French; but while they work, they should understand that work is to be done energetically and thoroughly. One thing more: we cannot discipline boys or young men by trying to tell them all the things they should not do. The number of definite prohibitions should, I believe, be small. Nobody can cover the ground. In a college which used to make some small attempt at covering it, I have heard a gambler defended by a clergyman on the ground that gambling was not prohibited by the rules. To me the conclusion of the whole matter is this: The best discipline, whether of school or of college, is that which relies on the understanding between pupil and teacher that the objects of pupil and teacher are one and the same; a discipline based on sympathy with all the healthy interests of youthnot on weak compassion for the unhealthy temptations, though there may be a sort of bracing compassion, even for them; a discipline which allows lasting friendship with pupils who must be dismissed or expelled; a discipline which relies on coöperation, wherever such coöperation is reasonable, with the leaders among the pupils, and through the leaders with the great body of the pupils; a discipline based on absolute straightforwardness and perfect courtesy -for perfect courtesy is consistent with absolute straightforwardness; a discipline which counts it no loss of dignity for an instructor or a master to explain his point of view; a discipline which insists that there is no training without work, and that the work must not be done by the trainer only; a discipline which remembers that it is want of training which temporarily wrecks many a Freshman, and makes his evolution into energetic manhood discouragingly slow. I believe, further, that in every school and in every college there should be an effort from the start to make a youth imbibe that wonderful tonic called school or college spirit; to make him feel that from the moment he enters a school or a college he has become forever a part of it, one of its makers, and that throughout his life, wherever he goes, he takes with him, dragging or exalting it, as the case may be, the name of his school or of his college. Once get a deep, high loyalty, and the problem of discipline is gone. |
