Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-02-15

NOTE. -Our report 1Or tnlS month
proves the truthfulness of what | said
last month about tardiness Of teachers.
The first, second and fourth rooms,
west side, show what may be done under
favorable circumstances in the matter
of punctuality. In those rooms, no tar
illnesses were excused Indeed, as a
rule, tardinesses are inexcusable, but if
pupils are known to return home on
finding themselves tardy, the teachers
are instructed to mark such both tardy
and absent.
The cases Of corporeal punishment
for this month, while more numerous
than we could wish, are still fewer than
in many previous months.
We should be glad if it were practical
Bile to Danish corporeal punishment al
together from our schools, and, indeed.
if home and street influences were al
ways salutary, this might easily be done,
but, unfortunately, such is not the con-
dition of affairs. Says Horace Mann:
The children who attend school enter
it from that vast variety of homes which
exist in the State From different house
holds, where the widest diversity of pa
rental and domestic influences prevailes,
children enter the school-room, where
there must be uniformity. AT home
some Of these children have been indul e.
ed in every wish, fattered and smiled
upon for the energies of their low pro-
pensities. and even their freaks and
whims enacted into household laws.
Some have been so vigorously debarred
from every innocent amusement and in
diligence. that they have opened for
themselves way to qualification through
artifce, and treachery, and falsehood.
Others. from vicious parental example,
and the corrupting influences Of vile as
sociates, have been trained to bad habits
and contaminated with vicious princi-
pies, ever since they were born; some
being taught that honor consists in
whipping a boy larger than themselves;
others that the chief end of man is to
own box that cannot be opened. and to
get money enough to fill it; and others,
again, have been taught upon their faith
ers' knees, to shape their young lips to
the utterance of oaths and blasphemy.
All these, as he says, must be made to
obey the same general regulations, to
pursue the same studies, and to aim at
the same results.
As long as these things are so, it will
sometimes be necessary to use the rod.
This should not be done, however, till
all other means of discipline fail, and
these other means of discipline will sell
dom fail in the hands of the best
teachers
For the benefit of those who do not
have the Cyclopedia of Education, I
copy from it the following rules or sug-
gestions on this subject.
Il. Corporeal punishment should be
reserved for the baser faults. A child
should never be struck for inadverten-
cies, for faults of forgetfulness, for irri-
liability and carelessness, or for petty ir-
regularities. 1t is coarse remedy and
should be employed upon the coarse sins
of our animal nature.
80 When employed at all, it should
be administered IN strong doses. The
whole system of slaps, pinches, snap
pings and irritating blows, is to be con-
demned These petty disciplines tend
to stir up anger in the child and rather
encourage evil than subdue it.
80. In administering physical pun
ishment to child, the head should be
left sacred from all violence. Pulling
the hair or ears, rapping the head with
a thimble or with the knuckles, boxing
the ears, slapping the cheeks or the
mouth, are all brutal expedients. These
irritating and annoying practices are TAR
more likely to arouse malignant pas
sions, than to alleviate them.
Il The temper with which you ad-
minister punishment will, generally, ex-
cite in the child a corresponding feeling
If you bring anger, anger will be excited
if you bring affection and sorrow, you
will find the child responding in sorrow
full feelings; if you bring moral feelings
the child's conscience will be excited
Anger and severity destroy all the ben
efits of punishment; love and firmness
will, if anything can, work penitence ant
change of conduct
During the last week of the montl
covered by the above reports, examina
ton for class promotion were made il
all the grades. The results of the exam
nations were, on the whole, very salts
factory, a large per cent. of those exam
ined being found worthy of promo
tion.
Most of the failures were caused b.
irregularity in attendance. Pupils who
from necessity or otherwise, are out o
school from one-third to one-half of th'
time, can scarcely expect to keep pac
) with their classes. Some failed becaus
they had been pushed too rapidly befor
and were trying to do work that was to,
hard for them, and few failed through
, Incidence, out Of which their teacher
were unable to arouse them.