Dangerous Discipline

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 6, 1909

Dangerous Discipline

THE following news item appeared in the Washington Post, under the date of March 5:—

“YONKERS, N. Y., March 5.—Henry G. Issertell has made a charge to the board of education that teachers at public school No. 12 are responsible for the death of his twelve-year-old daughter, Marjorie. In his complaint he says:—

“My little girl was taken violently ill in school. She was attacked by a violent chill. She asked to go home; her request was denied. So she was made to keep at her work until, finally overcome by pain, she went to the cloak-room and fell to the floor in a faint. The teacher finally compelled her to return and finish her lesson.

“The child reached home in a raging fever. Delirium set in, and for three days and nights she raved constantly to be allowed to go home. A consultation of physicians was held Sunday, and peritonitis and grip were declared to be the cause of her condition.”

“The child was removed to a hospital, where she was operated upon. In the child’s delirium the parents and physicians say Marjorie screamed: ‘O, please let me go home! I’m so sick. O please don’t make me do any more!’”

“She repeated these pleas over and over again until the hour of her death.

“The child’s mother is frantic with grief. Mrs. Ida Blakeman Issertell is a magazine writer and author.

“The teachers declare they did not know Marjorie was ill.”

This story has its lessons. “It is the nicest work ever assumed by men and women to deal with youthful minds;” and because it is a work of such fine discriminations, great wisdom is required. It is better to err, if err we must, on the side of leniency than rigor; but better still is the ideal, not to err.

Pupils who are disposed to take advantage of the teacher can nearly always, sooner or later, be detected in the wrong course, and to do so the teacher does not have to appear as a spy either. This teacher evidently felt that the child was feigning illness in order to escape school. The child might better have been dismissed, and then, at a later time, in a most natural way the teacher could have called on her when her condition would have been readily discerned. If the teacher then had reason to believe that the child had been endeavoring to deceive, feigning illness where nothing serious was the trouble, a kind talk, which would have shown the child the wrong course, would undoubtedly have solved the whole situation. But suppose the child had carried her feigning to the extent of going home and there continuing it, the teacher, by wise diplomacy, could have enlisted the parents’ efforts, and the child have been put to bed, where sick children should go. This punishment would have been a natural effect of the cause.

Wise teachers and parents follow up the doings of their children, and know concerning them. The knowledge that they will do so is a continual restraint to children. All children must be restrained and controlled, and at all times; and punishment must necessarily be meted out on necessary occasions; however, great effort must be put forth that the restraint may be wise, and the punishment just. But always must the guardian of the child be moved by reason rather than by impulse.