[Sidenote: Strained Eye]
Miss Cornelius was a thoroughly conscientious seventh grade teacher who
secured excellent results from most of her pupils but who had one row of
particularly troublesome children who frequently failed in their lessons
and still more frequently diverted her attention from her recitations by
their inattention to their studies and by fighting. It was not merely
these mild form of restlessness, however, which troubled Miss Cornelius
and violated her high ideals of what good order should be, but frequent
indisposition in the case of several of them kept them constantly behind
the other members of the class in their school work. Frequently one or
another of the children would be found with his arms folded on the desk
and his head in his arms, and when questioned would say, “O, Miss
Cornelius, my head aches. Won’t you please excuse me from reciting
today?”
At first Miss Cornelius did excuse the children when requested to do so,
but, finding these same children seemed perfectly well when they came to
school in the morning, and that they never moped very long on the school
grounds before joining in the games as heartily as the others, she
decided that the children were imposing upon her, and thereafter became
more and more severe in dealing with them, frequently keeping them after
school to make up the missed lessons.