The teacher should exercise constant foresight.1 If there are not enough reading-books, or if some of them have a missing The need of leaf, the whole class is kept idle while the defect is foresight being remedied, and an idle class soon becomes a disorderly class. Before a writing lesson the teacher should see that every pen is good, and that there is sufficient ink in the wells. Before a drawing lesson he should see that every pencil is sharp, and, generally, before all lessons he should take care that whatever he or his pupils may be likely to want is ready to hand.

Instructions

The main principles of order having been stated, some instructions concerning the applica

tion of them may be added :-

1. Position

2. Eye

1. Stand (or sit) where you can without difficulty see every child under your care.

2. Cultivate quickness of eye. An experienced teacher can instantly detect in the largest class any pupil who is doing what he should not do, or not doing what he should do.

3. Cultivate also quickness of ear. Should there be a whisper while you are writing on the blackboard, you ought to be able to say, if not from whom, from what part 3. Ear of the room, it came. Your pupils should feel

that you can see with the back of your head.

4. Begin

4. Check the smallest beginnings of disorder. When the discipline is good there will be no need to scold nings of dis- the culprit. If a look or the lifting of a finger should not suffice, try a question about what has

order

just been said or done.

1 Foresight is as necessary with regard to lessons as to order. Not only should the course for a term, or session, or year be arranged beforehand, but every separate lesson should be carefully thought out, and all the preparations possible made for it. This will involve time at first, but, if the teacher keeps full notes, he will have to spend only a few minutes in looking over them when he is revising the lesson with the same children or teaching it afresh to others.

considered.

5. Let your commands be clear, decisive, brief, and well With an individual pupil you may put in the form of a request what is in fact a command. You may, for instance, say 'Please to stand,' but with a class you should simply say 'Stand.'

5. Commands should be clear

6. Never repeated

6. Never repeat a command. If you get into the habit of giving it a second time, your pupils will get into the habit of not obeying it the first time. 7. Never

7. Never let your commands be contradictory contradictory or inconsistent.1

8. Having given a command, never proceed till all your pupils have obeyed it, or they will soon infer that

8. Obeyed they need obey only when they please. They

must obey when you please.

9. Obedience

9. Never assume that you will be disobeyed. should be To say, 'If any boy or girl does not do this I assumed will . . .' is an infallible sign of a weak teacher.

10. Never threaten or promise. If you must do either, do it only after mature thought, and then let no power on earth 10. Threats turn you from your word. It may be folly to and promises bark; it is double folly to allow any one to suppose that your bark is worse than your bite.

II. Never shout. If you habitually speak in low, clear tones you may become emphatic with little exertion, but if you habitually speak in a loud voice you have no reII. Voice serve.2 Place in the front of the class any children whose hearing (or sight) is defective.

1

Jean Paul Richter says that the education of his day was like the harlequin of the Italian comedy, who jumped on the stage with a packet of papers under each arm. He is asked, 'What have you under your right arm?' and answers, 'Commands.' And under your left arm?' mands.'

'Counter

2 You will be like the sea captain who regretted that he had got into the habit of always swearing at his men, because he could do nothing more when he was really angry. Richter says that the child's ear readily distinguishes a decided from an angry tone.' The 'parson's throat,' from

C

12. Never sneer. Children detest sarcasm, and have little skill in it themselves. They are therefore tempted to answer a sneer with insolence, and more than

12. Sneers

tempted to repay it with hate.

13. Never push or pull a or to quicken his movements.

child to put him in his place. Your command will soon cease

13. 'Hands to secure prompt obedience if you act as if it were not sufficient.

off'

14. Destroy the roots of disorder. As has already been said, restlessness may be due to the natural need of change, mischief to want of better occupation. This was the reason for Joseph Lancaster's rule, 'Let every child have at all times 14. Roots of something to do, and a motive for doing it.' If, disorder when you are showing some interesting object, the children at the back of the class stand that they may the better see it, withdraw the object. The curiosity which made them stand will make them sit as soon as they realise that till they sit there will be nothing to look at.

