own work. Those subjects which aim to supply 
 universal needs are to be prescribed, the prescription 
 ending at the point of departure for the elected field of 
 special endeavor, which may or may not be immedi- 
 ately upon acquiring the educational fundamentals. 
 
 The bearing of all this upon the question of discipline Application 
 in its narrower sense of the good order of the school to discipline 
 is twofold. It predicates the right of the teacher or 
 other school authorities to prescribe whatever in the 
 way of behavior may be necessary for the good of the 
 pupils and of the school; and it indicates what some 
 of those requirements may be. All the three varieties 
 of prescriptive activities, giving mental, habitual, and 
 altruistic discipline, suggest what is to be required of 
 pupils. The list given below is not at all exhaustive, 
 nor are all its items applicable to all schools or at all 
 times. It would be very foolish to require, for instance, 
 silence and a comparatively fixed bodily position hi a 
 class at bench- work. 
 
 The prescription of whatever makes for the de- xh e 
 velopment of all-round social efficiency, both in and outcom es 
 beyond the school, is included among those phases of 
 training which are universally needed and universal 
 in their application. Whatever else may be included 
 or excluded in making out the school program of any 
 child, this must be regarded as its first, its most neces- 
 sary feature that training which will develop him 
 as a social being, cooperating willingly with the forces 
 that make for social unity and progress. With this in 
 mind, we may sum up the desired outcome of disci- 
 plinary prescription for conduct as follows:
 
 90 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 1 . The ability to control the body in all its activities 
 an ability that does away with scuffling, 
 shuffling, lunging, lounging, wriggling, as well as 
 other evils springing from imperfect control. 
 
 2. The ability to keep silence under provocation. 
 
 3. The ability to conform readily and cheerfully to 
 the uniform requirements of the school. 
 
 4. The ability to submit every decision as to conduct 
 to rigid ethical standards. 
 
 5. The ability to yield first place to another, without 
 show of resentment or jealousy. 
 
 6. The ability to hold first place without a sign of 
 arrogance or condescension. 
 
 7. The ability to yield to the opinions of others with 
 grace and consideration, where no ethical sacrifice 
 is involved. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The There is probably no direct transfer of habits or 
 
 skills; but from many concrete examples a principle 
 may be abstracted, which is readily applied to a new 
 situation in which there are elements similar to those 
 already met. Using this as a basis for accepting the 
 possibility of discipline, we may engage in any kind of 
 disciplinary activity that will train manners, mind, 
 hand, and heart. It is the duty of maturity and ex- 
 perience to prescribe for children those activities 
 which seem best calculated to develop them most wisely 
 and fully; and to force them, if necessary, to follow the 
 course of training thus laid down for them. It is soft 
 pedagogy and foolish indulgence which seeks to avoid 
 this duty. The natural desires and tastes of children
 
 DISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 91 
 
 are not necessarily a true index to what they should 
 do. All children, whether they want to or not, should 
 be made to acquire the arts and information and moral 
 qualities which will make them useful and valuable 
 citizens, if by any means these can be imparted to 
 them. 
 
 The prescription of educational activities for children Prescription 
 is based on the experience of man in the past, and may 
 not always be suited to the needs of the present or the 
 future. Children and their parents object to present 
 requirements because they do not fulfil their immediate 
 wishes or needs; far-sighted thinkers understand that 
 they are inadequate for the needs of both present and 
 future. We are at present in the midst of a readjust- 
 ment of prescription, a remaking of curriculums. 
 
 The object of prescription by others is to develop 
 the individual to the point at which he may wisely 
 decide for himself what he should do to gain his ends. 
 When the pupil in school has reached this point 
 the teacher should abdicate his power in favor of the 
 pupil's self-government. Prescription for conduct (the 
 phase of prescription which directly affects discipline) 
 aims to develop self-control, consideration for others, 
 unselfishness, and definite ethical standards.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 
 
 Definition '^ HE wor( ^ discipline is used in ways so various that 
 it is necessary to define one's use of it in any given 
 discussion. In its widest application it covers the 
 field of all training activities whose end is not the 
 immediate result attained, but that of strengthening 
 some ability, perhaps quite different from the special 
 phase of ability exercised. When used thus with the 
 end of training abilities not directly involved in the 
 activities in question, it is known as Formal Discipline, 
 and has been the bone of a notable amount of conten- 
 tion as to whether it exists or not. Used in its most 
 narrow sense, on the other hand, Discipline refers to 
 specific corrective measures for infringements of definite 
 points of school law or custom. In this book, gen- 
 erally, its use lies between these two extremes, and 
 indicates any and all measures for the better conduct 
 of the school with reference to the order and behavior 
 of his pupils. It does not apply, except indirectly and 
 by association, to questions of scholarship, save where 
 such application is especially noted. 
 
 Positive and ^he ^ rs ^ re q u i s ite for really successful discipline is 
 negative that it be conceived in both its positive and its negative, 
 
 discipline . . 
 
 and in its constructive and its reconstructive aspects. 
 Virtue has been for a long time considered chiefly in
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 93 
 
 its negative, thou-shalt-not applications, and has but 
 recently established its positive, thou-shalt phase in 
 the hearts of men. As we find goodness taking on 
 new values when seen in its entirety, so also discipline, 
 which is the process of developing goodness, finds new 
 values when seen in its completeness. The teacher's 
 part is not only to inhibit evil, but to build up ten- 
 dencies to the right response to stimuli, to form ideals 
 that beckon and prejudices that restrain, all contribut- 
 ing to the making of strong, normal, good boys and 
 girls. This is the disciplinary process. 
 
 Since every objective act is first a subjective act The ideal 
 that is, since everything that we can see, hear, or do teacher's 
 must first be thought out in some one's mind 'the first mind 
 step in the disciplinary process is to form an ideal of 
 good conduct. It must exist first in the mind of the 
 teacher, who later works out his ideal by adapting his 
 own and his pupils' activities to that end. The ade- 
 quate ideal is the result of observation and of construc- 
 tive combination. That is, the best ideal of school 
 conduct is made by seeing good conduct in many 
 schools, and then putting together the elements which 
 will fit best the needs in the particular school which 
 the teacher has in mind in constructing his ideal. 
 Good conduct in a manual training school and in a 
 classical school are probably two very different kinds 
 of behavior, for behavior should be suited to the 
 ends sought and the means used. The ideal of many 
 teachers is one of observation only, a copy of the con- 
 duct of the schools with which they are acquainted. 
 If they have attended poor schools, or schools whose 
 methods and aims are different from those over which
 
 94 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Visiting 
 schools 
 
 The ideal 
 in the 
 pupils' 
 minds 
 
 they are to preside, the ideal will be a poor one, 
 and their efforts are probably foredoomed to failure. 
 They should add to the pictures of school-conduct 
 which their experience has given them, new pictures 
 of their own construction, based upon the needs and 
 aims of their own school, and those to be had from 
 schools of recognized merit. 
 
 This is not an easy thing for young and untrained 
 minds to do, and probably even the best thinkers among 
 teachers depend for their ideals of conduct chiefly on 
 observation and experience. The importance, then, of 
 visiting well-managed schoolrooms is apparent; and 
 also the advantage of taking careful notes upon the 
 details of management, the little devices for reducing 
 noise and confusion and for making work pleasant and 
 interesting. Then the teacher who is forming an ideal 
 for his own use must adapt the good ideas he has 
 gained to the situation in his school, building up a 
 vivid picture of the orderly conduct of every exercise 
 that enters into its work. He must not be content with 
 a hazy idea of how things should be; his ideal must be 
 definite, and as an aid to this it is advisable to write 
 it out. 
 
 Having thus created an ideal of good conduct in his 
 own mind, the teacher's next step in the disciplinary 
 process is to induce his pupils to share it with him, that 
 they may work with him toward its realization. This 
 step may be called Establishing the Ideal, to distin- 
 guish it from the first step of Creating the Ideal. 
 There are four means of establishing an ideal of con- 
 duct in the minds of pupils, not to be used separately 
 or in sequence, but constantly, simultaneously, and in
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 95 
 
 numberless ways and combinations. The one in most 
 constant use by the best teachers is that of assuming 
 that pupils are in thorough sympathy with the teacher's Assumption 
 wishes and plans, and are anxious to do everything they 
 can to make the school a success. The power of sug- 
 gestion is used to strengthen the hold of the ideal. 
 No hint of the possibility of disobedience or other evil 
 action comes from the teacher; she recognizes evil only 
 when it actually appears before her, demanding correc- 
 tion. In this way an atmosphere of unity is created 
 which gives the ideal a good chance of realization. 
 
 When, however, pupils do not fall in readily with Definition 
 the plans made for them, suggestion and assumption 
 must give way to more definite means. The teacher 
 finds it necessary then to state clearly just what is 
 expected, and sometimes it is wise to keep this expecta- 
 tion before the pupils pretty constantly for some time, 
 that they may adopt it in its proper form and not 
 in some vague misconception of their own into their 
 conscious scheme of conduct. For instance, the teacher 
 of a country school found that her pupils were in the 
 habit of walking into the schoolroom with muddy 
 boots and shoes, thus covering the floor with an un- 
 sightly mass of dirt within a few moments after school 
 had opened in the morning. She secured a thick mat 
 and directed them to wipe their feet upon it as they 
 entered. They did this cheerfully, but gave to each 
 foot so perfunctory a wipe that the floor was in almost 
 as poor a condition as before. Noting the virtuous 
 complacency with which they carried out her request, 
 the teacher decided that the trouble lay in their inade- 
 quate ideal of cleanliness. She thereupon made her
 
 96 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 ideal very clear by tacking up a little card over the 
 door-mat. It read: 
 
 Wipe your feet until there is no more 
 mud to come off. The floor under your 
 desk should not show even one muddy 
 streak. Can you do as well as that? 
 
 The pupils made an attempt to meet her require- 
 ments, and soon became interested in keeping the floor 
 about their desks clean and neat. About the middle 
 of the winter term the teacher took down the card, and 
 found that the habit of cleanliness was established. 
 Her ideal had become the ideal of her pupils, after she 
 had made it too definite and clear to be ignored. 
 Correlation A third way of establishing the ideal is to correlate 
 it with other ideals already established. The teacher 
 who taught her pupils to wipe their feet before enter- 
 ing the schoolroom, for instance, might have con- 
 nected her ideal for a schoolroom floor with the ideal 
 for a parlor floor which their mothers had taught them 
 at home. All of the children in such a school had 
 probably been taught to have a care for the floor of 
 the "best room"; and the schoolroom is the "best 
 room" of the school. An ideal once established be- 
 comes a norm by which new ideals are measured and 
 judged. Johnny thinks it reasonable to conform to 
 the request that he should not whisper in school, be- 
 cause he has already been taught that he must not 
 whisper in church. Marie has learned that eating in 
 school interferes with good work and is a breach of 
 manners, and when her teacher tells her that gum- 
 chewing is just as bad, she believes her, because there
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 97 
 
 is a similarity between the two acts that she can see. 
 Analogies appeal strongly to children. "You wouldn't 
 think of doing that in church," and "Would your 
 mother allow you to act in that way at home?" 
 are cogent reasons with children. The correlation of 
 specific requirements works toward a more conscious 
 generalization, by which finally definite principles of 
 duty may be developed. That the same obligations 
 of courtesy, gentleness, purity, and unselfishness hold 
 in school, home, playground, and street; that we owe 
 respect and consideration to all, equally, without regard 
 to station or possessions; and that good conduct is not 
 to be changed because there is no one to see and give 
 it credit these are truths that the correlation of 
 conduct-ideals will tend to establish. 
 
 A fourth and very effective means of establishing illustration 
 the ideal is by illustration. Children learn best by 
 means of concrete examples, and every instance of good 
 conduct, of the right response to a given situation, that 
 can be brought to a child's notice, becomes a prece- 
 dent for future action. The teacher who is trying to 
 form good street-manners, for instance, not only 
 explains to her pupils the correct usage, but selects 
 a few of the brightest and best-bred children to illus- 
 trate it. They play at taking a walk, and learn to 
 greet and salute each other courteously when they 
 meet. One boy hobbles along as a feeble old man, and 
 is helped over a crossing by a strong and clear-sighted 
 boy. An old woman spills a bag of apples on the side- 
 walk, whereupon two little girls gather them up and 
 restore them to her. A stranger inquires the way to 
 a public building, and is directed by three boys who
 
 Realization 
 
 requires 
 
 cooperation 
 
 How 
 instinct 
 leads to 
 habit 
 
 leave their marbles to help him. Little folk like this 
 sort of dramatization, which makes the ideal of conduct 
 vivid and therefore impressive; and are able to repro- 
 duce the actual motions that they have seen, when 
 they have not the initiative to formulate a response 
 for themselves. The action is reduced to a mechani- 
 cal formula so far as its physical phase is concerned, 
 thus making the subsequent habit-forming immensely 
 easier. 
 
 The third step in the disciplinary process is Realiz- 
 ing the Ideal. In this final step of realization, which is 
 of course the determining element in the condition of 
 the school, there are combined the efforts of both pupil 
 and teacher. The pupil contributes inclination and 
 will, 1 the teacher a knowledge of ways and means. 
 And since conduct is so largely pure habit, the greater 
 part of his direction is nothing but a supervision of 
 habit-forming. This process, with its complemental 
 one of habit-breaking, has been thoroughly described 
 in many books, but may be repeated here, since no 
 repetition can ever over-emphasize the importance of 
 this fundamental process in education. 
 
 Instinct is the starting-point in habit-building, 
 although many habits are only an artificial inhibition 
 of instinct. Instinct brings about certain movements, 
 which, being satisfactory, are repeated. For instance, 
 the little boy's curiosity leads him to watch the growth 
 of a colored picture on the blackboard, and from the 
 instinctive attention which he gives at first, the teacher 
 develops a habit of attention to whatever is placed 
 
 1 Bagley, Educative Process, p. 214; Perry, Management of a 
 City School, p. 247.
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 99 
 
 upon the board. The act which instinct has initiated 
 becomes easier with each repetition, until it becomes 
 automatic, and a habit is established. The secret of 
 the transition from the instinctive response to a stimu- 
 lus, to a real habit, is the pleasure of the first and subse- 
 quent responses. If a response gives pleasure, it is 
 repeated. If it gives pain, it is avoided. The 
 significance of this law to the teacher is, of course, 
 that he may so control conditions that the instinc- 
 tive responses to stimuli in the schoolroom have 
 pleasant or painful consequences, according to the 
 desirability or non-desirability of the habits that 
 result. 
 
 A child on his first day at school has a pencil, which A good 
 was given him to use when all the pupils had their begtanmg 
 writing exercise. When the pencils are gathered up, 
 however, his acquisitive instinct prompts him to cling 
 to his; he wants to take it home. An inexperienced 
 teacher, anxious to please the child and avoid an 
 unpleasant scene, might let him take the pencil home, 
 but a wiser one expresses her disapproval or even dis- 
 pleasure, and insists on its return to the box. The 
 unpleasant effect of the teacher's disapproval tends to 
 inhibit the desire to take the pencil home, and to give 
 the instinct of imitation, by which he puts his pencil 
 where the other children have put theirs, a chance to 
 function. If the teacher rewards his initial act with 
 approval, he will repeat it for the same approval, until 
 he has formed a habit of conformity with regard to 
 pencils. 
 
 Later, habits develop themselves by combination 
 into other habits, often directed by new instincts that
 
 ioo DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 appear from time to time. The fundamental instincts 
 continue to give motives for new adjustments and new 
 habits. Teachers must know what these instincts are 
 and how to use them, for there is never a time when 
 habit becomes entirely distinct from its instinctive 
 basis, or when helpful instincts may not be utilized to 
 supplant the responses whose resultant habits are bad. 
 Instincts have been classified as egoistic, social, moral, 
 aesthetic, and intellectual. Professor E. A. Kirk- 
 patrick l classifies them as self-preservative, parental, 
 social, adaptive (curiosity, imitation, play), regula- 
 tive (referring to duty), and a set of miscellaneous 
 instincts which include those of construction and 
 expression, rhythm and migration. 
 
 steps in The knowledge of instincts gives one an inventory 
 
 building f possible means of initiating habits. The actual 
 process of habit-building, as analyzed by modern psy- 
 chologists, falls into these successive steps on the part 
 of the teacher: 
 
 1. Clarification of the ideal giving the child to 
 understand exactly, clearly, just what is expected of 
 him. 
 
 2. Securing thoughtful, conscious repetitions of the 
 act that is to be made a habit. Dr. Bagley especially 
 insists upon the attentive repetition, which he shows 
 to be necessary where the habit to be taught is in 
 opposition to natural tendencies that is, to instinct, 
 to the line of least resistance. 2 
 
 3. Permitting no exceptions until the habit has be- 
 come automatic. 
 
 1 Fundamentals of Child-Study, pp. 51-63. 
 1 Classroom Management, page 16.
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 101 
 
 4. Repeating the drill at ever-lengthening intervals 
 until there can be no question of the establishment of 
 the habit. 
 
 The shibboleth of success lies in the third of these Exceptions 
 steps. Here is where teachers fail. They become tired, 
 or change their minds, or decide that they have been 
 too strict when children complain of the standard set. \T/1 
 Even those who understand .the importance of persist- 
 ence are sometimes prevented from keeping up the 
 effort by a pressure of work. Some indulgent mother 
 says "unsympathetic," and the requirement is weak- 
 ened or withdrawn. A lazy boy insists that he can't, 
 and the foolish teacher believes him, or at least washes 
 his hands of the responsibility of making him. But 
 the really sympathetic teacher is he who foresees the 
 demands that will be made upon his pupils in their 
 maturity, and prepares them for that trial. He may 
 be Spartan in method, for perseverance and unbend- 
 ing loyalty to the ideal require a sacrifice of present 
 pleasure to future gain. 
 
 The examples of failure at this point are numberless; Reasons 
 they account for probably the great majority of dis- f 
 ciplinary breakdowns that are the teacher's fault. A 
 teacher directs that there be no whispering during a 
 recitation, but ignores the whispered inquiry of the 
 star pupil rather than interrupt a good recitation. 
 The demand was probably unwise, but not nearly so 
 much so as the permitted exception. He says that 
 there is to be no pushing in the line when school is 
 dismissed, but being tired at four o'clock winks at the 
 offense of the boy who punches his classmate in front 
 of him as he reaches the door. He tries to teach his
 
 102 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 pupils to say "there is not" rather than "there ain't," 
 and "I saw" rather than "I seen," but draws the line 
 at interrupting a fluent oral composition to substitute 
 the good form for the bad. Possibly the spirit and 
 pleasure of the recitation are worth more than the 
 grammar of the speaker; but it is certain that gram- 
 matical forms will never be learned unless the teacher 
 puts them first, concentrates upon them, until they are 
 mastered. 
 
 Economy This drill work should be done as far as is possible 
 
 formation m the lower grades, where the process need not be 
 doubled that is, where bad habits need not be un- 
 learned in addition to the formation of good ones. 
 The process of "breaking" habits is one that is called 
 into requisition almost constantly, however, owing to 
 the lack of uniformity and excellence in our school 
 standards. Children are allowed to do some things in 
 the fond supposition that they are permissible acts, 
 which a teacher with higher standards can not think 
 of permitting. The habit already fixed must be 
 replaced by another. The process is similar to that 
 of learning a habit where no conflicting usage exists, 
 except that consciousness must be more alive and 
 attentive at the point of actual substitution. There 
 is first the forcible presentation of the new ideal of 
 conduct. Then the thoughtful, attentive beginning 
 of the new habit, with the guiding authority and 
 remembrance of the teacher constantly at hand to 
 prevent lapses, or to secure an unpleasant result if 
 lapses occur. Third, the continuation of the active 
 process until it is really complete until an excep- 
 tionless habit is fixed.
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 103 
 
 The methods of preventing the exceptions that Preventing 
 undermine the good work and mar its effectiveness are apse 
 based upon the psychological law that unpleasant con- 
 sequences tend to prevent the repetition of any given 
 act. Usually it is not enough simply to remind a 
 child that he has forgotten; the results of forgetting 
 must be made painful, so that there is a real reaction 
 from the forbidden act. Here, then, is a use for punish- 
 ment, a place where it has a very real and necessary 
 function. There needs to be a painful association 
 established with the forbidden act, an association 
 which must come, as a rule, ex mackina from the 
 teacher. 
 
 A boy who had been under the care of a governess An 
 was put into the public school. He was a bright boy mustration 
 and had a good disposition, but his training was, of 
 course, faulty on the side of socialization. He could 
 not break himself of the habit of speaking aloud when- 
 ever he thought of something he wanted to say, for he 
 had of course had this privilege with his governess. 
 Finding after a few days that the school atmosphere 
 and customs in themselves did not effect a change of 
 habit, his teacher explained to him the standard of the 
 school in this respect and the reasons for it, with much 
 emphasis upon its advantages to everybody. She 
 called his attention to the value of the self-control 
 that was developed by conformity to this standard, 
 so that the boy saw that there was something to be 
 gained for himself as well as for the school. This 
 was done in a well-planned private talk, for no one 
 else in the school needed just that guidance at that 
 time. It would have been embarrassing and unfair
 
 104 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Enlisting 
 the child 
 
 to have taken time from a class exercise for so long and 
 personal an interview. The private talk has great 
 value in giving to the coming effort the importance 
 that will give it a strong send-off, an initiation of suf- 
 ficient force to carry it well on its way. This boy felt, 
 after the talk, that he was undertaking an enterprise 
 of importance. It was to be his chief business in life 
 for a time to effect the good habit that the teacher 
 required of him. He was told that he must think of 
 it constantly when he was in the schoolroom, and 
 encouraged further to emphasize it by keeping a record 
 of his progress, to be reported nightly both to his 
 teacher and to his father, whose interest the teacher 
 secured by telling him of the work to be done. 
 
 Where children are thoughtful and sincerely anxious 
 to conquer bad habits, a penalty for lapses may be 
 arranged with them. They may agree that giving up 
 ten minutes of some favorite recreation every time the 
 sequence of the good habit is broken, will help them; 
 or that they will not be candidates for team positions 
 if they forget more than a reasonable number of times. 
 The process of habit-forming becomes in such cases 
 an absorbing game, with every condition in favor of 
 progress. Unfortunately, many children are not dis- 
 posed to help in their own regeneration in this delight- 
 ful fashion. They are stupid, selfish, lazy, misled at 
 home or by their associates, or otherwise unable con- 
 sciously to cooperate, thus throwing the responsibility 
 more heavily upon the teacher. Even in such cases, 
 with his knowledge of the unchanging laws of habit 
 as his strong ally, the teacher is able to accomplish 
 results. He must see to it that the effects of each lapse
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 105 
 
 from the new standard are unpleasant enough to tend 
 toward inhibition. The checks used may range all 
 the way from a slight reproof before the class to isola- 
 tion, withdrawing the privilege of recitation, suspension 
 from a school office or honor, or even corporal punish- 
 ment in extreme cases. Two characteristics they must 
 always have; they must be sure and they must be 
 immediate. An uncorrected lapse grows strong and - 
 multiplies itself. 
 
 The boy who spoke aloud had had so little practice A 
 in self-control of this kind that the teacher felt surer J^ 1 
 of results in keeping the management of penalties in wore 
 her own hands. She adopted the method of making 
 him stand for ten minutes each time he spoke aloud 
 without permission. This reminded him forcibly of 
 his lapse, and carried with it an unpleasant conscious- 
 ness of the more or less scornful and amused regard of 
 his schoolmates. Old habit was stronger than the dis- 
 comfort of this scrutiny, however. He grew used to 
 the position, and after a few days it became tolerable, 
 then a joke. By a process of accommodation, not 
 uncommon, the oft-repeated disgrace ceased to be a 
 disgrace, and so ceased to be a deterrent. Whereas 
 at first he rose slowly when bidden and stood with 
 shamed eyes glued to a book, he later reached the 
 point where he jumped up promptly after one of his 
 breaches of the law and grinned cheerfully at his friends, 
 including the teacher, as he took what had ceased to 
 be a punishment. Seeing this, the astute instructor 
 changed the treatment. She adopted the opposite 
 course, and instead of making him conspicuous in the 
 schoolroom, eliminated him from it. He was given a
 
 106 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 desk in her office, where he sat for a half-day after each 
 offense. As the association with other children after 
 a rather lonely little boyhood was the greatest charm 
 of the public school to this particular child, this punish- 
 ment was very effective and quickly gained results. 
 It had to be administered only three times, with one 
 repetition a fortnight later than the rest, to break the 
 bad habit and establish thorough self-control so far as 
 talking in school was concerned. 
 
 The place Good behavior is not altogether a matter of habit, 
 of judgment a i t h oug h habit is by far the greatest part of it. There 
 come to 'all pupils occasions when a decision must be 
 made for which they can call up no precedent. Here 
 a judgment must take the place of an habitual response 
 to a usual situation. Even in this case, of course, the 
 mental attitudes and processes that decide the answer 
 given are largely habitual; but in a narrow sense the 
 decision is new. With no previous experience to guide 
 him in making his decision, the tempted boy must fall 
 back upon some general principle or else blindly follow 
 instinct. If general principles in the form of axioms 
 have not been given him, and so drilled into conscious- 
 ness that they come readily to mind in an emergency, 
 instinct, always with us, directs the decision. The 
 instinctive response is rarely the best one, and so a 
 point is lost for good conduct. 
 
 To obviate this danger teachers, parents, clergymen, 
 and children's writers seek to instill moral prejudices 
 and ideals. All morals-and-manners instruction has 
 the double purpose of providing ready-made responses 
 to the situations that may be foreseen, and guiding 
 principles for the decisions that no foresight can safely
 
 THE DISCIPLINARY PROCESS 107 
 
 predicate. The situations of a student's everyday life 
 at school may be pretty accurately provided for by a 
 wideawake administration; but even if every one 
 could be met by the appropriate habit, the problems The 
 which face students when they leave school and enter 
 new environments would have no guarantee of wise 
 solution without some more general provision. Strong 
 moral prejudices against evil, strong convictions of 
 duty, give a basis for the right kind of judgment. 
 Practice in making judgments under a supervision that 
 restrains action from unwise ones, develops courage 
 and confidence in their ability to decide the questions 
 that come to students. A country boy, transplanted 
 to a school in a crowded district of New York, was 
 adopted by a city gang badly in need of recruits, and 
 introduced to metropolitan ways. Two of the leaders, 
 as a special favor, showed him some tiny white tablets 
 which, they said, would make him feel better than he 
 had ever felt. The country boy had never heard of 
 heroin, and had no idea of the danger involved in taking 
 the tablets. But as he weighed the advantages of 
 conformity with his instinctive hesitation to eat some- 
 thing new and strange, there came to him an axiom, 
 repeated to the point of triteness by the teacher of his 
 old country school: 
 
 "Don't do anything you are not sure is right." 
 The injunction, coming readily to mind because it 
 had been so thoroughly drilled into his consciousness, 
 saved him from making a great mistake. Without it, 
 he would have yielded to the instinctive desire to 
 receive the approbation of his new friends.
 
 io8 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The disciplinary process is the establishing and 
 realizing of an adequate ideal of right conduct. The 
 ideal must exist first in the teacher's mind, then in the 
 minds of her pupils. Teacher and pupils cooperate 
 in bringing about the realization of the ideal, which 
 involves the processes of creating good habits and 
 curing bad ones, and of establishing standards that will 
 enable pupils to make the right decisions when new 
 situations are presented to them, for response to which 
 they have no precedent. Punishment is an aid to good 
 discipline when used to discourage wrong responses to 
 stimuli and so to build up good habits.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 THERE is a subtle spiritual essence of all that goes on 
 in a school, both in the minds of teacher and pupils 
 and in every open and hidden act, which may never 
 be exactly described or analyzed, but which the most 
 inexperienced observer feels when he enters a school- 
 room, and which gives to those used to comparison 
 and judgment of schools a very fair index of what is 
 going on there. It is called the school spirit, and so 
 potent is it that it has been known to change the 
 whole attitude and behavior of a student transferred 
 from one school to another, in an incredibly short time. 
 It is the teacher's best friend or his worst enemy. No 
 consideration of discipline could possibly ignore its 
 importance in fixing the status of the teacher and his 
 wishes, and the success attained by the school. 
 
 The spirit of the school is the atmosphere produced Elements 
 by the combination of the attitudes of the people who dete "mn 
 
 ing school 
 
 compose and influence it the teacher first of all, spirit 
 then the pupils, the parents, and the community, teacher 
 The condition of the environment also has much to 
 do with it. A popular fallacy exists to the effect that 
 the teacher alone is responsible for success or failure; 
 and many a teacher has borne praise or blame usually 
 blame for conditions for which he was not chiefly,
 
 no 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 In the 
 pupils 
 
 In parents 
 
 if at all, responsible. 1 In the teacher, the most impor- 
 tant element is the attitude in which he approaches 
 his work. Then his natural ability, his preparation 
 (which gives confidence because of knowledge, trained 
 perceptions, sympathy, and appreciation), his happi- 
 ness in his work, and his fitness for the special place 
 in which he finds himself, all enter into the making of 
 the atmosphere of his schoolroom. The last point 
 is one of special importance. Many teachers are partial 
 failures because they are misplaced. Moved from the 
 country to town, from town to country, from primary 
 to grammar grade, from the charge of a room to special 
 work, teachers who are dragging out a conscientious 
 martyrdom would become really happy in their work. 
 Add to these his ability to cooperate, his social con- 
 sciousness, and the elements that make up the teacher's 
 schoolroom personality are fairly included. 
 
 Among the pupils, respect for the teacher is the 
 first element which contributes to a good school spirit. 
 Then comes respect for the rights of other pupils, a 
 real happiness in the work done, good training in habits 
 which fix. ideas of propriety and ideals of conduct, 
 and a distinctly formulated aim in each pupil's mind, 
 emphasizing the real object of the school, the purpose 
 for which he is there at all. 
 
 Thorough respect for the school and cooperation 
 with it are the elements contributed by parents. When 
 extended throughout the community there is a sol- 
 idarity of purpose concerning the school which reacts 
 upon all who work in or attend it. "School spirit" 
 
 1 For an entertaining comment on this fallacy, see Mary C. 
 Robinson, " Which Class?" in the Atlantic Monthly, February, 1912.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL in 
 
 is present in that community, and school progress is 
 bound to come there. A district or town or city 
 that knows its schools and is proud of them, that 
 turns out to school elections and to parents' clubs 
 and last-day programs, furnishes the spiritual en- 
 vironment in which schools flourish and bring forth 
 good fruit, a hundred-fold. 
 
 The influence of physical environment upon the The school 
 spirit of the school is incalculable. Self-respect and ment n 
 order, industry and courtesy, are very hard to foster 
 in a tumble-down building or a dreary school yard. 
 Districts or villages that have poor schools should 
 clean up, paint over, plant out, and spend some money 
 for new furniture and books. Teachers who can not 
 arouse a real interest in their work should inaugurate 
 a campaign of expenditure. People become vastly 
 interested in a short time in things in which they have 
 invested their money. If a teacher can induce the 
 school board to spend enough money to arouse the 
 ire of the richest farmer in the vicinity, and then set 
 himself to prove that every dollar has been wisely 
 spent and is returning big profits, he will have no 
 reason to complain of lack of interest in his school. 
 If the board will not or can not spend the amounts 
 needed, let the pupils and teacher set to work to earn 
 them; the cooperation involved will often begin a 
 new order of friendly zeal in school things that the 
 new treasures can scarcely improve. 
 
 The environment should be, first of all, neat and character- 
 clean. There should be no weeds harbored in the ^""i.* 
 school yard, there should be good walks to the front vironment 
 door and to all out-buildings, scrapers at the entrances,
 
 112 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Helps to 
 good order 
 
 Comfort 
 
 Beauty 
 
 and mats and brushes that dust and mud may be 
 kept out of the study-room. A full cleaning-outfit is 
 essential, and yet there are many country schools 
 whose sole equipment is one broom and a duster fur- 
 nished by the teacher. The vacuum cleaning system 
 now to be had should be installed in every new build- 
 ing erected, as it not only cleans more thoroughly than 
 any broom or brush can, but also raises no cloud of 
 dust to settle on furniture or fill the lungs. 
 
 Certain facilities for orderliness are next in impor- 
 tance. These include such things as glass-covered 
 book-cases, stands for dictionaries and globes, boxes 
 or cupboards for all working paraphernalia, and cases 
 for umbrellas, rubbers, and lunch-baskets, or individual 
 lockers in larger schools. The old-fashioned double 
 seats, a formidable cause of bad order, are still to be 
 found in many country and village schools. Up-to- 
 date drinking arrangements, separate cloak-rooms 
 for boys and girls, adequate toilet facilities, and room 
 to carry on school work without crowding, are all 
 helps to the content and smooth-running of the school, 
 that make for a happy school spirit. 
 
 Children can not be happy and contented unless 
 they are comfortable. Cold feet and hands, ill fitting 
 seats, and long formal exercises that tire the body 
 unduly, produce an irritability that may easily show 
 itself in fretful outbreaks or uncontrollable restlessness. 
 Bad light, and above all bad air, are also responsible 
 for a lack of good feeling, for unhappiness and dis- 
 content. 
 
 Mere comfort, moreover, is not enough. The school 
 environment should be really beautiful. To the initial
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL 113 
 
 requirements of cleanliness, order, and comfort should 
 be added the charm of soft color, of lovely form and 
 proportion in the school building and furniture, and 
 the helpful suggestions of beautiful pictures and casts. 
 Such beauty has a refining influence that nothing else 
 can supply, and the pride in lovely things possessed in 
 common is a strong tie between the members of the 
 school. Children respond to beauty with reverent 
 delight, sometimes when other means fail to arouse 
 them. 
 
 These elements characteristics of teacher, pupils, 
 parents, the community at large, and the physical 
 environment all help to determine what the school 
 spirit shall be. Let us now consider the ideal school 
 spirit, that vivifying force which transcends rule and 
 custom and makes of the pupil-teacher relationship 
 a delight and an inspiration. 
 
 A fine school spirit is, like all fine results of patient its prac- 
 labor, like all seemingly fortuitous gifts of sheer talent, ticabaity 
 far too subtle and complex a thing for accurate, cold- 
 blooded analysis. It is a contagious infection, to be 
 caught and carried in a happy moment, after many 
 weeks, perhaps, have been vainly spent in trying to 
 win it. It may come as a spontaneous reward for the 
 fulfilling of conditions, as a rare song-bird chooses that 
 garden for his home wherein is a bird-house built ready 
 for him. It may grow slowly, supplanting old pre- 
 judices reluctantly surrendered, old notions that die 
 hard; or come quickly, like a flower that wants only 
 warmth and moisture to hasten bloom. However 
 it may come, this is to be remembered; it is not, for 
 all its rare power to turn school drudgery into delight,
 
 ii4 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 a chance gift from the gods, but a reward for straight 
 thinking and earnest effort, a state of mind to be 
 explained by definite psychological laws, a result of 
 certain conditions that may be attained and controlled. 
 There is nothing mystic and nothing fatalistic about 
 it. Some teachers have a "knack" for attaining it 
 quickly and with little effort, others must make a care- 
 ful study of conditions and means before they can 
 compass this end; but all earnest and big-hearted 
 teachers may win it, and find in its presence the sub- 
 tlest and ablest ally that teacher ever had. 
 " The Downright kindness, amiability, the desire to please 
 
 greatest of i i i * r -,-, 
 
 these is and help, is the sine qua non for a good school spirit. 
 
 chanty " j^ Q taskmaster teacher, setting himself sternly to secure 
 a given requirement from his pupils, can hope to achieve 
 the happiness in work that is its secret. He needs all 
 the pride and pleasure that comes to the true enthu- 
 siast in any profession who has chosen his work wisely 
 and pursued it earnestly. Then he needs considera- 
 tion for others, quick sympathy and eager helpfulness. 
 He must have love for his work, for his pupils, for all 
 mankind. Teaching is a work that takes hold on all 
 the multiform life of the world by all the tentacles 
 thrust out by each pupil taught. It reaches out pre- 
 hensile fingers of relationship into far and unknown 
 regions, achieving a spiritual unity with unseen and 
 unguessable phases of living. Far more potent than 
 press or pulpit, teaching sends out, at four o'clock on 
 five days of the week, its thousands upon thousands 
 of unconscious emissaries, to take an active part in 
 moulding the life of the world. They carry with them 
 the sensitive reactions of spirits impressionable to the
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL 115 
 
 treatment they have received, the spirit of the men and 
 women who have had them in charge through the 
 working day. Can any teacher refuse such a respon- 
 sibility? Can any teacher tolerate pettiness, time- 
 serving, prejudice, superficiality, when the cry of the 
 world may be answered so helpfully through the chil- 
 dren? Even where stern measures must be adopted, 
 the spirit of love and helpfulness bears witness of itself. 
 It can never be mistaken where it exists. 
 
 But the spirit of friendly helpfulness must be found A mischiev- 
 
 , . , ., , . ous fallacy 
 
 also among the pupils, and among a working majority 
 of them at that, if it is materially to dominate the 
 methods and results. A very common maxim is 
 that, since love begets love, pupils will invariably 
 respond to the friendly and helpful spirit of a teacher 
 with a friendly and docile attitude. This is not true. 
 It is usually true, but there are cases where outside 
 influences, adverse to the spirit of love, are stronger 
 than that of a teacher. A really sincere and able 
 teacher, indeed, may labor for years in a community 
 without being able to produce a general social spirit, 
 although his efforts may bring forth fruit in individual 
 cases. But a spirit of love and helpfulness requires 
 that the influential majority of any group agree in 
 their attitudes. The influences of street and home and 
 religion, or rather of religious teachings, have their 
 part in determining the spirit of the school, as well 
 as the attitude of the teacher. Given favorable con- 
 ditions in these respects, the achievement of the object 
 sought is easily within the teacher's power. 
 
 A good school spirit is also a spirit of earnest, hard The spirit 
 work. It recognizes a goal for the efforts of each,
 
 u6 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The 
 
 inspiration 
 of the 
 worth- 
 while 
 
 and sets out for that goal in sober earnest. The guide 
 for this journey of achievement accepts no shoddy 
 work, permits no flimsy excuses; his requirements are 
 inexorable and his standards high. It is worth while 
 to work under these conditions, with the knowledge 
 that what is done is done with a purpose, is appreciated, 
 is nicely appraised. The school is a factory l which 
 produces ability and power as other factories produce 
 doors and chairs and garments. But it is better than 
 a factory, for the workers keep all they produce. They 
 are capitalists, not hired workmen. 
 
 A lively conception of the bigness of the task is the 
 greatest help in the development of a work-spirit in 
 the school. The years of training are so few, the time 
 so short, the need so great; the demands of life so 
 varied, the opportunities so without number, and 
 competition so keen how can all the preparation 
 needed be crowded into the limited years of school 
 life? If any vision of the possibilities that lie beyond 
 them can be given to little children, if any adequate 
 idea of the rewards of effort, they will work to achieve 
 the ends they see. In other words, motivation is the 
 keynote of the industrial hum. Give incentives, and 
 you receive back earnest work. Arouse the imagina- 
 tion by picturing the prizes to be gained, and the will 
 is stimulated to attain them. The wondrous improve- 
 ment noted in school spirit and cooperation where 
 manual training, agriculture, and household science 
 have been introduced into schools, is due chiefly to 
 the fact that where before the connection between 
 studies and future welfare had to be taken on faith in 
 
 1 Bagley, Classroom Management, page 4.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL 117 
 
 the wisdom of their elders, it is now patent to the mind 
 of even the most sluggish. There is something "in 
 sight" to be worked for. For those who think more 
 abstractly or have work of another sort in mind for 
 themselves, the new subjects have no such helpful 
 influence. But in general it may be said that the 
 spirit of work is the mental habit of holding the future 
 above the present. 
 
 The habit of ready obedience gives unity and smooth- Obedience 
 ness to all the working of the school. It depends 
 largely upon the wisdom and tact of the teacher, who 
 must give practice and reasonable directions if they 
 are to be followed without question. Children obey 
 a beloved teacher willingly, and one who is not beloved 
 with at least a sense of justice and the reasonableness 
 of conformity, if his demands are sensible and, to 
 their thinking, justifiable. Parental and social in- 
 fluence has much to do with the existence of the spirit. 
 
 Above all, if possible, there should be a spirit of joy 
 joy in work and play. Just pure happiness, the pleasure 
 of doing a good thing well and then entering with zest 
 into the fun that is childhood's inheritance and right, 
 is a real object to be gained. Joy is the normal con- 
 dition of childhood and youth, and is the mother, 
 as Goethe says, of all the virtues. 1 All the lovely 
 colors and beautiful forms that our schoolrooms and 
 school premises should boast, contribute to it. All 
 the games and tasks of childhood and the sports and 
 ambitions of adolescence should be tuned to it. To 
 those to whom privation, or the lack of love and sym- 
 pathy at home have decreed an unhappy childhood, 
 
 1 Adolf Langguth, Goethe's P&dagogik, Halle, 1886, page 194.
 
 n8 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 the school, which is a second home that all may share, 
 brings joy as it brings care and thoughtful guidance. 
 It is properly a part of the life of the organization, 
 one of its objects and aims. 
 
 The fear of There is a Puritanic distrust of pleasure, happily 
 pleasure Qr uima ppiiy almost disappeared from the field of 
 social thought, that still lingers with some teachers. 
 The writer remembers one young girl, teaching her 
 first country school, who forbade her pupils their 
 great annual bonfire, to which they looked forward all 
 the year, because, as she said, the fun of that bonfire 
 was the chief thought in their minds throughout the 
 fall. The bonfire was, indeed, an annual festival, 
 for which leaves and brush were gathered gleefully 
 from the first day of school. It was probably a shame- 
 ful economic blunder, but of that the teacher was as 
 ignorant as the pupils. When the frosty days of 
 late November came, usually just before the Thanks- 
 giving recess, all the young people of the neighborhood 
 gathered at the close of school to dance about the bon- 
 fire. It was macle in the middle of a wide road, that the 
 forests on either side might be safe; and all who wished 
 to brought their suppers and staid until the last embers 
 sent up their last sparks. The conscientious but 
 misguided girl who forbade the yearly fire-festival 
 not only destroyed the happiness and good-nature of 
 her boys and girls for the term, but discouraged a 
 custom that was growing into a tradition. We have 
 far too little of festival-making of that sort in our 
 country the kind of festival that grows up spon- 
 taneously and is simple and innocent and at the same 
 time recreative. Such play need not at all interfere
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOL 119 
 
 with hard and purposeful work, as the inexperienced 
 girl in this instance thought it would. The teacher 
 who followed her had the good sense to reestablish 
 the great bonfire as a school institution, and to favor 
 it frankly. When it was over, she filled the aching 
 void of anticipation by planning an Arbor Day cele- 
 bration in the spring, and her pupils found as much 
 joy in poring over florists' catalogues and drawing 
 the plans for a school garden as they had in raking 
 leaves in the fall. 
 
 The custom of making much of school holidays Growth 
 and celebrations is growing, and is at the same time pi ay _spirit 
 becoming less formal, more spontaneous. The old 
 set programs, in which every child appeared in his 
 best clothes to "speak a piece," are being partially 
 supplanted by happy out-of-doors excursions and in- 
 door parties a change that adds joy to the occasion 
 for the children and vastly lessens the labor involved 
 for teachers. Some schools are nourishing a par- 
 ticular festival, building up local tradition about some 
 celebration of their own, often of a semi-historical 
 nature. The pageant and the school-play combine 
 pleasure and valuable training. Play-grounds have 
 a recognized place in the educational scheme. The 
 happiness of childhood is an object to which any 
 number of thoughtful men and women give their time 
 and attention. The spirit of joy is growing. Let it 
 increase and multiply without stint. 
 
 All these elements in the ideal school spirit make Unity 
 up a mass of interests common to both teachers and 
 pupils, what may be called the working unity of the 
 school. By mutual concession and the reciprocity
 
 120 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 of effort that is possible where there are common ends 
 to be gained, it may be won even from the conflict- 
 ing ideas of youth untrained and of disciplined ma- 
 turity. And this fine oneness of spirit is the secret 
 of the most easily-maintained self-discipline that a 
 school may know. It depends, says Arnold Tompkins, 
 of unity (i) on certain external conditions, (2) on the teaching 
 process itself. 1 It eliminates that grim antagonism 
 of teacher and pupils, growing out of the imposition 
 of tasks whose end and justification children can not 
 understand, which lies at the root of so large a part 
 of school trouble. It is the solvent which, receiving 
 the varied and seemingly irreconcilable elements that 
 exist in every school, gives in the end a precipitate of 
 new knowledge and power. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Teacher, parents, children, and community con- 
 tribute to the spirit of the school, which depends upon 
 the suitableness of the environment, and the good 
 will, industry, obedience, and happiness that are in 
 the school. 
 
 1 Philosophy of Teaching, page 288. " A right act in school is 
 one which secures, or tends to secure, unity between the mind of 
 the teacher and the mind of the pupil in the act of instruction."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AN ANALYSIS OF OFFENSES COMMON IN AMERICAN 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 THAT complexity of motivation which makes it dif- 
 ficult to deal justly with offenders against school 
 order, makes it still more difficult to classify offenses. 
 Any approximate analysis and classification of the 
 forms of bad order in our schools, must inevitably 
 be marred by countless overlappings and coincidences 
 of character, motive, and result. The analysis which 
 follows is necessarily incomplete, unavoidably in- 
 accurate. Other bases of classification than the one 
 followed, which is one of causal relation, were rejected 
 because they involved a still greater degree of over- 
 lapping and duplication. 1 It is hoped that this analysis 
 may help teachers to find causes, and thereby to pro- 
 vide remedies for the troubles in their own schools. 
 
 I. OFFENSES OF MISDIRECTED ENERGY 
 
 These are the first result of the imposition of a formal 
 regimen upon active, untrained, life-and-motion-loving 
 children. There is nothing vicious whatever in them. 
 
