MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME j* s* ^> at sai ENGLEMAN MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME BY J. O. ENGLEMAN, A.M. SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, DECATUR, ILLINOIS FORMERLY PRINCIPAL OF THE TRAINING SCHOOL DEPARTMENT OF THB INDIANA STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA AND STATE INSTITUTE CONDUCTOR AND HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, LA CROSSE WISCONSIN 0V TTOAA.' d\\OL 7TO\V BENJ. H. SANBORN & CO. CHICAGO NEW YORK BOSTON 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1918, :BENJ. H. SANBORN & co. tttg totft * ANNA ULEN ENGLEMAN TO WHOSE INTELLIGENT COUNSEL, SYMPATHETIC APPRECIATION AND SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE I HAVE BEEN UNDER CON- TINUOUS OBLIGATION FOR TWENTY YEARS 571739 PREFACE THOUGH there is universal agreement that moral educa- tion is the supreme objective in public-school work, the literature dealing with this aspect of the work is not very extensive. Of the few books that have been written, the writer has not seen one that undertakes to analyze the possibilities for moral instruction or training in the everyday activities of the school. It seemed to the writer, therefore, that there is a distinct place for such a book in teachers' reading circles and in normal school and other courses for teacher-training. The writing of this book was undertaken, however, with a full appreciation of the difficulties involved in say- ing anything helpful to teachers or parents who are con- cerned with the problem of character-building in school and home. No claim is made for the discovery of any specifics, or any royal roads to the desired goal. Every child presents a new problem. Individual differences among children are so numerous that successful dealing with one is by no means a guarantee of success in dealing with another. Endless study, tact, sympathy, and char- ity are demanded of every teacher who would direct, guide, lead, or assist a child into the moral life which should be his. On the other hand, there are more elements of likeness than of difference among children. On the side of inherit- ance they all have instincts, impulses, and a psycho- physical organism attuned to a world of stimuli to which they must respond. In a given school they find those stimuli in the teacher, their classmates, their books and lessons. The character of the response they make from vi PREFACE day to day, and hence the character of the ideas, ideals, and habits they gradually build up in their own jives, is dependent, in a large measure, upon the point of view, the attitude, and the vision of the teacher. It was with this conviction and its attendant hope that within the book here submitted may be found something that will modify in helpful ways the attitude, the point of view, and the vision of teachers, that this book was written. The writer's long experience as a teacher in public schools, normal schools, and Sunday schools; his oppor- tunity to observe the work of hundreds of teachers in several states; and his more immediate concern for the moral growth of his own boys and girls afford the back- ground for the book, nearly every page of which mirrors some of these experiences. While appropriate credit is given to authorities con- sulted and quotations used, it is impossible to acknowledge the extent of the help that has come from twenty years of contact with teachers, ministers, and books. The writer is under an especial debt of gratitude to Dr. J. W. McDonald for encouragement and valuable suggestions given him during the writing of the manuscript. J. O. E. DECATUR, ILLINOIS August, 1918 CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTION . I Revival of interest in moral education. Cooperation of social forces necessary. The Sunday school's lim- itations. Reciprocity of church and public schools. The new meaning of correlation. The point of view of the whole book. Its presupposition. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER II THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL II Bishop Huntington quoted. Ideals of antiquity. Formal discipline, knowledge, citizenship, utilitarian- ism as ideals. The Herbartians' view. Any modern aim must be composite to be adequate. Importance of character-building as an aim. Intellectual results that can be measured qualitatively and quantitatively. Where scientific tests are still inapplicable. Impor- tance of the parent's point of view. The teaching of religion not in place in public schools. France's expe- rience cited. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER III THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION . Principles related to perception, formation of concepts, memorizing, judgment, and reasoning all involved. Modern theory of emotional life a factor. The James- Lange theory quoted. Altruistic versus egoistic feel- 22 viii CONTENTS PAGE ings. Practical methods of developing altruism. The place of instinct in moral training. Establishing habits of a moral sort the task of parent and teacher. Quotations from James et al. Laws of habit-forma- tion stated. The moral will as the highest expression of the moral life. Questions and suggestions. Refer- ences for further reading. CHAPTER IV MORAL TRAINING THROUGH THE EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF THE TEACHER. . .37 Conscious versus unconscious tuition. The best thing a college does. Palmer's estimate of the ideal teacher. Hyde on personality. A lesson from Bonaventure. One from Domsie of Drumtochty. Doctor Strong's appeal to the honor of boys. Helen Keller and Miss Sullivan. Arnold of Rugby. The best teachers as seen by high-school students. Ruskin quoted. Im- portant qualities restated. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER V MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 57 Discipline as a means to an end. Its place among the school activities. An illustration. Popular estimate of the good disciplinarian. What constitutes good discipline. Its best guaranteed Teacher must not shirk unpleasant duties. Motives back of acts must be considered. Importance of self-control in the teacher. Punishment should be reformative, not retributive ; must be suited to the individuality of the child. Arnold Tompkins quoted. Children profit by seeing their acts universalized. Corporal punish- ment sometimes necessary. Some forms of punish- ment to avoid. Spencer on punishment. The teach- ings of biology and psychology that have a bearing here. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CONTENTS ix CHAPTER VI PAGE MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH READING AND LIT- ERATURE 75 The heritage of good books. Influence of the teacher's reading. Danger of too much analysis. Three types of reading matter: the immoral, the unmoral, the moral, with examples and discussion of each. Impor- tance of discovering what children voluntarily read. A suggestive approach to the child who dislikes books. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER VII MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 90 Opportunity for the exercise of the moral judgment. Old and newer conceptions of history. Moral rela- tionships writ large in the pages of history. Illus- trations. Moral elements involved in American history. Significance of personal examples of moral acts. Lecky's stress of the moral aspects of history. Froude quoted. Patriotism an outcome of history- teaching. Chauvinism to be avoided. America and the international spirit. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER VIII MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY . . . . 105 Biography appeals to children who are outgrowing myths and legends. Influence of good men is dynamic. Avoid extreme censorship. History of education learned through lives of its reformers. The Bible made vital by its stories of great men and women. Clara Barton and the Red Cross. Florence Nightin- gale and the Crimean War. Frances Willard and her influence. Jacob Riis. Helen Keller. Dr. Grenfell. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CONTENTS CHAPTER IX PAGE MORAL TRAINING THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 119 Moral qualities of a dynamic sort often characterize current incidents and characters. Discovery and use of the heroic around us. William James tells "What Makes Life Significant." Heroes in unromantic walks. A lesson from the sinking of the Titanic. Hypothetical cases illustrate a point. Cases of arson and bigamy and the lessons they taught. News- paper accounts of great disasters and calamities an opportunity for the expressive side of morality. Pes- talozzi's practical method of developing sympathy. Advice of George W. Childs. Seventh grade children study efficiency. Some lessons taught most effectively upon special days. The occasion of a strike as an op- portunity to teach the moral relationships of capital and labor. Objections to the use of current events answered. Teach children to read the daily papers. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER X THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 134 Music has social values. It is the language of the emotions. It begets sympathy and understanding. Music a unifying agent among children. Music and patriotism. Music and religious worship. The effect of great oratorios. The function of the phonograph. Music in penal institutions. Danger of intellectualiz- ing music too much. Plato upon the place of music in educating children. The attitude of the psychologist towards it. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER XI ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY .... 147 Art education rests upon an instinctive love of the beautiful. What makes art education moral educa- CONTENTS xi tion ? The teacher's dress and her personal appear- ance in relation to art education. The influence of the schoolroom itself. Pictures with a moral content. Religion in art. Art for life's sake. Views of Ruskin, Caffin, and Griggs. Questions and suggestions. Ref- erences for further reading. CHAPTER XII MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION THROUGH NATUR^ STUDY AND SCIENCE . . . .161 The moral aim not the chief aim in a study of nature or science. Reflex influence of their study upon nat- uralists. Huxley quoted. Love for nature gives wholesome direction to one's pleasures and hobbies. Specific results : higher regard for truth ; accuracy of observation and fidelity in reporting; promotion of health ; development of humane spirit ; independ- ence of character; respect for law and order; ap- preciation of economic values ; recognition of its rela- tion to medicine and the art of healing. War and science. Science in relation to the Deity. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER XIII MORAL INSTRUCTION THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 179 Meaning of the phrase as used. Reasons for crediting "outside work." Reformatories first to see moral values of work. Appeal to interests of children. A lesson from Tuskegee. Work in relation to sym- pathy and appreciation. Moral obligation of self- support. Labor a fortification against vice. The chief duty of man to minister. Questions and sug- gestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER XIV MORAL TRAINING THROUGH PLAY, PHYSICAL CUL- TURE, GAMES, AND ATHLETICS .... 193 Attitude of the Puritans. Influence of the "new psy- xii CONTENTS chology." Teachings of Plato, Aristotle, and Quin- tilian. Froebel's influence. Play and a physical basis for a sound morality. Play as a medium for the exhibit to teachers and parents of the fundamental strength or weakness of character. The playground a cradle of democracy. "Teamwork" in play as moral training. Moral and hygienic habits fostered by competitive games. Supervised playgrounds a neces- sity. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER XV MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIREC- TION 208 Modern schools undertake to train for life work. Va- rious methods used to give vocational direction. Basic moral requirements common to all vocations and professions. Temperance in relation to industry. Truthfulness and honesty essential everywhere. Courtesy a profitable virtue. Smoking in relation to success in life. Ethics of the medical profession. Secretarial requirements. A teacher's supreme need. Where initiative counts most. Industry as an asset. The ethics of work. Questions and suggestions. Ref- erences for further reading. CHAPTER XVI THE TEACHING OF THRIFT AS MORAL TRAINING 219 Reasons for teaching of thrift. The duty of the schools. Relation of money to spiritual values. Prac- tical suggestions to teachers : investigation of motion picture habits ; teaching the value of waste products ; establishment of school savings system; promotion of home and school gardening, corn clubs, tomato clubs, pig clubs, calf clubs, etc. ; encouraging house- hold budgets ; showing the financial value of an educa- tion ; teaching the economic value of health ; using biography as an example of thrift. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER XVII PAGE SEX INSTRUCTION IN RELATION TO MORALITY . 241 Consequences of sex-perversions. Changing attitude of parents and teachers. Shall mothers explain the origin of life ? Simple biological facts pertaining to reproduction. Sex hygiene for early adolescents. Personal honor to be developed. The testimony of physicians. Who shall give lessons in matters of sex ? Some accepted principles of sex instruction. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER XVIII BOY SCOUTING AS A FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCA- TION . .... . 256 Illustrations of cooperation between the schools and other educative agencies. Recognition of the Scout movement by the N. E. A. Relation of Scouting to formal school work. What Scouting means. The Scout Oath. The Scout Law. Illustrations of "good turns." Scouting as an example of expression in education. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER XIX MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS .... 268 Question must be faced. Two types of pictures. Decatur's three experiments. Cooperation of com- mercial houses. Conclusions. Questions and sug- gestions. CHAPTER XX MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE . . 283 The Bible as literature. Its influence upon literature. Objections to its use as a textbook. Examples of les- sons that may be used without giving offense : the im- portance of wisdom; respect for parents ; industry and xiv CONTENTS laziness contrasted; sin of intemperance; mutual relationships illustrated ; who is my neighbor ? Biblical biographies. Method of use illustrated. Use of quo- tations. Lessons from the life of Jesus. Questions and suggestions. References for further reading. CHAPTER XXI MORAL LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR . 300 The value of physical preparedness. Sex-morality in relation to patriotism. Beneficent results already achieved : sacrifice, service, unity, revival of funda- mentals in religion, breaking down of sectarian bar- riers. The duty of the school. Questions and sug- gestions. References for further reading. INDEX 311 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME _^ CHAPTER I ft~fT* INTRODUCTION Morality is not something added to man; it is the man; and so morals is not a part of the course; it is the course. True moral teaching seeks to affect conduct indirectly by the general elevation of life. Whatever brings out the features of the soul, develops fully and harmoniously its powers and faculties, directs the aspir- ing self to the highest claims of manhood, frees and stimu- lates the ethical passion among the forces of man's nature, reveals to the individual the beauty and worth of char- acter, and inspires the soul with a passion for truth and righteousness that shall press towards absolute satis- faction, is moral teaching. With this view of the question it is easy to see how instruction in morals may find a place in the course of study; or to see that it matters little if it have no place; for the teacher who tones all his work to the moral key can afford to refuse it space on the program. TOMPKINS, Philosophy of Teaching, p. 267. Revival of interest in moral education. One of the promising characteristics of the times is an awakening of interest in the moral and religious 2. MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME , .of di<^ c cn8d. To be sure there has always ' Befeii' rtioTe or IksS of interest in it, but too long it was sporadic, vague, and abortive. Here and there throughout the ages have been men and women with clear vision, keenly conscious that the moral habits and ideals of the child of today are the neces- sary precursors of the moral acts of the man and woman of tomorrow. But it has remained for the present day to witness an interest and a movement that are taking hold of the social conscience and social consciousness, and resulting in more definite and more purposeful steps in the formulation of a scheme of instruction and training that will leave less to accident and chance in this paramount phase of child development. A casual study of the pro- grams of educational meetings, national, state, and local, will show that within the past five years more time ajid attention have been given to a considera- tion of this topic than had been given it within the score of years preceding. Books and monographs, as well as addresses, have multiplied ; and leading social workers in church and Sunday school have taken hold of the problem with teachers in the effort to blaze a trail and find a way to make moral train- ing dynamic and effective. Cooperation of social forces necessary. At this point probably lies the key to the success which may be reasonably expected in the difficult social task that confronts all who try to solve this problem. The duty is one which devolves upon the home, the church, and the state as well as the school. Cooperation and coordination of social forces and social efforts are necessary. No one INTRODUCTION 3 organization and no single institution has a monopoly upon the child's life. No one of them can assume the whole responsibility ; and no one of them has a right to shirk its portion of the responsibility. The child's life can not be sectioned. It does not develop in watertight compartments. The whole child goes to school, to play, to movies, to church, in time to work, and always to its home for certain hours of every day. Its life is subject to influences every hour which leave their imprint upon it. Experiences in each of these situations may re- enforce the growing moral life of the child. Ex- periences in any one of them may tend to neutralize the good effects wrought by the others. An irrever- ent, irreligious teacher may do much to bring to nought the zeal and the devotion of a pious mother. Vulgarity and profanity on the playground may easily offset the wholesome influence of much moral instruction in church and home. Uncensored films in motion picture shows may poison childish im- agination beyond the antidotes offered by the best literature taught in the public schools. An un- developed social morality revealing itself in city ordinances that take little note of the pitfalls of boys saloons, wine rooms, brothels, pool rooms, Sabbath desecration, etc., and in the appointment and continuance in office of officials who wink at law-breakers and law-breaking all of this makes infinitely more difficult the task of any individual or institution striving to teach and train children in habits and ideals of moral life. The strength and limitations of the Sunday school. Since the establishment of the Sunday 4 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME school as an almost universal adjunct of the church in America there has been a sort of tacit assumption that the moral and religious education of children could safely be left to it ; but there are two excellent reasons why the Sunday school can not justify such confidence. First, there are even today thousands of children who never go to Sunday school at all. They must, as a result, miss most of the wholesome influence radiating from this center. Unfortunately, the children who seldom or never go to Sunday school belong to homes in which the parents have but slight interest in the moral habits of their chil- dren. Thus it often comes about that homes which need most the help the Sunday school can give, get nothing from it. But second, the Sunday school of the past has been far less effective as a moral and religious in- strument than it was thought to be. It was founded upon excellent faith with the best of intentions, but rested upon a poor psychological foundation. The thousands of children who were fortunate enough to come within its portals got less than their deserts because it did not adapt its teachings to their needs and their interests. It may not be in place to point out here the short- comings of the Sunday school, but its best friends today admit its relative failure in the past because its teachers lacked pedagogical insight; its course of study was ill adapted to the interests of children; and its rooms and equipment were almost wholly unsuited to the requirements of good teaching. All of this is slowly changing today. The most progressive schools are demanding teachers who INTRODUCTION 5 not only know the Bible, but know children as well. Sunday-school teaching, to be effective, needs to be done in the light of child psychology, and by teachers who can bring to their task the same sort of methodology that has a place in the best public schools. Graded lessons, adapted to the interests of children of different ages, with different dominant instincts and tendencies, are finding more and more favor. Church edifices are rapidly changing to afford separate classrooms, in which the attention of the pupils will not need to be distracted by a con- fusion of voices. Blackboards and maps and charts and other helps are being utilized to make possible more visualization in the process of teaching and learning. In other words, the Sunday school of this day is powerfully influenced by the secular schools, which have been away in advance of the churches in their ready application of the principles of psy- chology and pedagogy to their teaching processes. Reciprocity of churches and public schools. But even this is not enough. The past two or three years have developed the well-defined belief that ways must be found for standardizing the moral and religious instruction of public school children, and for reaching all of them who are reached by the public schools. The North Dakota plan, the Colorado plan, the Gary plan, and the Indiana plan are all plans looking towards the standardization and universalizing of this phase of the child's education. Their significance lies in the fact that they indicate a growing sense of the importance of this teaching ; and a no less growing recognition of the need of cooperative effort upon 6 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME the part of church and home and public school in doing it effectively. In so far as the public schools have become the leaders in this move- ment, they have become so because their leaders have become actuated by the same high aims and purposes of the Sunday school, and have come to see that the life of the child is " more than meat " and its " body more than raiment." In other words, while the church and Sunday school have recently become debtors to the public schools for methods, principles, teachers, and even classrooms and equipment, the public schools have become or are becoming debtor to them for lofty purposes and high moral aims in the accomplishment of their tasks. Such reciprocity and exchange augurs well for both, and for the child that needs the tuition of both. New meaning of correlation. - - Two decades ago the watchword of pedagogy was correlation. The same idea was expressed by the term concentration and by coordination. The idea was to correlate all schoolroom teaching around some central or pivotal subject which was considered by its advo- cates to be the one subject of supreme importance in child development. Some found in history, some in literature, and some in still other subjects, the backbone of all important curricula. No such scheme succeeded in accomplishing all that was claimed for it, and there has long since ceased to be any such correlation of subjects as was once urged ; but the idea of correlation has survived. Today, however, it is a correlation of institutional efforts that demands our attention. How to join hands INTRODUCTION 7 with other agencies and utilize all that they can con- tribute in furthering the work of the public schools is a problem for all concerned in their administra- tion. Parent-teacher associations, associations of commerce, factories, department stores, physicians, dentists, art leagues, musical societies, farmers' institutes, libraries, churches, Sunday schools, women's clubs, old settlers' associations all of these and many more are capable of touching the life of a child in helpful ways, and the school of the future will do its best work only as it learns how to appropriate and to correlate the educational assets of these agencies and institutions. The effort to expand the scope of moral instruction of school children, and to coordinate the teachings and in- fluences of those agencies and institutions which have a bearing upon the morals of children, is but a part of this larger present-day movement. But while we are witnessing, and even sharing in, such an extensive movement, the school is com- pelled to intensify its own endeavors as a part of the larger program. This is a logical outcome of the new dignity and new responsibility which schools everywhere must bear as the school day and school year grow longer, and as " all the children of all the people " are being brought into the schools and kept there, not only throughout a longer school year, but through more years than they were once kept. The point of view of the whole book. Indeed, the schools are passing through a stage in which not only their organization and methods are being challenged, but they are being asked to justify the content of their courses of study. That which can 8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME not be justified must be banished. Subject matter is being weighed in the light of its possible contribu- tion to the needs of the child. These needs are be- ing analyzed as never before. Certain of them are physical, others are intellectual, some are spiritual. Again, it is recognized that a child's education in- volves a certain minimum fund of information which experience has shown to be universally desirable; it involves the formation of a number of habits which give poise and balance and stability to character, and insure reaction of the desirable sort to most situations of life ; and finally it includes ideals which ennoble and attract and inspire, and do much to insure that his life will be lived on a high moral plane, not guaranteed at all by intellectual training alone. The good teacher finds it necessary in every subject and every lesson t to consider the limitations and needs of her class, and to ask herself what a proposed lesson has to give along these lines. In- asmuch as few needs are more pronounced than development of moral fiber, it is important for teachers to realize the fact itself, and then to see, as clearly as they may, just how to utilize to the maxi- mum for moral ends the various lessons and other school experiences which may be employed for other purposes. In other words, since our curricula are necessarily crowded, and since there is by no means general agreement that a specific course in moral training or ethics would be the surest means of in- fluencing character, it is well to see what can be done for character with the ordinary subjects of instruction and the common experiences of the elementary school. Assuming that character is a INTRODUCTION 9 by-product, and one most likely to be secured when something else is made the school's objective point, it may still be lost, in large measure, as valuable by-products were long lost in processes of manu- facture until their value was at last recognized, and ways discovered whereby they might be secured without neglect of the products of earlier major concern. Presupposition of the book. The chapters of this book are therefore written to direct the atten- tion of the young teacher to ways and means of utilizing as largely as possible the potential moral values of the school as an institution ; and to ex- hibit, so far as we can, the moral aspects of the conventional subjects of instruction, and of the various activities comprising the life of the school. A presupposition of the whole book is that there is a rich moral content in literature, history, and biography; that discipline, study, manual training courses, and playground activities may be made to contribute largely to the moral development of pupils; and, in fact, that the school needs to be thoroughly moral in its every aspect, and the teacher needs to see how to make its several phases of study, recitation, work, and play minister to the unfolding moral life of the child without the necessity of adding a specific course in morals to an already overcrowded curriculum. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS i. What evidence can you cite that there is greater interest in either moral or religious education than there was years ago ? 10 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 2. Distinguish between moral training and the teaching of morals. 3. List the organizations of your community which are cooperating more or less fully with the schools, and show wherein they are influencing the moral life of children. 4. What has the legislature to do with moral training ? Can you cite any act of your last legislature that has a bearing upon the moral life of children ? If so, show its bearing. 5. Distinguish between moral instruction and moral training. 