If she could know that each pupil is striving to copy her
in every detail of her life, her habits of speech, her bodily movements,
her tone of voice, her dress, her walk, and even her manner of thinking,
this knowledge would appall her, and she would shrink from the
responsibility of becoming the exemplar of the child. She cannot know,
however, to what extent and in what respects the pupils imitate her.
Nor, perhaps, could they themselves give definite information on these
points, if they were put to the test. Children imitate their elders both
consciously and unconsciously; so, whether the teacher wills it so or
not, she must assume the functions of an exemplar as well as a teacher.
=Absorbing standards.=--If we give full credence to Tennyson's
statement, "I am a part of all that I have met," then it follows that we
have become what we are, in some appreciable measure, through the
process of absorption. In other words, we are a composite of all our
ideals. The vase of flowers, daintily arranged, on the breakfast table
becomes the standard of good taste thenceforth, and all through life a
vase of flowers arranged less than artistically gives one a sensation of
discomfort. A traveler relates that in a hotel in Brussels he saw window
curtains of a delicate pattern; and, since that time, he has sought in
many cities for curtains that will fill the measure of the ideal he
absorbed in that hotel.
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