 1 The Schoolmasters' Club of Minneapolis appointed a committee 
 in 1911 to investigate the causes of student delinquency or failure 
 in school work. The report of this committee, while not intended 
 to bear especially upon the question of school discipline, is very 
 helpful in giving an idea of the causes which, of course, affect both 
 behavior and scholarship. It is given in the School Review, vol. 
 20 (1912) pp. 593-605.
 
 122 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Whispering 
 
 Note- 
 writing 
 
 They are the outcroppings of a vitality, a capacity 
 for action, which can never quite be crammed into the 
 measuring-cup of a school program. To reduce the 
 amount of energy which runs to waste and becomes a 
 nuisance, larger measuring-cups must be provided. 
 Variety of occupation is today largely reducing the 
 amount of this kind of disorder. 
 
 Whispering is the first and most constant outlet 
 for left-over interest and love of action. It becomes 
 a more serious offense when persisted in because of a 
 deliberate desire to bait the teacher, or when it is 
 modified into a low rumbling monotone of communi- 
 cation. But in its simplest form it is merely a result 
 of as yet imperfect self-control, and like all other 
 offenses of this class, deserves patient and unfailing 
 help from the teacher, who is guide and prompter in 
 the process of habit-formation, which will finally do 
 away with the evil. 
 
 Another form of communication which is more dif- 
 ficult to deal with is note-writing. The pupil who 
 is too closely watched to whisper, or who fears the con- 
 sequences of whispering, but who still has not more 
 wholesome things to absorb his time and interest, 
 takes to note-writing. The evil begins as soon as the 
 art of expression by writing has been sufficiently 
 mastered to permit its use usually in the third 
 grade and continues through the high school. The 
 notes commonly passed from hand to hand in school 
 fall into these groups: 
 
 i. The note of resentment for punishment or cor- 
 rection. "She's a mean old thing. All that 
 hair ain't hers. I know she wears a switch.
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 123 
 
 My mother says her father used to drive a brewery 
 wagon, and now she puts on all sorts of airs." 
 This is a sample of the way in which youth seeks 
 sympathetically to bind up the wounds of hurt 
 pride. 
 
 2. Notes concerning lessons usually to ask for 
 an assignment. 
 
 3. Notes planning festivities for after-school hours. 
 "Ask your mother if you can come over to our 
 house tonight after supper. My sister is home 
 from boarding school and she knows lots of ways 
 to have fun and scare the teachers." 
 
 4. Notes planning school mischief, "ive got a toad 
 in my desk in a box you ask mary to show you 
 where Histry lesson is and ill put toad on her 
 desk an wen she hollers ill grab it and tell mis 
 Smith it musta got in the window." 
 
 5. Gossiping notes. All sorts of school, family, and 
 community news is distributed by busy little 
 missives that slip about a schoolroom as if by 
 magic. It could be told at recess just as well, 
 but the risk of note-writing adds a romantic 
 spice of adventure to this method of communica- 
 tion. 
 
 6. Notes asking or giving help in time of examina- 
 tion or quiz. 
 
 7. Love-notes. These often begin in the third grade, 
 
 and continue with intermissions throughout the 
 grades and the high school. 
 
 8. Obscene notes. A rather common manifesta- 
 tion of a problem which will be mentioned under 
 the head of offenses due to physical causes.
 
 124 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Another outlet for pent-up energy is the soft humming 
 or singing which is so hard to locate in a crowded room. 
 Noisy movements, especially of the feet, and restless trips 
 to wastepaper basket or drinking-fountain, are others. 
 
 Unconscious Then there is the aimless, often unconscious marking 
 of school furniture, which even grown people sometimes 
 find a welcome exercise for idle hands. In its uncon- 
 scious stages this vandalism is stimulated most by the 
 sight of marks already existing, which it is very natural 
 to deepen and strengthen if one has a pencil or knife 
 in one's hand. This shows that the trouble is also 
 largely imitative in origin. 
 
 Teasing Pin-sticking, the throwing of paper-wads, tacks, 
 
 or chalk, pulling girls' hair, and the toilet operations 
 in which little girls engage with a naive disregard to 
 the publicity of their surroundings, are primarily the 
 result of too much leisure. The pin-sticking and hair- 
 pulling are examples of the satisfaction of a childish 
 sense of fun, usually innocent enough in itself, which 
 suggestion and guidance may turn into other channels. 
 Some girls will continue to braid the hair of the girl 
 in front of them at every opportunity, until other 
 means of gratifying their love of the orderly and 
 beautiful, together with a talk on the taste of such 
 proceedings, substitute a better occupation. 
 
 II. OFFENSES OF RESENTFUL RESISTANCE TO AN 
 IMPOSED CONTROL 
 
 There is today a great hue and cry all over the land 
 against the formality and artificiality of our school 
 curriculum. It is a law-abiding form of a resentment 
 which has long existed, but which formerly showed
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 125 
 
 itself in all forms of school lawlessness among pupils, 
 and in lack of support and cooperation among parents. 
 Having, in this day of self-analysis, found the nature 
 and cause of its complaint, this resentment has emerged 
 partly from the stage of its blind resistance, from the 
 day of force, and comes out into the open with a manly 
 statement of its grievance. It has not only become 
 self-conscious, but it knows the remedy needed a 
 course of study, a school life, more closely answering 
 the needs of the school children. 
 
 But the response to this demand on the part of Why change 
 school authorities is necessarily slow and imperfect, 
 Even if they knew what equipment would be thoroughly 
 adequate, the means to supply it are often wanting; 
 while the inertia of accepted institutions is hard to 
 overcome. There is a dearth of trained teachers for 
 new work. There remains still in our schools, there- 
 fore, much against which pupils feel a spirit of resistance 
 and even of rebellion. Some of this is just, much of 
 it unjust, growing out of the notorious assurance of 
 youth that it knows better what is good for it than 
 all the sages. Moreover, there is a resentment which 
 is conscious, a deliberate feeling of being imposed 
 upon by powers which can not be overcome but which 
 can be hampered in doing their will; and an uncon- 
 scious, or rather unformulated resentment which feels 
 the teacher to be an enemy and delights in teasing and 
 tormenting him. The teacher represents to his pupils 
 the whole system of prescribed training, and is there- 
 fore an object for the venting of their resentment at 
 being forced to do what they dislike, and that for which 
 many of them have no especial aptitude.
 
 i 2 6 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 This resentment amounts in some schools to a defi- 
 nite and universal understanding. It was strong in 
 the frontier schools of an earlier day, wherein tortured 
 schoolmasters strove single-handed with the natural 
 resentment of boys whose heroes were the rough 
 subduers of the wilderness, and who were learning arts 
 of the usefulness of which they had the strongest doubts. 
 It is very strong today in some of the schools of our 
 great cities, where large numbers of foreign children 
 are being forced into the mould of little Americans, 
 much against the grain of both their inherited customs 
 and the contamination of their American city sur- 
 roundings. And there is enough of it still in almost 
 all of our schools, good and bad, town and country, 
 to make it a chief problem for all teachers. 
 
 Disobedi- Deliberate disobedience is usually to be attributed 
 truancy to this source. When so founded, it is among the 
 hardest of all to deal with, for it fortifies itself by an 
 appeal to justice, to the moral law. The pupil often 
 feels himself honestly aggrieved. A frank and im- 
 partial teacher must often in such cases feel himself 
 in the wrong, being the tool of an inadequate and 
 mistaken system. Besides the pupil who openly 
 resists the control of the school, there is the one who 
 avoids it by running away. Truancy is largely an 
 imitative offense, but in its origin it is a protest against 
 the system that keeps a boy pegging at books when 
 nature and life are calling. Boys "play hookey" to 
 go a-fishing, to earn money, or to play. The boy to 
 whom the school program offers little intrinsic interest, 
 may force himself to the distasteful task while cold 
 weather lasts, but when spring arrives the call of real
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 127 
 
 interests transcends the force of convention. One 
 boy dares to express his idea of relative values by 
 deserting school, and others follow. A series of school 
 expeditions would answer the need of the boys and 
 take away their ground for resentment, but few Ameri- 
 can teachers are trained to conduct such trips, while 
 the American people look with suspicion upon what 
 they regard as a shirking of the teacher's duty. 1 
 
 A great variety of offenses are due to the same grim "Breaking 
 antagonism, happily growing less and less as better the ^ 
 conditions prevail. The necessity of "breaking the 
 will," much preached to a former generation, forced 
 many naturally sympathetic teachers to stern measures 
 which inevitably aroused this feeling. Inventive child- 
 hood found a hundred ways, some of which have 
 become traditional, in which to show it. They found 
 that stamping, cat-calling, making faces, failing to 
 hear directions, snow-balling, dragging the feet, eating 
 in school, and countless other puerile amusements, 
 annoyed teachers; and because they annoyed teachers, 
 rather than because of any intrinsic pleasure in them, 
 these offenses were committed. Weak teachers have 
 had to endure them, while strong teachers have ex- 
 pended upon their correction an incalculable amount 
 of energy sadly needed for better causes. At last the 
 whole attitude which gave rise to them is being trans- 
 formed by a multitude of changes in and additions to 
 the curriculum, which are curing the idea that teacher 
 
 1 Truancy in some city and in some country schools proves to 
 be due to demands for work from the child by parent or guardian. 
 This absence is not of course an offense on the part of the child, and 
 should be corrected by bringing the proper pressure to bear upon 
 those really to blame.
 
 128 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 and school are an unsympathetic despotism. To the 
 same end, the untrained or time-serving teacher will 
 in time give place to those whose friendly tact will 
 entirely overcome the old resentment toward school 
 and school requirements. 
 
 III. OFFENSES DUE TO PHYSICAL CONDITIONS 
 
 A large proportion of offenses is due to preventable 
 or controllable faults in the physical environment, 
 or to peculiarities in the physical condition of pupils. 
 The former yield to correction so generally that there 
 is small excuse for their continuance; the latter are far 
 more puzzling and difficult to deal with. 
 
 Results of the Physical Environment 
 
 Tempera- A pervading restlessness is a common indication 
 that the schoolroom is either too warm or too cool. 
 All teachers learn to make allowance for inattention 
 and discontent, for wiggling and sputtering and dis- 
 turbing trips to the cloakroom for wraps, when the 
 room is below normal temperature; and for indolence 
 and abstraction when it is too warm for comfort. 1 
 In country schools it is sometimes necessary to huddle 
 the children closely about a red-hot stove to keep their 
 toes from being frosted, so poorly constructed are the 
 little schoolhouses. Such discomforts and informality 
 are not conducive to earnest study, nor can the teacher 
 ^ insist on a very high standard of behavior in children 
 for whom so little thought has been taken. So many 
 improved devices are now on the market for controlling 
 
 1 See Dexter, " School Deportment and the Weather," Educa- 
 tional Review, Feb., 1900, pages 160-168.
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 129 
 
 the temperature and humidity of schoolrooms, that 
 every district should be provided with the means of 
 keeping the school in comfort. A simple jacket of 
 sheet-iron about a stove in which a fire may be kept 
 over night will serve most one-room school buildings. 
 A better arrangement is a heater in the basement, where 
 fuel also may be kept, with a playroom for rainy days. 
 The school standardization movement is accomplish- 
 ing much in this direction. 
 
 Air must be not only of the right temperature, but Air 
 reasonably pure. The viciously contaminated air in 
 some schoolrooms effectively prevents good work. 
 Earnest application is impossible to the child whose 
 lungs are filled with poison. Incapable of giving 
 voluntary attention to the work in hand, he allows his 
 involuntary attention to be drawn to any chance move- 
 ment which catches his eye. Suggestion and imitation 
 complete his fall into some offense from which good 
 working conditions might have saved him. 
 
 Poor light is likewise responsible for some misde- Light 
 meanors. Poor light is too strong or too dim, direct 
 sunlight on floor or work, or light from the wrong 
 direction. A favorite and most annoying trick of 
 children is to throw a brilliant reflection of sunlight 
 about the room with a small mirror. This can never 
 occur in a properly shaded room. On the other hand, 
 dimly lit rooms encourage idleness and the unnum- 
 bered works of darkness. Artificial light of some kind 
 should be provided in every schoolroom for dark days. 
 
 Any number of disgusting practices are traceable to Dirty and 
 
 ..._!* A L 10, ill-kept 
 
 dirty and insanitary school premises. A schoolhouse buildings 
 in a considerable village of central Illinois was so ill-
 
 130 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Signs of 
 disorder 
 
 The need 
 of walks 
 
 kept that the effects of its condition upon school order 
 might easily be seen when school was not in session. 
 The floor under the radiators was thick with accumu- 
 lated dirt, in which could be seen deposits of peanut 
 shells, pencil-sharpenings, candy-wrappers, and wads 
 of paper. In a high window at the back of one room, 
 a piece had been broken from a pane, evidently some 
 time before, since the surrounding wall was studded 
 with many generations of paper-wads, plainly aimed 
 at the opening but landed wide of the mark. The 
 dingy desks were deeply cut with initials and rude 
 pictures. In the dark, dusty cloakrooms could be 
 deciphered impudent legends concerning the teachers, 
 and insulting statements about pupils. Had the 
 schoolhouse been kept clean, had it been properly 
 inspected, all these forms of bad order would have 
 been, or at least could have been, prevented. A word 
 here about the worst form of vandalism is apropos. 
 There are outbuildings on school premises in our 
 country containing disrespectful or indecent legends, 
 which have been contaminating the minds of children 
 for years because no teacher has had the courage to 
 insist that the place be thoroughly cleaned up. Dirt 
 in any form is demoralizing, and where it is condoned 
 trouble may be expected from it soon or late. 
 
 In many schools the mud brought in by pupils keeps 
 the floors in poor condition and is a menace to health 
 and a temptation to misbehavior. A shameless parsi- 
 mony deters the boards of such schools from making 
 the needed walks about the school buildings. In 
 Illinois, a state justly famous for the blackness and 
 stickiness of its mud, it is not at all uncommon to see
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 131 
 
 country schools which have not a foot of sidewalk on 
 the premises. Good concrete walks from the entrance 
 of the school yard to the door, and also to each out- 
 house, with scrapers at the front gate and others at 
 the door, can be made at a very reasonable cost, will 
 last for years, and will save health, appearances and 
 self-respect. Mats of wire and fiber are also helpful in 
 keeping the school floor in a sanitary condition. 1 
 
 A most disturbing if comparatively innocent offense Aids to 
 is the craning of necks and straining of ears when sights 
 and sounds from the outside world call the attention 
 of the children. Older children may be set a task in 
 self-control if the teacher enjoys psychological experi- 
 ment, but little folk need merely a more thorough 
 isolation. Opaque curtaining at windows and doors 
 is first aid to injured attention. Deadened floors and 
 walls shut out noise and induce an answering quiet 
 from the pupils. A schoolhouse near a railroad, or a 
 house in process of building, is a hard place to keep in 
 order. 
 
 In closing this division of our discussion, it should be 
 said that it is the business of the school board to see 
 that teachers have a fair chance to keep their schools 
 in order. They should provide clean, quiet, comforta- 
 ble quarters for the school, that the teachers may 
 have no handicap in the mere material environment. 
 Teachers should insist on such surroundings before 
 beginning school; they have not half a chance without 
 them. 
 
 1 For excellent suggestions concerning the physical environment 
 in country schools, see Dressier, The Hygiene of Rural Schools, 
 N. E. A., 1912, page 1103,
 
 132 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Results of the Physical Condition of Pupils 
 The by- The growing pains of boys and girls are many and 
 
 products J m . J 
 
 of growth various. Sometimes they afflict the public in queer or 
 annoying ways. A new consciousness of himself, a 
 new ability to think independently, a cocky exuberance 
 over the acquiring of some new dignity, has led many 
 a school child who would not for worlds be deliberately 
 impudent, into the temptation of "talking back" to 
 his teacher. To check such manifestations wisely is 
 no easy task, for if too severely reprimanded such a 
 child may become silent and morose, sullenly aggrieved 
 at an affront to his new dignity. 
 
 A number of modes and stages mark the advance 
 of children from babyhood to maturity, each with its 
 characteristic aberrations and its own trying manner- 
 isms or even vices. Boys, for instance, are by turns 
 frankly affectionate, graciously patronizing, blindly 
 indifferent, brutally rude, jealous, hateful, secretly 
 admiring, and openly devoted to the little girls they 
 meet at school. Girls are given to fads which they 
 pursue with the most maddening single-mindedness. 
 They make hairpin braid behind their geographies, 
 they keep house in their desks, setting tea-tables with 
 real food beneath the lid, they cut paper dolls, make 
 rose-beads, write romances and diaries, read Laura Jean 
 Libby, and draw cartoons of the teachers during 
 school hours. All the interests of maturer years appear 
 in little during a school-girl's career. Restlessness 
 and change, resistance and adventure, are especially 
 strong in both boys and girls at the times when 
 physical changes are most rapid and critical. Phys-
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 133 
 
 iology and psychology have explained, as perfectly 
 normal manifestations, many things that were for- 
 merly regarded as the grim outcroppings of original 
 sin. 
 
 Chief among the troubles which arise from the Obscenity 
 normal physical development of boys and girls are 
 those which are grouped under the term obscenity. 
 They spring from a perversion of innocent instincts, 
 and might be prevented in all but degenerate children 
 by proper instruction, given preferably at home. Chil- 
 dren have an altogether normal and healthy curiosity 
 concerning the origin of life and the relation of the 
 sexes; and the painful offenses against purity and good 
 taste, of which they are guilty, are often but the 
 result of the mistaken policy of reticence and deception 
 which has been so long the rule. 
 
 In addition to the problems that arise from the other 
 natural and healthy development of children, there 
 are others that spring from abnormal or subnormal 
 conditions. These are notably inattention, with the 
 restlessness and mischief that go with it, idleness, and 
 irritability. Cheating is sometimes the pathetic last 
 resort of a child who is prevented from making a good 
 showing to parents or teacher, because of some physi- 
 cal disability. Deafness, poor sight, adenoids, or simi- 
 lar troubles, make children appear dull or indifferent. 
 A cure of the physical trouble will often transform 
 them in a short time into quick, attentive pupils to 
 whom learning is a happiness, and obedience a grate- 
 ful impulse. School nurses are employed in many 
 cities to help in the rescue of physically defective chil- 
 dren, while dental and medical inspection is becoming
 
 134 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 more and more common even in the remoter country 
 districts. 1 
 
 Mainutri- Aside from these organic troubles, thousands of 
 children are prevented from doing good work, and so 
 made subject to chance suggestions of mischief, because 
 they are not well fed. Malnutrition keeps children 
 below the point at which the nourished body sends a 
 good supply of blood to the brain, so that physical 
 and mental development go on together. Among the 
 children of the very poor there is an actual lack of 
 food, but among the well-to-do the trouble is usually 
 with over-eating or a poor selection of food. Some 
 country children eat to stupidity, following the example 
 of the men of their families, who eat far more than 
 even their hard manual labor can justify. Children 
 who are fed rich pastry and pickles, and are allowed 
 to drink coffee, ale or wine, can scarcely be expected 
 to do well physically, or to respond to the highest 
 appeals made to them. Fortunately, many cities have 
 taken up the matter of the school luncheon for serious 
 study and experimentation. Substantial lunches at 
 from one to five cents are furnished. The school 
 cafeteria is a recognized feature of the larger institu- 
 tions. In the smaller schools, some good may be 
 done by a series of very practical and detailed lessons 
 on food and digestion, with experiments if possible 
 to show the effects of badly chosen food upon the 
 body. 
 
 1 See Dressier, The Duty of the State in the Medical Inspection 
 of Schools. Report of N. E. A., 1912, pp. 257 S.
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 135 
 
 IV. OFFENSES DUE TO UNTRAINED MORAL JUDG- 
 MENT AND PERVERTED IDEALS 
 
 A group of very serious offenses may be traced to 
 popular fallacies concerning moral laws, or to custom 
 blindly followed without reference to moral law. 
 Among young children these offenses spring usually 
 from simple selfishness a lack of socialization of 
 spirit. They may be stubborn, refusing from pure "indepen- 
 self-will to follow directions, or to give up a personal 
 privilege, or share some pleasant thing. Disobedience 
 in older children is sometimes due, not to resentment 
 against the teacher so much as to a mistaken ideal of 
 maturity, independence, and aristocratic high spirits. 
 Such children have perhaps heard a grown person tell 
 with complacency of an experience in which he worsted 
 authority. The children imbibe the idea that resist- 
 ance to law is the mark of a noble and untamable 
 spirit. Inflammable literature, in which outlawry is 
 idealized and villainy made picturesque, is sometimes 
 responsible. A child who has absorbed such ideals 
 wishes to prove his mettle by refusing to be bound 
 by the petty regulations that trammel his fellows. A 
 wise teacher, confronted by one of these theatrical, 
 self-appointed heroes, will strike at the root of the 
 difficulty by ascertaining the source of the pseudo- 
 inspiration, and by substituting truer ideals for the 
 harmful ones. 
 
 The children in many towns grow up without having Community 
 had "a square deal" ethically. The whole com- influence 
 m unity may be so poisoned by false ideals, in so primi- 
 tive a condition morally, that the children commit
 
 136 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 really serious offenses without an idea that they are 
 transgressing any moral law. An educator, having 
 reason to visit a town in the Middle West, went to see 
 the high school there. It was the last day of the 
 semester, and examinations were being given. The 
 books of all the students were piled up in long rows 
 around the room. The principal and teachers ex- 
 plained that the books had been taken from the students 
 to prevent cheating, a custom which had been followed 
 for years in that community. The reason for this 
 was that the parents were of the firm opinion that 
 the only harm in cheating lay in the possibility of being 
 caught. It was not an uncommon thing for parents 
 to boast to their neighbors of the successful exploit of 
 The a child who had outwitted the teachers on examination 
 
 uncivilized _ ' i 
 
 parent day. A tradition had grown up in that town which 
 
 not only excused, but even fixed upon the children 
 the habit of cheating. In a similar way, other evils 
 have become traditional in various communities, which 
 explains the fruitlessness of the efforts of conscientious 
 teachers to effect a change for the better. Not the 
 children in the school, but the parents in the homes, 
 need education primarily. With the extension of 
 school privileges to grown people, and the growing 
 influence of schoolmen and schoolwomen in our coun- 
 try, and with the awakening of the clergy to the need 
 for specific moral instruction, we may hope that the 
 ideals of the people may be raised from such a standard 
 as is indicated in the illustration just given. One point 
 can not be over-emphasized: that there is a close and 
 vital connection between disorder and misconduct, 
 and the ethical ideals of all the people from whom
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 137 
 
 pupils learn their code of life. Conduct works out from 
 within, truly and inevitably. It is worse than useless 
 to try to control school behavior and secure good 
 school conduct, leaving all untouched the deep wells 
 from which conduct springs. 
 
 Fighting 
 
 Fighting, not in itself an unmixed evil, springs from The 
 many causes, most of which may be grouped under 
 the general head of inadequate ideals. They are in- 
 adequate and outworn, the tenacious standards of a 
 time long past, rather than perverted ideals. The 
 most primitive and ineradicable of them is the world- 
 old admiration for brute force, and of the man or boy 
 who can establish his position by recourse to it. A 
 new boy in a school is expected to prove his right to a 
 friendly reception by at least one well-fought battle, 
 usually with the boss of the "gang." There are many 
 other ways in which a boy may prove his right to the 
 respect of other boys, but with an almost unfailing 
 reversion to primitive standards, boys everywhere 
 demand a fight. The challenged respond to the 
 cono!ition without great regret, for combativeness is of 
 the spirit of man from the beginning. For this reason 
 a "string" of fights often accompanies the entrance of 
 a new boy into a school. 
 
 Second among the ideals which foster fighting is a The 
 cheap notion of democracy which resents any and 
 every inequality. Boys will often eagerly cooperate 
 in forcing a fight upon another boy whose only offense 
 is some real or fancied superiority. Smart clothes, the 
 attendance of servants, too brilliant recitations in class,
 
 138 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The 
 
 fight for 
 excitement 
 
 The fight 
 of gang 
 loyalty 
 
 an evident preference on the part of the teacher or of 
 the girls in the school, or an unfortunate reference to 
 experiences or possessions out of the reach of his 
 schoolmates, has brought upon many a peace-loving 
 boy the vengeance of the commoner. Most people 
 resent superiority keenly, and children show this resent- 
 ment frankly where their elders dissemble rather than 
 acknowledge their humiliating position. 
 
 Fighting is not quite the fundamental thing that 
 its prevalence would lead one to believe. Boys like 
 intense action, and in the absence of intense action of 
 a better sort they turn to the intensiveness of combat. 
 The personal element gives zest; the possibility of 
 serious consequences turns the sport into adventure. 
 The taste for righting grows, like any other bad habit; 
 and when other ways of securing excitement fail, 
 boys learn to produce a fight by some kind of artificial 
 stimulation, usually persistent taunting. Children can 
 be maddeningly insulting, and with any convenient 
 circumstance as a basis, will drive any self-respecting 
 comrade to blows in a short time. Fights of this sort 
 can be effectively cured only by furnishing a new 
 interest of greater excitement than the fight. In other 
 words, fighting must be crowded out by better amuse- 
 ments. 
 
 There is also the gang-fight, growing out of that 
 intense loyalty to "our crowd" which seems to be part 
 of a city boy's religion. This is a survival of the old 
 loyalty of the knight for his own particular band of 
 robbers. It is one with that spirit which supports 
 battle-ships and standing armies, Krupp guns and jin- 
 goism, in these days when the arts of peace are, theoreti-
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 139 
 
 cally, appraised far above the arts of war. Even among 
 very good and advanced people, the idea of a thorough 
 socialization makes its way very slowly. Popular 
 standards make a virtue out of devotion to the interests 
 of one's own particular unit, even when those interests 
 clash with justice to the people of other units. This 
 narrow, selfish preference for one's own, coupled with 
 the prejudice against outsiders which is its natural 
 corollary, ought to be regarded as a vicious thing, and 
 in a more enlightened age will be classed with the 
 selfishness of the man who would restrict the gifts of 
 life to his own family. As political parties bend their 
 energies toward keeping their political enemies out of 
 office, so boys, organized in gangs, develop a shrewd 
 skill in outwitting other gangs, and make a virtue of 
 every deed of violence committed in the name of the 
 gang. General, fights are usually due to the gang 
 organization in some form, and the only real cure lies 
 in breaking up the gang by substituting other interests 
 for the regular gang activities. 
 
 Still another cause of fighting is the prominence imitative 
 given to prize-fights in the newspapers and in popular ts 
 conversation. When a prize-fighter becomes a national 
 hero, the school bully becomes a local one. Neverthe- 
 less, his pugnacity is modified by restrictions, for 
 schoolboys learn to referee and conduct fights in very 
 professional form. This is not altogether bad; indeed, 
 if fighting is as inevitable as some would have us 
 believe, it is altogether good. It introduces a code 
 of fairness, of submission to established rules, that 
 removes these contests from the realm of the purely 
 brutal. If boys will fight, it is good for them to fight
 
 140 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 "Tattling" 
 
 An 
 
 outworn 
 
 fallacy 
 
 under regulations that instil some ideals of fair play. 
 Where characteristics copied from prize-fights are very 
 prominent, these combats will usually be found to spring 
 from imitation of what the boys consider the most 
 manly sport. Teachers in boys' schools have suc- 
 ceeded in controlling fighting almost entirely by sub- 
 stituting boxing contests under supervision; but this 
 method is scarcely practicable in most public schools. 
 
 Shielding Evil-Doers 
 
 An offense which many teachers condone or justify 
 is the shielding of schoolmates who have done wrong, 
 through the same sense of party-loyalty which upholds 
 the gang. In the minds of many children, the school 
 and its pupils are two opposing forces, each trying to 
 outwit the other. They feel that loyalty to their party 
 includes the shielding of any member who has trans- 
 gressed the law, no matter how seriously. The atti- 
 tude of teachers and parents who dilate upon the crime 
 of "tattling" supports the idea. Now it is true that 
 tale-bearing is an ugly habit, and that it sometimes 
 grows, if not checked, until all sorts of petty personal 
 grievances are carried to an overburdened teacher for 
 adjustment. Small children, if championed in their 
 little differences, do not learn the self-reliance which 
 comes through a normal series of self-defensive con- 
 tests. But petty tale-bearing and the betrayal of 
 wrong-doing are as different as helpfulness between 
 pupils who are mastering a new task, and helpfulness 
 between the same pupils when the task is supposed to 
 be mastered and a test is being given. Helpfulness in 
 one case is altruism, in the other dishonesty. The
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 141 
 
 inquiry by the teacher, who has a right to know the 
 facts, makes the difference in both cases. A consistent 
 allegiance to social ideals and an adequate conception 
 of the school as a social unit, demand that all work 
 together for the good of all. Each citizen in this little 
 country should be a law-enforcer. When one or several 
 citizens fail, it is the duty of others, if called upon, to 
 help bring them to justice and reformation. The child 
 who protects another child who is in the wrong is an 
 accessory to that wrong, and an enemy to the best 
 interests of the school. 
 
 It goes without saying that teachers should be tact- Tact 
 ful in acting upon this principle. The older ideal, 
 of loyalty to individuals which transcends the obliga- 
 tion to the body social, is still so generally held, even 
 by thoughtful people, that one finds the newer loyalty 
 "more honored in the breach than in th' observance." 
 It is almost always possible to find out what is to be 
 known without direct questioning, one of the notable 
 axioms of teachers being that children will "tell on 
 themselves" if given a fair chance. If an inquisition 
 becomes advisable, however, no teacher should hesitate 
 because of conscientious scruples concerning the child's 
 right to shield a friend. 1 
 
 Lying 
 
 Dr. Hall 2 differentiates seven kinds of lying to which 
 children are prone. Some are innocent expressions 
 of the spirit of play, or over-conscientious scrupling; 
 
 1 Tompkins, Philosophy of Teaching, pp. 331-333. 
 * G. Stanley Hall, " Children's Lies," The Pedagogical Seminary, 
 vol. i, pp. 211-218.
 
 142 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The con- 
 scientious 
 lie 
 
 The 
 
 romantic 
 
 lie 
 
 The 
 
 partisan 
 
 lie 
 
 The 
 
 self -saving 
 
 lie 
 
 others are cowardly or vicious subterfuges leading to 
 serious defects in character. The classification is as 
 follows: 
 
 1. Pseudophobic lies, or statements which children 
 morbidly fear and imagine are lies. This fear leads to 
 systematized palliatives, over-fine word-splitting, and 
 reluctance to give definite answers to questions. Such 
 children fear they may unwittingly lie, and suffer terrible 
 consequences, either immediately or in a future life. 
 
 2. Heroic lies, justified and even acclaimed as a 
 laudable sacrifice of mere personal honor to another's 
 gain. Such lying, especially when used to protect 
 schoolmates, often grows out of ideals formed by hear- 
 ing stories of justified lies. Devotion to friends has a 
 more concrete and emotional appeal to the childish 
 heart and mind than devotion to truth, "truth" being 
 an abstraction often beyond their comprehension. 
 
 3. Lies which express dislike. "Truth for friends 
 and lies for enemies" is a defensible doctrine for chil- 
 dren until a more impersonal ideal has been taught 
 them. And grown people often support them in the 
 childish idea that, while honorable treatment is due to 
 friends, "all's fair in war." 
 
 4. Selfish lies. These are the lies of denial for the 
 sake of protection, and those told to gain a point. 
 They are the most common and the most dangerous 
 of the lies met with in schools. They are fostered by 
 too much emphasis on honors and marks, by excessive 
 emulation, by undue severity in punishment, by care- 
 lessness in accepting excuses without investigation. 
 But no care of conditions will ever entirely eliminate 
 the opportunities for telling them, nor will little chil-
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 143 
 
 dren cease to try to protect themselves by this instinc- 
 tive means. It is a fault that must be fought "by 
 appeals to honor, self-respect, self-control. Hard and 
 even hated tasks, and rugged moral, mental, and 
 physical regimen should supplement those modern 
 methods which make education a sort of self-indulgence 
 of natural interests." 
 
 5. Lies born of the imagination and play-instinct. The "lie" 
 These spring from the pleasure of self-deception and of 
 imposing on others the shadowy fancies of an idealiz- 
 ing temperament. In themselves they are innocent, 
 
 and should not be stopped; but children need help in 
 distinguishing between fact and fancy, which are often 
 strangely confused in their active but not analytical 
 minds. The child who declares that he saw a horse 
 with five feet walking across the lake, drawing a car- 
 riage full of mice as big as collies, needs some pains- 
 taking explanation of his own mental processes; but 
 for the sake of our future literature he should not be 
 punished for lying. He may yet redeem us from the 
 too-true charge of literal-mindedness. 
 
 6. Pseudomania, or the love of lying for the sake of The 
 
 . . . i i if sensational 
 
 the impression produced, is a serious moral disease. u e 
 It usually shows itself in boys in a desire to humbug or 
 trick others, and in girls in a morbid kind of affectation, 
 which seeks constant attention. Such girls make up 
 marvelous stories of the wealth, fame, and ancestry 
 of their families, for the sake of the distinction it gives 
 them in the eyes of their schoolmates. Boys lie for 
 the pure fun of trying the credulity of others, of finding 
 out how much they can make them believe. After a 
 time this love of lying for its effect becomes a habit of
 
 144 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 lying, without regard to effect. The victim can not 
 tell the truth, even when it is to his advantage to do so. 
 "These cases demand the most prompt and drastic 
 treatment. If the withdrawal of attention and sym- 
 pathy and belief in the earlier manifestations, and if 
 instruction and stern reprimand are not enough," 
 says Dr. Hall, "there is still virtue in the rod, which 
 should not be spared, and, if this should fail, then the 
 doctor should be called." 
 The 7. Palliative lies, which are at least partially excused 
 
 cowflrdlv 
 
 He by mental reservations or muttered reversing formulae; 
 
 the pantomimic lie, and the lie of silent assent. "I 
 didn't do it, it was my hand," is a common inward 
 excuse for a lying denial. 
 
 All of these varieties of lies except the first and fifth 
 should be treated as serious moral offenses, which give 
 rise to vices in maturer years if not checked in youth. 
 A fine and high and uncompromising ideal of truth can 
 be built up by attacking the evil forcibly whenever it 
 shows itself. But the teacher needs to be very sure of 
 understanding the motive and nature of the lie before 
 attempting to correct it, lest injustice, or the applica- 
 tion of ineffective blundering remedies result. 
 
 Stealing 
 
 Stealing is another sin whose prevention and cure 
 lie in vigorous instruction, in the inculcation and drilling 
 of strong prejudices. Among schoolchildren it seems 
 to be due to a variety of motives, all of which would 
 yield to a standard of absolute honesty if that standard 
 were taught early enough and sufficiently emphasized. 
 Children steal because of
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 145 
 
 1. The instinct of acquisitiveness, which, unchecked, 
 leads a child to take what attracts his attention or 
 what he can use. 
 
 2. The desire to have something to give away. 
 Children who can not get such gifts at home frequently 
 steal apples, flowers, or candy to give to the teacher or 
 to an adored classmate. 
 
 3. A desire to show superior cleverness. A boy in stealing 
 a California school, for instance, boasted that he could fl 
 steal an orange a day from a carefully guarded tree, for 
 
 two weeks. He had formed a friendship for the bull- 
 dog which lived at that home, and accomplished the 
 feat, to the great admiration of his schoolmates, by 
 feeding him a piece of meat while the family were at 
 luncheon. He had almost made good his boast when 
 another boy betrayed him unintentionally in a school 
 theme, which set an investigation on foot. The would- 
 be thief belonged to a well-to-do family, and had no 
 incentive for such acts but the craving for admiration 
 and notoriety. Systematic stealing from lockers and 
 lunch-boxes, which in some schools defies detection 
 for a long time, is probably partly because of the fun 
 connected with puzzling and baffling the authorities 
 for so long a time. 
 
 4. The demands of others. Occasionally a case of 
 deliberate instruction of a child in stealing, by parents 
 or others, is unearthed. 
 
 5. Convenience. Pencils, erasers, rulers, papers, 
 or textbooks are taken from desks by pupils who 
 need these articles, and have no scruples about 
 supplying themselves from whatever stores may be 
 at hand.
 
 146 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Direct, rationalized, and at the same time emotion- 
 alized teaching, combined with punishment of actual 
 offenses, will cure stealing in most cases, provided the 
 pupil is young enough. The evil is one of the long list 
 to be attributed to neglected home training. 
 
 Cheating Cheating is also to be attributed to an untrained 
 
 moral judgment. The cause is simply a neglect of the 
 teaching of prejudices against unfair means of gaining 
 one's ends in the absence of which, of course, any 
 means seems good. The moral judgment which should 
 make a child recoil with repugnance from dishonesty 
 is not a judgment at all, strictly speaking, but an 
 habitual reaction, as mechanical as writing or eating. 
 Its rationalization may come early or late; the child 
 is safe if only the prejudice be well fixed. The boy or 
 girl who cheats has a poor sense of relative values; he 
 has been taught to overestimate a grade, or to under- 
 estimate the imperative necessity of honesty. 
 
 Gambling Various devices by which something may be had for 
 nothing develop in children a taste for gaming, and 
 should be prohibited as subversive of morals. Play- 
 ing marbles for keeps is essential gambling, as is penny- 
 matching and pencil-tossing. The grab-baskets and 
 other petty lotteries which often flourish in the vicinity 
 of schools show how quickly children respond to the 
 lure of gaming. The wonder of so great a gain as is 
 possible with so little invested seems to appeal irresist- 
 ibly to childish imaginations. The sense of fair com- 
 pensation, which is one of the most intricate and 
 difficult to develop of all our acquired feelings, is 
 almost entirely wanting in children. It is foolish to 
 expect that little folk will refrain from gaming through
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 147 
 
 any deliberate judgment based. on motives of honesty, 
 although strong prejudices may be early developed, and 
 make the strongest defense against the subtle tempta- 
 tion to take a chance. The only safeguard against 
 gambling devices is their absolute prohibition. For- 
 tunately, the laws in most states are sufficiently severe 
 to be an effective ally of teachers and school boards, 
 if enforced; and public opinion, more sensitive in this 
 matter than in many others, will usually support a 
 crusade against schemes calculated to develop a love 
 for gaming among children. 
 
 V. OFFENSES OF SENSATIONALISM 
 "All the world's a stage" to children who enjoy "Showing 
 
 . off " 
 
 being in the limelight. No trammeling sense of 
 propriety limits the field of their histrionics. Unless 
 carefully trained in the prejudices that make people 
 well-bred, children carry their theatricals to church, 
 to concerts, and to lectures, and parade them when 
 shopping, walking, and riding. They keep the choicest 
 bits of "business," however, for school, where they 
 have an appreciative audience of themselves. The 
 mischief caused by childish vanity is not so great in 
 volume, perhaps, as that due to the causes already 
 mentioned; but the offenses are more sensational in 
 character, and their power to break up school order 
 and belittle authority is immense. They spring from 
 a primeval sort of vanity, which seeks to attract atten- 
 tion to its possessor by any means at almost any cost. 
 Under a strong school government this vanity is held 
 in check by the fear of consequences, and by the force 
 of public opinion, which pays its meed of reverence to
 
 148 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Bad odors 
 
 Animals in 
 the school- 
 room 
 
 Various 
 misdeeds 
 
 efficiency. But where the authority of the teacher is 
 not yet established or has broken down, the theatrical 
 instincts of youth assert themselves strongly, and the 
 result is usually a series of those ingenious imperti- 
 nences which become the stock-in-trade of half-amused 
 and wholly-shocked scandal-mongers. 
 
 Among the more serious offenses due to a desire to 
 attract attention and comment, is that of introducing 
 an intolerable odor into the schoolroom. Cut onions 
 are mild offenders; assafoetida, sulphur compounds, 
 and Limburger cheese, especially when concealed in 
 the coils of radiators, may easily break up a school 
 session. Snuff or red pepper is sometimes scattered 
 on schoolroom floors, producing uncontrollable sneezing. 
 
 Most colleges cherish a legend of some class which 
 proved its right to fame by hoisting a cow to the belfry, 
 or installing a flock of sheep in a favored classroom. 
 Boys and girls, hearing these tales of great deeds, 
 follow them in a modest way, hoping to win at least 
 passing mention. They put a mouse or a snake into 
 the teacher's desk, or conceal in their coats kittens or 
 puppies, later to be turned adrift upon a not indif- 
 ferent world. Children have been known to carry 
 bees, mice, bats, and angleworms into the room in 
 boxes, which were afterward opened, liberating very 
 effective disturbers of the peace. 
 
 Other misdeeds which bring the perpetrator to the 
 admiring notice of his fellows are the marking of the 
 backs of coats with chalked legends, or pinning paper 
 labels there. Boys of the Treasure Island age proudly 
 exhibit arms tatooed with ink-pricks 1 or transfer pic- 
 
 1 These have been known to produce very serious blood-poisoning.
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 149 
 
 tures. Shaking the building by quick pressures of the 
 feet is a traditional way of creating a sensation by 
 puzzling the teacher, whose efforts to discover the 
 offender make a huge joke. Another method of annoy- 
 ing a teacher and disturbing a schoolroom lies in 
 sprinkling the floor with match-heads, which may be 
 dropped from a slit in a coat-pocket in such a way as 
 to escape the sharpest surveillance. The subsequent 
 popping and snapping can not be blamed upon the 
 students who step upon the match-heads, who may 
 not be the same ones who dropped them. Altogether 
 the offense is one in which offenders are hard to find 
 and punish. 
 
 A favorite trick in one school was the throwing of Misdirected 
 handfuls of fine shot to the ceiling when the teacher's 
 back was turned. By the time the shot had struck 
 the ceiling and pattered down briskly all over the room, 
 the culprit was innocently at work, or looking as sur- 
 prised as his neighbors. In the same school, one ingeni- 
 ous boy dared to appropriate the hat, muffler, overcoat, 
 and arctics of a visitor, and use them to dress up a bass 
 viol that stood in the principal's office. At the close 
 of a study period, when the rows of students in the 
 assembly room passed back to the classroom doors, 
 the ends of the aisles were found to be blocked by a 
 rope, which passed from desk to desk at a height of 
 about two feet, across the rear of the room. All these 
 pranks were invented for the sake of the admiring 
 comments of loafers on the street or parents at 
 home, as well as for the more immediate audience of 
 schoolmates. Many grown people utterly fail, by the 
 half-hearted deprecation they affect, to conceal their
 
 ISO DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 admiration for such undignified conduct, such a travesty 
 on public education. The instances recorded occurred 
 at a time of change of administration, when a shift 
 in control aroused resentment and put the school 
 system much in the public eye. In ordinary times of 
 sustained authority they could not have happened. 
 Misleading An especially blameworthy offense is the deliberate 
 effort to make the authority of a teacher seem ridicu- 
 lous, and his efforts to keep order puerile, by assuming 
 an appearance of indifference or disorder, while care- 
 fully refraining from the letter of disobedience. Some 
 children delight in gazing absently through a window, 
 or staring at the ceiling; and, when their teacher 
 thinks to catch them napping by calling on them 
 suddenly, rattle off answers with a disconcerting 
 promptness and accuracy. The joke is on the teacher, 
 who does very ill to leave it there. A teacher should 
 demand not only attention, cut every appearance of 
 attention; and the appearance of bad order is in itself 
 an offense, to be dealt with severely. A teacher who 
 had been much annoyed by a species of small cata- 
 pult, with which boys shot paper wads about the 
 room, seemed finally to have captured or banished 
 all the machines, and to have restored perfect order. 
 While still sensitive to any sign of their use, however, 
 she thought, on suddenly turning, that she saw one boy 
 lower his arms hastily and slip something into his desk. 
 She said nothing, but soon afterward turned quickly 
 again, when the performance was repeated. She went 
 to the boy's desk and raised the lid. There was no 
 slingshot there. A questioning and search failed to 
 reveal any, whereupon the grinning boy confessed that
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 151 
 
 he had made the motions purposely "to fool the 
 teacher." The teacher, however, being no fool, stood 
 the boy up in the corner for the afternoon, explaining 
 that his offense added lying to inattention, and was 
 therefore worse than the use of a real slingshot. 
 
 VI. OFFENSES OF IMITATION 
 
 Community and home are mirrored pretty accurately Environ- 
 in the problems of public school teachers. Any num- ment and 
 
 manners 
 
 ber of the alarming or annoying misdeeds of pupils 
 are sheer and simple imitations of what the grown 
 people whom the children know, do or say they do. 
 These offenses vary from gum-chewing, a comparatively 
 innocuous but incomparably annoying American cus- 
 tom, to very serious misdemeanors that often end in 
 the courts. Their importance can scarcely be over- 
 estimated. The majority of the acts of all human 
 beings are imitative until they become habitual, while 
 habits themselves are but the results of successive 
 imitations. If this be true of mature, thinking people, 
 it is infinitely more true of children, with whom sugges- 
 tion is more potent owing to the absence of established 
 habitual response. The list of school offenses growing 
 out of imitation is a long one, and strongly suggests 
 the unity of school life with the whole life of the world, 
 and the interest of teachers and parents in every 
 phase of social reform. The following enumeration 
 includes only the more important and general mis- 
 demeanors. 
 
