The evening times., 1899-12-08
APubltc school Custom.

A correspondent Of The Times protests
strongly against a certain custom which Is
more or less in evidence just at present.
He thinks that children In the public
schools ought not to be encouraged to give
presents to the teachers, and that, II nee
essary, the school board should prohibit
the receiving of such presents. 1t is his
opinion that this is a useless tax on the
parents, and tends in some cases to create
favoritism and i'll feeling. in the schools.
The protest is in line with others which
scriptions in the schools, but the point
here made is that the children should not.
separately, give the teacher Christmas
presents. The writer of this letter says
that he had to buy five presents last Christ
mas for his children to dispose of in this
way.
There is a great deal of sound hard, CON-
mon sense in this argument, and it will be
well for the public TO consider II seriously.
The Christmas present habit and the sub
scription habit are both instances of a
good idea spoiled In the working out. The
spontaneous impulse of happy child is to
give to everybody at Christmas, Just as It
has been taught to pray for everybody: and
it would be too bad to hamper or destroy
any such impulse by cold-blooded consid-
erations of economy. But, on the other
hand, there are many parents who cannot
by any possibility allow their children
large sum of Christmas spending money.
and every additional drain on his purse, be
it only for quarter or dime, counts with
a man who is supporting a family on less
than two dollars a day. He and his wife
have already denied themselves many COM
forts in order that their children shall be
properly dressed for school and comfortably
housed, and fed with good and nourishing
food, and that is about all that they can be
expected to do, so they think. Yet it might
be well even to deny the child some little
luxury of diet or some new article of cloth
ing, and allow it a small sum OF money, IL
gifts. 1t pays TO show children that their
elders are in sympathy with all their inno-
cent, good little impulses. They will learn
worldly wisdom soon enough in any event
But in nine cases out of ten the SUBJ
scription list and the present to the teacher
are the outcome of certain form of half
vanity. When two classes in a
school building vie with each other in Civ
ing expensive presents to their teachers, it
is not hard TO see that there is more rivalry
than generosity in the matter. The only
fair way to conduct this sort of business
is to put a locked box with slot in 1t in
an obscure corner and let each pupil put
In his or her contribution unobtrusively
and never tell how much it was. Almost
any teacher would rather have gift bought
with money given in this way than a much
more pretentious one secured with the help
Of the subscription paper There are not
many schoolrooms in which each child
could not bring penny for the teachers
present, and the chances are that the
eacher would value bunch of flowers
bought with those pennies as much as any
hing else she would be likely to receive.
But there is nothing more pernicious than
school customs which encourage extrava-
rance and promote Jealousy, vanity, and the
,aste spirit among the pupils. Children
nave all the varieties of human nature in
hem, and they will develop these things
without assistance in any circumstances
It would be queer gardener who should
pay particular attention to raising quirch
zrass and purslane to choke out his violets
and hyacinths.