HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH A SCHOOL-MASTER.--SUGGESTIONS AND HINTS FOR
THE CLASS-ROOM.--BOYS ON HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.--"MAXIMS" AND "WISE
THOUGHTS."--ADVICE TO THOSE ABOUT TO TEACH.--"SIR," AND NOT "MOSSOO."
--"FRAULEINS" AND "MADEMOISELLES."--"CHECK" YOUR LOVE FOR BOYS.--NO
CREDIT.--WE ARE ALL LIABLE TO MAKE MISTAKES.--I GET AN INSIGHT INTO
"STOCKS."
I know masters who spend their time looking at their books with their
heads downwards, and who only occasionally lift them up to say to a
boisterous class:
"Now then, now then!"
They might as well tell the boys: "Just take a minute's rest, my dears,
will you? In a moment I shall be looking at my desk again, then you
will be able to go on."
* * * * *
Face the boys, or you will be nowhere.
* * * * *
Always be lively. If you once let the boys go to sleep, you will never
wake them up again.
Always look the same in face and person. Your moustache curtailed, your
whiskers shaved, or the usual shape of your coat altered, will cause a
revolution in your class.
* * * * *
Never show your temper if you have one, and keep the changes of your
temperature for the benefit of your wife and family. If you once show
your boys that they have enough power to disturb your equilibrium and
interfere with your happiness, it is for them a victory, the results of
which they will always make you feel.
* * * * *
If you are annoyed by a boy constantly chatting with his neighbors, see
if he has a brother in the class. If he has, place them side by side,
and peace will be restored. Brothers will sometimes quarrel in class,
but have a quiet chat together, never.
* * * * *
Never overpraise clever boys, or they will never do another stroke of
work. Never snub the dull ones; you don't know that it is not out of
modesty that they will not shine over their schoolfellows.
Never ask young English public schoolboys any questions on history that
may be suggested to you by the proper names you will come across in the
text. Their knowledge of history[10] does not go much beyond the
certainty that Shakespeare was not a great Roman warrior, although his
connection with Julius Caesar, Antony, and Coriolanus keep a good many
still undecided as to the times he lived in.
[10] _I mean "modern history," for although public school-boys
know little or nothing of Marlborough and Wellington, they could
write volumes about Pericles, Scipio, and Hannibal. Ask them
something about the Reform Bill, the Repeal of the Corn Laws, or
the causes which led to American Independence, and you will have
little essays worth inserting in a comic paper._
Ask them under whose reign Ben Jonson flourished, and you will be
presented by them with a general survey of English history from the
Norman Conquest to the reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
Victoria. A good many will also take the opportunity of making a show
of their knowledge of literary history (the temptation is
irresistible), and add that he was a great man who wrote a good
dictionary, and was once kept waiting for a long time in Lord
Chesterfield's antechamber, "which he did not like." Boys are generally
good at historical anecdotes, a remnant of their early training.
We once had to put into French the following sentence:
"Frederick the Great of Prussia had the portrait of the young Emperor
in every room of his Sans-Souci Palace, and being asked the reason why
he thus honored the portrait of his greatest enemy, answered that the
Emperor was a busy, enterprising young monarch, and that he found it
necessary always to have an eye upon him."
I asked the class who this Emperor was that Frederick the Great seemed
to fear so much, and I obtained many answers, including Alexander the
Great and most well-known imperial rulers down to Napoleon the First;
but not one named Joseph II. of Austria.
Another time we were translating a piece of Massillon, taken from his
celebrated _Petit Careme_.
When we came to the following passage, in his sermon on _Flattery_:
"The Lord," once said the holy King, "shall cut off all flattering
lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things," I asked the boys,
who, by-the-bye, were referred in the notes to Psalm xii. 3, who was
this holy King mentioned by Massillon?
The first answer was "Charles I." The second was "Saint Louis," and I
should not probably have received the proper answer if I had not
expressed my astonishment at finding that nobody in the class seemed to
know who wrote the Psalms.
Even after this remark of mine, many boys remained silent; but at last
one timidly suggested "David."
He did not seem to be quite sure.
"This," I thought to myself at the time, "is hardly an encouragement to
make children read the Bible twice a day from the time they can spell."
* * * * *
The knowledge of geography is not more widespread than the knowledge of
history among these same boys. So, if you have no time to waste don't
ask them where places are.
They know where England is; they know more or less precisely the
position of India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape of Good
Hope, and such other spots of the earth as are marked in red on the
maps published in England.
France, Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Turkey, they could
after a few hesitations find out on the map of Europe, but as they are
not marked in red, their patriotism prevents them from taking any more
interest in these countries.
France, however, is rather interesting to them as being a part of the
globe in which the French irregular verbs come by nature.
Never expect any thanks for all the trouble you have taken over your
pupils.
