It was Miss Weber’s first day of school in Roxbury, Missouri. She came
as a new teacher from a nearby normal school.
[Sidenote: Teacher Falsifies]
In outlining her first day’s work the evening before, the words of her
training teacher had been in her mind, “As the first day goes, so goes
the year.”
“I’ll take the first five minutes tomorrow,” thought Miss Weber, “to
tell the children what I hope from them. They will then be pretty sure
to meet my expectations.”
After a cheery “Good morning, children,” she said, “I’m going to take a
few minutes this morning to talk with you. I want you to be very good
children this year. I’ve got eyes in the back of my head and when my
face is turned away from you I can see what is going on back of me.”
Some of the pupils in her room actually believed this for about a week,
when one day Jimmie Knox decided he would test Miss Weber’s “double
eyes.” He had not studied his spelling lesson; so when the papers were
exchanged for correction (his among them) and Miss Weber was writing
some words on the board, he made another copy from his spelling book
which lay open before him.
When the papers were returned the next morning Miss Weber said, “I was
sorry to find out that Jimmie Knox could not be trusted while my back
was turned.”
All eyes were on Jimmie while she went on to give a long talk on
“Deceit,” bringing out such points as:
“A deceitful child is handicapped. Any boy who cheats is almost sure to
be a liar and a thief also.”
“There is very little hope that a child who cheats will ever become a
great and good man.”
Several days later Miss Weber said, “If you all get 100 in spelling
today, I’ll be so proud of you I shall have to give you each a gold
medal.”
“Oh, shall we have gold medals, Miss Weber?” asked one enthusiastic
little boy.
“No, not really. You mustn’t believe everything I say, William.”
“Did you mean,” asked Jimmie, “what you said yesterday about cheating?”
Miss Weber paused a moment, then said, “That’s enough from you, Jimmie.”