 Children who hear impertinent language will be impudence 
 impertinent. They have a positive genius for remem- defiance 
 bering, reproducing, extending, and adorning the
 
 152 
 
 sharp and disrespectful things they hear. Parents who 
 quarrel, or taunt each other, may not receive similar 
 treatment from their children, but some other child, 
 or a teacher, or a helpless cripple on the street, will 
 reap the harvest of sharp words. When children are 
 impudent, the teacher may look for the cause in a quar- 
 relsome home life, in the influence of a virago in the 
 child's neighborhood, in the instigation of a mischief- 
 maker who suggests the "smart" attitude to a self- 
 conscious aspirant after notoriety, or in the example 
 of a strong, vigorous leader among the children. The 
 man who boasts of his "independence" toward his 
 employer, or who tells his admiring children how he 
 defied the park policeman who ordered him off the grass, 
 is planting the seeds of disrespect in those fertile little 
 minds. Teachers may profitably enlarge upon this 
 subject at meetings of Parents' and Mothers' Clubs. 
 Lawlessness A step further than impertinence lies lawlessness, 
 which is the expression of the same spirit in deeds. 
 Children can not be expected to submit to regulations, 
 when the grown people from whom they learn their 
 code of life, so lightly defy the law of the land. Chil- 
 dren know that their parents exceed the speed limit 
 when motoring, smuggle goods into the country, kill 
 game out of season, send letters rolled in newspapers 
 to avoid paying first-class postage, and tell lies about 
 ages when paying fares. The spirit that prompts 
 their elders to evade the law that should be supported, 
 and sets up personal advantage or a conviction that 
 the law is a mistaken one, as a legitimate reason for 
 disobeying it, is easily and freely imbibed by children, 
 and results in untold trouble in the schools. Lawless-
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 153 
 
 ness is said to be growing in this country. The schools 
 must stand as a unit to combat the tendency, and to 
 teach in a positive way the necessity and righteousness unreliable 
 of law. Teachers themselves are sometimes guilty of teachers 
 the spirit of disrespect for law. In a certain school, 
 for instance, the seventh grade teacher actively opposed 
 the order of the principal that all classes should march 
 in and out in lines, and to music. She was one of the 
 spontaneity fiends who object to artificial order because 
 it is not a natural, instinctive, childlike thing. She 
 told her pupils that she did not agree with the principal, 
 and when he was not there to see, she allowed them 
 to hop and skip after their own spontaneous promptings. 
 She was popular with the children, and made the com- 
 mon mistake of overestimating the strength of her 
 personal appeal to them. Once, when she had gone 
 away on an errand, leaving her classes quietly study- 
 ing, she returned to find a half-dozen boys and girls 
 standing on their desks. An ingenious leader had 
 dared them, and they had responded. 
 
 "But I ought to be able to trust you," said the 
 seventh grade teacher. "Can't you be trusted when 
 I'm away, just as much as when I'm here?" 
 
 There was a moment's pause, while the children sat 
 in shamed silence. Then the schoolroom Nemesis 
 spoke loudly and accusingly: 
 
 "Mr. Lane can't trust you to make us march out 
 when he's not here." 
 
 Allied to the lack of respect which shows itself in Ridicule 
 defiant words and deeds, is the lack of respect which 
 shows itself in ridicule. Americans may well be proud 
 of the keen, broad-gauge humor and the incisive wit
 
 154 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 which characterize daily intercourse in this country. 
 There is a quality of superfluousness in it, of over- 
 flowing spirits, of fun that overleaps all temperate 
 bounds, an exuberance of laughter for its own sake. 
 American humor is as wasteful of itself as American 
 farming. It lacks delicacy, finish, and reserve; it 
 glories in an audacity which is refreshing or shocking, 
 according to one's point of view. It is the audacity 
 of American humor, passing too often into irreverence, 
 which distinguishes it from the humor of older coun- 
 tries, which seems therefore tame and pointless to 
 irreverence Americans. It is the irreverent fun of Americans 
 which becomes a social menace. It is the habit of 
 seeing fun in things which should command only 
 respect, love, gratitude, or horror and fear. The 
 deference due to age, to position, to honorable service, 
 to the self-respect of the poor, alike yield to the uni- 
 versal love of a joke. A mistaken sense of the ludicrous 
 turns even the misfortunes of deformity or imbecility 
 into a source of laughter. This is all wrong. How- 
 ever, it is a condition so generally prevalent that 
 children early fall into a habit of easy ridicule unless 
 they are guarded against it. "Do you know, I can 
 always see a funny side to everything," is a common 
 boast, given with great complacency. The ridicule 
 of children falls upon the weak and helpless, upon 
 those who differ from them in clothes and customs, and 
 upon teacher, pupils, the school regimen in general. 
 They copy the habit from their elders, from moving- 
 pictures and vaudeville shows, and especially from that 
 arch-enemy of all that is desirable, the "funny sheet" 
 of the Sunday newspaper. The widespread example
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 155 
 
 of the Katzenjammers and their ilk has corrupted 
 more good manners than the whole teaching fraternity 
 can correct in a decade. 
 
 Obscenity is due partly to natural curiosity imper- Profanity 
 fectly and mistakenly satisfied, and partly to imita- obscenity 
 tion. Probably imitation has more to do with it 
 than natural curiosity. Inscriptions on walls, and 
 literature secretly circulated, calling attention to 
 phases of living of which children would otherwise 
 know little or nothing, and the conversation of older 
 students, stimulate like thinking and talking among 
 children who are often so young that they do not 
 realize the nature and import of the subjects they 
 discuss. Sharp supervision of premises and friendly 
 association with pupils, together with a high standard 
 made reasonable by wise explanation, are preventives 
 and cures of obscenity. It is very doubtful if the 
 evil can be entirely eliminated from our schools until 
 a higher moral standard becomes prevalent throughout 
 society. 
 
 Profanity is an offense for which no possible excuse 
 can be found. It has psychological effects of a most 
 serious nature, aside from all the religious considera- 
 tions which make it revolting to a majority of people. 
 Among children it may be said to be altogether an imi- 
 tative vice. Its use demands the most summary treat- 
 ment, as an offense against both good taste and morals, 
 with efforts to build up strong prejudices in favor of 
 simple and reverent language. 
 
 Hazing is an offense found for the most part in Hazing 
 college towns, where the children in the common schools 
 copy it from the higher institutions. Occasionally it
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Walkouts 
 and strikes 
 
 Aping 
 
 college 
 
 fraternities 
 
 crops out even in remote villages, however, instigated 
 by an ingenious leader with a big brother in college, or 
 a book of college stories in the home library. Tom 
 Brown's Schooldays has introduced the custom into a 
 few schools, although as a rule the fagging system there 
 portrayed was carried on in ways so foreign to Ameri- 
 can school customs as not to carry over as a practical 
 stimulus. The example of present-day college hazing 
 is far more suggestive. The fact that most high school 
 boys live at home is fortunate, as it protects them 
 largely from such treatment. 
 
 The newspapers occasionally chronicle concerted 
 revolts of school children, in which the methods used 
 are copied from those of labor organizations. They 
 follow the imposition of some task or course to which 
 the pupils object, a change in teachers, or an attempted 
 reform for which the way has not been prepared by 
 building up public opinion among the pupils. They 
 are the signs of shrewd thinking and an aroused self- 
 consciousness peculiar to our own time, and have been 
 considered, according to the equity conceded their 
 claims, a fine manifestation of the spirit of justice, or 
 a horrible example of that perverted democracy which 
 borders on anarchy. 
 
 The offenses connected with high school fraternities 
 include almost every asinine absurdity imaginable. 
 The spectacular and self-indulgent phases of college 
 fraternity life appeal very strongly to high school 
 boys in whom the love of good times is strong. Simi- 
 larly, the fun and romance of sorority life often mean 
 more to impressionable young girls than all the breadth 
 of training which a college education gives a woman.
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 157 
 
 It is natural that these things should appeal to the 
 spirit of youth, but it is dangerous to allow that appeal 
 to outweigh the real needs of healthy boys and girls. 
 
 Our laws and their enforcement are usually so lax Tobacco, 
 that school authorities must be very alert to protect 
 their charges against the enterprise of those who com- 
 mercialize the vice of catering to depraved appetites. 
 That is to say, popular indifference and ignorance 
 have forced upon the school the fight for unspoiled 
 minds and free wills, for good materials upon which 
 to work. Teachers must prepare the field before seed 
 may be sown, and guard it constantly from the spoiler. 
 In this matter the natural instinct of imitation, which 
 leads boys to smoke or drink because their fathers and 
 elder brothers do so, is stimulated by pretty systematic 
 suggestion or even urgent inducements. The manu- 
 facturers of cigarettes play skilfully upon the boyish 
 love of doing things that are manly; and they supple- 
 ment the appeal to the instinct of imitation by an 
 appeal to the instinct of acquisitiveness, when they 
 offer pictures, pennants, and other premiums with the 
 tobacco. The logical cure for an evil based on imita- 
 tion is to do away with the example, which means an 
 abstinence on the part of teachers and parents at 
 which the most conscientious often stop short. There 
 will probably be some smoking on the part of boys so 
 long as men continue to smoke, but the evil can be 
 reduced to a minimum if a courageous stand be taken 
 upon the question. 
 
 Drinking among school children, and the use of 
 drugs, are similarly the effect of environment, sugges- 
 tion, and direct appeal by those interested. There
 
 158 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 are in most localities strict ordinances concerning the 
 selling of liquor to minors, "rushing the growler," 
 and the sale of narcotics. Where these evils exist in 
 spite of the ordinances the school authorities and the 
 police department have in many places cooperated to 
 enforce the law. In other places, where the police 
 department refused to do anything to remedy the 
 wrong, it was necessary to interest numbers of citizens 
 in the condition of things and bring the force of public 
 opinion to bear upon the situation. The sale of some 
 narcotics, particularly that form of opium called 
 
 Heroin heroin, and different forms of cocaine, is so profitable 
 that druggists risk severe penalties for the gain of the 
 traffic. Heroin "scat" or "joy powder" in the 
 vocabulary of its devotees forms a fixed habit very 
 quickly, and one that is practically incurable. In 
 some schools the habit of inhaling chloroform becomes 
 a fad before the teachers are aware that it has been 
 introduced. In one small town of the Middle West 
 a boy had formed an incurable habit, which so inter- 
 fered with his work that he was finally compelled to 
 leave school, before his teachers had any inkling of the 
 cause of his sleepiness and dullness. Children who lay 
 their heads upon the desk, with handkerchiefs over 
 their faces or with hands covering the nostrils, should 
 
 Cocaine De watched carefully. In large cities it is not uncom- 
 mon to find children, especially colored children, 
 addicted to cocaine, which can be used in ways that 
 defy detection except to experienced observers. The 
 use of headache powders of various sorts, especially 
 those based upon phenacetin and acetanilide, widely 
 advertised under pseudo-medical trade-names, should
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 159 
 
 be guarded against carefully. Many high school girls 
 form the habit of dependence upon such compounds 
 without understanding the danger of their use. 
 
 No less harmful are certain compounds widely sold _ 
 at soda-fountains, and much used by high school and soda 
 college students as stimulants. It is the duty of high fountams 
 school principals to see to it that not only the members 
 of classes in physiology, but all students, understand 
 clearly the great risk that attends the use of any drug 
 or drug compound, and that they know the names of 
 the compounds commonly sold that contain drugs. 
 The most common and therefore the most dangerous 
 of these are certain very popular stimulating com- 
 pounds which are widely advertised in reputable 
 papers and magazines, and sold everywhere at foun- 
 tains, as well as in bottles for home consumption. Well- 
 informed physicians know the danger that inheres in 
 their use, and where students are found to be addicted 
 to them they should be sent to a doctor for warning and 
 advice. A talk to the entire school about these habit- 
 forming stimulants may be a good thing if the physician 
 or principal can make it sufficiently earnest and im- 
 pressive to be a warning and not a challenge. 
 
 VII. OFFENSES DUE TO CRUDE AND UNTRAINED 
 MANNERS 
 
 Children are sometimes guilty of very annoying 
 breaches of propriety or ethics through ignorance, 
 having no intention whatever of doing wrong. Inex- 
 perienced or thoughtless teachers often fail to take 
 into consideration the limited home training of their 
 pupils, and blame and punish them for offenses which
 
 i6o 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Vandalism 
 
 Impudence 
 
 and 
 
 rudeness 
 
 are committed in all innocence. Almost the whole 
 category of school offenses comes occasionally into this 
 class; but ignorance of the law, of course, serves as an 
 excuse only when there has been neither home training 
 nor other training to take its place. A child who 
 hears profanity constantly at home is not on that 
 account excusable for using it at school, after having 
 its offensiveness explained to him. 
 
 An offense largely due to careless home habits is 
 the vandalism so common among Americans. It 
 comes of a lack of respect for property rights and 
 a poor appreciation of property itself. In their own 
 homes many children are allowed to cut and scratch 
 as they wish; and they naturally do the same at 
 school. Even where parents insist on care for their 
 own property, they fail to teach the obligation of each 
 member of the state to care for the common posses- 
 sions. There is no feeling of sharing the responsibility, 
 as they share the enjoyment, of goods held by the body 
 social. This ideal the school must strive definitely 
 to instill, and as it becomes more general, the carving 
 of names on desks, the marking up of walls, sidewalks 
 and windowpanes, and the careless waste of public 
 commodities, now so common everywhere, will become 
 mercifully less. 
 
 Much impertinence is also attributable to simple 
 lack of training. It may accurately represent the 
 pupil's attitude or not, but in any case the parents, 
 and not the boys and girls, are to blame. When one 
 considers the phraseology used by thousands of parents 
 to their children, the wonder is that these children ever 
 find words of respect with which to address outsiders
 
 ANALYSIS OF COMMON OFFENSES 161 
 
 of their family circle. Such expressions as "say," 
 "hello," "nope," and "yep" bear no implication of 
 disrespect in the minds of the children who use them 
 most. A boy in an eastern school, devotedly attached 
 to his manual training teacher, had to be broken 
 almost forcibly of the habit of addressing his teacher 
 as "Old Sport," which in his home and social circle 
 was a term of affectionate admiration. Many young 
 girls, teaching their first terms in country districts, 
 are annoyed by personal familiarities, allusions to 
 personal affairs, teasing, and disrespectful language, 
 which need correction, but do not deserve punishment. 
 The notable failure of most country school teachers 
 lies in the fact that they accept these conditions, while 
 deploring them; they make no well-planned effort to 
 change things. They object, for instance, to being 
 addressed by their pupils as "Teacher" rather than 
 by their names; but they do not teach their pupils 
 the custom of courteous people everywhere, which 
 makes frequent use of the individual name. 
 
 Other annoying outcomes of neglected home train- Horseplay 
 ing are the scuffling, teasing, and other forms of horse- 
 play which are so irritating to grown people in general, 
 and to women of gentle breeding especially. They 
 are but the expression of a normal love of action, 
 social intercourse, and rivalry, by boys and girls whose 
 modes of expression are primitive and limited. Educa- 
 tion changes the form of expression, while punishment 
 but inhibits action, reducing the healthy spirits of 
 childhood to sullen sluggishness. A tennis court and 
 a gymnasium, regular calisthenics and organized 
 athletics, will take care of the physical exuberance
 
 162 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 that shows itself in these unpleasant ways, if at the 
 same time there be given some frank talks upon the 
 propriety of such actions. Gentle manners and con- 
 sideration are not difficult to develop when the ideal 
 is made attractive and the laws of habit-formation 
 may be followed persistently. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 School offenses are caused by 
 
 1. Physical and mental energy not wholly used or 
 properly directed. 
 
 2. A resentful resistance to a control which pupils 
 
 do not understand or accept. 
 
 3. Peculiarities in the physical condition of pupils, 
 or a faulty physical environment. 
 
 4. The lack of training in morals and manners, and 
 the false and fallacious ideals which pass current 
 in society. 
 
 5. A desire to attract attention and create a sensa- 
 
 tion. 
 
 6. Imitation of others. 
 
 7. The lack of culture.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PUNISHMENT 
 
 WE need to return to at least one idea preached to justification 
 our Puritan forefathers, an idea which largely shaped 
 the lives of generations of forceful folk. This is the 
 principle that no deviation from the moral law is with- 
 out its penalty. Every sin has its punishment. Every 
 sin has its punishment in the deterioration, or, to put 
 it positively, the lack of development, in the character 
 of the sinner. This is inevitable and automatic, a 
 law of life that requires no deus ex machina for its 
 enforcement. If they were solitary creatures, men 
 might rest content with the justice of this law, allow- 
 ing each person to work out his own salvation or 
 condemnation. But society is an intricate web of 
 mutual influences and common responsibilities, and 
 transgressors bring suffering upon many others, seen 
 and unseen, besides themselves. To reduce the suffer- 
 ing caused by wanton injustice and thoughtlessness, 
 society has taken it upon itself to penalize infringe- 
 ment of the rights of others. Taking a cue from 
 nature, which never allows an infraction of law to go 
 unpunished, men have assumed the right to attempt 
 to control selfish and thoughtless folk for the general 
 good of all folk. Obviously, all offenses against 
 society can not be punished; to punish the most 
 flagrant keeps busy the machinery of the law.
 
 164 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Historical 
 aspect 
 
 The right 
 to punish 
 
 There are two other historic functions of punish- 
 ment besides that of protection; l these are the func- 
 tions of expulsion, which is but a further measure of 
 protection, and expiation, which is an instinctive and 
 universal concession to religious and ethical feelings. 
 Formerly, society always referred its right to punish 
 to divine sanction, although acting instinctively in 
 self-defense. With modern self-realization, has come 
 a tendency to claim frankly the inherent right to pro- 
 tect itself and advance its interests; and in this new, 
 common ground society finds a new strength, one that 
 the old appeal to an unseen authority could not have. 
 
 The right to punish is therefore the right of society 
 to protect itself from the predatory individual. It is 
 the right to offer the inducement of freedom for respect 
 of others' rights. It is the right to impress and illus- 
 trate the immutable law of compensation, which asso- 
 ciates good with happiness, and evil with suffering. 
 It resides in the state, because the state is the embodi- 
 ment of the social will, an intelligence with keenly 
 self-preservative instincts. It resides in parents, who 
 wish to see their children grow in goodness and become 
 a blessing in the earth. It resides in teachers as the agents 
 of the state and the trustees of certain special functions 
 in the training of children, given over by their parents. 
 
 The first thing for the teacher to remember is that pun- 
 ishment is a righteous means of ^securing righteous ends; 2 
 
 1 Saleilles, Individualization of Punishment, pp. 20-51. 
 
 2 White, School Management, 193-7, gives as the ends of punish- 
 ment the clarification and emphasis of the association of wrong- 
 doing with pain; the warning of others; and the reformation of 
 the offender. The same authority gives (p. 198) certainty, justice, 
 and naturalness as the three characteristics of effective punishment.
 
 PUNISHMENT 165 
 
 that it is a most important element in the scheme 
 of school management, since its omission when de- 
 served, and its unjust infliction, are both serious 
 betrayals of the sacred trust imposed in the teacher. 
 And a second fact to be remembered is that proper 
 preventive measures will largely do away with the 
 offenses which require punishment. 
 
 THE MOTIVES FOR PUNISHMENT 
 
 Considered historically, there have been four motives Retaliation 
 for school punishments, following the motives which 
 have actuated men in their meting of punishment in 
 other spheres. The earliest was simple retaliation, 
 following the primitive notion of repaying an eye for 
 an eye. The relationship between teacher and students 
 was almost that of master and servants, and any 
 infringement of rules was a personal affront to the 
 dignity and authority of the master. It was punished 
 in the same spirit in which parents upheld their au- 
 thority by beating disobedient children not so much 
 for the good of the child as for the good of the parent's 
 offended vanity. In spite of the littleness of the motive 
 the method was an effective one for the time when 
 thought moved slowly and when conscious social 
 obligation had not developed in the minds of men. 
 It restrained through fear, it emphasized selfish ends, 
 and minimized social obligation; but its value to men 
 was very great, for it did put a premium on considera- 
 tion for others and on self-control. 
 
 With the substitution of courts of justice for personal Expiation 
 vengeance in restraining the lawless, there grew up a 
 feeling that every offense had its expiation, and punish-
 
 1 66 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 merit became the price of a misdeed. This was a long 
 step in advance of the old idea of punishment as per- 
 sonal vengeance, since it made justice a universal, 
 inevitable principle, theoretically operating whether 
 or not there were one to enforce it. Society at large 
 recognized its duty of championing all who were 
 oppressed by superior force, and also its duty to protect 
 itself by attaching a penalty to evil-doing. Similarly, 
 the good pedagogues of a half-century gone published 
 lists of what were to be considered offenses, and at- 
 tached to each its expiatory penalty. It was their 
 idea of dealing an impartial, and, so far as might be, 
 an infallible justice. 
 
 Sureness Now, in relinquishing the once cherished privilege 
 
 menT" 811 " of meting out an expiatory penalty for his brother's 
 misdeeds, men have not denied the principle of expia- 
 tion. They have but yielded to the working of laws 
 that operate infallibly and universally, a function to 
 which neither the wisdom nor the power of men is 
 equal. They know that he who breaks the laws of 
 Nature and of Justice will surely suffer, even though 
 his breach affect no other human being. This sure- 
 ness of the penalty of doing wrong is very hard for 
 children and young people to realize and to believe. 
 There is a delay in the working out of consequences 
 that leads youth to a fallacious assurance that al- 
 though others may suffer, there is for it a way of escape 
 from the punishment of evil. It is in the interest of 
 sound views and wholesomely rationalized prejudices, 
 then, that men emphasize the inevitability of punish- 
 ment, the impossibility of escape from expiating 
 wrongdoing.
 
 PUNISHMENT 167 
 
 In times characterized by much airy disregard for Theprotec- 
 the fundamental laws of compensation, and by much S odety 
 disbelief in any positive standards of right and wrong, 
 and by the confused ideas of moral obligation that are 
 their sure consequence, it is needful that we keep in 
 sight this old and unpopular truth. Punishment is 
 to be administered as a means of social protection; 
 even the motive of reforming the offender resolves itself 
 in a last analysis, for the social authorities, into that of 
 protecting and elevating the race. But society evades 
 its duty if it does not also emphasize the individual's 
 duty to himself, and his relation to those universal 
 laws of cause and consequence to which he is subject. 
 He is not only to be restrained from doing wrong, but 
 he is to be led to restrain himself from doing wrong; 
 and in this ultimate duty of authority, a conviction 
 of the inevitability of expiation, and its righteousness, 
 is no small element. 
 
 Existing with both the motives noted, but recog- Prevention 
 nized rather later, was the motive of prevention. This 
 was the social-protection phase of punishment. A 
 murderer is put to death that other would-be murderers 
 may be restrained, and human beings rest in compara- 
 tive security. As a preventive measure, race experi- 
 ence has given few expedients more effective than 
 prompt, sure punishment. It is recognized that the 
 delay and laxness of our courts in the United States 
 are largely responsible for the shameful prevalence of 
 crime among us. And no teacher need be told that an 
 offense in school that goes unpunished is liable to breed 
 other and worse offenses. The fallacious and mistaken 
 pity for evil-doers, in school and out, which sacrifices
 
 1 68 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 the interests or safety of many that one may be spared 
 deserved pain, is one of the saddest examples we have 
 of the working of maudlin sentimentality. The pre- 
 ventive phase of punishment is one of its chief aims 
 and justifications. 
 
 What punishment aims to do for society it also aims 
 to do for the offender. It proposes to protect him, by 
 saving him from the worst and final consequences of 
 his evil acts by visiting upon him without fail a restric- 
 tive measure of pain. It follows the ancient and uni- 
 versal laws of nature, which through the association 
 of pain with the breaking of natural laws, lead men 
 through self-interest to be law-abiding. This is the 
 last and the highest motive for which punishment is 
 given. It brings about reformation through: (i) the 
 restraining influence of three agents, viz.: the actual 
 pain inflicted of whatever kind physical suffering, 
 humiliation, deprivation of privileges or freedom usually 
 enjoyed; through (2) the enforced contemplation of the 
 nature of the deed and its consequences, which its 
 serious treatment involves; and through (3) the by- 
 products of punishment, the social obloquy and other 
 losses which follow, or should follow, wrong-doing. 
 The true Qf the four motives, it is almost needless to add, the 
 
 motives for 
 
 punishment first has long since been abandoned as unworthy of 
 enlightened human beings. The second, while it is 
 recognized as an important element in punishment in 
 its subjective aspect, is no longer offered as a justifica- 
 tion for the infliction of penalties. Men have ceased 
 to consider themselves called upon to punish other men 
 for the sake of balancing the moral scales. They are 
 not so cocksure of their judgment in ethical matters
 
 PUNISHMENT 169 
 
 as they formerly were. But to advance the safety and 
 progress of humanity, and to effect the reformation of 
 those whose conduct interferes with that safety and 
 progress, sane men everywhere feel called upon to 
 support the agencies that punish wrong. In the school, 
 similarly, the two great motives of punishment now 
 recognized are the protection of the interests and ends 
 of the school, and the reformation of delinquents. 
 
 INDIVIDUALIZATION OF PUNISHMENT 
 
 Criminologists are working upon the problem of 
 dispensing a truer justice than can be given by a literal 
 enforcement of the criminal law. Circumstances and 
 motives and the capacity for reformation vary so 
 widely, that a strict application of even the wisest 
 possible law may result in the defeat of the purposes 
 for which that law was made. Saleilles says that there 
 are three types of individualization, prescribed respec- 
 tively by statute, by the judge, and by the prison 
 authorities. In the school the teacher is law and judge The 
 
 J teacher's 
 
 and warden, and has a knowledge of circumstances advantage 
 and character that few of the authorities who try to 
 reform grown offenders can hope to have. Here the 
 material is more pliable, habit being still in the making, 
 and love and hope and faith have a justifiable place 
 in every decision. Unless he has been so foolish as to 
 make threats, unless the Board of Education has lim- 
 ited his authority, a teacher is untrammeled and can 
 vary the treatment of each particular case to suit the 
 real needs of the child. 
 
 This individualization of treatment is absolutely 
 essential to justice and helpfulness. No good teacher
 
 170 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Social and 
 individual 
 penalties 
 
 "treats them all alike." No group of school children 
 should ever feel that they know the cost of any par- 
 ticular misdeed. Uncertainty concerning the nature of 
 punishment is part of its value as a deterrent. What 
 is a deliberate sin in one child is but a thoughtless 
 imitation or an innocent impulse in another, and correc- 
 tive means should differ accordingly. All offenses 
 exist primarily in the will of the offender, and the act 
 may or may not be a reliable index to the mental condi- 
 tion and wishes of the pupil. It would, for instance, be 
 cruelly and foolishly unjust to mete out the same 
 punishment to a half -grown boy who has played truant, 
 and to his six-year-old brother who "tagged along." 
 
 There is another sense in which the term "individu- 
 alization of punishment " may be used. The protective 
 phase of punishment springs largely from the fact that 
 
 Offence 
 
 I 
 
 I affec 
 
 (K 
 
 Society 
 
 A'I 
 
 Offence 
 ' i v 
 
 (Society) 
 
 J* 9 D . 
 
 \ 
 
 \ i 
 
 affects \ 
 
 V to blame / 
 \ /p / 
 
 \ 
 
 \ / 
 
 [0 D) 
 
 (Society:) j 
 
 / Offence \ 
 I \ 
 
 Punishment 1 
 should be / 
 restricted / 
 
 I \ 
 I Punishment ^ 
 / should ^ebound \ 
 
 to I 
 
 / \ 
 
 _j / 
 
 IB C A 
 
 (Society) 
 
 the consequences of sin are social. If A commits an 
 offense, its consequences affect B, C, and D. These 
 three persons suffer through no fault of their own, but 
 because of the interrelationship of social forces. If 
 the fault of the sin lies with A alone that is, if it be
 
 PUNISHMENT 171 
 
 a fault of selfishness, not of ignorance and weakness 
 for which others are to blame justice demands that 
 as much as possible of the consequence of the act be 
 transferred from B, C, and D, the innocent sufferers, 
 to A, who is to blame. Individualization, then, in 
 this sense, is the replacing of the punishment on A. 
 But, if the offense is one for which society is to blame, 
 then society is bound to suffer its share of the penalty, 
 which it does by the working of an inevitable moral 
 law. 
 
 For instance: In an eastern city two boys were An 
 brought to a principal in a single week for carrying 
 beer from a saloon to their fathers during the noon 
 hour. There were ordinances against this, which the 
 school authorities had found it necessary to use as a 
 support for their own efforts to stop the evil. One 
 offender was an American boy who knew perfectly the 
 strict law against minors who entered saloons; the 
 other a little Hungarian lad whose father was as igno- 
 rant as he of the fact that he was breaking a law. In 
 one case society had done its duty and the boy was 
 made to suffer the extreme penalty. In the other, 
 there was no formal punishment, for ignorance, which 
 hi law is no excuse for an infraction, is really the best 
 of vindications where circumstances justify the allow- 
 ance of the excuse. In one case, the punishment was 
 made as individual in its application as the misdeed 
 had been, while in the other the absence of the will to 
 transgress, coupled with the fact that the boy's environ- 
 ment had not given him the knowledge that made such 
 an act a misdeed to him, would have made a punish- 
 ment an injustice.
 
 172 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Two cases Let us take the treatment of whispering as an example 
 of the individualization of punishment. In a room 
 where whispering is rife, where the teacher's attitude 
 is lax and all the pupils are inattentive and idle, it 
 would be the rankest kind of injustice to single out one 
 child and punish him for a fault for which all his world, 
 and especially the teacher, is to blame. The punish- 
 ment poor lessons, bad habits, wasted effort, an 
 inefficient school must be borne socially, as it was 
 caused socially. But in a school where the teacher has 
 high ideals of attention and order and holds the pupils 
 to them, a single boy who wilfully persists in annoying 
 others by whispering should be severely dealt with. 
 He has had every help and incentive to right-doing, 
 and has chosen to transgress. The natural result of 
 his offense is social, since many pupils suffer from the 
 disturbance of his communication; but the object of 
 his punishment is to individualize the penalty, to 
 restrict it to the one person who is guilty. 
 
 when not It has been said that the three objects of punishment 
 topums are jj^e protection of society, the expiation of wrong 
 doing, and the reformation of the offender. For 
 practical schoolroom purposes, perhaps, the objects of 
 punishment narrow down to the first and the last of 
 these three. When other people do not need protec- 
 tion, when there is no prospect of reforming the of- 
 fender through the infliction of pain of any kind, there 
 is no object in meting out punishment. The culprit 
 may be left to the natural punishment which is bound 
 up in the nature of his transgression. But as there are 
 few school offenses which will not, if uncorrected, result 
 woefully for the school, and as human beings usually
 
 PUNISHMENT 173 
 
 need the stimulus of penalty to keep them from evil, 
 there are really few cases where no punishment should 
 be given. That punishment should always, as Spencer Spencer's 
 says in his famous exposition, be proportionate to the pnnciple 
 seriousness of the offense, as well as inevitable and 
 prompt. 1 But there are some cases in which teachers, 
 especially young teachers fearful of failure in their 
 duties, punish where there is no real guilt. For instance, 
 many transgressions are due to ignorance or to bad 
 habits acquired through the carelessness or selfishness 
 of others, in which justice demands that punishment be 
 commuted when possible if the offender shows a desire 
 to change his ways. It would be manifestly unjust, 
 for instance, to punish a room for whispering or noisy 
 movements, if a former teacher had allowed such con- 
 duct under the cover of "spontaneity" or some other 
 cloak for bad order. 
 
 IMMEDIATE AND DELAYED CONSEQUENCES 
 
 Nature punishes some offenses at once, and others 
 after long waiting. The child who touches a hot stove 
 is instantly burned, while he who eats too much pie 
 and jam may not suffer from indigestion until after 
 many years. Similarly, one boy who fails to learn hi? 
 geography lessons misses promotion at the end of a 
 term, while another passes, but loses a business oppor- 
 tunity ten years later, because of his ignorance. In 
 determining the punishment for offenses, therefore, 
 teachers may choose between immediate and deferred 
 consequences. The question is one that rises fre- 
 quently, and one that has bearings so intricate and 
 
 1 Spencer, Education, N.Y., 1895, p. 175.
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Advantages 
 of imme- 
 diate action 
 
 Advantages 
 of delayed 
 action 
 
 perplexing that it is difficult to decide upon any very 
 definite means of choosing between the two. 
 
 The advantage of immediate punishment lies in the 
 powerful effect produced by quick action and an un- 
 mistakable association with the misdeed in question. 
 Its moral effect upon others is usually stronger for this 
 reason than that of delayed punishment. The fact 
 that the reconciliation following punishment, the 
 resumption of cordial relations between teacher and 
 pupil, comes so much more quickly when punishment 
 is given at once, than when it is delayed, is an addi- 
 tional reason for having it over with as soon as possi- 
 ble. The depressing effects of the sullen or fearful 
 anticipation of a child who looks forward to a com- 
 ing punishment are felt often by all the pupils in a 
 room, and preclude the friendly and cordial relations 
 that should exist. 
 
 On the other hand, delayed action has the important 
 recommendation that it serves the ends of justice 
 rather more surely than immediate action. Hasty 
 judgment or sudden anger may prompt a punishment 
 too severe, or mete punishment to the wrong person. 
 Anger cools, and saving second thought brings many 
 things to remembrance, with the passing of time. 
 And, if the punishment be a just and severe one, suited 
 to an offense of a serious nature (for which the delayed 
 punishment is usually reserved), the delay may con- 
 centrate public opinion upon the case, so that the moral 
 effect of the punishment when finally executed is far 
 stronger than if it had been hastily administered. The 
 impressiveness of deliberate action, which weighs all 
 considerations well before decision is reached, tends
 
 PUNISHMENT 175 
 
 to fix in the minds of those who observe it, the justice 
 of the judicial process and verdict. A further advan- 
 tage in delayed punishment is the opportunity for 
 thought, given the culprit who awaits the deserts of 
 his misdeed. 
 
 Owing to the greater power of older children to keep Age as a 
 in mind the association between a deed and its conse- ^isim 
 quences, punishment may wisely be delayed for them, 
 when its effect upon young children would be lost by 
 delay. Little folk not only forget quickly, but often 
 fail to see relations of cause and effect at all. They 
 associate the pain of punishment with whatever hap- 
 pens to be most related to it chronologically, not having 
 learned by experience that cause and effect may be 
 widely separated in time. This confusion is obviated 
 when punishment follows a misdeed immediately. 
 Children who are old enough for serious reflection, on 
 the other hand, "carry over" the connection between 
 deed and consequence and think about it as long as 
 the incident remains open. For this reason the serious 
 offenses of older pupils should, as a rule, not be pun- 
 ished at once, but left in a condition of suspended 
 consequences for a time. Often the attention directed 
 to them by the pupils themselves brings to the teacher 
 valuable suggestions for the treatment of similar evils 
 in the future, while the seriousness of the offense is 
 emphasized. Slight offenses, of course, should be 
 dealt with summarily. 
 
 Many offenses belong to the category of habit-break- Nature of 
 ing acts, which being neglected, undo the good work 
 of much persistent effort on the part of both teachers 
 and pupils. That instinct may aid volition, then, it
 
 1 76 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 is important that an act which breaks the sequence in 
 a habit-forming series be followed at once by painful 
 consequences. But if the offense be one of judgment, 
 the mistake to be corrected is one of thought, and 
 time should be allowed for contemplating the decision, 
 that a reversal of the mistaken judgment may be made. 
 An ana- A boy in a village school in South Carolina played 
 
 misdeed truant one sunny afternoon, took a horse from his 
 uncle's stable, and rode far into the woods in search 
 of nuts and mushrooms. In coming home the horse 
 stumbled over a log, and was returned quite lame, 
 late in the evening. After a consultation between the 
 principal and the boy's uncle, it was decided that he 
 should be punished at once for his truancy, since 
 regular attendance was a habit that he should not 
 have allowed to lapse. But the reparation made to 
 his uncle was left for him to decide, and he was given 
 a week in which to think about the matter. At the 
 end of that time he announced that he would work 
 for his uncle after school, giving up basketball and ten- 
 nis, until he had paid him in work the bill of the veteri- 
 nary who treated the horse, and the value of the horse's 
 services lost because of his lameness. 
 
 Certainty as Again, unquestioned offenses, the lapses from habit- 
 ual order which are undoubtedly subversive of the good 
 of the school, may well be dealt with summarily. But 
 where any doubt whatever exists concerning the plac- 
 ing of the blame, or concerning the justice of blame, 
 it is safe and just to delay judgment until the question 
 of equity is assuredly answered. 
 
 It is hoped that the foregoing considerations may be 
 of help to teachers in deciding the difficult alternative
 
 PUNISHMENT 177 
 
 of prompt and delayed punishment. But no rule 
 that will always apply can be formulated. Chance 
 circumstances may affect the policy used in ways that 
 can never be foreseen. In general, however, it is safe 
 to say that unless some circumstance points clearly 
 to the wisdom of delaying judgment and punishment, 
 that they should follow the misdeed as quickly as 
 possible. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The functions of punishment are to protect society 
 from those inclined to exploit it for their own interest, 
 to satisfy the demands of justice by expiation, and to 
 reform the offender. 
 
 Offenses should be punished in the light of the motives 
 prompting them, and the punishment should be visited 
 upon individuals or upon society in accordance with 
 the fixing of blame. Immediate punishment should 
 follow offenses when there is need of emphasizing the 
 connection between a deed and its result, but with 
 older children delayed punishment may be more im- 
 pressive. The age of the offender, his motives, and 
 the certainty or uncertainty of his guilt are factors in 
 deciding upon immediate or delayed punishment.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 PUNISHMENT (Continued) 
 
 UNDESIRABLE PUNISHMENTS 
 
 Threats THE primitive ideas of government by force and 
 
 obedience through fear are not so far from every one 
 of us as we may flatter ourselves they are. They are 
 still dominant in the teacher who punishes by threaten- 
 ing further punishment. It is true that punishment 
 follows sin as its right and natural consequence ; but to 
 secure right conduct through imposing a dread of pain 
 is to cheapen righteousness without strengthening it. 
 
 When a teacher sees fit to direct his pupils to do a 
 thing, let him do so. It is not necessary to state the 
 penalty for disobedience, and to do so presupposes a 
 possible transgression. Children follow suggestions 
 instinctively they are an irresistible challenge to 
 their imaginations. To say, "Do not do this, or such 
 a thing will happen to you," is to give a dare that 
 spirited children are quick to take. Besides, to attach 
 a price to a transgression is to put it among the pur- 
 chasable things. Many children, and many grown 
 people as well, have an idea that they have a moral 
 right to commit any sin they choose if they pay the 
 price for it. Let things forbidden be forbidden abso- 
 lutely, and let direction rest upon its real authority as 
 the best expression of the will of society which the
 
 PUNISHMENT 179 
 
 teacher can give. If the law be transgressed, then, 
 the teacher has not bound himself to any course of 
 action. He may punish as seems most wise and just, 
 untrammeled by preconceptions of the nature of the 
 offense. 
 
 The tasks imposed as punishments are of two classes Tasks 
 - those which are extra lessons, and those which are 
 entirely different from the usual school work. The 
 latter are sometimes advisable, the former never. 
 For instance: John had idled away the half -hour given 
 him for studying his spelling-lesson, and in conse- 
 quence had missed half the words. He deserved 
 punishment for his idleness, and he needed to learn 
 his spelling-lesson, therefore his teacher kept him after 
 school. This extra session probably punished the 
 teacher more than it did John, but if the teacher 
 chooses to give extra time to her task she has a right 
 to do so. Her first impulse was to say to John: 
 "John, you may go when you can spell the words in 
 this lesson correctly, and in addition ten from the next 
 column." 
 
 Such a penalty, however, instead of changing John's 
 attitude toward his work, would but intensify it. He 
 who before thought spelling a bore, would class it now 
 as an imposition. Work, which teachers want to make 
 attractive, is reduced by such means to the plane of 
 an activity for malefactors. John's teacher said to 
 him: 
 
 "You wasted the half -hour which the other children 
 used for learning this lesson, and so you must take 
 another, which they have for play, in which to learn it. 
 Then you wasted the recitation-period by writing a
 
 i8o DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 list of words spelled wrong, and now you must redeem 
 that time by writing the list correctly. I'll pronounce 
 the words for you when the time comes." 
 
 She then began to work on a set of papers which 
 she had to correct, while John set himself to learn the 
 spelling-lesson. In ten minutes' time he had mastered 
 it, and asked if he might not recite. 
 
 A chance "Certainly not," replied the teacher. "The half- 
 
 hour which you wasted is not yet redeemed. I will 
 call upon you when the time comes." As a rule chil- 
 dren should not sit idly, but this teacher made John 
 sit quietly during the remaining twenty minutes, which 
 ticked away like so many hours for the impatient boy 
 in the long, still room. Only the occasional rattle of 
 the papers on the teacher's desk broke the silence. 
 Once John heard his team, at basket-ball practice in 
 the schoolyard, give a yell for Somer, who was taking 
 his place as center. The half-hour was gone finally, 
 and he wrote the list of words correctly at the teacher's 
 dictation. 
 
 "Was the time long?" asked the teacher. 
 
 "I should say so. Ages," replied John. 
 
 "All of it?" 
 
 "Well, I didn't notice it until I got the lesson learned. 
 Then it just dragged." 
 
 "Was the lesson the hard thing, then?" 
 
 "Oh, no. I got a lot of fun out of learning that 
 lesson as fast as I could, because I thought you'd let 
 me go when I had it. It was the rest of the time that 
 I put in that I didn't like. Doing nothing is hard work, 
 like you said once." 
 
 "But you can learn your lesson in ten minutes any
 
 PUNISHMENT 181 
 
 day, and spend the rest of the time at the library 
 table or the sand-map. You might as well have the 
 fun of doing that every day, as to waste the period 
 and then have to lose your play- time." 
 
 John thought this over a moment. 
 
 "I think I get the idea, Miss Thomas," he said. 
 
 He had, indeed, "got" a new idea of spelling lessons. 
 He had also been appropriately punished for his wasted 
 and misspent half-hour. 
 
 Writing long words or phrases dozens or hundreds 
 of times, memorizing poetry, working extra problems 
 in arithmetic, drawing maps, and looking up references 
 are bad forms of punishment. They are bad, because 
 they reduce the legitimate work of the schoolroom 
 to disgraceful drudgery, confute the hardly-instilled 
 idea of the dignity of labor, induce mental phlegmatism, 
 and are both too easily-borne and too ordinary for 
 efficient punishment. 1 
 
 There are some tasks which may be used as punish- School 
 ment, without quite so disastrous effects as those * e ^ e 
 caused by this use of lesson-tasks. Pupils have been punishment 
 made to erase blackboards, carry coal, weed garden- 
 beds, or carry materials, as punishments. The effect 
 is similar, however, and less objectionable only as it 
 affects secondary rather than the primary object of 
 the school. Any teacher who knows how happy it 
 
 1 A careful distinction is to be made between the use of lesson- 
 tasks as punishment, and the requirement that lessons be mastered 
 before they are left. Thorough teaching requires that a neglectful 
 or deficient pupil be kept at his work until it is as well learned as 
 possible. In the incident just given, for instance, the learning of 
 the spelling-lesson was not a punishment; the detention for the 
 extra twenty minutes was.
 
 182 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Staying in 
 at recess, 
 and after 
 school 
 
 makes children to be permitted to do even the meanest 
 task about the schoolroom, will agree that nothing 
 could be more unfortunate than to change the whole- 
 some idea that to serve is an honor. Such punish- 
 ments, moreover, are subject to the further criticism 
 that they give to manual labor an unpleasant or even 
 disgraceful connotation. There are sufficient means of 
 punishment to be had without recourse to the expedient 
 of using the pleasant, helpful school tasks in this way. 
 Detention during the time which is supposed to be 
 free from formal school work is a very common punish- 
 ment. It is used for two main purposes, the perform- 
 ing of regular lesson tasks which should have been 
 mastered during the study period, and as an absolute 
 punishment for misdemeanors. The first of these 
 punishments is discussed in the following pages. The 
 second seems to be rarely if ever justifiable, for these 
 reasons: 
 
 1. It infringes on time needed for the outdoor play 
 absolutely essential for normal children. It cheats 
 the physical side of the child's development. 
 
 2. It lengthens the already long hours of the teacher's 
 schoolroom employment. He, also, needs outdoor 
 exercise. 
 
 3. It is unbusiness-like. Schools should close as 
 promptly as they open, except for pupils who need 
 extra help or time for the main object the school 
 work. 
 
 4. It makes a prison of the schoolroom, giving it a 
 lastingly unpleasant connotation. 
 
 5. If idle, the pupil is forming a bad habit during 
 the time of detention. If engaged in a school task,
 
 PUNISHMENT 183 
 
 he is forming the wrong idea of work. If allowed to 
 do something he likes, he is not being punished. 
 
 An especially pernicious sort of punishment is to Depriving 
 deprive a child of good marks already earned by good mark* 16 ' 
 recitations or other good conduct, as a punishment for 
 bad behavior. This method may indeed give a very 
 effective check to misbehavior, for many bright children 
 who value a high rating can be reached through a low 
 grade quickly and easily. But the essential injustice, 
 as well as the illogical confusion of two more or less 
 distinct elements in the school record, has a demoral- 
 izing effect upon the developing sense of justice and 
 appropriateness. For instance, in one school a teacher 
 gives her pupils a zero for that day if she has to correct 
 them during the recitation. As a consequence, the 
 brightest boy in the class received 65 one month as a 
 grade in algebra, because, having finished his problems 
 before the rest, he could never resist the temptation 
 to play while waiting for the others to finish. As 
 there were good but slow pupils in the class whose 
 grades were higher than the star pupil's, the teacher's 
 judgment and justice were called into question. No 
 explanation of the basis of grading could quite excuse 
 so flagrant a discrepancy between the boys' work and 
 the estimate of it given in the grades. The grade 
 given for a study should represent the pupil's ability 
 in that subject. Separate markings should show his 
 deportment, if it is thought best to include that in the 
 regular report. 
 
