The Teacher

With these views, I have concluded to devote one chapter to a description of the school which has been for four years under my care. The account was originally prepared and printed, but not published, for the purpose of distribution among the scholars, simply because this seemed to be the easiest and surest method of making them, on their admission to the school, acquainted with its arrangements and plans. It is addressed, therefore, throughout, to a pupil, and I preserve its original form, as, by its being addressed to pupils, and intended to influence them, it is an example of the mode of address, and the kind of influence recommended in this work. It was chiefly designed for new scholars; a copy of it was presented to each, on the day of her admission to the school, and it was made her first duty to read it attentively.

The system which it describes is one, which gradually grew up in the institution under the writer's care. The school was commenced with a small number of pupils, and without any system or plan whatever, and the one here described, was formed insensibly and by slow degrees, through the influence of various and accidental circumstances. I have no idea that it is superior to the plans of government and instruction adopted in many other schools. It is true that there must necessarily be some system in every large school; but various instructers will fall upon different principles of organization, which will naturally be such as are adapted to the habits of thought and manner of instruction of their respective authors, and consequently each will be best for its own place. While, therefore, some system,—some methodical arrangement, is necessary in all schools, it is not necessary that it should be the same in all. It is not even desirable that it should be. I consider this plan, as only one among a multitude of others, each of which will be successful, not by the power of its intrinsic qualities, but just in proportion to the ability and faithfulness with which it is carried into effect.

There may be features of this plan, which teachers who may read it, may be inclined to adopt. In other cases suggestions may occur to the mind of the reader, which may modify in some degree his present plans. Others may merely be interested in seeing how others effect, what they, by easy methods, are equally successful in effecting.

It is in these, and similar ways, that I have often myself been highly benefited in visiting schools, and in reading descriptions of them; and it is for such purposes, that I insert the account here.

TO A NEW SCHOLAR, ON HER ADMISSION TO THE MT. VERNON SCHOOL

As a large school is necessarily somewhat complicated in its plan, and as new scholars usually find that it requires some time, and gives them no little trouble, to understand the arrangements they find in operation here, I have concluded to write a brief description of these arrangements, by help of which, you will, I hope, the sooner feel at home in your new place of duty. That I may be more distinct and specific, I shall class what I have to say, under separate heads.

I. Your personal duty

Your first anxiety as you come into the school-room, and take your seat among the busy multitude, if you are conscientiously desirous of doing your duty, will be, lest, ignorant as you are of the whole plan and of all the regulations of the institution, you should inadvertently do what will be considered wrong. I wish first then to put you at rest on this score. There is but one rule of this school. That you can easily keep.

You will observe on one side of my desk a clock upon the wall, and upon the other a piece of apparatus that is probably new to you. It is a metallic plate upon which are marked in gilded letters, the words "Study Hours." This is upright, but it is so attached by its lower edge to its support, by means of a hinge, that it can fall over from above, and thus be in a horizontal position; or it will rest in an inclined position,—half down, as it is called. It is drawn up and let down by a cord passing over a pulley. When it passes either way, its upper part touches a bell, which gives all in the room notice of its motion.

Now when this "Study Card"3 as the scholars call it, is up so that the words "Study Hours" are presented to the view of the school, it is the signal for silence and study. There is then to be no communication and no leaving of seats except at the direction of teachers.

When it is half down, each scholar may leave her seat and whisper, but she must do nothing which will disturb others. When it is down, all the duties of school are suspended and scholars are left entirely to their liberty.

As this is the only rule of the school, it deserves a little more full explanation; for not only your progress in study, but your influence in promoting the welfare of the school, and consequently your peace and happiness while you are a member of it, will depend upon the strictness with which you observe it.

Whenever, then, the study card goes up, and you hear the sound of its little bell, immediately and instantaneously stop, whatever you are saying. If you are away from your seat go directly to it, and there remain, and forget in your own silent and solitary studies, so far as you can, all that are around you. You will remember that all communication is forbidden. Whispering, making signs, writing upon paper or a slate, bowing to any one,—and in fact, every possible way, by which one person may have any sort of mental intercourse with another, is wrong. A large number of the scholars take a pride and pleasure in carrying this rule into as perfect an observance as possible. They say, that as this is the only rule with which I trouble them, they ought certainly to observe this faithfully. I myself however put it upon other ground. I am satisfied, that it is better and pleasanter for you to observe it most rigidly, if it is attempted to be enforced at all.

You will ask, "Cannot we obtain permission of you or of the teachers to leave our seats or to whisper, if it is necessary?" The answer is, "No." You must never ask permission of me or of the teachers. You can leave seats or speak at the direction of the teachers, i. e. when they of their own accord, ask you to do it, but you are never to ask their permission. If you should, and if any teachers should give you permission, it would be of no avail. I have never given them authority to grant any permissions of the kind.

You will then say, are we never on any occasion whatever to leave our seats in study hours? Yes you are. There are two ways.

1. At the direction of teachers. Going to and from recitations, is considered as at the direction of teachers. So if a person is requested by a teacher to transact any business, or is elected to a public office, or appointed upon a committee,—leaving seats or speaking, so far as is really necessary for the accomplishing such a purpose, is considered as at the direction of teachers, and is consequently right. In the same manner, if a teacher should ask you individually, or give general notice to the members of class to come to her seat for private instruction, or to go to any part of the school-room for her, it would be right to do it. The distinction, you observe, is this. The teacher may of her own accord, direct any leaving of seats which she may think necessary to accomplish the objects of the school. She must not however, at the request of an individual for the sake of her mere private convenience, give her permission to speak or to leave her seat. If for example a teacher should say to you in your class, "As soon as you have performed a certain work you may bring it to me,"—you would in bringing it, be acting under her direction and would consequently do right. If however you should want a pencil and should ask her to give you leave to borrow it, even if she should give you leave, you would do wrong to go, for you would not be acting at her direction, but simply by her consent, and she has no authority to grant consent.

2. The second case in which you may leave your seat is when some very uncommon occurrence takes place which is sufficient reason for suspending all rules. If your neighbor is faint, you may speak to her and if necessary lead her out. If your mother or some other friend should come into the school-room you can go and sit with her upon the sofa, and talk about the school. And so in many other similar cases. Be very careful not to abuse this privilege, and make slight causes the grounds of your exceptions. It ought to be a very clear case. If a young lady is unwell in a trifling degree, so as to need no assistance, you would evidently do wrong to talk to her. The rule, in fact, is very similar to that which all well bred people observe at church. They never speak or leave their seats unless some really important cause, such as sickness, requires them to break over all rules and go out. You have in the same manner, in really important cases, such as serious sickness in your own case or in that of your companions, or the coming in of a stranger, or any thing else equally extraordinary, power to lay aside any rule and to act as the emergency may require. In using this discretion however, be sure to be on the safe side; in such cases never ask permission. You must act on your own responsibility.

Reasons for this rule. When the school was first established, there was no absolute prohibition of whispering. Each scholar was allowed to whisper in relation to her studies. They were often, very often, enjoined to be conscientious and faithful, but as might have been anticipated, the experiment failed. It was almost universally the practice to whisper more or less about subjects entirely foreign to the business of the school. This they all repeatedly acknowledged; and the scholars almost unanimously admitted, that the good of the school required the prohibition of all communication during certain hours. I gave them their choice, either always to ask permission when they wished to speak, or to have a certain time allowed for the purpose, during which free inter-communication might be allowed to all the school;—with the understanding, however, that out of this time, no permission should ever be asked or granted. They very wisely chose the latter plan, and the study card was constructed and put up to mark the times of free communication, and of silent study. The card was at first down every half hour for one or two minutes. The scholars afterwards thinking, that their intellectual habits would be improved and the welfare of the school promoted, by their having a longer time for uninterrupted study, of their own accord, without any influence from me, proposed that the card should be down only once an hour. This plan was adopted by them, by vote. I wish it to be understood that it was not my plan, but theirs, and that I am at any time willing to have the study card down once in half an hour, whenever a majority of the scholars, voting by ballot, desire it.

You will find that this system of having a distinct time for whispering, when all may whisper freely, all communication being entirely excluded at other times, will at first give you some trouble. It will be hard for you, if you are not accustomed to it, to learn conscientiously and faithfully to comply. Besides, at first you will often need some little information, or an article which you might obtain in a moment, but which you cannot innocently ask for till the card is down, and this might keep you waiting an hour. You will, however, after a few such instances, soon learn to make your preparations before hand, and if you are a girl of enlarged views and elevated feelings, you will good humoredly acquiesce in suffering a little inconvenience yourself, for the sake of helping to preserve those distinct and well defined lines, by which all boundaries must be marked, in a large establishment, if order and system are to be preserved at all.

