[Sidenote: Punning]
Frank Tyne, son of the richest merchant in N——, well-dressed, quick of
thought and spoiled at home, was in the habit of eliciting little
admiring giggles from the girls in his classes by making pert responses
and unnecessary comments when his teachers spoke. So many teachers had
endured this, fearing the parental influence, that Frank did it almost
unconsciously, although he was very conscious of being considered “cute”
by the girls. One day a new teacher, Miss Stone, announced that as the
day was dark, and there were no lights in the room, the writing lesson
would be omitted.
“Yes’m,” said Frank as he put away his copybook. “Light work for a dark
day, eh?”
Miss Stone tactfully used the following method: when her pupils giggled,
she seemed very unconcerned, she did not slam her book down or do
anything to indicate that she was annoyed in the least, but rather
calmly and slowly turned her face toward Frank and softly smiled. This
smile was not one which indicated that she was amused, but rather one
which showed clearly that her temper was not aroused. After looking at
Frank only a second or two she calmly directed the attention of her
class to an announcement which she had intended to make sometime during
the day, and which served her purpose of taking the attention entirely
away from Frank by directing it elsewhere.
Miss Stone next made an attempt to win Frank’s confidence which she
easily did by talking at recess about those things in which she knew he
was especially interested. She made it a point to ask him to do a few
little errands for her, errands which she knew he would like to do, and
after each one she took advantage of the occasion to establish a good
spirit by thanking him in this fashion: “Oh, Frank, you are so kind.
Thank you, ever so much.”
After thus gaining his confidence, one day after she had been talking to
him in a friendly manner, she said to him in a confidential way, “There
is another thing I wanted to speak to you about. I didn’t want to say
anything about this in front of any of the other pupils, so I thought I
would tell you now. Whenever anything comes up that’s funny or whenever
you think of anything funny, remember to keep it till after school
hours. I like to see people have fun and I like fun myself, but of
course we have to watch ourselves during school hours. I’d like to allow
you to talk, but if I would do that, I’d have to allow everyone else to,
so if you will remember this, I will appreciate it very much.”
Miss Stone by this method very soon succeeded in breaking Frank, not
only of his habit of talking in school, but of other annoying habits as
well.
(6) _Talking back to teacher._ Talking back is generally due to the fact
that the pupil has not been taught politeness at home; but the case is
frequently aggravated by an exhibition of the same sort of bad manners
on the teacher’s part.