When boys succeed in their examinations, it is owing to their
intelligence and industry; when they fail, it is owing to the bad
teaching of their masters. Boys can do no wrong; get this well engraven
on your minds.
* * * * *
When a boy laughs at a mistake made by a schoolfellow, do not believe
that he does so out of contempt, and that he knows better. Ask him for
the answer immediately, and he will be as quiet as you please.
If you observe him a little, you will see that he never begins to laugh
before you have declared the answer of his schoolfellow to be wrong; he
would never know himself.
* * * * *
I always carefully prepared the piece of French that my pupils had to
translate, in order to be ready with all the questions suggested to me
by the text; but I never prepared composition: I preferred working it
in class with them, so as to show them that scores of French sentences
properly rendered an English one. I think it is a mistake to impose one
rendering of an English sentence. Anybody can do this--with a key.
Be not solemn in class, nor aim at astonishing the boys with your
eloquence.
To look at their staring eyes and gaping mouths, you may perhaps
imagine that they are lost in ecstatic admiration. Look again, they are
all yawning.
* * * * *
When you have made the personal acquaintance of the boys who are to
make up a class during the term, you can easily assign to them seats
that will not perhaps please them, but which will insure peace. A quiet
boy placed between two noisy chatterboxes, or a chatterbox placed
between two solemn boys, will go a long way towards securing your
comfort and happiness. The easiest class-room to manage is the one
furnished with separate desks. Then you may easily carry the government
on the old principle of _Divide et regna_.
* * * * *
If you see a boy put his hand before his mouth whilst he is talking,
snub him hard for it. Tell him that, when you were a boy and wanted to
have a quiet chat with a neighbor, you were not so silly as to thus
draw the master's attention and get your little conversation disturbed.
We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest of us, as the late
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, once wittily remarked.
Never be tired of asking for advice; you will become a good
school-master only on condition that you will take constant advice from
the old stagers.
If, however, you should discover that, in the middle of your lesson,
your pupils are all sound asleep, don't go and tell the head-master,
and ask him how you should set about keeping them awake. This is beyond
his advice.
* * * * *
The General commanding a French military school had once decided upon
having a lecture on Hygiene given to the pupils on Monday afternoons.
The day was badly chosen. A French Sunday always means for a French boy
a little dissipation in the shape of a good dinner at home or with
friends, and on Monday afternoons we generally felt ready for a little
doze, if the lecture was in the least prosy.
The lecturer, tired of addressing sleeping audiences, lodged a
complaint with the General, and asked that his lecture should
henceforth take place on another day of the week.
This could not be arranged, but the General soon decided upon a plan to
set matters to rights.
"I will place a _basof_[11] in the room," he said; "he will take down
the names of all those who go to sleep, and I shall have them kept in
on the following Sunday."
[11] Abbreviation of "bas-officier" (non-commissioned officer).
When the lecturer made his next appearance, followed by the _basof_,
we thought it would be prudent to listen, and the lesson passed off
without accident.
The following Monday, however, the poor lecturer had not proceeded very
far, when he discovered that we were all asleep--and that so was the
_basof_.
Of course the General inflicted a severe punishment upon us, and also
upon the offending Cerberus.
_Moral._--I believe that, if a lecturer or a master had gone to
complain to an English head-master that all his pupils went to sleep
whilst he lectured, the head-master would have answered him:
"My dear sir, if your lecture sends your audience to sleep, it is your
fault, not mine, and I don't see how I can help you."
And the sooner the man sent in his resignation, the better for the
comfort of all concerned.
If you are a Frenchman, never allow your boys to call you _Mossoo_,
_Myshoo_, _Mounzeer_, or any other British adaptation of _Monsieur_. If
you do, you may just as well allow them to pat you on the back and call
you "Old chappie." They should call you "Sir," otherwise you will lose
your footing and fail to be the colleague of the English masters. You
will only be the _Mossoo_ of the place, something, in the world, like
the _Mademoiselle_ (from Paris), or the _Fraulein_ (from Hanover), of
the Establishment for Young Ladies round the corner.
* * * * *
All the _Frauleins_ come from Hanover, as all the _Mademoiselles_ are
Parisian and Protestants, if I am to believe the column of scholastic
advertisements in the English newspapers.
This is wonderful, is it not?
* * * * *
If you set any value on your reputation and your time, never carry the
interest which you naturally take in your pupils the length of inviting
them to come to your house to receive extra teaching at your hands,
unless it be as a means of improving your revenue.
I once determined to devote all my Saturday evenings to two young
fellows whom I was anxious to pass through the Indian Civil Service
examination. I thus worked with them five months. Their fathers were
men of position. I never received so much as a post-card of thanks from
them. If I had charged them a guinea for each visit, I should have
received two checks with "many thanks for my valuable services," which
would have benefited my banking account and given satisfaction to my
professional vanity.