6. Assuming the supreme importance of the moral training of children, what reasons can you assign for not giving it a specific place upon the daily school program ? REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING CARLTON, FRANK TRACY : Education and Industrial Evolution : The Relation between Educational Advance and Industrial Progress, chapter in. Macmillan Co. DEGARMO, CHARLES : Moral Training through the Common Branches, in Proceedings of the N. E. A. 1894, pp. 165-173. DEWEY, JOHN : Democracy in Education : Theories of Morals, chapter xxvi. Macmillan Co. McMuRRY, CHARLES A. : Conflicting Principles in Teaching, chapter xni. Houghton Mifflin Co. PEABODY, FRANCIS G. : The Christian Life in the Modern World. Macmillan Co. STRAYER and NORSWORTHY : How to Teach : The Development of Moral Social Conduct, chapter xi. Macmillan Co. CHAPTER II THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL To rear men fit and ready for all spots and crises, prompt and busy in affairs, gentle among little children, self-reliant in danger, genial in company, sharp in a jury- box, tenacious at a town meeting, unseducible in a crowd, tender at a sick-bed, not likely to jump into the first boat at a shipwreck, affectionate and respectful at home, obliging in a traveling party, shrewd and just in the market, reverent and punctual at the church, not going about, as Robert Hall said, "with an air of perpetual apology for the unpardonable presumption of being in the world", nor yet forever supplicating the world's special consideration, brave in action, patient in suffering, believing and cheerful everywhere, fervent in spirit, serv- ing the Lord. HUNTINGTON. Ideals of antiquity. Different ages and different nations have had many different educational ideals, as any study of the history of education will easily show. The Chinese ideal was long one which almost deified the past. Ancestor worship, walking in the beaten paths, conservation of the practices and customs of antiquity, were all factors in it which determined the content and the methods of Chinese education. The Hebrews had an ideal much akin to it; but believing themselves a peculiar people, especially favored by Jehovah, with a deeply religious ii 12 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME consciousness, a quality that has indeed character- ized still other Semitic peoples, their ideal was essen- tially religious. It, too, left its mark upon every- thing connected with the education of their chil- dren. The Greeks, and especially the Athenians, held to culture as the worth-while mark of a free people. No other people, therefore, whether in an- cient or modern times, have done more to develop a capacity for intellectual and aesthetic enjoyment of leisure than they. When the dark ages began to give way before the light of the Renaissance in art and letters, it was the Greek ideal that once more began to shape the life of Middle Age Europe. Law, order, strength, and efficiency were factors in the early Roman ideal which found expression and sup- port in Roman life and Roman schools. Ideals of later times. Discipline of the mental faculties is a later term for an educational ideal that long held sway, and determined much of educational practice until recent times. Indeed the so-called dogma of formal discipline did not release its powerful hold and begin to lose favor as an educational ideal until the rise of modern experimental psychology and the scientific study of education of the last decade. Knowledge as a dominant ideal was popularized by such writers as Bacon, Locke, and Comenius. While the field of human knowledge was small enough to make its mastery a reasonable hope for a brilliant mind, there was justification for the large place long given to this ideal. Today, however, it would require a lifetime to complete all the courses offered in one of our great universities, to say nothing of the advance being made in most of them, an advance THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 13 which the most ambitious student could not keep abreast of, in more than one or two lines. Citizenship as an end of education is a popular word, and has been since Plato wrote his Utopian Republic, but no man has done more in America than Horace Mann to exalt citizenship as an educa- tional ideal and to impress his countrymen with the truth that the common schools are the hope of our country. So long as the divine right of kings to rule is unchallenged, it makes relatively little dif- ference whether any citizens other than the rulers are highly educated or not; but among a people who look upon every common man or woman as having all the potential rights and duties of a sov- ereign, training for citizenship becomes a paramount duty, and few ideals can have a more important place in the thought of the nation than this one has. Utilitarianism is a present-day concept which is occupying a more prominent place in our thinking than it is ultimately to fill, because its claims must be exaggerated to give it the hearing to which it is honestly entitled. Its advocates have already per- formed valuable service in jarring the nation loose from its reliance upon books, visions, a.nd culture, and teaching with Longfellow that " life is real, life is earnest," and that it is the business of the schools to prepare boys and girls, even those who must leave school early, .for this reality. Breadwinning, self- support, work, support of dependent ones, these are parts of the reality of life for every one, and the child who faces this fact and prepares for it, other things being equal, is going to become a more valuable citi- zen and a happier man than one who does not, 14 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Character-building as the end of education is a phrase which while perhaps not introduced by the Herbartians has been given an exalted place by them. Indeed no other conception of the aim of education seems to us so closely to identify it with the Chris- tian view of the end or aim of life itself. The de- velopment of moral character involves of necessity the development of the hand and the head, but it makes such development accessory and not funda- mental, subsidiary and not ultimate. Intelligence and practical skill are not incompatible with moral character but may exist without it. The thousands of men who have been most successful, as judged by mere practical and utilitarian standards, the other thousands who have been among the intellectual elite, but void of moral fiber, are eloquent witnesses of this truth. Even Socrates made the mistake of confounding knowledge and virtue. It does not at all follow that the man who knows will be the virtu- ous man. The heart does not always respond when the head assents. " Character is the disposition of a person's will," and will may be strong in nega- tive directions, when the intelligence alone would sanction an opposite course. Every jail and every prison contains numerous men who have made ship- wreck of life because their wills were weak or bad. No wonder the philosopher Kant was able to say that " the only absolutely good thing in the world is a good will." Any modern aim must be composite. --The pre- ceding paragraphs have doubtless already suggested to the reader that our educational aim must needs be composite to be adequate; that every separate THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 15 ideal mentioned above has a place as a factor in the product at which we aim ; and that no one of them could be omitted without loss. Such a view is surely correct. The difficulty is that of seeing them in balanced relations. A proper sense of proportion is not an easy sense to cultivate in any field. Most of us are likely to mistake half-truths for the whole truth ; and to permit the good to become the enemy of the best. This tendency in man has delayed progress in every field of endeavor throughout his- tory. In educational circles we have been particu- larly prone to this error. But the young teacher will do well to survey the aims and ideals enumer- ated above and ask herself what one she can afford to ignore. She may find it profitable to inquire, too, whether the last named is really comprehensive enough and far-reaching enough to justify more thinking and more teaching in the effort to translate it into reality in the lives of her pupils. Every true soldier feels that death is preferable to disgrace or dishonor on the field of battle. This is only another way of saying that a soldier develops a character which sets a certain type of morality above life itself. Most right-thinking parents love their own children so well that they gladly make almost any sacrifice for them, if sacrifice is neces- sary, but there are few Christian parents who would not think even an honorable death of their child a less grievous calamity than the life of their child lived in shame and disgrace. In other words, as dear as the life of our loved ones is normally regarded, and as bitter as death is thought to be, there is something more bitter to most of us, and that is 16 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME the grossly immoral life. If teachers could only get this point of view, there are some things which they find it easy to ignore that would loom large on the horizon of their teaching ; and there are other things which cause them most anxiety and effort that would as surely be treated less seriously. Intellectual results measured qualitatively and quantitatively. There are certain intellectual re- sults rightly expected in the classroom that admit of qualitative and even fairly accurate quantitative measurement. This is especially true of all that has made its appeal chiefly to memory. The very ease with which these results have been measured and the extreme difficulty of measuring growth in moral lines have been responsible for stressing the one and slighting the other in the schoolroom. I can determine whether my child knows more history today than he knew yesterday or not. I do not find it easy to ascertain whether he has made cor- responding growth in moral character. So I find myself tempted -as a teacher to labor for results in the realm whose results are measurable ; and trust to luck for satisfactory results in the less tangible sphere. Where scientific tests are still inapplicable. - Scientific tests and standard measurements are doing much today to enable teachers to ascertain the effectiveness of their own teaching, so far as it has to do with a mastery of the fundamental operations in arithmetic ; with the establishment of a habit in writing; with an incorporation of certain conven- tional modes of sentence and paragraph structure in composition, and with power to interpret and express the thought of a printed page, These tests may be THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 17 perfected and others worked out to apply to still other subjects, and other phases of the same sub- jects; but at present it must be admitted that it is almost impossible to estimate from year to year a child's growth in ideals, in honor, in altruism, in the graces or even the more homely virtues which form constituent parts of the thing we call moral character. But the teacher must guard against the thought that this supreme object of school endeavor is of second- ary importance because its exact measurement is either difficult or impossible. The time may never come when it will be possible to forecast or even later to determine the effect of a song which touches the heart, a picture which stirs the emotions, a poem which makes life better for its readers; but we shall continue to profit by these forms of art, even though we may not know to what extent we profit. In like manner we shall continue to enrich and ennoble character through the processes of the school even though we can not ascertain the rate of growth in this direction from day to day or even from year to year. Importance of the parent's point of view. It is well for us as teachers to get a parent's point of view that we may exalt character-building to its proper place in the category of educational aims. No normal father or mother can fail to find positive satisfaction in their child's growing scholarship, in his mental development, in his improved language habits, and other logical outcomes of school work; but it is to be doubted whether any of these results is comparable in parental pleasure to the increas- ing evidence of habits of industry, cleanliness, truth- 1 8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME telling, honesty, kindness, punctuality, temperance, justice, chastity, politeness, consideration for the rights of others, chivalrous regard for girls and women, respect for the aged and infirm, reverence for all things sacred and holy increasingly exhibited in the conduct of their children. In other words, parents are supremely concerned with the ethical code and conduct of their boys and girls. In their most thoughtful moments they are vastly more anxious to see their sons and daughters become men and women uncorrupted and uncorruptible, of a fine sense of personal honor, with habits and ideals that will admit them into the inner circles of the world's best men and women more anxious to witness this consummation of their hopes and prayers than to see any other possible outcome in the education of their children. This, therefore, is only another way of saying that the school, through its teachers, needs to give a more prominent place to character-building in its daily work. Knowledge, scholarship, culture, intellectual strength these are all good and worthy educational ends, but dearly bought if character is sacrificed in their pursuit, and at best but poor substitutes for the riches of character which constitute the highest goal of school endeavor. Whether we think of edu- cation from the standpoint of the citizen of our democracy and the elements of training most needed to aid him in using his citizenship most wisely ; from the standpoint of the future practical man with a so-called bread-and-butter aim imposed by stern necessity ; or from the standpoint of one who wishes to get the most refined enjoyment out of his leisure THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 19 through a liberal acquaintance with music, letters, and art, it is still true that character is the summum bonum, and the best guarantee against such civic monstrosities as Benedict Arnold, such anarchistic workers as comprise the leadership of the I. W. W., and such cultured immoral aesthetes as Thaw and White of recent unsavory renown. The teaching of religion not in place in public schools. No plea is here made for religious teach- ing, or rather for the teaching of religion, in the pub- lic schools. And we are not confusing moral instruc- tion with instruction about morals. Theories of con- duct and a philosophy of either religion or ethics can have no place in elementary schools ; but even a great nation like France, sometimes thought to be a godless nation, assumes l that there is " an A B C of the conscience," that " the early teaching of those primordial elements of morality are not less indis- pensable than the teaching of language and arith- metic, and that it is a national duty to transmit pure, intact, and complete these first notions which are at the basis of all the moral and social order/' For more than thirty years, therefore, France has pro- vided a place for moral instruction in its public schools. We may not wish to emulate the example of France in the method we use, but cannot err in ascribing to morality the same high place in the social order which that country gives it, and in using the schools with a conscious purpose to transmit it as a paramount factor in the patrimony of mankind to every child. 1 Ferdinand Buisson, Commander in the Legion of Honor, Paris, France. In an address before the N. E. A., Oakland, Cal., 1915. 20 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Is the educational ideal of any people or epoch a cause or an effect of the national ideal of that people and period ? Illustrate your answer with a number of ex- amples. 2. What constant factor do you find running through all the aims of education which history has recorded ? 3. Illustrate some of the changed conceptions of social and moral rights and obligations; i.e., labor, woman's rights, temperance, slavery, the "double- standard" of sex-relationship, international consciousness. How do these changed conceptions express themselves in our schools ? 4. In what respect is Germany's system of education worthy of our emulation ? What makes it a terrible warning to us ? 5. What educational tendency today suggests a dan- gerous weakness exhibited by the Phoenicians of Ancient History ? 6. Discuss the aim of education as stated by Hunting- ton, showing what parts of it seem to stress the intellec- tual ; the moral ; the religious ; the aesthetic ; the physical. Wherein is it strong ? Wherein weak or inadequate ? 7. Compare "Education is preparation for complete living" with "Education is participation in complete living." 8. Keeping in mind the healing, the teaching, and the preaching of the Great Teacher, what suggestion do you find for teachers today in his words, "I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly" ? 9. Is morality as we understand it strengthened by the Christian religion ? The Jewish ? Can you say the same thing for other religions ? 10. Show how our entrance into the European War is affecting our educational ideals. THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 21 REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BAGLEY, WILLIAM C. : The Educative Process : The Ethical Aim of Education, chapter HI. Macmillan Co. CUBBERLEY, ELLWOOD P. : Changing Conceptions of Educa- tion. Houghton Mifflin Co. DAVENPORT, EUGENE : Education for Efficiency, chapters v and vi. D. C. Heath & Co. DEWEY, JOHN : Democracy in Education, chapters VH, vin, ix. Macmillan Co. JONES, LEWIS : Education as Growth, or The Culture of Char- acter. Ginn & Co. KING, IRVING: Education for Social Efficiency, chapter n. D. Appleton & Co. CHAPTER III THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION Psychological principles of the learning process involved. If the presupposition of this book is a sound one, i.e., that moral education may best be effected through the ordinary activities of the school rather than by means of didactic teaching of morals, or a formal course in ethics, the psychology of its teaching is not different from the psychology of teaching in general. In so far as purely intellectual processes are involved in moral instruction, and the psychological principles related to sense-perceiving, formation of concepts, memorizing, judgment, and reasoning are to be observed, almost any of the textbooks used in the teaching of general educational psychology will be found sufficiently helpful as a guide. Modern theory of emotional life a factor. Again, moral education can never be divorced from an educa- tion of the emotional life. Hence, any textbook which makes sufficiently clear the part which the feelings of pleasure and pain have to perform in education and life may be used with profit by the teacher who would deal wisely with the moral life of her pupils. The James-Lange theory of the emotions, at least in a modified form, is so nearly universally accepted by psychologists and thoughtful teachers today, 22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 23 and it has such a bearing upon the moral education of children in home and school, that it should be- come familiar to every teacher in the elementary schools, and every parent as well. Very few psy- chological principles can be observed with greater profit, either in the wise discipline and treatment of a child, or in the self-control of an adult who tends to be dominated by his coarser emotions. Its practical application to behavior is perhaps nowhere better stated than in the words of James himself. The James-Lange theory quoted. " Refuse to express a passion, and it dies. Count ten before venting your anger, and its occasion seems ridiculous. Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech. On the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers. There is no more valuable precept in moral education than this, as all who have experience know: if we wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in our- selves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward movements of those contrary dispositions which we prefer to cultivate. The reward of persistency will infallibly come, in the fading out of the sullenness or depres- sion, and the advent of real cheerfulness and kindli- ness in their stead. Smooth the brow, brighten the eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventral aspect of the frame, and speak in a major key, pass the genial compliment, and your heart must be frigid indeed if it do not gradually thaw ! " l 1 Principles of Psychology , Vol. II, p. 463. 24 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Altruistic vs. egoistic feelings. Among other things the development of moral character must involve the cultivation of the altruistic feelings as opposed to the merely egoistic ones. Through concrete illustrations unselfishness must be made attractive and selfishness repulsive. Such illustra- tions in abundance may be found in life, in history, in literature, and in art. Children can profit by a consideration of the Christian attitude towards the weak, the unfortunate, and the helpless, in con- trast to pagan ideals and practices in this realm. Our charities, benevolences, and asylums are all in marked contrast with the custom of the ancient Spartans, according to which, e.g.? weak, sickly, or deformed infants were exposed and left to die if they gave no promise of growing up strong and independent and able to make a contribution to the state. The modern Christian state spends its substance much more freely upon the afflicted the blind, the deaf and dumb, the insane, the feeble- minded, the indigent, than upon its normal citizens. Practical methods of developing altruism. Red Cross societies, associated charities, the Salvation Army, free clinics, hospitals, Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A., missionary societies, and numerous other organizations are institutionalized expressions of the altruistic impulses and feelings of man. School children develop this side of their nature partly through an acquaintance with the work done by such organizations, but more effectively through participation in such work. Hence it follows that children, for their own. sake, should be permitted to have a share in the work of relief that is under- THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 25 taken by adult organizations out of school. Floods, tornadoes, fires, famines, pestilence, war all great calamities which bring great need of relief to suffer- ing peoples and grip the sympathies of men and women, are occasions for cultivating the moral life of children in the public schools and should be so used. If psychology teaches anything it is that through action, through deeds of mercy, through service, the moral life is quickened. When al- truistic impulses and feelings are given adequate and legitimate expression the cycle of moral life is made complete, and not until then. " No im- pression without expression " is a psychological truism in pedagogy, but it seems especially pertinent in the moral realm. For children to fill baskets for the poor at Thanksgiving time or Christmas ; for them to contribute to the relief of a neighboring city devastated by a tornado ; for schools to take up collections for Armenian relief; for boys in the manual training department to work extra hours, even, in making boxes and splints, and for girls in sewing classes to make bandages for use in Red Cross work ; for whole classes and schools to deny themselves candy or ice cream or the movies or something else for a limited time that their savings may be used for some charitable, benevolent, or philanthropic purpose, is to give them moral train- ing based upon sound psychological principles. The place of instinct in moral training. --If we remember that character-building is essentially a matter of will rather than mere intelligence, then the field of psychology having the greatest bearing upon it at once becomes more obvious. We shall 26 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME need to look to its roots and springs in instincts and impulses. The place of suggestion needs to be understood. The nature and bearings of interest and effort, of voluntary and of involuntary atten- tion, are of major concern to the teacher. Finally, and perhaps of greatest importance, the psychology of habit must guide the teacher in her work. To amplify this phase of our subject would unduly lengthen this chapter. Our treatment here can be little more than suggestive. The teacher should consult some of the numerous books which treat the subject of instinct, impulse, attention, and habit more fully. If we take the psychology of instinct we may ask ourselves : How can the elementary school teacher apply it to the problem of moral education - either training or instruction ? Kirkpatrick, in his Fundamentals of Child Study, devotes eight chapters to instincts, and much that he says in these chapters has a direct bearing upon the answer to our question. Perhaps the most pointed answer, briefly stated, can be given in the words of Home, who suggests that the teacher's business is neither to neglect, nor oppress, nor extirpate, nor instruct instincts, but to direct their expression toward legitimate objects : "To apply this principle to some of the commoner and more representative instincts. Children are naturally constructive? Then provide courses in manual training and domestic science. Children are full of play ? Then provide ample recesses and good games, and recognize play as a legitimate educator and not as a necessary waste of time. Children are acquisitive ? Then provide THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 27 shelves for natural history specimens, encourage collec- tions of stamps, pictures, flowers, etc. Children obey the group or gang impulse ? Then let home and school unite in organizing proper bands and clubs. Children have a curiosity surpassing that of any creature ? Then answer patiently their question 'Why?' as far as they are able to comprehend, and suggest further related questions to engage and develop their interest. Children have primitive fears ? Arouse them, not by hobgoblin stories, but make the unavoidable consequences of wrong- doing such as justly to excite their fear. Children so easily fly into a passion ? When the fury is past, show the boy some wrong inflicted upon the innocent, and let his anger kindle as a flame to right it. Children are secretive ? Agree with them to keep all evil reports about another. Children are so emulous of each other ? Confront each one with his own weak past self to excel. They are envious of another's good fortune ? Point to some man of good character as having the best treasure and secure hero-worship. And so on through the list. Study the instincts of children ; catch them in the act, and direct them toward a legitimate object. To do so skillfully is actually to fashion the good will." l Establishing habits of a moral sort the task of parent and teacher. If there is one aspect of moral education more than another concerning which psychology may be expected to speak with assurance, it is habit. Here we are upon familiar ground. Morality is for the most part a matter of habit, in thought, in speech, in action. The task of parent and teacher alike is to train children in habits of a moral sort. The laziest man alive is likely to work at times, of necessity, and the most 1 Psychological Principles of Education, pp. 268-269. 28 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME industrious one ought to rest from his labor occa- sionally; but one's habitual practice determines whether he should be called lazy or industrious. In like manner, honest, frugal, temperate, kind, virtu- ous, just, polite, truthful, are adjectives appropriately applied to individuals whose behavior habitually exhibits these qualities and characteristics. As Rowe has stated : ' Virtue is not applied to sporadic or spasmodic plays of good will. It must have the stability characteristic of habit." Quotations from James et al. - - Though the world has much more to say of bad habits pro- fanity, drunkenness, etc., everybody recognizes that our specific virtues are built up as habits just as truly as our vices are. In other words, habits of the right sort we make our friends ; their op- posites, our enemies. Shakespeare recognized this when he wrote, " Happy is the man whose habits are his friends." But it remained for James to make clear to teachers the neural basis of habit, and to announce that : "The great thing, then, in all education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy." This is made possible, as every physiological psy- chology now teaches, because of the plasticity of brain cells, and because, as James further states, " Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar" in these cells. All that one says and all that one does is recorded in the molecular structure of brain and nerves, making easier a repetition of a given act because of the tendency of a " ' neural discharge' THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 29 to follow the ' pathway' already marked, and, in turn, to make the ' pathway ' still more distinct/' Quoting the same author once more : "Nothing we ever do is, in strict literalness, ever wiped out. Of course this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work." A well-known teacher and lecturer used to ex- press the same thought by stating that " the greatest thing one ever does is himself," meaning that the subjective influence of one's thoughts, and even one's acts, is of greater significance than the ob- jective effects intended as resultants of his acts. Angell discusses " Mind, Neural Action, and Habit " in a chapter which he closes with a sub- topic, " Ethical Aspects of Habit," in which he says : "The moment one gets clearly in mind the physiological nature of habit and its basis in the nervous tissues, its ominous significance for morality becomes evident. To break up a bad habit means not only to secure a penitent, reformatory attitude of mind, ... it means a complete change in certain parts of the nervous system, and this is frequently a thing of utmost difficulty of achievement. No amount of good resolution can possibly wipe out at once the influences of nervous habits of long standing, and if these habits be pernicious, the slavery of the victim is sure to be pitiable and likely to be permanent. On the other hand, the momentous significance for the individual and society of deeply imbedded habits of a moral kind cannot be overestimated. The existence of such habits means stability, reliability, and a promise of the utmost jo MORAL EDUCATION; IN SCHOOL AND HOME :-:r.iirnBBL I: 15 2'.'. : _: :~ r-issible bf :r.e to over the moral habits of a lifetime. One may at j be mildly tempted by the possibilities such breaches hold out, hot actual violation in overt action is essentially impossible. The man who has been vicious all his life is hardly free to become virtuous, and the virtuous man is in a kind of bondage to righteousness. What one of us could go out upon the street and murder the first person we met? Such action is literally impossible for us, so long as we letam our sanity. "In view of these considerations, no one can over- estimate the ethical importance of habit. To make of the body, in which our habits are conserved, a friend and aDy and not an enemy, is an ideal which should be strenu- ously and intcffiguidy held out to every young person. One never ^an say at what precise moment it may be- " apossible to shake off a bad habit. But with perfect ceitainty that our nervous tissues r op every day the results of our actions, and is, therefore, sore to come when no amount of j pious intention can redeem us from the penalty of oar foDjr. Meantime, . . . this general advice may be gjwen: begin the new regime at once, do not wait for a convenient season. If the result be not likely to be physically disastrous, stop wholly, do not taper off Give yutuadf surroundings which wfll offer the least possible temptation. Do not try merely to suppress the bad habit. I: ;:: :".r, z --. ^.rr.t-.-inj ehc ifhn is pood in cli:t of it. See to it that yon are always occupied in some proper way untQ you fed sure that the grip of the bad of habit formation stated. Teachers and parents looking for practical help in guiding chil- dren into the formation of proper habits or the THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 31 breaking of undesirable ernes will find the following serviceable. Suggested in part by Bain, they were definitely formulated by James, and have later been incorporated in more or less modified and amplified form in the treatment of habit by Thorn- dike, Bagley, Home, Rowe, Halleck, and numerous other writers. Indeed, they have been preached from thousands of pulpits, for ministers no less than teachers and parents, recognize that the effective- ness of their work is to be measured by the help they give in establishing good habits and breaking bad ones. in the acquisition of a new habit, or the 1 off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. Accumulate all the passible circumstances which shall reinforce the right motives ; put yourself conditions that encourage the new way; make engage- ments incompatible with the old; envelop your resolu- tion with every aid you know." Signing the pledge, for one who proposes to be temperate ; or joining a church, for one who intends to take a definite forward step in the religious fife, is acting in harmony with this maxim. As Halleck reminds us: "Many a person has stood firm only became he ran away from dangerous ideas. The companions of Ulysses were wise to stop their ears with wax, so as pot to hear the soon of the sirens. Ulysses heard, and his desire to go to them overmastered nun. Had tie not been KMcdJty restrained, he would have perished. Once out of hear- ing, he was a man again." 32 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Jesus, the Great Teacher, knew that men who can stand morally upright under certain circum- stances may fall under others; so he taught his disciples to pray, " Lead us not into temptation." "Second, never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. . . . Without unbroken advance there is no such thing as accumulation of the ethical forces possible, and to make this possible, and to exercise us and habituate us in it, is the sovereign blessing of regular work." Rowe 1 has devoted a chapter of more than twenty pages to a consideration of methods of preventing exceptions. These include, among many others, guarding against probable temptations, warning against first tendencies to lapse, picturing painful consequences of lapses, resolving against lapses, determination not to be beaten. "Third, seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. . . . No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved. "Fourth, don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do. The strokes of behavior 1 Habit Formation and the Science of Teaching, chap. x. ' THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 33 are what give the new set to the character, and work the good habits into its organic tissue. Preaching and talk- ing too soon become an ineffectual bore. "Fifth, keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day." The moral will as the highest expression of the moral life. But after all is said that can be said in favor of habits of the right sort, it must be admitted that even good habits do not exhibit the highest reaches of morality. It remains to speak briefly of the place of will in conduct. It is this aspect of the self, involving judgment, deliberation, choice, and decision, and, in the moral realm, conscience, too, that is the crowning glory of the moral life. After making due allowance for the place of in- stincts, impulses, and habits in our action; after granting that the suggestions that come from our environment, physical and social, are powerful determinants of our conduct, the fact remains that a sense of duty may be so strong within us that we may will to act in accordance with its mandates. Every child has the opportunity open to adults to train his will. All of life is a school for its train- ing. It involves the conception of an ideal, a definite aim, a dominant purpose, often sustained attention, certainly a deep interest and a belief in the worth- while-ness of the object. It may mean sacrifice of temporary pleasures sometimes of position, of money, of honors, of friends. But the deepest satisfactions of life come with its exercise, what- ever the cost. It is the highest expression of the moral life, and perhaps the greatest factor in the progressive development of such life. 34 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME As one writer 1 has well said : "The student pushing steadily toward his goal in spite of poverty and grinding labor; the teacher who, though unappreciated and poorly paid, yet performs every duty with conscientious thoroughness; the man who stands firm in the face of temptation ; the person whom heredity or circumstance has handicapped, but who, nevertheless, courageously fights his battle; the countless men and women everywhere whose names are not known to fame, but who stand in the hard places, bearing the heat and the toil with brave, unflinching hearts, these are the ones who are developing a moral fiber and strength of will which will stand in the day of stress." QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. The public frequently condemns the schools because they do not give definite moral instruction. Is such criticism heeded by the leading educators ? Are they less concerned with moral character than the public is ? Can you show that the means usually proposed by the public would rest upon an inadequate psychological basis, and therefore would fail to bring desired results ? 2. "It is futile to assume that knowledge of right con- stitutes a guarantee of doing right." Discuss this state- ment. 3. Explain the James-Lange theory of emotions. Illustrate. Show its bearing upon schoolroom discipline. 4. Lowell writes : "Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." Show the psychological sense in which one does feed himself by such giving. Show the values for moral education of school children in having them take part in 1 Betts, The Mind and Its Education, p. 242. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 35 the campaigns for Red Cross funds and other activities made necessary by the War. 5. Why does the average child of ten or twelve years like manual training or cooking (if a girl) so much better than formal grammar ? Which of the two subjects does more for his moral education at that time ? Why ? 6. Show the part played by the instinct of imitation in character-building. From the standpoint of this in- stinct, what is the great problem of the school in educating children to be moral ? 7. How can the group or gang impulse be utilized in training children in the moral life ? Read Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives ; Forbush, The Boy Problem; Swift, " The Spirit of the Gang, an Educational Asset/' in Youth and the Race. 8. Discuss the advantages for moral training in the socialized school, with a socialized curriculum and social- ized recitations, as compared with the results obtained in the older type of school. What mental powers are stimu- lated by the first named ? By the latter ? Can moral training be given successfully apart from social situations ? Justify your answer. 