 There is a class of punishments now so rare as Personal 
 scarcely to deserve mention here, but which were once 
 common in public schools. These were the penalties
 
 1 84 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 whose essential feature was personal humiliation. 
 They included the wearing of dunce caps, seating 
 pupils on a dunce block, gagging (an old punishment 
 for whispering), pulling hair, twisting ears, calling 
 names, dressing boys in girls' clothes, and placing 
 children in ridiculous and undignified positions for 
 the school to laugh at. Humiliation is, or should be, 
 part of all true punishments; but it should come from 
 a realization of the loss of self-respect that follows on 
 wrongdoing, and not from a crude action on the part 
 of the teacher, the person above all others who should 
 be a model of dignity to the children under his care. 
 A very common method of punishment is to force the 
 Saturation culprit to commit his offense until he has become 
 thoroughly tired of it, when its association will be so 
 unpleasant that he is presumed to be cured of the desire 
 to repeat it. Arnold 1 has given the name of "Satura- 
 tion" to this method. It is only moderately effective, 
 and can be justified upon scarcely any psychological 
 grounds. For instance, a boy who is humming under 
 his breath is discovered, and set before the school 
 with instructions to sing. He does one of three things. 
 He may sing, in a spirit of bravado, to the delight of 
 his classmates and the defeat of his teacher, as long as 
 they have time to listen. He may be really ashamed, 
 and obey slowly and reluctantly, in a faltering voice. 
 He may be terror-struck or defiant, and absolutely 
 and persistently refuse to obey. In the first case the 
 punishment obviously fails to be a remedy. In the 
 second it is an effective punishment, and the child may 
 refrain from a repetition of the offense through a fear 
 
 1 School and Class Management, page 303.
 
 PUNISHMENT 185 
 
 of consequences, which is better than no cure at all. 
 But the reason for refraining from humming in school 
 has not appeared in the punishment. The teacher 
 can not really object to humming in school, argues 
 the child, for she took time to have singing, which 
 interfered with the school work far more than humming 
 does. And there can be nothing intrinsically wrong 
 with humming or singing in study time, or the teacher 
 would not have a boy, even a bad boy, do it. In the 
 third case the teacher has complicated her problem 
 by increasing the offense, for which she must, if her 
 authority is not to suffer, further punish the child. 
 On the whole, the method of punishment by saturation 
 is seldom advisable. 
 
 A too literal application of the principle that every The 
 misdeed leads to its appropriate penalty, has developed 
 what some teachers fondly imagine are especially 
 efficacious remedies. The scrubbing out of the mouths 
 of boys guilty of profanity, with soft soap or washing 
 powder, is an example of this sort of punishment. 
 Doubtless it is not too severe for this sort of offense, 
 but beyond its severity the penalty has little to recom- 
 mend it. The simile stands in the way of the moral 
 lesson. Not the boy's mouth, but the boy's soul, 
 his character, has been polluted. The tying up of 
 feet that have strayed in forbidden places, the sealing 
 with clothespins or courtplaster of lips that whisper 
 overmuch, are other examples of punishments that 
 waste in mere ingeniousness the energy that should 
 be spent in building up the pupil's reform. Too 
 unusual a punishment absorbs the attention that 
 should be focussed on a change of habit.
 
 1 86 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Sarcasm The least desirable of all punishments, perhaps, is 
 
 and 
 ridicule 
 
 the use of sarcasm and ridicule. This is because it 
 
 destroys the first requisite for success in the teacher- 
 pupil relation, which is confidence and friendliness. 
 Sarcasm may occasionally, with pupils old enough to 
 understand the point made, be effective in reforma- 
 tion; but young children understand the sting without 
 catching the point. Ridicule has even less excuse. 
 The only legitimate use of ridicule in the schoolroom 
 is as a last resort with an inordinately conceited or 
 impertinent child; and even then better means are 
 usually to be found. In ordinary cases sarcasm is 
 but a mean and self-indulgent means of venting the 
 ill-nature of a teacher, and can not be condemned too 
 severely. Ridicule indicates a fundamental and lam- 
 entable lack of sympathy with childhood, which takes 
 itself very seriously and is hurt, above all things else, 
 at levity in the attitude of others. To laugh with 
 
 /children is to be eternally young, to have found the 
 secret of joy; but to laugh at them is the first sign of 
 
 \ a bitter old age. 
 
 DESIRABLE PUNISHMENTS 
 
 Colgrove 1 gives, as legitimate negative incentives, 
 the following classes of punishments: Reproof, public 
 and private; loss of privilege; restitution, in cases of 
 injury to property; detention to perform a neglected 
 task ; suspension, and in extreme cases corporal punish- 
 ment and expulsion. The same authority gives the 
 following rules for all punishments, which sum up 
 pretty accurately the test to which disciplinary measures 
 
 1 The Teacher and the School, page 390.
 
 PUNISHMENT 187 
 
 should be put. "All punishments should be used," 
 says Dr. Colgrove, "only as temporary expedients to 
 supplement positive incentives. Whenever possible, 
 they should be the natural outcome of the pupils' 
 misconduct. They should be just, proportioned to the 
 gravity of the offense as measured by inner motives, 
 not the outer act. They should be educative and 
 reformatory; and they should be economical, not 
 drawing unduly upon the nervous and emotional 
 energy of either teacher, school, or offender." 
 
 With some such limitations in mind as this category 
 imposes, we wish to enumerate some of the means of 
 punishment which are constructive in effect, reforma- 
 tory in nature, helpful to the individual punished, 
 protective with reference to others. 
 
 The social nature of the school and of our natural isolation 
 instincts furnishes the cue for what is perhaps the 
 most logical and effective of all punishments for older 
 children, and at the same time one of the best reforma- 
 tory measures. As a rule, children do not like school 
 primarily because they like the lessons, but because 
 they come into contact there with a great number of 
 eager young people with whom they have a multitude 
 of common interests. They lend themselves readily 
 to the direction of teachers so long as their own wills 
 do not clash with the guiding will for the school, or 
 until the unity of the school life is broken by outside, 
 opposing interests. That is, so long as the social organ- 
 ization of the school is satisfactory, so long as all con- 
 tribute to its general purposes, there can be no trouble. 
 But if one pupil breaks the unity by opposing his will 
 to the guiding will which directs the activities of all,
 
 i88 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 A natural 
 solution 
 
 Alternative 
 courses 
 
 the social organization loses its effectiveness, the work 
 or play halts, goes limping where it should go smoothly, 
 or in extreme cases is altogether stopped. 
 
 Groups of children in their play have arrived in- 
 stinctively at the sensible solution of the problem of 
 the unsocialized individual. If one child refuses to 
 play according to the rules, and can not be coerced into 
 obeying them, he is excluded from the game, and may 
 play by himself or not at all. The number in the 
 game is less, but the unity of the playing group is not 
 broken. Usually the child comes back after a time, 
 because the incentive offered is greater than the satis- 
 faction of maintaining his independence. If he do 
 not, the pleasure of the group has not been sacrificed 
 to the pleasure of one; the greatest good to the greatest 
 number has been realized. 
 
 Similarly, in the school, when one pupil or a group 
 of pupils refuses to comply with the regulations which 
 are made for the good of the whole body, there are 
 two methods of dealing with them. They may be 
 forced to comply, or they may be excluded from the 
 social body of the school, and from the advantages 
 that come from the school's social organization. In 
 the earlier part of their school life, it is better to force 
 them to comply, for habits are being formed at this 
 time, not rationally, but by suggestion, imitation, 
 and compulsion. But when the age of reasoning is 
 reached, when we wish to develop the volition of chil- 
 dren under the control of the reason and of high ideals, 
 the force of a controlling will is largely withdrawn, 
 and the pupil left free to make his own decisions. 
 At this point it is important that the social nature of
 
 PUNISHMENT 189 
 
 the school, its dependence upon the loyal support of 
 each member, be made thoroughly clear, and with 
 that the advantages of this combination of forces, 
 the fruits of cooperation. Plainly, it is not fair that 
 those who tear down the fabric should enjoy its ad- 
 vantages. They shut themselves out by their own 
 action. They may justly justly to the larger num- 
 ber be excluded from the social activities of the 
 school until they are ready to agree to abide by the 
 rules of the game. 
 
 There are several practical ways of using this punish- Methods of 
 ment of isolation. Troublesome pupils may be seated a PP Ucation 
 apart at the back of the room, where temptation is 
 reduced to a minimum for all concerned. Refusing 
 the privilege of oral participation in class exercises 
 and general exercises, and of the privileges usually 
 given to pupils (discussed more fully in the following 
 pages under the head of deprivation of privileges), 
 and giving a separate recess, as long as the regular 
 recess but at another period, are ways of applying 
 the principle of isolation as a punishment and 
 corrective. 
 
 The reporting to parents of the misdeeds of children Reports to 
 is one of the punishments the wisdom and efficacy of parents 
 which depend very much upon local conditions and 
 individual circumstances. Some parents agree to be 
 responsible for their children's behavior, and wish to 
 have full and frequent news of their progress and 
 standing. Others turn them over, body, mind, and 
 immortal spirit, to the school, and demand results 
 only. However, it is fair to parents that they should 
 know when their children fall below the standard in
 
 190 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Using 
 public 
 opinion 
 
 Deprivation 
 of privilege 
 
 any way, and the reception of the first report shows 
 the teacher what leverage there may be in the parental 
 attitude. With many children a report of wrong- 
 doing to their parents is the most effective way of 
 preventing a repetition. 
 
 The feeling of social solidarity may be further 
 utilized in building up traditions and customs of 
 mutual responsibility, which go far toward eliminating 
 the necessity for formal punishment. Children can 
 be made to feel responsible for one another's conduct, 
 and so take upon themselves, voluntarily, a degree of 
 control which helps to develop their social natures 
 and the feeling of social obligation. In attendance, 
 for instance, if there be a conscious pride in having a 
 good record for the whole room, each boy and each 
 girl will make it his business to know why a classmate 
 is absent; and if there be no good reason for the ab- 
 sence, to bring back the delinquent. The disapproval 
 of his fellows is the most effective of all punishments; 
 public opinion is among the strongest of all goads to 
 action or incentives for restraint. The school in which 
 the will of the whole body of pupils is bent toward 
 good work and good order is an ideal state in little, a 
 microcosm of the millennium. 
 
 A form of punishment which combines the good 
 qualities of theoretical equity and effectiveness, is 
 taking away the privileges of pupils. Freedom is 
 rightly possessed by those who use it well; restriction 
 is the penalty for selfish and harmful behavior. Some 
 of the privileges which children appreciate, but of 
 which they may be deprived as a punishment without 
 interfering with their more important duties, are:
 
 PUNISHMENT 191 
 
 1. Passing books, pencils, etc., and collecting the 
 same. 
 
 2. Going to water-bucket, waste-basket, or dic- 
 tionary without special permission. 
 
 3. Playing with other children, or being a member of 
 athletic teams. 
 
 4. Reading at the magazine table after finishing 
 lessons. 
 
 5. Leading the line when marching, or exercises at 
 recreation time. 
 
 6. The privilege of reciting in class. This is a 
 rather severe punishment for children who care much 
 for their standing or whose interest in school work 
 shows itself in the natural desire to talk about it. 
 The teacher's "I can't call on a boy who can't respect 
 other people's rights," or "You have forfeited your 
 right to talk in this class, Joe, until you can prove to 
 us that you can talk at the right time," is a punish- 
 ment that most children feel keenly. The lesson 
 need not be lost on this account, as the teacher may 
 require that it be written out and handed in for credit. 
 It does not therefore work an injustice by reducing 
 the grade or taking away all incentive for study. 
 
 7. The privilege of being a class officer or repre- 
 sentative, or contestant for the school in an inter- 
 scholastic contest. 
 
 With very small children, there are many ways of Punish 
 driving home the alienating effects of disobedience or 
 other unsocial conduct, which older children would 
 vigorously resent were any teacher so unwise as to 
 try them. Conformity to custom and to the standards 
 set for them is a strong characteristic of little folk.
 
 192 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 To be deprived of the privilege of wearing their best 
 clothes on Visitors' Day, for instance, is the most 
 severe punishment that can be inflicted in a great 
 public institution where the children wear uniforms. 
 In many primary rooms, an effective punishment is 
 to make the culprit stand for fifteen minutes in a 
 circle chalked upon the floor. One teacher binds a 
 small towel lightly over the faces of naughty boys and 
 girls, because she "can't bear to see the faces of bad 
 children." Another has a "naughty bench" out of 
 sight behind the piano, where there is ample room and 
 light for study, but where disturbing elements in the 
 school may be safely isolated. 
 
 In some German schoolrooms, where each child has 
 a little pot-plant all his own (a delightful custom, 
 which might be adopted in American schools to ad- 
 vantage), this is taken away as a punishment, and 
 kept in another room until better behavior wins it 
 Punishment back. Putting boys into girls' clothes, or reversing 
 avoided the process for girls, is undignified even in primary 
 schools. To put a boy into a corner, with a paper 
 cap upon his head labeled "Bad Boy" (a modification 
 of the old Dunce Cap) is no punishment at all for the 
 soldierly lad, and a humiliating means of losing self- 
 respect for others. The old expedient of standing 
 children in corners should be sparingly used. It is 
 an exhausting form of punishment from the physical 
 point of view, and is especially dangerous because it 
 is hard to find employment for the child, who some- 
 tunes emerges from such an experience farther from 
 reform than he was before. 
 
 This aim of punishment should always be held in
 
 PUNISHMENT 193 
 
 mind : the punishment that does not bring the offender 
 nearer to the goal of responsible effort to do right, 
 has at least partly failed, even though that punish- 
 ment succeed gloriously in its good offices to other 
 people. The ineffectiveness of much thoughtless pun- To what 
 ishment is illustrated by a story of the small son of a purpose? 
 well-known Chicago educator. This man came home 
 one day to find his little boy in tears. Being asked 
 what was the matter, the sobbing boy finally made him 
 understand that he had missed the words in his spelling- 
 lesson. 
 
 "But don't cry over that," urged his father. "You 
 can learn them now. It isn't too late." 
 
 "But that isn't all," continued the little boy. "The 
 teacher shook me, too. And the worst of it is, father, 
 that I didn't know the words any better after she shook 
 me than I did before." 
 
 The deprivation of privilege sometimes appears in inpri- 
 odd forms in a primary school. For instance, a very 
 successful teacher sometimes declines to wear a pretty 
 pink gown, which the children especially love, when 
 they have been rude or selfish. Almost all primary 
 teachers use the corresponding positive incentive, 
 wearing bright and pretty waists or frocks to please 
 the children. A big Teddy bear, which ordinarily 
 sits on a little chair near the teacher's table in one 
 primary room, comes down to visit the children and 
 sits demurely beside them when they have been good; 
 but disappears in the big closet when they have been 
 noisy or rude. A teacher of immigrant children in 
 New York utilizes the adoration of her charges for 
 American heroes, by taking down the picture of Lincoln
 
 i 9 4 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 when a serious offense has been committed, or when a 
 general attitude of mischief mars the day's work and 
 play. The same act would scarcely, one fears, be a 
 punishment for American children. 
 
 Restitution The logical punishment for vandalism and theft is 
 restitution. To mend the damage done as perfectly 
 as may be is the very least that an offender can do. 
 Further punishment is sometimes advisable, especially 
 when restitution is accomplished without appreciable 
 sacrifice on the part of the culprit. A boy from a 
 wealthy home and the son of a day-laborer were 
 playing ball in a forbidden court of the school premises, 
 when the ball went through a large pane of glass. 
 The mother of the rich boy sent a glazier at once to 
 repair the damage, paying the entire expense. The 
 father of the other boy wished his son punished for 
 disobedience, which seemed to him the real sin. The 
 teacher decided that both boys deserved a punish- 
 ment for their disobedience, and proceeded to admin- 
 ister it. The mother who had paid the bill objected, 
 saying that the damage was repaired and that the 
 matter should therefore be dropped. She thought her 
 son had been harshly and unjustly treated. The 
 incident illustrates the impression that is liable to 
 ensue when restitution is regarded as the only necessary 
 sequel to such a deed. 
 
 Absolute honesty in restoring all that has been lost 
 through the carelessness or wantonness of pupils is the 
 only possible standard of punishment for- deeds of 
 vandalism. It is much better if the pupil be made to 
 earn the means for repaying the loss, or do the work 
 himself. Children should feel that they are respon-
 
 PUNISHMENT 195 
 
 sible for the school or other property entrusted to them 
 for use. 
 
 If all ordinary means fail, there still remain the Suspension 
 extreme measures of isolation suspension and ex- 
 pulsion. A child is practically suspended whenever 
 he is excluded from his classes; this is done sometimes 
 by the individual teacher. It is plain that suspension 
 gives no leverage for raising the pupil, unless he has 
 a reason to fear its effects. If he misses classes for 
 several days, he may fail that month, and perhaps for 
 the term or year; but that is no incentive to good 
 conduct, unless he wants to pass. Family and personal 
 pride are the teacher's best allies here; and also the 
 disgrace of suspension. Suspended pupils should not 
 be sent home, but should be kept in the principal's 
 office or some other place at school, while word is sent 
 to the parents of what has happened. This does not 
 apply to the pupil who may be trusted to do what he 
 is told to do; but that sort of boy is not the boy who 
 is suspended, as a rule. The suspended boy rarely 
 goes home when sent; he seeks, with telepathic sure- 
 ness, the haunts of the street loafers who will listen 
 sympathetically to his tale of woe, and strengthen his 
 resistance by justifying it. Even if he goes home, he 
 is less likely to find the needed corrective guidance 
 and suggestion there, than in some place under school 
 control. Sometimes a talk with some business or 
 professional man, preferably a board member, will 
 send the culprit back to his work with a new point of 
 view- and a new resolve to do the right thing. There 
 must be a plan of reformation, however; do not turn 
 a suspended pupil loose on the world at this critical
 
 196 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Expulsion 
 
 Manner 
 
 time. The enforced idleness of a long wait in the 
 principal's ante-room gives a chance for thinking that 
 prepares the child for the final interview. 
 
 At this interview the parents or guardians of the 
 child should hear the story of the offense, first from 
 the teacher and then from the child, after which 
 the conditions attached to receiving the child again 
 into the school should be stated fully. A frank talk 
 usually results in a better understanding and in the 
 reinstatement of the offender. Teachers can often 
 tell parents wherein they fail in their duty toward 
 their children, and parents can often return the com- 
 pliment. 
 
 If a child is really unfit to attend the public school 
 he should be removed. Expulsion is only for those 
 boys and girls who are utterly unfit to be associated 
 with other children. They are the degenerate, the 
 hardened young offenders who corrupt the manners of 
 their schoolmates, those who will yield to no ordinary 
 means of control and cause constant trouble. To 
 allow incorrigibles to remain in school, of course, is to 
 encourage constant anarchy. There are other places 
 for such children. 
 
 The expulsion of troublesome pupils may be managed 
 in such a way as to strengthen the authority of the 
 school. Where the pupil expelled has been a notorious 
 offender, a certain degree of publicity, with no smooth- 
 ing over of the disgrace involved, will do something 
 toward counteracting his bad influence upon the school. 
 The secret trial is seldom wise, except in cases where 
 sensational disclosures would but feed an unhealthy 
 appetite for scandal. Cases of expulsion should be
 
 PUNISHMENT 197 
 
 treated very seriously, deliberately, and with a view 
 to the moral effect of the action taken. 
 
 The case of the very bad boy is not disposed of when 
 he has been excluded from the public school. Released 
 from its restraint, he is in a fair way to do more harm After 
 than ever, unless he is put into some institution where exp ' 
 he has a chance of reformation. To turn him loose 
 in the streets is but to transfer his operations from a 
 small field to a large one, and from one in which his 
 good behavior is the definite business of someone, to 
 one in which no one is delegated to look after him. 
 The other half of the duty of the school authorities 
 is to see that steps are taken toward the committal of 
 such an offender to a reform school or other special 
 institution, where special facilities and teachers may 
 effect a change beyond the power of the public school 
 to work. 
 
 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 Corporal punishment is generally regarded as a 
 last resort among means of correction. It may save 
 the day when all else fails, and so must not be read out 
 of the list of possibilities; but it is dangerous, anti- 
 quated, and uncertain in effect. It is, as its opponents 
 claim, a primitive means of control, unsuited to modern 
 ideals of government and to highly developed and 
 sensitive children. Many pupils in the public schools, 
 however, are primitive creatures from primitive homes, 
 and are sensitive only to the stimulus of bodily pain, 
 or the humiliation that attends its infliction. "We 
 face a condition, not a theory." We have in our 
 schools children environed by ignorance and want and
 
 198 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 sin. They must tread, at least in part, the upward 
 path traversed in generations past by the ancestors 
 of more favored children, who evolved high ideals from 
 experiences that abounded in knocks and cuffs. Where 
 the methods of a past age are the only ones that will 
 accomplish the work, there they must be used. The 
 great task is to bring about the ends of the school; 
 to be compelled to use harsh means is unfortunate, but 
 to fail is a calamity. 
 A practical Corporal punishment is "a relic of the dark ages." 
 
 considera- g o are those characteristics of human nature that will 
 taon 
 
 respond to no gentler stimuli. So are all the condi- 
 tions of our living which keep alive the brutal in man- 
 kind. But to assume that all human beings, and 
 especially those whose powers of rationalization are 
 still rudimentary, may be governed by the motives 
 that at present only the more advanced people compre- 
 hend, is utter foolishness. 1 To formulate an ideal of 
 human relationship from which force may be elimi- 
 nated, is a helpful and inspiring exercise; to base a 
 comprehensive system of practical control upon it, 
 to be applied to human beings now, is a Quixotic 
 fallacy. 
 
 There has been much mushy sentiment of late years 
 in some quarters concerning corporal punishment. It 
 is true that at least nine-tenths of the floggings of 
 times past were unnecessary. It is true that children 
 properly taught are rarely bad, and that tact and 
 kindness accomplish ends that force can never com- 
 pass. It is true that children have been injured by 
 brutal schoolmasters, and that injustice may condemn 
 
 1 Perry, The Management of a City School, pp. 266-7.
 
 PUNISHMENT 199 
 
 the innocent to unmerited pain. But those who have 
 observed the effect of absolutely forbidding corporal 
 punishment, who know how lawlessness, parental 
 dictation, and insolence toward authority increase with 
 the withdrawing of this one effective if arbitrary 
 check, can not deny that it has still a place and a 
 function in the scheme of school control. Sensible 
 
 compro- 
 
 people, while rejoicing that the era of the hickory rod mise 
 is gone forever, have little patience with that species 
 of soft pedagogy which, in the face of the fact that 
 some children are not amenable to persuasion, spares 
 physical pain rather than use it to secure the ends of 
 the school. 
 
 Where corporal punishment has been altogether done 
 away with, it is usually the case that sentiment against 
 it has been crystallized by some unjust or brutal case. 
 To guard against this, especially in cities where the 
 political situation imposes on the schools careless, 
 ill-trained, tune-serving teachers, there should be 
 regulations which prevent hasty action, and which 
 make it necessary to have witnesses to such punish- 
 ment. Every safeguard against its abuse should be 
 adopted but corporal punishment should not be 
 taken from the list of possible means of control. Rea- 
 sonably administered, it is among the lighter punish- 
 ments. With all due regard to the much-vaunted 
 "sacredness of the person," one has no patience with 
 the mawkish sentimentality which regards a paddling 
 as an unpardonable affront to the dignity of childhood. 
 
 There are some kinds of corporal punishment which Dangerous 
 may permanently injure children, and which should punishment 
 therefore be forbidden strictly. These include the
 
 200 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Safe 
 methods 
 
 b 
 
 
 severe canings once in vogue, boxes on the ear, flinging 
 children across desks and tables, striking upon the 
 head, violent shakings, handslapping with a metal- 
 edged ruler, and whipping with the little, clinging 
 switches which raise hard welts and occasionally 
 cause or aggravate skin diseases. 
 
 Paddling, slapping the cheek 1 or the hands, whip- 
 ping (preferably with a wide-bore rubber tube), and 
 striking the hands with a light ruler, are some of the 
 means used with refractory children, which do not 
 injure but do smart. The humiliation of being struck 
 is, for most American children, far deeper than the 
 physical pain is severe. This is especially true when 
 punishment is given before other children a proce- 
 dure which some educators heartily condemn, while 
 others contend that, since the offense is an offense 
 against the school, that the culprit should be disgraced 
 before his fellows, and the lesson impressed upon them. 
 Be this as it may be, the nervous tension in a room in 
 which a pupil is being punished is often so great that 
 it punishes the innocent almost as much as the guilty. 
 Most people have at some time experienced the breath- 
 less, impressive, "scared" quiet of such an occasion. 
 It has sometimes a salutary effect upon the school; 
 sometimes quite the opposite, after the immediate 
 results are passed. Here is where some knowledge of 
 psychology and sociology will stand the teacher well 
 in hand; for it is the home training of the pupils, their 
 degree of advancement in manners and motives, that 
 
 1 There is danger that in aiming at the cheek the ear may be 
 struck, consequently this mode is not recommended, and in many 
 schools is strictly forbidden.
 
 PUNISHMENT 201 
 
 must largely decide the method used to control them. 
 There is no such thing as a secretly-administered 
 corporal punishment; no matter how carefully guarded, 
 the impressive details of such occasions are always 
 public property soon after the event. 
 
 SUBSTITUTES FOR CORPORAL PUNISHMENT 
 All that has been said must not be construed as a The appeal 
 
 recommendation of corporal punishment; it is but a to 
 frank statement of the necessity of meeting primitive 
 minds with primitive arguments, and a justification 
 of the occasional use of crude means to attain an 
 all-important result. One of the most difficult prob- 
 lems facing teachers today, is that of finding an effica- 
 cious substitute for corporal punishment, where this 
 method has been used until pupils and parents expect 
 no other. An example of such effective substitution 
 comes from southern Illinois, where a young girl, 
 fresh from college, was engaged to teach a country 
 school somewhat notorious for its troublesome big 
 boys. The district had been in the habit of employ- 
 ing young men, who usually managed to maintain a 
 fair degree of order and industry after flogging a few 
 of the ringleaders of the unruly set. After a number 
 of small misdemeanors, for which the new teacher 
 found means of correction without recourse to corporal 
 punishment, the oldest boy in the school committed 
 an act of wanton vandalism so flagrant that all the 
 other children said that, "Teacher will either have to 
 whip him or give up." 
 
 The teacher had no mind to fight the battle of 
 organized society, of law and order and culture, against
 
 202 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 this audacious young outlaw, single-handed. She had 
 been waiting for some such occurrence to begin a well- 
 planned campaign. She made her position on the 
 matter clear to the school by giving it a quiet and very 
 earnest talk upon the obligation of citizens toward 
 the property of the state, and upon the sin of wanton 
 destruction. The younger children were duly im- 
 pressed, although they had no conception, even after 
 explanation, of what "the state" meant. But the 
 offender, although he listened respectfully, started 
 home that night with an air of triumph. He had not 
 been whipped, and he boasted gaily to his schoolmates 
 that he would not be. He thought the incident 
 closed, with the balance on his side. 
 
 Appealing The teacher went to her boarding-place, called up 
 each of the three directors, and bade them meet at her 
 house that night for an important meeting. This, in 
 itself, was a bold departure; no country school-teacher 
 had ever called the directors together for a meeting 
 in that vicinity before. The president was not sure 
 that his dignity and prerogatives were safe but he 
 promised to go. Every family in the district knew 
 what had happened by supper-time. The school, 
 the teacher, and the offense were the topics of con- 
 versation that evening. 
 
 The teacher repeated her talk on vandalism to the 
 directors. She added an outline of what she was 
 trying to accomplish in the school. Having gained 
 their approval for her program, she came back to the 
 problem, this time in its more general phases. She 
 reminded them of the reputation of the school, and 
 appealed to their pride to help her change it. She
 
 PUNISHMENT 203 
 
 had a definite plan, and needed only their hearty sup- 
 port to make it a success. One director, an uncle of 
 the boy who had offended, declined to have anything 
 to do with the case for fear of a family quarrel; the 
 other two, partly from curiosity, promised their sup- 
 port. 
 
 "Then," announced the teacher, "we will bring Enlisting 
 this matter up at an open meeting at the schoolhouse Interest 
 tomorrow night. Since Mr. Jones wants to be excused, 
 Mr. Scammon and Mr. Hough will be the judges. I 
 will present the case, and all who wish to attend may 
 come, for this question concerns the whole district." 
 
 "I'll bet his father'll be there," remarked Mr. 
 Scammon. 
 
 "Of course I should hope so. He is surely more 
 interested than anyone else in his boy's behavior," 
 replied the teacher. 
 
 The news of the meeting to decide Henry Jones' case 
 spread rapidly through the district. Mr. Jones, the 
 director, held a long conversation with his brother 
 over the telephone, on his return from the meeting, 
 in which all the details of the occurrence were re- 
 viewed, Henry standing sullenly at his father's elbow 
 to tell his tale. The father, although he admitted 
 that Henry had done wrong maintained that the 
 teacher was "no good" who would make so much fuss 
 over such a thing. 
 
 "Why didn't she whip him and be done with it?" 
 he inquired belligerently. "That ain't no way to 
 teach school." 
 
 Henry went to school the next morning with a full 
 dinnerpail, but he could not study and declined with
 
 204 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 great dignity to recite. At recess he was a hero; all 
 the children forsook their play and gathered about 
 him to discuss the situation. After recess he became 
 very thoughtful, and the room was hushed to a sym- 
 pathetic quiet. At noon he went home while teacher 
 and school were eating luncheon. He even left the 
 full dinnerpail upon the peg. 
 
 Anew The teacher had not miscalculated; the district 
 
 turned out to the meeting. The Jones family attended 
 to a man Mr. Jones defiant, Mrs. Jones softly 
 weeping, the director alert and non-committal. Neigh- 
 bors discussed this unheard-of event gingerly, with 
 curious eyes on Henry, who sat on a front seat, very 
 white and defiant, crossing and recrossing his feet. 
 The teacher presented her case clearly, quietly, in a 
 speech that lasted almost an hour. She laid the 
 blame for the misdemeanor partly upon the people of 
 the district, who had failed to arouse a feeling of pride 
 and responsibility in the children, because they did not 
 have it themselves. She showed them that the law- 
 lessness which had been the shame of the district was 
 the result of carelessness and indifference on the part 
 of the parents, and she drove home smartly the idea 
 that it takes more than a teacher to make a school. 
 She recommended that the board order Henry Jones 
 to make good the damage he had done, and to promise 
 then and there, not to her but to all the people of the 
 district, that he would not repeat it. Henry Jones' 
 father, relieved at this leniency, directed his son to do 
 this, and he complied. Then the teacher spoke again, 
 in an appeal for support and cooperation. Several 
 men asked questions, and some objected because it
 
 PUNISHMENT 205 
 
 would raise the taxes to carry out her plan. They 
 did not carry it out very fully, as it proved, for this 
 very reason. But the ideas there brought to that 
 country community for the first time have taken root 
 in the minds of the people, and some day they will 
 bear fruit. The teacher, on closing her school the 
 next May, wrote out for her own satisfaction the 
 results that had already come from her course with 
 Henry Jones. The list read as follows: 
 
 1. It interested the whole neighborhood for once in Some 
 
 , , , results 
 
 the school. 
 
 2. It shifted the responsibility of dealing with an 
 offender from the teacher to the Board. This was a 
 good thing in this case because: 
 
 (a) It awakened the Board to its responsibility 
 for the school. 
 
 (6) It reminded the people that their elected 
 representatives are the proper school au- 
 thority. 
 
 3. It put the Jones family in a humiliated position 
 in the community; and Henry will not be allowed to 
 repeat such an offense. 
 
 4. It gave me a chance to talk to the people about 
 an improved school. 
 
 5. It helped make Henry a better boy. 
 
 (a) He was impressed by a new idea that 
 being bad in school is an offense against the 
 community, not a successful attempt to out- 
 wit the teacher. 
 
 (b) The anxiety of the night and day of suspense 
 
 seems to have matured him. He is more 
 thoughtful.
 
 206 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 (c) His public promise to do better gives me a 
 
 firmer hold on him than I could have won 
 from a proved ability to "lick" him. 
 
 (d) He had to repair the damage done. He has 
 experienced the weight of the law, and has a 
 new respect for it. 
 
 Outgrowing The moral of this example is that the majesty of the 
 attitude 50 " state is more impressive than the smart of the rod. 
 The hard thing is to devise means of giving the pupils 
 any conception of the great power of organized society. 
 They can see the teacher, who is but one human being, 
 perhaps easily frightened, weak and incompetent; 
 but they can not even imagine that all the people in 
 their community own the public school and mean that 
 it shall be a success. If this truth can be brought 
 forcibly to the pupils, and to the parents also, the 
 necessity for corporal punishment can thereby be 
 greatly reduced. 
 
 Tongue- Corporal punishment has been done away in some 
 
 schools only to give place to a substitute far more 
 demoralizing in character. Words cut deeper than 
 blows, and the sharp reproaches and heartless taunts 
 heard in some schoolrooms destroy friendliness and 
 ambition far more effectively than a severe whipping. 
 There is a kind of honor in taking a merited punish- 
 ment; most children suffer such without resentment, 
 because their own sense of justice supports its infliction. 
 But no child endures an abusive harangue without 
 bitter inward resistance. The teacher who descends 
 to the use of diatribes to secure order has lowered his 
 dignity to the point at which the respect of pupils 
 ceases; and his removal from the teaching force is
 
 PUNISHMENT 207 
 
 the best thing that could happen to that school. One 
 sees this evil at its worst in any great school system 
 where numbers of ill-trained teachers are retained 
 year after year because political conditions are such 
 that they can not be dismissed. They are teachers for 
 whom the appalling problems of a city schoolroom offer 
 no solution so effective as corporal punishment; denied 
 that by strict rules, they take refuge in a course of 
 diatribe that produces results as thorough, while re- 
 maining within the letter of the law. The teacher who 
 taunts pupils with their stupidity or their foreign extrac- 
 tion, who applies abusive terms to them, scars charac- 
 ters in a way that makes the pain and humiliation of 
 even a severe whipping, a light thing in comparison. 
 
 There is a way of talking to pupils who have done The 
 wrong, however, which is much used where formerly 
 corporal punishment served, and usually with good 
 results. This is the kindly and serious discussion of 
 an offense and its results, immediate and remote; 
 followed by an appeal, or a statement of the conditions 
 under which punishment is deferred or remitted. The 
 following order of procedure has been found most 
 effective in securing the reform of delinquents through 
 private talks: 
 
 1. Secure the admission that the accusation is a 
 true one. If the pupil denies part of it, arrive at an 
 understanding as to the extent of his offense. Be 
 satisfied that he is telling the truth, at least as he sees 
 it, before going farther. 
 
 2. By showing the consequences of such actions, 
 both to himself and to others, secure a frank statement 
 from the child that he is wrong.
 
 208 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Good and 
 bad forms 
 of punish- 
 ment 
 
 3. If possible, arouse in the pupil a sense of remorse 
 for his offense, since this gives an emotional reen- 
 forcement to the resolve to do better. But be very 
 careful that this feeling is a genuine one, not a pretense 
 intended to "work" the teacher. The admission of 
 wrong-doing is necessary; sorrow for it is of great 
 help, but should be voluntary, secured by suggestion 
 rather than requirement. 
 
 4. Require now a promise that the offense shall not 
 be repeated, and register this promise in a book kept 
 for the purpose, the promise signed and dated, and 
 witnessed by the teacher. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Threats, school work, detention during recreation or 
 rest periods, depriving of marks earned by good work, 
 personal indignities, "saturation," and the super- 
 " appropriate " penalty, are not helpful forms of punish- 
 ment except in rare cases. Tongue-lashing is the 
 worst of all punishments in its hardening and vitiating 
 effects. All punishment should answer the require- 
 ments of justice, reformation, and economy. Among 
 those which are effective in gaining these ends are 
 reproof, isolation, wisely and temperately used; reports 
 to parents and to higher authorities; the humiliation 
 or disgrace of a group of which the offenders are mem- 
 bers; deprivation of privileges, restitution where it is 
 appropriate and just, and in extreme cases, corporal 
 punishment, suspension and expulsion. 
 
 Corporal punishment is to be used for the most 
 part with young children, to whom it is a form of 
 inhibitory pain; and with older children who have not
 
 PUNISHMENT 209 
 
 advanced beyond the motives that normally operate 
 with undeveloped characters. Used with discretion 
 where it is the only effective means, it is entirely 
 justifiable. But a rational presentation of the nature 
 and effects of the offense, with a parole system and a 
 set of records which act as a check upon the tendency 
 to repeat it, will often be as effective as corporal punish- 
 ment even with stubborn delinquents. The appeal 
 to ultimate authority as a support to the local authority 
 of the teacher is another useful and valuable substitute 
 for corporal punishment.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 
 
 PREVENTIVE DEVICES FOUNDED UPON THE MODE 
 or ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY 
 
 THE teacher who takes no chances begins by plan- 
 ning the life of his school in an orderly and detailed 
 way. Before the school begins he has decided on the 
 Meeting order of entering and leaving the room, on signals for 
 situation' a ^ the movements of classes, on regulations for leaving 
 \ the room, and for the use of the dictionary and other 
 reference works, and on the manner of using and caring 
 for blackboards and other apparatus. It is especially 
 important that the merging of exercises and the inter- 
 missions between classes be planned to go smoothly 
 and as quietly as possible. He goes farther than the 
 planning of the .normal life of the school, and decides 
 on a course of action to be followed instantly when the 
 usual offenses occur, as they are fairly sure to do. 
 This preconceived plan of action may need to be 
 changed when the moment comes, owing to unusual 
 and unforeseen circumstances; but if it be reasonable 
 and based upon successful experience, it will hold in 
 all ordinary cases. Even to make a slight mistake in 
 the manner of correction is less dangerous than to let 
 the offense go unconnected, or to commit the greater 
 blunders that are liable to occur when one acts upon
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 211 
 
 the impulse of the moment. Quick action usually ^ 
 prevents recurrence. The more thoroughly all emer- 
 gencies are provided for, the more sure is the teacher's 
 hold upon the situation. Unless he has an unusually 
 orderly and retentive mind, he will find it worth while 
 to write out both the administrative and the corrective 
 devices that he proposes to use. These he should 
 keep to himself, however, never mentioning them to 
 the school until the occasion for their use comes. 
 Children respect a teacher who seems always to know V 
 just what to do under all circumstances. The man 
 with a plan is always master of the situation. Those 
 people who seize opportunity are not as a rule people 
 of lightning-fast brain processes, but people who have 
 slowly and carefully worked out, ahead of the need for 
 it, a plan of action for each situation that may arise. 
 
 If this part of the teacher's work is thoroughly done one func- 
 in the lower grades, the good habits there established ^ e 
 will be so fixed by the time the pupils reach the gram- primary 
 mar school, that the work of rationalization and the 
 development and training of new powers soon to assert 
 themselves, can go forward unimpeded. New problems 
 arise constantly, to be sure, so that the necessity for 
 prevision is never absent; but it may be minimized in 
 upper grades if the primary teacher be thoroughly 
 "forewarned forearmed." 
 
 The disciplinary value of the fire-drill may be men- 
 tioned in connection with this topic. The concen- 
 trated activity, the mental alertness and self-control 
 that are developed in the fire-drill make it a valuable 
 exercise, entirely apart from its value as a safety device. 
 The need of discipline is never so great as in time of
 
 212 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The pupil's 
 conception 
 of the 
 teacher's 
 position 
 
 The 
 
 teacher's 
 benevolent 
 despotism 
 
 fire, when the value of prevision has a vivid and im- 
 pressive illustration. 
 
 The idea of the position and authority of the teacher 
 which children acquire from their families and asso- 
 ciates, is often very crude and inadequate. This is 
 natural in a new country, in which social and official 
 classes and distinctions are still in a state of flux. 
 Teachers can do much to remedy this condition, which 
 is responsible for a poor spirit in many schools and for 
 a variety of specific offenses, by clarifying in the minds 
 of the pupils their relations to their teachers. This 
 will tend to build up in the next generation that solid 
 respect for the school as a social institution, which 
 will make its work more effective than it has been or 
 is now. There should be no foolish self-deprecation, 
 no self-conscious timidity, in this process. The teacher 
 who is not worthy of the finest respect has no business 
 in the profession; the teacher who shrinks from the 
 delicate but necessary task of educating people who 
 need it, to an appreciation of his position and the 
 dignity of his work, is begging the question in just the 
 way that will perpetuate the condition that we deplore. 
 Frank talks with pupils on the organization, purpose, 
 "backing," and importance of the school system, will 
 tend to increase the earnestness and sincerity of their 
 work, and eliminate petty resistance to the necessary 
 routine. 
 
 r The ideal teacher is a benevolent despot in his school. 
 His authority should be unquestioned, his use of it 
 wise, helpful, and limited. Children should be encour- 
 aged to help themselves and solve their own problems, 
 but when a question comes to the teacher for settle-
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 213 
 
 ment, the decision must be carefully considered and 
 just enough to be final. Here is one of the places in 
 which the thoroughly trained teacher has an immense 
 advantage over the teacher of limited education. 
 Knowledge does give power. Knowledge wins the 
 respect of children. Sympathy, quiet authority, and / 
 real knowledge that does not need to seek recourse in 
 bluffing, win the hearts of pupils. 
 
 An essential prerequisite for good order in schools is Official 
 a friendly relationship, or at least an unquestioning co- co per 
 operation, between the teacher in charge and his chief. ^ 
 It is the business of the teacher to carry out the plans 
 of the principal, supervisor, or superintendent as fully 
 and as conscientiously as possible. If he thinks the 
 plan a mistaken one he has every right to object 
 stating his protest, not to the pupils, their parents, or 
 other teachers, but first to the chief in question, and 
 later if necessary to a higher authority or to the Board 
 of Education. If the objection is not sustained, the 
 teacher has the alternative of resigning or of carrying 
 out the will of his chief. Unity and cooperation are 
 as necessary among the teachers of a system as among 
 the pupils of a room. 
 
 Summary means may be used to put a stop to cer- Bad 
 tain bad influences which often demoralize a school- that'may 8 
 room. There are minor laws in most states, for in- be stopped 
 stance, which make it a serious offense for a child to 
 enter a saloon. The law is often badly enforced, as 
 are laws against the selling of cigarettes to minors, and 
 others of like purpose. A determined teacher, acting 
 personally or through officers of the law, can usually 
 put a stop to illegal selling. A candy store near a
 
 214 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 schoolhouse is a more serious problem, for there are 
 no laws against the selling of candy, although the adul- 
 terated stuff sold is often a serious menace to health. 
 All of these evils, with the picture-play theater and the 
 vaudeville house and the electric arcade and other 
 diversions, should be examined and passed upon by 
 teachers at frequent intervals, and all possible means 
 to control or eliminate them, if harmful, pressed into 
 service. 
 
 PREVENTIVE DEVICES FOUNDED UPON THE MODE 
 OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE 
 
 Complai- The simplest way of securing good behavior from 
 
 pupils through the use of personal influence, is to ask 
 it as a personal favor. Pleasing the teacher is usually 
 a strong motive with very young children, with foreign 
 children to whom the school opens up a new and won- 
 derful world of which "Teacher" is the guardian angel, 
 and with all children of an amiable and obliging tem- 
 perament. It is not an evil motive, but it becomes 
 inadequate after a time, being too narrow in its results 
 to be depended upon as a life-motive. Without being 
 superseded, it should gradually become subordinate to 
 higher principles. Where these higher principles fail 
 to function it may still be employed, even with High 
 School students, but always with the end in view of 
 developing a broader basis than personal loyalty as an 
 actuating motive. Pretty teachers with winning man- 
 ners, who depend upon their personal charm to secure 
 results in the schoolroom, fall short of well-performed 
 duty in failing to generalize the willing response to 
 their appeal.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 215 
 
 The more permanently effective use of personal influ- Clarification 
 ence is so to emotionalize fine ideals that children are emphasis 
 impelled to adopt them into their scheme of living, of ideals 
 There are two processes here first, the clarification 
 of the ideal, the mere explanation of the significance of 
 the words that stand for the idea; and, second, a 
 strong and varied emphasis upon it, that shall present 
 it so vividly and constantly as to make a permanent, 
 emotionalized, conduct-compelling ideal. 
 
 The most successful way of doing this is to arrange 
 a definite program, by which one virtue after another 
 is brought to the children's notice for concentrated 
 attention. Sometimes two virtues are studied together. 
 In a public school in Brooklyn where this system is 
 used, the following program was used in 1910-11: 
 
 September Cleanliness and Clean Language. 
 
 October Obedience and Self-control. 
 
 November Kindness and Gratitude. 
 
 December Courtesy and Friendship. 
 
 January Industry and Thrift. 
 
 February Patriotism and Duty. 
 
 March Honor and Loyalty. 
 
 April Honesty and Truthfulness. 
 
 May Peace and Quietness. 
 
 June Courage and Perseverance. 
 
 July Sincerity and Temperance. 
 
 August Cheerfulness and Love. 1 
 
 1 This program is a variation of that suggested by Miss Brownlee 
 in a little book describing the Brownlee system. Copies of Miss 
 Brownlee's book, which contains a more explicit description of this 
 work than space will here permit, can be obtained for 10 cents of 
 The Holland Patent Book Cover Co., Springfield, Mass. Teachers 
 will find the book very helpful.
 
 216 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The virtues to be studied are dwelt upon in short 
 periods of concentrated thought, the pupils being en- 
 couraged to express their ideas about them. Stories 
 from their experiences or observation that illustrate 
 the motto of the month are brought in; the mottoes are 
 placed conspicuously on the board in each room of a 
 school, and posted on large sign-boards in the halls. 
 Every means is used, in fact, to emphasize the virtue 
 under consideration without direct preaching on the 
 part of the teachers. 
 
 strengthen- The personality of the teacher is, after all, the greatest 
 teacher factor in the mode of control through influence. The 
 respect which nobility and sincerity inspire, entirely 
 aside from the affection which springs from gratitude 
 or congeniality, is among the very strongest motives 
 to good conduct. Colgrove quotes from Baldwin l 
 nine factors which go to make up the qualifications of 
 a successful disciplinarian: 
 
 1. Bearing, the inspiring factor. 
 
 2. Tact, the managing factor. 
 
 3. System, the organizing factor. 
 
 4. Will power, the controlling factor. 
 
 5. Heart power, the winning factor. 
 
 6. Teaching power, the vital factor. 
 
 7. Pupil insight, the guiding factor. 
 
 8. Culture, the commanding factor. 
 
 9. Character, the uplifting factor. 
 
 The lesson In connection with a consideration of the teacher's 
 parochial personality, there is a valuable lesson to be had from 
 school the church schools conducted by certain religious sister- 
 
 1 School Management, Part iii, page 95; Colgrove, The Teacher 
 and the School, page 380.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 217 
 
 hoods. Children who have been notoriously trouble- 
 some in public schools, when transferred to the schools 
 conducted by the teaching orders, often become model 
 pupils, yielding respectful and unquestioning obedience 
 to the sisters in charge. Pupils who have attended 
 such schools attribute their attitude to the reverence 
 in which the sisters are held. Their costume and 
 manner of living, suggesting always the fact that they 
 are set apart from the world and have devoted their 
 lives to religious service, give them a peculiar sacred- 
 ness in the eyes of their pupils. This feeling is as a 
 rule fostered by all the influences of environment, so 
 that to disobey a sister appears a far more heinous 
 offense than to disobey any lay authority. So effective 
 is the fine respect which training engenders for the 
 teaching nun, that it functions as a deterrent among 
 those whose natural and acquired tendencies are all 
 toward mischief. 
 
