AND lEUQIOl^ ■fHOMAS WAITON GALLUWAY / THE USE OF MOTIVES THE USE OF MOTIVES IN TEACHING MORALS AND RELIGION THOMAS WALTON GALLOWAY, Ph.D., Litt.D. \ 1 Professor of Zoology, Beloit College AUTHOR OF " Text-Book of Zoology'* *' Biology of Sex for Parents and Teachers" " Reproduction," etc. J J i J i J THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON CHICAGO 0-3 Copyright 1917 Bt frank M. SHELDON THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON To the REVEREND JAMES WALTON McDONALD Inspiring pastor of a working church, with a genius for organization; A preacher, with a sure instinct for fundamentals; A Christian statesman; a loyal friend; and a modest man; This study in the methods of the growth of the Spirit Is affectionately dedicated. CONTENTS PAGES Chapter I. Educational Methods in Religious Education. 1. The meaning of pedagogy. 2. Is pedagogy 1 applicable to religion and the things of the spirit? 3. The two factors in teaching. 4. The proper rela- tion of these two factors in education. 5. Education and evangelism. 6. A crying need of better methods. 7. Summary Chapter II. Some Principles Accepted in General Education Which Must be Applied in Religious Education 17 1. Introduction. 2. The unity of human per- sonality; and its corollaries. 3. Good teaching always involves getting from the pupil a complete mental reaction to truth. 4. The self-activity of the pupil is absolutely essential in moral and religious education. 5. The pupil's interest is the surest road to self -activity. 6. The natural instincts, impulses and motives should render their service. 7. Per- sonal satisfaction is the potent agency in all educa- tion. 8. There must be the fullest possible grading of all that concerns moral and religious instruction. 9. We must recognize that all education, and in particular moral and religious education, is in a tentative and experimental stage. Chapter III. Some Essential Natural Elements in Education 27 1. Personality and environment. 2. Adaptation, or the adjustment of personality to the environment. 405444 viii Contents PAOK 3. The place of personality in life and education. 4. The beginnings of personality. 5. The enrich- ment of the elements of personality. 6. Structure of mature personahty. 7. Choice is the critical thing in personality. 8. Two chief ways of influenc- ing choice. 9. Training choice by impression. 10. Training choice through expression. 11. Real moral teaching involves both impression and expression. 12. Results of impression and expression on the other internal quaUties Chapter IV. The Principle of Motivation in Education. 55 1. The impelling nature of desires in life. 2. These natural impulses and desires are legitimate. 3. The attitude of the educator toward these desires. 4. The meaning of motivation. 5. Relation of "motiva- tion " to some other watchwords of the teacher. 6. The two-fold test of the value of a natural impulse. 7. An enumeration of some of the principal impulses, instincts and desires that furnish motives in life. 8. Application of motivation in general education Chapter V. Motivation in Sunday-school Teaching. 71 1. Of what importance to the Sunday schools is this search for motives? 2. The impulses and religious education. 3. The applicability of motivation to moral and religious education. 4. Some practical reasons why an appeal to the natural motives of the child is necessary in Sunday schools. 5. The use of motives is especially necessary because of the limited opportunity of the Sunday-school teacher. 6. The use of motives is peculiarly necessary in Sunday school because of the artificiality of much of our moral and religious teaching Contents ix PAOB Chapter VI. AStudy of the Natural Motives 81 1. Introduction: Shortcomings of our present inducements. 2. Vague motives; their weakness. 3. Low motives; their weakness. 4. Appeals too lofty or too remote. 5. Summary of the instinctive elements to which we may appeal Chapter VII. Motivation in the Instructional Side of Sunday-school Work 93 1. The two aspects of education: instruction and expression. 2. The pupil's part in impression: attention. 3. Motivation of attention. 4. Peculiar . value of receptiveness in moral and religious educa- tion. 5. The religious effect of partial reception of truth. 6. The effect of proper motivation upon the degree and quality of reception. 7. Sunday- school work has been chiefly instructional; but even this has not been well motivated. 8. Natural discrepancy between child motives and adult mo- tives. 9. Our specific task. 10. Some impulses that may furnish motives for learning Chapter VIII. Motivating the Expressive Side of Sun- day-school Work Ill 1. Summary. 2. The greater meaning of ex- pression in education. 3. Education of choice is the heart of moral and religious education. 4. More important to motivate expression then impression. 5. Superior motivation possible in expression. 6. Essential to find right motives in educating by ex- pression. 7. Some of the natural impulses which may serve as motives for expression X Contents Chapter IX. Certain Principles to Guide the Teacher inhis Appeal to Motives 125 1. Review of the natural motives. 2. Selection of appropriate motives. 3. Egoistic impulses arise early. 4. Later origin of the unselfish motives. 5. How reconcile these? 6. Legitimate use of the self-seeking impulses. 7. What we most need to learn. 8. The Sunday-school dilemma. 9. The upward-looking impulses. 10. Superiority of natural over artificial appeals. 11. Summary Chapter X. Forms of Expressive Work Suitable to Sunday Schools 137 1. Review of the principle of expressional work. 2. Grades of expressional work in the Sunday school. 3. Forms of hand- work suitable to the Sunday school. 4. Summary: The service that hand-work renders Chapter XI. Forms of Expressive Work: Representa- tion 149 1. The essential nature of this form of expression. 2. The dramatic and play instincts in the child. 3. The qualities on which these instincts depend and the states to which they minister. 4. The use of this in Sunday school. 5. Forms of biblical representation. 6. Summary of the educational value of the drama in Sunday-school work. 7. Wor- ship as an expressive activity . |g Chapter XII. Forms of Expression: Original Personal Behavior 163 1. Introduction. 2. Furnishing motives for con- duct, or practise in righteousness. 3. An illustra- Contents xi tion: giving. 4. The task. 5. The possibilities. 6. Some dangers. 7. Some methods. 8. Motiva- tion of right conduct through sympathy, a desire to serve, and kindred quaHties — coupled with desire for approval. 9. Use of the quality of chivalry in motivating conduct. 10. Appeal to the spirit of tractability or obedience to authority. 11. Motiva- tion of life in the home. 12. A suggested program of graded social expression. 