9. Analyze the phrase force of character. What ele- ments do you find in it ? Discuss the character that merely lacks specific vices. 10. Show the psychological truth or bearing of each of the following quotations : a. "All are architects of Fate." b. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." c. "My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure/' d. "Which way I turn is hell. Myself am hell." e. "Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime." /. " If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 36 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING ANGELL, JAMES R. : Psychology : especially chapter xxi, Relation of Volition to Interest, Effort, and Will; and chapter xxn, Character and the Will. Henry Holt & Co. COLVIN and BAGLEY : Human Behavior. Macmillan Co. DEWEY, JOHN: Moral Principles in Education. Riverside Educational Monographs. Houghton Mifflin Co. HALLECK, REUBEN POST: Psychology and Psychic Culture: especially chapters xi-xui, inclusive. American Book Co. JAMES, WILLIAM : Talks to Teachers and Students : especially chapter iv, Education and Behavior; chapter vn, What the Native Reactions Are ; chapter vni, The Laws of Habit ; and chapter xv, The Will. Henry Holt & Co. JAMES, WILLIAM : Psychology : especially chapters xxiv-xxvi, inclusive. Henry Holt & Co. JUDD, C. H. : Psychology : especially chapter vu, Experience and Expression; and chapter viu, Instinct and Habit. Scribner's. KIRKPATRICK, EDWIN A. : Fundamentals of Child Study. (Primarily a discussion of Instincts.) Macmillan Co. ROWE, STUART H. : Habit Formation and the Science of Teach- ing. Longmans, Green & Co. CHAPTER IV MORAL TRAINING THROUGH THE EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF THE TEACHER Conscious vs. unconscious tuition. Teachers are regularly employed to teach some particular sub- ject or group of subjects, but their greatest value to the school is seldom determined by what they teach. However great their scholarship, this is not likely to be the quality that makes the most lasting impression upon their pupils. Children remember teachers for what they are and not for what they teach. Any one who appears before boys and girls day after day in the classroom will teach more by example than by precept. He will irradiate a farther reaching unconscious influence than any conscious instruction can have. In a masterly address that has become an educa- tional classic in its printed form, Bishop Huntington, years ago, taught the pedagogical world the impor- tance of a teacher's unconscious tuition in, molding the character of children. " Today's simple dealing with a raw or refractory pupil," he says, " takes its insensible coloring from the moral climate you have all along been breathing. . . . Celestial opportuni- ties avail us nothing unless we have ourselves been educated up to their level. If an angel come to 37 38 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME converse with us on the mountain top, he must find our tent already pitched in that upper air. . . . There is a touching plea in the loyal ardor with which the young are ready to look to their guides. ... In children there is a natural instinct and passion for impersonating all ideal excellence in some superior being, and for living in intense devotion to a heroic presence. It is the privilege of every teacher to occupy that place, to ascend that lawful throne of homage and of love, if he will. If his pupils love him, he stands for their ideal of a heroic nature. Their romantic fancy invests him with unreal graces. Long after his lessons are forgotten, he remains, in memory, a teaching power. It is his own forfeit if, by a sluggish, spiritless brain, mean manners, or a small and selfish heart, he alienates that confidence and disappoints that generous hope/ 5 The best thing a school or college does. An- other writer, 1 briefly discussing the function of the teacher, says : " The greatest thing a teacher ever brings to a child is not subject-matter, but the uplift which comes from heart contact with a great per- sonality. This should be the first prerequisite in determining the acceptability of a teacher." The same writer refers to a study once made by President Charles F. Thwing, of the responses of fifty repre- sentative men to questions involving " the best thing college does for a man." The general tenor of most of the replies is expressed in the statement that " the best thing which the American college has done for its graduates is in giving a training which is itself largely derived from personal relationship." This 1 Search, An Ideal School. EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 39 conception of the matter has its most apt illustra- tion in the saying that Garfield on one end of a log and Mark Hopkins on the other constitute a college. For after all, it is not buildings, laboratories, libraries, or courses of study, it is the great teachers, that make great schools. The ideal teacher. George Herbert Palmer has written a little monograph entitled, " The Ideal Teacher." In it he briefly discusses the four char- acteristics of a great teacher. They are, first, an aptitude for vicariousness ; second, an already accu- mulated wealth ; third, an ability to invigorate life through knowledge; and fourth, a readiness to be forgotten. " Having these," says the writer, " any teacher is secure. Lacking them, lacking even one, he is liable to serious failure." Now, as it seems to me, the second and third characteristics are largely matters of scholarship and method, possessions which the normal school and college can communicate to the teacher who is anxious to secure them. The first and last are more nearly matters of personality and character, and therefore less likely to be the possessions of the rank and file of teachers. But it is one of the delights of a superintendent occasionally to find a teacher whose whole nature is kindled with enthusiasm for her work, with sympathy and love for her children, with a disposition that radiates sun- shine, with an ability to put herself in the child's place and see his point of view, and with a missionary spirit that enables her to think of teaching as a mis- sion and not a job. Such a teacher, like the Great Teacher, undertakes her task that children "may have life " and " have it more abundantly." She 40 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME is willing to lose her life in service that she may find it again in the lives of her pupils. Without a love for children, and without the spirit of service and of self-sacrifice, she may secure a teacher's certifi- cate, sign a contract, and stay on a pay roll, but she can not be a really great and influential teacher. Her community may not be a diagnostician that can detect her weakness ; her pupils may not be dis- criminating enough to know what the trouble is : but her influence for good can not be far-reaching unless she loves her work and gladly does much more than can be prescribed in detail for her. Shakespeare's characterization of a schoolboy, " creeping like snail, unwillingly to school," is not applicable to the chil- dren of today who are fortunate in having a teacher equipped in mind and heart for teaching. Elbert Hubbard's famous epigram prophesying a time when children " will be neither sent nor sen- tenced to school," was inspired by a knowledge of teachers who are too superficial, too formal, too lazy, or too dead to attract, arouse, and inspire their classes. But there are thousands of teachers to whom children go gladly day by day, and from whom they get such an uplift as comes to them from no other source in life. These teachers may or may not be well trained through the completion of courses in normal school or college. Valuable as scholarship and training are as a supplement to a teacher's equipment, the college president was probably right when he said, " I have never seen a success that could be accounted for by scholarship and training alone. I have never seen a failure that I could not account for on other grounds." EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 41 Hyde on personality. The word which is usually made to cover the fundamental and indispensable qualities of a teacher is personality. It is not easy to define, and it is not easy to analyze, but it is rela- tively easy to recognize. Wise school boards and superintendents look for it in their teachers above all else, and they know full well that even advanced degrees are no evidence of its presence. Comment- ing upon it, President Hyde says : "Now, personality is very largely a matter of heredity. Some people are born large-natured ; other people are born small-souled. The former are born to succeed ; the latter are born to fail in any work in which personality counts for so much as it does in teaching. People with these mean natures and small souls never ought to try to teach. They ought to get into some strictly me- chanical work where skilled hands count for everything and warm hearts count for nothing. Still personality, though largely dependent on heredity, is in great measure capable of cultivation." Assuming, then, that a teacher of average hered- itary gifts may make her own personality, the writer, through thirty pages of an invaluable pres- entation, unfolds the five answers to the problem which he says the world has found. They are : the Epicurean, the Stoic, the Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the Christian. They will abundantly repay any teacher for her pains in reading them again and again, but I quote here the concluding page : "I will guarantee personal success to any well-trained teacher who will faithfully incorporate these five prin- ciples into his personal life. The teacher who is healthy 42 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME and happy with Epicurus nights and mornings, holidays and vacations, at meal-time and between meals; who faithfully fortifies his soul with the Stoic defenses against needless regrets and superfluous forebodings; who now and then ascends with Plato the heights from which he sees the letters of his life writ large, and petty annoyances reduced to their true dimensions ; who applies the Aris- totelian sense of proportion to the distribution of his energy, so that the full force of it is held in reserve for the things that are really worth while, and, finally, sees in the lives of his scholars the supreme object for which all these other accumulations and savings have been made, and devotes himself joyfully and unreservedly to the common work he tries to do with them, for them, and through them for their lasting good, this teacher can no more help being a personal success as a teacher than the sunlight and rain can help making the earth the fruitful and beautiful place that it is." l A lesson from Bonaventure. In Cable's Bona- venture is presented one of the most inspiring ex- amples of a teacher born to succeed that can be found in life or fiction. His school was in Grande Pointe, Louisiana, where a medley of Creoles and Acadians lived a primitive life in great ignorance, superstition, and distrust of both English and educa- tion. Bonaventure Deschamps was the teacher, and in spite of obstacles that would have overpowered most souls, his success in teaching the children of the neighborhood was little less than miraculous. At last, from fear that a successful public school and the teaching of English would soon mean railroads, im- migration, and other innovations to disturb the complacency of the people, a conspiracy was formed 1 The Teacher's Philosophy. Riverside Educational Monograph. EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 43 to close the school against the will of the inspired teacher and his tearful pupils. A clever stranger in the neighborhood was let into the secret, and his services enlisted to show up the teacher as a fraud. The fateful day came and the conspirators went to the school to overthrow it. The teacher was forced to agree to close the school and leave it if just one of his pupils should miss one word in the public test made that day. Of course somebody missed at last, and Bonaven- ture, in heart-broken voice, cried, " Everything lost ! Farewell, chil'run ! " " He opened his arms toward them and with one dash all the lesser ones filled them. They wept. Tears welled from Bona- venture's eyes ; and the mothers of Grande Pointe dropped again into their seats and silently added theirs." Then the unexpected happened. The stranger, touched by the pathos of the teacher's love for his school, and the children's reciprocal love for him, arose and said : " I came out here to show up that man as a fraud. But what do I find ? A poor, unpaid, half-starved man that loves his thankless work better than his life, teaching what not one schoolmaster in a thou- sand can teach ; teaching his whole school four better things than were ever printed in any school- book, how to study, how to think, how to value knowledge, and to love one another and mankind. What you'd ought to have done was to agree that such a school should keep open, and such a teacher should stay, if just one, one lone child should answer one single book-question right ! " 44 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Domsie of Drumtochty. Ian Maclaren has given the world another teacher worth knowing in Domsie of Drumtochty. 1 In most respects very unlike Bonaventure, like him " he gave all his love to the children " and " nearly all his money, too, helping lads to college. He could detect a scholar in the egg, and prophesied Latinity from a boy that seemed fit only to be a cowherd. It was believed that he never made a mistake in judgment, and it was not his blame if the embryo scholar did not come to birth/' There are scores of teachers who are great scholars, for every one to be found with a genuine Bission for making scholars out of his pupils, omsie clearly belonged to the latter class. For Latin he hunted " as for fine gold, and when he found the smack of it in a lad he rejoiced openly. He counted it a day in his life when he knew cer- tainly that he had hit on another scholar," for he thought with " auld John Knox that ilka scholar is something added to the riches of the commonwealth.'* But while " he had a leaning to classics and the pro- fessions, Domsie was catholic in his recognition of ' pairts/ " so that he displayed unfeigned pleasure in the achievement of the foreman's son who made a collection of the insects of Drumtochty. " Generally speaking, if any clever lad did not care for Latin he had the alternative of beetles." Another element in Domsie's character is revealed in the efforts he made to find money with which to give Geordie Hoo a college education. Drumsheigh, the boy's neighbor, was importuned for help, but was reluctant to give it, whereupon Domsie said to 1 Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 45 him : " I've naethin' in this world but a handfu' o' books and a ten-pound note for my funeral, and yet, if it was-na I have all my brither's bairns tae keep, I wud pay every penny mysel' ! But I'll no see Geordie sent to the plough, tho' I gang frae door to door. Na, na, the grass 'ill no grow on the road atween the college and the schule-house o' Drum- tochty till they lay me in the auld kirkyard ! " Doctor Strong's appeal to the honor of boys. One of the most lovable characters Dickens has created is the good old teacher, Doctor Strong, in David Copperfield. He is represented as having " a simple faith that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall. . . . He appealed in everything to the honor and good faith of the boys, and relied on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy." One of his former pupils said of him in later life: " When I was very young, quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher. . . . I can remember nothing that I know without remem- bering him. He stored my mind with its first treas- ures, and stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands." Helen Keller and Miss Sullivan. But we need not confine ourselves to teachers in fiction to see fine exhibitions of a teacher's personality stamping itself upon the character and life of a pupil. What finer tribute to a teacher could be paid than the following words from Helen Keller concerning her teacher and companion, Miss Sullivan ? 46 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME "At the beginning I was only a little mass of possi- bilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them. When she came, everything about me breathed of love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never since let pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is in everything, nor has she ceased trying in thought and action and example to make my life sweet and useful. "It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and ac- ceptable to me. She realized that a child's mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily over the stony course of its education and reflects here a flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud ; and she attempted to guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower. "Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest ; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of text- books. "My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is in- separable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 47 there is not a talent, or an aspiration, or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch." l Horace Mann. Horace Mann was doubtless the most influential educator America has yet produced. He rendered conspicuous service as an organizer and administrator, as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, as a member of Congress, and as president of Antioch College. Perhaps his fame rests more largely upon any one of these phases of his work than upon his teaching, yet it is significant that his biographer pays his greatest tribute to his morality, which must have been in evidence what- ever his work. Hinsdale, after calling attention to the first fact he notes relative to Mann that he was not a theorist and not a philosopher, says : " The second fact is that Mann's moral nature domi- nated his intellect so completely as to intensify its defects. His devotion to truth and right, as he saw them, his sense of duty, his unselfishness, his benev- olence, were very marked. His moral earnestness was something tremendous, and constituted the first of the two great motive powers of his life. Perhaps no man of his State and time was more strongly moved by the modern passion for social improvement." 2 Arnold of Rugby. The teacher who more than almost any other has left the most illuminating ex- ample for the rest of us to follow if we would mold character and influence the lives of our pupils for good, is Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, often called " England's greatest schoolmaster." Though he 1 The Story of My Life, pp. 38-40. 2 Horace Mann, p. 268. 48 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME was born in 1795 and died at the early age of 47, his fourteen years of teaching in Rugby were of such character as to give him an international repu- tation among scholars and educators. He knew how to combine firmness and tenderness at all times. He had the courage to stand by his convictions even when it provoked sharp criticism and censure. He made his primary appeals to the honor of his boys, and was himself the soul of honor at all times. " He trusted the boys and never seemed to watch them. Their word was not doubted. ' If you say so, that is quite enough ; of course I believe your word/ was his frequent statement." x " There grew up in con- sequence," says Stanley, " a general feeling that it was a shame to tell Arnold a lie he always believes one." One pupil writes of him : " I am sure that I do not exaggerate my feelings when I say that I felt a love and reverence for him as one of quite awful greatness and goodness, for whom, I well remember, that I used to think I would gladly lay down my life. ... I used to believe that I, too, had a work to do for him in the school, and did, for his sake, labor to raise the tone of the set I lived in." Another of the old Rugby boys, after praising their character, a character which the school had kept to the day of his writing, inquired : " And what gave Rugby boys this character ? I say, fearlessly, Arnold's teaching and example his unwearied zeal in creating ' moral thoughtfulness ' in every boy with whom he came into personal contact. He cer- 1 Quoted from Thomas Arnold, in Bolton's Famous Leaders Among Men. EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 49 tainly did teach us thank God for it ! that we could not cut our life into slices and say, ' In this slice your actions are indifferent, and you needn't trouble your heads about them one way or another ; but in this slice mind what you are about, for they are important/ " l The teacher today who looks upon education as a product rather than a process, and who imagines that a normal school or college diploma, or a first grade teacher's certificate, makes further study and growth unnecessary, may find the following words from Arnold worthy of consideration : " He is the best teacher of others who is best taught himself; that which we know and love, we cannot but com- municate. ... I hold that a man is only fit to teach so long as he is himself learning daily. If the mind once becomes stagnant, it can give no fresh draught to another mind ; it is drinking out of a pond instead of from a spring. ... I think it essential that I should not give up my own read- ing, as I always find an addition of knowledge to turn to account for the school in some way or other." Personality defined. McTurnan says, " The personal equation in teaching is manifest not in the word, but in the emphasis ; not in the outline of the face, but in its illumination ; not in the clothes worn, but in the moral atmosphere one carries with him; not in imitation, but in inspiration ; not in physical or intellectual strength alone, but in power." 2 1 Thomas Hughes, Tom Browns School Days. Preface to the Sixth Edition. 2 The Personal Equation. 50 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME The best teachers as seen by high-school students. - Some time ago the writer received from five hun- dred fifty high-school students answers to a question calling for a list of the qualities in teachers which had made the strongest appeal to them. No quali- ties were suggested, so it was necessary for those answering to analyze the character of teachers in their own way. The replies submitted proved most in- teresting and valuable when studied and tabulated. The following comment by the author was based upon them, and appeared in the Fiftieth Annual Report of the Board of Education of Decatur, and later as a part of a larger study published in the Journal of Educational Administration and Supervision, Janu- ary, 1916. "Almost every conceivable characteristic has made its appeal to some student. Even obvious weaknesses, as measured by adult standards, have in a few cases been the conspicuously pleasing qualities, though this is rare. For example, one student was most favorably impressed with the fact that one of his teachers smokes. Another candidly admits that 'one does dislike studying under a paragon of all virtues/ But these are exceptions. Nearly all students are discriminating enough to recognize good qualities as such, but their sense of relative values is very different from that of many teachers. Scholarship does not awe, and pedagogical practices are not unduly impressive. Only 18 students name the teacher's knowl- edge of his subject as the impressive quality. Two others stress the fact that their teachers were 'very learned/ "On the other hand 130 specify 'willingness to help me,' as the striking quality; 'patience' was named 85 times; 'kindness,' 80 times; 'clearness,' 35; 'sense of humor,' 32; 'understanding of students,' 24; 'firmness/ EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 51 21 ; 'impartiality/ 24; ' cheerfulness/ 19; 'pleasantness/ 19; ' ability to make work interesting,' 21; 'sincerity/ 14; 'sympathy/ 16. In other words, students like teachers for exactly the same reason that men and women are liked by groups of their fellows out in the world in other relations. "No amount of learning and no amount of 'professional training/ though each is a sine qua non, can atone for a lack of the human touch, and the virtues which endear people to their associates in ordinary walks of life. The most scholarly teachers, employing the most skillful methods, measured by coldly intellectual standards, must largely fail to get desired results if they fail to bring or beget the right emotional atmosphere in the schoolroom. Emotional warmth is just as essential to the growth of ideas as physical warmth is to growth of plants. Frost is as much to be avoided in the schoolroom as in the garden. "Dignity, culture, correctness of speech, modesty, po- liteness, beauty, thoroughness, exactness, quietness these are other qualities named a few times, but where possessed, even in large degree, they have not impressed the rank and file of students as they have adults generally. "Finally, it may be said that teachers should strive no less for scholarship and skill in the technique of class- room instruction, even if students do tend to minimize the importance of these qualifications ; but the large place pupils give in their esteem to the more personal and social qualities of teachers is evidence that we miss our opportunity to be of largest service unless we adjust ourselves to this fact, and become attractive rather than repellent in our relations with our students, to the very largest degree that it is possible for us to attain." f Ruskin quoted. John Ruskin was not primarily a teacher, but in the paragraph here taken from one 50 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME The best teachers as seen by high-school students. - Some time ago the writer received from five hun- dred fifty high-school students answers to a question calling for a list of the qualities in teachers which had made the strongest appeal to them. No quali- ties were suggested, so it was necessary for those answering to analyze the character of teachers in their own way. The replies submitted proved most in- teresting and valuable when studied and tabulated. The following comment by the author was based upon them, and appeared in the Fiftieth Annual Report of the Board of Education of Decatur, and later as a part of a larger study published in the Journal of Educational Administration and Supervision, Janu- ary, 1916. "Almost every conceivable characteristic has made its appeal to some student. Even obvious weaknesses, as measured by adult standards, have in a few cases been the conspicuously pleasing qualities, though this is rare. For example, one student was most favorably impressed with the fact that one of his teachers smokes. Another candidly admits that 'one does dislike studying under a paragon of all virtues/ But these are exceptions. Nearly all students are discriminating enough to recognize good qualities as such, but their sense of relative values is very different from that of many teachers. Scholarship does not awe, and pedagogical practices are not unduly impressive. Only 18 students name the teacher's knowl- edge of his subject as the impressive quality. Two others stress the fact that their teachers were 'very learned/ "On the other hand 130 specify 'willingness to help me,' as the striking quality; 'patience' was named 85 times; 'kindness,' 80 times; 'clearness,' 35; 'sense of humor,' 32; 'understanding of students,' 24; 'firmness/ EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 51 21 ; 'impartiality/ 24; ' cheerfulness/ 19; t pleasantness,' 19; ' ability to make work interesting/ 21; 'sincerity/ 14; 'sympathy/ 16. In other words, students like teachers for exactly the same reason that men and women are liked by groups of their fellows out in the world in other relations. "No amount of learning and no amount of 'professional training/ though each is a sine qua non, can atone for a lack of the human touch, and the virtues which endear people to their associates in ordinary walks of life. The most scholarly teachers, employing the most skillful methods, measured by coldly intellectual standards, must largely fail to get desired results if they fail to bring or beget the right emotional atmosphere in the schoolroom. Emotional warmth is just as essential to the growth of ideas as physical warmth is to growth of plants. Frost is as much to be avoided in the schoolroom as in the garden. "Dignity, culture, correctness of speech, modesty, po- liteness, beauty, thoroughness, exactness, quietness these are other qualities named a few times, but where possessed, even in large degree, they have not impressed the rank and file of students as they have adults generally. "Finally, it may be said that teachers should strive no less for scholarship and skill in the technique of class- room instruction, even if students do tend to minimize the importance of these qualifications ; but the large place pupils give in their esteem to the more personal and social qualities of teachers is evidence that we miss our opportunity to be of largest service unless we adjust ourselves to this fact, and become attractive rather than repellent in our relations with our students, to the very largest degree that it is possible for us to attain." Ruskin quoted. John Ruskin was not primarily a teacher, but in the paragraph here taken from one 54 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME subterfuge of a teacher who is not big enough and sincere enough to say she does not know when she doesn't know. It is a vain and fatuous sort of camouflage to try to hide ignorance behind an in- junction to the class to " look that up and report tomorrow." This does not at all mean that there are not frequent occasions for developing a healthful curiosity in a class that may well take a day or more in finding its satisfaction concerning a topic worthy of further study and research. But honesty is the best policy for the teacher in matters intellectual as truly as for every man in financial and business dealings with his associates. There are teachers, many of them, who teach their best moral lessons by their own lives without a word concerning the virtues they embody. Politeness, kindliness, loyalty, cheerfulness, optimism, sym- pathy, justice, patriotism, respect for age, for those in authority, reverence for God these and other virtues in their lives radiate their influence at all times. They create an atmosphere that is genial and favorable for growth. The power of suggestion and the strength of the imitative instinct in children make it possible for much that is best in the character of the teacher to be " caught rather than taught." Such a teacher's value to the school can never be measured by the importance and the popularity of the subject she is hired to teach. Indeed, it is well for every teacher to bear in mind that, whether good or bad, she is in a very large sense the course of study herself, and the only one that all her pupils will really take and understand. Without sacrilege it can be said of her that if she is wholly worthy of EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 55 her place as teacher and spiritual guide, she must be " the way, the truth, and the life " to the children she teaches day by day. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Comment upon the following: "Character must be caught, not taught." 2. Comment upon the quotations from Huntington, Palmer, Hyde. 3. Read Cable's Bonaventure. What do you think of the teaching ideal there held up ? 4. Does Domsie of Drumtochty deserve a place in present-day schools as an ideal ? 5. Read Dickens as an Educator, by Hughes, and es- timate the pedagogical values of such teachings as are therein illustrated. Dr. Strong is but one of many characters Dickens has created for the illumination of the theme of this chapter. 6. Why does a knowledge of Miss Sullivan's attitude towards Helen Keller make you more patient and sym- pathetic with children who are handicapped by nature or environment ? 7. Discuss the influence of Arnold upon English schools. 8. With a list of the likable qualities in teachers as seen by high-school students as a measuring stick, make a self-examination and decide wherein you may seem strong, and wherein weak, as a teacher. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BELL, SANFORD: A Study of the Teacher's Influence. Peda- gogical Seminary, Vol. VII. BENSON, ARTHUR C. : The Personality of the Teacher. Educa- tional Review, Vol. XXXVII, pp. 217-230. 