* * * * *

When a boy laughs at a mistake made by a schoolfellow, do not believe
that he does so out of contempt, and that he knows better. Ask him for
the answer immediately, and he will be as quiet as you please.

If you observe him a little, you will see that he never begins to laugh
before you have declared the answer of his schoolfellow to be wrong; he
would never know himself.

* * * * *

I always carefully prepared the piece of French that my pupils had to
translate, in order to be ready with all the questions suggested to me
by the text; but I never prepared composition: I preferred working it
in class with them, so as to show them that scores of French sentences
properly rendered an English one. I think it is a mistake to impose one
rendering of an English sentence. Anybody can do this--with a key.

Be not solemn in class, nor aim at astonishing the boys with your
eloquence.

To look at their staring eyes and gaping mouths, you may perhaps
imagine that they are lost in ecstatic admiration. Look again, they are
all yawning.

* * * * *

When you have made the personal acquaintance of the boys who are to
make up a class during the term, you can easily assign to them seats
that will not perhaps please them, but which will insure peace. A quiet
boy placed between two noisy chatterboxes, or a chatterbox placed
between two solemn boys, will go a long way towards securing your
comfort and happiness. The easiest class-room to manage is the one
furnished with separate desks. Then you may easily carry the government
on the old principle of _Divide et regna_.

* * * * *

If you see a boy put his hand before his mouth whilst he is talking,
snub him hard for it. Tell him that, when you were a boy and wanted to
have a quiet chat with a neighbor, you were not so silly as to thus
draw the master's attention and get your little conversation disturbed.

We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest of us, as the late
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, once wittily remarked.

Never be tired of asking for advice; you will become a good
school-master only on condition that you will take constant advice from
the old stagers.

If, however, you should discover that, in the middle of your lesson,
your pupils are all sound asleep, don't go and tell the head-master,