Article Fifth. On the Obligations of Pupils and Teachers

308. By the name of teachers here are understood those who in lower schools are constituted by office to instruct and educate boys and youths. The obligations of teachers and pupils are taken from the mutual relation which exists between them; and this mutual relation arises from the contract which parents enter with teachers, whether spontaneously or compelled by the civil power. But since by force of this contract parents substitute teachers for themselves in instructing and educating their children and communicate to them their own authority, the obligations of pupils and teachers are nearly the same as those which fall upon children and parents.

On mutual obligations. 1. Pupils ought to show teachers love, reverence, and obedience in those things which pertain to studies and good morals.

Hence pupils, according to the measure of the matter, can sin gravely either against charity or against observance: a. if they mock teachers, speak irreverently about them, conduct themselves insolently and provoke others to irreverence and insolence, affect them with annoyances and provoke them to anger; b. if they do not comply with teachers seriously commanding in those things which pertain to studies, to good morals, and to the discipline of the school; but pupils are for the most part excused from mortal sin on account of levity and inadvertence; c. if in the time of lesson they do not attend and pass the time of study uselessly. For judging the gravity of this sin, attention must be given both to the quantity of time which is spent inattentively and uselessly, and to the object of instruction and study, and to the condition of the persons: for there will not be grave sin unless they are notably impeded in acquiring those things which are necessary to their state and condition.

2. Teachers owe pupils instruction and education, and this from piety, because in place of parents they take this obligation upon themselves, and from justice, because both by reason of office and by reason of the stipend received they ought to furnish it.

Hence teachers can sin: a. if they do not perfect themselves in letters insofar as there is need; if they do not employ due diligence so that pupils be well instructed; if they teach them false and inept things; b. if they do not correct their bad morals, do not exclude from their schools boys imbued with bad morals where they can, or at least do not turn others away from these; c. if they punish them unjustly or indiscreetly; d. if by bad example they harm their morals.

Note. a. Once the relation between pupil and teacher has been dissolved, sins which are committed against the teacher do not differ in species from sins which are committed against another neighbor.¹

b. Over adolescents who are instructed and educated in boarding-schools, strictly only superiors hold authority in place of parents and the power of commanding. Hence if pupils do not obey their prefects from a certain contempt, they are more easily excused from mortal sin, because those prefects lack the authority by which they can command and which can be contemned by pupils.

c. If a teacher seduces to sin a pupil whose care he has taken upon himself in place of parents, for example, to theft, he offends not only against justice but also against piety, and therefore commits a twofold sin.

¹ Lehmkuhl, I, n. 880.