56 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME CABLE, GEO. W. : Bonaventure. Scribner's. ENGLEMAN, J. O. : Likable Qualities in Teachers. Educational Administration and Supervision, January, 1916, and Journal of Education, April 6, 1916. HUGHES, JAMES L. : Dickens as an Educator. D. Appleton & Co. ' r HUGHES, THOMAS : Tom Brown's School Days. HYDE, WILLIAM DEWirr : The Teacher's Philosophy. Hough- ton Mifflin Co. KELLER, HELEN : The Story of My Life. Doubleday, Page & Co. MACLAREN, IAN : Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. Dodd, Mead &Co. MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, Selections from the Thoughts of, in Monroe's Source Book of the History of Education, pp. 377-385. Macmillan Co. McTuRNAN, LAWRENCE : The Personal Equation. Atkinson, Mentzer & Grover Co. WEST, ANDREW FLEMING: The Personal Touch in Teaching. Educational Review, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 109-120. WRAY, ANGELINA W. : Glimpses of Child Nature, chapter xn. Public School Publishing Co. CHAPTER V MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE Discipline as a means to an end. - - There is a whole catalogue of virtues and moral elements which the school must seek to establish and strengthen in its pupils. Perhaps the most of them, and the best of them, are secured through instruc- tion, recitation, study of lessons, personal example of the teacher, opening exercises, playground ac- tivities, and so on. Many of these are treated at greater length in other chapters. But the point to observe here is that discipline as a means to an end, discipline as an auxiliary of teaching, offers its opportunity to strengthen or weaken certain moral habits to such a degree that what a teacher does or fails to do with a pupil under certain circumstances may more profoundly affect his moral life than much of her instruction and didactic teaching can affect it. An illustration. For example, suppose the case of a petted, spoiled only child from some home. He may be selfish and self-centered in the extreme. He enters school and brings with him all his egoistic attitudes and habits. He resents authority. He expects everybody to 57 58 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME bend to his will. He is a social nonconformist. If the teacher is alert and wise, her discipline of such a child will probably give him a lesson he needs more than he needs any formal instruction in the ordinary branches of the curriculum. Fortunately for the child, if the teacher should overlook her opportunity to deal with him as he needs, the esprit 'de corps of the children and the democracy of the playground are such as to contribute largely to this end. Indeed, certain moral qualities are cul- tivated, and their opposite vices eradicated, more successfully on the playground than in the class- room, as we have shown in chapter xiv. But any teacher will be more efficient if she look upon her problems of discipline, not merely as so many ob- stacles interfering with the frictionless running of the school machine, but as exhibitions of specific pathological moral conditions for which either prophylactic or curative treatment must be found suited to the individual need. She may teach a splendid lesson in literature whose moral is obvious, but many members of the class are in no immediate need of such a lesson. She expects the lesson to be appropriated by the several children according to their respective needs, some needing little or none of it. But the teacher who is shrewd and patient enough to deal with every breach of discipline and every immoral act exhibited by her pupils is giving a type of training in morality more direct and pointed in its moral bearing than her classroom instruction can possibly be. As William Hawley Smith might say it, " She is putting the grease where the squeak is." THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 59 Popular estimate of the good disciplinarian. It has long been a popular notion that a teacher's value is determined as much by her ability to disci- pline as to instruct her pupils. But discipline is popularly regarded as keeping order, or eliminating outward disorder and compelling obedience to the rules and regulations of the school and of the teacher in particular. While this is not a very high con- ception of the term discipline, it may rightly be regarded as the first step towards the goal which every teacher must keep in mind. No instruction can count for much, and no training can be made very effective, in a schoolroom where lawlessness and chaos reign. Confusion, disorder, and dis- obedience are not conducive to a good school. They interfere with the successful accomplishment of every lesson, whatever its aim; but more than that, they are factors which constitute the very antithesis of the moral ideas, ideals, and habits which the school should constantly strive to build up in its pupils. " Obedience is better than sacri- fice/' and it is better than a good many other things which may seem attractive to the thought- less child. What constitutes good discipline. But obedience can be compelled by certain types of teachers with- out resulting in growth in moral lines. The teacher's problem is to make obedience to law and order attractive; to train pupils to want, or will, to do right; to lead them to choose the right when the opportunity is theirs to choose an opposite course. Any other type of obedience can hardly be con- sidered moral in its essence, though it may be a 60 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME necessary condition for the realization of that aim through other teaching. The teacher whose pupils do not gradually learn lessons of self-control, of respect for the rights of others, of willing and cheerful obedience to au- thority; whose pupils do not more and more tend to inhibit impulses prompting anarchy and mischief when the teacher's eye is turned away from them is not developing the moral strength in them to which they are entitled. Too often she does not develop it because she fails to recognize its importance and fails to understand the bearing which the child's daily conduct, and her reaction to it, may ultimately have. The best guarantee of good discipline. The young teacher may already be asking herself, ' What is the secret of good discipline ? And how may it be attained ? " The answer is, " There is no secret ; and no rules can be laid down which will work equally well for all teachers." But the best guarantee of good discipline is an enthusiastic, well- prepared teacher, interested in the subjects she is to teach; interested, too, in boys and girls; skill- ful in the conduct of her recitations, and no less skillful in assigning worth-while tasks. It is the idle child who causes trouble ; and it is the child whose tasks seem to have no particular importance other than to keep him busy that first becomes idle, and then busy with trouble-making. As you look back over your own experience as students, you can probably recall certain teachers whose teaching was such that you seldom or never thought of doing anything they would not approve. On THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 61 the other hand, you may recall one whose work was such as to stir your worst impulses daily because so little of life, of interest to you, of real worth to any one was going on. You may have wanted to "start something " just because nothing seemed to be going on. But every teacher knows that there are problems of discipline which even the best teacher must face from time to time. Twenty-five normal children associated daily in schoolroom and playground relationships for a period of six or eight or nine months are sure to exhibit within the school year most of the sins of omission and commission that are known and practiced by any children. It would be strange if there were no need of dealing with an occasional case of lying, cheating, fighting, cruelty, vulgarity, profanity, willful disobedience, smoking, laziness, uncleanliness, truancy, and shirking. Vary- ing degrees of immorality characterize the acts here named. Each one offers the teacher an opportunity to deal with it in such a way that the child may acquire some moral strength at the point at which he has shown himself weak. Or it may be ignored, or dealt with in such an inadequate or inappropriate way as to contribute nothing to the moral fiber of the child, and in some cases may even leave him morally weaker than before. Teacher must not shirk unpleasant duties. The first principle to observe here is this : That the teacher must not fail to deal with every such case that comes to her attention, however unpleasant and disagreeable the task. To ignore it may be far easier for the teacher, but the character of the child 62 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME is at stake, so something must be done. Habits of the above kinds must be prevented or broken up. To ignore the act is to help to confirm and to fix the immoral habit and to mar character. As teachers, we need to feel at least as much distress of mind and personal reproach when our children are guilty of lapses from the standard of morality which ought to characterize their degree of maturity, as when they fail to " pass " in their subjects of study. We certainly ought to study as diligently to find a way to help the child grow strong in some moral quality in which we know him to be weak, as to help another child attain a satisfactory scholas- tic standing when he proves himself below grade in it. Usually we do not feel the same responsibility in two such cases. Indeed we too often react to them in very different ways. In the latter case we are likely to be sympathetic with the weakness and anxious to help overcome it ; while in the former we too often become unsympathetic, sometimes unnecessarily severe, and not infrequently we erect a barrier between ourselves and the child whose very delinquency constitutes our problem and sets for us our most important task. It is not easy to love a bad boy, or girl either, but there is none who needs our love and help more ; and if we regard his badness as a weakness of character needing treat- ment, and not as a personal affront, or a personal attack upon our dignity, prerogatives, and rules, it will be easier to deal with him as he deserves. Motives must be considered. A second prin- ciple to observe is : Take time to learn the mo- tive back of the act. The successful teacher from THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 63 the standpoint of character-building is not in haste in dealing with infractions of rules, breaches of discipline, and apparently immoral acts. She can afford to wait until she knows the facts in the case. She cannot afford to humiliate or punish the in- nocent. Nothing so embitters a child's spirit as the feeling that he has been misjudged and mis- treated. A boy who gets from his teacher what he knows in his own heart he deserves, seldom loses respect for the teacher who gives it, however severe it may be at the time; but it takes weeks, and sometimes years, for a child to recover from the personal hurt he feels if a teacher speaks a sharp word or inflicts in haste and anger an unmerited punishment. Importance of self-control in the teacher. It is as well for the teacher as for the child to know that " He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." It is even more obligatory for the teacher than for the child to govern his conduct in the light of this proverb. Papers are due at a certain hour, but one child is not ready with his. Without waiting for an explanation, and without giving the child an opportunity to make one, the quick, sharp tongue of the teacher ad- ministers a stinging reprimand or rebuke that cuts to the quick in the soul of the child. Sickness in the home and the assumption of new duties in the home as a result duties whose performance was vastly more imperative and more praiseworthy than the writing of the paper could have been, was the legitimate excuse. But the teacher has lost her opportunity to laud a moral act, and has been 64 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME guilty of an immoral one herself, thus estranging from her an innocent child, and lowering herself in the esteem of the whole class, which is quick to recognize and resent injustice on the teacher's part. Not only the motive, but the degree of provocation and the strength of the temptation of the child, need to be understood before the teacher can act intelli- gently, and helpfully to the offender. But when these facts have been learned she cannot afford to be lax in the performance of her duty through fear or favor. It is her business to see, if possible, that the child shall reap as he has sown. Punishment should be reformative, not retribu- tive. But even here a third principle needs to be observed, namely : That punishment in the schoolroom should be reformative, and not merely retributive. In granting this principle we are only asserting that a child who needs punishment in school is entitled to the same consideration that criminals are now accorded by intelligent wardens in our leading penal institutions. Here every effort is made through work, recreation, music, books, magazines, lectures, and sermons to reform the prisoner. Crime is thought of as a disease, as something pathological, demanding treatment that will restore a normal condition once more. It is not even assumed that a convict is without honor. Thomas Mott Osborne, at Sing Sing, has already taught the world that the " honor system " is not impractical even in a penitentiary. How much more may we expect that ordinary public school children will respond to treatment which appeals to their honor ! THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 65 Punishment should be suited to the individuality of the child. It should be remembered, too, that treatment which is reformative for one child guilty of a given offense, may be wholly unsuited to the needs of another whose offense appears to be iden- tical with that of the first. I recall a school of my boyhood in which the teacher made a rule requiring all pupils who had whispered without permission to remain in at recess, the pupils being placed on their own honor to stay in when they had whispered. On one occasion a boy, ordinarily dutiful and obedient, was seen to stay in his place when most of the pupils went out at recess. The teacher, surprised to see him a self-confessed whisperer, went to him, asked why he was there, and then said, " You may be excused now, but I hope you won't whisper again." This simple treatment of the case melted him to tears, and was probably the most efficacious punish- ment that could have been administered to him ; but there were other boys in the same school that would have boasted under similar circumstances of how " easy " the teacher was, and how he was " worked." Certain it is that that teacher knew some of his boys well enough not to try to break up an objectionable habit of theirs by such gentle means. The principle holds. It always pays to study the individual child his training and his temperament and then to resort to such dis- ciplinary measures as will be most effective in his case, regardless of what may be required to accom- plish this purpose with another child. Arnold Tompkins quoted. Arnold Tompkins, in his very philosophical little volume on School 66 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Management, a generation ago, made it clear that the problem of all discipline is to enable the student to become at one with himself, and in unity with the school once more His immoral acts have broken the unity and it must be restored. The pupil is not to say to the teacher, " I have broken a law; what are you going to do about it ? " But the teacher must throw the responsibility and worry where it belongs upon the head of the offender. He must find an answer to the question, " What am I to do about it ? " Perhaps it will be necessary for him to remain out of class a few hours, or even out of school a few days, while he wrestles with his own spirit and endeavors to find an answer to his question. He can well afford to specialize in this subject for a time, for in so doing he will help to purge his own soul. His acts have broken the spiritual unity of the school. Only his can restore it. Children profit by seeing their acts universalized. But the average child has never been analytical enough in his thinking to appreciate the fact that the school is a spiritual unity ; that the laws of the school are not arbitrary, but moral laws ; that con- formity to these laws is demanded of every one, not because of the whim or caprice of the teacher, but because of their universal obligation and ap- plication. He needs to be led to see this truth when the occasion is offered. His acts must be uni- versalized before he can see their significance. Perhaps he has played truant for a half day. The spirit that actuated him was individual and selfish when he did it. But truancy universalized ab- solutely destroys the school. There are no longer THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 67 any pupils and need be no teacher under such cir- cumstances. If one child may stay away, all may stay away. No one child has a right not possessed by the rest. If there is to be a school, there is a moral obligation resting upon every child to be present. Denying this obligation destroys the school. Perhaps the offense is that of throwing paper wads. It looks innocent enough to the thoughtless child. But he must be made to see that such indoor sport is denied him, not because it is so bad in it- self, but because such conduct, if universalized, would destroy the school. In fact, as a pupil ma- tures in his thinking he must gradually measure and judge his acts and his intended acts by this standard : " If every pupil were to exercise the right to do as I am doing, would it make the school better or worse ? Could there be any school under such conditions ? " He will not necessarily be- come moral in his conduct because he sees this truth, but its clear perception by him is often the first necessary step for him to take before he can give cheerful obedience to the laws of the school. Corporal punishment sometimes necessary. Reason, moral suasion, sympathy, and love are not the only factors, however, deserving a place in the discipline of a school. " Soft " methods will often get results, but not always. Some children must be reached through bodily sensations of pain and discomfort. Corporal punishment is sometimes nec- essary. When it is needed, it is a great misfortune for the child himself if a statute of the state or a rule of the board of education keeps the teacher from 68 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME administering it. " Spare the rod and spoil the child " is a maxim reminiscent of the days when child psychology was little known, and discipline was harsh, often cruel, and essentially blind and corporeal. But it cannot safely be abandoned today just because injustice was often wrought in its name. When other means fail this one may suc- ceed. An occasional child can be found who seems to have respect for nothing short of superior force. Bodily pain may deter such a pupil from wrongdoing and compel an outward conformity to legitimate authority long enough to permit the cultivation of an inward state appropriate to it. Though corporal punishment is really necessary at times, it must be administered with caution, ana always with a reformative end in mind. It is hazardous to inflict it in anger. There is at such times a grave danger that it may be cruelly ex- cessive; that actual bodily violence and lasting injury may be done the child. It ought not be done in the presence of the school. This is such a humiliating act that the otherwise beneficent results to be expected are likely to be offset by the resent- ment aroused under such circumstances. Much better is it to seek the privacy of the principal's office, or the classroom after the school has been dismissed, and there, in the presence of one or two witnesses, to inflict such punishment as may be deserved. Forms of punishment to avoid. [Boxing a child's ears and slapping a child in the face are so fraught with danger to his hearing on the one hand, and so provocative of anger and desire for revenge on the THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 69 other, that it is scarcely conceivable that any moral good can ever result from such punishment. For, whatever the form of punishment, its object must be to chasten, to refine, to purge the spirit and soul of the child. If its effect is to leave him defiant, bitter, revengeful, and filled with hatred, it has failed. Discipline, like instruction, a difficult process. Lastly, always remember, slightly adapting the words of a great thinker, that to educate rightly is not a simple and easy thing, but a complex and difficult thing, the hardest task which devolves upon a parent or a teacher. The rough-and-ready style of management of children is practicable by the meanest and most uncultivated of intellects. " Slaps and sharp words are penalties that suggest themselves alike to the least reclaimed barbarian and the most stolid peasant. Even brutes can use this method of discipline, as you may see in the growl or half-bite with which a bitch will check a too-exigeant puppy. But if you would carry out with success a rational and civilized system, you must be prepared for considerable mental exertion for some study, some ingenuity, some patience, some self-control. You will have habitually to trace the consequences of conduct to consider what are the results which in adult life follow certain kinds of acts ; and then ... to devise methods by which parallel results shall be entailed on the parallel acts of your children. You will daily be called upon to analyze the motives of juvenile conduct; you must distinguish between acts that are really good and those which, though externally simulating 70 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME them, proceed from inferior impulses ; while you must be ever on your guard against the cruel mis- take not unfrequently made, of translating neutral acts into transgressions, or ascribing worse feelings than were entertained. You must more or less modify your method to suit the disposition of each child; and must be prepared to make further modifications as each child's disposition enters on a new phase. Your faith will often be taxed to maintain the requisite perseverance in a course which seems to produce little or no effect. Espe- cially if you are dealing with children who have been wrongly treated, you must be prepared for a lengthened trial of patience before succeeding with better methods ; seeing that that which is not easy even where a right state of feeling has been estab- lished from the beginning becomes doubly difficult when a wrong state of feeling has to be set right/' Suggestions from biology. - - The conscientious teacher who is really sensitive to the moral delin- quencies of children may find some comfort in the suggestion that we need not expect from young children any great amount of moral goodness. While a young mother may take exception to the charge that her child is a young savage, within certain limits the charge may truthfully be made of all children. The so-called " culture-epoch " theory is that every child must pass through the stages through which mankind has passed in its development from savagery and barbarism to com- plete civilization. The biologist refers to it as the biogenic law, with special reference to the individual's recapitulation of the growth stages of the race on THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 71 its physical side. That " ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny " is his very technical statement of the same law. Biologically this may be seen in the evolution of embryonic life. Its historic counter- part is likely to be illustrated again and again in most nurseries and on more playgrounds. Such studies as Hall and the whole school of investigators inspired by him have made, have given us a mass of evidence concerning the cruelty, the lying, and other faults of children. In the light of this evidence we are less surprised and less dis- tressed by the outcropping of these primal faults than we should otherwise be. A boy of fourteen with a reputation for veracity, and a joy to his home because of his truthfulness, now laughs at the tale of the lies he told as a young child. But he was a great trial to his parents for a few years, for in spite of their desire to deal wisely with him they could not see for a time how a child with such a grievous fault could ever fulfill their hopes and expectations concerning him. Now the same parents f know well enough that it is not a shocking thing for a young child to lie, though it would be shock- ing, indeed, for a child's moral development to be arrested in the lying stage. Hall l shows us that many cases of apparent cruelty are really only evidences of experimental curiosity " due to ignorance and to an impulse which, when properly directed, is the prototype of scientific investigation." A boy of 8 or 9 is re- ported as shutting a squirrel in a dog's kennel " to see how long it could live without food." He was 1 Aspects of Child Life and Education, pp. 103-104. 72 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME " much interested in Tanner's fast of forty days, which was the incentive." Another boy, 8-12, " broke chickens' legs several times, but always set them. Became a surgeon." Examples of this sort may be multiplied, all tending to confirm the theory, that what may at times to the superficial observer appear to be nothing more than an ex- hibition of wanton cruelty, may in reality be at- tributable to such a legitimate instinct as curiosity which we wish to keep alive and active as long as possible. The teacher dare not complacently close her eyes to the inattention, the lying, the cruelty, or any other shortcoming of the child at any stage, but her peace of mind will likely be greater, her faith a more optimistic one, and her treatment of the child a more rational one, if she remember that in every child there are deep-seated racial instincts and impulses cropping out from time to time ; that adult standards of morality are the results of a long period of evolution, and that in the child " a higher moral- ity, like a higher intelligence, must be reached by a slow growth." The consummation of the Almighty's work in the creation and evolution of life is a man able to think, to feel, to choose, and to act in the light of his choices. To assist the child to become a man in this sense; to help him throw off racial and hereditary yokes as the hour comes for such deliverance; to keep his own will active, and yet to develop it in those lines of moral freedom which substitute conscience and social consciousness for the selfish instincts and impulses constituting his big inheritance is one of the privileges of the THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 73 teacher every time she is confronted with a new problem of discipline. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Show that in schoolroom discipline it is easier than in instruction for the teacher to meet the individual needs of her pupils. 2. Teachers often think that good conduct, proper deportment, obedience to rules, etc., are all necessary means to a more important end, instruction. Justify this view. May they as truly be regarded as ends in themselves ? Show. 3. Think of the teachers you have had or observed who were good disciplinarians, and account for their success. 4. State the three principles to observe in punishing children. Which one is most likely to be violated by parents ? by teachers ? Give reasons for your answers. 5. Is punishment as you have seen it inflicted in school and home reformative in its influence, or not ? When a child is excluded from school for a serious offense, does the teacher have in mind thereby to reform him ? What other object may she have ? 6. In some library, look up magazine articles telling of the remarkable prison reforms of Thomas Mott Os- borne and report the same. 7. What may teachers learn from Judge Ben Lindsey and his juvenile court procedure, that will be of value in dealing with boys in the schoolroom ? 8. Is lying a fault as serious in a child of six years as in one of twelve ? Why do you think so ? 9. In some schoolrooms pupils never whisper. Tell what you think of such a situation. 10. Teachers usually send to the parents of their 74 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME pupils periodic reports of their grade in deportment. Of what advantage is this custom ? Would a similar report from parent to teacher be of any use to anybody ? In what way ? n. Show how a sense of humor in the teacher may be a factor in the rational discipline of a school. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BAGLEY, WILLIAM C. : Class Room Management. Macmillan Co. GILBERT, CHARLES B. : The School and Its Life : The Morale of the School, chapter m. Silver, Burdett & Co. KING, IRVING : Education for Social Efficiency, chapter x. D. Appleton & Co. ROWE, STUART H. : Habit Formation and the Science of Teach- ing, chapter xn. Longmans, Green & Co. SPENCER, HERBERT: Education: Essay on Moral Education. Hurst & Co. TOMPKINS, ARNOLD: School Management, pp. 157 ff. Ginn & Co. CHAPTER VI MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE The heritage of good books. - - The children of today are fortunate indeed in the wealth of good wholesome reading matter open to them. There is hardly a basal text that is not filled from cover to cover with veritable literary treasures ; and the best schools everywhere make it possible, if not mandatory, for a child to read from half a dozen to a dozen or more good supplementary readers each year he spends in the public schools. So much is done by the textbook writers, and by the school authorities who provide books for daily use, that the teacher's task in the matter of reading is reduced to a minimum. And yet hers is the duty of seeing to it that children enter this " open sesame," and that they learn to enjoy and to profit by this treasure house. Influence of the teacher's reading. -- Perhaps the best guarantee that they will enjoy it is for the teacher herself to be a lover of good books ; to be a good reader and story-teller; and to be eager to share with her pupils the good things which she has found in the readers or other books. In certain schools, one may see a roomful of children, many of 75 76 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME them from homes in which good books are almost, if not wholly, unknown, sit as if under a spell, hang- ing upon every word of the teacher, while she reads with sympathetic appreciation and naturalness of expression some simple but powerful story suited to their degree of maturity and satisfying to their eager imaginations. The attention of pupils to a selection wisely chosen and well read by the teacher is so marked, and the results are so gratifying, that one wonders why teachers generally do not do more oral reading than is their custom above the first two grades. Perhaps one answer is that many teachers are not good readers and know it ; but the cultivation of few other talents could give such large returns in the schoolroom as this one. Another answer may be that teachers fear they will do vio- lence to a pedagogical principle in reading, even well, that which might be read, though poorly, by members of the class. The obvious reply to this objection is that in the intermediate and upper grades of the elementary school many lessons in reading should have as their leading aim, not so much the develop- ment of power through painful struggling attempts to read the lesson of the hour power to read better some remote lesson of the future, as an appreciation of the truth and beauty of the selection assigned. If such appreciation is the major purpose of the lesson, and if the teacher's reading enables the class to real- ize this aim more promptly and more effectively, then let us have more reading of such lessons to the class by the teacher. Of course there are lessons whose object is not primarily appreciation and emotional response by the pupils. In such cases a THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 77 more analytic treatment is necessary, and the re- quirements of good teaching are met when the children are led through question and answer, dis- section, and labored piecemeal reading to reach the goal set up by the teacher, for the goal may be not so much truth and beauty as it is a development of ability to discover even a portion of the truth and the beauty found in the particular lesson studied. Danger of too much analysis. But it cannot be too strongly stressed that many literary selections in school readers embody such truth or have so much of beauty that it is little less than sacrilegious to use them as mere punching bags with which to develop the mental muscle of pupils, when the meaning might be better communicated by methods more direct. Even worse than this failure at times to lead a child to see or feel as the author would have his reader do, is the fact that children sometimes ac- quire a positive dislike for the type of literature which ought to mean most to them, and they do it because their taste is not developed by contact with enough selections ; because their approach is too often the cold, analytical approach when they need a sympathetic and synthetic introduction to the masterpiece pulsating with life and interest even though some details are obscure. Surely a teacher's success in teaching reading can not be judged by any standard more nearly just than this the percent- age of her pupils who really learn to love such sub- ject matter as that taught in our best school readers today. Three types of reading material first, sensa- tional fiction. Considered from the standpoint of 78 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME moral education, there are three types of reading matter. First, there is the sensational, lurid, im- moral type of fiction the cheap detective story and the " yellow-back " novel. The relation of this sort of stuff to immoral conduct on the part of boys has been demonstrated too many times to need argument or exposition here. Theft, highway robbery, brutality, even murder have been inspired in thousands of instances by the false light with which these crimes have been invested in a type of reading often devoured clandestinely by boys. Teachers and parents need to be alert to discover any incipient taste for books that debase and de- bauch. Of course the antidote for it is an early in- troduction of the child to wholesome reading matter. Here, if anywhere, " an ounce of prevention is bet- ter than a pound of cure." But wholly apart from the need of surrounding children in home and school with reading matter that is elevating, there is the additional need of recognizing the fact that forces of evil in society are very active ; and that in spite of postal laws which prohibit the use of the United States mails for sending anything vulgar and obscene in its nature, degraded men and women are constantly trying to corrupt the youth of their generation by the circulation of just such poison. The appeal is usually made to the curiosity of boys and girls concerning matters tabooed in the conversation of good books and homes. Prurient tastes are culti- vated, and salacious printed stories and books are circulated, about which parents are in blissful ig- norance, and at which they would be shocked could they think their children exposed to such miasma. THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 79 Somewhat more respectable but little less dan- gerous than the type of reading matter just men- tioned and surreptitiously read by thousands of children of unsuspecting parents, are many of our modern novels which revolve about the question of sex " flagrantly and repulsively portrayed/' as one writer 1 has recently pointed out. The boy or girl of high-school age is more likely to gratify a morbid taste for these novels, but the upper grammar grades have many readers of the same sort of books. The early adolescent is entitled to literature that satisfies this perfectly natural longing for the por- trayal and history of the emotional life of men and women, their loves and hates and reconcilia- tions ; but it makes a great difference whether the girl finds her satisfaction in the Barriers Burned Away and Her Broken Vow sort, or in those of the