Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/165

Rh where it is in full operation, nothing else is needed. Its defects are (1) it is an anti-social principle, (2) it is apt to be too energetic, (3) it is limited to a small number, (4) it makes a merit of superior natural gifts.

It is a fact that the human intellect has at all times been spurred to its highest exertions by rivalry, contest, and the ambition of being first. The question is, whether a more moderate pitch of excellence, such as befits average faculties, could not be attained without that stimulant. If so, there would be a clear moral gain. Be this as it may, there is no need to bring it forward prematurely, or to press its application at the beginning. In the infant stage, where the endeavor is to draw out the amicable sentiments, it is better kept back. For tasks that are easy and interesting, it is unnecessary. The pupils that possess unusual aptitude should be incited to modesty rather than to assumption.

The greater prizes and distinctions affect only a very small number. Place-capturing, as Bentham phrases it, affects all more or less, although in the lower end of a class position is of small consequence. Too often the attainments near the bottom are nil. A few contesting eagerly for being first, and the mass phlegmatic, is not a healthy class.

Prizes may be valuable in themselves, and also a token of superiority. Small gifts by parents are useful incitements to lessons; the school contains prizes for distinction that only a small number can reach. The schoolmaster's means of reward is chiefly confined to approbation, or praise, a great and flexible instrument, yet needing delicate manipulation. Some kinds of merit are so palpable as to be described by numerical marks. Next, in point of distinctness, is the fact that a thing is right or wrong, in part or in whole; it is sufficient approbation to pronounce that a question is correctly answered, a passage properly explained. This is the praise that envy cannot assail. Most unsafe are phrases of commendation; much pains is needed to make them both discriminating and just. They need to have a palpable basis in facts. Distinguished merit should not always be attended with pæans; silent recognition is the rule, the exceptions must be such as to extort admiration from the most jealous. The controlling circumstance is the presence of the collective body; the teacher is not speaking for himself alone, but directing the sentiments of a multitude, with which he should never be at variance; his strictly private judgments should be privately conveyed. Bentham's "scholar-jury principle," although not formally recognized in modern methods, is always tacitly at work. The opinion of the school, when at its utmost efficiency, is the united judgment of the head and the members, the master and the mass. Any other state of things is war: although this, too, may be unavoidable.

—The first and readiest, and ever the best, form of punishment, is censure, reprobation, dispraise, to which are applicable