Though at first you may experience a little inconvenience, you will soon take pleasure in the scientific strictness of the plan. It will gratify you to observe the profound stillness of the room where a hundred are studying. You will take pleasure in observing the sudden transition from the silence of study hours to the joyful sounds, and the animating activity of recess, when the Study Card goes down; and then when it rises again at the close of the recess, you will be gratified to observe how suddenly the sounds which have filled the air and made the room so lively a scene are hushed into silence by the single and almost inaudible touch of that little bell. You will take pleasure in this, for young and old always take pleasure in the strict and rigid operation of system, rather than in laxity and disorder. I am convinced also that the scholars do like the operation of this plan for I do not have to make any efforts to sustain it. With the exception that occasionally, usually not oftener than once in several months, I allude to the subject, and that chiefly on account of a few careless and unfaithful individuals, I have little to say or to do to maintain the authority of the study card. Most of the scholars obey it of their own accord, implicitly and cordially. And I believe they consider this faithful monitor, not only one of the most useful, but one of the most agreeable friends they have. We should not only regret its services, but miss its company, if it should be taken away.

This regulation then, viz., to abstain from all communication with one another, and from all leaving of seats, at certain times which are marked by the position of the Study Card, is the only one which can properly be called a rule of the school. There are a great many arrangements and plans relating to the instruction of the pupils, but no other specific rules relating to their conduct. You are, of course, while in the school, under the same moral obligations which rest upon you elsewhere. You must be kind to one another, respectful to superiors, and quiet and orderly in your deportment. You must do nothing to encroach upon another's rights, or to interrupt and disturb your companions in their pursuits. You must not produce disorder, or be wasteful of the public property, or do any thing else which you might know is in itself wrong. But you are to avoid these things, not because there are any rules in this school against them, for there are none;—but because they are in themselves wrong;—in all places and under all circumstances, wrong. The universal and unchangeable principles of duty are the same here as elsewhere. I do not make rules pointing them out, but expect that you will, through your own conscience and moral principle, discover and obey them.

Such a case as this, for example, once occurred. A number of little girls began to amuse themselves in recess with running about among the desks in pursuit of one another, and they told me, in excuse for it, that they did not know that it was "against the rule."

"It is not against the rule;" said I, "I have never made any rule against running about among the desks."

"Then," asked they, "did we do wrong?"

"Do you think it would be a good plan," I inquired, "to have it a common amusement in the recess, for the girls to hunt each other among the desks?"

"No sir," they replied simultaneously.

"Why not? There are some reasons I do not know, however whether you will have the ingenuity to think of them."

"We may start the desks from their places," said one.

"Yes," said I, "they are fastened down very slightly, so that I may easily alter their position."

"We might upset the inkstands," said another.

"Sometimes," added a third, "we run against the scholars who are sitting in their seats."

"It seems then you have ingenuity enough to discover the reasons. Why did not these reasons prevent your doing it."

"We did not think of them before."

"True; that is the exact state of the case. Now when persons are so eager to promote their own enjoyment, as to forget the rights and the comforts of others, it is selfishness. Now is there any rule in this school against selfishness."

"No sir."

"You are right. There is not. But selfishness is wrong,—very wrong, in whatever form it appears,—here, and every where else; and that, whether I make any rules against it or not."

You will see from this anecdote that though there is but one rule of the school, I by no means intend to say that there is only one way of doing wrong here. That would be very absurd. You must not do any thing which you may know, by proper reflection, to be in itself wrong. This however is an universal principle of duty, not a rule of the Mt. Vernon School. If I should attempt to make rules which would specify and prohibit every possible way by which you might do wrong, my laws would be innumerable. And even then I should fail of securing my object, unless you had the disposition to do your duty. No legislation can enact laws as fast as a perverted ingenuity can find means to evade them.

You will perhaps ask what will be the consequence if we transgress, either the single rule of the school, or any of the great principles of duty. In other words what are the punishments which are resorted to in the Mt. Vernon School? The answer is there are no punishments. I do not say that I should not, in case all other means should fail, resort to the most decisive measures to secure obedience and subordination. Most certainly, I should do so, as it would plainly be my duty to do it. If you should at any time be so unhappy as to violate your obligations to yourself, to your companions, or to me,—should you misimprove your time, or exhibit an unkind or a selfish spirit, or be disrespectful or insubordinate to your teachers,—I should go frankly and openly, but kindly to you, and endeavor to convince you of your fault. I should very probably do this by addressing a note to you, as I suppose this should be less unpleasant to you than a conversation. In such a case, I shall hope that you will as frankly and openly reply; telling me whether you admit your fault and are determined to amend, or else informing me of the contrary. I shall wish you to be sincere, and then I shall know what course to take next. But as to the consequences which may result to you if you should persist in what is wrong, it is not necessary that you should know them before hand. They who wander from duty, always plunge themselves into troubles they do not anticipate; and if you do what, at the time you are doing it, you know to be wrong, it will not be unjust that you should suffer the consequences, even if they were not beforehand understood and expected. This will be the case with you all through life, and it will be the case here.