type of Lorna Doone, Princess Aline, Mill on The Floss, Ramona, The Virginian, and scores of others just as interesting and innocent in their effects. The Jesse James and Diamond Dick type of story with which so many boys regale themselves is not read because boys are depraved in their tastes. These stories are full of action and excitement for which boys have an innate fondness. It is possible to give them reading matter abounding in stories of heroes, action, movement, thrilling exploits, tense situations, excitement even, and yet devoid of " blood and thunder," the melodramatic, the lurid, and all that tends towards depravity and crime. They need not read " sissy " books. Indeed, normal 1 Manthei Howe, in the Continent, Nov. 30, 1916, 8o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME red-blooded boys will not. But Kipling's Captains Courageous, Stevenson's Treasure Island, Cooper's Red Rover and Pilot, Jules Verne's Around The World in Eighty Days, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and scores of others of like nature abound in the qualities which boys love, and yet lack the dangerous qualities listed above. It is only necessary to in- troduce this type of fiction to prevent the mental and moral debauch occasioned by the other, and to foster in the young reader a growing taste for the worthwhile in books. Wholesome literature a second type. A second type of reading is that great body of literature which includes the bulk of what is written, let us hope, wholly safe and sane, never immoral, never degrad- ing, but refined, elevated, dignified, in model Eng- lish, satisfying varied tastes, but not written to teach a moral lesson and often having none to teach. Our school readers have a plentiful supply of this sort of reading matter, and our libraries abound in it. The child who acquires a reading habit is likely to find his greatest satisfaction in just this field. Poetry and prose, description and narration, short story and essay these are forms it takes, and it occupies our leisure hours with pleasing entertainment and innocent diversion suited to the needs and tastes of the reader, whoever he may be. Sometimes moral lessons can be derived from it, but they need not be to justify its reading, any more than one needs to find a moral lesson in a painting that is well executed or a musical number well rendered, to justify the pleasure got from it. Not a little futile teaching has been done in at- THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 8l tempting to lead pupils to find some " lesson " in poems that were never written with a distinct moral purpose. If they are real literature, if they are beautiful in language and imagery, there may be excuse enough in these facts for reading them. " Beauty is its own excuse for being." Truth, beauty, and goodness are three abstractions with which we justly concern ourselves, because the true, the beautiful, and the good are three aspects of life or three qualities of it that need development in us to give us proper balance. It is too much to expect them all three to be equally well exhibited in every work of art or every life that stimulates us to react upon them. The teacher who keeps this thought in mind will be a better guide of children as she leads them through the maze of books and stories comprising our literary heritage, for she will understand that she dares to teach much that has no moral in it, provided it be true or beautiful and have no deleterious effect upon its reader. Much that is beautiful in nature, even in our own surround- ings, escapes our attention and would never give us the joy it has in store for us, were its charm not dis- covered by some painter or some poet and then held up before our surprised eyes to give pleasure where we little dreamed of finding it. The skillful novelist, in like manner, may seize upon an age, an epoch, a neighborhood, a people, and find in it the material for a story whose reading may " drive dull Care away," and strip life of its sordidness for us for an hour, if it result in nothing more and nothing better. There are times when we all need just such a retreat from the sterner realities and competitive struggles, 82 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME to get rest for weary frames and jaded nerves. The child who grows up without a taste for literature that can relax him at times without in any way de- basing, is as much to be pitied as one who has never learned to use the beneficent tonic of play. Reading of this sort has a big place in life, and the child who learns to use it for such ends is pretty well fortified against a good many dangers to his moral nature likely to be encountered as he seeks necessary re- laxation at times in other pursuits that bid for his leisure. Third type lessons with a moral or ethical content. A third type of reading is that which has a message, a moral lesson, a distinct truth so expressed as to take hold upon the feelings as well as the intellect. It is this characteristic of a literary selection with a moral content that gives it a dy- namic force which is less likely to characterize didactic teaching. The latter is addressed to the intellect only; the former to the emotions. Action is more likely to be governed by feeling than intelligence, or to state it in other words, intellect plus emotion is much more effective in shaping conduct than in- tellect alone. To illustrate this point, think of the effect resulting from a bare dogmatic assertion to a child that one who is guilty of lying frequently will not be believed even when he does tell the truth. Then recall the effect produced by your reading of the fable of the boy who, while tending sheep, shouted, " A wolf! a wolf! " on successive days just to enjoy the running of the men who were deceived by his shouts, and your later impression, when the boy called in vain for the help he needed but did not THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 83 get because those who heard his cries did not believe him. There is a propulsive appeal about this simple fable which takes hold of young children and vi- talizes and energizes the truth in such a way as really to shape character. Didactic teaching cannot ac- complish the same result with children to whom this fable makes its big appeal. That one gradually becomes like his ideal, like the thing or the character he loves and keeps before him, is a truth that is preached and taught and stated in many ways by older men and women to the younger generation. But those of us who first studied Haw- thorne's " Ernest and the Great Stone Face " at the psychological moment, probably got an impres- sion that was more completely transmuted into character and conduct than any other teaching of this truth to which we were exposed. Paul states for adults some profound truths con- cerning charity, its relation to other Christian virtues, its leading characteristics, and its accom- plishments ; but nothing he says about it can make the vigorous appeal, and stamp the character of youth to the same degree, that Lowell's " Vision of Sir Launfal " may do. It is an interesting story, this, from the day Sir Launfal starts out in the pride and haughtiness of youth in search of the Holy Grail, until he returns an old man to find the object of his search so near his starting point. It is a marvelous transformation of character he undergoes from the time he tosses a leper a piece of gold in scorn to the day he learns that, " Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 84 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Lowell has so embodied this truth in a poem of such action, movement, personal characters, appro- priate imagery, felicitous language, that it gives sensuous pleasure and preaches a powerful sermon at the same time, and preaches it, too, without caus- ing his readers to feel too keenly that he is preaching. The oft-repeated story of " Midas and the Golden Touch " is another typical lesson in reading of this third type. Few other stories have so vividly taught youth of countless generations the truth that gold, even in boundless store, is a poor substitute for life and love and children, all common possessions of priceless value, but too often undervalued by men and women bent on the accumulation of gold or other material wealth. Endless examples might be given, selected from almost any of our good school readers, of selections which, if well taught, cannot fail to strengthen the pupil in some virtue. Indeed our supremest aim is, and should be, so to establish him. In building his character there are few better ways than that of systematically placing before the pupil moral situations embodied in story and dealing with the virtues and vices peculiar to each period of his un- folding. When these are presented in such form and such language as to grip his interest, they lead to moral reactions which, repeated often enough, develop into habits of will and forms of conduct morally worthy. Legends, myths, fairy tales, fables, parables, allegories, to say nothing of poetry, short stories, novels, etc., are so rich in spiritual meanings that we are almost overwhelmed by the richness and variety of material open to us. THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 85 Whether we wish to develop our classes in the virtues of kindness, industry, perseverance, ac- curacy, patience, love of truth, obedience, courage, loyalty, patriotism, economy, ambition, heroism, courtesy, charity; or to fortify them against the vices which may be catalogued as the opposites of these virtues, it is possible to find a half dozen or more selections appropriate to the teaching of any one of these. It would indeed be a profitable exer- cise for any teacher to take the basic readers she uses, and as many supplementary texts as she may find available, and run through them hastily to classify the lessons upon some such basis. Suppose it is patriotism, love of country, love for the flag, or some such civic virtue that it is desirable to strengthen through literature. Think of the ma- terial available for the purpose. There are our so-called national anthem, " America," which ought to be memorized by every school boy and girl be- fore he leaves the grades, " Star Spangled Banner," " Paul Revere's Ride," " Barbara Frietchie," " Ar- nold Winkelried," "Old Ironsides," "Song of Marion's Men," " The Man without a Country," " The Blue and the Gray," Lincoln's " Gettysburg Address," " The Arsenal at Springfield," " Concord Hymn," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," Washington's " Farewell Address," " The Battle of Blenheim," the Declaration of Independence, and still others that will easily suggest themselves or be discovered by the teacher who is on the alert for selections that will reenforce a lesson she is trying to teach. No effort is here made to indicate the grade for which the above lessons are most appro- 86 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME priate, but in whatever grade any one of them is taught, it will be found helpful to review, for purposes of comparison and reenforcement of the teaching, such selections dealing with kindred themes as have already been taught. Importance of discovering what children volun- tarily read. Teachers are usually more or less in the dark as to what their pupils read of their own volition. Some time spent each year with each new class in attempting to find out just what the pupils have read, and what kind of literature appeals to them most, will enable the teacher to render far larger service in this field. Some children will be found who have done little or no reading save the lessons assigned in school. Their interests have been in other directions. They have not yet discovered that literature is so broad in its scope that something has been written that deals with their particular interests. In such cases the teacher's problem is not first of all to introduce these pupils to literature that is distinctly moral and ethical in its nature; but to induce them to read something, in the hope that a reading habit may be established and grad- ually be directed into proper lines. Of course, the psychological method to use is to acquaint the child with some story book or books which deal with the thing he is interested in, wherever this can be done. A suggestive approach to the interest of the child who dislikes books. A boy much interested in horses, e.g., might find Black Beauty or Colliery Jim or Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey his gate- way into wider fields of reading. Incidentally, in THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 87 the first two of these books he would .probably find that which would result in his more humane treat- ment of horses and even mules, as long as he lives. A child with any of the instincts of a naturalist or a nature-lover would find in the writings of Long and Payne and Seton-Thompson and Roosevelt that which would ultimately take him into other pleasant and profitable paths through books. Perhaps a boy is fond of dogs but not of books. If so, he could not make a better beginning than by reading the following books whose central figures would com- mand his interest and respect from the outset : Scally, by Ian Hay, Muir's Stickeen, London's The Call of the Wild, Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle, and Ouida's A Dog of Flanders. We repeat that the foregoing books are not so valuable as literature, and certainly do not all represent the highest and best in literature; but they are all wholesome, interesting, and at least worth while in themselves. If in addition they may be made the introduction to a still better and richer field for boys who have hitherto not found in books anything satisfying, then their reading will surely be a praiseworthy accomplishment. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Discuss the influence upon pupils of a teacher's love for good literature. 2. What can be said for and against the teacher's practice of reading much to her pupils ? 3. Distinguish between development of power to in- terpret and express thought, and appreciation of truth 88 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME and beauty, as aims in reading. Are they in any measure mutually interdependent ? 4. Explain, and if possible illustrate, your under- standing of the difference between the analytical approach and the synthetic approach to a reading lesson. 5. Have you ever discovered children reading anything positively dangerous to their morals ? Have you ever had a railway news agent attempt to sell you reading matter that was immoral ? In what other ways is such literature disseminated ? 6. Enumerate the characteristics literature must have to appeal to the average boy. 7. Is the aim to give pleasure a worthy moral aim in literature ? 8. Show the moral value of Macaulay's "Horatius at the Bridge"; Bryant's "Thanatopsis" ; Wordsworth's "Daffodils"; Southey's "The Inchcape Rock"; Long- fellow's "The Village Blacksmith"; Emerson's "For- bearance"; Field's "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod." Which of these selections must be chosen upon other grounds than its moral value ? 9. From the readers in use in your school name a half dozen selections which seem to you neither moral nor immoral in their effects upon a class. Show how the teaching of such an unmoral selection may be either detrimental or helpful to the character of a child. 10. Topic for debate : The moral worth of a selection sho'uld have greater weight than its literary excellence in determining its place in a textbook in reading. 11. Read "We are Seven." What is its "ethical core " ? Should you try to teach this " lesson " explicitly or implicitly ? Explain. 12. Teach Kipling's "Recessional" to the institute as to a grammar grade class. Show what moral and even religious effects may be secured through the teaching of this selection. What makes it timely now ? THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 89 REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BATES, ARLO : Talks on Literature : Why We Study Literature. Houghton Mifflin Co. BRYANT, SARA CONE : How to Tell Stories to Children. Hough- ton Mifflin Co. ENGLEMAN, J. O. : Outside Reading. English Journal, January, 1917. HALIBURTON and SMITH: Teaching Poetry in the Grades. Houghton Mifflin Co. HILLIS, NEWELL DWIGHT: Great Books and Life Teachers. Fleming H. Revell Co. McLELLAN, J. A.: The Ethical Element in Literature, and How to Make the Most of It in Teaching, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1894, pp. 71-84. McMuRRY, CHARLES A. : Special Method in Reading for the Grades : Educational Value of Literature. Macmillan Co. SHUMAN, EDWIN L. : How to Judge a Book : especially chapter ix, Morality in Art. Houghton Mifflin Co. TOMPKINS, ARNOLD : Literary Interpretations : The Nature of Literature. Houghton Mifflin Co. CHAPTER VII MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY Opportunity for the exercise of the moral judg- ment. If Tennyson was right when he said, " Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns," the student of history has the high privilege of thus discovering this " one increasing purpose," and of widening his thought at the same time. He cer- tainly cannot study history in the better schools of today without the necessity of exercising his moral judgment at frequent intervals. For history is no longer presented as a bare chronology of events, nor even as a mere record of military achievements, vic- tories, and defeats upon the field of battle in suc- cessive wars. It is rather an attempt to explain the present in the light of the past ; to see the genesis of civilizations and their later developments, for the bearing they may have upon subsequent events ; to understand the genius of nations and epochs, for the lessons they may teach the generation now living. It must concern itself with cause and ef- fect, as well as fact and time and place. It teaches, as few subjects can teach, the mutual dependence 90 MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 91 of nations, and paves the way for an appreciation of what we have learned to call the great " brother- hood of man." It discloses the fact that the great stream of modern civilization has been fed and swollen by smaller streams coming from sources, many of them remote in time and place, and yet bearing in their currents elements distinctive and unique to mingle with still other elements required to make a stream of the color and characteristics that are known today. Moral relationships writ large in the pages of history. Morality is a matter of human relation- ships. In the narrower sense, it involves the re- lations of a man to his fellows, but in history these relationships are " writ large " and concern the relation of individuals to nations and the still wider relations of nations to each other. On the one side, the record of every individual man and woman whose achievements have been significant enough to be- come a matter of consequence to posterity is such as to offer much that is worthy of emulation; or, on the other hand, it may serve equally well as a warn- ing and a deterrent in present-day life. The his- tory of nations, viewed in the large, presents exactly the same sort of contrasts, and makes apparent the rewards of virtue and the penalties of vice. ' The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die," was written of old and has been exemplified throughout the ages; but that " the wages of sin is death " is just as true of nations as of men, and universal history illus- trates the truth even more clearly. It is this fact which makes its study one of such moral worth even to the elementary student. It is not alone in the 92 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME history of Sodom and Gomorrah as narrated in the Old Testament, but in the secular narratives of the fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian monarchies, and the later rise and fall of even Greece and Rome, that this lesson may be impressed. Illustrations. In the latter half of the eighteenth century Goldsmith, writing of his "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," and explaining why its charms were fled, generalized the truth in the following well-known lines : "111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 1 The student of history is more than once reminded of the poet's words, for there are few truths which stand out more clearly than this : that a nation cannot have strength to endure long when its in- dividual units, the common citizens, are lacking in moral fiber. Up to a certain limit the accumulation of wealth may be a wholesome thing for a man or a nation, making possible a certain degree of leisure for the enjoyment of things of cultural and spiritual value. But beyond this it becomes an obsession, saps manhood of its virility, undermines character, robs industry of its just due, and tends towards the enjoyment of voluptuous ease and the satisfaction often of low and base desires. The history of 1 " The Deserted Village." MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 93 Greece subsequent to the conquests of Alexander is an illustration in point ; and the economic and moral decline of Rome beginning even before the end of the Second Punic War is a better one. One his- torian 1 says : " Even a glorious war tends to de- moralize society. It corrupts morals, and creates extremes of wealth and poverty. Extreme poverty lowers the moral tone further. So does quick-won and illegitimate wealth. Then the moral decay of the citizens shows in the state as a political disease. The Second Punic War teaches this lesson to the full. ... In the ruin of the small farmer, Hannibal had dealt his enemy a deadlier blow than he ever knew." Another popular text, 2 treating the same period and commenting upon the commencement of eco- nomic decay in Rome, says : "Wealth acquired by industry works only good ; but wealth acquired by plunder, fraud, and the spirit of gaming, always corrupts : of this truth Roman history, from this time on, is a conspicuous witness. The Romans had now tasted the sweets of ill-gotten riches, and the plunder of foreign lands became more and more their governing motive. By fair means and by foul, great estates were build up at the expense of the free peasantry ; slave labor, that form of labor which is the most im- mediately profitable, crowded out free labor; the culti- vation of the soil itself was neglected, and what had been well-tilled fields became desert or swamp or expanse of pasture land. From this point of time commences the decay of the Italian peasantry, and along with it of Italian agriculture." 1 West, Ancient World, pp. 3.51-352. 2 Myers and Allen, Ancient History, p. 94 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Moral involved in American history. But while the successful teacher of American history will find much material for moral instruction in the stories of the rise and fall of older civilizations, some of which will very properly be presented as a back- ground for the history of the United States, it is in the history of our own country that she must find her chief ethical situations and lead her class to sense them as such. She will not need to moralize about them, but she does need to be aware of the moral and religious elements involved, that she may present them with deserved attention to their ethical bearings. Indeed, she ought to lead her pupils to see that this country had its very beginnings in the religious devotion of a few groups of men and women who left the mother country, braved the dangers of the sea, the wilderness, the Indian; of famine, and rigorous winters; of sickness and death ; of every conceivable sort of hardship inci- dent to a pioneer life, that they might establish in their political life the principles which were so dear to them. The Pilgrim fathers in New England, the Catholics in Maryland, the Jesuits in the Mississippi Valley, all alike in kind, if unlike in degree, suc- ceeded in laying foundations of government broad and deep because they had so much at stake in their building. The superstructure erected has been so enduring because the foundations laid rested upon principles of such magnitude. The history of the United States from its very beginnings is an exhibition of the moral qualities of courage, perseverance, industry, frugality, justice, and self-reliance. With these have been displayed MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 95 a rare belief in the benefits of education and a re- ligious fervor and spirit not found among many peoples of the world. The preamble of the Constitution of the United States states the reasons for its establishment as follows : " in order to form a more perfect union ; establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, pro- vide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and insure the blessings of liberty to our- selves and our posterity." It will be observed that these are moral ends, including unity, justice, peace, common weal, and liberty. They are all essential to a democracy like our own. Teachers can find numerous illustrations under the work- ing of the constitution to show its relation and the relation of our national government to these ends. The whole slavery question, from the first im- portation of slaves to Virginia in 1619 to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, centers round a growing and changing conception of justice. The multiplication of laws with reference to the labor of men, women, and children is another evi- dence of a changing notion as to what constitutes social justice. The activities of such organizations as the W. C. T. U. and the Anti-Saloon League of America, and the municipal, state, and federal legislation of recent years, restricting the sale of alcoholic liquors, and in numerous instances pro- hibiting it, and banishing it from whole states, re- flect the growing place which the moral ideas of temperance and justice occupy in the thinking of our people. 96 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Significance of personal examples of moral acts. More important than a perception of laws that are so operative in the life of states and nations as to guarantee ethical results, at least more important for elementary school students, are those " exam- ples of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of love of country, of devotion to principles at the greatest cost," with which the pages of history are filled. " Not only do these teach children the meaning of virtue in the most impressive way, they present examples for imitation and inspire the learner to follow. The behavior of Socrates before his judges or of Giordano Bruno at the stake, the conduct of the Lacedaemonians at Thermopylae or of the American farmers at Bunker Hill, Sir Philip Sidney dying, offering the cup of water to the wounded soldier beside him, or Sir Thomas More going to his death for the sake of conscience : incidents like these re- veal the depth of the moral life of mankind as flashes of lightning illuminate a dark forest at night. They not only show what is noble action, but touch us with the contagion of heroic deeds, thus making for moral culture as well as ethical instruction." What schoolboy has not been stirred to the depths of his soul by the reply of Henry Clay to those of his friends who advised him to abandon a course he was pursuing because it would injure his chances for the presidency, when he said, " I would rather be right than president." And what a new mean- ing the term patriotism has had for many of us since we learned of the dying words of the patriot, Nathan Hale, upon the scaffold, " I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 97 Lecky's stress on the moral aspects of history. Lecky, the English historian, sets forth the political value of history in an essay of more than fifty pages, which closes with these words : " Permit me, in conclusion, to say that its most precious lessons are moral ones. . . . Mistakes in statesmanship, military triumphs or disasters, no doubt affect materially the prosperity of nations, but their permanent political well-being is essentially the outcome of their moral state. Its foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial integrity, in a high standard of moral worth and of public spirit ; in simple habits, in courage, uprightness, and self- sacrifice, in a certain soundness and moderation of judg- ment, which springs quite as much from character as from intellect. If you would form a wise judgment of the future of a nation, observe carefully whether these qualities are increasing or decaying. Observe especially what qualities count for most in public life. Is character becoming of greater or less importance ? Are the men who obtain the highest posts in the nation men of whom in private life and irrespective of party competent judges speak with genuine respect ? Are they men of sincere convictions, sound judgment, consistent lives, indisputable integrity, or are they men who have won their positions by the arts of a demagogue or an intriguer; men of nimble tongues and not earnest beliefs skilful, above all things, in spreading their sails to each passing breeze of popularity ? Such considerations as these are apt to be forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party contest; but if history has any meaning, it is such considerations that affect most vitally the permanent well-being of communities, and it is by observing this moral current that you can best cast the horoscope of a nation/' 1 1 The Political Value of History. 98 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Froude quoted. Froude, in his essay on history, says : "It is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last ; not always by the chief offenders, but paid by some one. Justice and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them, in French revolutions and other terrible ways." And again : "The addres^ of history is less to the understanding than to the higher emotions. We learn in it to sympa- thize with what is great and good ; we learn to hate what is base. In the anomalies of fortune we feel the mystery of our mortal existence ; and in the companionship of the illustrious natures who have shaped the fortunes of the world, we escape from the littlenesses which cling to the round of common life, and our minds are tuned in a higher and nobler key." Patriotism an outcome of history-teaching. Almost every one who has thought about the matter at all will admit that one aim of teaching history is to teach patriotism. This, of course, is but one phase of the more general moral aim, for patriotism is a moral quality. The student who is led to compass the history of his own country ; and to know the price that has been paid in hardship and struggle, privation, danger, sacrifice, blood, and MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 99 death by countless explorers, early settlers, pioneers, and frontiersmen in laying the foundations of this country, must be dull indeed if he fail to respond with patriotic pride. Ours is a rich heritage of privilege, opportunity, and blessing. The liberties we enjoy have been bought with a price. The free institutions we have are not the result of caprice and accident. If America is but another word for opportunity, it is so because our forefathers made it so. We tend to take it all for granted, and to miss the obligation it imposes unless we deepen our understanding of its significance through a study of the slow and painful process by which it has de- veloped. The pupil who identifies himself sympa- thetically with the men and movements having a part in the drama enacted upon the New World stage, must be taken out of his own little self, and must grow larger and freer to take in this larger and freer world. The greatness and the goodness of this republic can not be grasped with ease ; but it can be partially understood by the student who begins with its beginnings in the establishment of a few small settlements huddled along the Atlantic seaboard, with little intercourse, and less unity. Then the story is one of growth in unity and numbers, of fighting Indians, felling forests, build- ing roads and cities, conquering foreign foes, making constitutions, establishing churches and schools, organizing territories, carving out states, surveying lands and establishing boundaries of townships and farms, crossing rivers and mountains and plains, pushing ever westward, overcoming nature, and fighting and building mile by mile and foot after 100 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME foot, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Lakes to the Gulf. Even with this attempt to trace step by step the progress made here in a political and material way, it is difficult to realize the great- ness of America and the beneficence of its civiliza- tion. We need from time to time the fervid ap- peals to our imaginations made by such men as Jacob Riis and such women as Mary Antin before we can thrill with passionate interest in our de- mocracy. The intelligent immigrant sees and teaches us the supericfrity of this liberty-loving " Promised Land " over the less favored despotisms of the Old World, and in so doing gives us a basis for a still finer type of patriotism. But the history of America rightly taught ought again and again to lead the pupil to resolve, as did Lincoln at Gettysburg, that those who lived and died in establishing our liberties, our institutions, our conveniences, and our material wealth shall not have lived and died in vain. Chauvinism to be avoided. But along with the development of a patriotic pride in our country, the teaching of its history should result in a refinement and a rationalizing of that patriotism. The pupil should be led to see and to condemn injustice when it has been exhibited here. Partisan spirit and sectional jealousies have no place in good history- teaching. Bombastic pride in American institu- tions must not be permitted to blind the eyes of pupils to the virtues of other nations. Patriotism is beautiful but chauvinism is as deserving of ridicule here as it was when its founder praised his monarch in undeserved and exaggerated phrase. If there are MORALITY THROUGH HISTQRY- ioi- dangers in our political institutions, -arui if jtfe Orient has such lessons for our times as Pvabindranatli Tagore has pointed out in his lecture tour across the continent, our pupils will not be less truly moral or American because they see these dangers and become more oblivious of national boundaries, and more nearly international in their sympathies and in their thinking. Events that have occurred since August, 1914, and particularly since the United States entered the Great War, in April, 1917, all point to the necessity of our teaching the pupils in our schools henceforth to think and feel in international terms. The world has dwindled in size. Science in a dozen ways has brought us into closer relationships with European shores and peoples. Swift and mighty steamships, submarines, aeroplanes, wireless telegraphy all assert that we can no longer claim for ourselves the isolation which was once our protection. In Wash- ington's and Adams' administrations the wisest statesmen rightly maintained that the quarrels of the Old World were nothing to us. We would not suffer ourselves to become involved in any of their "entangling alliances." The later Monroe Doc- trine as vigorously asserted our right to work out our own destiny in the New World without interference at the hands of any European power. The change that our political conceptions have undergone since those days calls to mind the words of Lowell : "New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth ; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth." 102 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME ;, .America and 'the international spirit --Today, for good or ill, the very heart of the moral life of our republic is felt to beat in unison with the heart- beats of Europe. We now find that democracy can not be safe in America except as it is made safe for the world. With this belief, we necessarily con- ceive our problems as world problems. The neutral- ity once advocated as a political privilege and neces- sity, and the Monroe Doctrine, so long a powerful factor in our history, suddenly became outgrown. Our interests, our sympathies, our relationships are now world-wide, and no teacher can do for the moral life of her class in history in the future what ought to be done if she ignores these far-reaching facts. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Discuss: "No person is in a position to pass judg- ment upon the moral character of any act unless he understands thoroughly all of the conditions which sur- round the act/' l 2. Has your study of Ancient History convinced you that moral decay is a forerunner of the political downfall of a nation ? Illustrate. Show by the Spanish-American War and its outcome a conflict between two moral codes. 3. What moral lessons should a class get from a study of the following : Columbus ; the settlement at Plymouth ; Roger Williams ; William Penn ; John Smith ; Peter Stuyvesant ; the Jesuits ? 4. Indicate to what extent the moral qualities of the early settlers and colonists were fostered and developed by their surroundings. Explain why the French and Spanish in America failed to exhibit the same degree of 1 Judd, Psychology of High School Subjects, p. 378, MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 103 morality, if they did fail. Did the three nations send men to America with equally high aims ? Justify your opinion. 5. Should grammar grade pupils be expected to form moral judgments concerning slavery, the liquor question, woman suffrage, child-labor laws, religious intolerance, etc. ? 6. As you recall your early study of history, tell what effect was produced upon you by characters and incidents learned in the textbook and exhibiting industry; thrift; suffering; cruelty; tyranny; love of country; friend- ship ; betrayal of country ; cowardice ; bravery ; pa- tience ; reverence ; cooperation ; laziness ; sympathy ; hardihood. From your experience do you conclude that the study of history has much or little to commend it from the standpoint of its moral effects ? 7. State and then comment upon the quotation from Froude; from Lecky. 8. Who was Jacob Riis ? What contribution has he made to our history ? 9. Who is Mary Antin ? Read her Promised Land. Tell how its reading affects your appreciation of America. 10. What is chauvinism ? How does it differ from patriotism ? 11. Who is Rabindranath Tagore ? Consult a good library (Poole's Index) for magazine articles that will tell of his criticism of American institutions and tendencies. His numerous books are worth knowing, too, though they do not bear upon this topic. 12. Is there more or less morality involved in fighting for humanity than in fighting for one's country only ? Justify your answer. What is meant by the phrases, "citizen of the world/ 5 "international consciousness" ? 104 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING ANDREWS, CHARLES M. : History as an Aid to Moral Culture, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1894, pp. 397-409. EMERSON, RALPH WALDO : Essays : History. Houghton Mifflin Co. EMERSON, RALPH WALDO : Representative Men : Uses of Great Men. Houghton Mifflin Co. GRIGGS, EDWARD HOWARD : Moral Education : History. B. W. Huebsch. LECKY, WILLIAM E. H. : The Political Value of History. D. Appleton & Co. CHAPTER VIII MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY Appeal of biography to children outgrowing myth and legend. For children of tender years there are myths, legends, and fairy tales innumerable that are more powerful in teaching and impressing moral lessons than any other type of literature can be. In the kindergarten and the first one or two of the primary grades, e.g., it is a matter of perennial interest to see how real the incidents and characters from this type of literature seem, and how strong is the appeal they make. But as children grow older their interest in myth and legend diminishes with their developing rational powers, and in the grammar grades and high school they find increasing satis- faction in the lives and achievements of real men and women, whether drawn from history or con- temporary life. It is the duty of the home and school to supply children of this period with abundant biographical material, for in so doing their interests are enlisted and their ideals are fashioned. Both consciously and unconsciously the dominant ele- ments in the character of the men and women thus studied lay hold of the lives of young readers and become incorporated in them. In few other ways can young people be so fully and so " permanently kindled with productive enthusiasm for freedom and 105 106 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME justice, and patriotism, and persistence, and honor and courage, and faith in the right." Influence of good men is dynamic. Rules of conduct have their place. Precepts and proverbs are not without value. But it is when pupils come to know a character like Washington or Franklin habitually acting in accordance with self-imposed rules, that they feel constrained to follow them, too. Theoretical goodness is not attractive, but there is something dynamic in the influence of good men and women. Virtuous deeds have about them a degree of contagion and an infectious character that no amount of mere preaching can have. Avoid extreme censorship. In this connection it is not out of place to say that biographies need not be censored to the point of making them bloodless, to be safe for children. The truthfulness of George Washington was perhaps one of his striking char- acteristics, but the cherry-tree story which we all learned in the nursery or a little later was perhaps a figment of imagination upon the part of some biographer who was more anxious to produce an effect than to tell the exact truth himself. No wonder a small boy, after hearing this story, asserted that he was better than Washington, because " George couldn't tell a lie, while he could but wouldn't " ! History of education learned through lives of its reformers. The history of education can not be learned apart from the lives of the educational re- formers of the centuries. Normal schools and colleges of education see to it that their students get acquainted with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 107 Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Rousseau, Herbart, Horace Mann, Thomas Arnold, and others whose lives have been indissolubly linked with their teachings and reforms. The Bible made vital through its stories of great men and women. - - The Bible as a guide in the moral and religious life would be powerless to pro- duce the desired effect if it were robbed of the stories of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, Elisha, David, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and others who embodied more or less fully in their daily living the principles of living they attempted to universalize. In the same way the lives of the saints, whether canonized or not, have always been regarded by the church as second only to the Bible as a medium for the teaching of religious truth that can lay hold of life and give it the religious color and trend. A lesson learned from a child. But recently I learned from a Jewish boy of ten something of the influence that the life of a worthy man may exert upon a child. With his parents, who were able to speak but broken English, he rode for a day and night in a Pullman coach with his seat near ours. The long journey caused him to seek fellowship with us. It developed that he went to the public school of his little home town, and that he had learned and remembered much about George Wash- ington, whom he admires greatly. But soon he mentioned Lincoln, and asserted his greater love for him, because, as he said, " Lincoln didn't have any school to go to, while Washington did, and yet Lincoln became a great and good man, and president of the United States, too." After some further 108 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME comment upon the relative merits of these two heroes, his face brightened still more, his eyes sparkled anew, and with obvious pride in the further sur- prising news he had to tell, he added, " But say, have you heard about Columbus ? " Then he informed us about the daring of the great discoverer who sailed across the ocean when most other men feared to attempt such a thing, and when even his sailors tried to dissuade him from going on. I do not know that I had ever before appreciated so fully how real and how attractive these three characters Columbus, Washington, and Lincoln may be to a child. As I reflected upon the parental background of this child's life, and upon the stimulus that was coming to him from such lives brought to his attention in the public schools, I thought I understood why Horace Mann could call " the common school the hope of our country/' Children are rightly taught that " honesty is the best policy," but there is in the life of Sir Walter Scott, e.g., one of the most powerful examples of this truth. Scott's whole life is one of singular interest and charm, but it may be doubted whether anything in it leaves a more wholesome influence with the young reader than his heroic resolve, when his publishing house failed and engulfed him with debt, to start anew and pay off every dollar of obligation, though he might have taken advantage of a bankruptcy law and escaped the whole burden. Clara Barton and the Red Cross. The great war into which we have at last been plunged " to make the world safe for democracy," has magnified for all of us the importance of the American Red Cross and MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 109 its work. Where until a few months ago communi- ties gave nothing, or at most but a few dollars, to this organization, they are now giving thousands, and vying with one another in increasing their sub- scriptions. No better time was ever offered for acquainting the young with the life and inspiring example of its American founder, Clara Barton. Though a somewhat precocious girl, she long seemed destined to failure in life because of an excessive shyness and timidity in the presence of other people. Her high-school days were cut short because of this affliction, which rendered her tearful and speechless in class. At last somebody advised her to teach, believing that with an increased responsibility she would throw aside her timidity and find herself in working for others. At sixteen she took charge of her first school. On the opening day, " too frightened to look her pupils in the face," she had to fasten her eyes upon her Bible and read aloud to her pupils until she gained composure. " She soon observed, however, that they respected and even stood in awe of her. That was a totally new experience that any one should feel abashed before her. The timid girl's warm sympathy flowed out to those who were also timid ; and almost in a day her weakness had been transmuted into a teacher's most golden attributes sympathetic understanding and kindness." Her success as a teacher and the qualities in her which made her success possible commend her to teachers today as one worthy of emulation. But illness after a few years compelled her to give up her school, and, as it proved, her profession. no MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Her next ambition was to defend the rights of inventors who were being fraudulently cheated out of these rights through scandals that were connected with the Patent Office in Washington. Securing an appointment as head clerk in this office, she set about reforming it. Naturally enough she met stout opposition, but within three years, in spite of the rudeness, disobedience, and slander that were used as weapons against her, she accomplished her task and thoroughly reformed the office. Her big opportunity to serve " her country and humanity " came early in the Civil War with the arrival in Washington of a trainload of wounded soldiers. Voluntarily undertaking the work of bind- ing up the wounds and relieving the pain of the suffer- ing men because nurses were few and the need was great, she quickly found herself and her mission, and, almost before she knew it, was a national figure, dispensing food, medicines, and bandages wherever in her judgment they were most needed. The rest of the story cannot be told here, but it should be available for boys and girls, for it illustrates so well the truthfulness of Miss Barton's own words : " I have no mission. I have never had a mission. But I have always had more work than I could do lying around my feet, and I try hard to get it out of the way so as to go on and do the next." Clara Barton's life was a life of service, and it is this fact which makes it of supreme worth today. The war is emphasizing anew the ideal of service. Perhaps this is to be one of the compensations for the loss to the world of treasures of art, millions of men, and billions of dollars. Men, women, and MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY ill children are called upon to serve, to do their bit, to enlist, to train, to produce, to conserve, for the common good. To shut one's eyes to suffering, to turn a deaf ear to calls for help, to hoard, to waste, to take one's ease in complacent selfishness, to get rich at the expense of the unfortunate, to be a slacker, was never so reprehensible as now. Hence it is that well-selected examples from the field of biography are needed today to reenforce by their example children's appreciation of this new need. Happily there have always been men and women who anticipated the present demand. When the call from without was less insistent, from their inner urge they taught us, and still teach us, how to work, how to use time, how to value knowledge, how to conserve, and how to serve. Always suggestive and always inspiring, their lives have more than ordinary value for boys and girls today. Luther Burbank. Because the government is justly urging it as a patriotic duty for citizens who can to increase the food production of farm and garden everywhere, no better time could be found for making school children acquainted with that wizard of plant life, Luther Burbank. His achieve- ments of practical benefit to the race can be counted by the score. Part of the story is marvelous as a tale of the Arabian Nights, but there is a background of industry, experimentation, patience, and per- severance that gives moral significance to his life apart from its utility. It was a wise man who said that he who makes two blades of grass to grow where one grew before is a public benefactor. There are evidences to make us believe today that one who 112 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME can teach us how to make two bushels of wheat or beans or potatoes grow where one grew before will prove to be one of the saviors of his country and of a great cause. The devotion and singleness of purpose of Burbank, if caught by children having access to farm and garden, will surely be of help in this crisis, and of no less value when the crisis has passed. Thomas A. Edison. In planning for its defense and for the prosecution of the war, the government has been pleased to utilize the services of Thomas A. Edison. He speaks with an authority in certain lines unequaled by that of any other man of his age. But while Edison is a wizard he is not an accident. Present world-conditions and needs, and Edison's contribution today, make the time oppor- tune for teaching the story^of his life. There are numerous elements in it, most of them not unlike those in Burbank's life, that contribute to the moral fiber of the child who gets acquainted with him. Handicaps. Shakespeare makes the Duke say in As You Like It: "Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Yet wears a precious jewel in his head." The libraries of biography are full of illustrations of this truth. Such books as Poor Boys Who Became Famous and Poor Girls Who Became Famous will always be read with pride and hopefulness by the children of the poor. One who grows up in a home of straitened circumstances, deprived of luxuries, used to work, and fearful that as a result he may miss the coveted prizes of life, takes courage when he MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 113 sees how the world has finally recognized and honored men and women of worth, however humble their birth. Each new generation of children finds inspiration in the life of Lincoln and Garfield for this reason, and in scores of men and women who have overcome the obstacle, more fancied than real, of poverty and privation. Stories of this sort we have with us so much that it is refreshing to read an occasional life of one who overcame the obstacle of being born rich, and either blessed the world with his wealth, or blessed it with his hands in spite of his wealth. Florence Nightin- gale belongs in the latter class. Her life should be made familiar to every girl of the grammar grades of our public schools. Few lives can be found more fully and literally embodying the ideal of service so much needed at this time. Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War. The calling of a nurse is so honorable and so highly esteemed in this age that it is surprising to learn that before Florence Nightingale's time " it was," as she says, " largely in the hands of the coarsest type of women, not only untrained, but callous in feeling," and often of low character. People believed " that it requires nothing but a disappointment in love, the want of an object, a general disgust or in- capacity for other things to turn a woman into a good nurse." How different the conception today! Thanks to this angel of the Crimean War, the best of women see in nursing an opportunity for social service which calls for scientific training, tact, patience, sympathy, and often administrative ability of a high order. Not only our hospitals, but our cities, 114 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME our homes, our schools employ trained nurses in ever-growing numbers. Thus it really seems that she " has affected all modern history," as one of her biographers asserts. In spite of wealth and social prominence she humbled herself to serve and lent dignity to this valuable form of service. To her it was " God's work." Her estimate of its character may best be given in her own words : "Nursing is an art; and if it is to be made an art, requires as exclusive a devotion as any painter's or sculp- tor's work ; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or cold marble compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit ? Nursing is one of the fine arts ; I had almost said the finest of the fine arts." Frances Willard and her influence. Another one of the " uncrowned queens " peculiarly worthy of introduction to the youth of today is Frances Willard. Few statesmen, warriors, or others whom the world has pronounced great have been more influential than she in shaping a nation's thought and will. She opposed many forms of vice, but will be remembered by posterity for her lifelong crusade against intemperance. Today, when the nations of the earth are just rising to the level of her conception of the enormity of this evil, we may well wish to know the life history of this herald of a new day, this voice that cried in the wilderness so long before it seemed to make itself heard. The United States, nerving itself for the awful struggle in which it is engaged at present, realizes that it can not afford to weaken itself and jeopardize MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 115 its chances for success by wasting its resources or its men through alcohol. Russia learned the same lesson two years earlier and banished vodka. But the lesson which the world is being taught by war, Frances Willard taught for a lifetime in a time of peace. The nations are just catching her vision. Surely the principles which controlled her life and enabled her to do her work for the purity of home life, for the emancipation of women, and for the abolition of intemperance and its attendant evils are principles which will make an appeal to children who see them incarnate in her. Jacob Riis. Jacob Riis, who taught Americans " How the Other Half Lives," is another of the lives that should find a place in the elementary school. Colonel Roosevelt called him " America's most valued citizen/' Whether we would all agree with that estimate or not, few can read his books without being influenced to emulate his example in striving to do something to help the unfortunate and make the world a better place in which to live. Helen Keller, Booker Washington. But it would take us beyond the limits of this chapter to do more than suggest the rich heritage in moral lessons and moral influence that must come to the child or older student who gets intimately acquainted with char- acters of the type already illustrated. Helen Keller's marvelous life, and her incredible achieve- ments in spite of the awful handicap of a lack of the sense of hearing and of sight, must give new courage and strength to every weak will which is tempted to give up a worthy object of desire because of the difficulties involved in achieving it. Booker Wash- Il6 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME ington's Up from Slavery has as many moral lessons for young white readers as his great school at Tuske- gee has had for the thousands of negro students who have learned there how to be better men and women while becoming better farmers, mechanics, or home-makers. Dr. Grenfell. Dr Grenfell's labors in Labrador as missionary, physician, nurse, and friendly coun- selor rank him as one of the finest representatives of the practical religion which Jesus practiced and taught. Let our students know him. Nothing need be said about either religion or morality to give training in both, while his acquaintance is being made. But examples need not be multiplied. All that might be given here would still be suggestive only. There is both an intellectual and a moral uplift for the more mature student in fellowship with such books as Emerson's Representative Men and Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship. Even younger students can profit by Plutarch's Lives. Sir Humphry Davy has been widely quoted as saying, when he was praised for his important dis- coveries, " My best discovery was Michael Faraday." In like manner it can be said that one of the best discoveries that any boy or girl can make is a man or woman of real worth ; one who by example has shown the world what the factors are which constitute true success and true greatness. Some time ago I heard a kindred truth expressed by a minister while preaching to his congregation. He was elaborating for purposes of emphasis the fact that the Bible as a book of truth and life is most influential when MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 117 its teachings are embodied in the lives of men and women. In this connection he added, " The best Bible is not bound in sheep skin but in human skin." This, of course, was but a forceful way of saying that the virtues, moral and religious, enjoined upon us in the Bible as ideals of human conduct and principles of daily living are best understood and most potent in modifying character when found in- carnate in man. It is just this fact that makes the biographies of worthy men and women an important factor in the moral education of children, entitled, therefore, to a conspicuous place in the library of schools and homes, and a no less conspicuous place in courses of study for children in the grades. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Tell why you think the use of biography important in the education of children. 2. Make a list of the biographies you think it im- portant for children to know rather intimately before reaching the high school. 3. What virtues found in men and women, either in life or books, have been most effective in shaping your own life ? Did you take any character as your own ideal early in life ? 4. What are the outstanding qualities in each of the following lives, as you understand them : Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Lee, McKinley, Frances Willard, Mary Lyon, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Jacob Riis, Cyrus Field, William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ward Beecher, Cyrus McCormick, Daniel Boone ? 5. Justify the teaching of the life of Aaron Burr; Il8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Benedict Arnold. What is the effect upon the normal eighth grade child of a reading of Hale's "The Man Without a Country" ? 6. Three books grammar grade children may well be asked to read are : Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery; Helen Keller's The Story of My Life; and Franklin's Autobiography. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BOLTON, SARAH K. : Famous Leaders Among Men. Thos. Y. Crowell Co. BOLTON, SARAH K. : Famous Leaders Among Women. Thos. Y. Crowell Co. EMERSON, RALPH WALDO : Representative Men. Houghton Mifflin Co. KELLER, HELEN : The Story of My Life. Doubleday, Page & Co. MARDEN, ORISON SWETT : Pushing to the Front. Thos. Y. Crowell Co. McTuRNAN, LAWRENCE : The Personal Equation. Atkinson, Mentzer & Grover Co. PLUTARCH'S Lives. WASHINGTON, BOOKER T. : Up From Slavery. Doubleday, Page & Co. CHAPTER IX MORAL TRAINING THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS Moral qualities displayed by incidents and char- acters around us. - - The short period given in most school programs to opening or general exercises presents an admirable opportunity to the teacher to teach effective moral lessons. Incidents and char- acters that have come under the teacher's personal observation, and those that have found a place in the newspapers and magazines of the day, are often embodiments of moral qualities of the most dy- namic sort. Judiciously used in the schoolroom, their timeliness accentuates the force of their appeal. Too often we are blind to the heroic in life all about us, but for teachers to be on the alert to discover it, and, having discovered it, to acquaint their pupils with it, is one of the sure ways of approach to their moral natures. Discovery and use of the heroic around us. - It is good for a child to know the life of Aristides, whose most pronounced virtue was embalmed in the appellation, the Just ; it is profitable to know Lincoln so intimately that one can feel the appro- priateness of the name, Honest Abe, so often applied to him ; it is inspiring to read the story of Leonidas and his gallant band at the pass of Thermopylae; but children need not go so far away in time or 119 120 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME space to find exhibitions of moral qualities and the heroic in life. They ought to be introduced to the heroes and heroines all about them, for they are to be found in every neighborhood, and there is scarcely an issue of a daily paper that does not chronicle some deed of service or sacrifice worthy of emulation. What makes life significant. - - The late William James, in his essay, " What Makes Life Significant," says : "Wishing for heroism and the spectacle of human nature on the rack, I had never noticed the great fields of heroism lying round about me, I had failed to see it present and alive. I could only think of it as dead and embalmed, labelled and costumed, as it is in the pages of romance. And yet there it was before me in the daily lives of the laboring classes. Not in clanging fights and desperate marches only is heroism to be looked for, but on every railway bridge and fire-proof building that is going up today. On freight trains, on the decks of vessels, in cattle-yards and mines, on lumber-rafts, among the firemen and the policemen, the demand for courage is incessant; and the supply never fails. There, every day of the year somewhere, is human nature in extremis for you. And wherever a scythe, an ax, a pick, or a shovel is wielded, you have it sweating and aching and with its powers of patient endurance racked to the utmost under the length of hours of the strain. "As I awoke to all this unidealized heroic life around me, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes ; and a wave of sympathy greater than anything I had ever before felt with the common life of common men began to fill my soul. It began to seem as if virtue with horny hands and dirty skin were the only virtue genuine and vital enough to take account of. Every other virtue poses; none is absolutely unconscious and simple, and unex- THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 1 21 pectant of decoration or recognition, like this. These are our soldiers, thought I, these our sustainers, these the very parents of our life." 1 Heroes in unromantic walks. Fanny E. Coe 2 has compiled a reader for the upper grades telling the dramatic stones of eight such heroes of the unromantic walks of life. The diver, the telegraph operator, the civil engineer, the day laborer, the life-saver, the fireman, the engineer at sea, and the miner enter into the contents of this book. The incidents recorded are thrilling in each case ; they are all illustrative of heroic deeds done from a sense of duty, without hope of renown, and without any of the stimulus and glamour by which soldiers are often incited to deeds of valor. But, more than that, they are suggestive of the type of moral quali- ties displayed by common men and women in every walk of life in almost every neighborhood. Nothing done upon the field of battle is more effective in teaching and impressing moral lessons than these incidents which come under the observation of teacher and pupils alike, or at least within the range of their daily newspaper reading. They only need to be seized by the teacher and used at the psycho- logical moment to make permanent impressions for good in the lives of children. In fact such lessons command a degree of attention from children that lessons from books seldom receive. A lesson from the sinking of the Titanic. The bravery and the chivalry of the men who went down 1 Talks to Teachers and Students, p. 274 ff. 2 Heroes of Everyday Life. 122 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME with the Titanic is an instance in point. " Women and children first " was their motto. It even over- came the instinct for self-preservation, so that they deliberately stood back and waited their doom with the sinking vessel, while the women and children were given a place in the small boats and at least one more opportunity for rescue from immediate death. That the mind grows by what it feeds upon, is a truism ; and if the quality of mind and heart exhibited by the men who voluntarily went down with the Titanic is one that should be fos- tered in men generally, such incidents deserve to be brought to the attention of children in home and school as well. Common illustrations. Of a less striking sort, but no less worthy of imitation, are the instances of honor, and integrity to be found in the financial deal- ings of men at times when there is opportunity for dishonor and dishonesty without discovery. The family of Mr. A. buys groceries of Mr. B. and has them charged day after day. At the end of the month the grocer sends his -statement and Mr. A. pays the bill and takes a receipt for the same, show- ing that the bill was paid in full. On going home and looking over the cost of the several items in- cluded in the statement he discovers that the grocer made a trifling mistake in addition and thus cheated himself out of a dollar. What is Mr. A.'s duty under these circumstances ? Is he under a moral obliga- tion to go to the grocer and pay him another dollar ? Some men would not do so. Would the pupil do so ? Can members of the class cite instances in which children or adults have done so ? As a matter THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 123 of fact, at least three out of four men would prob- ably take the initiative in correcting such an error under similar circumstances. A brief discussion of the matter and of the results likely to follow from either course of action will surely be profitable. Some boys and some men think it permissible to ride on a street car or on a train and not pay the regulation fare or give up their ticket if the conduc- tor does not happen to call for it. Are there others who would voluntarily hunt up the conductor and pay for their ride under such conditions ? Is there a moral obligation in the case ? If so, what is it ? These are days when an education is generally highly esteemed. In the neighborhood is a girl who is ambitious for a high-school and college edu- cation. There are younger brothers and sisters and an invalid mother in the home. That the younger brothers and sisters may get the best education pos- sible the oldest stays at home and denies herself the satisfaction which her ambition calls for. Can you find such an example of sacrifice ? A brief reference to an actual example of it, and a brief discussion of the merits of the case will teach a needed lesson. Courtship and marriage are natural and honorable in most lives at the appropriate age. Is there a young woman of your acquaintance denying her- self the pleasure of this estate that she may devote herself to a widowed mother who needs her ? Is the sacrifice a necessary one ? Is it commendable ? Is it a rare example of unselfishness ? Is it a worth- while topic to consider in school ? While it seems to me that children will usually find it