When she is making a
purchase at the shop, she finds the child standing at her elbow and
duplicating her order. When she is buying a picture, she is careful to
see to it that there are two copies, knowing that a second copy must be
provided for the child. When she is arranging her personal adornment, she
is conscious of the child peeping through the door and absorbing her with
languishing eyes.
=The status irrevocable.=--Wherever she goes or whatever she does, she
knows that the child is walking in her footsteps and reenacting her
conduct. Her status is irrevocably fixed in the life of the child, nor
can any philosophy or sophistry absolve her from the situation. She
cannot abdicate her place in favor of another, nor can she win immunity
from responsibility. She is the child's ideal for weal or woe, nor can
men or angels change this big fact. Through all the hours of the day she
hears the child saying, "Whither thou goest I will go," and there is no
escape.
=The child's viewpoint.=--This is no flight of fancy. Rather it is a
reality in countless schoolrooms of the land if only the teachers were
alive to the fact. But we have been so busy measuring, estimating,
scoring, and surveying the child for our purposes that we have given but
scant consideration to the child's point of view as regards the teacher.
We have not been quick to note the significant fact that the child is
estimating, measuring, scoring, and surveying the teacher for purposes
of its own and in the strictest obedience to the laws of its nature.
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