 If the secret of the success of the teaching nun lies Respect 
 in the fine respect and reverence which her calling teachers 
 evokes, may not the situation in our public schools be 
 improved by bespeaking for the lay teacher a degree 
 of respect consonant with the importance and sacred- 
 ness of her calling, and by insisting that these teachers 
 be such as command the respect of all? Certainly, 
 in point of devotion to duty and allegiance to the trust 
 imposed in them, a great throng of lay teachers fall 
 little if any short of the women who have taken per- 
 petual vows. Yet parents fail grievously to instil into 
 their children the idea that to disobey such a woman 
 or to cause her trouble is an impropriety not to be 
 dreamed of. To expect any such millennial change in
 
 2i8 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 the attitude of the public is to engage in idle day- 
 dreams, except as it may be hoped for as the result of 
 an improvement in the teaching force, not beyond the 
 scope of present possibility. This is not to say that 
 teachers should or can ever command the reverence 
 which is paid to the woman who gives up her life to a 
 distinctly religious service. It is simply to emphasize 
 the fact that an appreciation of the high calling to 
 which teachers devote their time deserves, in itself, a 
 degree of honor which is not accorded to them at pres- 
 ent; and to suggest that, were teachers as a class as 
 conscious as they should be of the dignity of their 
 position and the requirements of character and prepara- 
 tion that their work asks of them, the respect so com- 
 manded would go far to solve the problems of adminis- 
 tration that are now so vexing. 
 The great The attitude of some teachers, usually young and 
 
 d6sidc- 
 
 ratum the ill-prepared ones, which resents the name of "teacher" 
 an< ^ the connotation of the calling, deprecates the 
 
 teaching value of the service they give, and is satisfied with the 
 standards of the people with whom their lot may be 
 cast, has its own ill effect upon the standing and work 
 of the school. Fine character in the men and women 
 who make our schools we must have. Great en- 
 dowments, fine equipment, stately buildings, varied 
 curriculums, and elaborate organization are nothing if 
 culture, dignity, and nobility do not characterize the 
 people whose work is the very heart of our free 
 educational system. 
 
 The second "Character" is so general and inclusive a word that 
 
 training^ ** includes many of the requisites for teachers; the 
 
 rest may be included if we add to the first requirement
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 219 
 
 another, namely, that a teacher be trained for his 
 work. Many good men and women have failed igno- 
 miniously, in spite of the noblest traits of character, 
 because their training had not fitted them for the 
 special work of education. Every kind of training that 
 a teacher has is of worth and use, directly or indirectly, 
 in a modern school. People are beginning to see that 
 the great work of bringing up children can not be 
 intrusted to people who have not studied the subject 
 specially. 
 
 Between natural gift and engrafted skill, the teacher Recipes 
 should embody in his own personality the essentials 
 of success in discipline, providing conditions are at all 
 fair. A compilation of characteristics which make 
 almost certainly for failure in schoolroom management 
 is not hard to make; examples are too plentiful. 1 Here 
 is a list of ten types of teachers who can hardly hope 
 to succeed: 
 
 1. The teacher too ignorant and crude to command 
 the respect of his students. 
 
 2. The conceited or bigoted teacher, whose preten- 
 sions or narrownesses provoke their derision. 
 
 . 3. The weak-willed teacher. 
 
 4. The teacher ignorant of working devices. 
 
 5. The teacher whose life outside the schoolroom 
 does not command the respect of pupils or townspeople. 
 
 6. The teacher who descends to the level of his 
 pupils, treating them with easy levity and familiarity; 
 and the gossip. 
 
 7. The taskmaster and the tyrant. 
 
 1 See Arnold's classification of inefficient teachers, in School and 
 Class Management, pp. 129-134.
 
 220 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 8. The teacher who wants, above everything else, 
 to be popular. 
 
 9. The lazy teacher. 
 
 10. The threatener who does not "make good." 
 In this connection the teaching voice is important. 
 Quiet manners in teachers are of immense value, and 
 a low voice pays especially good dividends on the in- 
 vestment of care and training that its acquiring means. 
 Americans have proverbially unpleasant voices, and 
 the strain of constant use to which the schoolroom puts 
 the vocal organs spoils many a good one. Teachers 
 who are conscious of having the harsh, high-pitched 
 voice which raises the nervous tension of the school- 
 room, need to take systematic steps to develop lower, 
 richer, clearer tones. Imitation will help more in this 
 matter than anything else. Listen to the rich, sweet 
 voice of an English woman of good breeding not 
 necessarily of high class. The beautiful voices of the 
 English and German peasants are a revelation to 
 Americans. Find, then, first of all, a person who does 
 have a good voice, and listen daily if you possibly can. 
 Notice the pitch, the intonation, the repose, the placing 
 of the voice. Make yourself sensitive to tone-quality 
 by observing the voices of the people among whom 
 you live. Observe every means of reminding yourself 
 of your effort, in order that constant practice may aid 
 in the formation of your new habit of speech. Apply 
 all the laws of habit-formation, in fact. 1 The new 
 power which a fine voice gives, together with the 
 pleasure of using a voice that people really enjoy 
 
 1 James, Principles of Psychology, I, chapter iv. Every teacher 
 should read this chapter at least once a year.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 221 
 
 hearing, is more than worth the trouble that it costs 
 to re-form the voice after reaching years of maturity. 
 And every good voice is an element in the removing 
 of a national reproach. 
 
 PREVENTIVE DEVICES FOUNDED UPON THE MODE 
 OF WHOLESOME REPLETION 
 
 This method seeks to supply good interests in such Crowding 
 fulness that no time or attention is left for mischief. 
 It is founded upon the belief that there is, even for the 
 most wilful and mischievous child, some wholesome 
 activity whose appeal is stronger than the desire to 
 create a disturbance or satisfy a selfish wish. The 
 means of occupying the time of high-school pupils 
 have been enumerated in the discussion of this mode, 
 and need not be repeated here. There are three sets 
 of activities which should be possible to school chil- 
 dren, to fill the time of three periods in their day. 
 First, there should be ways in which to spend the time 
 left over after lessons are prepared, without disturbing 
 the school. Many bright children acquire lazy mental 
 habits because the preparation-time allowed for aver- 
 age pupils (the class from whose abilities the school 
 takes its standards of requirements) is more than they 
 need. They dawdle in preparing their lessons because 
 they do not need to hurry, and because there is no 
 incentive for concentration and close application. The 
 time remaining is probably wasted in play that brings 
 no good results, unless means for activities of a helpful 
 sort are provided. In the lower grades, all forms of Redeeming 
 busy-work, including sand-table and clay-box, may 
 keep little hands out of mischief. In the upper grades,
 
 222 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 a reading-table supplied with supplementary reading- 
 books, magazines, and pictures prevents trouble. The 
 duty of the cleaning-squad is to keep halls, steps, and 
 grass-plot free from paper, and to report to the teachers 
 and janitors spitting, marking of premises, and disorder. 
 This squad may be made up of pupils of high standing 
 who have permission to slip out of their rooms when- 
 ever they have finished their lessons, to attend to 
 their duties. In country schools, older brothers and 
 sisters may be permitted to help the little folk with 
 their writing, spelling, or busy-work, thus keeping both 
 employed while the teacher gives her attention to the 
 recitations of the other pupils. 
 
 School j n t^ j ena practice school there are seven pupil- 
 
 officers in each grade, whose duties are respectively: 
 
 1. The care of boards and sponges. 
 
 2. Dusting the teacher's table and chair. 
 
 3. Opening the windows at recess to flush the room 
 with fresh air. 
 
 4. Changing the date on the large calendar-pad. 
 
 5. Keeping clean water in jugs and glasses. 
 
 6. Filling ink-wells. 
 
 7. Care of books and note-books in the class-cup- 
 board. 
 
 Besides these class officers, who are chosen in order 
 in a weekly change, there are others appointed for the 
 semester to put away and take out maps, rulers, books, 
 and other things not in constant use. 1 The children 
 learn to take care of valuable things, and are benefited 
 by the sobering effect of responsibility. The teacher, 
 
 1 Aus dem Piidagogischen Universitats-Seminar zu Jena, drittes 
 Heft, herausgegeben von Professor Dr. W. Rein, 1891, page 35.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 223 
 
 moreover, gains much time otherwise expended upon 
 mechanical work which is not a means of growth to 
 him, to put upon reading or study which will make his 
 work better. This work, remember, is to be done in 
 school hours as a part of the school work, and not to 
 be taken from playtime, except perhaps on very rainy 
 days, and where there is no roofed playroom. 
 
 The attention of pupils is likewise to be wholesomely Recreation 
 employed during recesses, and before and after school. per 
 Supervised play is a comparatively new element in 
 American education, but it bids fair to eliminate a great 
 deal of evil. The children in many country and village 
 schools simply do not know how to play. They stand 
 or sit around at intermissions, gossiping and staring 
 idly at each other or at passers-by. They need to be 
 taught lively games, organized into teams, forced 
 really to play until they form the habit and do it spon- 
 taneously. There are several good books upon the 
 play movement, and texts describing games and the 
 delightful folk-dances which children love and which 
 arouse an interest in the people of other lands. 
 
 Third, the teacher may sometimes have some con- Home 
 trol of home time. It is not wise to attempt this tune 
 unless it is plain that conditions need bettering, for 
 where the home still seems fairly adequate for its share 
 of child-training responsibility, it should be let alone. 
 But if children are allowed to be upon the streets or in 
 places of harmful amusement, during the evenings, the 
 school may lessen the evil by providing home work and 
 recreation that will occupy the evenings. Especially, 
 it is the duty of school authorities to set and preach a 
 standard of opportunity for boys and girls who are
 
 224 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 trying to learn lessons at home. The secret of far too 
 many failures is that parents neither provide a separate 
 study-room, nor see to it that quiet reigns in the family 
 living-room during a definite and strictly observed study 
 period. Games, gossip, the visits of neighbors, the cry- 
 ing of babies, the discussion of family problems, go on 
 unchecked where young people are trying to force their 
 flighty attention to unfamiliar subjects. The ideal of 
 a regular study hour, with enforced quiet and steady 
 application, may often be set before parents with such 
 promise of its good effects for their children, that they 
 adopt it readily and gladly. 
 
 INTEREST AND DISCIPLINE 
 
 The All devices for crowding out evil by occupying well 
 
 problem the recreative periods of school life, dwindle into com- 
 parative insignificance before the great, fundamental 
 problem, the greatest of all that of creating so real 
 and so intense an interest in the essential work of the 
 school that petty distractions will have no power to 
 gain attention. In spite of the thousand new elements 
 in school training, fads that pass or essentials whose 
 importance we are but just beginning to realize, 
 things illustrative, cultural, recreative, there persists 
 always a core of solid, fundamental school studies 
 which all sane teachers aim to keep dominant through 
 every temptation to sacrifice them. They are essential 
 because of the universality of their need. All men and 
 women need them; they are the foundation-require- 
 ments. Such subjects as reading, writing, necessary 
 number, the laws of health, the ability to speak our 
 own language correctly, some knowledge of the history
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 225 
 
 and geography of the world and especially of our own 
 country, and the fundamental principles of ethics 
 these things are the essentials in the common schools. 
 They are to be sought first, and other things added to 
 them. 
 
 The "other things," however, are not the bait in a Essentials 
 trap or the chocolate coating on a bitter pill. There 
 is matter of intrinsic interest in every department of 
 knowledge, and the most essential things may be made 
 really interesting, as well as the many other branches 
 which enrich the curriculum. Just at the core of posi- 
 tive, constructive good discipline lies the art it is an 
 art of making the essential things, the most neces- 
 sary studies, attractive. Although every study has its 
 own intrinsic interest, the appeal of some studies, such 
 as music, manual training of all kinds, drawing those 
 studies in which eye and hand are actively engaged 
 is more immediate, more enhanced by quick reward, 
 than studies whose value children can see with diniculty 
 if at all. They must accept these on faith; and these 
 are usually lowest in easily aroused interest. The 
 teacher's problem is to find and show the points of 
 appeal, to emphasize positive incentives, to make his 
 pupils realize the desirability of the art or the informa- 
 tion for which they are working. If real interest can 
 be aroused, he knows that the wholesome pursuit of 
 knowledge will crowd out evil. 
 
 There is a question-begging substitute for a real A false 
 solution of the interest problem, which we are very t^ 1 ^ 011 
 liable to use in these days when so much is done to problem 
 give variety and pleasure to school life. This is a 
 dependence upon the easily aroused interest in the
 
 226 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 lighter studies, rather than sincere seeking of the 
 intrinsic interest in the more difficult subjects. Chil- 
 dren may be taught to endure grammar, arithmetic, 
 and spelling, for the sake of the drawing, cooking, or 
 bench-work in which they take a ready delight. They 
 are hustled through the history lesson, which they find 
 "dry," because it is easy to hold their attention during 
 the music lesson. This is wrong. "This ought ye to 
 have done, and not to have left the other undone." 
 Each study has its own interest, which teachers should 
 find and demonstrate. There are teachers who excuse 
 themselves for slighting a study because they "never 
 liked it themselves." This is intellectual cowardice 
 and inexcusable laziness. It is a childish and narrow 
 policy. A poorly taught child may have an excuse for 
 disliking one or more studies, and most people master 
 easiest those which they like best; but the teacher, 
 unless a specialist, owes allegiance to all subjects 
 included in his own curriculum. He has no business 
 to hand on his own subject prejudices to his pupils. 
 He is committing a sin which will inevitably be reflected 
 in the spirit and work of his school. 
 
 The real Lack of interest shows itself in weariness and lack 
 
 of attention. There is a false and a true weariness, 
 however, and the first thing necessary is that the 
 teacher learn to distinguish between the two. True 
 weariness or fatigue is caused by the using up of energy, 
 and comes when attention and effort have been con- 
 centrated upon work until the child's resources are 
 exhausted. There are two common causes for this 
 true fatigue when it occurs in school, both originating 
 and to be corrected at home, if possible. The child
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 227 
 
 may be too poorly nourished to have strength for a 
 reasonable amount of work. Where dire poverty is 
 the cause, as in large cities, the school lunch seems to 
 be the only logical remedy for this evil until economic 
 and social conditions change. A bowl of hot soup and 
 a thick slice of bread may turn a stolid, weak-willed 
 child into a willingly, brightly attentive one. Where 
 malnutrition comes from poorly selected and cooked, 
 rather than insufficient food, education of the mothers 
 is the remedy not very easily realized, to be sure. 
 Within another generation, however, when the girls 
 now studying cookery have become the homemakers, 
 this evil will grow appreciably less. The second cause 
 is too heavy home work, or outside work which keeps 
 the child up late at night. 
 
 So much for real fatigue. But the greater problem False 
 is the weariness, not of exhausted but of unapplied 
 resources. It is the boredness which causes children 
 to throw aside their work from sheer lack of interest 
 in it, and to feel that the lack of interest is a legitimate 
 excuse for their neglect of it. It is unfortunate that 
 there has grown up with the Doctrine of Interest, a 
 mischievous heresy which accepts just this excuse. 
 Teachers who allow such excuses to stand, do so at a 
 sacrifice of character as well as of work quality. All 
 good work is interesting. Find the interest, hunt it 
 out but if it eludes pursuit, the work is still to be done. 
 
 When pupils are not interested, the fault may be why 
 their own or the teacher's. If it be the teacher's, his 
 first duty is to master the art of presentation, to lay 
 the lures that tickle curiosity, to supply the means of 
 arousing interest. This involves the whole field of
 
 228 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The 
 
 textbook 
 
 evil 
 
 Equipment 
 
 special method, which of course can not be discussed 
 here. Four causes of lack of interest, however, are so 
 common, and consequently so influential in the sphere 
 of discipline, as to deserve mention. First, the pres- 
 entation may not be sufficiently vivid to arouse even a 
 mild initial curiosity, in which case no child can be 
 blamed for not wanting to pursue so unpromising a 
 subject. The slavish use of textbooks is largely to 
 blame for the inefficiency of teachers in giving assign- 
 ments and hearing recitations, as well as the over- 
 crowded condition of our schools, which forces many 
 good teachers to do their work in a mechanical way. 
 American teachers do not teach. They hear recita- 
 tions. Our texts are usually good, but in the hands 
 of teachers who shift to them the whole responsibility 
 of instruction, they are a source of weakness, not of 
 strength. Good texts can never take the place of good 
 teachers. As professional training increases, the evil 
 of textbook dependence will be reduced. Probably 
 most teachers have remarked that if nine things be 
 studied from a book and a tenth told by the teacher, 
 the tenth fact is the one that is remembered on exam- 
 ination day or any other day. The greater vivid- 
 ness of viva voce presentation is the reason. 
 
 Poor equipment is another cause of poor interest. 
 Geography lessons without maps, history lessons with- 
 out pictures, drawing lessons without variety of models, 
 all are liable to be dry and tedious. The improvement 
 in school work and spirit, lasting sometimes for several 
 days, upon the installation of a new globe or dictionary 
 or picture, has been remarked often. Not only in the 
 lessons in which they are used, but in every phase of
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 229 
 
 school life, is felt the stimulus of a new incentive to 
 effort. 
 
 The assignment may not be problematic. It may Assignment 
 hold out no lure, beckon to no new land, have no 
 mystery to solve, no real difficulty to surmount. Red- 
 blooded children resent "an easy one," or one which, 
 perhaps difficult enough, offers no prize for the seeking. 
 The assignment is the key to the interest situation, 
 because if skilfully made it holds out, in the lesson to 
 be mastered, a puzzle to be solved or a prize to be 
 won. It makes a promise of something worth working 
 for, and in motivating effort gives to it a character 
 that makes it the solution, the very best solution, to 
 the discipline question. But if the assignment be a 
 dry and hopeless announcement of the pages in to- 
 morrow's sentence, there is little or no interest to ab- 
 sorb the healthy curiosity that children have. They 
 must satisfy it in some other way, find another exercise 
 for their energy than hunting up answers to fascinating 
 questions. 
 
 Last, the work needs to be correlated with other work, Correlation 
 and to take hold on life, both in and out of school, by 
 many tentacles. It must be applicable, timely, con- 
 crete, alive. 
 
 Having used the means at his command to make the 
 work intrinsically appealing, the teacher's duty to 
 interest is performed, and the pupil's begins. But the 
 teacher's duty to his pupils is not performed; it may 
 be but just begun. For it may be that after the teacher 
 has done all that time and resources permit, the work 
 still remains uninteresting to the pupils. The natural 
 flightiness of young and untrained minds, the narrow
 
 230 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Where 
 old-fash- 
 ioned 
 methods 
 are needed 
 
 self-centeredness of childhood, or the attitude of the 
 home or the community in which the pupil lives, may 
 prevent a response to the lures to interest thrown out. 
 If this be the case, and especially if the child seeks to 
 excuse idleness or lack of preparation with "I just 
 can't seem to like it," l the absolute authority of the 
 teacher should be brought into requisition. That 
 child should be made to apply himself. There is a for- 
 tunate psychological law in accordance with which 
 interest is aroused automatically upon real application 
 to the subject, and this interest grows until real weari- 
 ness checks its increase. 2 He who defies the lack of 
 interest, and pursues a subject in spite of it, sometimes 
 finds a wealth of interest as his reward, and always 
 enough to repay the effort. 
 
 It is worth while to teach children this law in a 
 simple way, by means of simple reminders upon appro- 
 priate occasions, or by a motto kept always before 
 them. But more important than the incentive to 
 reward is the ideal of faithfulness to duty that may 
 be taught whenever lessons are distasteful and dry, 
 as some lessons are sure to be even under the most 
 skilful teachers. It is good to have our lines fall in 
 pleasant places, but whether they do or not, the "next 
 thing" is to be done, faithfully and thoroughly. Dis- 
 like is a shameful excuse for failing to do one's assigned 
 
 1 Kindergarten-trained children, upon entering the first grade, 
 are sometimes very hard to control, having become used to constant 
 amusement and attractive activities. The newer kindergarten 
 methods aim to overcome this artificially aroused demand for 
 entertainment. 
 
 8 James, Psychology (1910 ed.), pp. 236 ff.; Pillsbury, Attention, 
 chap. 20; Offner, Mental Fatigue, pp. 62-73.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 231 
 
 duty. Good soldiers are faithful, obedient, dependable, 
 in every kind of weather, under all circumstances. 
 Much, very much, of sound old-fashioned Puritan 
 devotion to duty we need to preach, suggest, practice, Plain 
 and illustrate, if our schools and our nation are to dluty 
 fulfil their trust. The age is one of self-indulgence, 
 and a deplorably soft pedagogy has exalted personal 
 liking over sensible requirement. We have, however, 
 an immense advantage over our Puritan ancestors in 
 that we know the psychological laws which guarantee 
 the rewards of adherence to duty. To teach these 
 rewards does not lessen the strength of the first admoni- 
 tion. It illustrates a moral law that should be deep- 
 graven in the consciousness of all people It pays to 
 be good. 
 
 GENERALIZATION AND SUMMARY 
 
 Preventive devices may be based upon any of the 
 modes of school control. Those founded upon absolute 
 authority utilize the position and authority of the school 
 and teacher, the organization of the school system, and 
 the instinctively recognized right of age and experience 
 to Direct the young. In using personal influence as a 
 mode of control, a teacher appeals to the wish to please, 
 makes his wishes known, and uses the resources of his 
 personality in an endeavor to secure the development 
 of his pupils. Personal strength is the great asset in 
 the use of this mode, and the two elements making 
 that personal strength are character and training. In 
 controlling school conduct by the mode of wholesome 
 repletion we endeavor to occupy the time of the pupil 
 in a healthful way during school intermissions, during
 
 232 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 the time of the regular session after lessons are learned, 
 and occasionally at home. Many occupations besides 
 regular lessons help to keep children out of mischief 
 and afford valuable training. But the great problem 
 is to find the inherent interest in the essential work, 
 and so make that truly the greatest thing in the school. 
 Four causes of lack of interest are poor presentation, 
 poor equipment, poor assignment, and lack of correla- 
 tion. The laws of compensation are the teacher's 
 great ally in securing earnest and sincere work.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES (Continued) 
 
 IN general, it may be said that all the devices of the Prevention 
 disciplinarian are preventive devices, since their object ^n-ection 
 is to prevent either a first offense or the repetition of 
 a misdeed. All the means mentioned in the preceding 
 chapter may be used to correct bad habits or tenden- 
 cies, as well as to guard against their first appearance. 
 The present chapter will discuss some specific means 
 employed to correct abuses, where the offense is either 
 serious in itself, or has become so fixed that it assumes 
 the proportions of a serious problem. The discussion 
 is necessarily very limited, only the more common and 
 troublesome problems being selected as examples. 
 Brief suggestions for corrective treatment are made 
 in the enumeration of offenses in another chapter, and 
 also in the chapter on Punishment. 
 
 Perhaps no problem is more nearly universal than Leaving 
 that given by pupils who leave the room during school the room 
 hours too often and stay too long. This method has 
 been found successful in a large city school, where 
 careless management had brought about an abuse of 
 the privilege: 
 
 Time spent out of the room is called "Lost Time," 
 and pupils are expected to make it up. The justice
 
 234 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The 
 
 absence 
 
 record 
 
 Individual 
 cases 
 
 and reasonableness of this is explained to the pupils 
 by the teacher. A card is kept in a pocket by the door 
 used by girls and boys respectively in entering or leav- 
 ing the schoolroom from their cloakrooms. The card 
 is printed at the top in this way: 
 
 NAME 
 
 LEFT 
 
 RETURNED 
 
 MADE UP 
 
 The date is printed at the top of the card, a different 
 card being used each day until the evil is reduced, 
 when one card may serve for several days. The child 
 enters his name and the exact time at which he left 
 the room and returned to it. He may make up the 
 time at recess or after rchool, or even let it go for sev- 
 eral days and make up all he owes on one evening, 
 when he wishes to stay and study; provided he does 
 not let it go for more than one week at a time. When 
 the time is made up the teacher checks off the charge. 
 The cards are kept for reference, and sometimes give a 
 valuable record. Small books may be used instead of 
 cards. If a pupil does not keep his record honestly, 
 he is not allowed to leave the room without explicit 
 permission, and the teacher or a monitor keeps his 
 record for him, which is a great disgrace. 
 
 The method just described is suited only to the 
 correction of an habitual and widespread abuse of the 
 privilege of leaving the room. Where the evil is con- 
 fined to a few pupils in a room, there should be an 
 inquiry as to the cause of the condition, with individual 
 treatment for each offender. When a child leaves the 
 room a great deal he may require medical attention,
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 235 
 
 or he may find some attraction more strong than the 
 schoolroom work. Where the evil is pronounced there 
 is mischief afloat, and teachers should do some detective 
 work to find what the counter-attraction is. Strict 
 rules, well enforced, against loitering in cloakrooms, 
 lavatories, and halls, will materially help. 
 
 Whispering is an offense whose treatment must be Whispering 
 graded according to the maturity of the offender and 
 his motives. The methods which fix habits among 
 small children, curing the evil by substitution, will not 
 be successful among older children, whose schoolroom 
 conduct is controlled by the will rather than by sug- 
 gestion and imitation. The instances given in the fol- 
 lowing pages illustrate the difference in the methods 
 used with little and with older children. 
 
 Since whispering among little children is caused 
 usually by the excess of energy not absorbed in as- 
 signed work, the first remedy is to give the whisperer 
 enough work to keep him busy, and the kind of work 
 that will keep him interested. If he still continues to 
 talk, his offense is due to a habit of aimless chatter or 
 to a deliberate intention of annoying school and teacher. 
 In either case isolation is the appropriate and effective 
 remedy. Lonely people become silent; a persistent 
 chatterer may be reduced to silence by solitary confine- 
 ment. Giving the whisperer a seat at the back of the 
 room or in a cloakroom or office (providing, of course, 
 it be warm and light) for a sufficient length of time 
 to make a real impression, is an effective method. 
 Many teachers put such a child away from his fellows 
 for a half-day or even a shorter period. Upon his 
 return he may be a little more careful, but he cannot
 
 236 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 be cured. If made to sit by himself for a week, he 
 would form a habit of silent attention to business that 
 would, with care on the teacher's part and endeavor 
 on his own, hold through the renewed temptation of 
 close association. While isolated from other pupils 
 the teacher must take especial pains to provide plenty 
 of worth-while work, and adequate play with other 
 children at recesses, or the last state of that pupil may 
 be much worse than the first. 
 When When whispering is rife among practically all the 
 
 everyone . . . 
 
 whispers pupils of a room isolation is not a practicable remedy. 
 A universal habit has the sanction of public opinion as 
 an individual's habit has not, and is therefore more 
 difficult to deal with. In the lower grades the play 
 instinct may be utilized in the organization of some 
 sort of competitive game, simultaneously with the 
 forming of a prejudice against whispering as an evil 
 thing. The introduction of an objective stimulant 
 may be necessary. One teacher divided her school 
 into two rival sides and promised a Saturday nutting 
 party to the side which first achieved two successive 
 days without whispering. To avoid the watching that 
 usually destroys the good effect of such contests, she 
 counted only such whispering as she herself saw, 
 marking the offense on a score-card on the front board. 
 The children became interested and worked hard. The 
 teacher had hoped that the two sides would tie on the 
 result, but one side easily won the picnic. The win- 
 ners voted, however, to invite their rivals if they could 
 equal their own feat by the end of the week, and when 
 they failed by two points, invited them nevertheless, 
 stipulating that the losers were to provide ice-cream
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 237 
 
 for the crowd. This philanthropic denouement largely 
 destroyed the good effects of the contest, by slurring 
 the advantages of earnest effort. After the picnic the 
 hardest part of the struggle came. With no immediate 
 reward in view, there was a strong tendency to lapse 
 into the old noisy, careless habits. An honor roll 
 proved a weak incentive, the children asking for "some- 
 thing real." The teacher had to work hard to create 
 an atmosphere of condemnation for whispering, of 
 approval for attention and quiet, of pride in an orderly 
 room. She had to punish by taking off a certain 
 amount from the deportment grade for each offense. 
 She had to go through the disciplinary process in all 
 its phases, in fact, to cure the disease. But she had a 
 partly established habit, a precedent of several very 
 quiet days, to aid her, and decided that the contest 
 had been a good way of starting the reform. 
 
 A new high school principal in an Indiana town Among 
 found his assembly room demoralized with whispering. 
 Taking the ground that whispering in a study room is 
 an evil for which there is no reasonable excuse, and 
 that it is a source of disturbance serious enough to 
 warrant stopping the work which it interrupts, he 
 entered upon a campaign to eradicate the habit. When 
 he saw two people whispering, he left his desk at the 
 front of the room, went down to the whisperers, and 
 inquired the topic of their conversation. He insisted 
 that he had a right to know what went on in the 
 assembly room when he was in charge; he insisted 
 that whispering was a serious offense, and should be 
 treated seriously; he insisted that an offender should 
 show him cause for doing such a thing. The result of
 
 238 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 finding himself the center of so serious a discussion 
 was usually a promise on the part of the student to 
 refrain from whispering in the future. A record of 
 each case of whispering was kept in the principal's 
 private discipline book, and after a given number of 
 offenses the less tractable students found themselves 
 in danger of suspension. There were few of these, 
 however, for the determination of the principal to have 
 a study room undisturbed by whispering, his refusal 
 to take the flimsy excuses offered, and his frank empha- 
 sis upon what he considered the first requisite for a 
 successful administration, put a stop to the evil of 
 whispering within the year. The students who were 
 threatened with suspension complained of the unrea- 
 sonable standard set, but the Board decided that it 
 was not unreasonable, and whispering practically 
 ceased in that high school. 
 A Many teachers insist that the old standard of abso- 
 
 reasonable * 
 
 standard lutely no whispering is an artificial and unreasonable 
 one. At church, or at a lecture or play, they say, no 
 one would think of enforcing such a restriction. Quiet 
 communication with regard to work, they insist, is far 
 better than idleness, or than disturbing the teacher's 
 work that wants may be supplied. To this thoughtful 
 people may reply that church services, lectures, and 
 plays would be far more successful if a no-whispering 
 rule could be strictly enforced; and that the disturb- 
 ance caused in such places by thoughtless and ill-bred 
 persons would be far less if the school standard could 
 be more universally accepted. However that may be, 
 it is true that refraining from whispering is no longer 
 regarded by teachers as an end, but merely as a means
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 239 
 
 to better work and more mutual helpfulness; that 
 artificial standards of behavior are constantly giving 
 way to more natural and spontaneous ones. The en- 
 forcement of "Library Rules" in many high school and 
 grammar rooms has solved the problem. That is, 
 necessary whispering is permitted in the room if it 
 pertains to work and disturbs no one. Longer con- 
 ferences, if necessary, are held in an office or hall 
 adjoining. These regulations, if explained clearly, 
 appeal to the sense of justice and self-interest that 
 older children usually have, and are therefore almost 
 self-enforcing. 
 
 The following formulation of successive steps in the wilful 
 correction of inattention or misbehavior in class, is 
 taken from the minute directions to teachers of the exercises 
 Jena practice school. 1 It is given in its entirety for 
 the sake of the careful grading which has been observed 
 in the arrangement of the steps suggested. 
 
 1. Stop the instruction until perfect quiet is restored. 
 
 2. Tap upon the table. 
 
 3. Warning reproof, made generally to the class. 
 
 4. Statement of the penalty for continued inattention. 
 At this point the offenders have forfeited their right 
 
 to remain formally unnamed, and should be subjected 
 to the humiliation of public reproof. Therefore the 
 next step is: 
 
 5. Speak the name of the wrong-doer, with a meas- 
 ured but severe reproof. 
 
 6. If still offending, the pupil is told to stand aside 
 at the back of the room until the close of the class. 
 
 1 Dr. Rein, Aus dent Pddagogischen UniversiUUs-Seminar z 
 Jena, drittes Heft, page 49.
 
 240 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 7. Personal report to the principal. 
 
 American teachers would object to the rule that 
 these steps are to be followed in rigid order, although 
 their logical arrangement is obvious. Probably if per- 
 sonal reproof were more used as a last resort, and 
 every means used to make it a disgrace, less would be 
 required. In general, the use of these steps always in 
 the same order is averse to the elasticity of American 
 custom and American successful practice, while their 
 observance in primary rooms would be a waste of 
 time, with no psychological justification. But the 
 inherent idea of the comparative severity of the seven 
 means of reproof listed will doubtless be suggestive to 
 many teachers. 
 
 Wilful Where children are wilfully and deliberately impu- 
 
 dent, the most effective means of reproof is to cut them 
 off at once from the privilege of further talking. If 
 they are persistent, the use of physical force is justifi- 
 able, and far preferable to the evil caused by permitting 
 such an offense to go on. This is, let it be repeated, 
 for wilful and conscious impudence, not the unconscious 
 impudence caused by childish frankness or by simple 
 ill-breeding. The impudence of defiance is one of the 
 few offenses for which corporal punishment, immediate 
 and public, is justifiable, sometimes extremely effica- 
 cious. Some teachers take the ground that such 
 language constitutes a personal offense, for which re- 
 sentment is personal and justifiable, as it would be if 
 the offense occurred upon the street. It is undeniable 
 that swift and summary justice probably makes the 
 most effective reply so far as the offender is concerned, 
 and teaches a lesson that delayed justice might never
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 241 
 
 compass. Nevertheless the danger of becoming very 
 angry, and of allowing the punishment to degenerate 
 into an act of vengeance for an insult, gives to this 
 course an element of risk to the influence and standing 
 of the teacher, to say nothing of the possibility of 
 injustice. The offender, it must be remembered, is a 
 child, and is consequently not in the same position as a 
 man would be who had committed the same offense. 
 Neither, however, is a teacher bound to take from a 
 child treatment which he would not take from a man; 
 and any school board worth the name is bound to sup- 
 port the dignity of the teacher it employs to the extent of 
 requiring respectful treatment for him on all occasions. 
 
 The Complaint Book has proved itself a very effective The 
 helper in schools where discipline is difficult. In each 
 room is kept a large book something like a ledger, in 
 which each pupil has an account. If a pupil offends, 
 the teacher is required to make a record in writing of 
 the date, nature of the misdeed, and the means of 
 correction used. A fourth column is left blank, for 
 use in case the offense is dealt with later by the prin- 
 cipal, or further trouble comes of it. If the child's 
 parent calls to inquire or complain, the complaint 
 book gives specific written evidence of the nature of 
 his misbehavior; while the teacher, knowing that she 
 must report exactly the disposal of each case, is more 
 likely to be careful in his government than he would 
 be if no record were kept. The complaint book goes 
 to the office and justifies the teacher when parents 
 complain to the principal of teachers who "have a 
 pick on" their children. The fourth column contains 
 data of the final disposal of the case, often with a writ-
 
 24 2 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 ten promise from both pupil and parent that the offense 
 will not be repeated. The whole system of written, 
 systematic records tends to reduce the amount of bad 
 order, which careless, unorganized, memory-supported 
 management increases. 
 
 The pupa's i n connection with the complaint book, may be men- 
 book tioned another which is of immense help in dealing 
 wisely with children. This is the pupil's individual 
 record book. It should be a loose-leaf book with a 
 strong, light cover, preferably of paper. As used in 
 German schools it contains an account of the pupil's 
 family, age, and preparation, outward appearance, 
 measurements, health, bearing, order in dress and care 
 of school-things, intellectual development, amount of 
 home-work required, favorite interests, psychological 
 peculiarities, and special faults. It is begun in the 
 first grade, and turned over to the child's next teacher 
 upon promotion, who makes his entry in turn. If a 
 child goes to another town, the book is to be sent to 
 the superintendent there, or directly to the new teacher, 
 who has in it a basis for intelligent work which her 
 own efforts, perhaps, could not give her in a long time. 
 Such a system, if followed carefully, would alone repay 
 the time and trouble it costs in the saving of loss to 
 children changing schools. When the child leaves 
 school the record book shows in brief form his whole 
 school career, and may prove valuable in many ways. 
 Our best schools are rapidly taking up the matter of 
 records, while in some they have been kept for a num- 
 ber of years. 1 
 
 1 Elson and Bachman, "School Records: Their Defects and 
 Improvement." Educational Review, March, 1910, pp. 217 ff.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 243 
 
 The complaint book is but one phase of a general The school 
 system which provides for contingencies and has a ierarchy 
 prescribed (but not fixed and unchangeable) treatment 
 for all ordinary delinquencies. The thoroughly organ- 
 ized school system is usually an efficient one, provided 
 organization is not made an end in itself. A series of 
 reports, a method of supervision, can be devised which 
 will enable the superintendent of any system of schools, 
 either rural or urban, to find out about any teacher or 
 pupil in his system at a moment's notice, and treat any 
 case that may arise intelligently and personally. Few 
 cases in such a system will ever reach the superin- 
 tendent, most of them being disposed of lower in the 
 scale of the teaching ranks. No principal or superin- 
 tendent can hope to do really good work without this 
 organization. Many neglect it because it is hard to 
 overcome the inertia of custom and the self-will of 
 members of the system, and also because it requires 
 much time and brains to formulate a good working 
 plan. Good organization, however, is second in impor- 
 tance only to a good school spirit, and contributes 
 much toward the latter. 
 
 The system, being organized, is for the benefit of Working 
 the school. For instance, it is usually a good rule 
 that complaints, visits from parents, or communica- 
 tions from teachers to parents, should go through the 
 principal's office. Irate parents, bent on raising a row 
 in the schoolroom, can by this means be headed off 
 and made to state their grievances at a private con- 
 ference, so saving the room in question from a demoral- 
 izing spectacle. Notes to parents need not be read 
 unless the case is an important one, but the authority
 
 244 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 of the head of the school is a helpful reenforcement in 
 all cases; while occasionally a teacher is saved from a 
 mistake by this regulation. The impression of support 
 and solidarity which is given by this close cooperation 
 between principal and teachers does much to strengthen 
 the authority and influence of the school. 
 
 RULES 
 
 past; 16 ^ was an amlos t universal custom in the schools of 
 
 fifty years ago, or even less, for the teacher to inaugu- 
 rate a term of school by reading a set of rules, stating 
 definitely what pupils might do, and what they were 
 not allowed to do. Often the penalty for breach of the 
 rules was added. There are some communities where 
 this custom became so deeply entrenched that it is 
 still followed, and there are some teachers whose meth- 
 ods follow those used with them when they were 
 children, who still read such a challenge on the first 
 day of school. The reading of rules, however, is not 
 a part of the discipline of modern education. It is 
 not done in the best schools, by the best teachers. It 
 is not justifiable from the standpoint of either theory 
 or practice, and where public opinion asks it of a 
 teacher, public opinion should be both defied and 
 educated until it is in accord with the tenets of good 
 educational practice. 
 
 The The most important reason for the discontinuing of 
 
 this old custom is that no set of rules, however detailed, 
 can ever cover the ground of school behavior. A 
 pupil of ingenious mind might contrive to keep within 
 the letter of every law, and still be a disturbing element 
 in the school; and another pupil might innocently
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 245 
 
 break any number of rules, while conscientiously doing 
 his best to learn and obey. Much wrong-doing is 
 relative, moreover; it is right for one and wrong for 
 another, right at one time and wrong at another, right 
 under one set of circumstances, and a serious offense, 
 worthy of punishment, under different conditions. A 
 third objection, and an important one, is that rules 
 
 Rules are 
 
 offer a challenge to pupils to try their power with the a challenge 
 teacher's. They suggest an antagonism which may * 
 not be inherent in children's hearts, but which soon 
 becomes traditional in schools where opposition is 
 taken for granted. The child who has not thought of 
 breaking a rule becomes obsessed with a desire to see 
 if the teacher really means what he says, when that 
 teacher has made out a list of forbidden things. Far 
 better to assume that pupils expect to do their best, 
 want to help in making the school a success, and are 
 not already planning mischief. Lastly, a teacher must 
 be free to act according to the circumstances attending 
 an offense when it occurs. He should never weaken 
 his power by tying himself to a prescribed line of 
 action, or place himself in the position of an idle threat- 
 ener, by calling actions offenses which, when they 
 occur, may plainly be innocent of all guilt. On the 
 other hand, pupils who have committed mischief 
 which was not specifically named in the list of rules, 
 can never excuse themselves by pleading that they were 
 not forbidden to do that special thing. A teacher who 
 uses no rules puts behavior on a basis of judgment and 
 propriety from the beginning, and may demand judg- 
 ment and propriety from his pupils consistently, in the 
 decisions they are thus forced to make on matters of
 
 246 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 conduct. In a school without rules, the responsibility 
 is placed with the children, while the power remains 
 with the teacher. 
 
 Prevision This does not mean that the teacher has not care- 
 fully considered what he will do if certain events occur. 
 If he thinks there is a liability to misbehavior, he must 
 have ready a course of action, or several. But he 
 should keep his own counsel, telling his plans only to 
 the proper authorities, if to anyone. 
 
 A story James Whitcqmb Riley tells a story of another 
 
 Hoosier poet, Leo Harris, who was once his school- 
 master, which illustrates the good effects of honoring 
 bad rules in the breach rather than in the observance. 
 The school was in a rural district where old prejudices 
 died hard, and Leo Harris was sorely tried between his 
 real humanity and his desire to fulfil the demands of 
 the community which he served. 
 
 Little Jim Riley had been bad, and was kept after 
 school to .be punished according to rule. When he 
 and the master were left alone, however, Mr. Harris 
 seemed to be in no haste to carry out the letter of 
 the law. He closed the door and walked to his desk. 
 Then he sent Jim to the window, and asked him if 
 anyone were in sight. 
 "No," said Jim. 
 
 "Look again," said the master. "Are you sure?" 
 Jim looked again and reported the coast quite clear. 
 "Jim," said the master, "can you keep a secret?" 
 Jim assured the master that he could. His curiosity 
 was aroused by these mysterious proceedings. Then, 
 after another anxious inquiry and another reassurance, 
 the master opened his great desk and cautiously drew
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 247 
 
 forth a book. Opening it, he began to read. Little 
 James Riley listened, fascinated. When it grew too 
 dark to read, he begged the master to tell him what 
 came next. But the master had another plan. 
 
 "Jim, do you think you could take this book home A conspiracy 
 without letting anyone know that you have it? And 
 could you get it back here into my desk without letting 
 anyone know that I loaned it to you?" the master 
 inquired anxiously. 
 
 James thought he could, and he did. The deadly 
 sin of novel-reading was held in much abhorrence in 
 that community. He hid the precious book in the 
 haymow, and read it through eagerly within a few 
 days. Then, going early to school one morning, he 
 slipped the forbidden book into Mr. Harris's desk. 
 No one was the wiser save the master and James, but 
 James had had a new vision of the romance of life and 
 the riches that lie hidden between the pages of books; 
 for the book was Ivanhoe. He was the everlasting 
 friend of Leo Harris, for Leo Harris had had the 
 courage and wisdom to defy the conventions of his 
 world in an effort to reach the fundamental need of a 
 boy.. 
 
 Some rule-ridden school systems are almost as dead- A charac- 
 ening in their operation as were the conventions of the some city 
 district in which the Indiana poet lived in his boyhood. 8Chools 
 It is the city school system now, rather than the country 
 district, in which the teachers are bound fast to a set 
 of hampering regulations. Provision for emergency, 
 and iron-bound prescription for every possible situa- 
 tion, are two different things.
 
 248 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 GENERALIZATION AND SUMMARY 
 
 goodorder* To withdraw privileges which are abused is a logical 
 and just method of dealing with ordinary offenses. 
 Mild means should be used first, and sterner ones 
 with confirmed offenders. Thorough organization and 
 strictly kept records help to secure good order. Set 
 rules are a hindrance rather than a help in school 
 management.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES (Continued) 
 
 CORRECTIVE DEVICES FOUNDED UPON THE MODE 
 OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE 
 
 No more illuminating and suggestive movement has Judge 
 taken place within the last few years than the estab- 
 lishment of Juvenile Courts all over the country, 
 managed with a view to the special needs and peculiar- 
 ities of children who are offenders against the law. 
 Judge Lindsey of Denver, whose methods with boys 
 have furnished schoolmen with much that is helpful 
 in their own work, has won his unprecedented success 
 mainly through a great sympathy, directness, and devo- 
 tion to those for whom primarily the Juvenile Court is 
 established the boys and girls themselves. Using 
 the same means of approach, and fired with the same 
 keen sympathy and constant friendliness, schoolmen 
 and schoolwomen have been for years winning boys 
 and girls to paths of work and worth. The personal 
 friendship of a grown person means a great deal to the 
 average boy or girl; and the wishes of those we know 
 and like count for much with all of us. Even the 
 "gang," which is usually reinforced rowdyism at its 
 worst, yields confidence and following to sincere 
 friendly interest. The personal effort of one who feels
 
 250 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 sharply the responsibility of setting the feet of the 
 young in the right direction, of redeeming lost time, 
 of retrieving sad mistakes, must always be the most 
 effective means of correcting the blunders and wilful- 
 ness of mistaken and headstrong boys and girls. 
 Reminders The weaknesses of this method of correcting evil 
 are its intermittent and temporary character, and the 
 fact that it does not develop self-reliance. No friend, 
 no matter how devoted, can always be at hand to guide 
 and restrain, or to suggest the good resolution that has 
 been made; while habit is always present, and tempta- 
 tion to an established custom seems always on hand. 
 Any device which serves to remind the pupil of the 
 effort which needs to be so frequently renewed, which 
 strengthens resolution and restrains old habit, is worth 
 using. A picture on the wall or a motto may serve to 
 remind the child who is making an effort to change his 
 ways, of the thing to be done or to be avoided. Even 
 so homely a reminder as a piece of string tied to a 
 grimy forefinger, has been known to save the day for 
 new and good habits when old and bad ones were 
 infinitely easier and more natural. The teacher who 
 hopes to accomplish results, then, by the use of personal 
 influence, does well to provide, if possible, some means 
 of reminder for the times when he himself cannot be 
 at hand, during the first critical days of change from 
 bad habits to good. Such slight reminders, also, being 
 less insistent than the actual presence of the friend and 
 guide, effect a transition to the ultimate condition of 
 complete self-direction. They serve to call attention 
 to the change to be made, without usurping the place 
 of the will in making it, as the presence of the teacher,
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 251 
 
 with his strength of greater age, authority and per- 
 sonal liking, may do. 
 