most helpful to consider the examples of virtuous 124 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME lives, occasionally the teacher has an opportunity to present examples of an opposite sort with excel- lent results. In a certain community there was a mysterious fire recently in the basement of a house in which a man had stored his household goods after having them rather heavily insured. The finger of suspicion pointed towards the owner, but he pro- tested his innocence. It was months before the net closed round him to such an extent that there was nothing left for him to do except to confess to the crime of arson and throw himself on the mercy of the court. The whole affair was such as to lend itself to the teaching of a most impressive lesson in the schoolroom of that neighborhood, and the teachers who used it for that purpose were doing their obvious duty. A lesson from cases of arson and bigamy. In the same city a prominent man was arrested for big- amy. He spent months in jail before his trial, at which his guilt was clearly established and he was sentenced to spend an indefinite period in the peni- tentiary. This incident, too, was one which some teachers used with good effect. Not only the meaning of arson and bigamy, but the legal conse- quences of these crimes was presented to pupils in such a way as to make them appear in their proper light as immoral and socially reprehensible acts. Some children are so well fortified in their morality before reaching the high-school age that they can appreciate the words of Milton in "Comus," in which he says : "He that has light in his own clear breast May sit i' the center, and enjoy bright day : THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 125 But he that hides a foul soul and dark thoughts, Benighted walks under the midday sun ; Himself is his own dungeon/' Most children, however, find an added incentive for virtuous conduct in having brought to their at- tention from time to time the truth of the Scriptures that " the way of the transgressor is hard." When concrete instances of this truth are presented, and when they are permitted to see Nemesis overtake the evildoer under their very eyes, they have the sort of deterrent they need to keep them from be- lieving that moral precepts are well enough to preach but really have but little relation to life outside of the sermons of parents and preachers. The press of the country is filled with accounts of accidents, murders, suicides, arrests, trials, court sentences, and other more or less sensational news. Too much of this sort of thing is not good for youthful readers ; but the teacher and the parent may turn some of it to good account by taking pains to emphasize the relation that exists between these tragic results and the breaking of civil and moral laws that pre- ceded them. A man is half crazed by drink. In this condition he takes the life of an innocent friend, or of his own wife or child. A bank cashier begins to indulge in unwarranted and extravagant habits, to appropriate moneys that do not belong to him, to make false entries in his books and hide his deception for a time; but the day of exposure always comes sooner or later, and with it dismissal, dishonor, a prison sentence, and a blasted life. Such newspaper items 126 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME can be used to make vice appear in its proper light, and to give children a heightened appreciation of the social and personal values of virtue and right conduct. They need to see that there is a World Order ; that there is such a thing as retribution ; that " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap " ; that moral laws, like physical and natural laws, cannot be broken with impunity. Opportunities for the expressive side of morality. - Again, children grow in certain moral lines through the expression of their moral instincts and impulses. For this reason, when the newspapers are filled with accounts of great suffering, want, and destitution in any part of the world which needs quick relief, pupils in our public schools need the sort of training that can best come through express- ing some portion of their sympathy in tangible form. To take up a collection in school for the San Fran- cisco earthquake sufferers, the needy Belgians, the starving Armenians, or the famine-stricken peoples of India, is to grow in charity and to develop the spirit of philanthropy and humanitarianisrxi. For the children of a school to fill baskets Thanksgiving Day or Christmas for worthy but needy families of the neighborhood, or for the Salvation Army or Associated Charities to distribute among such fami- lies, is a most commendable practice. Not the least of its benefits come to those who give, for children must learn to give, and they learn it best by giving. It is a misfortune, indeed, for a child to grow into manhood or womanhood without experiencing the satisfaction that comes from sharing with another's need, and without frequent exercise of the altruistic THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 127 impulse that needs to become established as a habit, to make him fit well into twentieth century institu- tional life. Our churches, hospitals, benevolences, reform work, and many of our schools are absolutely dependent upon the gifts of individuals who could easily withhold them all, as some people do, on the ground that they are not able to give. The truth of it is that we have already entered upon an era in which it is becoming almost as disgraceful for all but indigents and paupers to refuse their just share of support to the social agencies for betterment of community life as it is for a very rich man to live and die without leaving a rich legacy to some insti- tution able and willing to use it for the amelioration of social conditions. It is the privilege of teachers to teach and train the children of this generation so that there will be fewer men and women in the next without this viewpoint, and fewer without the dis- position to carry their full share of the social load. The opportune time for some of the most effective lessons to this end is when people outside of school are responding to an urgent call for help somewhere and the papers are treating it as an important news item. Pestalozzi's method of developing sympathy. Pestalozzi applied this principle in a very practical way in his work. '' When he was at Stanz," says Quick, " news arrived of the destruction of Alt- dorf. Pestalozzi depicted to his scholars the misery of the children there. ' Hundreds/ said he, ' are at this moment wandering about as you were last year, without a home, perhaps without food or clothing.' He then asked them if they would not 128 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME wish to receive some of these children among them ? This, of course, they were eager to do. Pestalozzi then pointed out the sacrifices it would involve on their part, that they would have to share everything with the newcomers, and to eat less and work more than before. Only when they promised to make these sacrifices ungrudgingly he undertook to apply to the Government that the children's wish might be granted." A philanthropist quoted. George W. Childs, one-time owner of the Philadelphia Public Ledger and a millionaire philanthropist who began his career as errand boy in a bookstore in Baltimore, enjoyed using his property to benefit his fellow men. " Giving was a calling with him," it is said. The following comment of his is therefore especially significant : " I believe that children should be educated to give away with judgment their little all; to share their possessions with their friends. If they are trained in this spirit, it will always be easy for them to be generous; if they are not, it will be more natural for them in the course of time to be mean, and meanness can grow upon a man until it saps his soul." A seventh-grade class and efficiency. One of the best series of lessons in a phase of moral training that has ever come under the writer's observation was made to center round the idea efficiency. It was in a class of seventh-grade children at a time when men and magazines were still having much to say upon this subject. After some informal study of the meaning of the word as directed by the teacher, herself a good embodiment of the ideas as applied THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 129 to teaching, the pupils were directed to write to a number of business and professional men for their opinion of the efficient man in relation to their re- spective callings. The replies of these men were read and discussed in class. The fact that the men were prominent in the community and that the pupils knew many of them, intensified their interest in the subject. Few children could, by other means, have seen the relation of efficiency to fidelity, industry, enthusiasm, care, thoroughness, and a number of other virtues, as this class seemed to see it. The point we are making is that the current interest in the theme outside of school and the introduction of the views of non-school men gave a reality to the study that will make it " carry over " into life, and really shape conduct as well as ideas. Such, of course, is the ultimate goal of all moral instruction. The observance of special days, such as Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Lincoln's Birth- day, Washington's Birthday all offer additional opportunities for emphasizing certain lessons that can not be taught so effectively at other times. For example, when the whole country is celebrating Labor Day, with every line of business suspended for a day, and with parades, speeches, and newspapers all emphasizing a common theme, the teacher can not do better than give some time to the subject. She can do much to impress upon her pupils the dig- nity of labor, the absolute dependence of society upon the workingman, the importance of various branches of labor locally considered, the advantages that have come to the laboring man from organiza- tion into labor unions, the necessity of preserving 130 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME mutually just relations between employers and em- ployees, between capital and labor. Special lessons taught best upon special days. The occasion of a local strike, or of one that threatens the comfort and welfare of the whole country as did the recent proposed strike of locomotive en- gineers, makes it possible to impress upon children the social and industrial relationships and the far- reaching effects of any disturbance of these relation- ships among peoples and communities, however widely separated. Whatever the extent of the griev- ance or the justice of the demands which lead to a strike, innocent people are made to suffer by it, and teachers ought to show it. The subject is one which calls for much tact and discretion and a dispassionate, unprejudiced treat- ment at the hands of a teacher, but it can be made productive of much good if she gives her pupils even a rudimentary sense of the moral values in- volved. Pupils in the upper grammar grades are certainly as capable of passing moral judgments upon such matters of immediate concern to them- selves,, their families, and their neighbors, as upon the merits of the controversy between the Colonies and Great Britain leading to the Revolutionary War, or the causes which rent the Union and precipitated the Civil War. Objections answered. Teachers who deal with such current topics will occasionally hear the ob- jection made that it is their business to teach the common branches better, and that if they do this well enough they will have no time, nor is it their business, to do the other things. Similar objections THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 131 are made to the minister who tries to socialize the gospel message and relate it to reform movements of local interest. Such criticism need not deter either teachers or ministers. Indeed, there is an opposite type of criticism of the public schools to the effect that their work takes too little account of the men and movements of the day; that they are too little related to the life that is being lived outside of the schools ; that life situations must be more freely introduced into the classroom, and schoolroom classes must be permitted to participate in a larger way in the institutional life of the present to make their work real, vital, and effective in the education of children. It is to this criticism that we shall need to give a more willing ear. Teach children to read the daily papers. Finally, it seems in place to suggest here that children should be taught to read the daily papers while they are still in the elementary schools. The habit is worth fixing. They should be taught, too, how to read them without wasting time. Many schools have " current events " as a part of the history course in the eighth grade. In such schools it is common to base the work upon the weekly appearance of a little current-events magazine of nominal cost. This is good but ought to be freely supplemented with appropriate and timely contributions from daily papers and more pretentious magazines. An in- quiry into the reading habits of your pupils, whether in grades or high school, will probably surprise you with the large number who do not regularly read either daily papers or magazines. College classes often have no better knowledge of what is going on 132 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME in the world, that is of significance in politics, states- manship, philanthropy, education, missionary en- deavor, industry, and social reforms* Surely the moral ideas, ideals, attitudes, and habits that are developed in connection with contemporary prob- lems discussed in these fields are among the most potent with which the schools can concern them- selves. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. The problem in the schoolroom is that of making virtuous conduct attractive, and vicious conduct equally repellent to children. Current events furnish one of these opportunities. Make note of the newspaper items which fall under these two captions, and introduce them into the " general exercise" period from time to time. En- courage appropriate comment from children themselves. Lead them to condemn that which deserves condemna- tion, and to commend conduct that deserves to be com- mended and emulated. 2. Make clear to children the relation between dis- honesty, deception, petty thefts, and unfair practices in school and home, and the more notorious cases of robbery, embezzlement, and fraud reported in the press from time to time. 3. Find occasion to commend bravery, daring, and courage exhibited in common walks of life, and to link them with the similar qualities displayed by the soldier in military service. 4. Encourage the expression of the spirit of sacrifice and service appropriate and possible to children when adults are finding the occasion for similar expression. 5. Find examples of men in public life who dare to do their duty as they see it, in spite of criticism that is often THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 133 merciless. Have children think of the moral courage required of one who has his motives as well as his judg- ment assailed while he renders valuable public service. The governor of a state, mayor of a city, members of a board of education, or the president of the United States may afford an excellent illustration of this point at times. 6. Use current events to reenforce your teaching of the sacred and binding character of one's word contracts between individuals, agreements between employers and labor unions, treaties between nations. "His word is as good as his bond." Show what makes such comment possible. 7. What moral qualities does Centennial year in Illinois offer an especial opportunity to cultivate ? Why ? Illustrate with Lincoln, Grant, the Jesuits, pioneer history, old settlers. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING COE, FANNY E. : Heroes of Everyday Life. Ginn & Co. JAMES, WILLIAM: Talks to Teachers and Students: What Makes Life Significant. Henry Holt & Co. Newspapers and magazines abound in material of worth. CHAPTER X THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC "Therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods ; Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus : Let no such man be trusted." SHAKESPEARE. The social values of music. Though music is almost universally taught in the elementary schools, it is still regarded by many patrons and not a few teachers as a fad or frill, a superfluous excrescence upon the course of study, that could be given up without serious loss, a feature that need not be taken very seriously by teachers or pupils. This concep- tion is, of course, born of a failure to analyze its merits, and of ignorance of its real educative pos- sibilities. The truth is that there are few subjects in the ordinary curriculum that may be made to contribute more largely to the social and moral training of school children. It is one of the subjects which, when well taught, " carries over " and func- tions in their daily life out of and beyond school, 134 THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 135 In the home, in church and Sunday school, in the social circle, in lodge, in the theater, in public gatherings of almost every sort, music has an im- portant role. Even if one be not expected to pro- duce it, his enjoyment is greater if, when he meets his friends in any of these relationships, he is able to appreciate the music that is offered for his enter- tainment. Music the language of the emotions. Music is the language of the emotions. It is born of emo- tion and it is to the emotions that it makes its dis- tinct appeal. It has this in common with the other so-called fine arts architecture, sculpture, paint- ing, and poetry. There are instincts within the normal human breast which are satisfied by rhythm, melody, and harmony, by a " concordance of sweet sounds." Its mission is to give pleasure. Stripped of the ideas which may accompany it, and divested of the action to which it may be linked, it is perhaps unmoral, neither moral nor immoral in its effects. This is certainly true except in so far as pleasure itself is a wholesome relaxation following the ten- sion and stress of most of the serious activities of life. Viewed in this light, music must be acknowl- edged as a beneficent balm which soothes tired nerves and enables one to gird up his loins and take up again the struggle in the battle of life. Music begets sympathy and understanding. But referring once more to the fact that music is the language of the emotions, we find here its first great moral aspect. It is universal. It binds us to- gether. It transcends nationalities and creeds. It breaks down the barriers of spoken language. We 136 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME can not have intellectual intercourse with men and women speaking an unknown tongue. We must learn the Frenchman's language or he must learn ours. We cannot read Ibsen, but Grieg's Peer Gynt belongs to us as to the rest of the world. The melodies and harmonies of the musical masters are the language of the international soul. The for- eigner's newspaper is an enigma. It has no message for us. But his music strikes a responsive chord in our hearts, and we are one with him, while we listen at least, regardless of the language of his intellect. Not only do people of different nationalities find in music a common vehicle for the expression of their feelings, but this, in turn, serves to awaken an interest in other phases of their mutual life. Sym- pathy and understanding tend to take the place of the jealousies, ignorance, and intolerance that may otherwise prevail. The writer listened recently to a great symphony orchestra. The musicians comprising it represent five different nations, all of them at war, on oppos- ing sides. But whatever their national differences these men have at least one thing in common a great passion for music. This is their common bond, and it is strong enough to enable them to live and travel together week after week in relations of amity, respect, and mutual admiration. When this great orchestra, facing an audience of fifteen hundred American citizens, stands and plays the " Star Spangled Banner," there is no room in any hearer's heart for hatred of any one. The brotherhood of man is a realized ideal, for a little while at least. The writer has heard a teacher say of a group of THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 137 Welsh children in her room : " I could not have cared for them as I did if I had not heard them sing. But they were just like their fathers who worked in the tin-plate factory. These men in their over- alls would gather, at night in chorus or choir and sing like angels I just loved them/' The writer can no more listen to the music of Tschaikowsky without feeling an interest in the Russian people than he can read Sienkiewicz with- out finding that Poles and English after all have some common bonds. Music is thus the gateway through which peoples of different lands enter into still further communion with each other. When the great World War is over, there can be no doubt that one of the biggest factors that will help to smother the fires of race and national hatred kindled by it will be the music and musicians of the contending nations. Narrowing the field of music, and thinking in terms of elementary school children, we still find the songs of the school their great unifying agent. Pupils come in from their several homes with self- centered thoughts and interests. A few minutes spent in singing in an opening exercise unifies them all. It begets a common emotional atmosphere that works wonders in a short time. It makes co- operative tasks a possibility. It paves the way for the right sort of teamwork between the teacher and the class. Indeed, at almost any time of day when children are seen to be growing nervous and restless, when the unity of the school seems to be going to pieces, when individualism is becoming marked, the wise grade teacher can use a song to 138 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME pour oil on troubled waters, and do infinitely more with it to restore order and unity than she can do with any amount of scolding or fretting or pun- ishing. Music and discipline. - - The writer has in mind a successful teacher of music who used to use her piano to restore amity and to suppress hostile demonstrations exhibited by her own and her neigh- bor's children. Incipient quarrels and fights can- not flourish with a proper musical accompaniment. Music does have power to quell the savage that rises at times in the bosoms of children even of our best homes. Music and patriotism. - - The relation of music to patriotism and to religious worship must be evident to every one. The martial music of fife and drum or the stirring marches of a military band quicken the pulse and step of Grand Army veterans today, even though it has been more than fifty years since the Civil War closed. Soldiers the world over and for generations have been able to subdue fear, muster courage, and resolutely face the charge of the enemy and death itself through the inspiring influence of music. More battles have been won by bands than bullets, if the truth were fully stated. He must be a dull clod who can not respond with a finer patriotic feeling when " America " or the " Star Spangled Banner " is sung today than he has at other times. Without questioning their loyalty to the Union, it is certain that the people of the South never hear " Dixie " without respond- ing to it with a feeling of local pride whose intensity is due to the song itself. " God Save the King/' THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 139 " The Marseillaise," and the " Watch on the Rhine " have a corresponding influence upon the peoples of Great Britain, France, and Germany, respectively. The psychological explanation of the effect of national airs and patriotic hymns is not easy to state. We do not pretend to know whether it is wholly or partly inherent in the music, or whether an associ- ation of ideas that have gradually clustered them- selves about this sort of music is the secret. But the fact remains that patriotism which expresses itself in both thought and action is intimately related to music, and is in large measure dependent upon it. Music and worship. As for religious worship, it is almost unthinkable apart from music. Our lead- ing Christian churches today give a much bigger place in their Sunday morning services to the music of the organist, choir, and congregation than to the scriptural reading, prayer, and sermon of the preacher. The psychological justification for such a distribu- tion must be sought, we may conclude, in the relative moral and religious effects of these two phases of the service. Historically, the praise of the Lord has involved music since the days of David, and long before him. The Psalms were written to sing. Their metrical arrangement is one of their chief charms. And over and over again in the Psalms do we find such admonitions as these : "Give thanks unto Jehovah with the harp : Sing praises unto him with the psaltery often strings. Sing unto him a new song : Play skillfully with a loud noise/' 140 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME It was true of old, and is no less true today, that the soul was lifted up in songs of praise. Happiness, thanksgiving, adoration find their natural expression in song ; and hymns of praise tend as surely to be- get in those who listen, and more, perhaps, in those who sing them, an emotional and a devotional spirit appropriate to them. In the great oratorios and sacred cantatas are illustrations of music which quickens religious un- derstanding and chastens the spirit as nothing else can do. One who has heard it can never escape the gracious influence of Mendelssohn's treatment of the 42d Psalm, "As the hart pants after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God." The effect of great oratorios. Among the richest spiritual experiences the writer has ever had were those coming from his small part in helping to sing such masterpieces as Gaul's Holy City, Rossini's Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn's Elijah and St. Paul, and Handel's Messiah. No sermon, no picture drawn from Revelation, no product of anybody's imagination, has been able to make Heaven so al- luring as an eternal abiding place as it was made by the " Hallelujah Chorus " from the Messiah. There are few things that have come into my life from which I would part with more reluctance than that heritage. But the gratifying thought in this connection is that most children who embrace the musical oppor- tunities offered them through the grades and high school of an ordinary school system today may be THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 141 equipped for participation, under proper leadership, in the singing of just such music. The function of the phonograph. In communities unable to render musical masterpieces of such mag- nitude and worth, it is still possible for children to become acquainted with them and to profit by them. The almost universal use of the phonograph brings them within easy reach of every child. There is no longer any excuse for denying them to public school children. In rural schools in which one teacher must teach everything that is taught, music almost uni- versally suffers either from lack of time or lack of ability on the part of the teacher. Here it is es- pecially advisable to introduce the phonograph and some carefully selected records that will acquaint the pupils with the worth-while music of both sacred and secular lines. Music in penal institutions. The place given to music in reform schools and penal institutions ought to be suggestive to public school officials. If it is a powerful factor in the reformation of character, can it be less useful in its formation ? If our hos- pitals for the insane find its tendency in the direc- tion of docility, morality, and reason, may it not be equally efficacious for perfectly normal children ? The student of history may recall that George III of England, in his fits of melancholy madness, was deeply " sensible of the power of music to create an atmosphere of peace, and restore something like harmony to the sweet bells of the spirit, jangled out of tune." In I Samuel 16 : 23 it is written that: "When the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, then David 142 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME took an harp, and played with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit de- parted from him." If great sanitariums find it has curative effects upon the sick, may it not be a salutary means of preventing ills ? Danger of intellectualizing music too much. But even where music has a large place in the ele- mentary schools, there is some danger of attempting to intellectualize it too much. It has an interesting science that has a place in the training of some children, but music as an art must come first. There ought to be much more rote singing than note sing- ing in the lower grades. The aim should be to lead children to love good music, to want to hear it, to desire a part in it. This can no more result from analysis and dissection of it than a love for literature can be developed by such a process. " Music should be taught in the schools for the purpose of develop- ing good cheer, to inspire with beautiful sentiments, to uplift, and to harmonize the soul." l Simple folk-songs, pretty ballads, the melodies that were sung by our fathers and mothers, the songs that touch responsive chords in every heart these are the type that deserves a large place in the elementary school. The schools have it in their power to develop such a taste for good music that the cheap and shoddy ragtime which masquerades under the name of music will fall into disuse. Surely there is no place in school for records of this sort. Fewer of them will be purchased for the home as the taste for good 1 Bolton, Principles of Education, p. 647. THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 143 music is elevated in the school. Church music has already been contaminated by the cheaper modern perversions of it, to such an extent that one great and influential weekly magazine has recently sounded an editorial warning against " religious ragtime." Of course the antidote for ragtime in church or home must come through education. Children who de- velop a taste for the worthwhile in music can not be permanently satisfied by ragtime. Plato upon the place of music. - - Teachers and parents would find it profitable to become familiar with so ancient an authority as Plato upon the place of music in the moral and aesthetic education of children. In his Republic, Book III, occurs this very pertinent paragraph. It would be difficult for a doctor of music or a professor of ethics to state the truth more helpfully : "We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently Either a festering mass of corruption in their own soul, et our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of beauty and grace ; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds ; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will meet the sense like a breeze, and insensibly draw the soul even in childhood into harmony with the beauty of reason. . . . "Is not this, I said, the reason, Glaucon, why musical training is so powerful, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making the soul graceful of him who is rightly edu- cated, or ungraceful if ill-educated ; and also because he 144 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over, and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason of the thing; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute her as a friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. "Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that these are the reasons why there should be a musical education." The psychologist's attitude. Because music plays upon the emotions which may be exercised apart from action, it has been objected that it has a weakening and enervating effect upon character. The psychologist would readily admit that this is true when an emotion is roused which has for its object the performance of a duty. For example, if we listen with excitement to the details of the suf- fering we ^are called upon to alleviate and then do nothing about it, we are weaker than before. We'd better never hear the call for help from the Red Cross society than to hear it, feel the promptings of our best impulses to lend our aid, and then do noth- ing about it. But to be affected by a drama, a novel, a poem, or a song which points to no immediate duty of action, it has been well said, need not ener- vate us. ' We may be the better for it ; we may be the more likely to act rightly when the opportunity comes, for having felt rightly when there was no immediate call for action. A man is better for his formless aspirations after good." THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC Music certainly helps one to get upon the Mount of Transfiguration. Reaching such a height was not condemned by the Great Teacher, but it was rather the suggestion of one that we build our tabernacles and dwell there. The path of duty takes us down into the commonplace valley where men dwell. But life in the valley is richer and more significant to those about us when our natures are refined, our passions subdued, our thoughts made tender, our souls purged through the redemptive agency of good music. Let us have more of it in the public schools, recognizing that it is not a frill, not for the aesthete only, and not to make musicians, pri- marily, but to develop musical appreciation and to enrich character and life. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Can you name any class of people whose ability either to give or to receive pleasure would not be increased by music ? Indicate its place in the home, the church, the Sunday school, the lodge, the social circle, elsewhere. 2. Enumerate the so-called fine arts, and show in what respect music resembles the others. 3. Explain the meaning of this sentence: "Music is the language of the international soul." Give illustra- tions of its truth. 4. Account for the presence of military bands in the armies of the world. What relation between music and morality is suggested by the place given to music in the army Y. M. C. A. huts today ? 5. Does good music in a church touch the moral and religious nature of the congregation, or merely contribute to its aesthetic pleasure ? Justify your answer. 146 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 6. Why is music given a place in hospitals, asylums for the insane, reformatories, and penitentiaries ? What suggestion is derived from this for schools ? 