sly.

"You can't do anything," said Miss Schofield. "He's
against you on one side and he sets the children against you on
the other. The children are simply awful. You've got to
make them do everything. Everything, everything has got
to come out of you. Whatever they learn, you've got to force it
into them--and that's how it is."

Ursula felt her heart fail inside her. Why must she grasp all
this, why must she force learning on fifty-five reluctant
children, having all the time an ugly, rude jealousy behind her,
ready to throw her to the mercy of the herd of children, who
would like to rend her as a weaker representative of authority.
A great dread of her task possessed her. She saw Mr. Brunt, Miss
Harby, Miss Schofield, all the school-teachers, drudging
unwillingly at the graceless task of compelling many children
into one disciplined, mechanical set, reducing the whole set to
an automatic state of obedience and attention, and then of
commanding their acceptance of various pieces of knowledge. The
first great task was to reduce sixty children to one state of
mind, or being. This state must be produced automatically,
through the will of the teacher, and the will of the whole
school authority, imposed upon the will of the children. The
point was that the headmaster and the teachers should have one
will in authority, which should bring the will of the children
into accord. But the headmaster was narrow and exclusive. The
will of the teachers could not agree with his, their separate
wills refused to be so subordinated. So there was a state of
anarchy, leaving the final judgment to the children themselves,
which authority should exist.

So there existed a set of separate wills, each straining
itself to the utmost to exert its own authority. Children will
never naturally acquiesce to sitting in a class and submitting
to knowledge. They must be compelled by a stronger, wiser will.
Against which will they must always strive to revolt. So that
the first great effort of every teacher of a large class must be
to bring the will of the children into accordance with his own
will. And this he can only do by an abnegation of his personal
self, and an application of a system of laws, for the purpose of
achieving a certain calculable result, the imparting of certain
knowledge. Whereas Ursula thought she was going to become the
first wise teacher by making the whole business personal, and
using no compulsion. She believed entirely