Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-03-28
AS ONE WOMAN SEES iT
Change for the Better Has Taken
Place In the Relationship Be-
tween Scholar and Teacher
BY SARAH ID. LOWRIE
T WAS going out to st. Davids the o

| WAS going out to st. Davids the other
day on the 10 from town, and at
Ovcrbrook, and a few minutes later at
Bryn Mawr. the car was invaded by little
groups of children homeward bound from
school. Teachers saw them on the train
and in some cases saw them off the train
into the keeping of a variety of caretakers-
cabmen, parents, governesscs, maids. neigh
bors. Their parting from their teachers
was very affectionate and happy. IL it
lacked ceremony. so also did 1t lack any
suggestion of escape.
Remembering my own childish reaction to
my teachers and that of my generation.
am continually amazed by the immense
change for the better in the relationship.
Ot course it comes entirely from the changed
viewpoint of the tenchers--the children are
no better and no worse than in my day,
except that being in a better atmosphere
they act more normally.
THE change in teachers Is not so much
4 in what they teach as in how they teach
A generation ago good manners were insisted
upon from the pupil to the teacher but
many very clever teachers had distinctly
bad manners toward their pupils. One
heard very often of r 'cross teacher In
my school days; there are such abnormal!
itics nowadays, but they are generally
eliminated by the head mistress or head
master, notwithstanding other valuable as
sets. One came in contact with teachers
who wept from anger, or were sullen from
or were stony from sIeer ulSllKe
of their job. Fortunately teaching Is no
longer the only way a person without
vocation can earn n iving-thc wCepy kind
can become private secretaries, the sullen
ones can sell sweets at Confectioncr's or
preside at dyeng and cleaning counter,
while the stony ones can sell railroad tickets
or rcpel questions at an information desk.
Even the good natured foolish virgins that
never matured and whom their pupils used
to alternately rag or ajole are no longer
found fpnrhprg 1hnFp
is many a good, lucrative niche. from the
shoe department to a point little lower
than the angels, for an immature, kindly
soul who can be imposed upon to the verge
of mental collapse.
With colleges and high schools turning
out hundreds of women mentally equipped
for teaching who have chosen teaching as a
career, even the kindergarten and primary
ceptresses than the children Of my day, who
generally were handed over to the keeping
of some ones poor relation.
But all the colleges in the country would
not make good teachers whom the children
enjoyed as matter of course II the whole
point of view cf teaching-and, indeed, Of
training children for ifcA-had not under
gone revolutionary change in the last gen.
eration.
CHlLD psychology is term as familiar
~ in this day as naughty children
seemed to be in my childhood You we're
either a good child or a naughty child in
those days, never just child
Your faults were treated like enemies
forts to be stormed. bombarded. called to
surrender with no mercy, the flag hauled
down. the stronghold evacuated and the
walls demolished and left starkly, unpeas-
antly remindful while the conquerng army
marched on to the next obstacle to raze it
likewise to the ground. You we're never
allowed TO outgrow any imperfect trait, or
grow into any maturity through awkward
phases without being distinctly reprimanded
for being in the grub stage.
The punishments dealt out to you had no
relation 10 the crimes YOU committed. IL
you scratched the eight day clock with a
hairpin that you found on the floor you were
whipped if you glued the family album
with some mucilaGe left nearby on the table,
you were whipped; If you were impudent
TO an aged relative, you were stood in COR
| ner; If you broke your sisters toy wash
stand, you were placed on chair much too
high for your legs to touch the floor and
| compelled to remain still while your heavy
little feet dangled without support; il you
dropped the cat out Of the window, back
You went to sit half hour on the chair.
Tcnnyson's Charge of the Light Bri-
| gadc' was in great vogue with the teachers
| of those days. They never paid any atten-
tion to the Some one had blundered" in
| it. but they would have liked to have every
blackboard in the land embellished with:
| Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs not TO make reply
They explained a problem in arithmetic,
| but not problem in conduct
1T is enough that I tell you not TO :"
The thing that develops first in children
along the line of ethics is of course Il
sense Of justice; If you offend that you are
'goner' with child. He will forgive
you, he will love you, but he will not ac.
cept your vcrdicts unqucstionably after
such stepping down from the pedestal.
A LONG with child psychology has come
| ~ bn or of oh nh
years. l was interested to see how many
| private school as well as public school
teachers had gone to the lectures on the
combined physical and mental stages OF
child development that we're given here az
| the Friends Select School under the aus
pices of the Society of Mental Hygiene
The particular one went to dealt with rene
dial physical defects which produced mem
tai rctardation in children. ! doubt IL two
| teachers out Of ten, thirty years ago, could
! have picked out first class moron from any
other mental detectives or would have known
what was the essential difference between
! idiOcy and retardation.
| have been reading book this evening
which I picked up the other day at the
Philadclphia Library by Wilfrcd Lay. called
The Child's Unconscious Mind" 1t deals
with the relations of pSyChosnaysis to cdu-
cation. 1t is very illuminating to. | was
going to say, the ''lay" mind without any
desire for II pun.
He has a chapter entitled "Sublimation"
in which he analyses those traits Of child
hood which are marked at certain periods
and which either beCom" vastly less con
splcuous in succeeding stages or are SUBJ
limatcd changed, so as to become displaced
from their former trend and used to fit
another purpose.
lie cites what is called technically "exhi.
htionism," the ''come see me jump" OF
most children, as a trait that is normally
outgrown, or which when It Is not out
grown in certain peculiarly gifted indi-
viduas, can become sublimatcd and mndc
socially available in the actor or the artist
by society itself which encourages the
,xhibitionist traits for its pleasure and
profit All this Is dealt with in a most
judicial and scientific manner. Whereas,
in my youth what might be called the
exhibtionist instinct In my young breast
was dealt with by my early prcceptrcss in
the following lines which ] was set to learn