Locked in a Closet

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Apr 1, 1909

Locked in a Closet

A MASSACHUSETTS teacher locked a little boy in a closet for some trifling misbehavior, and forgot him, and he was there twenty hours before he was discovered. The parents were frantic when the boy did not come home. The police department made anxious search for the missing lad; finally the whole community was aroused, and squads of men formed searching parties, and looked for him far and near.

The teacher was much exercised to think that one of her pupils was lost, and talked it over with her fellow teachers without once thinking that she had herself locked the lad in the closet the day before.

The boy’s account of the affair is one of the most tragic on record. The offense was of no earthly account, else the teacher or some other pupil would have recalled the incident. The boy was reading a story-book instead of studying. He did not stop immediately, and so, without one word, she quietly took him by the arm, led him to the closet, shut the door, and turned the key. No one noticed it, and it made no impression on the teacher’s mind. It was in mid-afternoon. The boy was not concerned until he heard the children marching out. He then fully expected to be let out, and made no disturbance until the teacher had gone. She was bridesmaid that evening, and so left as soon as the pupils were gone. Then he was frightened and frantic, and pounded the door, and shouted and cried himself to sleep, and from exhaustion and lack of air slept indefinitely.

The teacher had occasion to go to the closet for some books during the forenoon, and, naturally, almost fainted when she saw the boy asleep. The light and air revived him, fortunately, else the story would be even more tragic.

When will teachers learn that what is a terrible offense in their eyes is trifling to a child, but that what is so trifling to them by way of punishment that they can forget it may be terrible in the life of a child? Such an event as this may be necessary for the awakening of some teachers. That it was not a case of murder is due wholly to the fact that the door did not fit any tighter, and that it did not happen on a Friday.—Selected.