Gilpin observer., 1908-02-20

matter how all powerful the influence
of teachers charm and personality
may be, there will be some boys and
girls who cannot be drawn unto the
teachers will, because pupils reared in
home where punctuality is not part
of their home training, generally come
! to school with wrong notions of school
life-its aims and it's purposes; but if
the teacher can reclaim boys and girls
from their wrong notions of school life
before they fall prey to the chronic
habit of absenteeism, there is abund-
ance of hope for successful dealing
with the situation.
But after all has been said, some par
ent will come along bubbling over with
the idea, that while my children do not
go to school nearly all of the time, they
keep right up with the other members
of the class, and so long as my Johnnie
or my Sally does that, cannot see why
anyone should make it business to
complain about his or her poor attend
ance. That is diplomatic way some
parents have of displaying their lack of
brain power, because any person can
see that it would be high-handed idiocy
to try to justify child's poor attend
ance as well as their own neglect on
Perhaps no one would go the length of
claiming that child's physical develop
ment can go on just as well by COM
pelling it to go repeatedly through per-
iods of hunger just because it satifes
the delusions of the parents. Again it
would be unfair to suppose that
child's mind can be starved into weak
ened condition because of a lack of
mental training, in the same sense that
a physical self of the child can be
starved into dwarfed growth but it is
an incontestable fact, that when the
training of the child's mind is dealt
with in hap-hazard, go as you please
way, such as poor attendance results in,
it is impossible to keep the child's in
centive for learning keyed up to the
same tension of keenness and re-
ceptivity for grasping facts as it would
be if there were no irregular and re-
, curing breaks in the child's school ex-
perience. 1t is impossible to build up
strong muscular physique by spasmodic
| and irregular exercise of the human
body, though the exercise that is taken
may be well adapted toward that end if
it was systematically done. Breaks in
/ child's attendance at school results in
getting jumbled up, higgledy pig
| ledy, and unsystematic treatise of
every subject pursued in the school
course. This will be true because the
pupil will not have ample knowledge of
the subject matter previously gone
over to grasp fully that part of the
subject that is taught to him when at
school, and at the same time see it in
the proper relation to what went before
it. But it does more. that is, the stay
/ ing out of school habit-it puts the pu-
pill in lazy frame of mind for tack
ling his work when he comes back to
school. There is gap in his school ex-
perience that can not be bridged over,
because he has not the basis to begin
with, and not having it, it is very easy
for such child to slouch into resting on
his ores as it would seem, by using
what might be termed bluffing tactics
with the teacher. When called upon to
recite, such children will look as wise
and angelic, as it lies in their power to
look, rise from their seats, take brief
survey of the school room, then hide
their ignorance behind the pretense
that they did not understand, or quite
hear the question. AS it dawns on
them that they have not made good on
the question asked them, they stink in
to their seats, with an independent air
of-well don't care clothe their faces
with cynical smile, and remain thus
until the next question startles them
ont of their stupor long enough for them
to see that they are not going to be
called on, and so the recitation closes
without any regret on their part that it
is over.