13. Conclusion THE USE OF MOTIVES IN TEACHING MORALS AND RELIGION CHAPTER I EDUCATIONAL METHODS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 1. The meaning of pedagogy. Pedagogy merely means the science of teaching. The word indicates that teaching human beings may be reduced to a science. This impHes that results are produced by definite causes in personality and character, just as in physics and chemistry and medicine. The idea is that in education one must know what results are desired and what elements he has to work with, before he can go inteUigently about finding a method of work. All this means that the structure of human per- sonality is not lawless, but is definite and can be dis- covered by study. It means that character grows and matures in an orderly and natural, rather than in a haphazard, way. It suggests that we may, if we learn how personality grows, use the facts we have discovered about life in such a way as to help insure that it will be sound and right. Pedagogy says that < C < I ( < c t * , c c < C € ♦ C ( t < < I It •'''' ^2''''''-' '''^^''XJse of Motives we must not conclude, because the human mind, or spirit, is complex and difficult to understand, that it is therefore without order and is to be trained accord- ing to our impulse and whim. All of this seems commonplace enough to a modern student of education, and would not need to be restated here but for the fact that there is still a good deal of antagonism in the minds of some religious people because more and more emphasis is being placed on the pedagogy of morals and religion. They feel that in some way this discredits and minimizes the spiritual and rehgious elements in life. These higher things and the ancient methods of deahng with them are thought of as too sacred to be subjected to scientific examination and improvement. In a journal of some standing in one of our prominent denominations this protest was voiced in these words: "What we need is more faith and less pedagogy." Such a point of view as this indicates is clearly narrow and unwise. There is no matter so important, none so concerns all right-thinking people, as that of getting our children firmly grounded in righteousness and disposed to accept the way of Christ with respect to life. In our efforts to reach this end we cannot afford to neglect anything that promises to give light on this greatest of human enterprises. This book is an effort to apply some of the principles of modern education to the whole development of personality, including morals and rehgion. Educational Methods 3 2. 7s pedagogy applicable to religion and the things of the spirit? This is only another way of asking whether religion and the highest qualities in our nature are lawless and without fundamental connection with the rest of our being, or whether they too are orderly and natural and have laws that we can discover and follow, so that we may form rules for culturing them. If the spiritual part of us and our religious and moral natures are closely connected with our physical and mental qualities; if these spiritual qualities grow and reach their best according to inherent, natural, God-given laws; if they can be influenced and definitely changed by forces that may be brought to bear on them from the outside; and if we may say that certain causes tend to produce certain effects in morals and religion and in our spiritual characteristics, — it is at once clear that we may organize these facts into a common- sense system by means of which we may consciously influence the lives of our children toward character and religious efficiency just as really as toward physical or mental efficiency. If it is once agreed that the moral and spiritual nature is a part of the natural endowment of mankind, indeed just as natural as the qualities of our body and mind, it follows that we can get light on the spiritual qualities by a study of them, just as we can by a careful study of the bodily and mental characteristics. Furthermore if we agree that the moral and spiritual states are closely related to, and determined in great 4 Use of Motives degree by, the states of body and mind, we must recognize that the common-sense study of these lower quahties will also throw light on the pedagogy of the spirit. Most modern teachers feel all these propositions to be true and feel that we have not done as well in our efforts at moral and religious education as we might have done, chiefly because we have been slow to give to it that careful and critical study which we have given to ordinary education. Such teachers feel that Jesus was uttering a very profound truth when he said to Nicodemus that the individual spiritual and moral nature is '* born," — that is, begins in a small way, — and therefore must develop just as really as the intellectual and physical. They feel that we have made this revelation of Jesus, which he gave us to enable us to understand and guide the culture of the growing soul, do service as a kind of pious excuse for a lazy dependence on mystical and supernatural processes. We may well believe that the Father has infinite resources for the inspiration of the human spirit; but we have no right because of this to ignore the perfectly manifest and equally divine natural agencies he has placed in our hands to secure the soul-culture that he desires. 3. The two factors in teaching. If, then, teaching may become really scientific, and if individuals may be educated in respect even to the deeper moral and religious nature, it becomes essential that we try to see what results we aim to get through Educational Methods 5 our teaching and what resources we have with which to get them. In a study of this kind it is important that we strip ourselves, for the time, of all traditional and theological conceptions and try in a common- sense way to find and to state our problems. As Christian parents and teachers we are seeking with all our powers to develop right and completef which is to say Christlike, character in the individual. This means that we take the young child and secure in each individual, by information and inspiration and training, the development of the disposition and the power to choose from within in righteous ways. Jesus himself labeled the child as already the type-member of the kingdom of heaven, endowed naturally by the Creator with all its gradually unfolding powers, including the religious and spiritual. Choice or decision is the central thing in all character. It is the human state in which morality and religion are most fully shown. No Christian can be more than one who, in all his relations in life, desires the right things and is able and willing, because of his internal qualities, to choose and to do the right things. One who has less than this is not a complete Christian, no matter what he believes, how much he knows, nor what upturning emotional or intellectual experiences he may have had. In the effort to train the individual in this quest for right character that will choose the right in practise, we have just two assets with which to work: (1) the inherited personality, with all its original, native. 6 Use of Motives God-given, developing qualities, tendencies, and powers; and (2) the facts and truths and relations of the universe as these have been revealed to us. It is our business so to use these truths as to produce just the right results in the personality. To do this we must know and respect truth, whatever its source. Equally we must know and respect the elements and laws of the whole of personality that determine these choices. Our task is to get the best results with the personalities and the truths at our disposal. 