PRECIS - CSS 2019
Write a precis of the following
passage and also suggest a suitable title:
I
think modern educationist theorist are inclined to attach too much importance
to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the
positive merit of enjoying their company. If you have sort of liking for children
that many people have for horses and dogs, they will be opt to respond to your
suggestions, and to accept prohibitions, perhaps with good-humoured grumbling,
but without resentment. It is no use to have sort of liking that consists in
regarding them as a field for valuable social endeavor, or what amount to same
thing as an outlet for power impulses. No child will be grateful for interest
in him that springs from the thought that he will have a vote to be secured for
your party or a body to be sacrificed to king and country. The desirable sort
of the interest is that which consists in spontaneous pleasure in the presence
of children, without any ulterior purpose. Teachers who have this quality will
seldom need to interfere with children’s freedom, but will be able to do so
when necessary, without causing psychological damage.
Unfortunately,
it is utterly impossible for over-worked teachers to preserve an instinctive
liking for children; they are bound to come to feel towards them as the
proverbial confectioner’s apprentice does towards macaroons. I do not think
that education ought to be anyone’s whole profession; it should be undertaken
for at most two hours a day by people whose remaining hours are spent away from
children. The society of the young people is fatiguing, especially when strict discipline
is avoided. Fatigue in the end, produces irritation, which is likely to express
itself somehow, whatever theories and harassed teacher may have taught himself
or herself to believe. The necessary friendliness cannot be preserved by self-control
alone. But where it exists, it should be unnecessary to have rules in advanced
as to how “naughty” children to be treated, since impulse is likely to lead to
the right decision, and almost any decision will be right if the child feels
that you like him. No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and
tact.
