The Chautauqua Girls At Home by Isabella Alden

Author:Isabella Alden [Alden, Isabella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Xist Publishing
Published: 2016-09-22T07:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XV. MARION'S PLAN.

ISS WILBUR! Miss Wilbur! can't we go in Miss Lily's class to-day, our teacher isn't here?"

"Miss Wilbur, they are crowding us off the seat; there isn't room for no more in this class."

"Miss Wilbur, sister Nellie can't come to-day; she has the toothache. Can I go in Kitty's class?"

Every one of these little voices spoke at once; two of the owners thereof twitched at her dress, and another of them nudged her elbow. In the midst of this little babel of confusion the door opened softly, and Dr. Dennis came in. Marion turned toward him and laughed—a perplexed laugh that might mean something besides amusement.

"What is it?" he asked, answering the look instead of the laugh.

"It is everything," she said, quickly. "You mustn't stay a minute, Dr. Dennis; we are not in company trim to-day at all. Unless you will do the work, we can't have you."

"I came to hear, not to work," he said, smiling, and at the same time looking troubled.

"You will hear very little that will interest you for the next ten minutes at least; though I don't know but you would better stay; it would be a good introduction to the talk that I want to have with you early in the week. I am coming to-morrow after school, if I may."

Dr. Dennis gave the assent promptly, named the hour that he would be at leisure, and went away wondering what they were accomplishing in the primary class.

This was the introduction to Marion's talk in the study with Dr. Dennis. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but had hardly seated herself before the subject on her mind was brought forward.

"It is all about that class, Dr. Dennis. I am going to prove a failure."

"Don't," he said, smiling at her words, but looking his disturbance; "we have had failures enough in that class to shipwreck it; it is quite time we had a change for the better. What is the trouble?"

"The trouble is, we do nothing. Two-thirds of our time is occupied in getting ready to do; and even then we can't half accomplish it. Then we don't stay ready, and have to begin the work all over again. Yesterday, for instance, there were three absences among the teachers; that means confusion, for each of those teachers have seven children who are thus thrown loose on the world. Think how much time we must consume in getting them seated somewhere, and under some one's care; and then imagine, if you can, the amount of time that they consume in saying, 'Our teacher doesn't do so, she does so.'"

"What is the reason that the teachers in that room are so very irregular?"

"Why, they are not irregular; that is as Sunday-school teachers rate regularity. To be sure, it would never do to be teaching a graded school, for instance, and be as careless as some of them are about regularity.

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