It would not
work and he fumbled with it, angry. Everybody in the bus watched him.
It is not nice to be watched when baffled and heated in bafflement
but the only gaze to which attention was given by the conductor was
the gaze of Miss Prescott. He glanced constantly from the obdurate
machine to the face of Miss Prescott. Suddenly he said: "'Ere,
suppose you do it, then," and pushed the bell-punch at her. Miss
Prescott took it, did it, astoundingly and instantaneously, and
handed it back with no word. The conductor seemed more angry than
before.
It was like that that Miss Prescott looked at people.
There is right way of doing everything. Miss Prescott had an uncanny
instinct for finding it; and, applying this faculty to her training
of the child-mind, she presented herself as a notable exponent of
the system in which, as has been said, she was certificated and
diplomaed. She taught children how to play in the right way, how
to learn in the right way, and above all how, in every way and
at every turn, to reason. By the old, ignorant plan children were
instructed, speaking broadly, by love or by fear. It was by pure
reason that Miss Prescott instructed them. The child was treated as
an earnest physician treats a case. Ill temper or wrong behaviour
in a child was neither vexing nor sad. It was profoundly interesting.
There was a right and scientific way to treat it and that right and
scientific way was thought out and administered.
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