4. The proper relation of these two factors in edu- cation. It is our appreciation of these two factors that determines how we shall proceed. It is the relative value that we give to these two things that determines our pedagogy. It is the modern viewpoint that the personality of the pupil is the central thing, and that truths and systems and science and institutions exist for, and are to be adapted to, the child, and not the child to these. This view has complete support both in the discoveries of the students of childhood and in the teachings of Jesus. In much of our general teaching we teachers have, in effect, been saying something hke this: "The subject we are teaching (whether mathematics, language, or science) is the result of long study by scholars. It is organized in the best way we know. The children must come to this subject and take it in the way it has been organized and interpreted by our mature thinking. If the child is not interested in it Educational Methods 7 in this form, or cannot grasp it, so much the worse for the child. This is only evidence that it is not normal." We are not completely away from this sort of thing in any of our teaching; but we are rapidly getting away from it. We understand, in theory at least, that the nature of the child is not to be bent to the logic of the subject, but that the subject is to be picked to pieces without any respect to our mature science of it, and it is to be used in the way which will best arouse, stimulate, feed, inform, and nourish the child. The child assimilates suitable portions of truth and grows by it into truthfulness. In our religious education particularly we fall into this error of letting our mature ideas of the subject, rather than the child, dominate the teaching. We say: " In the Bible we have the truth of God. This is the text-book of the religious life. Our theologians and denominational philosophers have organized some of it into a system. This commends itself to our mature minds. This is the doctrine delivered to the saints. This must be given to our children so that they too may have our views of divine truth." There is no more justification for this attitude in religious matters than in mathematics. Indeed more danger will come in the former than in the latter case from this unpedagogic attitude. The child's religious nature, just as its conception of numbers, is a native and growing thing. It is not just the same in any two individuals, nor at any two 8 Use of Motives periods in the same individual. As its body and mind, so the spirit of the child must have food suited not merely to its comprehension but to its interest and growth. The sacredness of the spiritual nature does not make it any exception to the principle that the child is the center of all instruction, and is more sacred always than the material of instruction. The only value the Bible or any other body of religious teach- ing has is that human beings may be taught by it. Material for religious teaching must be graded and presented solely with the child's needs in view. This is religious pedagogy. It is common sense applied to the proper development of humans, physical, mental, social, moral, and spiritual. Our sole test must be so to apply truth as to develop by means of it the disposition and the power to make right choices in life. 5. Education and evangelism. In this task of leading youth into right habits of choice two methods have been stressed by religious people. Unfortunately these methods have been looked upon as antagonistic to one another. One attitude is illustrated by the more f ormalistic churches, such as the Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopal. These have emphasized chiefly instruction and the formation of early habits of right action. All stu- dents of religion must be impressed with the hold which these churches have been getting upon their young people. It may be that much of the matter that has been included in this teaching has not been Educational Methods 9 very vital or developing. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the nature of the training is such that the influence of the teaching is long-lived. On the other hand, and largely as a reaction from this formal method of bringing the individual into the church, there has arisen a group of religious leaders who look on such teaching as of minor importance. These people look upon an emotional response, made up largely of hopes and fears, as of the first importance. This is the idea of the so-called evangelistic churches, at least in so far as they are to be distinguished from the others. This idea has had a marked develop- ment in the last two hundred years. Both of these ideas and the methods growing out of them are extreme. There is no question that the emotions and desires have a large and fundamental place in determining choice and character in reference to spiritual things, as elsewhere. In this the evangel- istic idea and method are sound. On the other hand it is equally true that information, training, and habits have very much to do with choice and character. Training in making right choices prepares for the great choice of Christ as Savior of life, and for the after choices which test this great choice. In this the non-evangelistic churches are equally right. The weakness of the formalistic churches is that the choices may lack the emotions that give them power. The weakness of the evangelistic churches comes from the fact that they read into the one great choice more meaning than it can possibly contain, and this tends to 10 Use of Motives minimize the importance in their minds of the practi- cal choices that follow, and of the character that makes them certain. Real Christianity can only suffer by any such effort to narrow the basis of religion. Religion includes the whole of man. Its purpose is to give a sense of pro- portion, — a sense of values, — to cause one to make choices in the light of the whole of life rather than by a portion of it. The evangelist errs in not realizing that morals and reUgion based on information and training are just as vital as any that can grow out of the appeal to the more primitive emotions. The only thing we are concerned with is right character, guided from within into right choices. It is absolutely a matter of indifference how much of it comes through the emotional side and how much through the in- tellectual and habit side, — provided always that the right actions of the individual are the outcome of his own right states, — and that these are permanent states. It is further necessary for us to remember that education is not limited to the training of the intelli- gence merely. The emotions can be educated and need education just as much as the intellect. Much of what has been called '' heart religion " and " ex- perimental religion '' is an emotional spasm and not even a permanent and rightly trained emotional attitude. It too often lacks constancy because the emotions are not trained and not balanced by cor- responding training of the other qualities that help to make choices sound. Educational Methods 11 The church, when it comes to understand the peda- gogy of the rehgious nature, will not therefore make an antithesis between education and evangelism. It will rather train the emotional life wisely from the beginning alongside with information and reasoning and habit, by every teaching device known to us. And on the basis of all this it will use the evangehstic appeal as warmly and sanely as possible, — not as something different from education, but as a part of education. It will seek to have every choice, from that which accepts Christ as the Master of life to the little hourly choices which are so much more difficult to make, involve the self-activity of the whole of the personality. This is the only way to get a religious life that does not involve a continual conflict between the desires and the reason. We are greatly at fault that we have undertaken to emphasize either at the expense of the other. 