The Teacher. Jacob Abbott
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all were down. In such a case the pupils might, if thought expedient, again be requested to rise for the purpose of asking some other questions with reference to ascertaining whether they had spoken most in the former or latter part of the forenoon. The number who had spoken inadvertently, and the number who had done it by design, might be ascertained. These inquiries accustom the pupils to render honest and faithful accounts themselves. They become, by such means, familiarized to the practice, and by means of it the teacher can many times receive most important assistance.
In all this, however, the teacher should speak in a pleasant tone, and maintain a pleasant and cheerful air. The acknowledgments should be considered by the pupils not as confessions of guilt for which they are to be rebuked or punished, but as voluntary and free reports of the result of an experiment in which all were interested.
Some will have been dishonest in their reports: to diminish the number of these, the teacher may say, after the report is concluded,
"We will drop the subject here to-day. To-morrow we will make another effort, when we shall be more successful. I have taken your reports as you have offered them without any inquiry, because I had no doubt that a great majority of this school would be honest at all hazards. They would not, I am confident, make a false report even if, by a true one, they were to bring upon themselves punishment; so that I think I may have confidence that nearly all these reports have been faithful. Still it is very probable that among so large a number some may have made a report which, they are now aware, was not perfectly fair and honest. I do not wish to know who they are; if there are any such cases, I only wish to say to the rest how much pleasanter it is for you that you have been honest and open. The business is now all ended; you have done your duty; and, though you reported a little larger number than you would if you had been disposed to conceal your faults, yet you go away from school with a quiet conscience. On the other hand, how miserable must any boy feel, if he has any nobleness of mind whatever, to go away from school to-day thinking that he has not been honest; that he has been trying to conceal his faults, and thus to obtain a credit which he did not justly deserve. Always be honest, let the consequence be what it may."
The reader will understand that the object of such measures is simply to secure as large a majority as possible to make voluntary efforts to observe the rule. I do not expect that by such measures universal obedience can be exacted. The teacher must follow up the plan after a few days by other measures for those pupils who will not yield to such inducements as these. Upon this subject, however, I shall speak more particularly at a future time.
In my own school it required two or three weeks to exclude whispering and communication by signs. The period necessary to effect the revolution will be longer or shorter, according to the circumstances of the school and the dexterity of the teacher; and, after all, the teacher must not hope entirely to exclude it. Approximation to excellence is all that we can expect; for unprincipled and deceiving characters will perhaps always be found, and no system whatever can prevent their existence. Proper treatment may indeed be the means of their reformation, but before this process has arrived at a successful result, others similar in character will have entered the school, so that the teacher can never expect perfection in the operation of any of his plans.
I found so much relief from the change which this plan introduced, that I soon took measures for rendering it permanent; and though I am not much in favor of efforts to bring all teachers and all schools to the same plans, this principle of whispering at limited and prescribed times alone seems to me well suited to universal adoption.
The following simple apparatus has been used in several schools where this principle has been adopted. A drawing and description of it is inserted here, as by this means some teachers, who may like to try the course here recommended, may be saved the time and trouble of contriving something of the kind themselves.
Of course the construction may be varied very much, and it may be more or less expensive, according to the wishes of the teacher. In the first apparatus of this kind which I used, the plate was simply a card of pasteboard, from which the machine took its name. This was cut out with a penknife, and, after being covered with marble-paper, a strip of white paper was pasted along the middle with the inscription upon it. The wire c c, and a similar one at the top of the plate, were passed through a perforation in the pasteboard, and then passed into the board. Instead of a pulley, the cord, which was a piece of twine, was passed through a little staple made of wire and driven into the board. The whole was made in one or two recesses in school, with such tools and materials as I could then command. The bell was a common table bell, with a wire passing through the handle. The whole was attached to such a piece of pine board as I could get on the occasion. This coarse contrivance was, for more than a year, the grand regulator of all the movements of the school.
I afterward caused one to be made in a better manner. The plate was of tin, gilded, the border and the letters of the inscription being black. A parlor bell-rope was carried over a brass pulley, and then passed downward in a groove made in the mahogany board to which the card was attached.
A little reflection will, however, show the teacher that the form and construction of the apparatus for marking the times of study and of rest may be greatly varied. The chief point is simply to secure the principle of whispering at definite and limited times, and at those alone. If such an arrangement is adopted, and carried faithfully into effect, it will be found to relieve the teacher of more than half of the confusion and perplexity which would otherwise be his hourly lot. I have detailed thus particularly the method to be pursued in carrying this principle into effect, because I am convinced of its importance, and the incalculable assistance which such an arrangement will afford to the teacher in all his plans. Of course, I would not be understood to recommend its adoption in those cases where teachers, from their own experience, have devised and adopted other plans which accomplish as effectually the same purpose. All that I mean is to insist upon the absolute necessity of some plan, to remove this very common source of interruption and confusion, and I recommend this mode where a better is not known.
2. The second of the sources of interruption, as I have enumerated them, is the distribution of pens and of stationery. This business ought, if possible, to have a specific time assigned to it. Scholars are, in general, far too particular in regard to their pens. The teacher ought to explain to them that, in the transaction of the ordinary business of life, they can not always have exactly such a pen as they would like. They must learn to write with various kinds of pens, and when furnished with one that the teacher himself would consider suitable to write a letter to a friend with, he must be content. They should understand that the form of the letters is what is important in learning to write, not the smoothness and clearness of the hair lines; and that though writing looks better when executed with a perfect pen, a person may learn to write nearly as well with