thought, and the leading from thought to thought as
the work goes forward.
The basket-ball team cannot win, or even play, unless all the members
are playing together. Each one is needed despite the fact that she may
not be one of the chief or best players. Just so does the class need all
its students. If a girl is only average, it is not fair-play for her to
sit back and do nothing; neither is it fair-play for her to monopolize
the attention if she happens to be more than commonly able. It is not
fair-play to laugh at the girl who is at a disadvantage, or to appear
bored. It is unfair to the individual, to the classroom in general and
to the instructor. The least she can do in this class game is to give
her whole and her courteous attention.
Think of all the practice games in which the average athletic team takes
part. What can be said for the student who comes into the classroom
unprepared to lift her own weight, unprepared to help others? When one
comes to think about it from the fair-play point of view there is
nothing to be said for her. Nor is it fair-play for a girl to allow
herself to get into such a state physically that she is unable to study.
How often and often have fudge-heads--due to an application to too much
sugar and not to books--sitting row after row killed a school or even a
whole college! Before a class tempered by fudge and not by wholesome
outdoor living and conscientious devotion to work, the teacher might
better put away her notes and close her book. Nothing can happen through
or over that barricade of fudge-heads.
And it is not fair-play to cram because of time lost, or for any other
cause. The only end of cramming is that the student soon forgets all
that has been learned. Alone by normal, slow acquisition and all the
associations formed in such learning can information come to us to stay.
It may not be particularly wicked to cram if one has plenty of time to
waste, but it is foolish unless one has.
There is a kind of gossip in which a girl takes part, made up of
snap-shot judgments of the classroom, idle carping about some little
unimportant point, expression of wounded vanity and unfair talk, which
may mean a tremendous loss of prestige for a really admirable course; it
may mean that girls, who would naturally go into it because of their
liking or gift for the work, do not go or go in a critical and
unsympathetic attitude. If there is a complaint to be made about any
course it should
|