[Sidenote: Dealing with a Ringleader]
Some years ago a former teacher of experience, Mrs. J., was asked to
substitute for a day in the second grade of a city school.
She keenly studied her pupils as they gathered in the room before school
opened. Among them was a boy two feet taller than the rest, poorly
dressed, dirty and rude even to viciousness, as he dealt with other
boys. He heeded nobody’s request. Mrs. J. marked him as a typically
disobedient boy. She went to him before the first bell rang and asked
him in a very deferential way to lower the shades in the room to just
the length which _he_ thought would be best. As soon as school came to
order she asked him what desk books would be used the first session.
When the class was called for recitation she found something to commend
in his work while approving that done by other pupils.
She treated him as deferentially as if he were as tractable as any one
else and indeed he proved to be so. He studied hard all day. He spent
the last intermission telling her of home difficulties.
As she bade the children goodbye at the close of school he said,
“I wish you’d teach again tomorrow.” A spirit of comradeship had changed
the disobedient boy into a real friend.