Misses Phelps and Bender took a wise course in curing the fifth and
sixth graders under their charge, of snobbishness. They combined forces
and went into flower gardening on a small scale. A plot of ground was
procured and the children grouped by pairs according to an inflexible
rule adopted at the very start. There were several motives behind this
project, but we need consider only this one point.
[Sidenote: Gardening in Pairs]
To insure a genuinely democratic spirit, two pairs were assigned each
day for work in the flower garden. Boys were paired with boys and girls
with girls; there were usually four children at the garden, each day,
rain or shine, if not to work, at least to note conditions and report to
their teachers.
Some of the girls resented slightly the comrades selected for them, but
no real insult was perpetrated by the assignments made.
The teachers took turns in sharing the responsibility for management,
except when wishing advice on cutting and giving flowers, then all the
pupils went to Miss Phelps.
Fifty pupils took part in the venture. It solved several social school
problems and created a fine spirit of fraternalism among children of
varied social standings.
When young people reach the high school age, the period in which all the
changes of adolescence are most actively going on, they sometimes
develop a tendency to form clubs and secret societies which is often
disastrous to school discipline. When the clique evil is fully
developed, snobbishness and false standards run rife.
There must be democracy in the school if the best results are to be
obtained, and the clique spirit may work great havoc, especially in a
small high school where a well-defined group or clique is necessarily
very conspicuous.