6. A crying need of better methods. It can scarcely be claimed by any student of the subject that our success in rearing our own children to the type of character and conduct that can fairly be called Christian is so great that we need not look for better methods. It is true even in Christian homes and churches that a very large proportion of the children are not safely developed into what we desire in respect to personality. Instead of comfortably charging up these failures to supernatural forces of evil, it would be more sane and honest to seek out the points where we as religious teachers are most 12 Use of Motives signally failing, and try by good pedagogy and sound evangelism to increase the measure of our success. There is just now a crying need that all the con- structive forces of society unite in finding better methods of getting right moral and religious results. The formal, traditional instruction of the non-evan-r gelical churches is failing to make real Christians in any large numbers. The emotional evangelism of the evangelistic churches is in its turn failing to develop right character in practise. The homes, the schools, the Sunday schools, and the churches should find a way to join in this, the most important enterprise of human society. The only possible way to correct the situation is to take what has been found really valuable in the emotional approach and add to this the best training and habit-formation we can get; vitalize all these methods by the best insight we can get from the scientific study of the child and of its development. This we must do with minds con- tinually open to possible improvement in our methods. For we are, as a matter of fact, just beginning to experiment on this most complex and difficult phase of human education. Our efforts at religious education until very recent years have been much like the practise of medicine three hundred years ago, — a mixture of quackery and superstition. Morals and religion, to have any value, must in- clude the physical, the intellectual, the emotional, and the social in relation to the spiritual. It is there- fore more complex and more difficult than any or Educational Methods IZ all of these. But, because it includes these, whatever we have learned about education in these simpler fields will help us in the higher and more complex task of religious education, if we but have the insight to use it. We cannot afford to ignore it. 7. Summary. The educational method as applied to religion merely means that better results will be had if we study the factors in the religious life of human beings and undertake to meet and utilize all these factors in a scientific and complete way. By studying the nature and content of the religious qualities, by learning how these are related to our other characteristics and how they grow, by knowing how truth and situations may best be used to develop the qualities we desire, we will increase the chances of bringing our young people into full use and enjoyment of their moral and religious capabilities. Many of the natural qualities, as instincts, desires, emotions, ideas, habits and the like, have much to do with our choices. Choice is at the very heart of morals and rehgion. All of these things may be modified by training. Topics for Further Study and Discussion 1. There are two great factors which we, as teachers, must understand and take into account : (l) Personality, which is natural and native; con- tains at the outset the germs of all that can de- velop later; is central and determines the whole process; is plastic and capable of development. 14 Use of Motives (2) The Materials that we may use to stimulate personahty. What are they? 2. Pedagogy consists merely in trying to find out so much about both (l) and (2) that we shall get the best possible results from applying (2) to (l). 3. Religious Education is not an education of a part of personality. It is the education of all of personality into a particular attitude. It must include emotions, desires, reason, ideals, habits, choices, will. 4. The religious nature is dependent on the nature of the body and mind. What are the corollaries of this? 5. Practical possibilities of combining evangelism and education. 6. The idea of " progressive decisions " in respect to religion. Suggestive Questions Is there yet a real science of education? When can it become so? Do we use the same degree of common sense in our training for morals and religion that we use in training for the various life-professions and callings? Is pedagogy destructive of faith? Do we rule God out of life when we say that religion is a natural human quality? Why must we fail when we present religion or anything else to youth in our mature form? Why are we so prone to try to bend the child to our mature systems? On what internal elements does right choice depend? How much Educational Methods 15 emotion is desirable in making choices? How much knowledge? Do you think that any child can, once for all, make an acceptance of Christ that is adequate and complete? What then? What are some of the corollaries of a " spiritual birth "f Why does undue magnification of the great decision tend to minimize religion in practise? What is right in the matter? Some Practical Problems 1. The practical education of the emotional states. Must be properly educated, just as other qualities. Emotions must have practise and expression. How can we secure practise of the emotions? Education sometimes means control and restraint rather than increase. Answer in terms of some of the following emotions: — sympathy, love, fear, anger, jealousy, kindliness, joyousness, gratitude, etc. 2. The modification of desires. The formation of desires. How accomplished? Trace in your own experience the growth or waning of some desire. What elements entered into this? Bearing of this on practical education. Can one desire ever be made to aid in the development or control of another? Illustrate. References Bagley: The Educative Process. The Macmillan Co., N. Y. $1.25 Coe: Education in Religion and Morals. Fleming H. Revell Co., N. Y. $1.35 16 Use of Motives Galloway: Educational Function of the Sunday School, in Encyclopedia of Sunday Schools and Religious Education, Thomas Nelson and Sons, N. Y. Home: Psychological Principles of Education. The Macmillan Co., N. Y. $1.75 James: Talks to Teachers on Psychology. Henry Holt & Co., N. Y. $1.50 Kirkpatrick: Fundamentals of Child Study. The Macmillan Co., N. Y. $1.25 CHAPTER II SOME PRINCIPLES ACCEPTED IN GENERAL EDUCATION WHICH MUST BE APPLIED IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 1. Introduction. There will be no effort in this chapter to discuss at length the principles of teaching, either in general or in religious education. The writer feels, however, that mention should be made of a few of the accepted beliefs in respect to the general problems of education which seem most fully to bear on the moral and religious training. There is no thought that we can apply directly to religious education all the devices that have been found helpful in the common schools. Nevertheless any educational principle which has been shown to have deep meaning in the education of youth is more than likely to throw light on these higher forms of education that depend on the lower. Some of these fruitful ideas which will help solve our problems in religious training are enumerated in this chapter. 2. The unity of human personality; and its corol- laries. This principle means that personality is not really divided up into separate faculties. For convenience we sometimes speak as though it were. In fact, 17 18 Use of Motives however, we cannot separate ourselves into bodily, intellectual, emotional, social, moral, and spiritual faculties. On the contrary these qualities mutually influence one another. No one of them can be trained without all of them being modified by it. None can be neglected without the suffering of all. When I am thinking or feeling or willing my whole personality is involved in the act, and not merely a special faculty of me. When I am making moral and religious choices the same is true. Some of the most important corollaries of this truth for the teacher of religion and spiritual things are these: — (1) We must seek to win and hold the whole of the child's nature and make it all contribute to and be included in the result; and (2) we have more handles or starting-points in our task than we have thought. In other words we may start anywhere in personality and reach the spiritual if we only have insight enough to follow the laws of personality in taking our steps. 