PERSONAL REQUIREMENTS

147

rule. Judges Rothrock and Sweevers dissented and quoted from the code to sustain their dissent, but the boy was reinstated1.

d. The use of tobacco.-Rules may doubtless be made forbidding the use of tobacco in the schoolhouse or on the school-grounds.—S. B. xii. 62.

But the teacher may not enforce such a rule against the will of the trustees. See page 138.

e. Personal cleanliness.-Arizona (46) provides that pupils who go to school without proper attention to personal cleanliness and neat apparel shall be sent home to make proper preparation, or shall be required to prepare themselves at the schoolhouse before entering the school-room.

It adds that every school-room shall be properly provided with a wash-basin, soap, and towels. If so there should be an abundance of towels. There has been wide complaint where children have been forced to use the same towel with many others, with liability to contract contagious disease.

Ariz. (24) also gives power to exclude children for filthy or vicious habits.

f. Manner of attire.-The teacher has no right to impose his notions of attire upon pupils. Their clothes must be whole and neat, but they need not. follow any prescribed fashion.

Sup❜t Weaver of New York decided April €, 1874, that a child could not be expelied for wearing the hair in a way forbidden by the teacher but approved by the mother.

g. Left-handed children may be urged to use the right hand, but should seldom be compelled to do so.

As to the right of the teacher to require left-handed children to write with their right hand, the Department will not lay down any general rule upon the subject. If a left-handed child can be taught to use the right hand in writing, it should be done; but when a child has always used his left hand, and has come to be 12 or 14 years of age, it seems very doubtful whether it is practicable to change the habit, and therefore doubtful whether the teacher should insist upon it (D. 4048).

h. Outside the school and the school-grounds, the rules of the school may not extend. See page 172.

It has been held, however, that pupils may be required to attend and take part in exercises outside the school-building; for instance, in graduating exercises at the city hall. See page 152.

CHAPTER VI

ABSENCE AND TARDINESS

Trustees have authority to make and to enforce rules as to rgularity of attendance1. See pages 3843. Ks. (41).

The parent has no right to interfere with the order of the school or the progress of other pupils by sending his own child at times and in condition or under restrictions that will prove an annoyance and hindrance to others.

These rules may require punishment for

a. Tardiness.

b. Absence.

c. Failure to bring excuse.

a. Tardiness is among the most serious obstacles to successful discipline and instruction, and may be rigorously suppressed. See page 38.

Tardiness, that is, arriving late, is a direct injury to the whole school. The confusion of hurrying to seats, gathering together books, etc., by tardy ones, at a time when all should be at study, cannot fail to greatly impede the progress of those who are regular and prompt in attendance. The rule requiring prompt and regular attendance is demanded for the good of the whole school3.

In Oregon (73) tardiness for more than an hour connts as a half-day's absence in reckoning the absence for which a pupil may be suspended.

Tardy pupils should not be kept outside. See page 38.

One of the pupils in one of the public schools of Shelbyville, Ind., came to the school-room door on an extremely cold morning in Jan., 1885, and found it locked. She therefore returned to her home through the cold and snow, and as a result both feet were frozen and permanently injured. Judge Niblack said that tardiness is a recognized offence against the good order and proper management of all schools, and that a tardy pupil ought not, therefore, to complain of some inconvenience or annoyance of having to remain in some other part of the building for the short period of time required to complete the morning exercises; but he said that in enforcing such a rule, due regard must be had to the health, comfort, age, and mental as well as physical condition of the pupils, and to the circumstances attending each particular emergency.

He went further, and said that teachers should relax somewhat from the strict enforcement of rules in cases of physical or mental infirmity, and that no rule, however reasonable it might be in its general application, should be enforced when that would inflict actual or unnecessary suffering. He said that the habit of locking the door during the morning exercises was not unreasonable under ordinary circumstances, but that when done on an extremely cold morning, special care and attention should be given to such pupils as might be obliged to wait in some other part of the building1.

b. Absence is also a direct interference with both the discipline and the progress of the school, and reasonable regulations against it may be enforced. See pages 41, 42. Ia. (38).

In Missouri, suspension for 6 half days' absence in 4 consecutive weeks has been upheld, and in Iowa for 6 half days' absence and 2 instances of tardiness in the same time. In this last case3, Judge Beck said:

1 80, See also 46, 49, 120, 154, 170, 179, 185, 199, 258, 340, 411, 430 a, 432, 440, 2 233. See also 65, 202, 420, 3 108.

PUNISHMENT FOR TARDINESS

151

It requires but little experience in the instruction of children and youth to convince any one that the only means which will assure progress in their studies is to secure their attendance, the application of the powers of their mind to the studies in which they are instructed. Unless the pupil's mind is open to receive instruction, vain will be the effort of the teacher to lead him forward in learning. This application of the mind in children is secured by interesting them in their studies. But this cannot be done if they are at school one day and at home the next; if a recitation is omitted or a lesson left unlearned at the whim or convenience of parents. In order to interest a child he must be able to understand the subject in which he is instructed. If he has failed to prepare previous lessons he will not understand the one which the teacher explains to him. If he is required to do double duty, and prepare a previous lesson, omitted in order to make a visit or do an errand at home, with the lesson of the day, he will fail to master them and become discouraged. The inevitable consequence is that his interest flags and he is unable to apply the powers of his mind to the studies before him. The rule requiring constant and prompt attendance is for the good of the pupil and to secure the very objects the law had in view in establishing public schools. It is therefore reasonable and proper.

In another view it is required by the best interests of all the pupils of the school. Irregular attendance of the pupils not only retards their own progress, but interferes with the progress of those pupils who may be regular and prompt. The whole class may be annoyed and hindered by the imperfect recitations of one who has failed to prepare his lessons on account of absence. The class must endure and suffer the blunders, promptings and reproofs of the irregular pupils, all resulting from failure to prepare lessons which should have been studied when the child's time was occupied by direction of the parent in work or visiting.-S. B. vii. 10.

In Ore. (73) whenever the unexcused absences amount in one term to 7 days, the teacher may suspend him.

This view of the authority of the trustees has been extended to the following special cases: