From the March 26,
1914 issue of The Watauga
Democrat, Boone
Miss Florence V.
Cole, a member of the Training School, delivered the following short but very
timely and true little address before the faculty and student body one day last
week:
“From the time that
Socrates held his little intellectual court until the present day, there has
been a feeling with the Student Body that the Faculty is its natural enemy.
This has been particularly true of the small boy, to whom the teacher has been
an implacable foe whose greatest joy in life was to deny him the privilege of
hunting on an ideal winter day or fishing when the spring breeze called
irresistibly.
“Some of these
privileges are inalienable and belong to a boy by right of birth. They are the
outlet for that tremendous energy characteristic of the small boy.
“The old time
school master gave little heed to these rights. He stood on a high pedestal of
dignity, stiff of collar and of backbone, and swayed his classes with the
ferule. The school marm was even more awesome than this; she has become a
matter of tradition. She was always an old maid, invariably scraped her hair
tight back from her face, and exhorted her pupils in a shrill and nerve-racking
voice.
“The up-to-date
teacher wishes to avoid this sort of thing Not only does the exaggerated
dignity starch and dry the humanity within him, but it is obviously hurtful to
the attitude of the student. It constantly reminds the small boy of his lost
rights and he resents having knowledge forced into his head by a dignity of
odious as the ferule.
The faculty members
of the world are beginning to realize the wonderful method opening to them year
by year of making friends of the students and being one with them. They are
trying to substitute interest in the school for the loss of those privileges
dear to the small boy’s heart. They are trying to make him realize that by
meanness he is not outwitting an enemy, but injuring a friend. They are giving
him athletics, play-grounds and games of all kinds. They are giving him the Boy
Scout movement, that he may bore his bare toes in the soft green turf of the
bank, gaze with fascinated eyes upon the shadowy water and wait with expectant
thrill, that only a really, truly small boy’s heart can feel, for the nibble of
the fish at the other end of the line; and do it in a way calculated not to
interfere with his education.
‘The Student Body
is beginning to see this in its quick, keen way, and is beginning to respond in
the desired manner. We are hopeful that the day will come when the prejudice of
the ages shall have been brushed aside and there shall be perfect understanding
and friendship between the Faculty and that throbbing, pulsing small-boy heart
of the school, the Student Body.”
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