 Boys and girls who have offended to the point of The parole 
 endangering their position in the school, may often be 
 won to a new care in their behavior which will outlast 
 the necessity which gave it birth, by what is usually 
 known as the parole system. A boy who is in danger 
 of suspension is allowed to keep his place in his class, 
 not in full and regular standing, but merely from day 
 to day and at his teacher's discretion, during good 
 behavior. Such a trial is not a right, for that is for- 
 feited by disorderly conduct, but a special favor, 
 granted to those who especially wish the privilege of 
 trying again, of making another effort to deserve a 
 place in the school life. The terms by which they 
 retain their standing in their classes can be set by the 
 teacher or principal; and as these terms may include 
 the quality of work required, earnest effort and applica- 
 tion may be assured for the time of the trial at least. 
 If this time be extended until the new regime becomes 
 habitual, and the rewards of effort have acquired a 
 real value in the child's mind, the method may be said 
 to have been successfully used. It is mentioned here 
 among the methods involving the use of personal influ- 
 ence, because its success is so frequently dependent 
 upon the skilful direction of a trusted principal or 
 teacher. Its appeal to honor and to fear, the faith 
 that clings still to the hope of "making good" after 
 the limits of patience have been passed, and the careful 
 watching lest all be lost at last, depend for their efficacy 
 upon the deepest personal interest and the greatest 
 wisdom in administration.
 
 252 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Motivating 
 
 good 
 
 conduct 
 
 The 
 
 contagion 
 of success 
 
 Much can be done by personal talks to students, both 
 privately and publicly, in motivating good conduct. 
 The incentives to right conduct may be emphasized by 
 imaging them, describing them, by any method which 
 makes them real enough to function as motives. Call- 
 ing attention to those who have made the requisite 
 effort and are now enjoying the fruits of their labors 
 is a vivid and effective way of emphasizing the incen- 
 tives to good conduct. Sometimes a man or woman 
 who has made for himself an honored place among 
 men can be induced to tell his story in a simple and 
 straightforward way, which without boasting or preach- 
 ing drives home the lesson that is needed. This sort 
 of talk is often at the risk of good results, however, 
 since self-made men are notoriously fond of emphasiz- 
 ing their own part in their development, and are also 
 inclined to be obvious in moral-driving; two charac- 
 teristics which the sophisticated children of to-day 
 regard with a contempt that is bound to destroy the 
 effect of the most earnest talk. 
 
 The presentation of ascertained facts regarding the 
 material rewards of good conduct and earnest effort, 
 which have been so often and variously compiled of 
 late years, has had doubtless much good result; al- 
 though statistics often fail to reach the pupils who 
 need them most, unless illustrated with concrete ex- 
 amples of a nature to touch the imagination. The 
 simple expedient of showing what has been done, what 
 is being done daily, is the means which reaches most 
 pupils most powerfully. For this reason the school 
 which is located in a prosperous manufacturing, com- 
 mercial, or agricultural region has a distinct advantage.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 253 
 
 The sight of success is inspiriting; the atmosphere of 
 success is contagious. The teacher who is surrounded 
 with successful enterprise has but to put his pupils 
 into circuit with it, that the current may vivify their 
 efforts by kindling their imaginations and strengthening 
 their wills. The teacher whose pupils live among the 
 unsuccessful, whose parents are the discouraged poor 
 or the smug, satisfied, and commonplace well-to-do, 
 has a more difficult task. It is for him to bring to his 
 pupils such men and women as he can induce to speak 
 to them or be seen of them, who have won success in 
 any praiseworthy degree. Much of this effort will of 
 necessity seem lost, but some of it is bound to meet 
 the need that always exists, that lies fallow until it 
 is turned up by some kindly seed-sower, plowing at 
 random, and scattering broadcast. 
 
 The vital connection between this stirring-up of Reaching 
 ambition and the control of school conduct need hardly 
 be pointed out to any teacher of experience and insight; 
 for such a teacher knows that when once a worth-while 
 goal is clearly seen ahead, earnest work and thought 
 take care of conduct. The fundamental problem, 
 then, is to arouse ambition, to set some goal that may 
 seem both desirable and possible, to kindle the imagina- 
 tion with a vision of the attainable and fire the will to 
 secure the ends sought. School routine ceases to be 
 drudgery when it appears as the means for realizing a 
 dear hope. A southern teacher, working in an East- 
 ern mill town, found among her pupils a lazy, backward, 
 but good-natured colored boy, happily content to have 
 gained the fourth grade by his fourteenth year. His 
 mother, a cook in the home of a wealthy family, had
 
 254 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The case of 
 Sam 
 
 The 
 
 negative 
 induce- 
 ments 
 
 high hopes for her boy, whom she wished to educate 
 for some distinguished position among his own people. 
 The boy was satisfied with the three meals a day and 
 warmth and comfort which his mother's work pro- 
 vided, and made no attempt at self-improvement. 
 
 A whisk-broom and some cheese-cloth dusters were 
 the beginning of Sam's reformation. The teacher per- 
 suaded him that no one could clean blackboards as he 
 could, and that her self-respect depended upon the 
 thoroughness with which he brushed her suit before 
 she left the schoolhouse at night. When his training 
 had somewhat progressed, she told him that she was 
 training him to be a sleeping-car porter. She painted 
 for him a glowing mind-picture of Sam, grown up, clad 
 in a resplendent uniform of blue, with brass buttons. 
 Sam responded most imperfectly and intermittently, 
 of course, after the manner of his race, but still with an 
 encouraging attempt at attaining the levels of accom- 
 plishment of those exalted personages whose power had 
 come to appeal to his ambition. He made a sincere if 
 unsuccessful attempt to learn his lessons, and was the 
 teacher's right-hand man in all matters of schoolroom 
 housekeeping and arrangement. When last heard 
 from, he was coachman for a physician, and had in 
 prospect an appointment as porter at the first vacancy. 
 
 When positive inducements fail, there remain the 
 negative ones, which are administered by that authority 
 which must assert itself where children do not will 
 rightly to control their own actions. The part of per- 
 sonal influence here may be an important one. Quietly 
 to call attention to the inevitable punishment of wrong- 
 doing, not as an imposition of authority, but as the
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 255 
 
 working of a universal law which applies to all the 
 world; effectively to appeal to a wayward child to 
 bring his behavior into line with that of the law-abiding 
 majority, to be one with progress and accomplishment, 
 requires much tact and skill and warm, personal friend- 
 ship. It is in this kindly seconding of other means 
 of control, the investing of every detail of the school- 
 room routine with the aura of friendliness and sincere 
 interest, that personal influence shows most clearly 
 and reaps greatest rewards. 
 
 The personal influence of the teacher may be used The 
 to induce pupils to consider and evaluate their own ^ 
 
 of conduct 
 
 behavior. Arnold Tompkins, 1 many years ago, recom- 
 mended the method of setting a delinquent the problem 
 of formulating a reply to the question, "Why should I 
 not whisper?" or "Why should I not fight?" The 
 offending student should, said Dr. Tompkins, be 
 excused from his regular work until he had answered 
 this and the next question, which is, "What shall I 
 do about my offense?" This throws the responsibility 
 of conduct upon the pupil, and may be used to show 
 him his duty of supporting the school and of submit- 
 ting' his will to the general good. The method is, of 
 course, chiefly of use and value in the upper grades 
 and with high-school students, and, as a rule, is not 
 practicable with young children. Moreover, if the 
 simpler and more economical means of habit-forming 
 have been well utilized in the lower grades, there will 
 be small need of this or other disciplinary devices in 
 the higher grades. Nevertheless, in the hand of a 
 
 1 Philosophy of Teaching, pp. 323-331.
 
 256 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 firm and skilful teacher, this method is immensely 
 valuable with the older, wilful offender, for it rational- 
 izes the whole matter of conduct in a way to apply the 
 principles of social behavior to many situations. 
 With the I n dealing with the more serious offenses of lying, 
 
 mo . re stealing, cheating, and some other sins which indicate 
 
 senous . 
 
 offenses a fundamental warp in character and training, the 
 personal influence of a trusted teacher is all-powerful. 
 To be trusted is the greatest compliment which can be 
 paid a child. Teachers do well to create and to foster 
 a pride in being considered honorable, trustworthy. 
 When this has been forfeited, the fall from that grace 
 should be felt to be a very great fall indeed. Some 
 boys and girls never realize the value of a good name 
 and the confidence of their fellows, until its loss is 
 brought home to them sharply after some offense. 
 Every means that is used to emphasize the disgrace 
 that has befallen the offender emphasizes also the 
 desirability of good standing; but care must be taken 
 to stop short of the impression that the disgrace is an 
 irretrievable one, lest despair of reinstatement make 
 the problem a hopeless one. The teacher must make 
 it plain that his trust is withdrawn, and that it can be 
 renewed only gradually, as, step by step, the offender 
 proves his worthiness. In this process, the teacher 
 stands as the representative of all right-thinking people, 
 and should make this plain to the pupil, lest the ulti- 
 mate value of the teacher's attitude be lost. This is 
 especially necessary because pupils who offend in such 
 respects usually do so because of a lack of training in 
 ethical prejudices; the attitude of right-thinking people 
 has not been the typical attitude of their environment.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 257 
 
 The goal of reinstatement in the trust of teacher, 
 pupils, and all the world, needs clearly to be set and 
 constantly to be recalled; and many friendly inquiries 
 and reminders help in the hard process of reformation. 
 
 While recognizing the fact that many of their prob- Outside of 
 lems have their origin in conditions outside the school- sch o1 
 room, many teachers are unwilling to assume the 
 needful responsibility of using their personal influence 
 in any decided way to combat the evils they see. Many 
 more who would be willing to do this if it were within 
 their power, are so overburdened with the routine 
 duties of their positions that to engage in further 
 efforts is a physical impossibility. Still others, seeing 
 the need, are distrustful of their own ability to work 
 in a larger field than that for which they have received 
 their training; or find it impossible to line up the sup- 
 port which the movement must have to be successful. . 
 The fundamental need in this respect, as in others, is 
 of course the need of leaders with the requisite ability 
 and enthusiastic faith. Many a quiet schoolma'am, 
 engaging through sheer despair of finding a better 
 leader, in some project of reform the necessity for 
 which has lain heavily upon her soul, wakes up to 
 find herself a successful agent in effecting untold good. 
 Teachers must use their personal influence outside the 
 schoolroom as well as in it. The unofficial position of 
 a teacher outside his own domain is often merely 
 nominal; in most American communities the people 
 rightly look upon a teacher as a public personage 
 wherever he may be. The teacher who takes an 
 active interest in all that pertains to the welfare of 
 his town or community, who fearlessly denounces evil
 
 258 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 when occasion calls for such denunciation, whose 
 standards of personal and public honor are high, 
 whose taste sanctions nothing but that which is health- 
 ful and helpful in amusements and commodities, is 
 outside 08 no ^ on ty taking the place which his position warrants, 
 enemies but is adding to the strength of the school system a 
 hundred bulwarks of unseen influence. It is the duty 
 of a school superintendent to know as much as he can 
 of the picture-shows and plays which school-children 
 attend, the literature sold to them on newstands, the 
 advertisements they read in the local papers, and the 
 employment offered to them. Individual teachers can 
 furnish much of this information to the superintendent, 
 and by cooperation many evil influences may be re- 
 moved or mitigated. Parents and organizations will 
 often cooperate if their attention be called to the 
 needs of the situation. As this work usually devolves 
 especially upon the superintendent, it will be treated 
 more fully in the chapter on Supervision; but every 
 teacher should bear his share in the exercise of that 
 personal influence which bears indirectly, as well as 
 that which functions directly, upon the order and 
 spirit of his school. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Personal influence, actuated by sympathy and 
 friendship, sees that effort at reform is aided by re- 
 minders and restraint until habit and will are strong 
 enough to assume the responsibility of conduct. It 
 puts offenders upon their honor in the use of the parole, 
 motivates the efforts at reform, pointing out both 
 positive and negative incentives, and leads children
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 259 
 
 to evaluate their own conduct and to understand the 
 necessity of social attitudes. It guides those who have 
 forfeited self-respect and the confidence of others in 
 regaining what they have lost; and aims to effect 
 wholesome changes in social ideals which are inade- 
 quate, and social customs which are degrading to 
 character. 
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES FOUNDED UPON THE APPEAL 
 TO PERSONAL INTEREST 
 
 These devices are among the oldest in use, because 
 the mode has been used since schools began. Its most 
 common form is prize-giving in all its shapes and rami- 
 fications. This was formerly considered a commend- 
 able custom, one of the enlightened and inspirational 
 methods of securing good work and doubtless it was, 
 when compared with flogging. Current educational 
 opinion is against it, however, as a means of doubtful 
 value. English schools seem still to be provided with A contrast 
 a full set of prizes for everything in the curriculum, so 
 that one wonders if, a prize being inadvertently omitted 
 for a single subject, any special effort is made to excel 
 in that one. American schools are rarely afflicted with 
 prize-giving friends, the custom being restricted almost 
 entirely to private schools patterned more or less after 
 European models. But while formal prize-giving is 
 not common in our schools, the offering of rewards of 
 one kind or another is almost universal, and has a 
 strong bearing upon the order and spirit of the school. 
 
 The question of prize-giving has long been a favorite Prize- 
 point of dispute. Out of all the discussion that has 8 
 gathered about it, the conclusion of the best educators
 
 260 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 seems to be that it is, on the whole, a low incentive to 
 offer to a child, and one not to be used if a higher one 
 will function. But, if no other inducement is effective, 
 it is better to offer the child a prize than to permit him 
 to fail of accomplishment. Once established, conform- 
 ity to requirement becomes easier and tends to become 
 a habit, so that the incentive may be withdrawn or be 
 replaced by a better one. To reach a desirable end 
 by any means that is not directly dishonorable, is 
 better than not to realize the end at all. 1 
 
 incentives Following the classification already made, the incen- 
 tives that may be offered to children are: 
 
 1. The negative one of escaping punishment or 
 disgrace. 
 
 2. The gratification of interests. 
 
 3. Personal gain. 
 
 4. The pleasing or service of one particular friend 
 or group of friends (another form of self -pleasing). 
 
 5. The pleasing or service of a social group. 
 
 Dr. Bagley has analyzed the positive incentives as, 
 
 (1) those which appeal to the instinct of emulation, 
 
 (2) those appealing to the social instincts, and (3) 
 ideals. Ideals may be either personal or social in 
 nature; that is, they may look toward the future good 
 of the individual or of the school or, perhaps, of 
 some even larger group, and in the case of older pupils 
 of all society. The personal gains which are held out 
 
 1 " Education must manifestly begin with incentives of the 
 lower orders and pass to those of the higher orders; but, even under 
 the most favorable conditions, this transition will be but gradual." 
 Bagley, Classroom Management, page 169. 
 
 See the discussion of prize-giving in Sully's Teacher's Handbook 
 of Psychology, pp. 4S3~ 6o > 5 66 ~7-
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 261 
 
 as incentives fall into four classes material posses- 
 sions, personal preeminence, privileges and immunities 
 intrinsically desirable, and the building up of ability 
 and high character. Among the material possessions 
 which are offered as prizes are money, medals of in- 
 trinsic value, books, pictures, and, in a remoter 
 sense, the higher earning capacity which is so con- 
 stantly held before High School students as an induce- 
 ment to remain in school. These material rewards are 
 not evil in themselves, but the emphasis placed upon 
 them tends to increase the materialism of the day, 
 which measures all things by a money standard. 
 
 Personal preeminence, which is given by the confer- Preemi- 
 ring of honors, the granting of medals and prizes and 
 high grades, or places on debating teams and the posi- 
 tions of valedictorian and salutatorian on the com- 
 mencement program, is possible usually to only a few 
 members of the class, and then because of inborn gifts 
 rather than praiseworthy effort. Most educators con- 
 demn it as an incentive, since manifestly it affects only 
 a small proportion of the students. In the lower 
 grades this singling out of the best for special honor is 
 done by giving badges or buttons of honor, writing the 
 name on honor rolls, placing little flags on desks, or 
 sending special notes of commendation or congratula- 
 tion to parents. A very effective method for small 
 children is the Star List, which is a large card containing 
 the names of all in the class, with space after each name 
 for pasting on little gilt or silver or brightly colored 
 stars, given for each lesson well learned. Children count 
 their stars eagerly, and usually develop a healthy sort of 
 rivalry, for all have a chance to earn at least a few stars.
 
 262 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Grades 
 
 Privileges 
 
 Holidays as 
 rewards 
 
 The grading system is liable to degenerate into a 
 competitive device unless well administered. The cus- 
 tom of ranking pupils in the order of their relative aver- 
 age grades, not so common now as formerly, was a bad 
 practice because it gave some pupils a seemingly hope- 
 less inferiority. The highest grades go inevitably to 
 those naturally gifted with quick brains and superior 
 advantages. The truer conception of the school com- 
 munity, in which every child may excel in some thing, 
 be it merely the neatness with which he attends to the 
 blackboards or the success with which he makes the 
 geraniums bloom, has no expression in a ranked grading 
 system, which cannot take account of all the activities 
 of the school. It is a good rule to follow, that grades 
 should be given only to the extent and for the purpose 
 of showing children how they stand in their studies, 
 and that with regard to a fixed standard of excellence, 
 not relatively to each other. 
 
 Privileges and immunities have a certain logical 
 basis, since the excellence of pupils breeds a confidence 
 that they will use rightly the special opportunities given 
 them. In practice, however, this supposition does not 
 always hold good. In one school, for instance, the 
 pupils who averaged 90 per cent in their studies were 
 given the freedom of the building the right to go 
 where they pleased without special permission. The 
 privilege had to be taken away from them because 
 they were soon found to be abusing it by meeting in 
 the halls to gossip and play. 
 
 The "privilege" of a monthly half -holiday for regu- 
 larity of attendance and excellence of work is used in 
 some schools, and usually gives a great appearance of
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 263 
 
 success, the children working like well-regulated beav- 
 ers for the extra half-day of freedom. One is inclined 
 to wonder if the teachers who offer a half-day of release 
 from their control have a sense of humor; and if so, 
 why they do not apply it to the spectacle of setting up 
 this release from school as a reward for good work in 
 school. The school and the prison, surely, are not to 
 be considered parallel institutions, to be managed by 
 similar methods. A school exercise of a different sort, 
 such as a trip to a park or museum, or to the woods, 
 or to a factory or a farm, is sometimes offered as a 
 reward to the pupils who have done well. But to 
 put school work upon such a basis is liable to give 
 it the wrong connotation for the pupils, as well as 
 for parents, too many of whom regard school as an 
 ingenious device for keeping young people within 
 doors. 
 
 The most common immunity is that from examina- Freedom 
 tion, granted to pupils who reach a certain grade in exa m- 
 their daily recitations. This custom springs from the 
 old, mistaken conception of the examination as an 
 inquisition on the part of the teacher, a sort of belliger- 
 ent challenge to the pupil to prove that he is capable 
 of going on with the work. The true idea of examina- 
 tions is that they are for the good of the pupil rather 
 than for the teacher. They are primarily a means of 
 showing the pupil where he stands. The teacher wants 
 to know this only that he may be more helpful, but the 
 pupil's interest is more fundamental, for his own prog- 
 ress depends largely upon the foundation already laid. 
 With older pupils examinations should be welcome 
 opportunities to review, organize, and test. In every
 
 264 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Self-im- 
 provement 
 
 Acquisi- 
 tiveness 
 
 grade where they have a place at all, examinations 
 should be considered part of the regular work, and 
 therefore should be done by all. 
 
 Last, and by far most important of the forms of 
 self-interest which may function to control and improve 
 conduct, is the incentive of self-improvement. Self- 
 improvement has two phases, the training of power to 
 do, and the training of power to be; the gaining of 
 ability and skill, and the development of nobility of 
 character. The first of these two is a matter of intel- 
 lect, the second of emotion, guided by ideals; and both 
 must be vitalized by the will. Teachers should begin 
 to urge the two-fold self-culture from the child's first 
 entrance into school life. Unless allowed to degenerate 
 into preachiness or nagging, children welcome this per- 
 sonal note in the teacher's anxiety for their advance- 
 ment, and respond to it eagerly and with gratitude. 
 It recognizes the most immediate end of education for 
 them, which is their improvement, their gain in power 
 to get what they want and to be what they admire. 
 
 The power to win what seems desirable is a more 
 elementary and natural incentive than the power to 
 realize an ideal in character. It is a ready-made, 
 instinctive incentive. Teachers use it constantly. 
 They urge pupils to write neatly, that they may not 
 be prevented from obtaining a good position by poor 
 penmanship. They urge them to speak correctly that 
 they may be able to gain their ends by persuasion. 
 They suggest that a good mathematician will probably 
 become a good business man, and that nature-study 
 leads to profitable agriculture. Music and manners 
 and a well-stored mind are helpful in social life; indus-
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 265 
 
 try and neatness, everywhere. It is right to urge these 
 incentives, for they illustrate a great truth that cannot 
 be over-emphasized, namely, that all good things must 
 be paid for, earned, compensated for, soon or late. 
 That effort does bring reward, even when the immedi- 
 ate object is not obtained, is the belief that takes form 
 under these constant suggestions. 
 
 The second part of the child's development should Character- 
 parallel the first. He is unconsciously forming char- 
 acter in every adjustment to the world about him, 
 but definiteness and force are gained by sometimes 
 making the process conscious. There is no harm, for 
 instance, in asking the children, after telling them the 
 story of the boy Lincoln reading by the light of the 
 winter fire, what they think of such a habit, what 
 Lincoln gained by it, and if they would have done 
 the same thing. Children need to be encouraged to 
 formulate their ideals by writing or describing orally 
 their ideal man and woman, boy and girl. They are 
 didactic creatures, delighting in the clear statement 
 of truths that have grown trite to their elders. Con- 
 sequently they revel in the opportunity to describe 
 their ideal characters, and produce documents that 
 are invaluable to their teachers. One very successful 
 teacher always gives this exercise at the beginning of 
 each new school year, to enable her to understand the 
 children given into her care. If she finds certain 
 ideals or standards lacking, she tells her classes stories 
 of men or women whose lives illustrate the special 
 quality that needs emphasis. At the end of the year 
 the exercise is repeated, and the comparison of the 
 two papers gives an index to character-growth, or at
 
 266 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 least to the formation of ideals, that has taken place 
 during the year. A regular program of ethical in- 
 struction is used in this school, it should be added, 
 beside the hero-stories. 
 
 Ernst Sometimes self-revelation gives a startling impetus 
 
 ^mper 8 to endeavor. An incident which happened in a Cin- 
 cinnati school illustrates the influence which wise guid- 
 ance and treatment may have in securing good conduct 
 from motives of proper self-interest. A boy who had 
 the misfortune to be possessed of an ungovernable 
 temper was kept after school to finish some work 
 which he had willfully neglected during the regular 
 session. Sitting at his desk, he suddenly flung papers, 
 books and pencils in all directions and cried out, "I 
 can't stay, I tell you! I have to go to the dentist's!" 
 His teacher knew that the engagement at the den- 
 tist's was for the next afternoon. Nevertheless, she 
 said, looking steadily at the boy, "Ernst, you are 
 excused." Astonished and somewhat frightened at 
 his own outburst, he left. The next morning he came 
 in with his line, but was met at the door by the teacher, 
 who directed him with a gesture to stand aside until 
 she could speak to him. When the other children 
 had passed in, she turned to Ernst standing in the 
 corridor, and looked at him steadily. The boy flushed 
 quickly, remembering the scene of the night before; 
 then said, "I'm not going to act like that again." 
 
 "But I'm afraid to have you in the school," said 
 his teacher. "You were insane yesterday. You were 
 blind with fury, and might in another moment have 
 maimed or even killed some one; you might do another 
 pupil a serious injury. A schoolroom is no place for
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 267 
 
 people who may at any time lose their senses with 
 anger. Such people, I fear, belong in another kind 
 of institution." 
 
 The boy began to realize the seriousness of his 
 offense, in its ultimate as well as its immediate effects. 
 "Oh, if you'll only let me come back, I'll never do 
 that again," he said. "Please try me. I'll try to 
 master my temper if you'll just let me try." 
 
 The trial was, of course, allowed, and Ernst has 
 justified it by gaining a steady control over himself. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 Prize-giving is an incentive of doubtful merit, not 
 
 functioning 
 
 to be used if others appealing to higher motives will in 
 function. To develop high character and great power, 
 and to serve others well, are incentives for effort that 
 should be encouraged. The relative ranking of the 
 students of a class gains no good end. Examinations 
 are not a punishment, but an occasion for organization 
 and test, of which all students should avail themselves; 
 and holidays as rewards for good conduct are scarcely 
 logical. Self-improvement, which is the highest form 
 of self-seeking, has two phases, the development of 
 character and the development of ability. Teachers 
 should test the ideals of their pupils at intervals, to 
 ascertain in what direction they need especial help 
 and guidance.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES (Continued) 
 
 DEVICES FOUNDED UPON THE MODE or CONSCIOUS 
 SOCIAL APPEAL 
 
 Loyalty to THOSE who object to the deliberate development 
 room of class or school spirit overlook the fact that group- 
 
 loyalty is a necessary step toward a still more liberal 
 social loyalty. From himself to his family, to his own 
 group of playmates, to the class, school, and team to 
 which he belongs, to his town, his state, his country, 
 is extended the ever-widening coalition of interest of 
 the developing child; and if the process be not arrested, 
 it will go until the mature man or woman feels himself 
 in fraternal relations with all people of all countries. 
 In the school, then, the era of class and school loyalty 
 has a distinct and rightful place, and as an aid to good 
 order and good spirits, if wisely guided and managed, 
 it is very important. Even rivalry, if it be group- 
 rivalry and not personal rivalry, may be used for good. 
 It is as Utopian a dream to eliminate rivalry from a 
 wide-awake school as to eliminate it from life outside 
 the school; and if it were to be done away with we 
 should lose one of the most effective means of teaching 
 courtesy, self-control, consideration, and justice. The 
 selfishness, brutality, and vindictiveness sometimes 
 charged to rivalry are results of the neglect to teach
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 269 
 
 the customs and standards of true sportsmanship, the 
 principles that govern well-conducted contests of any 
 kind, the tenets of fair play. There will always be 
 rivalry in the world while the world continues to pro- 
 gress, and to attempt to conduct a school entirely free 
 from this natural, instinctive feature is to attempt a 
 mawkish travesty on human nature. The problem 
 is not one of eliminating a fundamental element in 
 conduct, but of controlling it for good ends, of using it 
 in the best way. 
 
 The explanation of the evil effects of class and The 
 school loyalty lies in the fact that the pupils do not 
 see their room or class as a part of an organic whole, 
 but merely as the isolated rival of one other organiza- 
 tion. If the place of the unit concerned, in the whole 
 fabric of the school system, be made conscious to the 
 pupils, and the end of the effort be to improve that 
 whole system through a contribution which all hope 
 may be the best and greatest of any made, the social- 
 izing influence will be far greater than the indi- 
 vidualizing influence. The immediate aim of making 
 the best showing becomes secondary to the ultimate 
 aim of improving the big unit, of pride in the good 
 accomplished for all. The process of improving 
 conditions in a school badly demoralized by an almost 
 universal habit of tardiness, may be taken as an ex- 
 ample. The new principal who found things in bad 
 shape and resolved to effect a reformation, instituted 
 a contest between the different rooms with the aim of 
 establishing a new record and a new set of habits with 
 regard to punctuality. A pennant was hung outside 
 each room, which was unfurled if there had been no
 
 270 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The tardiness that day, but rolled up if one person had 
 
 pennant spoiled the record. This was a direct appeal to room- 
 method 
 
 loyalty, and although no word of beating the record 
 
 of other rooms was said by teachers or principal, the 
 pupils soon began to point to the full-flung pennants 
 of their own rooms with much pride, and to boast of 
 belonging to a grade which had a clear record. The 
 ideal of a whole school with a good record, however, 
 was kept before the pupils. Big brothers and sisters in 
 the upper grades were urged to help the younger mem- 
 bers of their families to reach school on time; and the 
 teachers saw to it that all jeering and baiting of the 
 unfortunates who "spoiled the record" was nipped in 
 the bud. The effect of the effort as a whole was to 
 develop, besides the primary object of greater punctual- 
 ity, a feeling of solidarity in the whole school, of loyalty 
 to classes and rooms and to the school at large; a 
 feeling which the editor of the local paper still further 
 generalized by an editorial in which he mentioned the 
 school record as a matter for town pride. 
 
 Class or The individuality of school units is a point that 
 
 S faarac may be skilfully emphasized, in such a way as to be of 
 material help in improving conditions. In some New 
 York schools, for example, the classes are named after 
 some great man whose character or deeds the class 
 may wish to honor or to imitate. A feeling of loyalty 
 to a common standard grows out of the constant 
 emphasis upon the character of the class hero. Pride 
 in an untarnished class record, not only as to punc- 
 tuality, but touching the more important virtues of 
 truth, honesty, industry, and obedience, will sometimes 
 hold the individual pupil to personal integrity until
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 271 
 
 the standard, upheld at first through no intrinsic 
 regard for right, becomes by habit a part of his personal 
 creed and custom. Wherever and however the desir- 
 ability of ethical action can be emphasized, in whatever 
 way the interest of others may become more important 
 than the interest of self, there good has been done. 
 
 Of late years the ideal of social motive has been so The 
 freely associated with the ideal of self-activity and of unification 
 self-government, that in the minds of many it is identi- 
 cal. These people think it impossible for children to 
 act for the good of all without to some extent fixing 
 the conditions under which they shall live, and actively 
 participating in the management of their own affairs. 
 An analysis of the different forms of pure or partial 
 pupil-government has been given in the chapter on 
 the Mode of Social Appeal. In this place we wish to 
 consider the value of such methods as devices for the 
 improving of the order of the school. They have 
 been used with marked success in a number of instances, 
 and this success has led many to wonder if the old 
 methods are not fundamentally wrong. A close study 
 of the elements in the success of these plans where 
 they have justified their realization, however, leads one 
 to the conclusion that they are due in every case to 
 the dominating personality of a strong leader, rather 
 than to the intrinsic merits of the system. Where 
 teachers are not actively in sympathy with the experi- 
 ment, it fails. 1 The success attained is a proof that a 
 leader of magnetic power can accomplish remarkable 
 
 1 See the very judicious summary of these plans by Walter L. 
 Philips, in Education for May, 1902; and especially, for this point, 
 Page 547.
 
 272 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 results by the use of methods that under ordinary 
 circumstances are doomed to sure failure. It is not 
 claimed that these systems have not done great good; 
 but it is highly probable that the energy used to bring 
 about the results attained, if used in methods more 
 simple and more suited to the ends to be gained, would 
 have accomplished even more, without setting the 
 dangerous example of a success in which the most 
 potent element is denied and covered up. 
 
 Pupa- In the first place, it is wise to recognize a certain 
 
 fs'not'seif?* l seness f terminology which has largely escaped 
 government notice. 1 Such systems are called self-government 
 systems, whereas they really furnish so elaborate a 
 scheme of pupil-government that, between the com- 
 prehensive legislation and the tendency of eager youth 
 to find something to do, they give the individual pupils 
 very little chance to govern themselves. They are 
 mutual-government schemes, but afford few oppor- 
 tunities for self-government. The pupils are put 
 upon their honor to report misdeeds that come to 
 their notice, and unless they are deterred by motives 
 of friendship, fear, or indolence, they do so. The 
 whole scheme is but a thoroughly-extended monitorial 
 system. 2 The principle upon which it is founded is a 
 sound one, in that it is the duty of all to uphold the 
 
 1 But see Perry, Management of a City School, page 286. 
 
 2 One must, however, distinguish two classes of monitors, or 
 rather two classes of duties assigned to them. The monitor whose 
 work it is to watch other pupils and report infractions of rules, 
 becomes often a self-satisfied prig or a tale-bearing spy. The 
 monitor who attends to various school duties the school-officers, 
 as the Germans call them learn habits of responsible care and 
 industry, and have a proprietary pride in the neatness and order of 
 their rooms as a result of their appointment or election.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 273 
 
 integrity of the system of government under which 
 they live. But to go one step farther, and make all 
 responsible for that integrity, not upon occasion and 
 at the request of the authorities, but constantly, in 
 the teacher's place, is to confuse the positions of teacher 
 and pupil and to give to children a work for which they 
 are not yet fitted. The systems have the disadvantages 
 of the older monitorial schemes. Their advocates Placing 
 make much, for instance, of the fact that responsibility 
 is shifted from the teacher to the pupils. But is not 
 the teacher the person in whom the public reposes 
 responsibility for the school? Has he not been pre- 
 pared and educated for that very purpose? Is he not, 
 though never so poorly prepared, better trained to 
 assume responsibility than his charges? Why should 
 the teacher wish, or even be willing to shift his respon- 
 sibility? And can he do so, even if he wishes? The 
 teacher under such a system may hold the pupils 
 responsible for good order on the playground, and 
 forego all supervision during recesses. But if one boy 
 in a fit of anger attack another and injure his eye, the 
 parents of the second boy will not exonerate the teacher 
 from blame because the boys are supposed to be self- 
 governing. Law and public opinion hold one person 
 responsible for the school the teacher. In a last 
 analysis, then, the system will not hold; and are the 
 results worth the pretense? 
 
 Moreover, childhood is the period during which is it wise 
 human beings are learning to control themselves, and maturity? 
 self-control should, by every law of fitness, precede 
 the exercise of authority over others. The school 
 democracy, in fact, commits the essential fallacy of
 
 274 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 all pure democracies it assumes an equality which 
 does not exist. There are two qualifications, for 
 instance, which we demand shall be fulfilled by those 
 who wish a voice in our nation's government. Simply 
 to vote requires that the age of 21 shall have been 
 reached; that is, the mere exercise of judgment demands 
 a certain degree of maturity. If a man wish to hold 
 office, good citizenship demands that he shall have 
 shown ability in some way. He should be a good 
 business man, or a successful practitioner if in a profes- 
 sion. One other claim to consideration counts for a 
 great deal, namely length and faithfulness of public 
 service. Now children have none of these requisites 
 for authority in a qualifying degree, and many think 
 that people who have neither maturity, proved ability, 
 nor experience had better learn to work under direction 
 than to try to rule. 
 
 Lastly, by its emphasis upon statutes and officers, 
 school-cities and school-states tend actually to inter- 
 fere with self-government, the ideal to be attained. 1 
 It is possible for a teacher to resign his control over a 
 child, to allow him to pass from direction by others to 
 self-direction, at any time when he is ready for that 
 Elasticity point in his development. Under the control of 
 teacners > school government retains an elasticity 
 which makes individual treatment easy. When under 
 the direction of children, however, who work in accord- 
 ance with a fixed set of rules, it is impossible to suspend 
 
 1 " Rewards and punishments have a pedagogical value, therefore, 
 only when, instead of outwardly buying or forcing the child's obedi- 
 ence, they teach him an actual consciousness of the law, and develop 
 a free subjection to it." Baur.
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 275 
 
 judgment, to except wisely, to take into consideration 
 the action of forces which children do not yet under- 
 stand in short, to modify the treatment in each 
 case as it should be. Teachers of mature and well- 
 trained powers find it a difficult task to be wise and 
 just in their judgments, which is perhaps one reason 
 for the opposition of many of the older teachers to the 
 new methods of self-government; they can not conceive 
 of children who are capable of performing the task ably. 
 
 The principle of cooperation, however, and of respon- Good 
 sibility on the part of pupils for their own behavior pou 
 and to a certain extent for their neighbors', is so sound 
 that some teachers think it wise to base their scheme 
 of government upon it. The secondary object of such 
 organizations, the teaching of civics, may be gained, 
 it is true, by other means than the harnessing of the 
 whole school routine to that end; 1 nevertheless there 
 has never been devised so good a scheme for giving 
 constant practice and illustration of the means of 
 popular government. The utilization of the surplus 
 energy of pupils in the absorbing machinery of school 
 administration is an additional incentive of great 
 appeal, especially in crowded city schools. The 
 following cautions are suggested to those who think 
 of adopting a pupil-government plan: 
 
 i. Pupils need a thorough foundation of acknowl- Facts to 
 edged ideals of honesty, industry, and devotion to remember 
 duty if they are to be trusted to carry on such a scheme 
 after the novelty has worn off. 
 
 1 Introducing children dramatically to the machinery of govern- 
 ment will not place old heads on young shoulders. Strayer, 
 Brief Course in ike Teaching Process, page 160.
 
 276 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 2. The teacher must remain always the ultimately 
 responsible person. 
 
 3. The plan of government must not be too elab- 
 orate for the pupils who are to use it. 
 
 4. Very able teachers are required to make such a 
 scheme a success. Where under ordinary conditions 
 a teacher uses his authority frankly and quickly, 
 under such a regime he must use it indirectly, and 
 often with annoying delay. To overcome these dis- 
 advantages requires a person of much ingenuity, tact, 
 and force of character. 
 
 5. Eternal vigilance and untiring labor are necessary 
 to keep out evils. The plan involves more work 
 not less than direct government by teachers. 
 
 The Many of the features of the school city and the 
 
 fdeai Ce " school state can be used as disciplinary devices with 
 the best results. The cleaning squad, the pianist or 
 bugler, the pennant committee, the girl who waters 
 the plants, and the boy who fills the waterbucket, 
 all are officers in a school service just as real as if it 
 called itself by some other name than just what it is. 
 A great teacher is he who can build up in the minds of 
 his pupils a real pride in being of service. If children 
 ask, "What did he do for the world?" of any man 
 whose name they hear, something has been accom- 
 plished. Let the fine motto, "I serve," hang in an 
 honored place on the wall, and let the spirit of unity 
 and solidarity be fostered in every way possible. 
 Daily stories of great men and women, in which hero- 
 ism, devotion to good causes, unselfishness, and breadth 
 of sympathy are extolled in a concrete way, do wonders 
 in building up the attitude of service-giving. If enough
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 277 
 
 variety in the forms of service described is given to 
 these hero-stories, some one of them will probably 
 reach even the most indifferent. This development 
 of the spirit of service, of the actual feeling of brother- 
 hood and of community of interest between all the 
 pupils of the school, is both the condition and the 
 hoped-for outcome of all pupil-government plans. 
 
 THE MORNING EXERCISE AS A HELP TO SCHOOL 
 ORDER 
 
 The very essence and culmination of all conscious Purposes of 
 effort to serve the whole body of the school, lies in the e ses 
 kind of morning exercises which really fulfils its pur- 
 poses. 1 These purposes include the unification of the 
 school in its activities and interests, the motivation 
 of school work by means of socializing incentives, the 
 development of expression, appreciation, organizing 
 ability and ideals, and the opportunity to give to the 
 children a vision of their relation to the greater world- 
 life that lies outside the schoolroom. Morning exer- 
 cises that even very imperfectly realize these purposes 
 become a source of such uplift to the school, of such a 
 change in its spirit, as can but react in the improve- 
 ment of order and the elimination of evil. 
 
 Before considering the forms which morning exer- Fallacious 
 cises may take, it will be well to examine two stock b J ections 
 
 1 The Francis W. Parker School of Chicago has developed the 
 morning exercise as variously and successfully as any school. The 
 Year Book for 1913 is devoted to an account of this feature of the 
 school; it is packed with helpful suggestions. Much of the material 
 of the following paragraphs is taken more or less directly from this 
 little book. (Press of Francis W. Parker School, 330 Webster ave., 
 Chicago. 35 cents.)
 
 278 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 objections to them and show how misleading and ill- 
 founded they are. These two objections are that 
 morning exercises, especially when they depart from 
 the most brief and formal routine, detract from the 
 time and attention that should be devoted to study; 
 and that the effect upon children of appearing pub- 
 licly is to develop self-consciousness, affectation, and 
 conceit. The same objections are urged, of course, 
 with respect to the more elaborate entertainments 
 given by young people plays, concerts, pageants; 
 and the same answer may be made. If the motive of 
 contributing to the pleasure and enlightenment of others 
 Self- be kept constantly in the foreground, and the child's 
 
 conscious- conception of his message be made as vivid and as 
 
 ness and r c 
 
 service impressive as it should be, there will be no room or 
 attention left for self in his preparation or delivery of 
 it. His self-respect will increase with his proved power 
 to entertain and instruct other people, and with his 
 ability to think on his feet or speak without embarrass- 
 ment. But his idea of his own relative importance is 
 bound to shrink as he grows in the wisdom that comes 
 from a broadened view and from a new wealth of 
 knowledge. Even though some temporary exaltation 
 result from his performance, it is more than balanced 
 by the real power which a successful appearance gives. 
 "Children accustomed from childhood to an audience 
 learn to think and speak upon their feet so people can 
 hear and understand. It is the habit of meeting an 
 audience every day from the beginning that tells, that 
 gives power, skill, and self-possession. The majority 
 of children trained in this way never experience the 
 agony of self-consciousness that an audience means
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 279 
 
 to those educated to self-repression instead of self- 
 expression." It is to be remembered that in morning 
 exercises every pupil in turn is to be given a chance 
 to contribute, so that appearance gives practice with- 
 out conferring any especial distinction. Distinction 
 is the prize of unusual talent or application, and will 
 inevitably follow an especially fine contribution, as 
 it should. 
 
 With regard to the first objection, its validity de- Special 
 pends entirely upon the nature of the exercises given 
 
 and the skill with which they are correlated with the from 
 
 regular 
 
 regular work of the school. They should grow out of school 
 daily lessons, or spring from a spontaneous interest work 
 in some absorbing question of the day. "They are 
 usually the culmination of some line of study. The 
 subject is sometimes science, the telling or illustrating 
 of observations of nature; the story of some visit to 
 the farm, the art gallery, or workshop; history, current 
 events; the massing of the literature and music of some 
 special subject or special day; the telling of stories 
 that delight the children's hearts; or the discussion 
 of some problem of vital significance in the community- 
 life of the school. Therefore the exercises, instead of 
 interfering with the school work, emphasize, reinforce 
 and vitalize it; give it purpose and form and furnish. 
 the best test of the children's growth and power to 
 think and of their skill in expression." 1 
 
 The exercises used in the Francis Parker School 
 include readings, plays, concerts, story-telling exer- 
 cises, illustrated history-topics, demonstrations of the 
 arts, and religious services. An exercise on Historical 
 
 1 The Morning Exercise as a Socializing Influence, page 15.
 
 280 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Varieties 
 
 and 
 
 sources 
 
 The 
 
 question of 
 devotions 
 
 Methods in Arithmetic, one on the Great Ice Sheet, 
 one on Cicero, one on types of bridges, one on different 
 kinds of artificial illumination to select a few at 
 random show how all the activities of the school 
 contribute to the morning exercise. The first grade 
 gives an exercise on play-houses and primitive homes, 
 the high school tells about the chemistry of water. 
 The entire school participates in a series of exercises 
 on pottery, in which Indian, Egyptian, and Japanese 
 scenes are reproduced in tableaux for which one re- 
 hearsal was held, and for which the children made the 
 simple scenery. In other schools the same plan has 
 been followed, the exercises being suggested by both 
 teachers and pupils, who inferred from their own 
 interest in what they were doing that others would be 
 interested too. Dramatization of stories studied in 
 literature classes, song-cycles, talks about vacation 
 experiences or accounts of travel, explanations of new 
 scientific discoveries and reviews of new books all 
 these things may be presented to a rapt audience if 
 only the desire for self-expression spring from a suffi- 
 ciently vivid appreciation of some new experience or 
 some old hobby. Such morning exercises can spring 
 only from a quality of mental wide-awakeness, which 
 is in its turn stimulated by the expression given. 
 
 A most unfortunate condition which prevents the 
 morning exercise in public schools from fulfilling its 
 final degree of helpfulness, is the impossibility in many 
 localities of including devotional exercises. The influ- 
 ence of simple and sincere religious services, of the 
 Bible lesson and prayer and of hymns of praise, when 
 led by those who themselves feel the inspiration they
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 281 
 
 afford, is so great that our schools can ill afford to 
 forego it. Wherever the laws permit such devotional 
 services, and they can be held without arousing a 
 degree of objection which would defeat their purpose, 
 they should form part of the morning exercise. The 
 possibility of utilizing the potent force of religious 
 sentiment, unhampered by law or the charge of unduly 
 pushing denominational views, is one of the distinct 
 advantages possessed by the private school. In lieu 
 of this, and as the next best thing, fine stories of heroic 
 deeds, the best that literature and art can give to stir 
 the soul and elevate the taste, every legitimate appeal 
 to the higher emotions and the idealizing power of 
 youth, will serve to make life so earnest, rich, and full 
 of wholesome joy that petty meanness and silly mis- 
 chief are crowded out. 
 
