1865-1866 School Committee Report

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10 l "a 11 to words or ,actions of rude and supercilious discourtesy to the attendance is largest and most constant. This subject the others, especially those older than themselves; whether it be Committee have under consideration. persons officially connected with them, or those who are Ares- It will be also,seen that the average attendance for the year ent, in the exercise of the right belonging to. all citizens, to in all the schools is but about seventy-five per cent, showing a see for themselves the.state of things in the schools, which are loss of one-fourth by non-attendance. at once the interest and the charge of the whole community. In last year's Report,we urged, with some stress,the duty of Not only because it is his express duty by the laws of the State, the teacher to enter into the work of the school heartily, with but of his own sense of the right and becoming, every teacher a warm interest in the welfare and improvement of the pupils. is expected to discourage discourtesy, coarseness, rudeness, In one sense,it may be said truly,that the teacher is not work- and profanity of speech, and all unbecoming displays of -tem- ing for pay. He is paid that he may live ; but his work, if per and feeling; to inculcate pure moral principles, and the rightly conceived and truly performed,is beyond all pay, ex- sentiments of a just, generous, and self-respecting courtesy, cept the reward of a good conscience, and the delight of lead- as the very noblest attributes of a good citizen and a well- ing young minds onward in knowledge and virtue. Such, educated man. Parents are equally bound to abstain from indeed, is the case with all callings that have to do directly saying or doing what tends to counteract such teaching by with the lives, minds, or hearts of one's fellow-beings. No encouraging the young in a precocious self-confidence,—in true physician, minister of religion, teacher, or even member habits of reckless and contemptuous comment on the actions � ,. , of a school committee, is or can be paid for the best part of his of others. The same reasons make it the duty of pupils them- work. There is no way to measure such work in money value. selves, if they are beyond the stage of unreflecting childhood, The true teacher cherishes a personal tie between himself and to airn at such a habit and temper as what is in them most j each pupil ; looks on each as a living soul, for the time com- honorable and adorning. witted to him, to be aided, directed, and instructed in its men- tal and moral development. Not the pupil for the school, but the school for the pupil, is his motto; and not for bright and GENERAL REVIEW. interesting and industrious pupils alone, but for all, that all may be benefited to the utmost of the power of each. The By examining the tabular statement which is appended, it growth of the living soul,both mind and heart,is the one great will be seen that the average attendance in most of the schools object of the good teacher's work. is at a lower percentage in the summer than in the winter. ',f,, In no one point is the difference between a right and living Taking all the schools together, it is about ten per cent lower. idea of the teacher's office, and a'wrong, dead, and deaden- This is not a feature peculiar to this year. It represents a ing idea of it,more often seen than in the difference previously regular course of things, by which the schools are very much alluded to between a close and mechanical adherence to the reduced in numbers during the concluding weeks of the spring routine of question and answer as found in the text-book, and term. This and other considerations seem to indicate .the a habit of leading the pupil's mind to act for itself by free advantage of lengthening still further the usual summer vaca- questioning and explanation. To a teacher just beginning the tion, and adding the time so lost to the winter term, when work of the profession, the wrong _method is the easier, and