Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-12-21


EDITORS CHRONICLE: Seeing an |
article in your columns headed
.'school Discipline and Anarchy"
which particularly interests me,
and should indeed interest all who
are connected with schools, / will,
by your consent, contribute few
lines to your excellent paper.
A school is a little government in
which the teacher is the governor,
and it isas right that heshould make
rules and regulations and rIgidly
enforce them as it is that we should
have laws in the United States Gov
eminent, without which all would
be dissolution and confusion. Then
it is that we can see that good dis
cipline is the vitality of a school.
There are in almost every school
some incorrigible pupils who have
no restriction at home and think it
a dishonor to succumb to the discip-
line of school. Must the instructor
let such scholars have their own
way, which would leave room for
the other scholars to disobey, and
thus destroy the whole order of the
school? As a general rule those
pupils whom their parents esteem
too tender to be punished will have
become so accustomed to the rule of
Kindness that they will not be apt
to come in conflict with the teacher.
If they do they should be sent home
to their parents to learn how to be-
have themselves, and if their pa
rents will not instruct them in the
right way, and send them back to
school, of course expulsion is the
dey7lies' resort.
When boys and girls are sent in
who are impudent, idle and DISC
bedient, and when they have been
obedient at home only by compul-
sion, or when they had not been
governed at all in former sessions at
school, it cannot be reasonably ex-
pected that the moral suasion of the
preceptor can govern children who
have been spoiled by Indifference
and abused methods. Such parents
must, as moral duty, grant more
than usual authority over their I'M
ruly children, or anarchy, with its
incalculable and inconceivable dam
gers to the morals and minds of
pupils by refusal ofsuch authority,
must inevitably ensue. TO such
parents the remedy of expulsion APP
lied to their children would be a
source of never-ending torment,a land
they would have their children
coming home to them like bad
coins. And then for parents 10 let
their children stay at home when
they have a difficult lesson to recite
during the day, or start them to
school so late that they will be
obliged to miss one or two recita-
tons, creating a disturbance, disOr-
ganizing classes and continually
worrying the teacher. Such parents
will have their children's brains
grow down on the backs of their
necks, and they will never accomp-
lish anything but ins0lenee. &5ireeS
seem to be the paramount bliss in
some sections at this season of the
year, and of course my paragon
must come home before school is
out to attend this idler's feast. Just
so long as this is allowed, so long
will our country remain in igno-
rance. Those who would have
their sons and daughters grow up
ornaments to society must break up
these associations which are blight
ing the youth of our land.
The BreIthitt county affair is adj
umbrated in an incident that hap
pened not far from here, in which
father tells his son TO stand up to
teacher and not to take anything
off of him, in consequence of which
the boy is dismissed from school.
Then his big brother tells him that
he will pay the fine if he will whip
the teacher. It seems that a man
whose mental horizon extends be-
yond the breadth. of a gimlet hole
could do better in this civilized
country; and submitting to such is
not my modlts OperdRdi.
QUIDAM.