Anger and impatience grow out of irritability.  It is as necessary for the boy to understand his teacher as for the teacher to understand the boy, and hasty temper is an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of such understanding.  “The teacher is angry to-day,” “The teacher is irritable to-day,” “The teacher is short-tempered to-day,” are phrases too often on the lips of boys, and they produce a feeling of discomfort in the class-room that makes harmony and ease impossible.  Boys learn to watch their teachers, and to guard themselves against their moods, and so distrust replaces confidence.  The value of the teacher depends upon his power of inspiring confidence, and he loses this when he gives way to irritability.  This is particularly important with young children, for they are eager to learn and eager to love, and only those who have no business to be teachers would dare to meet such eagerness by anger.  It is of course true that younger boys are in many ways more difficult to teach than elder ones; for they have not yet learned how to make efforts, nor how to control and guide them when made.  The teacher has therefore to help them much more than the elder boys who have learned largely to help themselves.  The chief difficulty is to make the best use of the young energies by finding them continual and interesting employment; if the young enthusiasms are checked harshly instead of being guided sympathetically they will soon die out, and the boy will become dull and discontented.

I have read that youth is full of enthusiasm and ideals, and that these gradually disappear with age, until a man is left with few or none.  But it seems to me that enthusiasm, if real, should not die out, and leave cynicism behind, but rather should become stronger and more purposeful with age.  The young children coming straight out of the heaven-world have brought with them a feeling of unity, and this feeling should be strengthened in them, so that it may last on through life.  Anger and irritability belong only to the separated self, and they drive away the feeling of unity.

Self-control also involves calmness, courage and steadiness.  Whatever difficulties the teacher may have either at home or at school, he must learn to face them bravely and cheerfully, not only that he may avoid worry for himself, but also that he may set a good example to his boys, and so help them to become strong and brave.  Difficulties are much increased by worrying over them, and by imagining them before they happen—­doing what Mrs. Besant once called, “crossing bridges before we come to them.”  Unless the teacher is cheerful and courageous with his own difficulties, he will not be able to help the boys to meet their difficulties bravely.  Most obstacles grow small before a contented mind, and boys who bring this to their work will find their studies much easier than if they came to them discontented and worried.  Courage and steadiness lead to self-reliance, and one who is self-reliant can always be depended on to do his duty, even under difficult circumstances.