“When you’ve seen as much of teachers as I have you’ll know,” Miss Bulwer replied, grimly. “I haven’t heard her talk to them, but I can tell you just how she goes about it. She makes every one of them think he’s the budding genius of the century. She has Verne Gibbs reading Ibsen and planning to write a tragedy. I’ll be bound! She has persuaded Morris Talbot that he can write short stories. Warren Hughes thinks he’s very remarkable because she told him he could appreciate Francis Thompson. Maybe he can, but he can also appreciate Cicero when he’s given half a chance. Every one of those youngsters thinks that at last he has found a teacher who really sees what is in him, the great promise to which the rest of us are blind. Then he proceeds to fall in love with Miss Kingsley to show her that her interest is not lost. She appeals to the adolescent vanity that they all have so much of, and she’s making them so insufferably self-conscious and sentimental and onesided that you and I can’t do anything with them.” Miss Sperry watched Miss Kingsley. She saw that the boys who could use their father’s automobiles vied with each other for the honor of taking her home on Friday nights—she lived in a neighboring town; that they hung over her desk before and after sessions, engaged in interminable discussions of the value of poetry or the madness of Hamlet. On her birthday her desk was banked with roses; Miss Sperry wondered how they found out when her birthday came. Miss Kingsley’s work went very well, but she robbed every other teacher of the time and energy that fairly belonged to the other subjects taught. The result was that the poor work caused by her selfish policy showed in the classes of other teachers. In her own there was a constant and lively interest, fanned continuously by the numberless “conferences” with which she kept her hold on her students. The school was badly demoralized by Christmas, and yet the real cause of all the trouble appeared to be the one brilliantly successful teacher on the force. CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT The principal of a school should see to it that each teacher and each subject has a fair share of the attention of the students. In this case, the principal should say to Miss Kingsley, “I notice that a number of our boys are falling behind with their mathematics, and Miss Bulwer tells me that Howard Grimes failed in Latin last month—something never heard of before. I have been looking for the cause, and I find that most of those who are failing are spending more time on their English than is fair. You are stimulating them by a personal appeal to put time on English which really belongs to other studies. So I am asking you to discontinue your private conferences for the present; and, moreover, it is not dignified for you to accept attentions from the boys as though they were your own age; it will lead to criticism which will hurt your work and your influence.”