3. Good teaching always involves getting from the pupil a complete mental reaction to truth. When we appeal to, or instruct, or otherwise stimu- late a living person we expect a response of some sort. This is the sign of life. All life has the power and disposition to respond to stimulus. The nature of the response is the measure of the life. In our education of children in this greatest of all tasks of making righteous choices, it is essential that the pupil respond, and re- spond correctly in the light of all he knows. Stimulus Some Principles of General Education 19 without response is deadening to the whole of person- ahty. To be aroused and not to act tends to destroy the power and disposition to respond. Furthermore any response which is produced and determined by only a part of personality, as by the desires alone or the habits alone or the reasoning alone, is necessarily incomplete and false to the total of personality. The only safe method in early education is to see to it that every stimulus is allowed to bring the proper response. In this way the child becomes not merely responsive but learns to make each response in the light of all its outlook and resources. 4. The self-activity of the pupil is absolutely essential in moral and religious education. It is not enough in morals to get a response from the pupil involving an adequate reaction of his per- sonality to the stimulus. This response must he the pupiVs very own. It is possible to impart information or to get some forms of attitude and habit with little internal activity on the part of the child. But in morals and religion, as well as in most other significant elements of character, the culture does not come through responses which are forced from the outside. To have moral and spiritual significance all attitudes, choices, and decisions must be the child's own. There is no place in education where the principle of self- activity is as important as in religious training. 5. The pupiVs interest is the surest road to self- activity. A complete personal reaction is self-activity. A 20 Use of Motives reaction forced from without does not often insure a complete response. Activity or response which is the resultant of the whole of the nature is necessarily- more educative than enforced or partial responses. The greatest aid to this kind of response controlled from within is the active interest of the child in the thing that is desired. Any time spent in finding the pupil's interests, or in arousing his interest in some- thing which will make him an ally rather than an opponent of the parent or teacher, is most profitably spent. This principle of interest is one of the most fruitful in modern education. It is even more im- portant in moral and religious training than in mental, since moral choices involve the individual's complete appreciation of relative values, and his whole-hearted response to them. Nothing but interest can secure this. 6. The natural instincts, impulses and motives should render their service. All the natural qualities of personality, — as curiosity, imagination, restlessness, greed, fear, confi- dence, and the like, — are able, if properly handled, to make some contribution to personality, including the religious nature. The task of the teacher is to call upon these inner tendencies and to use them at the right time and in the right amount; to develop those that should grow, but to see that they do not become over-powerful; to displace by better ones those that should not become permanent elements in character. It is by proper treatment of these native desires and Some Principles of General Education 21 impulses that we arouse interest, get the " point of contact '* in teaching, and secure motives sufficient to get self-active responses. We have not really appreciated the driving power of these instincts. They furnish the momentum of life. 7. Personal satisfaction is the potent agency in all education. All education, including moral and religious, con- sists in the establishment of connections or associations between situations and conduct by way of our per- sonal states. In the lower animals and in lower human activities these connections are very simple and direct because the internal states are simple. For example, a chicken learns to get out of a labyrinth and join its fellows on the outside by establishing a connection between this total situation and those of its own actions by which it gets out. At first it tries a large number of useless activities; but gradually it learns which of these are useless and it connects in its own mind the correct muscular actions with the desired result. Thus it learns after some trials to get out in one tenth of the time required at first. In the higher human stages the connections include memory, ideas, habits, standards, choices, and the like. But whether in the education of the lower animal to perform his tricks or in the human being to choose righteousness, the satisfaction or the dis- comfort that accompanies the act has more influence in stamping in or stamping out the particular response or action than anything else. If the child experiences 22 Use of Motives satisfaction as the result of a special action under a given situation it is very likely to select and repeat the action under similar circumstances. It is by such repetition that habitual connections are made. This is just as true if the satisfaction takes the higher mental and spiritual form. Personal satisfaction is thus one of the greatest instruments in the educational process, from the lowest to the highest. We must come to know how best to use it for moral and religious ends. Our work becomes in large measure a matter of educating the satisfactions. 8. There must he the fullest possible grading of all that concerns moral and religious instruction. This is implied in much that has already been said. It is recognized in some degree even in the crudest of our teaching. But we have still further to go in this regard. The simplest form of grading, and the first to be recognized, is the grading of methods of instruc- tion. This we have been doing for some years in the old uniform Sunday-school lessons. Different methods were devised in an effort to make this one lesson serve all ages and grades. It is, to be sure, like grading trigonometry to all classes from the kindergarten to the high school. It is an effort to compensate for presenting unsuitable material at all by seeking to do it in a way suited to the development of pupils. A more fundamental grading is that of the materials of instruction. This means that at every step the material chosen must be suited to the particular stage of the child's growth and development, to his interests. Some Principles of General Education 23 to his emotional states, to his favorite modes of self- expression, and to his satisfactions. In a word our matter and method of teaching cannot secure a normal, natural, sound, complete personal reaction unless it is graded to the whole of personality. It is more necessary to grade instruction that seeks to secure right conduct than that which seeks merely to impart information. So grading is even more important in Sunday-school work than it is in the day schools; because here information is merely a means to an end. We are seeking choice and behavior through information. 