Butler Citizen

Gleanings of No. 6. Clinton Twp.

Messrs. Eds:—Please submit this article to the public, and oblige.

In the southern part of Butler county in the N. W. corner of Clinton twp., near the road which connects Pughtown and Boydstown, there is a small 25x35 gable-roofed brick building. It is situated cozily in a small grove belonging to the well improved and well cultivated farms of Messrs. Miller and Chandler. The above mentioned and located building is known as Excelsior No. 6. School was in actual operation 125 days.

Several weeks before the close of term, the teacher was contemplating a piece pertaining to his school (having seen in your valuable paper puffs in behalf of his fellow-teachers, and thinking his friends might forget to puff him, he concluded to blow his own horn.) but when he had made an aggregate in which he saw that the majority of his pupils were not at school more than one-half their time, he questioned the commendableness of such a publication on the part of the teacher, and concluded not to expose himself.

The sudden manner in which the bright vision of an intended puff vanished, led the nearly despondent teacher to take up the report book in which he made the following discovery: That the average per cent. of attendance, for the last five terms taught successively by Messrs. J. N. Moore, N. M. Crowe, J. A. McCafferty, W. W. Hazlett and V. F. Thomas, is respectively as follows: 77, 85, 75, 66 and 74.

This aggregation is not intended to contrast the different teachers, for regularity of attendance is no criterion of the abilities of a teacher. Per cent. of attendance depends upon sickness inclemency of weather and to a great extent upon the disposition of teachers.

But the extremely low and equal per cent. of attendance for the last half decade and the hearty and robust appearance of the pupils demonstrates something else. The opinion of the teacher is that irregular attendance has been tolerated so long that it has become customary. What is custom? Custom is that which is forged out by the sledge-hammer, habit. It is the stuff of which moral characters are made. Our own free will wields that sledge-hammer, and, therefore, every one is the artificer of his moral character. Irregular attendance is a vice which is the bane of the teacher's success. It is a neglect of duty which parents owe their children, and a parent who tolerates unnecessary irregular attendance at school is not a good moral agent.

The desire of the teacher is that the patrons of the school accept his thanks for the charitable manner in which they feigned not to notice his imperfections, and for the pleasant time they permitted him to spend in their locality. To put the best constructions upon the actions and sayings of a fellow-creature, and hospitably to entertain a stranger in their midst is charity in its truest sense.

V. F. THOMAS. Teacher.