15. Remember that quietness and order are not necessarily synonymous. A class of graven images would be very quiet, but it would not do much useful work. Only a very stupid critic will think the hum of industry a sign of weak control, or the stillness of unnatural constraint a sign of discipline.

15. Quietness not necessarily order

16. Chattering

16. If you find any two children are disposed to chatter when sitting together, separate them. 17. Always pretend that you have not seen a breach of discipline when you are not quite sure of the offender, or cannot 17. When to bring a clear charge against him. You have no time for investigations. Wait for another chance. which so many teachers suffer, is caused as much by speaking too loudly as by bad methods of voice production.

be blind

1 'Forbid seldomer by actions than by words. Do not snatch the knife out of the child's hands, but let him lay it down at your desire. In the first case he obeys the pressure of a foreign power, in the second its guidance,' -Richter.

A boy never rests upon an unpunished offence.

Offence

and punishment should be exchanged like shots. No credit: cash.' 1

18. Drill, over and above its value in developing the body, conduces to good order by accustoming the children to concerted movements and to prompt obedience. Two or three minutes given to physical exercises between lessons will relieve the strain on the muscles, and also act as a safety-valve for superfluous energy.

18. Drill

19. 'Pas trop gouverner'

Order for the

19. The best rule in politics is Pas trop gouverner. It is also true in education.' 2

One great end of order is to secure attention. sake of atten- Intellectual progress is possible only when the tion mind machinery is working smoothly, and it will hardly work at all except with attention as engine-driver.

Attention is of two kinds. A flash of lightning, the roar of thunder, the rumbling of a cart, a shower, a rainbow, a blow, Two kinds of a touch, compel us to attend by their own force, attention and the attention that we give to them is therefore said to be non-voluntary, passive, or instinctive. A boy's consciousness of the fact that there is a Latin grammar open on the desk before him may be non-voluntary; but when a desire for knowledge, a sense of duty, willingness to please his teacher, fear of punishment, or any other motive leads him to concentrate all the powers of his mind on learning to conjugate amo, his attention is voluntary, active, or controlled.

In young children the will is weak; hence the inattention to lessons which is sometimes treated as wilfulness is 'in reality just the contrary of will-fulness, being the direct result of the want of volitional control over the automatic activity of the brain.' Attention must, therefore, be cultivated, and that it may be cultivated successfully the laws of its operation must be studied.

3

1 Max O'Rell.

2 Richter.

3 Dr. Carpenter.

The first law is interest. If at the end of a crowded street we could stop a dozen men, women, and children, and ask them what they had noticed in coming along Laws of attention: it, we should probably get a dozen different I. Interest answers. One would have noticed the book shops, another the milliners' shops, another the toy shops, another the horses, another the architecture, &c. An artist walking along a country road would notice chiefly the beauty of the landscape, a farmer the quality of the soil and crops, a cyclist the surface and the gradients. In a picture exhibition a frame-maker would notice the frames rather than the pictures; a sailor after standing on the cliff for an hour could tell the rig of every craft that had passed, while a landsman would have observed only the play of light on the sails. Since, then, we notice most what interests us most, it follows that the teacher who wishes his pupils to be attentive must make his lessons interesting.

Another law is the law of contrast and novelty. If a man were sleeping near a railway a passing train would wake him,1 2. Contrast whereas if he were travelling by the train he could and novelty sleep as long as it was in motion, and would only wake when it stopped. Thunder may be unheeded amid the din of the city; amid the quiet of the fields the noise of hammering a mile away may obtrude itself. The most orderly children listening to the most interesting lesson could not help letting their eyes wander if a mouse ran across the room or a bird flew in at the window. It follows that the teacher should introduce as much novelty as possible into his instruction, should not strain the attention, and should so arrange the Timetable that successive lessons call for the exercise of different powers of the mind."

1 The fact that passing trains do not wake people who live near railways is only an illustration of the law. To such people the noise of passing trains is no novelty.

2 The regulations of the Jesuits' order forbid them to study longer than two hours at a time. But your school regulations command the little ones