“The most vital and determining quality of a school is its tone or atmosphere—the spirit which pervades it. You may strike the same note on a tin pan that a violinist sounds on his instrument, but what a difference in quality! Yet the difference is no greater than may be noticed between two schoolrooms presided over by teachers of different temperament but equally well disposed. Now the emotional tone of the school has a direct relation to the intellectual work of the school—the getting of knowledge and power to the children. A proper attitude towards one’s task quickens every faculty. The eyes are keener, memory more tenacious, thought more alert and sure-footed and the imagination stronger-winged when we feel in sympathy with our work.”

—Charles McKenny, from “The Personality of the Teacher,” published in 1910