64 THU POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Any mistake, miscarriage, or false step, on the part of a teacher, is 

 for the moment fatal to his ascendency. Such things will happen and 

 they render undue assumption all the more perilous. 



The stress of the teacher's difficulty lies in the heavings of a mass 

 or multitude. The working of human beings collectively is wholly 

 distinct from their individual action ; a new set of forces and influences 

 are generated. One man against a multitude is always in the post of 

 danger. As units in a mass, every individual displays entirely new 

 characters. The anti-social or malevolent passion — the delight in gain- 

 ing a triumjDh — which is suppressed in the individual as against a more 

 powerful individual, is reignited and inflamed in company with others. 

 "Whenever a simultaneous charge is possible, the authority of a single 

 person is as naught in the balance. 



It is often said that the teacher should get the collective opinion on 

 his side — should, in short, create a good class-opinion. It is easier to 

 deserve success in this than to command it. The fear is that, till the 

 end of time, the sympathy of numbers will continue to manifest itself 

 against authority in the school. There will be occasions when the 

 infection of the mass is a stronghold of order, as when the majority 

 are bent on attending to the work, and are thwarted by a few disturb- 

 ers of the peace ; or when they have a general sympathy with their 

 teacher, and merely indulge themselves in rare and exceptional out- 

 bursts. While a teacher's merits may gain for him this position of 

 advantage, more or less, he is never above the risks of an outbreak, 

 and must be ready for the final resort of repression by discipline or 

 penalties. He may still work by soothing applications, gentle and 

 kindly remonstrance ; he may check the spread of disaffection by 

 watchful tactics, and by showing that he has the ringleaders in his eye ; 

 but in the end he must punish. 



It is this position of constant preparedness for disorder, sometimes 

 in isolated individuals and sometimes in the mass, that demands an air 

 and manner betokening authority, and carrying with it a certain hau- 

 teur and distance ; the necessity for which is the stronger, as the war- 

 ring elements are more rife. 



The discipline of numbers is impeded by two sorts of pupils: 

 those that have no natural liking for the subject, and those that are 

 too far behind to vmderstand the teaching. In a perfectly-arranged 

 school both sorts would be excluded from a class. — Author's ad'cance- 

 sheets. 



