ession of her own nervousness and
inadequacy and visits her own suffering upon her pupils. A transfixing
glance prolonged into an overbearing stare, a loud, sharp voice, a
rough manner, are successful only so far as they work on the
nervousness of her pupil. She finds that it is temporarily effective,
and so by her example and practice sets the child an example in losing
control of himself. The position often assumed by school children when
before authority, of hands held stiffly at the side, head drooped, and
roving eye, does not mean control: it means a crushed spirit,
hypocrisy, or brooding anarchy. The mother or teacher who obtains
obedience by clapping her hands, pointing her finger, distorting her
face, is copying in her own home the attitudes of caste in India, of
serfdom in Russia, the discipline of the prison the world over, a
modern reminder of the power of life and death or of physical torture.

A young college girl unfamiliar with the ways of the public school was
substituting in the highest grammar grade. The time for civics arrived.
Here, she thought, is a subject in which I can interest them. The boys
showed a vast amount of press information, as well as decided opinions
on the politics of the day. The candidates which they elected for the
position of ideal American patriot were Rockefeller, Lincoln, and
Sharkey the prize fighter. During the ensuing debate, which gave back
to Lincoln his proper rank, the boys in the back of the room had moved
forward and were sharing seats with the boys in the front. Every boy
was engrossed in the discussion. The room was in perfect order,--not,
however, according to the ideas of the principal, who entered at that
moment to see how the new substitute was managing the class, famed for
its bad boys. With the stern look of a Simon Legree she demanded, "How
dare you leave your seats!" When one child started to explain she
shouted: "How dare you speak without permission! Don't you know your
teacher never permits it? Every boy take his own seat at his own desk."
This principal was far more to be pitied than the boys, for they had
before them the prospect of "work papers" and a grind less monotonous
and more productive than the principal's discipline. She was a victim
of a nerve-racking system, more sinned against than sinning.

There is nothing in school life _per se_ to cause nervousness. Given a
well-aired, sunny room, where every child has enough fresh air to
breathe, where