 The unifying influence of the morning exercise Everybody's 
 depends largely upon completeness of participation hour 
 upon the thoroughness with which each member 
 of the school is drawn into the circle. The school 
 that has an assembly room large enough to accommo- 
 date all the grades and the high school is fortunate 
 in this respect, for there a friendly fellowship may 
 spring from the frequent and helpful association. 
 Such a school will not suffer from that absurd and 
 harmful feeling of superiority and aloofness which 
 grows up among high school and upper grade pupils 
 who are habitually separated from their small brothers 
 and sisters. It is probable that such association, by 
 visualizing the shadowy realm of learning's higher 
 haunts, has a helpful influence in reducing retardation. 
 The small urchin who sees the high school rooms,
 
 282 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 the high school students (not swaggering past him 
 on the walk, but sitting at desks as he does, and sing- 
 ing or reciting as he does, only better) may acquire 
 the ambition to be a high school boy too. The ideal 
 of the school is that of a friendly group, working to- 
 gether, in harmony for common ends; and yet there 
 are many school children who never see the rooms in 
 which older children meet, to say nothing of gaming 
 a conception of the pleasures that lie beyond them 
 if they persevere. In morning exercises planned to 
 show the results of study, this end of holding out 
 incentives for effort, among others, may be realized. 
 Older children delight in the performances of their 
 younger schoolmates, and their appreciation is golden 
 for the admiring little people. 
 
 Each room in a building, each child in each room, 
 may do something during the year, if only the simplest 
 of mechanical services, toward the success of the daily 
 meeting. All the best of individual gain, all the 
 happy outcomes of common effort, may be brought to 
 this social center and there proudly, gladly, be offered 
 to the whole body of the school. And only as the 
 spirit of loving and eager giving dominates the activities 
 of this period, will it become the power for good that 
 it may be. 
 
 Avoiding A few practical suggestions and cautions for the 
 
 haphazard conduct of these exercises may be helpful. They 
 must, first of all, be planned definitely and carefully, 
 programmed as clearly as any class exercise, and pur- 
 posefully arranged. 
 
 The mechanical details of marching, placing, order, 
 ventilation, signals, distribution of papers or books,
 
 DISCIPLINARY DEVICES 283 
 
 and the courteous formalities that must mark the ' 
 assembling of large bodies, should be carefully arranged 
 by all the teachers in council. 
 
 Children who are too shy, or not sufficiently talented 
 to appear in prominent ways, should be assigned 
 duties which they can perform, so that all may feel 
 their responsibility. Ushering, arranging shades and 
 opening windows, the duties of doorkeepers and stage 
 managers, passing songbooks or papers, are little 
 offices that add to the comfort and pleasure of such 
 occasions, and may be performed by the shy and back- 
 ward pupils who can not sing or play or speak. 
 
 Marching to and from the room facilitates the Marching 
 gathering and dispersal of pupils. Do not try to 
 achieve military precision, but aim to develop the 
 feeling for balance and rhythm and erect, graceful, 
 elastic carriage, which normal children have. On 
 special occasions, as at Christmas and Easter services, 
 the marching may be omitted, to add quiet to the 
 elements that create a different atmosphere. In this, 
 as in all exercises, only good music should be tolerated. 
 A cheap popular air is no more excusable when used 
 as a march than if played as an instrumental solo in a 
 program. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 In the socializing process, loyalty to the groups 
 with which children are identified, such as class and 
 room, is a step toward a more complete merging of 
 individual interests with social aims. Therefore group 
 loyalty is to be encouraged, taking care to appeal 
 always to larger and larger groups as children become 
 old enough to comprehend these larger units. They
 
 284 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 should work to improve the character and increase 
 the accomplishment of the groups with which they 
 are connected. Pupil-government schemes, which are 
 elaborations of the older monitorial schemes with the 
 addition of legislative features, are helpful in teaching 
 civics, but are illogical and misleading in so far as they 
 confuse the attitudes of preparation and administra- 
 tion. The ideals of faithful service and self-govern- 
 ment may be taught in other ways. A more effective 
 means of socializing the school lies in wisely planned 
 general exercises, to which all are expected to con- 
 tribute.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 
 
 No part of the supervision of schools is more im- 
 portant than the supervision of their discipline; and 
 in general it is true that no part is more difficult. As 
 the reputation of an individual teacher stands or falls 
 with his success or failure in keeping order, 1 so the 
 name of a man at the head of a school system will 
 acquire distinction or lose it accordingly as he succeeds 
 or fails to secure order and industry and friendly 
 cooperation throughout the schools he controls. The 
 importance of this subject, therefore, is great enough 
 to warrant the most careful study, both of its theoretical 
 and of its practical aspects; and yet few supervisors 
 undertake it in systematic manner, and little has been 
 done to formulate the principles which underlie suc- 
 cessful practice. The present discussion will ami to Topics 
 suggest, first, the function of the supervisor in securing di SCU g S j on 
 good order where the teacher in charge has trouble; 
 second, a means of analyzing the situation in each 
 case; third, an outline of a typical process by which 
 a supervisor may hope to make a good disciplinarian 
 out of a poor one. For the excellence of a staff of 
 
 1 Ruediger and Strayer, "The Qualities of Merit in Teachers," 
 Journal of Educational Psychology, May, 1910. Arthur C. Boyce, 
 "Qualities of Merit in Secondary School Teachers," Journal of 
 Educational Psychology, March, 1912.
 
 286 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 teachers depends, so far as the superintendent is con- 
 cerned, upon two abilities which he must exercise 
 alternately and complementarily. The first is the 
 ability to select good teachers, the second the ability 
 to improve those whom he has selected, or those with 
 whom Fate has provided him. Improving teachers 
 in service is the most needed and valuable of these 
 abilities. 
 The The teacher who has trouble with the order and 
 
 ' 
 
 duty ' spirit f n i s room has a right to expect help from his 
 principal or superintendent. The supervisory function 
 properly extends to the maintenance of a good school 
 spirit expressed in cheerful conformity to school cus- 
 toms. When the individual teacher falls short of 
 securing this, it is the business of the supervisor to 
 find where the trouble lies and suggest a remedy. 
 The supervisor, of whatever rank, who exercises a 
 purely judicial function only, misses the most impor- 
 tant part of his calling. His work should be judicial, 
 then constructive, then judicial again; but the test 
 of his work lies in his ability to build up, to strengthen, 
 to improve, to eliminate weakness, to inspire, to make 
 permanent each gain in efficiency. Teachers not 
 amenable to advice the headstrong, the conceited, 
 the hopelessly incompetent have no place in an 
 efficient school system, and after a fair trial should be 
 dismissed from service. 
 
 The fair trial, which means a trial with help, the 
 supervisor is bound to give. He may have that in 
 his position and his personality which is just the ele- 
 ment wanting in the equipment of the inefficient 
 teacher; and having it, he is morally bound to use it
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 287 
 
 at any place in his whole system where it may be of 
 service. He has experience, which brings in its wake 
 any number of kinds of equipment. He has usually 
 a more thorough preparation, a wider range of knowl- 
 edge, than his teachers. He is, above all, the visible 
 agent of authority in the eyes of the pupils of the 
 school an authority whose identification with the 
 teacher is not always obvious to the school. All these 
 things a supervisor must put at the service of a teacher 
 before condemning her as a poor disciplinarian. 
 
 Wherever bad order exists, obviously the first duty Analyzing 
 of the supervisor is to analyze the situation with care, 
 in order to know definitely the source of weakness. 
 Probably a clear idea of the cause of the trouble is the 
 teacher's first, most fundamental need. Usually 
 neither will nor disposition, but knowledge, is lacking. 
 Four simple questions suffice, as a rule, to cover the 
 ground of an inquiry into the cause of bad order, and 
 they are given here in the order in which they will 
 probably furnish the key to the situation: 
 
 i. Does the teacher have an adequate ideal of good 
 order? 
 
 2. .If not, how can such an ideal be created for this 
 teacher, and how can he be made sensitive to failure 
 of its realization? 
 
 3. If, or when, the ideal exists, what weakness pre- 
 vents its realization? 
 
 4. What devices does this teacher need for securing 
 good order? 
 
 Taken in this order and answered in turn, these four 
 questions will give in almost every case a basis for 
 advice to a teacher who has difficulty with the behavior
 
 288 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The ideal of his pupils. The most fundamental requirement 
 for good order is the ideal of good order, and in many 
 cases its absence at once gives the cue for the training 
 of the teacher, who needs to be told what to require 
 of his pupils, and also to realize the seriousness of 
 falling short of an approximate realization. When 
 the teacher knows what he ought to have, he may still 
 fail to have it because of some weakness of which he 
 is either unaware, or which he is powerless to over- 
 come. When the teacher has both an ideal and the 
 strength to realize it, he fails because he does not know 
 the method by which to gain his end that is, he 
 needs devices. 
 
 Of course it is not supposed that an experienced 
 supervisor will necessarily follow just this order of 
 reasoning in an attempt to ascertain the situation in 
 a room wanting good order, for experience gives after 
 a time a quickness of insight into the weaknesses of 
 teachers or the peculiar difficulties of a hard place, 
 perhaps beyond the teacher's power to change. But 
 it can not be too strongly emphasized that a precise 
 and correct analysis of the situation is the first duty 
 of the superintendent who wants to help a teacher in 
 this respect. 
 
 A construe- Then, having diagnosed the case, the advising phy- 
 a sician has next to suggest a plan of treatment. The 
 following outline of a constructive policy for super- 
 vision with a view to improving discipline is, of course, 
 more full than actual practice in a majority of cases 
 would require, for the reason that it aims to cover the 
 range of needs and remedies. It is hoped that it may 
 prove suggestive in some or all of its parts.
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 289 
 
 Where bad order springs from the lack of an adequate Giving 
 ideal on the teacher's part, which is the case with many 
 young teachers who have difficulty, the work of the 
 superintendent begins with the establishment of a 
 conscious, imperial, and adequate ideal of good order. 
 With this positive ideal there must also be taught, if 
 the work is to be thorough and effective, a converse 
 sensitiveness to bad order. The ideal will be clarified 
 and strengthened by contrast. There are several ways 
 in which this ideal may be brought to the teacher's 
 notice and become a part of his own working capital. 
 The most obvious and direct is a clear formulation of 
 the ideal by the supervisor in as few words as possible. 
 Then this bare statement may be illumined in an 
 illustration by a lesson taught by the supervisor, or 
 an hour's conduct of the room, if the nature of the case 
 permit of this object-lesson. The teacher may be sent 
 to observe others who are known to be good in dis- 
 cipline, alone or with the supervisor, being required 
 in either case to make a summary of specific points 
 observed, good and bad. Then there is the inspira- 
 tional method of telling stories of teachers who suc- 
 ceeded just where the teacher in question needs to 
 succeed with care always to recount methods and 
 difficulties, since nothing is less inspiring than to hear 
 of someone who succeeded by sheer force of native 
 genius where one's own native genius absolutely 
 refuses to function. Added to these is a whole set of indirect 
 
 helps 
 
 indirect helps, including general ideas of the ideal 
 relation between teacher and pupils, the people's place 
 in society and education, the nature of government, 
 and the course of social evolution. These last ideas
 
 290 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 are not visionary conceptions incapable of helping a 
 teacher over a very concrete and harassing difficulty. 
 They have proved often to be just the remedy for evils 
 that seem at first blush to bear no sensible relation to 
 them. The truth is that no professional work is more 
 calculated in its daily round of little and tedious tasks 
 to narrow and mechanize than is teaching. A very 
 large amount of schoolroom trouble is merely the 
 natural result of weariness produced by too much 
 attention to details that have gone stale, and a lack 
 of serenity and bigness in the teacher. Any idea 
 which brings sureness, which minimizes the im- 
 portance of little annoyances, which gives that 
 kindliness which comes with the life of big spaces 
 and that serenity which comes with content and 
 growth, is a direct and powerful help in securing 
 good order. 
 
 Finding Much of the helplessness of young or weak teachers 
 
 the cause j n ma tters of discipline comes from a lack of ability to 
 find or analyze the causes of bad order. There is really 
 a distinction between what may be called positive weak- 
 nesses of the teacher faults which without blame 
 on the part of the pupils bring about disorder and 
 negative weaknesses, the failure of the teacher to deal 
 wisely with things started by the pupils. But the 
 intuition of boys and girls is such that a teacher's 
 weakness and its response in the pupils are rarely to 
 be separated in actual practice. Considering, then, 
 the bad order that begins with the pupils, teachers 
 need to learn to distinguish two great classes of causes 
 which predicate an essential difference in the treatment 
 given the overt act. There are:
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 291 
 
 1. Causes which are purely accidental, incidental, 
 or uncontrollable. 
 
 2. Causes which are motivated. 
 
 The careful and experienced teacher so provides for Correcting 
 every possible situation that accidental causes of ^^ne 
 disorder are reduced to a minimum. The machinery 
 of his schoolroom takes care of all ordinary routine 
 business without friction and without much chance of 
 mishap. Often a more thoroughly organized school- 
 room routine will do away with the greater part of a 
 teacher's troubles, especially such as spring from 
 noise, confusion, and idleness. The supervisor should 
 spend some time in the room and make definite notes 
 of the details of organization needed. The causes of 
 trouble are usually such as poor marching order, too 
 much freedom during intermissions, no definite place 
 for school apparatus, a lack of brisk procedure in 
 changing work, wandering about the room by pupils, 
 noisy habits of putting away or getting out work, no 
 rest provision during long school sessions, no recess for 
 flushing the room with fresh air, and other similar 
 details of poor management. A wise superintendent 
 does not dismiss the matter after making suggestions; 
 he visits the room frequently until he finds the new 
 order of things in good working shape. By that time 
 any disorder due to other causes will stand out with 
 sufficient clearness to indicate its own proper treatment. 
 
 Mischief that is deliberately made can usually be Motives 
 attributed to one of the following motives, and dealt 
 with according to the amount of depravity involved: 
 
 1. Vanity the desire to attract attention. 
 
 2. Laziness the desire to avoid exertion.
 
 292 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 3. The desire to have fun. 
 
 4. The desire to torture the pleasure in another's 
 suffering. 
 
 Of these motives the last is the most serious and 
 perhaps the least common, although young teachers, 
 harassed by a set of active persecutors, are liable to 
 attribute to it the greater part of their trouble. The 
 homeopathic principle of a like cure suggests that 
 mischief caused by childish vanity, the desire to "show 
 off," be mended by a judicious thrust at that vanity. 
 Where pure physical inertia causes the breach of law, 
 the cause lies usually in a poor environment or in some 
 physical peculiarity. Very few children are inherently 
 lazy; indolence, where it exists in the young, is the 
 result of habit or of physical imperfection. A too-fat 
 child needs attention to diet and exercise, matters 
 "Fat which must be taken up with the parents. City chil- 
 
 ly dren are often habitually lazy because they have neither 
 
 the chores and housework to do that occupy the time 
 of country children, nor wholesome amusements to 
 take their place. Here play-grounds, or other extra- 
 curricular activities, must solve the problem. Boys 
 and girls who are growing fast sometimes seem unable 
 to concentrate, even for a short time, on mental work. 
 They need a temporary rest from it, with manual 
 activities to help along physical development and 
 occupy the mind without taxing it. This sort of 
 remedy is often impossible, owing to the still too 
 inflexible curriculum of most of our schools; but the 
 teacher who understands the situation may be able 
 to arrange a partial change that will at least help things 
 along.
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 293 
 
 Inherent love of fun is no longer considered a sin, The love 
 or even a tendency to be discouraged. It is regarded of fun 
 as a wholesome and lovely thing that should enlist the 
 sympathy of all. The greater the teacher, in fact, 
 the more difficult is it for him to forbid those playful 
 impulses which are bound to interfere with the neces- 
 sarily artificial routine of the schoolroom. In dealing 
 with this kind of mischief, the true reason for forbid- 
 ding it will usually appeal to a child as forcibly as it 
 does to the older people who must cut off a pleasure 
 with which they really sympathize heartily. Teachers 
 forbid any fun but incidental fun in school hours 
 because there is more serious business on hand, and 
 because that business can never be done without 
 giving it one's whole attention. A dignified insistence 
 on the school's main business suffices for some children; 
 with others, in whom animal spirits outweigh all con- 
 siderations of self-interest, isolation or some other form 
 of punishment is necessary, after which the fault can 
 be cured largely by substitution. 
 
 The innate love of teasing is strong in an extraordi- The 
 nary number of children, the stimulus that gives it 
 expression being found in almost any unkind act or 
 word that such children see or hear. The imitative 
 faculties of children are particularly sharp where any 
 display of authority is concerned; and the spectacular 
 ways of showing authority appeal to them especially. 
 Everyone knows that a little girl will box or whip her 
 dolls with great gusto if she has ever been served in a 
 similar way by her mother. Children, like negroes, 
 placed in authority over others of their own condition 
 are unmerciful. Given a teacher who shows himself
 
 294 
 
 sensitive to annoyance, children prove themselves 
 very successful persecutors. Although they them- 
 selves have never suffered in any poignant way, they 
 show a genius in finding ways in which the most ex- 
 treme suffering can be inflicted upon the object of their 
 persecution. The love of power finds an easy expres- 
 sion in acts that show others to be at one's mercy, and 
 so exalt the tyrant in the eyes of his fellows. Any 
 helpless person, teacher or fellow-pupil, is liable to be 
 the victim. Where this bully attitude seems to be the 
 motive behind disorder of any kind, that act, or habit, 
 or whatever it may be, should be stopped at any cost 
 with all speed and with a frank avowal of emotional 
 repugnance. The remedy lies in the building up, not 
 of a slow-working rational sense of justice, but of a 
 deeply-rooted habitual prejudice. 
 Training Altruistic feelings are largely a matter of habit and 
 
 for .. _..,,., .. . , 
 
 altruism training. It is foolish to waste time m trying to work 
 out a rational response to any appeal to social or per- 
 sonal interest here; the work needs to be done in early 
 youth through the short-cut, effective means of preju- 
 dice, thoroughly ingrained by a liberal appeal to the 
 whole force of public opinion. In no place is there a 
 better excuse for the use of that well-worn device of 
 the teacher, the exaggeration of emotional content, 
 than here. The heinousness of the offense of him who 
 deliberately causes pain to another can scarcely be 
 exaggerated. There are teachers who can produce 
 copious tears from Johnny because he has pulled 
 Mary's braids, by a touching talk administered after 
 school. Let such teachers add an equally eloquent 
 description of the meanness of the desire to hurt
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 295 
 
 other people, and the method may result in real good. 
 Johnny's sense of humor does not, then, remove the 
 effects of the histrionic rebuke when his common-sense 
 contrasts the real wickedness of his act with its 
 mock-heroic treatment. Whatever the method, the 
 treatment can not be too quick, too decided, too 
 powerful. The unquestioned use of unquestioned 
 authority, rebuking and punishing with the sureness 
 of Fate and the swiftness of catastrophic justice, is 
 the best remedy for this tendency wherever it shows 
 itself. 
 
 In analyzing motives the first requisite for success Analysis 
 is sympathy with pupils. A real personal acquaint- 
 ance will, with young teachers, pretty effectively take 
 the place of that quick, almost intuitional insight 
 which the experienced instructor develops. Children 
 have an immense self-respect and reticence where 
 their mental processes are concerned, and self-interest 
 will bolster this up, on occasion, to the point where 
 only keen ability can detect where the truth lies. 
 Sympathy unlocks doors that defy even the keenest 
 psychological knowledge; and for that reason, if for 
 no other, the teacher who wishes to succeed as a dis- 
 ciplinarian needs to improve every opportunity to 
 establish friendly relations with pupils. 
 
 Next to a sympathetic attitude toward present 
 offenders, a retrospective recall of one's own past is 
 needed. "He can't remember when he was young" 
 is one of the things that no teacher wants to hear of 
 himself; he knows that it is one of the most serious 
 indictments that youth can bring against an instructor. 
 A recall of the experience of having one's own motives
 
 296 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Habitual 
 study of 
 motives 
 
 The teacher 
 at fault 
 
 misunderstood is one of the best helps in analyzing 
 the motives of offenders. 
 
 A third help in analyzing motives is practice, rein- 
 forced by comparison and cumulative proof. If the 
 supervisor will insist on constant reference to motive 
 in each case of corrective discipline that arises, teachers 
 will form the habit, and skill will grow with practice. 
 To insure this, it is suggested that he require the 
 teacher to prepare a table, showing in one column the 
 typical acts of a day or a week that have required 
 correction; in a second, the motive that the teacher 
 thinks has actuated each offense; in a third, the method 
 of treatment used in each case, the treatment always be- 
 ing aimed to remove the fundamental difficulty or fault. 
 
 Where inquiry results in the teacher's consciousness 
 of a weakness of his own as that cause, or as one of the 
 causes, the cure is a comparatively simple matter, 
 although it may not be easy. Curing one's own faults 
 is easy compared to the task of curing other people's, 
 for in the former case one has the ally of the will 
 the most powerful single factor in accomplishing the 
 desired end. The weaknesses of teachers that result in 
 poor disciplinary control are legion. They range from 
 the fundamental ones of weak will and low ideals, 
 through personal peculiarities, such as noisy and 
 undignified manners, carelessness in dress and lan- 
 guage, and cool indifference to pupils and their needs, 
 to imitated faults for which imitated virtues may be 
 substituted. These imitated faults include the un- 
 reasonable demands sometimes made by thoughtless 
 teachers because some other teacher demands those 
 things, and the copied methods of some school or
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 297 
 
 teacher who has made a strong impression upon a 
 novice. They include the dislike of a "scene" which 
 permits little sources of disorder to grow to great ones 
 pending the advent of an imperative call for correction; 
 the failure to provide enough activity for the pupils; 
 and the indulgence of a vindictive or soured disposition. 
 
 All this preliminary investigation, whether it occupy The 
 several days' time or be disposed of in five minutes, is 
 for the purpose of guiding the teacher in the applica- rescue 
 tion of remedies. The cure's the thing. The crucial 
 function of the supervisor is to give the puzzled teacher 
 a means of realizing the ideal of good order. The 
 concrete help given will vary with each situation. 
 The following suggestions, however, will cover in a 
 general way a majority of cases where help is needed: 
 
 i. Stimulate the teacher's volition "bolster up Means of 
 his backbone." Increase self-dependence and self- 
 respect until it reaches a point at which an affront to 
 it becomes an unendurable outrage. This attitude 
 is not incongruous with a true idea of the teacher's 
 place, importance and function. It is the idea that all 
 pupils should have of all teachers, but it is so far from 
 the idea held in many communities and families that 
 children come to school with no intention of living up 
 to it unless forced to do so; and many teachers are so 
 susceptible to prevailing public opinion, so uncertain 
 of their standing, that they yield to the ideas of their 
 pupils instead of insisting that the pupils come up to 
 the real standard. Perhaps a majority of cases of bad 
 order are due to the timidity or cowardice of some 
 teacher not always the teacher who suffers most 
 and in whose room the disorder appears, although this
 
 is usually the case. Sometimes a principal, big enough 
 to enforce order in his own presence by dint of appeal 
 to physical force, is responsible for bad order in the 
 room of a woman teacher whose authority he refuses 
 wholly to support. But in the main it is true that a 
 teacher who has a sufficiently exalted opinion of the 
 dignity of his rank and work, can insist upon deference 
 to his authority until he gets it. The process will be 
 long and hard unless he has active support from prin- 
 cipal, superintendent, and school board; but if patience 
 and health hold out, even single-handed a teacher who 
 The teacher has enough will power can win in the end. Sometimes 
 
 who shrinks 111 M , i , f 
 
 from force a gently-bred woman recoils so violently before the 
 distaste of a conflict with pupils, to whom considera- 
 tions of courtesy and self-respect are nothing, that 
 she would rather' suffer the indignity of a lack of respect 
 than make the necessary appeal to force. This is 
 where the support of the superintendent, in whom for 
 the child force doth finally reside, needs to be made 
 apparent; but no display of it can take the place of a 
 resolution on the teacher's part that she will brook 
 absolutely no imposition on her prerogatives. She is 
 dealing with an elemental situation, with human 
 beings but partially developed, and the work must be 
 done, if necessary, in an elemental way. She is the 
 representative of the organized forces of society, of 
 civilization itself, and no personal feelings should stand 
 in the way of doing her duty by that society which has 
 intrusted her with this part of the progress of the race. 
 She dare not betray her trust to bring this boy or girl 
 into the fold of social cooperation by gentle means 
 if he will, by force even if must be.
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 299 
 
 2. Put the teacher on the lookout for signs of coming signs and 
 trouble and teach him to nip them in the formative mischief 
 stage. Preach the consummate virtues of prevention. 
 
 Call attention to the signs of coming mischief the 
 ominous silence, the constrained position, the too- 
 innocent look, the idle moment. Show how brisk class 
 movements, a diversion that attracts attention at the 
 psychological moment, a quick check that strengthens 
 the impression of the teacher's omniscience, prevents 
 more mischief than the best teacher could ever hope 
 to prevent by means of punishment. 
 
 3. Demonstrate the value of the mechanical controls School 
 of environment the quiet, the orderly way of doing r 
 things, the system that anticipates sporadic action, a 
 fixed, understood, and economical routine. Show the 
 advantage of prevision. 
 
 4. If none exist, help the teacher to establish those Bases for 
 
 ... 11* iiri i i -i friendliness 
 
 auxiliary school interests which further friendship and 
 occupy spare time. Let friendliness between teacher 
 and pupil be established upon the basis of common 
 interests. Herein lies a great part of the value of 
 athletics in school life; and also of music, manual arts 
 of various sorts, and social affairs. 
 
 5. Has the teacher made clear the standard to which Making 
 
 require- 
 
 pupils are expected to conform? If not, how best can me nts clear 
 it be stated? Teachers have become familiar through 
 years of training and experience, with the require- 
 ments of schoolroom routine; they may find in 
 their rooms some boys or girls to whom one or 
 more of these are entirely new ideas. Of course 
 this is especially true in schools containing a foreign 
 element.
 
 300 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 Using the 
 strength 
 of the 
 system 
 
 Constancy 
 
 Punish- 
 ments 
 
 6. Does the teacher know the strength of the support 
 upon which he may depend? Does he utilize the 
 power of his position as part of a great and irresistible 
 social organization? If teachers who are not quite 
 sure of their success with this problem could be induced 
 more often to report trouble, actual or anticipated, to 
 their superiors, so that there might be a thorough 
 understanding about it, conditions might be much 
 improved. The assurance of support, with the confi- 
 dence in a course of treatment which has been decided 
 upon after careful consideration, begets confidence 
 and courage. The teacher so fortified really seems 
 to himself, and appears to his pupils, what he is 
 the agent of the good forces of society, rightly em- 
 powered to enforce society's dictum against those 
 who wrong it. 
 
 7. The teacher must be especially warned never to 
 desert a standard until he is convinced that it is wrong. 
 
 8. The subject of appropriate, just, and helpful 
 punishment should be thoroughly discussed by the 
 teaching force of every school. The teachers, rather 
 than the school board, or some one man at the head of 
 a system, are best fitted to decide what types of pun- 
 ishment are necessary or advisable in any given com- 
 munity. They are closer to the pupils in their daily 
 lives; they know their home environment and training 
 often the most important factors in deciding school 
 punishments better than anyone else. And the 
 carefully considered conclusion of the whole body of 
 teachers, led usually by those who have had longest 
 experience in the schools, is the best guide for the 
 teacher young in the system.
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 301 
 
 9. The friendliness following a reconciliation should Some 
 be complete. A supervisor in a Western normal directions 
 school gave her teachers, with other instructions, this 
 list of hints for disciplinary management: 
 
 Be a person who commands the respect of all. 
 
 Make your requirements just, reasonable, explicit. 
 
 Use the conventional forms of courtesy in directing 
 pupils. 
 
 Notice and correct the first infraction of good order. 
 
 Be tactful, low-voiced, firm. 
 
 Do not hastily attribute fault to a child. 
 
 Do not expect disorder; assume that your pupils are 
 anxious to do right until they prove the contrary. 
 
 Provide for all possible emergencies. 
 
 This chapter has dealt with the part of the supervisor The 
 in securing good schoolroom discipline so far only as |^ the"*' 
 that duty pertains to the teachers under his direc- communi ty 
 tion. There is another phase of the possible influence 
 of supervisors, especially superintendents of schools, 
 which deserves at least a passing consideration. This 
 is the part of the superintendent of schools in molding 
 the public opinion of his community. The man who 
 is at the head of a system of schools in a city or town 
 in our country is an increasingly important individual. 
 Aside from the immense potential influence he wields 
 as a teacher of the next generation, he is looked to more 
 and more as an authority upon the questions of the 
 day. If he choose to do so he may exert a powerful 
 influence in deciding questions of public economy and 
 morals. 1 
 
 1 Thomas: " The Teacher and the Community," Educational 
 Review, May, 1910, pp. 433 ff.
 
 302 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 His right With the good excuse that he is dealing with condi- 
 
 heard tions that vitally affect his immediate sphere of use- 
 
 fulness, if any require an excuse of him, the school 
 superintendent may and should fight those things in 
 the life of his city that hurt the life of his school. He 
 has a very direct interest in playgrounds, parks, and 
 social centers. He has a right to say something about 
 the motion pictures that are shown in local theaters, 
 the posters that adorn the great billboards, the tone of 
 the newspapers that the people read. All these things 
 react for good or for evil upon the spirit and order 
 of the schools. The influence of the superintendent, 
 wielded directly as a member of official bodies, or 
 through the press, or indirectly through women's clubs 
 and good citizenship leagues, may help materially to 
 better those conditions of health and morals that re- 
 act so strongly upon the children in the schools. By 
 exercising this prerogative of his position the superin- 
 tendent reaches back to the ultimate causes, to the real 
 sources of school disorder, which are ignorance and 
 selfishness, permeating still the whole laboring, strug- 
 gling mass of humanity and manifesting themselves 
 not only in the deliberate sins of responsible men and 
 women, but also in the blind lawlessness of misguided 
 children. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 In supervising discipline, the duties of the super- 
 visor include analyzing the situation, to find both the 
 nature and cause of the trouble; and then suggesting 
 the remedy which should be applied. His duties in- 
 clude giving every possible aid to the teacher in charge. 
 He may help by stiffening a weak will, by pointing out
 
 SUPERVISION OF DISCIPLINE 303 
 
 the signs of trouble that the teacher may be upon his 
 guard, giving information of devices which will obviate 
 trouble, suggesting auxiliary interests that will stim- 
 ulate interest, supporting the teacher in his own efforts, 
 and suggesting proper means of punishing offenders. 
 Besides his work with his own teachers, the superin- 
 tendent should use his influence to better those com- 
 munity conditions which affect the spirit and character 
 of the school.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 A CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 I. The History of Discipline 
 
 COMPAYRE, History of Pedagogy, 271-276. 
 
 DUTTON and SNEDDEN, Administration of Public Education 
 in the U. S., 511 ff. 
 
 FROEBEL, Education of Man. 
 
 MONROE, Text Book in the History of Education, 307-312. 
 
 MONROE, Brief Course in the History of Education, 255-259. 
 
 O'SHEA, Education as Adjustment, 69-73. 
 
 QUICK, Educational Reformers, 318-333. 
 
 ROUSSEAU, Emile, 41-67. 
 
 SEELEY, History of Education, 96-100. 
 
 SHELDON, The Ethical Function of the School; Education, 
 25:321. (1905) 
 
 SWIFT, Mind in the Making, 95. 
 
 THOMPSON, Self-Government by Students in School and Col- 
 lege, Soc. Ed. Quar. 1:41. 
 
 H. The Social Aspect 
 
 CHANCELLOR, Educational Outlook, Journal of Pedagogy, 
 
 Mar. 1 8, 1906, 209-220. 
 
 COOLEY, Human Nature and the Social Order; chaps, x, xi, xii. 
 CRONSON, Pupil Self-Government, 17 ff. 
 GREARD, The Spirit of Discipline in Education; Education, 
 
 5:134, 259. 
 
 HALL, Adolescence, chap. xv. 
 
 HENDERSON, The Principles of Education, sees. 57, 61. 
 HENDRICK, Six Thousand Girls at School; McClure's, May,
 
 306 APPENDIX I 
 
 LAURIE, The Training of Teachers; chap, on Authority in 
 Relation to Discipline. 
 
 O'SHEA, Social Development and Education, Part I. 
 
 PARKINSON, Individuality and Social Adjustment as Means and 
 Ends in Education; Education, 29: 16, 104. 
 
 POTTER, Social Organization in the High School; N. E. A., 
 1912, 181 ff. 
 
 PYLE, Outlines of Educational Psychology, chap. vi. 
 
 REPORT of the i8th Educational Conference of the Academies 
 and High Schools in Relation with the University of 
 Chicago; School Review, Jan., 1905. A comparative 
 consideration of secret and open H. S. organizations. 
 
 RINAKER, a Socialized High School; School and Home Educa- 
 tion, Nov., 1912. 
 
 ROWE, Habit Formation and the Science of Teaching, 239-243. 
 
 SMALL, Demands of Sociology upon Pedagogy; N. E. A., 1894, 
 174-184. 
 
 WELLS, The Parent Problem; School Review, Oct. 13, 1905, 
 635-641. 
 
 WETZEL, Student Organizations in a High School; School 
 Review, May, 1905, 429-433. 
 
 m. The Psychological Aspect 
 
 BAGLEY, Problems of School Discipline; School and Home 
 Education, 1912, pp. 128, 204, 243, 286; 1913, pp. 7, 47. 
 
 BARNES, The Pupil as a Social Factor; N. E. A., 1896, 184-189. 
 
 CHANCELLOR, Our City Schools, chap. vi. 
 
 COLVIN, Some Facts in Partial Justification of the So-Called 
 Dogma of Formal Discipline; University of Illinois School 
 of Education, Bulletin No. .2. 
 
 Practical Results of Recent Studies in Educational Psy- 
 chology; School Review, May, 1913, 307 ff. 
 
 FISKE, The Meaning of Infancy. 
 
 FORBUSH, The Social Pedagogy of Children; Fed. Sem. vii 
 (1900), 307-346. 
 
 GRIGGS, Moral Education, chap. xvii. 
 
 JAMES, Psychology (ed. 1910), chap, on Attention, 217-220. 
 
 MAENNEL, Auxiliary Education, chap. xii.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 307 
 
 O'SHEA, Social Development and Education, Part I. 
 
 Dynamic Factors in Education, chap. i. 
 ROWE, Habit Formation and the Science of Teaching, chaps. 
 
 v, xii. 
 SHELDON, The Institutional Activities of American Children; 
 
 Amer. Journal of Psychology, ix: 425-448. 
 SWIFT, Mind in the Making, chap. ii. 
 
 Some Criminal Tendencies of Boyhood; Ped.Sem., 8: 65-91. 
 WHITE, Elements of Pedagogy, 320-328. 
 YOCUM, Culture, Discipline, and Democracy. 
 YODER, A Study of the Boyhood of Great Men; Fed. Sem., 
 
 iii, No. i. 
 
 IV. The Physiological Aspect 
 
 BRIGGS, Modern American School Buildings. 
 
 BURKS and BURKS, Health and the School. 
 
 DRESSLER, The Duty of the State in the Medical Inspection 
 of Schools; N. E. A., 1912: 257 ff. 
 
 HOAG, The Health Index of Children. 
 
 JOHNSON, The Playground as a Factor in School Hygiene. 
 
 KOTELMANN, School Hygiene. 
 
 MARBLES, Sanitary Conditions for Schoolhouses. 
 
 ROWE, The Lighting of Schoolrooms. 
 
 Physical Nature of the Child and How to Study It. 
 
 SHAW, School Hygiene. 
 
 SHEPERD, Some Experiments on the Ventilation of a School- 
 room; Educ. Bi-Monthly, Oct., 1913. 
 
 V. Discipline in its Relation to School Organization 
 
 CLAPP, Unrecognized Causes of Corporal Punishment; Educa- 
 tion, 25 (1905): 490. 
 
 DEWEY, School and Society, 29 ff. 
 
 DUTTON, Discipline; N. E. A., 1889:487-492. 
 
 GRIGGS, Moral Education, chaps, xiii, xiv. 
 
 JACKMAN, The Relation of School Organization to Instruction; 
 Soc. Educ. Quar., i: 56 ff. 
 
 O'SHEA, Social Development and Education, 261 ff, 
 
 SCOTT, Social Education, 13 ff., 82.
 
 308 APPENDIX I 
 
 VI. Punishment 
 
 ARNOLD, School and Class Management, 304-305. 
 
 BAGLEY, Classroom Management, chap, viii, esp. 118-122. 
 
 BALDWIN, Art of School Management, 176 ff. 
 
 CHANCELLOR, Class Teaching and Management, 160-174. 
 
 BUTTON, School Management, 104 ff. 
 
 GRIGGS, Moral Education, chaps, xv, xvi. 
 
 HALL, Adolescence, I, 402. 
 
 HARRISON, A Study of Child Nature, chap. vi. 
 
 HUGHES, Answers to Mr. Sabin's Questions; Journal of Educa- 
 tion, 63:485. 
 
 KEITH, Elementary Education, 119-133, 288. 
 
 KELLOGG, School Management, chap. viii. 
 
 LANDON, School Management, 338-360. 
 
 O'SHEA, Social Development and Education, chaps, xiv, xv. 
 
 PERRY, Management of a City School, 253, 254, 274, 279. 
 
 ROARK, Economy in Education, 44-46. 
 
 RUGH et al., Moral Training in the Public Schools, 39 ff. 
 
 SEELEY, A New School Management, chap. viii. 
 
 STORM, Discipline as the Result of Self-Government; N. E. A., 
 1894: 764. 
 
 SULLY, The Teacher's Handbook of Psychology, 562-568. 
 
 TAYLOR, Class Management and Discipline, chap. v. 
 
 TOMPKINS, Philosophy of School Management, 173 ff. 
 
 THOMPSON, Self-Government by Students in School and College; 
 Soc. Educ. Quar,, 1:41. 
 
 THRING, Theory and Practice of Teaching, chap. xiii. 
 
 WHITE, School Management, 207-216. 
 
 VII. Pupil Government 
 
 BALDWIN, Self-Organized Group Work; Soc. Educ. Quar., i: 39. 
 BUCK, Boys' Self-Governing Clubs. 
 
 CHANCELLOR, Class Teaching and Management, 149-150, 155. 
 CLAPP, Self-Government in Public Schools; Education, 29:335. 
 CLARK, Self -Organized Group Work in the High School; Soc. 
 
 Educ. Quar., i: 55. 
 
 CRONSON, Pupil Self-Government, Its Theory and Practice. 
 DEWEY, School and Society.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 309 
 
 GEORGE, George Junior Republic. 
 
 HENDERSON, The Principles of Education, sees. 44, 45, 46, 47. 
 
 JACKMAN, The Relation of School Organization to Instruction; 
 
 Soc. Educ. Quar., i: 55. 
 
 JENK.S, Voluntary Group Work; Soc. Educ. Quar., i: 33. 
 JOHNSON, Education by Plays and Games. 
 NELSON, Group Work in a Grammar Grade; Soc. Educ. Quar., 
 
 i: 29. 
 
 O'SHEA, Social Development and Education, 313 ff., 317 ff. 
 PHILLIPS, Pupil Cooperation in School Government; Education, 
 
 22 (1902): 538-554. 
 ROARK, Economy hi Education, 97-8. 
 RIDDEE, The New School at Abbotsholme; Soc. Educ. Quar., 
 
 i=S3- 
 
 SCOTT, Social Education, chaps, iii-viii. 
 SHAW, Some Experiments in Self-Organized Group Work; Soc. 
 
 Educ. Quar., i: 16. 
 SMITH, Self-Government in Public Schools; Atlantic Monthly, 
 
 Nov., 1908:675-678. 
 
 STRAYER, Brief Course in the Teaching Process, 160-161. 
 SOME Plans for Student Cooperation in School Government; 
 
 Educ. Rev., 37: 519 ff. 
 THOMPSON, Self-Government in School and College; Soc. Educ. 
 
 Quar., i: 41. 
 
 THURBER, High School Government; School Review, 5:32-35. 
 TUCKER, Government in the High School; Education, Sep.- 
 
 Nov. 1904: i-n, 81-89, 151-162. 
 UNWIN, Education in the Garden City; Journal of Education, 
 
 37:821-823. 
 WARFIELD, Student Cooperation in College Government; 
 
 N. E. A., 1894:816. 
 WHITNEY, Student Advisors as an Administrative Device in 
 
 High Schools; School Review, Jan. 12, 1904:3-10. 
 
 VTII. Discipline and Conduct; Instruction in Ethics 
 
 ADDAMS, The Spirit of Youth and the City Street. 
 BUISSON, Education of the Will; Report U. S. Commissioner of 
 Educ., 1901-2, 1:721-740.
 
 310 APPENDIX I 
 
 DEWEY, Ethical Principles Underlying Education. 
 
 Moral Principles of Education. 
 
 My Pedagogic Creed. 
 
 School and Society. 
 
 GRIGGS, Moral Education, chaps, xviii, xix. 
 HARRIS, The Relation of School Discipline to Moral Education; 
 
 Nat. Herbart. Soc. Year Book, 1897, iii: 58. 
 LAURIE, Authority in Relation to Discipline. (London, 1882.) 
 MYERS, Moral Training in the School; Fed. Sem., xiii; 409-460. 
 O'SHEA, Social Development and Education, 265-272. 
 RAYMONT, Principles of Education. 
 
 Moral Aspects of Training. 
 
 RUGH et al., Moral Training in the Public Schools. 
 SADLER, (ed.) Moral Instruction and Training in Schools, i. 
 SISSON, The Essentials of Character, chap. xi. 
 SPILLER, Report on Moral Instruction and on Moral Training, 
 chap. ii. 
 
 IX. Habit Formation 
 
 BATR, The Practice Curve; Psychological Review, Monograph 
 
 Supplement No. 19, (1902): 1-70. 
 BAWDEN, Study of Lapses; Psychological Review, Monograph 
 
 Supplement, iii, No. 4, pp. 1-122. 
 BRADLEY, Work and Play, chap. vi. 
 GANNETT, Blessed be Drudgery. (New York, 1886.) 
 GROOS, Play of Man. 
 
 Play of Animals. 
 
 HALLECK, Education of the Central Nervous System, 222-237. 
 HINSDALE, Art of Study, 177-181. 
 JAMES, Principles of Psychology, i, chap, iv; also in Briefer 
 
 Course. 
 
 Talks to Teachers, chap. viii. 
 JOHNSON, Experiments on Motor-Education; Studies from the 
 
 Yale Psychology Laboratory, series i, vol. x, pp. 81 ff. 
 JUDD, Relation of Special Training to General Intelligence; 
 
 Educ. Rev., ix, pp. 28-42. 
 
 KIRKPATRICK, Fundamentals of Child-Study, 186-350. 
 OPPENHEIM, Mental Growth and Control, chap. vii.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 311 
 
 PYLE, Outlines of Educational Psychology, chaps, x, xi, xii. 
 SISSON, Essentials of Character, chap. iv. 
 STOUT, Analytical Psychology, i, 258-269. 
 SULLY, The Human Mind, ii, chap, xviii. 
 THORNDIKE, Principles of Teaching, 222-6. 
 
 Elements of Psychology, chaps, xiii and xix. 
 TTTCHENER, Outlines of Psychology, chap. x. 
 WHITE, Art of Teaching, chaps, i, ii, iii, vii. 
 
 X. Formal Discipline 
 
 ANGELL, The Doctrine of Formal Discipline in the Light of the 
 Principles of General Psychology; Educ. Rev., June, 1908. 
 
 BAIN, Education as a Science, 139-42, 366-73. 
 
 BAGLEY, Educational Values, 180-215. 
 
 BAKER, Educational Values; N. E. A., 1895: 197-203. 
 
 BENNETT, Formal Discipline; Thesis for Doctorate, Columbia, 
 1905. 
 
 COLVIN, Some Facts in Partial Justification of the So-Called 
 Dogma of Formal Discipline; University of Illinois School 
 of Education, Bulletin No. 2. 
 
 COOVER and ANGELL, General Practice Effect of Special Exer- 
 cise; Amer. Jour, of Psychology, 1907, 328 ff. 
 
 HANUS, Educational Aims and Educational Values, chap. i. 
 
 HECK, Mental Discipline and Educational Values. 
 
 HENDERSON, A Textbook in the Principles of Education, 283- 
 
 317- 
 HINSDALE, The Dogma of Formal Discipline; Educ. Rev., Sep. 
 
 1894. N. E. A., 1894, 625-635. 
 
 Studies in Education, 44-61. 
 
 HORNE, Psychological Principles of Education, chap. vi. 
 LEWIS, A Study in Formal Discipline; School Review, xiii: 281- 
 
 292 (1905). 
 
 MONROE, A Textbook in the History of Education, 505-532. 
 O'SffEA, Education as Adjustment, 246-283. 
 THORNDIKE, Educational Psychology, chap. viii. 
 TOMPKINS, Philosophy of Teaching, 265-267. 
 YOCUM, Culture, Discipline and Democracy. 
 YOUMANS, Culture Demanded by Modern Life, 1-56.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 1 
 
 CHAPTER I The Place and Work of the School in Modern Life 
 
 1. What is your justification of the American school system? 
 
 2. What are the social institutions of modern life? The 
 
 function of each? Of which ones are you a part? 
 
 3. What purposes does the school serve in the training of 
 
 children? The home? The church? 
 
 4. What is the basis of the authority of the school? 
 
 5. Can a parent grant or deny to a teacher the right to punish 
 
 his child? 
 
 6. Distinguish plainly the part of school and of church in the 
 
 ethical training of children. 
 
 7. What agencies help in establishing friendly and helpful 
 
 relations between home and school? 
 
 CHAPTER II The Modes of School Government 
 
 1. Name the five modes of control in the order of their de- 
 
 velopment. 
 
 2. Why did early schoolmasters demand obedience without 
 
 questioning their right to demand it? 
 
 3. Is it still justifiable? Is it the best mode to use? When? 
 
 4. What is meant by "socially untrained" people? Have 
 
 you any in your school? In your community? 
 
 5. What mode is used in the training of animals? Why? 
 
 6. What are usually the results of giving unlimited freedom to 
 
 those not used to it? Give an example from school 
 life. 
 
 x The questions given are intended, not only to test the thoroughness 
 with which the text is read and the understanding of its content, but 
 also to stimulate new thought and further research into the questions 
 discussed.
 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 313 
 
 7. Suppose a pupil suddenly becomes ungovernably angry in 
 
 school. If he begins to throw books and ink-bottles at 
 his classmates, what would you do? Why? 
 
 8. When does the method of absolute authority normally 
 
 give way to others? Why? 
 
