Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1886-02-22

very much astonished. She said, II
am dissatisfied I have not been able
to interest the school as | desire, |
have punished two scholars / feel
that | am not fitted for school that
I cannot interest so much as not to
have occasion to punish She was
persuaded to remain one week longer.
| never shall forget her words the
next morning after calling the school
to order. She told us how anxious
she was that we should learn she
would do all she could to instruct us
we might go to her room evenings,
and she would assist us; our time
was worth too much to throw away
she felt the fault was in herself and
not the school, and unless she could
see that she was accomplishing more
than she had, in one week she should
leave us. Here she was overcome.
1t was a rough, hard school, but if
you could have looked in then you
would have thought them the most
tender-hearted set you ever saw. The
school saw that she was interested
for their good. Suffice it to say there
was no more furnishing; the school
was general success.
That teacher has since passed away
to fairer cline, but her influence
still lives, and the amount of good
that was accomplished in that short
term, this world will never know.
To-day an angel voice seems to whis-
per:
olive to do what good you can:
Speak word of kindness ever;
Lift up erring, fallen man.
How vastly important it is that the
teachers influence should always be
on the side of right! A few days
ago / heard the remark that a certain
scholar was Of no account; went to
school only two or three days IN q
term. All scholars are of account.
Every teacher should feel that they
are under a solemn responsibility to
create in every scholars mind a de-
sire to count every day in the term.
Their mission is to help develop ev-
cry scholar into man or woman who
shall count in the world. Napoleon
said, "What France needs most is
good mothers" What America
needs most to-day is good mothers
and good teachers.
Corporal punishment in ninety nine
cases in Que hundred causes hard
feelings between the teacher, parent
and scholar, and does no good. 1t
causes parents to take their children
from school, and in consequence
grow up in ignorance. Is not this
the reason why illiteracy is on the
increase in Vermont, while it is on
the decrease in Massachusetts. There
80 per cent of her scholars attend
school thirty-six weeks in year,
while in Vermont less than so pei
cent attend twenty-four weeks. L
not this one reason why we see sc
many boys that should be in school
going over the hill with gun, dowr
the brook with fish pole: loafine
about stores, bar-rooms and corners
of the street, listening to Language
vile and obscene? Thus being edu
Gated in the schools of vice and prof
legacy, it which they learn very fast
and unless they turn short corner
many of them will one day gradual,
from the dram-shop, the poor-hous
or the prison.
What would you do? The teache
must have something TO fall back on
First find the capacity of the school
then give them all the work they ca
do. Require their lessons to be per
fectly recited. If the pupil is of S
low a grade of humanity. so niue
like an animal that corporal punish
ment is deemed to be the only thin
that can keep him in bounds of tn
school, the parent by all means is tn
one to give to it. Then if schola
persist in being disorderly, refe
him to the committee, and if
with the cooperation of the paren
, cannot induce good behavior, /
should be expelled. If teachers woul
, always act on this principle, it woul
| throw the responsibility Of the su'
r cess of the school in large measul
on the parents and save them fro'
dilemmas oftentimes embarrassing.
: While | cannot quite coincide wit
f the statement of DR.. Trail, that
teacher that cannot govern, or a pl
pill that cannot be governed witho'
F.; corporal punishment, are both
! subjects for the insane asylum, | {
q believe that the sooner they leave Il
school, the better for all connectt
with it.
/ Every horseman knows that cruel
A will cause high-spirited, nervo
t horse to be vicious brute. Th
e one whipping has spoiled many
n colt. II it has this effect on an al
: NAL, what must it be on chile
d Corporal punishment Is a relic
e barbarism, heathenish in its practic