Some teachers are afraid to refuse to answer questions at the time they arise in the child’s mind, fearing to bring the child to a standstill in his work and that he will be idle unless his difficulty is settled. It is a part of a child’s education to learn to be independent, to solve his own difficulties. Too much dependence on “Teacher” unfits the pupil for progress in his lessons or in anything else. ILLUSTRATION (SIXTH GRADE) The habit of talking aloud is easily cured. Miss Ellis was called upon to substitute in the place of a teacher who had been lax in her discipline. The pupils talked aloud almost as freely as if they had been in their own homes. Miss Ellis knew her position as substitute would be a hard one, and made up her mind that she would spend the first day, if necessary, doing nothing but enforcing order. [Sidenote: Making Up Time] The first time a child talked out loud without permission, she said, quietly, “Now, John, you know we can’t get very far with this lesson if we are to be interrupted. And we don’t want to have to take it over again tomorrow. Suppose you try to settle the matter yourself, or wait until after this class to ask me.” And she did not answer John’s question. It was only a few minutes until Isabel remarked that she couldn’t see what was written on the blackboard from where she sat. Miss Ellis told Isabel that by standing up she could read what was written there very plainly, and that it was unfair to the rest of the school for her to take up their time by speaking aloud. At the third interruption Miss Ellis said, again very quietly, “At this rate we shall all have to stay after school today to finish our work. I will not answer any more questions until this class is over. Then I will give you three minutes to do all the speaking, borrowing, and so forth that is necessary for the rest of the morning. And any talking aloud will put us just five minutes behind with our work, so we’ll have to make up that five minutes after school.” No one went home that afternoon until an hour and a half after the regular time for dismissal, but the talking aloud habit was broken, once and for all, during Miss Ellis’ regime. One big element in a teacher’s control of a school is a phase of stick-to-it-iveness, namely, her ability not only to prescribe a given line of action but to stick to it herself and hold her pupils to it day after day. Too many teachers are spasmodic in their control. They are very strict for a few days, then grow negligently lax in their discipline, only to pull their pupils up to the previous standard again with a jerk. It is just as easy to form good habits as bad ones, but a teacher can never hope to train a school in good habits if she punishes today what she leaves unnoticed tomorrow, as Miss Rand, a seventh grade teacher, did. CASE 111 (SEVENTH GRADE) [Sidenote: Useless Talking]