The short religious
service referred to in an early part of this little book should be
attended by teachers as well as students, and should act as a kind of
door to shut out such undesirable feelings. Then both teachers and
students would devote their whole energies to the creation of a happy
school, to which all should look forward in the morning, and which all
should be sorry to leave at the end of the school day.
The lack of control of temper, it must be remembered, often leads to
injustice on the part of the teacher, and therefore to sullenness and
want of confidence on the boy, and no boy can make real progress, or be
in any real sense happy, unless he has complete confidence in the
justice of his elders. Much of the strain of modern school life is due
to this lack of confidence, and much time has to be wasted in breaking
down barriers which would never have been set up if the teacher had been
patient.
Anger and impatience grow out of irritability. It is as necessary for
the boy to understand his teacher as for the teacher to understand the
boy, and hasty temper is an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of
such understanding. "The teacher is angry to-day," "The teacher is
irritable to-day," "The teacher is short-tempered to-day," are phrases
too often on the lips of boys, and they produce a feeling of discomfort
in the class-room that makes harmony and ease impossible. Boys learn to
watch their teachers, and to guard themselves against their moods, and
so distrust replaces confidence.
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