Miss McLean, after a few days of exasperation over excessive requests
for permission to leave the room, finally decided to correct this. She
found in one day that every pupil left the room at least twice during
the session of school and this was a total of fifty requests.
[Sidenote: Frequent Absences]
“This will never do!” she said, the next morning. “You must learn not to
interrupt the school work this way. Now, I want you to see how well you
can keep to your work this morning. We will not give any permissions to
leave the room between now and recess and between recess and noon time.”
In the afternoon she relaxed somewhat. The next day more permissions
were granted, and finally the situation became as bad as ever.