9. We must recognize that all education, and in particular moral and religious education, is in a tenta- tive and experimental stage. The quality and results of our efforts at religious training have suffered much because of an idea that the steps in the religious life have, supernaturally, been made complete, simple, and clear. It is not simple. On the contrary moral and religious education is as much more complex than mental as the mental is than the physical. Moral and rehgious education includes the mental and the physical and social aside from its own particular elements. Much of our failure in the past is due to our failure to recognize this fact. It has made us careless of our study of the elements in moral and religious education. Indeed it has made some good people deny that the teacher of religion and morals need know anything of psychology or pedagogy. It has made us feel that the complex 24 Use of Motives moral and spiritual teaching may safely be put into the hands of persons less skilled than those who care for the minds of our children or than the physicians who care for their bodies. In reality the human race is just waking up to the complexity and to the possibilities of systematic religious education. We have not really penetrated the outer crust of the subject. We are not in a position to dogmatize about anything. It is our duty to recognize that we are experimenting. It is our duty to experiment sanely, and through systematic study of our experiments to improve. Topics for Further Study and Discussion 1. The relation of the principles of general educa- tion to those of moral and religious education. 2. Mention some of the corollaries of the fact that personality is a unity. 3. ^* Faculty " psychology. Meaning of the ex- pression. The opposite conception. 4. The ability to respond to stimuli is the measure of life. 5., Develop more fully the meaning and role of self-activity in growth and education. 6. The strongest reasons for a complete grading of Sunday-school lessons. Suggestive Questions Why is it probable that most of the important dis- coveries in general education will help in moral and Some Principles of General Education 25 religious education? Is it possible to train or neglect one part of our nature and not have some effect on the rest? Does this mean that all parts are of equal importance? Why is ^' self -activity " more important in moral and religious education than in any other? Why is play so educative to children? Which is more important, — grading the materials of instruction or the method of presenting the material? Why? Is it enough to grade Sunday-school instruction to the intelligence of the pupil? What then? Why is it more important to grade instruction that strives to mold choices and conduct than that which seeks merely to give information? Some Practical Problems 1. Self-activity versus external control. Is it necessary to allow a child to " run. wild ^' in order to reahze " self-activity "? Must a child be forced to feel and think and do as we think best in order to have a sound attitude of obedience and to perform our full duty by him? What is the sane point of view? Have you achieved it? If you are convinced that a child should feel or think or do something which he is manifestly unwilling to do, what are the wise and sane steps of procedure? 2. Grading teaching to the whole of life. To be most successful, teaching must be graded to the emotional life, to the desires, to the capacity for interest, to the satisfactions, and to the powers of expression of the child, as well as to his understanding. 26 Use of Motives Can you mention some aspects of morals and religion that a child could not be expected to appreciate? Mention some instances of teaching that violate the rule. 3. Complete and partial responses. Suppose a child desires very much to do a certain thing. If its judgment and experience prompts it to do the opposite, how can we best help the child? To get a full and complete response we need to win over the desires. Why is this better than issuing an order, accompanied by a threat? References Athearn: Contributions of General Psychology and Pedagogy to Religious Education, in Encyclo- pedia of Sunday Schools and Religious Education. Thomas Nelson and Sons, N. Y. Burton and Mathews: Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School. University of Chicago Press. $1.00 Dewey: Moral Principles in Education. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. .35 Galloway: Principles of Religious Development. The Macmillan Co., N. Y. $3.00 Starhuck: Psychology of Religion. Chas. Scribner's Sons, N. Y. $1.50. Also Religious Education, Vol. 8; Dec, 1913. (See also references for Chapter I.) CHAPTER III SOME ESSENTIAL NATURAL ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION L Personality and environment. A little thinking will make clear to us that what is within us and what is without us make up all the elements that enter into our lives. To relate properly that which is within us to that which is without is the act of living, and includes all the problems of living. Personality then, in its entirety, and the whole of the environment of personality, include all that we can consider in respect to life and education. We must not mistake, however. Personality is ex- tremely complex, and the environment is equally so, including as it does all the material, the mental, the social, and the spiritual surroundings. The environ- ment includes all that may act upon us. It includes truth and beauty and God no less than it does other individuals and food and light. Life is the interaction of the individual and its environment. 2. Adaptation, or the adjustment of personality to the environment. The most interesting and distinctive thing about life is the capacity of the individual to be aroused by, and the power to respond to, the environment. In every act of responding to the influence of the en- 2fZ 28 Use of Motives vironment the individual is changed, and in the long run the changes are such that the organism becomes better adjusted to its surroundings as the result of them. This is found in life of all degrees, and is one of the most interesting and far-reaching things we have learned from the study of living objects. Every act of the living organism is in some way related to this necessity of adjustment to its environment. All education, from the most material to the most spiritual, is conditioned by this principle. All organisms must in the end become adjusted to all the really im- portant and influential forces in their environment. Adaptation to truth and God are as real and neces- sary, if these are important in influencing life, as adaptation to water and food, and for the very same reasons. It is important for us to realize that this adjust- ment between the individual and the environment is almost exclusively the work of the organism. True, the environment may change from time to time and might incidentally become more favorable; but the individual is really the plastic thing. In the long run it must make the adjustment. It is the organism and not the environment that is destroyed if the adjustment is not made. The shorn lamb becomes adjusted to the wind, rather than the reverse. Light then is not adjusted to the eye, nor water to meet our thirst, nor God to our consciousness of him. The eye has gradually grown into adjustment to light. The organism is the plastic, growing, adap- Some Essential Natural Elements 29 tive thing. Thus have human personalities come into adaptation with the great reahties of the universe about us. It is because of this power of adjustment that any education is possible. Education should be an adjustment to the conditions of life. 3. The place of personality in life and education. In all the process of human growth and education it is the human personality that is being continually influenced and is becoming adjusted to the real things in the environment. It must be recognized as cen- tral in the whole process. The environment, good or bad, may act and stimulate; but it is the personality that responds well or ill, and is modified