p. 28 | The School

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 3, 1908

The School

What Good Order Is

Good order in the schoolroom is attained when every pupil attends to his own work at the proper time without unnecessary noise, promptly and cheerfully obeys the teacher, and, above all, exercises perfect self-control.

The pupil should never be idle. Idleness in itself is disorder, and the teacher should be disturbed by it. Then the work engaged in must belong to that particular time. A time for everything, and everything in its own time, is an aphorism in school government, which, if observed, will go a great way toward securing good order. It also establishes a habit that is vitally essential to success in after-life. Every child should understand not only that he must be busy, but that he must be busy with the task that belongs to each particular period. Methodical habits will thus be formed, and these, too, are a part of education as well as of good order. Of course this necessitates a statement in the daily program of seat-work to be done, as truly as the work of the recitations; and the teacher should hold the pupils to the one as strictly as to the other. This will save a great deal of confusion, and do much to secure a proper preparation of the lessons. It will also prevent the unnecessary noise which distracts attention, and destroys the respectability of the school. Then it will be easier for the teacher to distinguish between “the noise of busy industry,” and the noise which is disorder.—Selected.