The teacher should train himself to turn away from all worrying and depressing thoughts the moment he enters the school gate, for his contribution to the school atmosphere, in which the boys must live and grow, must be cheerfulness and energy.  The best way to get rid of depression is to occupy the mind with something bright and interesting, and this should not be difficult when he is going to his boys.  Thoughts die when no attention is paid to them so it is better to turn away from depressing thoughts than to fight them.  Cheerfulness literally increases life, while depression diminishes it, and by getting rid of depression the teacher increases his energy.  It is often indeed very difficult for the teacher, who has the cares of family life upon him, to keep free from anxiety, but still he must try not to bring it into the school.

Mr. Arundale tells me that he has made a habit of becoming cheerful the moment he enters the College gates, however worried he may have been beforehand, because, he writes:  “I want my contribution to the school day to be happiness and interest, and by a daily process of making myself pretend to be cheerful when the College gates are entered, I have finally succeeded in becoming so.  If, as I pass through the grounds to my office, I see any student looking dull and gloomy, I make a point of going up to him in order to exert my cheerfulness against his gloom, and the gloom soon passes away.  Then comes the religious service, and when I take my seat upon the platform with the religious instructor, I try to ask the Master’s blessing on all the dear young faces I see before me, and I look slowly around upon each member of the audience, trying to send out a continual stream of affection and sympathy.”

I have already said that boys watch their teachers’ faces to see if they are in a good or a bad mood.  If the teacher is always cheerful and loving, the boys will no longer watch him, for they will have learned to trust him, and all anxiety and strain will disappear.  If the teacher displays constant cheerfulness, he sends out among his boys streams of energy and good will, new life pours into them, their attention is stimulated, and the sympathy of the teacher conquers the carelessness of the boy.

Just as a boy learns control of action on the play-ground, so he may learn there this virtue of cheerfulness.  To be cheerful in defeat makes the character strong, and the boy who can be cheerful and good-tempered in the face of the team which has just defeated him is well on the way to true manliness.

5. One-pointedness.  One-pointedness, the concentration of attention on each piece of work as it is being done, so that it may be done as well as possible, largely depends upon interest.  Unless the teacher is interested in his work, and loves it beyond all other work, he will not be able to be really one-pointed.  He must be so absorbed in his school duties that his mind is continually occupied in planning for his boys, and looks upon everything in the light of its possible application to his own particular work.