in accordance with the nature of the response. The individual cannot again be the same after having been stimu- lated and having responded. If it responds in the right way it is preserved and has comfort and will be more likely to respond in the same way again. Some- thing has been left in personality by experience. Per- sonality is thus built up by its responses to its stimuli. This is development. In responding to outside influences men and other organisms have a choice of at least two ways of acting. For example, organisms that are influenced by light or gravity may move toward the light or away from it, with the pull of gravity or in the opposite direction. Some types of animals and plants tend to do one of these things; some tend to do the other. Both are adapted to light, but they have become adapted in different ways. Their lives be- 30 Use of Motives come very different in consequence. This is the beginning of choice in its simplest form. In human individuals there are many more kinds of choice than for the lower animals. They become very rich and varied, and consequently it comes to be more of a problem always to make right choices. In man, therefore, the higher choices, those that have to do with the higher mental, social, moral, and spiritual problems and adjustments, become increasingly im- portant and increasingly difficult. And yet choices are still to be reduced to the right and the wrong, to the best and the worst. We saw in the preceding chapter that the great purpose of religious education is to enable the indi- vidual to have the disposition and the ability to make right choices under the various stimuli of his sur- roundings. This is only another way of saying that we want individuals to become rightly adapted to the whole of their environment, or at least to those great elements in it that are most fundamental to the abundant life. This is the object of life and of education for life. 4. The beginnings of personality. In the beginnings of individual Ufe human per- sonality consists chiefly of the following things, all of which have been inherited: (1) the senses through which the environment acts on the individual; (2) certain simple but all-important tendencies, instincts, and appetites; (3) certain capacities which are wholly latent at first but come into action with Some Essential Natural Elements 31 development; (4) simple powers of muscular action, by which responses are made; and (5) a sense of satisfaction or dissatisfaction growing out of action. We have seen that the external influences may put this machinery of personality into motion; as, for example, when we put our finger into the mouth of the recently born child its instinct of sucking, aroused by its sense of touch, produces the muscular response of sucking, which is much too complex to be '' learned " so readily. It would require a very long time to learn to coordinate all the muscles necessary to do this. The sense of touch merely sets off this complex, well- formed and inherited instinct. But this does not tell the whole story of the sucking response. If the child is left alone for a while certain changes take place within it which makes the child hungry, as we say. Then it seeks to get something into its mouth. Its own finger may be put there, in answer this time to the internal stimulus of hunger, or it may even go through the motions of sucking with nothing in the mouth. In one case something in the child's environ- ment aroused the sucking instinct, and in the other an internal appetite aroused it. In our own case the smell or sight of food may arouse in us the will to eat, or hunger within may stimulate to exactly similar actions. w o f=4 Some Essential Natural Elements 33 DISCUSSION OF FIGURE 1 This is a diagram of personality at birth. There are inherited four main assets: (1) the senses, by which we appreciate the stimuU of the outside world or of the internal appetites; (2) the muscular apparatus by which we can act; and (3) internal nervous connections between these, which determine that a re- sponse, and what response, shall follow a stimulus. These nervous connections (3), including the brain, are already endowed at birth with (4) certain tendencies, or prejudices as we might call them, which predispose toward certain actions. These predispositions we call instincts, impulses. The response either satisfies the tendency or it does not. If so, action stops for the time; if not, action probably continues. These are purely in- herited, and are very important in building up the conscious personality. Choice at this stage is instinctive. The illustration of the sucking child (p. 31) will suggest the nature of personal response at this stage. The arrows show the course of events from a stimulus to a response. Even in early life, then, we may say that there are two important stimulating elements producing action : environment, and the inherited instincts and tendencies. We are creatures of our instincts and surroundings. When these two stimuli act together we get the greatest possible influence on behavior and on personality. When external stimuli and internal impulses lead in the same direction choice is practically determined, and choice and response follow very directly and naturally upon stimulation. In other words, to put something in the mouth of the hungry infant insures the instinctive response of sucking. This fact has tremendous significance in all education. 34 Use of Motives The accompanying diagram (Fig. 1) suggests the make-up of personality in this early stage. 5. The enrichment of the elements of personality. We have seen that the organism is never the same after responding to a stimulus. Every time a stimulus works on through personality to a response, there are two effects: (1) the response or reaction itself, good or bad; and (2) the internal modification of personality due to the stimulus and the reaction. These inner changes are most intimate and far-reaching, and make human education possible. Of course the senses themselves are educated through practise. Similarly greater skill in responding will come to the organs of expression in the act of responding. Both of these enter into education. But very much more important still, the internal instincts and tendencies involved in the action will be modified by any such reaction. They may be strengthened and fixed, or weakened, depending on the nature of the experience and the outcome of the response in furnisl^ng comfort or satisfaction. For example, let us return to the sucking babe. If when it is hungry a bottle containing milk is given it and it gets food as the result of sucking, the child has had an experience. It has had satisfaction from the act. If this is repeated the whole reaction is intensified and made more sure. But even more; such repetition of stimulus, impulsive response, and satisfaction results in three most important things on the inside of personality: (1) the habit of respond- Some Essential Natural Elements 35 ing in this way when this stimulus is appUed; (2) the reinforcement of the impulse until it becomes a positive desire or appetite; and (3) ultimately through consciousness and memory the formation of knowl- edge or free ideas about sucking and its rewards. On the other hand, if something disagreeable or nauseat- ing were given to the child every time it sucked, without doubt the whole sucking reflex could be broken up and a habit of refusing to suck formed, and an association with the act of ideas of aversion instead of pleasure. This simple series of events and their results are at the basis of all education and serve to build up the more complex elements of personaUty which we come to have. While habits are formed, impulses modified, and ideas developed by repeating