The whispering problem can never be allowed to solve itself. The offenders will wax worse and worse until intolerable conditions will compel a reform. On the other hand a method of suppressing whispering, that only interrupts school work the more, is not to be adopted. The most favored procedure is to adopt, first of all, a general policy regarding quiet, one that is patiently urged and unceasingly enforced. Sudden, explosive, distracting attempts at suppression are to be avoided. Every teacher, from the first grade to the last year in the high school, will admit that whispering is one of the most general annoyances. Some teachers succeed in holding it in check while others aggravate the difficulty until it becomes a misdemeanor. There are educators who recommend that as long as whispering is carried on about lessons and school work, it should not be prohibited. There are others who say it should be prohibited, but fail to give prohibitive measures. The former fail to note that whispering about lessons and school tasks is really a temptation to whisper about almost anything that comes into the child’s mind. [Sidenote: First Grade] In the first grade, whispering about lessons and school work is unusual. Their interests are play interests and their activities are the activities of child life; about these they talk. It is only natural that they should do so. While it does not seem fair to the child to transplant him from his outside world of freedom to the school-room where the privilege of free expression is denied, still the first grade teacher must bear in mind that if she allows whispering to become a habit in the first grade, it will become very annoying in the higher grades. There is no argument in favor of whispering, and, therefore, the first grade teacher should train her pupils not to whisper during the school sessions. In rural schools the matter of preventing whispering is more difficult than in the city school, for what is busy work for one grade cannot be used in another. What will interest one grade will not interest another, hence study periods and periods of busy work must be most carefully planned, especially in the first three grades. Too much time must not be given to study, for that means opportunity for play and mischief and, of course, for whispering. Even with the best planning, an occasional child will whisper. Such a child should not be reproved in a faultfinding way. The teacher may preface her request to refrain from whispering by approval of something that has been well done, then say, “My dear, we do not whisper here at all.” Following her request, the teacher may do some kindness for the child that will gain his love and affection and make him willing to try to obey the teacher.