Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1874 — Compelling Children to Lie. [ARTICLE]

Compelling Children to Lie.

It is a very common practice among teachers to compel pupils to say they .are. sorry, when they have committed some offense. Sometimes they are compelled to stand before the school and say they are sorry. Now we believe in sorrow and repentance, and concede it to be a very proper thing for a pupil, or anybody else, to acknowledge his faults and voluntarily apologize to the person offended; but to force a person to apologize seems 4o us not only absurd and ridiculous, but absoi lately wicked. We once knew two school boys to fight, and the teacher required of them, as a punishment, that they should confess publicly to the school that .they were sorry for what they had done One of the boys had fought solely in self-defense and was not sorry, and refused to say so. The teacher insisted, the boy refused and finally was suspended. The parents then joined with the teacher and the boy was compelled to say to the school that he was sorry. Of course he lied, but his teacher and his parents forced it upon him, and he was not to blame. This case illustrates hundreds of others, and the subject demands the attention of every teacher. If. a pupil cap be led to his wrong, ' and made to feel that an apology is right and proper, the case is : entirely altered. If a pupil violates a rule of school and the teacher• cannot find an adequate punish-i ment without courpelling him to tell a falsehood about what was done, that teacher ought to resign and give up the school.— lndiana School Journal.