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cold weather, but a simple and inexpensive way of admitting fresh air without down draughts has now become generally known, and bids fair to be universally adopted.1

1 It is effected by placing against the walls, at equal intervals, pilasterlike shafts, made of wood, zinc, or galvanized iron, about forty inches high, and two or three by ten or more inches wide at the inner opening, and about six by ten at the lower opening in the outer wall below the floor level. One such shaft in every ten feet on one side or in every twenty feet on both sides of an average sized schoolroom will be found self-acting in cold weather, causing no draughts, but keeping the air pure during school hours. It is also a good plan to place firebrick-lined stoves not on stone slabs, but on iron gratings, by which fresh air, entering from without, is warmed before being dispersed through the room. There can be no temptation for the most bilious to stop a mode of ventilation which introduces no cold down draughts. The combination of these two systems will keep any schoolroom in a healthy state. Similarly, sitting or bedrooms furnished with sash windows may be ventilated without draught by inserting a four-inch block or plank of wood between the lower sash and the sill, so as to let an upward current of fresh air enter between the two sashes.

THE TEACHER.

PART I.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

CHAPTER I.

TONE AND DISCIPLINE.

To ensure success in school work a teacher must be able:
First, To keep good order;
Secondly, To teach well.

As good teaching is not seldom thrown away for lack of good discipline, it may be well to begin with a few remarks on the art of keeping order; and to note here and there, as opportunity occurs, such practices as tend to bring about a healthy tone. After this, we will review the means by which the various subjects taught in elementary schools may be most successfully imparted.

Unless a teacher learn before everything to maintain good order, much valuable time will be lost; there will be constant waste of breath and energy, and the teacher's health and temper will be worn out in a fruitless struggle.

Fair, if not even good, discipline can be secured by approved methods, which it is therefore the duty and interest of every teacher to learn and habitually practise.

A school, in which the children behave well so long as the

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teacher's eye is upon them, may seem to an inexperienced visitor in perfect order; but if they begin to misbehave as soon as relieved of their teacher's presence, there is something amiss in the tone.

When a healthy tone pervades a school, it is chiefly due to a teacher's sterling worth making itself felt more or less by every one with whom he has to do. An earnest, unselfish, highminded man cannot fail to exert at all times an influence for good—an influence that will grow and deepen with the growth of his goodness. But attention to sundry hints hereafter given may enable a teacher of less moral weight to do something towards imparting a good tone to his school.

Some teachers seem born disciplinarians; but every one, however naturally ill-suited for command, who will carefully study and practise the methods adopted by his more skilful and experienced colleagues cannot fail to achieve moderate proficiency. Again, others seem born teachers; but even these will more quickly and easily attain excellence by carefully observing the methods of those whose practice has been crowned with successful results; while others again, less highly gifted by nature, may, in time, by assiduous study of good methods, .themselves become good teachers.

The least gifted may take heart when he bethinks him that success in school management depends mainly on watchful and unremitting attention to little details, and on conscientiously grappling with every difficulty as it arises. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." If a teacher at all times keep a high aim steadily before him, and struggle incessantly to attain it in spite of repeated failures, his very mistakes, carefully noted and thoughtfully corrected, will lead to gradual improvement and ultimate excellence. For

"men may rise from stepping stones Of their dead selves to higher things."

He should be ever on the look-out for better methods, apter illustrations, more vivid ways of putting things, however homely and familiar to himself. A lifetime is not too long to attain perfection in his art.

As children are keen to observe, quick to imitate, it is important that every teacher should set an example of cleanliness and neatness in his own person. With what grace can a sloven or a slattern insist on strict personal cleanliness on the part of assistants and scholars, or superintend that inspection of faces and hands which should take place at every meeting of the school? 1 A teacher's dress should be neat and in good taste, neither foppish, tawdry, nor untidy. The wearing of ringlets and trinkets by girls should be discountenanced. Finery and false jewellery may be kept out of schools by a judicious use of gentle ridicule.

A teacher who realizes the importance of bringing up children in habits of punctuality will be careful to set a good example in his daily work. He will be always in school before the appointed time to see that the room is clean, the fire properly lighted, the floor swept, and to set everything ready that will be wanted for the morning's work. School work should not merely "go on like clock work," but be regulated by the clock. It is essential that the school clock should be kept in good order, and show correct time every day. However strongly tempted on any occasion to deviate from the Time-table, a teacher should resolutely resist the temptation. Let him reserve for another lesson the apt illustration he was on the point of giving at the close of the appointed time. Yielding to such temptations tends to make teaching discursive and unmethodical. If lessons be planned beforehand they may be easily kept within bounds. A margin allowed for expansion or condensation will enable the inexperienced to do full justice to every lesson in its allotted time.

Unpunctuality is one of the chief disadvantages in elementary, as compared with secondary schools, and is one that can never be checked by unpunctual teachers. In the best managed schools the doors are finally closed at least two hours and ten minutes before dismissal, and later comers are not admitted. Truancy is checked

1 A lobby fitted with washing apparatus should be provided in every school, and dirty faces and hands washed as soon as espied. In extreme cases it may be desirable for Head Teachers after due inquiry to send home children habitually sent to school dirty. But such cases demand great tact and consideration of home circumstances.

by parents being at once informed of any child's absence.1 The hours fixed for the meeting of the school should be such as are generally convenient to parents, and punctual attendance should be no less rigidly enforced in elementary than it is in higher schools. Presuming on the advantages derived from their office and training, teachers occasionally assume airs of superiority over children and their parents, and behave as though they were of a higher social grade. Such a bearing is not conducive to good tone in a school, as it checks the growth of that kindly feeling which ought to exist between teachers and taught. The poor are keen to distinguish between gentle breeding and its counterfeit, and quick to resent with scorn any unfounded assumption of superiority.

Courteous and attentive to all, a teacher should show the utmost tenderness and encouragement to the timid, the dull, the weakly, the afflicted, and all to whom home circumstances (such as vicious parents, or unavoidable destitution) make sympathy and consideration especially needful and welcome. He should seek, as far as possible, to cultivate and maintain friendly, not patronizing, intercourse with parents of all classes, that he may enlist their good-will and co-operation for their children's welfare. Let him, however, beware of turning to a child's disadvantage in school anything that he may have learnt at a private visit to his home.

Apart from the advantage of enlisting the support of their parents, a teacher's knowledge of children's peculiarities of temperament and character will be much enlarged if he visit their homes. He will thus be able to apply special treatment to special cases, instead of treating all exactly alike.

On receiving offensive messages sent by parents through children, or having to listen to disparaging remarks from any of their friends, a teacher will do well to endeavour not to allow any symptom of annoyance to appear in his demeanour. He should

1 Short printed forms of inquiry for this purpose will be found useful. 2 E.g. 9 is the hour commonly fixed for opening school; but few children come before 9.15, and many not till 9.30. It would seem better to fix 9.25 as the hour; punish children late without written excuse, and admit none after 9.55.

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