Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1880 — School Government. [ARTICLE]

School Government.

The question of discipline is one th St forces itoelf upon the mind of the teacher. Be he ever so well educated, without the ability to govern, he will fail. To sway the minds of adult scholars required tact and rare judgment. Children are men and women in minature. They have their own peculiarities, their weak points and their prejudices. These must be studied by the teacher. lie must adapt himself to their natures, and not expect all to conform to his ideas of deportment. He must build the pupil’s self-respect, that he may afterward respect the teacher. A child without respect for itself or for others is a criminal. When “that boy,” the terror of the neighberhood and the evil genius of nil previous schools arrives a few weeks after school begins, with his Landa brow# and cracked from the arduous labors of the farm, and with evil lurking his in eye for bis supposed enemy, the teacher, greet him kindly and call him “mister.” Did you ever see a boy raise his head and try to look unconscious when be first heard that magic word that divides boyhood from manhood? He is better, nobler, manlier after every token of respect shown him. Try it. The word “mister” is a sesame to the heart of every bad boy.

E. R. PRICH.