ABSTRACT
The teacher of a class knows well that, in his contest with possible inattention and restlessness, he may be up against factors which have their roots in aspects of the child's life not immediately connected with his life in the class-room. With the boys and girls of the sixth form discipline is free because they are assumed to have mastered that other aspect of discipline in the sense of inner control. The teacher groups in his mind the conceptions of discipline and of character, but reserves a special compartment for that variant of discipline which constitutes order in the class-room. Discipline in schools is connected inevitably in the mind of the teacher with the question of punishment, however lofty may be the ideals of freedom and the conception of discipline to which we may adhere. Free discipline and self-government are associated together in a phraseology which reconciles the apparent contradiction of the terms.