such experiences, it is interesting to notice that formation of habits in early life takes place faster than the formation of ideas. The child has builded up many good and bad habits through its responding, long before it can gain enough free ideas through experience to enable it to control its choices thereby. Indeed this is largely the object of our ordinary instruction, — to furnish to the young at once the knowledge which the race has accumulated through its experience, so as to save the child the necessity of going through all the experience and of forming all the habits that would supply it with these ideas. As habits, desires, and ideas are built up within, other internal factors besides the mere raw, inherited 36 Use of Motives instincts thus come to take part in determining what choices and responses shall be made to the various stimuli. Personality is growing. The instincts them- selves are in process of change, and they are producing still other qualities that will further modify and control them. It is no longer true that we are wholly creatures of our instincts or of the surroundings. Ideas and habits and, later, judgment and ideals and standards are developed by experience, and play their part. More and more these newer and higher results of experience take the act of choosing out of the almost mechanical, instinctive place it has in early childhood and in the lower animals; they make it more complex, more full of meaning, more character- ful. The choices of the young child have no moral value whatever. It is because of these newer qualities that choices come to have moral and religious meaning. The example of the sucking child will serve us again. It may be that the child has formed the bad habit of sucking its thumb, and this has persisted for some years. Now the sucking impulse and reaction is normally a rather fleeting one. It ought to serve its purpose and practically be lost in a few months. But repetition and habit have strengthened its hold. It is kept up because it furnishes a certain accustomed satisfaction. The child will choose and continue this line of conduct until some other factors counteract these old forces in control of choice. We may try to supply these other factors by placing stalls on the fingers, by putting quinine on them, or other similar Some Essential Natural Elements 37 device. In such cases we are wanting to substitute a discomfort for the satisfaction and thus get the usual action checked or inhibited. Or we may arouse the child's consciousness to the fact that people in general disapprove of such conduct and that it is losing the good opinion of others thereby. If its desire for the approval of others is sufficiently strong we may get an inhibition by introducing a stronger and higher desire. In the same way rewards and punishments or ideas of right and wrong may set up inhibitions that will enable the child to modify its choice. Diagram 2 will illustrate how these various factors which influence choice arise out of the primitive instinctive impulses and experiences, and then com- pete with these same instincts for the control of choice and conduct, — all for the enrichment and complica- tion of the steps that lie between stimulus and re- sponse. DISCUSSION OF FIGURE 2 This diagram suggests some steps in the development of personaHty. With the beginnings indicated in Fig. 1, we are sure to get an instinctive response from certain stimuli. After such a response the organism is not the same again. It has had an experience. If the action gave comfort or satisfaction^ it would be Ukely to be repeated under similar conditions. If not, it would be less Ukely to be repeated. Action thus reacts in per- sonality in the form of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. (Follow the course of the arrows.) Furthermore there are many of these internal tendencies and impulses. That which is strongest at the moment will win against the others. Experience and satis- faction will help determine whether this stronger impulse will become still stronger and continue to win, or be made less power* a H b -4 s O Some Essential Natural Elements 39 fill and possibly be inhibited next time. Satisfactions reinforcing the impulses raise these latter into positive desires or appetites. Consciousness and memory and anticipation give these desires a powerful place in life and lead to purposes. Satisfying experi- ences repeated produce habits and ideas. By knowledge, the power of reason, and the force of habit, standards are erected within. Standards fused with desires give ideals. All of these have much to do in determining action through their effects on choice, decision, and will. Purpose is virtually a general choice, not yet carried into effect, or delayed, — a kind of attitude or prejudice in favor of a certain line of action. It is complex in its origin, made up of many of the steps described above. In turn it becomes a living medium which strengthens or vetoes the special appeals that strive within us to influence choice. The diagram also suggests that, whereas at the outset stimuli can appeal only to the native impulses, after this personal development has taken place, appeal may be made directly to conscious desires and through ideas and thinking. 6. Structure of mature personality. Broadly speaking, our mature and completed per- sonality is built up about these three functions which we have been discussing: (1) the reception and appreciation of stimuli; (2) the choice of response in the Hght of the total effect of these stimuli on the individual; and (3) the response itself. We have been maintaining that the chief problem in the edu- cation of personality is so to develop it that it will desire and be able to make the right choice of responses under all combinations of stimulation and internal desires. It is now necessary to examine a little more closely the factors in us that help to determine choice. At the outset it is largely the internal desires, and the 40 Use of Motives immediate appeals to them through the senses, that settle choices. In mature life determination of choice becomes much more complex, though the essential conditions remain the same. The accompanying diagram (Fig. 3), which must be thought of merely as a diagram and not a real picture of anything, attempts to show to the eye some of the more important factors in this reaction of the person to the surroundings. On the extreme left we imagine the environment with all its varied stimuli. On the right are the activities and behavior that make up the response. The rectangle itself portrays the individual. This individual connects or associates the stimulus and the response. It furnishes not only the paths for the passage of the impulses, but reinforcements or inhibitions of them as well. DISCUSSION OF FIGURE 3 This diagram shows some points in the structure and operation of mature personaHty. (Compare with Fig. 2.) Personality has three main parts: (1) the receiving portion (receptors) that looks out on stimuli (attention and appreciation are its great functions) ; (2) a responding side (effectors) that looks toward behavior or response; and (3) that which lies between stimulus and response whose function is to correlate and adjust behavior to stimulus. This third region is where our real personal values lie. This is where we grow most. We may possibly improve the reception of stimuli and certainly the skill of our responses; but our greatest gain is within. We have at the beginning only the instinctive impulses and desires. We have seen in Fig. 2 how these gradually give rise to the complex internal conditions of maturity. There are at maturity three great groups of internal qualities by which ^ M ft J 0. O -J s PC s '^^'O ^0""^ •Q~b-J--0---- bi^ -4 -^ .-