I say it will be the case here; I ought rather to say that it will be the case, should you be so unhappy as to do wrong and to persist in it. Such cases however never occur. At least they occur so seldom, and at intervals so great, that every thing of the nature of punishment, that is, the depriving a pupil of any enjoyment, or subjecting her to any disgrace, or giving her pain in any way in consequence of her faults, except the simple pain of awakening conscience in her bosom is almost entirely unknown. I hope that you will always be ready to confess and forsake your faults, and endeavor while you remain in school, to improve in character, and attain as far as possible, every moral excellence.

I ought to remark before dismissing this topic, that I place very great confidence in the scholars in regard to their moral conduct and deportment, and they fully deserve it. I have no care and no trouble in what is commonly called the government of the school. Neither myself nor any one else is employed in any way in watching the scholars, or keeping any sort of account of them. I should not at any time hesitate to call all the teachers in an adjoining room, leaving the school alone for half an hour, and I should be confident, that at such a time order, and stillness, and attention to study would prevail as much as ever. The scholars would not look to see whether I was in my desk, but whether the Study Card was up. The school was left in this way, half an hour every day, during a quarter, that we might have a teachers' meeting, and the school went on, generally quite as well, to say the least, as when the teachers were present. One or two instances of irregular conduct occurred. I do not now recollect precisely what they were. They were however, fully acknowledged and not repeated, and I believe the scholars were generally more scrupulous and faithful then than at other times. They would not betray the confidence reposed in them. This plan was continued until it was found more convenient to have the teachers' meeting in the afternoons.

When any thing wrong is done in school, I generally state the case and request the individuals who have done it to let me know who they are. They do it sometimes by notes and sometimes in conversation,—but they always do it. The plan always succeeds. The scholars all know that there is nothing to be feared from confessing faults to me;—but that on the other hand, it is a most direct and certain way to secure returning peace and happiness.

I can illustrate this by describing a case which actually occurred. Though the description is not to be considered so much an accurate account of what occurred in a particular case, as an illustration of the general spirit and manner in which such cases are disposed of. I accidentally understood, that some of the younger scholars were in the habit, during recesses and after school, of ringing the door bell and then running away to amuse themselves with the perplexity of their companions, who should go to the door and find no one there. I explained in a few words, one day, to the school, that this was wrong.

"How many," I then asked, "have ever been put to the trouble to go to the door, when the bell has thus been rung? They may rise."

A very large number of scholars stood up. Those who had done the mischief were evidently surprised at the extent of the trouble they had occasioned.

"Now," I continued, "I think all will be convinced that the trouble which this practice has occasioned to the fifty or sixty young ladies, who cannot be expected to find amusement in such a way, is far greater than the pleasure it can have given to the few who are young enough to have enjoyed it. Therefore it was wrong. Do you think the girls who rang the bell might have known this, by proper reflection?"

"Yes sir," the school generally answered.

"I do not mean," said I, "if they had set themselves formally at work to think about the subject; but with such a degree of reflection as ought reasonably to be expected of little girls, in the hilarity of recess and of play.

"Yes sir," was still the reply, but fainter than before.

"There is one way by which I might ascertain whether you were old enough to know that this was wrong, and that is by asking those who have refrained from doing this, because they supposed it would be wrong, to rise. Then if some of the youngest scholars in school should stand up, as I have no doubt they would, it would prove that all might have known, if they had been equally conscientious. But if I ask those to rise who have not rung the bell, I shall make known to the whole school who they are that have done it, and I wish that the exposure of faults should be private, unless it is necessary that it should be public. I will therefore not do it. I have myself however, no doubt that all might have known that it was wrong."

"There is," continued I, "another injury which must grow out of such a practice. This I should not have expected the little girls could think of. In fact, I doubt whether any in school will think of it. Can any one tell what it is?"

No one replied.

"I should suppose that it would lead you to disregard the bell when it rings, and that consequently a gentleman or lady might sometimes ring in vain; the scholars near the door, saying, 'Oh it is only the little girls.'"

"Yes sir," was heard from all parts of the room.

I found from farther inquiry that this had been the case, and I closed by saying,