Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 182, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1911 — His Brother and Sister [ARTICLE]

His Brother and Sister

His infatuation with school work is not always immediate and irremediable. Sometimes it comes just as his opportunity for going to school is vanishing and all the rest of his days he will have periods of penitence over his folly, and will frequently wish the teacher or his parents had taken the big stick to him unflinchingly. Sometimes he never cares for what he has missed; but we seldcm find that sort of a man. His teacher, as an essential part of the school system, may fall under the same reprobation, till his period of incorrigible antipathy for schools is over and then that same teacher will rise into heroic stature before his eyes. He may naturally take to schools, with the teacher thrown in, asking no questions on that point, but plenty of them on other points. In that case he makes fair weather with parents, teacher, school board and the public generally. Such a good reputation so absolutely awaits any boy who will go after it in that way we wonder how it ever fails to be a greater attraction to him than any amount of fun or self-will can be. But all the mysteries have not yet been solved, even with the sacred assistance of psychology and pedagogy. Between those two extremes there is a golden and practicable mean into which a boy can often be guided, if the right kind of a teacher gets hold of him, especially if that teacher has the co-operation of the right kind of parents. In order to be a success with him, the teacher must have a couple of eyes, good for not seeing as well as for seeing, an active child element In her own nature, a hand that is fine as well as firm, and a spirit that is always fair and always friendly. These things would make her a paragon and such she ought to try to be, at least. The boy will like her and show it in his own way, not as a little girl would, by putting his arm around her and telling her how he loves her. You never catch him at that The terms In which he expresses his appreciation of her may not always be classical ' literature, but they oonvey his Idea clearly. A boy I know speaks of his teacher. Miss A., as “dandy,’’ and even sometimes as “peachy.” The American boy averages only four years in school .before he is twelve and not many after that age. It is hard to hold him. A natural dislike for school, the need of his services at home, the necessity of working to support the family, the distracting fascinations of money-getting, all militate against his completing the

course. But the teacher may hold him at the breaking up time; and, if not, she should be able to say she did all she could for him.

The best thing she ever does for him Is what she doss with him and through him. And when she enters into the work she assigns or guides him in choosing for himself, and becomes his coworker, she reigns as queen in that school. When he knows her mind is traveling with his mind, In Its toilsome journey through the fields of knowledge, he learns to put her valuation on the work, because he puts a high valuation on her. If she only has sent enough to let him do a little dreaming with her entire approbation, he Is sure to think she is competent to guide his dreams Into their embodiment in deeds. If his plans are of any interest to her and she will encourage him to tell about them, she has him on her side. Where vocational training is given, as is now being done in some places, and will be done a great deal more In the future, the teacher and he will have much more In common. The schools are now considering the whole child as at school, not his mind alone, and we may expect a great deal more for the boy, from that foot. Even personal problems are within the teacher's observation, and he may be much assisted by frank talks, if she knows how to invite confidence and clear up difficulties. He has a special fondness for teachers who can make use of the general knowledge he has as a starting point for further knowledge, especially in the subject they axe studying; and for the one who can find practical uses for the things they are studying, especially if it is constructing machinery, or even literature, he has a still greater fondness; and the one who can connect up the studies, vith the activities of the calling he aspires to follow, is on the pinnacle of honor. When she can use figures In engineering, chemicals in photography, projectiles In the study of war, the teacher Is educating him In the true sense. When the teacher knows the crises through which he passes In all their stages and struggles. In all their symtoms and suggestion., and gives him something positive father than negative, makes wholesome things attractive and wrong things repulsive, encourages individuality and proves a good friend as well as a capable teacher, snob work wins him forever. After a oertain stage, In the early teens, that teacher ought to be a man.