The Cheyenne Daily Leader

A CROOKED STICK STRAIGHTENED.

A Teacher's Management of an Unruly Schoolboy—A New Creature.

I had an ugly, unruly boy in my room, and he gave me more trouble than all the rest of the class. All through the different grades of the large grammar school he had been a terror to his teachers, and he was hurried on to the next teacher with surprising alacrity and precision. He never lacked promotion. When I inherited him I felt as if Nemesis had overtaken me, and just how to control him and secure any kind of work from him was a problem I long wrestled with. For several weeks he was the terror of the room, and my reputation for good order and dignity was, I felt, fast disappearing. The boy would not obey unless he felt like it, and punishments had no effect on him. He was there, he knew he was there; he had a reputation to sustain; he had earned it by several years' close application to wrong doing, and he meant to maintain it at all hazards.

It is unnecessary to narrate his pranks. Every teacher has had such boys, and will readily recognize this one. Every plan I evolved for the regeneration of the boy proved abortive. He wouldn't reform. Finally, by accident, I stumbled on the cure. I am not ashamed to say that it was an accidental plan, for it was one of those unexpected things that philosophers tell us are bound to come to pass.

I discovered that he was interested in his drawing, or rather was interested in sketching odd bits of scenery, or objects in the room, not even omitting his respected teacher, who was a typical schoolmarm and wore glasses. I resolved to make the most of this one talent—if talent it was—and so one day, when I was in my best and sweetest mood, I asked the terror if he would not draw a plan for some shelves I wanted put up in my closet. He assented, and the sketch was neatly and accurately made. There was a new look in his eyes and a new expression on his face when he gave me the paper on which his drawings were made.

Then I advanced slowly and cautiously. I needed some maps made, following a new invention of mine in cartography, and again I employed the terror, and again the result was encouraging. The maps were models of neatness and precision. I judiciously praised him, and exhibited the maps to the class and called for copies. None ever equaled his, and his joy was complete.

We were studying the continent of Asia, and the terror never had his geography lesson learned; but when I suggested that if he were to keep up his reputation in drawing he must draw the details of the country he was sketching, geography became a new study to him, and he easily made excellent progress in this branch. To do this he had to forego some of his "fooling business," and it was given up simply because he had something more to his liking to do.

In fine and to the point, the terror came out of his chrysalis state a new creature. His old ways were left, and he readily adopted the better method of doing and living. From a slouching, unkempt, uncouth, shambling, horrid boy, he emerged into being a respectable, neat, tidy, order loving, painstaking and industrious young man. I had found that there was something he could do, and something he liked to do, and that was all there was to it. By doing something worth the doing he had no time or liking for doing what was not worth the doing, and mischief became no longer the object of his existence.—Winthrop in American Teacher.