Miss Henry was teaching in a St. Louis school and was face to face with
the question of how to control the game of matching pennies; she
followed out a new plan. Fortunately the policeman who was on the
nearest beat was one of the best friends of the school children and was
occasionally asked to step into a room and say a few words to them. He
was greeted with enthusiasm, for he knew how to tell a story and how to
teach a lesson on good conduct.
[Sidenote: Policeman’s Story]
Instead of faultfinding or even alluding to the boys’ misconduct Miss
Henry asked Mr. Clanahan to describe briefly the careers of four boys
whom he had watched as they grew up on St. Louis streets and who
indulged in the several gambling games known to boys and men. None of
the boys became successful and honored men. Following this talk the
teacher kept a mild surveillance over the guilty boys. A few persisted
in the practice; this she ignored for the time being. For those who
would accept her plans she brought to school several new games; they
could not fail to be interested in them because of the chance for skill
and for definite records of achievement. These partly replaced the
gambling games in interest. But Miss Henry rightly felt that displacing
the game of matching pennies with other games did not in itself, and
alone, fully solve her problem. The boys must understand _why_ playing
for keeps is wrong if the lesson was to safeguard them in any way from
other gambling games. She therefore gave the school another talk soon
after the policeman’s visit, and after the pupils had had time to think
out for themselves the moral of his story.
Miss Henry recalled the story and asked, “Why should the boys’ gambling
habits have anything to do with the failure of these men to ‘make good’?
Who sees any harm in gambling?” Some of the boys _didn’t_ see any harm
in it and a short discussion followed, mostly by the children
themselves, during which the thought was developed of taking something
valuable from one’s fellows without giving back to him any just
equivalent for the marbles, or money, or whatever had been taken.
“What sort of person do you like best yourselves, boys?” Miss Henry
asked, when public sentiment in the class had reached a point where it
seemed safe to ask so direct a question; “the man who gives you back
good, square, full measure for your money or the one who gives you just
as little as he possibly can, even nothing at all, if he dares to go so
far as that?”
“Well, the principle is the same in matching pennies,” she continued,
“and I’m just wondering if you wouldn’t have equally as much fun and
feel a good deal more manly about it if you should keep the pennies you
win until the game is finished and then re-distribute them and give back
to each fellow all that belongs to him. Think it over a day or two and
tell me your decision.” The boys finally agreed to Miss Henry’s
proposition.