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PART VI.

The Class

The How of Teaching

Order:

CHAPTER XIV.

ORDER.

SUGGESTED READINGS.

Seeley. pp. 63ff.

HOW TO KEEP ORDER. Hughes.
THE FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION.
THE MIND OF A CHILD. Richmond.
THE ART OF TEACHING. Fitch. pp. 107-140.
CHURCHMAN'S MANUAL. Butler. p. 69.

MY PEDAGOGIC CREED. Dewey. pp. 4, 5, 13.

TRAINING OF THE TWIG. Drawbridge. pp. 48, 159, 163, 169.

What is Order?

"Order is Heaven's first law," and it is certainly also the first law of the Class. Without Order, no good teaching can be secured. Many of the suggestions given in other chapters, such as size of class, readiness and personality of the teacher, method of teaching, illustrating, questioning, etc., affect Order. James H. Hughes, Inspector of the Toronto Schools, has written a helpful brochure upon this subject. He defines good Order as "the conscious recognition of law, and a coöperative submission to constituted authority. It places no restraint on those who are well disposed. Law is perfect liberty to those who do right. Good order does not mean merely freedom from disorder. It is positive, not negative. Order is work systematized." Our evil tendencies and our weaknesses serve to lead us away from Order and Duty.

"A teacher who fails to keep Order fails in one of the very highest duties. The grandest aim of all educational, ennobling, and Christianizing agencies is to bring the whole human race into conscious, intelligent, and coöperative obedience to the Divine Law-giver." The Sunday School Class is one of the very agencies of the most use in training and educating this habit of Order. Thus it is not only for the sake of the Teacher, nor yet

for the sake of the individual Lesson to be taught, that Order must be maintained; but for the general good of the child. Thus training in Order is just as truly educative as is Teaching.

Hughes defines Order thus:-"Order is the condition resulting from an exact performance of duty in the right way and at the right time." Adding, "Order includes a great deal more than the condition of the pupils and their relationship to their work. An orderly school is one in which there is a special place for everything, and in which everything-maps, apparatus, movable furniture, etc., is kept in place. In such a school, the books of the pupils are arranged in proper order in their desks, and there are no scraps of paper, or other rubbish, on the floor." Practically speaking, Order is minding your own business and helping others to mind theirs. According to Mr. Gilbert: "Conduct rests upon two classes of motives which in most of us are so inextricably mixed that we cannot distinguish one from the other. One is convention and the other the inner law of

right based upon reason.

"Every phase of life, every social institution, must of necessity have its own rules of conduct. These rules are usually crystallized into conventions. People who are associated in any definite enterprise, or for any purpose, for a length of time, naturally discover what kind of conduct best makes for the ends of the association, and out of this recognition ultimately grows a set of rules or conventions, sometimes formulated and sometimes not formulated, which govern the members of the association. In a sense they enforce themselves. Those who violate them interfere with the success of the organization and are compelled either to leave or to conform to its regulations.

"Such conventions not only rest upon sound principles, but they are absolutely necessary to the smooth running of the world's machinery.

"The man who steals does wrong, of course. He interferes with his neighbor's rights; but the man, who, by bad manners, disturbes an audience in a church or lecture-room or theatre, passengers in a street car, or pedestrians upon a side-walk, or students in school, also does wrong. He interferes with the right of others to the pursuit of happiness and to that peace of mind which is necessary to the accomplishment of the best work.

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