Then Mr. Briggs began to think of underlying causes and intrinsic remedies. As a consequence, he made up a fairy story about a land where people’s thoughts molded their features with instant magic into the semblance of ugly animals or noble men and beautiful women. He introduced a princess of evil disposition whose face was that of a cross, snapping dog, but whom a magician changed into a being of loveliness and grace by his persuasions to self-sacrifice and kindness. He told this story as vividly as he could, with emphasis upon the dislike people feel for an ugly face. Then he waited a day or two for the story to take effect. He heard the children laughingly allude to it once or twice, but the evil went on. Then he talked to his school about face-making. He explained that such contortions really do affect the faces and characters of those who make them, not of those who see them. He led his boys and girls to see that face-making made them contemptible, and that every time it was done it published the inferiority of the doer. Then, having condemned the old ideal, he tried to build up a new habit by showing that the strongest man is the one who is most self-controlled, and ended by a little skillful ridicule of the babyish method they had been taking to show a silly spite. “Suppose,” he proposed at last, “that we put the babies who make faces over here with the primary pupils, where they’ll feel more at home? Bright people don’t like to be associated with such children. But we’ll not try it unless we have to. I shall watch you during the next few days, and I’m going to see how many can show their friends and their enemies, if they have any, that they are worth respecting, and that their souls don’t look like twisted turnips.” No magical change came over the school, but gradually the sentiment for, and practice of, face-making died out. The children unconsciously copied the teacher’s contempt for it. By stories and references he built up an ideal of beauty and dignity in personal appearance and behavior. CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT Mr. Briggs did well to search for underlying causes and effective remedies, because the use of authority in such a case is a mistake, as he found. Make no attempt to suppress the practice, but proceed at once to the constructive plan of building up a good sentiment. Whatever you do, do not assume that the pupil is disrespectful to you. If the pupils have shown such disrespect in the past, simply set about gaining their confidence.