but it is a valuable ideal to try to
live up to. And one of the best chances to work toward attainment is
in telling stories, for there you have definite material, which you can
work into shape and practice on in private. That practice ought to
include conscious thought as to one's general manner in the schoolroom,
and intelligent effort to understand and improve one's own voice. I
hope I shall not seem to assume the dignity of an authority which no
personal taste can claim, if I beg a hearing for the following elements
of manner and voice, which appeal to me as essential. They will,
probably, appear self-evident to my readers, yet they are often found
wanting in the public school-teacher; it is so much easier to say "what
were good to do" than to do it!

Three elements of manner seem to me an essential adjunct to the
personality of a teacher of little children: courtesy, repose vitality.
Repose and vitality explain themselves; by courtesy I specifically do
NOT mean the habit of mind which contents itself with drilling children
in "Good-mornings" and in hat-liftings. I mean the attitude of mind
which recognizes in the youngest, commonest child, the potential
dignity, majesty, and mystery of the developed human soul. Genuine
reverence for the humanity of the "other fellow" marks a definite
degree of courtesy in the intercourse of adults, does it not? And the
same quality of respect, tempered by the demands of a wise control, is
exactly what is needed among children. Again and again, in dealing
with young minds, the teacher who respects personality as sacred, no
matter how embryonic it be, wins the victories which count for true
education. Yet, all too often, we forget the claims of this reverence,
in the presence of the annoyances and the needed corrections.

As for voice: work in schoolrooms brings two opposing mistakes
constantly before me: one is the repressed voice, and the other, the
forced. The best way to avoid either extreme, is to keep in mind that
the ideal is development of one's own natural voice, along its own
natural lines. A "quiet, gentle voice" is conscientiously aimed at by
many young teachers, with so great zeal that the tone becomes painfully
repressed, "breathy," and timid. This is quite as unpleasant as a loud
voice, which is, in turn, a frequent result of early admonitions to
"speak up." Neither is natural. It is wise to determine the natural
volume and pitch of one's speaking voice by