ILLUSTRATION (EIGHTH GRADE) Miss Griffin, a teacher in the eighth grade of the Waller Avenue School, decided to cure two boys in her room who had the idea they could not study in school unless they spoke aloud. During a study period in which she was at leisure she went quietly to each boy’s desk and privately asked: “Are you a Chinese boy, Leonard?” The boy laughed and shook his head. [Sidenote: Chinese Method] “I thought not. Well, do you know, Leonard, that Chinese boys study out loud? A Chinese boy learns his lessons by shouting aloud until he has committed the passage to memory. Then he hands his book to the teacher, turns his back and recites the lesson as fast as he can. “Now, you are not a Chinese, Leonard, neither are we advertising the old Chinese method of education. Let me see you study like an American boy hereafter.” (4) _Tattling._ The tale-bearer usually acts to satisfy some secret desire either for fame or for revenge. Tale-bearing grows directly out of the taproot of selfishness. Fortunately, public opinion, both in school and out is sufficient to suppress the majority of pupils in their leanings in this direction. Nevertheless, a few individuals now and then taste the sweets of tale-bearing. These are apt to be in the lower grades, where the force of community ideas has less weight. For the sake of both teacher and pupil it is necessary to mark a clear distinction between the legitimate report of a misdeed that is a menace to good order and the petty, selfish carrying of stories of other pupils’ misdemeanors. The difference is marked by the character of the motive and the frequency of the reporting. Some supervisors and administrators take the unwarranted position that all reporting of misbehavior by pupils is wrong. They do not expect nor desire information of misbehavior to come to them from pupil sources. They highly commend all pupils who refuse to answer questions on the misconduct of their schoolmates. They deny that the best of motives can warrant a revelation of student wrongs to the school authorities. This position is extreme. It seems due to an attempt to adopt a pupil’s point of view. It positively contradicts the duty laid down by public sentiment and the fundamental law of the land, to the effect that all good citizens must aid in the discovery and repression of crime. A pupil stands in a double position. He owes good will both to his comrades as individuals and to the school as an institution. His duty to neither must be overlooked. The rule of right in the case seems to be somewhat as follows: to his schoolmates he owes a generous silence when their misdeeds are not a serious menace to the school and a kindly sympathy when he must report their wrong actions. To the school he owes a loyalty that requires only a reporting of that which if left untold will be a serious injury to both the wrong-doer and to the school.