 9. Is it wrong to do right in the hope of receiving a reward? 
 
 10. What rewards may we rightly set before pupils as incen- 
 
 tives? 
 
 11. Is it wrong to tell the class who stands highest? 
 
 12. What is the highest selfish good for which a student may 
 
 work? 
 
 13. When do pupils begin seriously to consider their own in- 
 
 terest? 
 
 14. What effect has the desire for self-improvement had upon 
 
 the course of study? 
 
 15. Name six aims which self-interest should suggest to the 
 
 student. 
 
 1 6. What is the danger to morals in the emphasis of the mode 
 
 of Personal Influence? 
 
 17. Are the best teachers you know the most influential with 
 
 their pupils? 
 
 1 8. Do teachers who love their pupils have always much influ- 
 
 ence over them? 
 
 19. What is the danger connected with the mode of personal 
 
 influence? 
 
 20. Has a teacher a right to influence a pupil in making decisions? 
 
 21. Does it weaken the will of a child for him to yield to the 
 
 influence of an older person? Of another child? 
 
 22. Can a teacher, even if he wants to, divert the allegiance 
 
 of a pupil from himself to the school or to society? 
 
 23. If a group of boys or of girls have formed a clique which 
 
 ostentatiously excludes one or more pupils, should they 
 be forced to associate with those for whom they do not 
 care? 
 
 24. Have you ever known teachers to influence pupils against 
 
 other teachers? What do these teachers need?
 
 314 APPENDIX H 
 
 CHAPTER III The Modes of School Government (continued) 
 
 1. What is meant by the "Impenetrability of Attention"? 
 
 2. Why do you forbid the eating of apples while pupils are 
 
 studying? Why not have a kitten in the schoolroom? 
 
 3. Why is "busy-work" confined mainly to the lower grades? 
 
 4. Name some good forms of seatwork for children of six, 
 
 nine, and twelve years respectively. 
 
 5. Do the children in your school organize in clubs? For 
 
 what purpose, if so? Do they have officers and dues? 
 
 6. What kind of clubs flourish among the grown people of 
 
 your community? Is there any apparent relation be- 
 tween the children's and their parents' organizations? 
 
 7. Is it a good plan to organize the High School into two rival 
 
 literary societies? Why? 
 
 8. Give four reasons for the occasional failure of High School 
 
 organizations. 
 
 9. What are the objections to fraternities hi the High School? 
 
 10. How would you go about organizing a picture-study club? 
 
 A basket-ball team? A debating society? 
 
 11. Should members of athletic teams be compelled to show 
 
 passing grades in all their studies, or only in a majority? 
 
 12. Why do High School students love to give plays? 
 
 13. What abilities and emotions may be utilized to give health- 
 
 ful employment to the energies of adolescence? 
 
 CHAPTER IV The Modes of School Government (continued) 
 
 1. May the mode of social consciousness be used in the primary 
 
 room? 
 
 2. May it be used with all High School pupils? 
 
 3. What is the first social institution the child meets? The 
 
 next? Another? 
 
 3. Give an example of the change from individual to social 
 aims in a little child. In an older one. 
 
 5. How do children punish each other for unsocial conduct? 
 
 Does it usually effect a reform? 
 
 6. Give four great principles that govern a social institution.
 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 315 
 
 7. Define the four types of school organization which utilize 
 
 the feeling of social obligation in children. 
 
 8. Should privileges, such as citizenship in a school city, be 
 
 granted upon the child's attaining a certain age, or upon 
 his presenting other qualifications? Should every person 
 who attains twenty-one years be a voting citizen of our 
 country? Are girls allowed to vote in school cities and 
 states? 
 
 9. Do children resent the control of other children? Should 
 
 they? Do they resent the control of grown people? 
 
 10. Why does pupil government entail more work on the part 
 
 of teachers? 
 
 11. Is lawlessness lessened when pupils are allowed to make 
 
 their own school regulations? 
 
 CHAPTER V Recent Developments in American Life as they 
 A feet the Question of Discipline 
 
 1. Name five great characteristic influences which have served 
 
 to modify methods of government in American schools. 
 
 2. What proportion of the teachers in your state are women 
 
 today? Fifty years ago? 
 
 3. Is the present tendency toward more, or fewer men teachers? 
 
 4. What bad effects has the feminization of the American 
 
 teaching force had? 
 
 5. Is an interested child always a good child? 
 
 6. What are the good and the bad sides of toleration? Are 
 
 Americans too tolerant? 
 
 7. Do you believe in good comradeship between pupils and 
 
 teachers? To what extent? Is the almost reverential 
 attitude of a German child toward his teacher a good 
 thing? Should it be encouraged in America? 
 
 8. Is the study of Latin and other cultural subjects increasing 
 
 or decreasing in this country? Why? 
 
 9. How have methods of discipline changed in your town or 
 
 district in the last twenty years? The last fifty? For 
 the better?
 
 3i6 APPENDIX II 
 
 CHAPTER VI The Prescription of Disciplinary Activities 
 
 1. What is meant by "Formal Discipline"? 
 
 2. Does mental power come from the mastery of Mathematics 
 
 or Latin? 
 
 3. How? State the general rule upon which our working 
 
 theory is based. 
 
 4. What process must be added to practice to insure mental 
 
 training? 
 
 5. What are "disciplinary activities"? 
 
 6. Their object? 
 
 7. Have we a right to force a child to learn a lesson when he 
 
 does not want to? Can we do it? 
 
 8. Should children be compelled to learn to write, for instance, 
 
 when they greatly dislike to practice the exercises? 
 
 9. What moral right has the State to force children to go to 
 
 school? 
 
 10. What moral right has the State to force a man to clean up 
 
 his back yard or send his children to school? 
 
 11. What habits are prescribed for children in the elementary 
 
 school? 
 
 12. Can unselfishness be prescribed successfully? 
 
 13. If not, is there any kind of prescription which will develop 
 
 unselfishness? 
 
 14. What is meant by "race experience"? 
 
 15. How do courses of study hi schools originate? 
 
 16. Who are the authors of the present conflict with prescribed 
 
 courses of study? Why? 
 
 17. Do the prescribed studies hi your school answer the real 
 
 needs of your pupils? 
 
 18. If not, what need is neglected? What study will answer 
 
 this requirement? 
 
 19. What needs are universal, common to all, of whatever class 
 
 or vocation? 
 
 20. What is the final object of prescription? 
 
 21. Name two applications of the theory of the Right of Pre- 
 
 scription to the question of school discipline. 
 
 22. What are the outcomes of prescription for conduct?
 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 317 
 
 23. If a child has an orange, and refuses to divide it with his 
 
 brother, should he be compelled to do so? Why? 
 
 24. What exercises in your school tend to give control of the 
 
 body? 
 
 25. If a child is really very jealous of another, is it right to 
 
 teach him to conceal this jealousy? Does not the expres- 
 sion of a feeling tend to dissipate it? Does such conceal- 
 ment develop hypocrisy? 
 
 CHAPTER VII The Disciplinary Process 
 
 1. What are the two phases of the disciplinary process? 
 
 2. What is the first requisite for good order? 
 
 3. In what ways does the teacher communicate his ideal to 
 
 his pupils? 
 
 4. What is the most important means of realizing the ideal of 
 
 good conduct? 
 
 5. State the relation of pleasure and pain to habit formation. 
 
 6. State the steps in the process of building a habit. 
 
 7. What is the greatest obstacle to the building of good habits? 
 
 8. Is it possible to cure children of faults of English that they 
 
 have practiced all their lives, and hear daily at home? 
 How? 
 
 9. How would you cure a boy of the habit of expectorating 
 
 upon the floor? Of greeting the mistakes of his class- 
 mates with a horse-laugh? Of slamming doors? 
 
 10. What is the use of teaching moral axioms? 
 
 u. Do you teach your pupils any general principles which will 
 enable them to formulate a plan of action when face to 
 face with a difficult new situation? 
 
 12. How much of the work of your schoolroom may be included 
 
 under the head of discipline in its broadest sense? 
 
 13. How is the word "discipline" used in this book? 
 
 14. What does "formal discipline" mean? 
 
 15. Distinguish the negative and positive phases of school 
 
 discipline. Its constructive, destructive and recon- 
 structive phases. 
 
 16. What is the first requisite for good order? 
 
 17. The next?
 
 318 APPENDIX II 
 
 1 8. Name four methods of establishing the ideal of good order 
 
 in the minds of pupils. 
 
 19. What is the greatest single element in realizing an ideal 
 
 of good order? 
 
 20. Explain the instinctive basis of habit. 
 
 21. How may habits in the forming be encouraged or dis- 
 
 couraged? 
 
 22. When a habit has once been established, may drill cease? 
 
 23. Why are exceptions in a drill-series so harmful? 
 
 24. Why is drill so much more important in the lower grades 
 
 than in the upper? 
 
 25. Why should general principles be taught, if habit is so much 
 
 quicker and surer? 
 
 26. Is it a good thing to allow a child to grow up without know- 
 
 ing anything of the world's greatest evils? Can general 
 principles be given him that will enable him to meet 
 unfamiliar situations wisely? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII The Spirit of the School 
 
 1. What persons contribute to the school spirit? 
 
 2. What else has an influence? 
 
 3. Name the characteristics of a good environment. 
 
 4. May any school have a good spirit? 
 
 5. What is the connection between a soured spirit in a teacher 
 
 and the atmosphere of the school? 
 
 6. Why will not children always respond to love? What 
 
 influences prevent it? 
 
 7. What methods do you use with lazy children? 
 
 8. Suppose a little girl likes to bring her doll to school. Should 
 
 she be allowed to do so? If so, under what conditions? 
 
 9. List the elements that make for school unity. 
 
 10. Has your school a distinctive holiday? How many festi- 
 
 vals do you celebrate in a year? 
 
 11. Why are school gala days celebrated chiefly in the lower 
 
 grades? Have older children lost their taste for good 
 times?
 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 319 
 
 CHAPTER IX An Analysis of Offenses Common in American 
 
 Schools 
 
 1. What is the basis of classification used in making this 
 
 analysis of offenses? Name the seven classes of offenses. 
 
 2. Which of the causes of bad order given may be removed, 
 
 and which, if any, are inevitable? 
 
 3. Which of the causes given are operating in your school? 
 
 4. What means aside from regular lessons do you have for 
 
 fully and wholesomely occupying the time of your pupils? 
 
 5. Do you know of a school in which opposition to the teacher 
 
 seems to be a tradition? How may such a tradition be 
 changed? 
 
 6. Is this tradition the fault of teachers, or does it exist in 
 
 spite of the attitude and work of teachers? 
 
 7. What constitutes a set of ideal conditions so far as phys- 
 
 ical environment is concerned, for your school? What 
 stands in the way of realizing this ideal? 
 
 8. What differences hi treatment from that accorded younger 
 
 children, should be given to adolescents? Have you 
 adolescent pupils hi your school? What books have you 
 read upon this subject? 
 
 9. How may simple tests for hearing and sight be given in an 
 
 ordinary schoolroom? Have you the equipment in your 
 school? 
 
 10. What constitutes a good diet for school children? Are the 
 
 children in your school well fed? 
 
 11. Is a teacher justified in reading a note written in school? 
 
 12. Is a teacher justified in asking one pupil to betray another? 
 
 13. How would you classify the offense of reading cheap, harm- 
 
 ful yellow-back novels in the school-room? Why? 
 
 14. What aid does the law give to teachers in your state in 
 
 fighting the cigarette evil? 
 
 CHAPTER X Punishment 
 
 1. How do you justify the punishment of wrong-doing theo- 
 
 retically? Practically? 
 
 2. What are the three functions of punishment which Saleilles 
 
 gives?
 
 320 APPENDIX H 
 
 3. What have been the motives for punishment as given in 
 
 schools? 
 
 4. What do criminologists mean by "individualization of 
 
 punishment"? 
 
 5. How else may the term be used? 
 
 6. What objects are served in punishing a boy for truancy by 
 
 depriving him of a place on his school ball team? Do 
 you consider this a good punishment? Why? What 
 would have been a better one, if any? 
 
 7. An overgrown, idle boy forced a little girl sitting in front 
 
 of him to show him her paper on examination day, by 
 pinching her arm, and threatening to beat her on the 
 way home if she told the teacher. Would you punish 
 this at once, or delay punishment? How would you 
 punish? Why? Did the little girl deserve punishment 
 for showing the answers? 
 
 8. What class of offenses should be punished at once? 
 
 9. When should punishment be delayed? 
 
 CHAPTER XI Punishment (continued) 
 
 1. What constitutes the undesirability of threats, detention 
 
 after school, tasks, whippings, and nagging, as punish- 
 ments? What other punishments in use do you con- 
 demn? 
 
 2. Discuss Saturation as a method of punishment. 
 
 3. What do you think of scrubbing the mouths of children 
 
 guilty of using bad language? 
 
 4. Where is the use of sarcasm justifiable? Give an example. 
 
 5. What characteristic of school organization forms the basis 
 
 for effective punishment? What instincts also give basis? 
 
 6. State the kinds of punishment recommended by Colgrove. 
 
 7. What two methods are there for dealing with a child who 
 
 refuses to comply with the common requirements for the 
 school? 
 
 8. Is isolation a justifiable remedy? Some educators consider 
 
 it a medieval expedient. Why? 
 
 9. Suppose a punishment fails to reform the offender. Is it 
 
 therefore a failure?
 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 321 
 
 10. What do you think of the punishment of making a child 
 
 stand in the corner? 
 
 11. What privileges do you grant as reward for good behavior 
 
 and work? What privileges are withdrawn for poor 
 conduct? 
 
 12. What constitutes a justification for suspension? For ex- 
 
 pulsion? 
 
 13. Should school boards forbid corporal punishment in schools? 
 
 14. Has the order improved or deteriorated in cities where 
 
 corporal punishment is forbidden, since such prohibition 
 went into effect? 
 
 15. Which forms of corporal punishment are advisable? 
 
 1 6. What forms of punishment are advisable as a substitute for 
 
 corporal punishment? 
 
 CHAPTER XII Preventive Devices 
 
 1. What preventive of bad behavior should the teacher always 
 
 prepare before his school begins? 
 
 2. What are the reasons for not discussing or disclosing the 
 
 punishment for mischief with the children? 
 
 3. How may a teacher increase the respect for himself where 
 
 the community treats him slightingly? 
 
 4. Should a teacher, when appealed to to settle a controversy, 
 
 decline to do so? 
 
 5. Suppose you disagree with your chief on any point of school 
 
 policy. What is your duty? 
 
 6. Has a teacher a right to forbid gum-chewing upon the 
 
 school grounds? The smoking of cigarettes? 
 
 7. Is it right to ask a pupil to be good for the sake of 
 
 the teacher? What evil is liable to grow out of this 
 policy? 
 
 8. Should there be a regular period for the study of Ethics? 
 
 9. Name Baldwin's nine factors of successful discipline. 
 
 10. What should be the range of pitch of a good schoolroom 
 
 voice in a man? In a woman? 
 n. Do you enunciate clearly? Does this have anything to do 
 
 with the order of your schoolroom?
 
 322 APPENDIX II 
 
 12. Name the ten types of teachers who fail in discipline. 
 
 Why, in each case? Especially, how does the 8th type of 
 teacher fail? Have you ever noticed that this type of 
 teacher often seems very successful? 
 
 13. Is it possible, as some teachers claim, to assign work which 
 
 will occupy all of the time of pupils? Is it wise to do it? 
 
 14. What pupil-officers could advantageously be used in your 
 
 school? 
 
 15. Have you known pupils to decline to perform duties about 
 
 the schoolroom and school premises? What was the 
 reason? How may such an attitude be changed? 
 
 1 6. How much home time may be fairly asked of pupils in the 
 
 different grades? When may teachers begin to ask for 
 home time for school work? 
 
 17. Do your pupils like the standard studies, such as grammar 
 
 and arithmetic? Do you have time to make them 
 interesting? Do you like them yourself? 
 
 1 8. Have you changed your opinion about any study that you 
 
 disliked as a child? Why? Does this give you any 
 hint about teaching? 
 
 19. Why are cooking, manual training, and sewing so popular? 
 
 20. Explain the two kinds of weariness. 
 
 21. Give four reasons for lack of interest in lessons. 
 
 22. Is the dulness of lessons an excuse for not learning them? 
 
 23. If you make every effort to interest children in the work 
 
 and do not succeed, what may be the reasons? 
 
 24. Is it true that "plain Duty has gone out of fashion"? 
 
 25. Can you blame a boy for refusing to study that which has 
 
 no appeal whatever for him? 
 
 CHAPTER XIII Corrective Devices Founded upon the Mode of 
 Absolute Authority 
 
 1. Is the keeping of a record of time lost by pupils who leave 
 
 the room, a remedy for the abuse of this privilege in itself? 
 
 2. Should the teacher mentioned in the story of the contest 
 
 for a picnic, have allowed the losing side to attend the 
 picnic? Why?
 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 323 
 
 3. Does the teacher have a right to know what pupils say in 
 
 whispering in school, or in writing notes? Why? 
 
 4. Is the absolute prohibition of whispering wise? Is it com- 
 
 mon in good schools now? 
 
 5. From the list of successive steps to be followed by teachers 
 
 in the Jena school, make out one for American teachers. 
 Which steps do you omit, and why? 
 
 6. Make out a similar list of steps to be used in correcting a 
 
 child for wilful idleness. 
 
 7. Is a teacher bound to listen to a child who is impertinent? 
 
 8. Why is it wise to keep a written record of misbehavior? 
 
 9. Make out a sample page of a pupil's record book. 
 
 10. Why should correspondence between parents and teachers 
 
 pass through the principal's office? 
 
 11. Has the school board a right to make a set of rules for the 
 
 school? Why? Is this a wise measure to take? 
 
 12. Is a bad rule better broken than kept? 
 
 CHAPTER XIV Corrective Devices Founded upon the Mode of 
 Personal Influence 
 
 1. What light has Judge Lindsey's work thrown upon the 
 
 "Boy Problem"? 
 
 2. Do all teachers who want to be the friends of their pupils 
 
 succeed in establishing friendly relations? 
 
 3. Do very popular teachers usually make good friends of 
 
 pupils? 
 
 4. What characteristics in teachers prevent or destroy the 
 
 confidence of pupils? 
 
 5. When a child is allowed to attend classes and engage in 
 
 school activities on parole, should the other children 
 know his position? 
 
 6. What motives appeal most strongly to children of any given 
 
 age, as reasons for good conduct? 
 
 7. Is motivated effort as effective as habit? Is it as economi- 
 
 cal? 
 
 8. What institutions may take the place of the home in sup- 
 
 plying motives for industry and good conduct, for those 
 children whose homes do not give such motives?
 
 324 APPENDIX II 
 
 9. Have you found "moral suasion" an effective means of 
 control? 
 
 10. Why did not Sam's teacher try to arouse an ambition in 
 
 him to become a lawyer or a teacher? 
 
 11. Is vocational guidance one of the teacher's functions? 
 
 12. Does the choice of a vocation have any marked effect upon 
 
 the conduct of pupils? 
 
 13. Should a teacher endeavor to influence the opinions of his 
 
 pupils upon questions of politics? Of reform? Suppose 
 the reform issues have broken into politics? 
 
 Disciplinary Devices Founded upon the Appeal to Personal Interest 
 
 1. What are some of the personal gains which may be used as 
 
 incentives for good conduct in school? 
 
 2. Do you believe in giving prizes? Why? 
 
 3. Are money prizes intrinsically wrong? 
 
 4. Name five classes of incentives. 
 
 5. What three classes of positive incentives does Bagley give? 
 
 6. Is it wrong to give the position of valedictorian to the 
 
 graduate having the best record? 
 
 7. In the larger life outside the school, do honors and prizes 
 
 go to the brightest and most industrious people? 
 
 8. Are numerical grades a good thing? Why? 
 
 9. Is a school excursion a justifiable incentive for hard work? 
 
 10. Should an examination ever be given as a punishment? 
 
 Why? 
 
 11. List the ways in which the incentive of high character may 
 
 be used. 
 
 12. How would you explain to a child the relation between his 
 
 present behavior and his ultimate character? 
 
 CHAPTER XV Disciplinary Devices (continued) 
 
 1. Is room or school loyalty a good thing? How developed? 
 
 2. Do the pupils of your school feel any pride in the school? 
 
 Is it better than the others of the vicinity in any way? 
 
 3. Are the school children of your county proud of the county 
 
 system? Do they know anything about it? Would any 
 good come of telling them what had been accomplished?
 
 QUESTIONS FOR STUDY 325 
 
 4. Do school fights ever occur between the boys of your school 
 
 and others? Why? 
 
 5. How do you arouse school pride in your pupils? 
 
 6. Distinguish between pupil government and self-government. 
 
 7. Do you have monitors hi your room? What are their 
 
 duties? 
 
 8. Who is responsible for the order and work of the school? 
 
 Can this responsibility be shifted? 
 
 9. Summarize the arguments in favor of pupil-government. 
 10. Also those against it. 
 
 n. What training must precede the delegation of government 
 to students? 
 
 12. What is the best feature of pupil-government? May this 
 
 good be gamed in any other way? 
 
 13. Suggest a practicable and helpful morning exercise program 
 
 for your school. How much time would be needed for 
 its preparation? Can you spare this time? 
 
 CHAPTER XVI The Supervision of Discipline 
 
 1. Should a superintendent assume the final authority in all 
 
 matters of discipline? Why not leave it with the indi- 
 vidual teacher? 
 
 2. What quality in a teacher is most valued as a rule? 
 
 3. May a teacher call upon a principal or superintendent to 
 
 punish a child for her? Is he bound to do it? 
 
 4. What are the four questions which usually show the source 
 
 of trouble when a teacher has poor government? 
 
 5. Where did you get your ideal of school order? 
 
 6. How does it differ from the ideal of order of the generation 
 
 past? Can you imagine a still better one than the one 
 which is now practicable? 
 
 7. What is the cause of the delight that some children take in 
 
 torturing one boy or girl in a school? How can this be 
 dealt with? 
 
 8. Is the rule of the majority a righteous rule? Suppose a 
 
 teacher faces a school which has decided that it will do as 
 it pleases? Can the school ever be really a democracy? 
 Does this show that the principle of democracy is wrong?
 
 326 APPENDIX II 
 
 9. Has a pupil a right to appeal a case of injustice, or of what 
 he thinks is injustice, to the principal? What should 
 the principal do? 
 
 10. Should a superintendent ever mix in the political affairs of 
 
 the town which he serves? 
 
 11. Is your school properly supervised? If not, can you think 
 
 of a scheme to improve matters?
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 BLANK FORMS FOR USE IN SECURING AND 
 MAINTAINING GOOD ORDER 
 
 I. IN TOWN OR CITY SCHOOL SYSTEMS 
 Forms utilizing the positive incentive of reward of merit 
 
 CERTIFICATE OF MEMBERSHIP 
 
 Public School No. 73, Brooklyn, New York 
 
 Punctual and Regular Club 
 
 This certifies that has been punctual and regular 
 
 in attendance in this school during the term beginning 
 
 19. . .and ending 19. . .and is, therefore, a 
 
 Member of the Punctual and Regular Club of Public School No. 
 73. Membership in this club continues as long as a pupil is 
 neither late in, nor absent from, this school. 
 
 Given under our hands and seal this day of 
 
 19... 
 
 Class Teacher. 
 
 WILLIAM JOHN MORRISON, Principal. 
 
 "Character and worth are the highest expressions of personality." 
 
 CERTIFICATE OF MEMBERSHIP 
 Public School No. 73, Brooklyn, New York 
 
 The Self and School Improvement League 
 This certifies that of the grade was punc- 
 tual, regular in attendance, industrious, persevering, studious, 
 
 trustworthy, and courteous, during the term ending , 
 
 19 . . . , and is, therefore, a member of The Self and School Improve- 
 ment League of this school. Membership in this league is gained
 
 328 APPENDIX III 
 
 by meritorious effort, good work, excellent conduct, punctuality 
 and regularity during the term. 
 
 Given under our hands and seal this day of 
 
 19... 
 
 Class Teacher. 
 
 WILLIAM J. MORRISON, Principal. 
 
 3 
 
 OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL OF PUBLIC SCHOOL NUMBER 73 
 To Whom It May Concern: 
 
 We take pleasure in recommending 
 
 who has been a pupil in this school for years and was 
 
 graduated 19 has been punctual, regular 
 
 in attendance, industrious and successful in h . . . work, trust- 
 worthy and courteous. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Teachers. 
 It gives me great pleasure to endorse these statements. 
 
 Principal. 
 
 Forms utilizing the negative incentive of reporting poor work 
 or behavior 
 
 1 
 
 Public School 73, McDougal St., Brooklyn 
 
 19.... 
 
 M 
 
 Dear 
 
 failed to bring in the written home work in 
 
 assigned for today. Will you please see that this work is made 
 up and not neglected in the future? 
 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 Please sign and return to 
 
 WILLIAM J. MORRISON, Principal.
 
 BLANK FORMS 329 
 
 2 
 
 Public School 73, McDougal St., Brooklyn 
 
 19-... 
 
 M.. 
 
 Dear 
 
 We infer from class work that is neglecting 
 
 home study. Not more than one hour a day is required, and if 
 full time be devoted to conscientious study, satisfactory results 
 are quite sure to follow. Will you please cooperate with us by 
 giving h . . . . the opportunity for study and seeing that the time 
 is used for that purpose. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 Please sign and return to 
 
 WILLIAM J. MORRISON, Principal. 
 
 3 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
 
 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 Office: Park avenue and spth street 
 
 New York 
 
 Public School No Borough of 
 
 New York, 19 .... 
 
 Mr 
 
 Dear 
 
 During the past your of class 
 
 has been deficient in the following particulars: 
 
 . Principal. 
 . Parent.
 
 33 APPENDIX III 
 
 4 
 
 Public School 73, 
 Rockaway ave. and McDougal st., 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 M.. 
 
 Dear 
 
 I am sorry to inform you that has been late 
 
 ( month 
 
 times this: ~( term 
 
 v week 
 
 By seeing that he is punctual in the future, you will oblige, 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 Please sign and return to 
 
 WILLIAM J. MORRISON, Principal. 
 
 Public School No. 73, 
 
 Brooklyn 19. ... 
 
 Mr 
 
 Dear Sir or Madam: 
 
 It is a matter of much regret that you must be informed of 
 
 the continued and gross misconduct of your child 
 
 in the .... grade does not respond to suggestions 
 
 and mild treatment, consequently more rigorous methods must 
 
 be employed. As is on the verge of suspension, 
 
 will you kindly call at the school to consult with the principal 
 before this extreme step becomes necessary? 
 
 Sincerely believing that you do not approve of, or uphold 
 
 in behavior, and that you will cooperate 
 
 with us in matters pertaining to the welfare of your child, I am, 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Principal. 
 
 Kindly sign and return.
 
 BLANK FORMS 331 
 
 6 
 
 Concordia, Iowa, 19 
 
 M.. 
 
 My dear 
 
 We regret to inform you that your , 
 
 has grown poorer instead of better in .... work during the past 
 and also that 
 
 We feel sure that you regret this as much as we, and that you 
 will cooperate with us in locating the trouble and correcting 
 this condition of affairs. Please come at your earliest con- 
 venience to the office of the principal for a conference. 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 ........................ Teacher. 
 
 ........................ Principal. 
 
 7 
 
 Room ................ 
 
 ...................... offended today by 
 
 I dealt with the offense by 
 
 .... is .... restored to full relations with the school. 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 8 
 
 Concordia, Iowa, 19 
 
 M. 
 
 My dear 
 
 Today your , , was guilty of 
 
 and was punished by 
 
 Principal.
 
 332 APPENDIX III 
 
 For Use in High School Administration 
 
 1 
 
 CONCORDIA HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 19.... 
 
 has done very poor work in my class for the 
 
 past I recommend that be excused from all 
 
 work outside regular class exercises until the work lost has been 
 made up and .... daily class recitations improve. 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 (Class in ) 
 
 2 
 
 CONCORDIA HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 19.... 
 
 This is to certify that has done good work in my 
 
 class in for the past two weeks, and may there- 
 fore play on the team. 
 
 Teacher, 
 
 3 
 
 CONCORDIA HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 19.... 
 
 This is to certify that the record of 
 
 both in scholarship and behavior, has been such during the past 
 
 that .... is recommended for nomination for 
 
 the honor of being 
 
 Principal. 
 
 4 
 
 EXCUSE SLIP 
 
 191- 
 
 Name 
 
 Time 
 
 Cause 
 
 Came home at 
 
 Parent. 
 
 (To be filled out by pupil and later signed and returned by parent.)
 
 BLANK FORMS 333 
 
 5 
 
 Los ANGELES CITY HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 
 Blank for Lost Articles or Books 
 
 Classroom Date 
 
 Name 
 
 Book or Article 
 
 Lost when 
 
 Lost where 
 
 If book, private mark 
 
 If article, description 
 
 Found when 
 
 6 
 
 No Los Angeles, Cal., 191 ... 
 
 FINDER'S RECEIPT 
 L. A. P. H. S. 1 Custodian Committee 
 
 Received from C. R the following 
 
 lost articles, to be returned to finder if not called for in 
 
 days: 
 
 Date of disposal Custodian Committee, L.A.P.H.S. 
 
 Sig. of Finder By 
 
 Committeeman 
 
 7 
 
 PERMIT, GENERAL 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal., 191 . . . 
 
 of Classroom has 
 
 permission to 
 
 8 
 
 OFFICE SUMMONS 
 
 Classroom No 
 
 Please send the following to me at vacant periods: 
 
 1 Los Angeles Polytechnic High School.
 
 334 APPENDIX III 
 
 9 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL OFFICE NOTICE TO CLASS TEACHER 
 has reported 
 
 Time. 
 Date. 
 
 10 
 
 POLYTECHNIC HIGH SCHOOL 
 Office Excuse 
 
 detained in the office 
 
 period. 
 
 Time 
 
 Date. . 
 
 11 
 
 OFFICE REQUEST FOR PUPIL'S RECORD 
 
 Please give me record of the following: 
 
 12 
 
 NOTICE TO DELINQUENTS 
 
 191- ' 
 
 Class, Room 
 
 Please report at on in room 
 
 . . without fail. 
 
 Signer's Teacher: If pupil is absent, please return this slip to 
 P. 0. Box.
 
 BLANK FORMS 335 
 
 13 
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT CARD 
 
 Class of Course 
 
 Called before Committee on 191 .... 
 
 for 
 
 Action taken 
 
 Reinstated on condition 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 14 
 
 A set of rubber stamps kept on the teacher's or principal's 
 desk, by which the appraisal or disposal of all ordinary cases 
 may be quickly indicated, will help greatly in the dispatch of 
 school business. Among them are these: 
 
 This work is below the average of the class. 
 
 Please sign and return. Teacher. 
 
 EXCUSED BY PERMISSION 
 
 UNSATISFACTORY 
 HOME WORK EVERY NIGHT 
 
 The above explanation is entirely satisfactory. 
 
 This child's work has been unsatisfactory for 
 some time. Unless there is a decided improve- 
 ment the pupil is not likely to be promoted at 
 the end of the term. 
 
 Please sign and return to 
 
 Teacher. 1 
 
 1 The value of such notices can scarcely be overestimated. One 
 standing complaint of parents is that they are not informed of the poor 
 work or behavior of their children until it is too late to find an effective 
 remedy. The reason is usually that the teacher is so overworked that 
 he cannot find time to make a visit at the home or write a note. The 
 frequent suggestion of the ready blank, and the ease with which it may 
 be filled out and sent, will help to keep parents informed of the prog- 
 ress of their children, or the lack of it. Such notices should as a rule 
 be sent through the mail.
 
 336 APPENDIX III 
 
 II. IN COUNTRY SCHOOL SYSTEMS 
 
 It is generally recognized that the lack of adequate super- 
 vision is perhaps the chief cause of the poor condition of our 
 American country schools. The existing officers preside over 
 districts too large, having often means of transportation too 
 limited, to permit of really effective supervision. In many 
 places precedent for any kind of real oversight is entirely want- 
 ing. In others the clerical work incident to the office of county 
 superintendent takes practically all his time. New and better 
 schemes of administration are being used in some parts of 
 the country, and additional officers are securing better results 
 than were formerly possible. Much, however, can be done by 
 requiring more frequent and more detailed reports than have 
 been given in the past. Forms for such reports are given below. 
 
 1 
 
 MONTHLY REPORT OF ORDER AND BEHAVIOR IN DISTRICT 
 No. . . . , CLAY COUNTY 
 
 General condition of school order and discipline .............. 
 
 No. of cases of corporal punishment, if any ..... Suspension .... 
 
 Expulsion ........ Cases referred to School Board ........ 
 
 Report of serious cases of school discipline: 
 
 Name of Pupil ........................................... 
 
 Cause ........ ........................................... 
 
 Treatment ............................................... 
 
 Result ................................................... 
 
 Position of Board with regard to teacher's authority .......... 
 
 Do you want help from the Superintendent? ................. 
 
 Written advice, or a personal visit? ......................... 
 
 To what do you attribute your trouble, if any exists? ......... 
 
 ............... Teacher. 
 
 Note. Report additional cases of discipline in the manner 
 indicated, on the back of this paper. Do not neglect to report 
 any serious case; you will not be considered a poor teacher for 
 trying to improve conditions, but for ignoring them or con-
 
 BLANK FORMS 337 
 
 cealing them. Write additional details if they should be re- 
 ported. 
 
 Superintendent. 
 
 Such a report as the foregoing will be found helpful in ascer- 
 taining the true condition of affairs in sections of the country 
 where there is known to be much trouble with discipline. It 
 enables the supervising officer to locate specific cases, to give 
 his personal attention to them if necessary while they are still 
 recent offenses, and to find out where weak teachers, cowardly 
 school boards, and communities of low standards exist. Where 
 disciplinary trouble is not so prevalent, the following report, 
 sent immediately after the event, may be more helpful; or this 
 report may be used to supplement the monthly report, or to give 
 notice of cases that require immediate help. 
 
 2 
 
 REPORT or SPECIAL DISCIPLINE IN DISTRICT No , 
 
 CLAY COUNTY 
 
 Act which occasioned the trouble 
 
 Name or names of pupils implicated 
 
 Method of dealing with offense 
 
 Result 
 
 Present status of offending pupil or pupils 
 
 Did you report this case to your school board? 
 
 What action, if any, did they take? 
 
 Did you report this case to the parents of the offender? 
 
 Result? 
 
 In what way can the Superintendent help you? 
 
 Remarks 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 I9--.- 
 
 Sometimes it is very helpful for a county officer to have 
 reports from the local boards, where such exist; and this is 
 especially the case where there is a suspicion that the fault lies 
 with the teacher. In any case it gives to the supervisor another 
 view of the situation than the teacher's, and so helps him to 
 know his problem better. The following form is intended for
 
 338 APPENDIX III 
 
 occasional use, but could easily be changed into a monthly 
 report where the conditions are bad enough to warrant such, or 
 the boards energetic enough to send it. 
 
 REPORT OF SPECIAL DISCIPLINE IN DISTRICT No. . . 
 CLAY COUNTY 
 
 Name of teacher in this district 
 
 Length of h .... service 
 
 Date of present case of discipline 
 
 Name of offender or offenders 
 
 Nature of offense 
 
 Teacher's treatment of offense 
 
 Result 
 
 What mistake did the teacher make, if any, and why?. 
 
 What is the success of this teacher as a disciplinarian? ........ 
 
 Are there special conditions in your district which make disci- 
 pline difficult? ........................................ 
 
 What is the past record of the present offender? .............. 
 
 Does the family of the offender uphold him in his conduct? ..... 
 
 What action has the Board taken in this case? ............... 
 
 ............... Clerk of Board. 
 
 An annual report from each district, in counties where there 
 is little trouble, will enable a supervisor to ascertain which are 
 the weak or unfortunate districts in his territory, and perhaps 
 also help in indicating weak and strong teachers. Such reports 
 tend also to set a standard of good behavior, and give a strong 
 incentive for its realization. If an honor roll of schools in 
 which no bad behavior has been reported during the year be 
 established in connection with the reports, the immediate in- 
 centive will be stronger; but it may also militate against honesty 
 in reporting trouble, and should be used only after careful 
 consideration of conditions and needs.
 
 BLANK FORMS 
 
 339 
 
 ANNUAL REPORT OF ORDER AND DISCIPLINE IN DISTRICT No. 
 , CLAY COUNTY 
 
 General Conditions 
 
 Specific cases of 
 corporal punishment 
 
 Specific cases re- 
 ported to parents 
 
 Specific cases re- 
 ported to Board 
 
 Suspensions 
 Expulsions 
 
 Greatest problem 
 (with regard to order) 
 
 Attitude of Board 
 
 Attitude of commu- 
 nity 
 
 Effort to arouse or 
 improve school spirit 
 
 Effort to arouse or 
 improve community 
 spirit 
 
 For the 
 Year 
 
 .19. 
 
 .Teacher
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abnormal s, authority for ig 
 
 temporary 20 
 
 Absolute authority, mode of 14 
 
 devices for. . .210 
 
 Acquisitiveness 264 
 
 Action, stimuli to 36 
 
 Adler, Felix 7 
 
 Administration of high school 
 
 activities 48 
 
 Adolescence, guidance in 34 
 
 rewards in 24 
 
 ambition in 51 
 
 Air in schoolrooms 129 
 
 Alcohol 157 
 
 Altruism 294 
 
 Analysis of motives for conduct . . . 295 
 of schoolroom situations . 287 
 
 Animals in school 148 
 
 "Appropriate" punishments 185 
 
 Aristotle 86 
 
 Arney, General W. F. M 35 
 
 Arnold, Felix 184, 219 
 
 Assignments, bearing upon in- 
 terest 229 
 
 Association and ambition 51 
 
 Attention 35 
 
 Bad odors in school 148 
 
 Baden-Powell, Sir George 31 
 
 Bagley, W. C 63, 98, 100, 260 
 
 Baldwin, J 216 
 
 Beauty in school environment. ... 112 
 
 Boyce, A. C 285 
 
 Brownlee, Jane 60, 215 
 
 Busywork 36 
 
 Ceremony 49 
 
 Character development 265 
 
 Charter for school city, reference 
 
 to .63 
 
 Cheating 146 
 
 Civilization 53 
 
 Cocaine 158 
 
 Colgrove, C. P 186, 187, 216 
 
 Comfort in school 112 
 
 Committee pupil-government 66 
 
 Community, influence of 135 
 
 work of teachers. . . .257 
 
 Complaint book 241 
 
 Conduct, affected by constant 
 
 choice 27 
 
 evaluation of 255 
 
 motivation of 252 
 
 Consequences, immediate and de- 
 layed 173 
 
 Contagion of success 252 
 
 Corporal punishment 197 
 
 Correlation, bearing upon interest. 2 29 
 
 of ideals 96 
 
 Crude manners, offenses of 159 
 
 Cultural ideal 78 
 
 Curriculums, nature of 4 
 
 affected by hope of reward .... 25 
 
 Democracy and discipline 77 
 
 in high schools 41 
 
 Detention after school 182 
 
 Devotional exercises 280 
 
 Dexter, E. G 128 
 
 Diaz, Porfirio 31 
 
 Disobedience 126 
 
 Dressier, F. B 131 
 
 Drugs 157 
 
 Elson and Bachman 242 
 
 Environment, influence of in 
 
 Equipment, bearing upon interest. 2 28 
 
 Examinations 263 
 
 Expiation 165 
 
 Expulsion 196 
 
 Faculty control of self-govern- 
 ment 59 
 
 Failure in teaching 219
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fat children 292 
 
 Fatigue, false and true 226 
 
 Feminizat ion of schools 74 
 
 Fighting 137 
 
 Formal discipline 81 
 
 Francis W. Parker School 277 
 
 Gambling 146 
 
 Gang loyalty 30, 138 
 
 George, W. R 31 
 
 George Junior Republic 63 
 
 German schools 17 
 
 Good-nature in school 1 14 
 
 Grades 262 
 
 Habit forming 84, 100 
 
 Hall, G. Stanley 141 
 
 Harris, Leo 246 
 
 Hazing 155 
 
 Helping teachers with discipline. .297 
 
 Heroin 158 
 
 High schools, organizations in 38 
 
 Holmes, Dr. O. W 16 
 
 Horseplay 161 
 
 Ideal of order 94, 288 
 
 Imitation, offenses of 139, 151 
 
 Immigrant children 18 
 
 Impudence 160, 240 
 
 Impenetrability of attention and 
 
 interest 35 
 
 Inattention in class 239 
 
 Incentives 260 
 
 Indignities, personal 183 
 
 Indi visualization of punishment. . 169 
 
 Insanitary school premises 129 
 
 Interest, a basis for organization ... 43 
 
 and discipline 224 
 
 Doctrine of 75, 227 
 
 Intrinsic appeal of busywork 37 
 
 Instinct and habit 98 
 
 Instincts, classified 100 
 
 Isolation as a punishment. 55, 187, 236 
 
 James, William 220, 230 
 
 Jena Practice School 239 
 
 John Crerar School 61 
 
 Jones, Henry, story of 201 
 
 Joy in school life 117 
 
 Judgment in conduct 106 
 
 Juvenile courts 249 
 
 Kindergarten children 230 
 
 Kirkpatrick, E. A 100 
 
 Lagrange School 60 
 
 Lapses in habit series 103 
 
 Lawlessness 152 
 
 Leadership in high schools 52 
 
 Leaving the room 233 
 
 Library rules in high schools 239 
 
 Light in schoolrooms 129 
 
 Lindsey, Judge Ben 249 
 
 Los Angeles, 3Oth Street School 65 
 
 Polytechnic High School. .65 
 
 Loyalty, class or room 268 
 
 Lying 141 
 
 McKinley High School 48 
 
 Malnutrition 134 
 
 Manhattan, School No. 3 62 
 
 Marching 283 
 
 Mental discipline 84 
 
 Minneapolis Schoolmasters' Club. 121 
 Misdirected energy, offenses of . . . 121 
 
 Monitors 272 
 
 Morality and religion n 
 
 Morning exercises 277 
 
 Motivation of school work 37 
 
 of high school work ... 39 
 of conduct 252, 291 
 
 New Paltz Normal School 62 
 
 Note-writing 122 
 
 Obedience 117 
 
 Obscenity 133, 155 
 
 Offner, Max 230 
 
 Organizations in high schools 38 
 
 administration of 48 
 
 membership in 45 
 
 nature of 44 
 
 Outcomes of discipline 89 
 
 Parochial schools 216 
 
 Parole system 251 
 
 Pennants for attendance 269 
 
 Perry, A. C 7, 98, 198 
 
 Personal influence, mode of 28 
 
 devices for. . . .214 
 
 Persecuting impulse 293 
 
 Perverted ideals, offenses of 135 
 
 Philips, W. L 271
 
 342 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Physical conditions, offenses of. . .128 
 
 Pillsbury, W. B 230 
 
 Play-spirit, growth of 119 
 
 Plutarch 34 
 
 Positive and negative discipline .... 92 
 
 Pre-eminence 261 
 
 Privileges 100, 262 
 
 Prize-giving 250 
 
 Profanity 155 
 
 Psychology of Wholesome Reple- 
 tion 49 
 
 Punishment, sureness of 23 
 
 history of 164 
 
 motives for. . . . 165, 168 
 
 for prevention 167 
 
 for reformation 168 
 
 Pupil government 272 
 
 types of 58 
 
 Race accomplishment 3 
 
 Race experience and prescription . . 85 
 
 Ray system 61 
 
 Record books for pupils 242 
 
 Rein, Dr. W 222, 239 
 
 Reminders 250 
 
 Reports to parents 189 
 
 Resentful resistance, offenses of . . .124 
 
 Restitution 194 
 
 Retaliation 165 
 
 Rewards, hope of 21 
 
 delayed and subjective .... 22, 24 
 
 of social conduct 54 
 
 Ridicule 153, 186 
 
 Riley, J. W 246 
 
 Robinson, Mary C no 
 
 Roman worship 27 
 
 Routine in school work 291, 299 
 
 Ruediger, W. C 82 
 
 Ruediger and Strayer 285 
 
 Rules 244 
 
 Saleilles, S. F. R 169 
 
 Sarcasm 186 
 
 Saturation 184 
 
 School, functions of 2,4 
 
 requirements made of 5 
 
 and the state 6 
 
 and parents 7 
 
 and the child 10 
 
 and the church 1 1 
 
 spirit 77, 113 
 
 School, strikes 156 
 
 its benevolent despotism. .212 
 
 officers 222 
 
 lunch 227 
 
 hierarchy 243 
 
 Self-improvement of pupils 264 
 
 Sensationalism 147 
 
 Service ideal 276 
 
 Shielding evil-doers 140 
 
 Shyness 52 
 
 Social aims, prescription of 85 
 
 Social consciousness, mode of 53 
 
 Socialization 30 
 
 Spencer, Herbert 173 
 
 Stealing 144 
 
 Strayer, G. D 275 
 
 Student scholarship committee .... 68 
 
 Sully, James 260 
 
 Supervisor's duty in discipline .... 286 
 Suspension 195 
 
 Tasks as punishment 179 
 
 Temperature 128 
 
 Textbook evil 228 
 
 Thomas, A. 301 
 
 Threats 178 
 
 Thurber, C. H 65 
 
 Tobacco 157 
 
 Todd, A. J 9 
 
 Toleration 76 
 
 Tompkins, Arnold 120, 141, 255 
 
 Tongue-lashing 206 
 
 Truancy 126 
 
 Ultimate authority, appeal to .... 201 
 
 Uncontrolled temper 266 
 
 Unity in the school 119 
 
 Unsocial conduct, results of 55 
 
 Untrained moral judgment, of- 
 fenses of 135 
 
 Vandalism 124, 160 
 
 Visiting schools 94 
 
 Walks, need of 130 
 
 Warren, Pa., High School 65 
 
 Whispering 122, 235 
 
 Wholesome repletion, mode of 35 
 
 devices for 221 
 
 Work, spirit of 115 
 
 Worth-while, inspiration of the . . . 116
 
 ue, 
 
 
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