7. Discuss the quotation from Plato's Republic. Did the term music mean to Plato just what we mean by it today ? 8. Under what conditions may music have a detri- mental effect upon character ? 9. It is well known that certain great musicians have had loose morals. Show that this is not to be used as an argument against the moral influence of music. 10. What is the psychological basis for music ? 11. Why does vocal music have so much larger a place than instrumental music in the public schools ? 12. When you hear a boy or girl whistle or sing at his work, what do you think of his disposition or temporary mental state ? REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING COLE, LUCY K. : Music and the Social Problem, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1913, pp. 604-609. HAWEIS, HUGH REGINALD : Music and Morals. Harpers. MASON, DANIEL GREGORY: Music as an International Lan- guage, in International Conciliation Pamphlet, June, 1913. REYNOLDS, ALICE LOUISE : Music that Pays Dividends, in Pro- ceedings N. E.A. 1913, pp. 609-612. VAN DYKE, HENRY: The Music Lover. Moffat, Yard & Co. WINSHIP, A. E. : Music and Ethics, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1913, pp. 602-604. CHAPTER XI ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY PUBLIC school teachers are only beginning to recognize the big part which art in its broad sense has to play in the education of children. Perhaps few even yet see very distinctly that it may be a factor in the moral training of boys and girls, but its use to this end is easily demonstrable, though its teaching is to be justified upon other grounds more important. Instinctive basis of art. Love for the beautiful in form and color is perhaps instinctive. It is certainly universal. It is not confined to works of art as such, but is directed towards the common things of life as well. Indeed, nature itself furnishes us the inspiration for much of our art, since symme- try, harmony, balance and proportion in form and arrangement, to say nothing of beauty in color of every shade and hue, are exhibited with a prodigality that can not be overlooked. Trees, shrubs, grasses, flowers, and insects all are objects of beauty, giving pleasure to any child who is taught to open his eyes to them. Much of the decorative art which finds its way into the humblest homes as well as the homes of the rich is nothing more than con- ventionalized nature forms leaf or flower, vine or fruit applied to rugs, carpets, wall paper, 148 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME draperies, cloth, table linen, china, vases, and countless other things bought for utility. In the realm of fine art landscape paintings figure prominently. For these nature must furnish the basis. The artist must be skillful in his selection of a scene and a point of view. He must, moreover, be able to ignore or slight the natural elements that would mar the beauty of the whole picture and perhaps improve upon nature where that would serve his purpose. What makes art education moral. Art of the sort already mentioned is perhaps neither moral nor immoral. It is simply unmoral. And yet it is not an exaggeration to assert that a child who learns to appreciate a beautiful picture, even a landscape painting, and still more the child who learns to produce that which is beautiful for the enjoyment of others, is developing at least one phase of his morality. It must be remembered that morality is not a simple thing but a complex of many factors. Perhaps it is primarily concerned with such traits of character as honesty, truthfulness, . obedience, temperance, etc., yet among the duties which every one is called upon to sustain in his relationship with his fellows is that of giving pleasure instead of pain. Learning to produce art, therefore, and learning to appreciate and enjoy it is only another way of making life richer, more significant and more pleasurable for those about us. From this standpoint all art education is fundamentally moral education. Influence of the teacher's dress and personal appearance. In the development of a proper artistic taste in children the teacher may well begin ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 149 by taking account of her own dress and personal appearance. It is difficult to overestimate the effect of the teacher's example upon the lives and ideals of children, even in the lower grades. She heed not be gowned in the extremest fashions, nor does she need to be very expensively dressed. But anything less than scrupulous cleanliness of person and dress is unpardonable. If extravagance and extremes in dress are in bad taste in the schoolroom, niggardliness and carelessness are no less so. The teacher who permits her hair to " string " for lack of pins or a shampoo, who fastens her skirt awry, who knows not the wholesome effect upon children that comes from her frequent appearance in a clean, fresh shirt waist, or a bright new ribbon, is neither teach- ing her first important lesson in art appreciation nor is she doing what she might to develop in her pupils a proper consideration and respect for her and her authority. Influence of the schoolroom. If the appearance of the teacher is the first factor, that of the school- room itself is the second one of importance. Every teacher knows that a child has more respect for a clean room than for a dirty one. It is relatively easy to inspire in children a proper regard for a school building that is new, with new and attractive furniture throughout. But every scratch or line with pen or pencil, and every notch cut with a jack- knife upon seat or desk invites a new one. Frazzled and ragged window shades hanging athwart the windows; cheap, dust-covered chromos or last year's calendars hanging upon the walls, perhaps out of plumb ; a teacher's desk disordered and topsy- 150 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME turvy in the front of the room ; and bookcases and cabinets in confusion, with doors standing open, are all such powerful negative art influences that they go far towards offsetting whatever good might come from fifteen minutes per day devoted to drawing in the elementary school. The world is beginning to be very distrustful of any sort of course of instruc- tion in schools that does not modify taste and con- duct outside of that course. With this in mind, the teacher should not fail to recognize that good cooperative housekeeping in school is her first step to take in the development of art appreciation. Moral content of pictures. When we approach our problem more closely and attempt to show what the school can do for the child's moral education through art as a medium, we find the task more difficult. Perhaps the reason is that much which the school should do for his art education has nothing to do with his moral education. If beauty is its own excuse for being, and if " art for art'- sake " is justification enough for creating a work of art, as many, perhaps most, critics hold, then the school needs to be careful not to defeat the artist's purpose by trying to make his painting preach an unwarranted sermon to children. Goethe has been quoted 1 as saying : "A good work of art can, and will indeed, have moral consequences ; but to require moral ends of the artist, is to destroy his profession." Ruskin, on the other hand, is just as insistent that paintings shall be moral or religious in their effects, 1 Griggs, The Philosophy of Art, p. 12, ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 151 Disclaiming any critical judgment in matters of this sort, and frankly recognizing that he is unable to reconcile the opposing claims of two schools of art critics, the writer still thinks there is a wealth of the painter's art which has such obvious moral value for children that it constitutes a legitimate means for their moral instruction. As an illustration of possibilities in this direction, let us call attention to a few pictures which children should know. Whatever else may constitute the chief value of the following, their study can hardly fail to leave a distinct moral impression upon the young student. Landseer's pictures as examples. Landseer's " Distinguished Member of the Humane Society " is a painting of a large Newfoundland dog represented as a member of a life-saving crew. The nobility, intelligence, kindliness, and strength of the dog are all so well shown in the picture that an intimate acquaintance with it, with a few well-chosen stories of lives actually saved by Newfoundland, St. Bernard, or other dogs, must serve to increase a child's respect for this most faithful friend that man has among the dumb animals. If kindness to animals is a moral virtue worth cultivating in chil- dren, this picture of Landseer's offers one means of developing such a trait. A study of the picture as a work of art would involve some attention to detail to questions of motive, arrangement, light and shade, texture, and still other matters, perhaps. But our point is this and it applies with equal force to the other illustrations which follow - whatever use may be made of the picture from a purely artistic standpoint, it has moral significance 152 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME and can be used for moral ends without doing violence to its art side. "Shoeing the Bay Mare " is another of Landseer's well-known paintings admitting of similar treatment. Indeed, the child who through these two pictures is led to a study of Landseer's own life will have one more stimulus prompting right treatment of dogs and horses, too. Millet's pictures. " The Angelas," "The Gleaners," " The First Step," " Feeding Her Birds," " The Sower," " Shepherdess," and " Man with the Hoe " are six paintings by Millet, the famous French painter of peasant life in his native country. The first one of the group represents the simple piety of the humble toilers of the field. The angelus bell, rung morning, noon, and night, is a call to prayer. That its summons was not unheeded is shown by the reverently bowed heads of the two central figures in the picture. " The First Step " and " Feeding Her Birds " are two pictures which immortalize beautiful domestic scenes of great tenderness and simplicity. The whole group have this in common, that they arouse sympathy and admiration for humble folk whose patience, courage, toil, and pathos mark them as belonging to the heroic type which Millet knew so well and of which he was one. But these qualities, one and all, are either moral or religious, and their exhibition and contemplation may be made contributory, at least, to something of the same sort in children when presented as Millet has embodied them. Rembrandt. Rembrandt's " The Night Watch " lends itself to the teaching of patriotism, which is ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 153 the message the artist is alleged to have had in mind, though he was commissioned to paint merely a portrait. Religion in art. Turning from these we may mention a whole group of famous pictures, every one of which breathes the spirit of religion. Not to know them and not to know something of the artists who painted them is to confess ignorance of the most celebrated paintings and painters the world has known. Their very titles suggest, without comment, their religious themes and objects, and the character of the teachings they might reenforce. The list follows : Raphael's " Sistine Madonna," and his " Transfiguration." Titian's " Assumption of the Virgin." Michelangelo's " The Last Judgment." Rubens' " Descent from the Cross." Murillo's " Immaculate Conception." Correggio's " Holy Night." Da Vinci's "The Last Supper." Any class interested in the numerous legends clustering about the Holy Grail, and the literature embodying them, can profit by the " Sir Galahad," painted by Watts. This picture is justly popular with all classes, whether educated or not. In pictorial form it says just what Tennyson makes Sir Galahad say, "My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure." As long as motherhood is held as sacred, and as long as men are made better by cherishing the 154 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME memory of their mothers, Whistler's " Portrait of the Painter's Mother " will continue to have a moral value as a teacher. Examples need not be multiplied. The foregoing are meant to be suggestive only, but it must be evident that there is diversity enough in the range of worth-while art to make it possible, at least by indirection, to use art in such a way as to strengthen both moral and religious ideas and ideals in children, even though we concede the point that art does not exist primarily to preach a sermon or point a moral. Art for life's sake. --There is another view of art, or more accurately stated, another conception of its place in life, that seems to be growing in popularity recently. In contrast to the former phrase, " Art for art's sake," it is stated as " Art for life's sake." It seems to involve more of the ethical bearings of art than was possible so long as art had to do with statuary and paintings for the cultivated few, to be collected in galleries and museums or other reposi- tories more or less isolated from the walks of common men and women. It demands that beauty shall not be separate and apart from utility, but identified with and embodied in the useful object in the making. In the schools it is taking the form of a distinct arts and crafts movement in which pottery, jewelry, and useful articles made in the woodworking shops shall exhibit the artistic side of the work not less than the utilitarian side. In the drawing courses the tendency is more and more to apply the principles of decoration and design to something more useful and more substantial than a sheet of drawing paper. To this end the decoration of toys, of jars, boxes, ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 155 vases, bottles, garments made in household arts courses, etc., is taking the place of the older types of work done with pencil, charcoal, and water color. This it not quite the realization of the doctrines of such leaders as Emerson, Ruskin, Morris, and Elbert Hubbard, who insisted that " there should be no artificial combination of use and beauty, but the useful should be created as art." It is, however, a long step in that direction. Ruskin's view. In a series of lectures on art delivered by Ruskin before the University of Oxford in 1870, he stated that the great arts " can have but three principal directions of purpose ; first, that of enforcing the religion of men ; second, that of perfect- ing their ethical state; third, that of doing them material service." Whatever may be thought of the first two purposes he stated, there are abundant signs that his third purpose is being accepted very generally today. As we look about us and note the new applied forms of art today ; the growing interest in a more beautiful architecture, even for houses for residence ; the increased attention which is given to city Planning, to landscape gardening, to use of shrub- ery for artistic effect about our individual houses, and to the multiplied attempts to lessen the amount of ugliness in the surroundings of the masses of the people, where they live and where they work: we can not but be hopeful, even if changes are coming very slowly. Ruskin's writings in the Stones 0} Venice and Seven Lamps of Architecture, to say nothing of his numerous lectures, are beginning to have some influence upon our beliefs and practices, 156 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME even here and now. Some of his teachings of a half century ago laid down lines along which we shall doubtless make more rapid advance in the near future. Among the most pertinent of them, I quote the following : "Giving brightness to pictures is much, but giving brightness to life more. . . . To get your country clean, and your people lovely; ... I assure you that is a necessary work of art to begin with. . . . There has indeed been art in countries where people lived in dirt to serve God, but never in countries where people lived in dirt to serve the devil. ... All the arts are founded on agriculture by the hand, and on the graces, and kind- ness of feeding and dressing, and lodging your people. Greek art begins in the gardens of Alcinous perfect order, leeks in beds, and fountains in pipes. And Chris- tian art, as it arose out of chivalry, was only possible so far as chivalry compelled both kings and knights to care for the right personal training of their people. . . . From highest to lowest, health of art has first depended on reference to industrial use. There is first the need of cup ... to drink from. And to hold it conveniently, you must put a handle to it; and to fill it when it is empty you must have a large pitcher of some sort ; and to carry the pitcher you may most advisably have two handles. Modify the forms of these needful possessions according to the various requirements of drinking largely and drinking delicately ; of pouring easily out, or of keep- ing for years the perfume in ; of storing in cellars, or bearing from fountains, and you have a resultant series of beautiful form and decoration, from the rude amphora of red earth up to Cellini's vases of gems and crystal, in which series . . . are developed the most beautiful lines and most perfect types of severe composi- tion which have yet been attained by art. . . . After ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 157 recovering for the poor, wholesomeness of food, your next step towards founding schools of art . . . must be in recovering, for the poor, decency and wholesomeness of dress ; thoroughly good in substance, fitted for their daily work, becoming to their rank in life, and worn with order and dignity. "Men must desire to have their dwelling places built as strongly as possible, and furnished and decorated daintily, and set in pleasant places, in bright light and good air. . . . And when the houses are grouped to- gether in cities, men must have so much civic fellowship as to subject their architecture to a common law, and so much pride as to desire that the whole gathered group of human dwellings should be a lovely thing, not a frightful one, on the face of the earth. ... It is not possible to have any right morality, happiness, or art in any country where the cities are . . . clotted and coagulated ; spots of a dreadful mildew spreading by patches and blotches over the country they consume. . . . "The fine arts are not to be learned by Locomotion, but by making the homes we live in lovely, and by stay- ing in them ; the fine arts are not to be learned by Competition, but by doing our quiet best in our own way ; the fine arts are not to be learned by Exhibition, but by doing what is right, and making what is honest, whether it be exhibited or not ; and, for the sum of all, that men must paint and build neither for pride nor for money, but for love ; for love of their art, for love of their neighbor, and whatever better love may be than these founded on these." Caffin's view. In a recent book 1 the writer has one chapter entitled " The World's Need of Art " beginning, " This book, I hope, will make it clear Charles H. Caffin, Art for Life's Sake. 158 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME that Art is essential to life; that without it we can not conceive of Human Betterment." But he deplores the " arbitrary discrimination between artist and artistic craftsman/ 5 saying that it is " time that we freed ourselves from the cant of such dis- criminations. Other people are estimated according to their efficiency. Let us apply the same test to artists and recognize that an indifferent artist is nothing like as estimable, from the point of view of his output, as, for example, an efficient plumber." He suggests that we embrace in the term " artist," " Any worker in any art whatsoever, whose motive is to increase the Beauty of Life and Living and whose efficiency in his particular art is such that he ' delivers the goods.' } Griggs and the service of art. Griggs closes his Philosophy of Art with a kindred thought expressed as follows : "The service of art to the human spirit is not limited to the few, but is universal for all. Every one ought to be, not only a loving and appreciative student of the fine arts, but a creative artist in the form and color, the melody and harmony of life ; and for student and artist alike, art is not for adornment's sake, or preaching's sake, or pleasure's sake, not for the sake of gratifying the senses or exhibiting technical skill, not art for art's sake, but for lifis sake." Longfellow taught the same lesson in the following stanzas from " The Builders " : "In the elder days of Art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part ; For the Gods see everywhere. ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 159 "Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen ; Make the house, where Gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean." QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Upon what grounds do you justify drawing and painting in the public schools ? In what sense is fine art essentially unselfish ? 2. Show how it is possible to make a child's love for the beautiful "carry over" into respect for property. 3. Discuss the paragraph in the chapter calling atten- tion to the influence of the teacher's dress upon children. 4. Find and report pictures not mentioned in the chapter having values distinctly moral. How can they be used most effectively for moral ends ? 5. Distinguish between "Art for art's sake" and "Art for life's sake." Which of these views should have the larger place in the art work of the schools ? Why ? 6. Consider the relative values of different uses that may be made of pictures in the schoolroom ; analysis and study as a part of the language work ; exhibitions of traveling exhibits ; well-chosen pictures hung permanently in the schoolroom ; classes conducted to art institutes and museums ; lectures upon masterpieces of art. 7. What should be your attitude toward the pupil who loves to draw or paint when he does not have his arithmetic or geography lesson ? 8. Think of the picture or pictures that have made the most marked impression upon you, and account for their influence if you can. 9. Is there any moral influence in flowers, shrubs, and well-ordered lawns and gardens, clean alleys, and attrac- tive surroundings ? Does beauty in art and nature tend 160 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME to translate itself into beauty of character and conduct, or is this assumption a mere figment of imagination ? 10. What is the excuse for setting up in public places the statues of such men as Lincoln, Washington, Lafayette, orother great characters ? 11. Why does one branch of the Christian church make such liberal use of pictures, images, and statues ? 12. Distinguish between artist and artisan. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING CAFFIN, C. H. : Art for Life's Sake. Prang Educational Co. CASEY, WILLIAM C. : Masterpieces in Art. A. Flanagan & Co. GRIGGS, EDWARD HOWARD : The Philosophy of Art. B. W. Huebsch. VAN DYKE, J. C. : Meaning of Pictures. Scribner's. CHAPTER XII MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE "Nature, the vicar of the almightie Lord." CHAUCER, Assembly of Foules. "'Tis Elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand : Scripture authentic ! Uncorrupt by man." DR. E. YOUNG, Night Thoughts, Night IX. "How desolate were nature, and how void Of every charm, how like a naked waste Of Africa, were not a present God Beheld employing, in its various scenes, His active might to animate and adorn." CARLOS WILCOX, God Everywhere in Nature. "The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them, ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. For his simple heart Might not resist the sacred influences Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven 161 1 62 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound Of the invisible breath that swayed at once All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed His spirit with the thought of boundless power And inaccessible majesty." WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, A Forest Hymn. The moral aim not the chief aim. There are, of course, better and more direct ways of teaching a child religion, and of training him in the religious life, than through the avenue of nature study and science, but this is one legitimate way. There are more weighty reasons for teaching this subject than to teach either moral or religious truths, but this is one reason. Certainly the intellectual satisfaction that comes from understanding the secrets of nature, and the practical use to which much of this knowl- edge can be put, constitute the larger excuse for its study. But some of the greatest nature lovers, and some of its best interpreters, have been able to invest it with moral, and even with religious, idealism that is at least a wholesome thing for young students to know. Bryant and Wordsworth, for example, may well be studied in connection with nature study courses, for their spiritual interpretations need not detract from any purely scientific approaches to the subject, while their intense love for nature may be expected to kindle some of the same sort of feeling for it in the heart and mind of the young student coming into first-hand contact with it. Love for an object often follows an understanding of it, but more often it happens that love precedes and lights the way, making a more accurate under- THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 163 standing possible later on. If some one is ready to object that love is blind, he must at least admit that prejudice, and indifference, and hate are not less so, whether considered in relation to nature or to men and women. The best guarantee that a child will come to understand and know nature is for him first to love it. Then he will be ready to listen to its message and to hear its voice. Some teachers will agree with Wordsworth that : "One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can." But if one can not subscribe to this statement, he will at least admit that there are some moral and religious values that may result from it values inherent in the subject as well as the teacher who teaches it. If it fails in any individual case to result in such training, the explanation is to be sought in the mis- placed emphasis in the course, or in the character of the teacher. Reflex influence of their study upon scientists. It is worthy of note that most great naturalists and scientists have through their studies increased, if they did not induce, their belief in God as the Creator of the Universe. This is not a world of accident and chance, and any serious study of its phenomena is likely to lead one to a reverent recognition that it can not be accounted for without God. While there is not the opportunity in the public schools for a study of the profound aspects of nature and science, 164 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME such as demand an explanation of first causes in the sense that philosophy inquires after them, yet even the superficial and fragmentary studies appro- priate to children may be made to show nature as one of the revelations of God. What the psalmist was able to declare three thousand years ago, children ought to be led to see today that " the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." But grass and flowers, birds and trees, rivers and hills, and all else under and around us make the same sort of declaration and show the presence of the same hand. Huxley quoted. Spencer quotes Professor Hux- ley approvingly as saying at the close of a course of lectures that: " True science and true religion are twin-sisters, and the separation of either from the other is sure to prove the death of both. Science prospers exactly in proportion as it is religious ; and religion flourishes in exact proportion to the scientific depth and firmness of its basis. The great deeds of philosophers have been less the fruit of their intellect than of the direction of that intellect by an eminently religious tone of mind. Truth has yielded herself rather to their patience, their love, their single- heartedness, and their self-denial, than to their logical acumen." Nature study in relation to relaxation and pleasure. One indirect gain nature study offers in company with many other subjects is that a love for any phase of nature kindled in childhood gives direction to the pleasures and recreations of later life. A passion for the study of butterflies, beetles, flowers, stars, rocks, shells, trees, or anything else that may THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 165 be taken up as an avocation or a hobby for one's leisure, is a reasonable guarantee that unworthy degrading pleasures are not to have a very prominent place in one's life. There is more hope for a healthy morality in the child who, like Jaques, "Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything," than for the child of whom it can be said, as Words- worth said of Peter Bell, "A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." Tennyson holds up an ideal that is worthy of presentation to a class in nature study, when he writes : " Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is." Specific results : Regard for truth. If we ask for the specific results of scientific study it is not difficult to find some of them that are distinctly moral in their nature. One of them is a higher regard for truth. The scientist more than most men learns to make his words tally with the facts with which he deals. Guessing, exaggeration of statement, un- warranted use of superlatives, hasty generalizations, substitution of imaginative for perceptual and 1 66 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME judicial thinking, are all unscientific. A pupil's tendency in any of these directions is at least par- tially overcome by a study of science if the teacher is worthy of her place. The scientific spirit is an attitude of mind which can be fully satisfied with nothing less than truth. It is an attitude which tends to lessen the friction between man and man in all their mutual relations. Where this spirit prevails men govern their conduct, not in the light of prejudice or whim or desire, but in the light of facts as they are. They become less dogmatic and more tolerant. They tend to suspend judgment until the evidence is in. They learn to be modest in their assertions, knowing that fuller knowledge may change their beliefs. They are readier to con- cede the possibility of their being in error because they know so well that another may be in possession of a portion of the truth which they do not have. The scientific spirit leaves no room for bigotry, and its cultivation, therefore, makes men more congenial and more lovable as companions. It is no wonder that the poet has admonished us to " tear away the blinds of superstition " and to " sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs," and to throw our souls wide open to the light of reason and of knowledge, and further to " Be not afraid to thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole." The whole history of the study of science is a record of just such advance towards the freedom that only truth can give. There is no bondage worse than the bondage of ignorance and superstition. THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 167 No wonder, therefore, the Great Teacher said, " And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free/' Accuracy and fidelity. A second moral result from the study of nature and science is accuracy of observation and fidelity in reporting the thing observed. To be sure this is an intellectual achieve- ment, but one with a moral side to it. Perhaps no subject, unless it is mathematics, tends so to develop this trait in a student. Indeed, one's progress in science is almost wholly determined by his growing ability to observe and record with painstaking care. This accomplishment is a necessary prerequisite for the generalizations which find expression in the principles and laws which scientists have announced from time to time. Great scientists, therefore, have all been men who see, see minutely, observe details, record with accuracy, and report faithfully and with great exactness. Such a trait is of in- estimable value in enabling men to articulate with each other without friction in social relationships. In courts of law, in performing one's part in a contract, in fulfilling any promise, in serving as a witness in court, in multitudinous situations, indeed, one is able to serve himself and to serve society well to the degree to which he has cultivated this faculty. Nature study and health. In so far as nature study has meant a real first-hand study of nature in field and wood or other excursion in the great out- of-doors, it has promoted morals through the pro- motion of health and a better physique, in much the same way that play does it. There is general agreement that walking is one of the best forms of 1 68 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME physical exercise. There are but few muscles not called into use by it. In nature study excursions this exercise is combined with fresh air, sunshine, and an active, interested mind. The combination gives the basis, at least, for the sort of morality discussed in the chapter on play. Humane spirit. When the study has for its object an acquaintance with the life and habits of some animal in its own environment, and when it substitutes the use of a camera for that of a gun, a further good is being achieved in the cultivation of a humane spirit that must underlie a proper ex- hibition of morality. The child who learns to respect life, and not to cause unnecessary suffering, even to a toad, is making progress towards living in right relations with his fellow man. The sub- stitution of an interest in animal life from the stand- point of a student and a critical observer, is one of the safeguards against the tendency of boys to get their sport from a dog's distress when he runs with a tin can tied to his tail, or from the terrors of a cat that has been attacked by a dog urged on by thought- less or cruel boys. It is one of the privileges of the teacher to teach the truth stated by Coleridge that: "He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small ; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all." l Closely akin to the foregoing is a certain in- dependence of character that results from a study of things in nature study and science. Most teachers 1 " Rime of the Ancient Mariner." THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 169 have observed what Spencer long ago remarked concerning the study of languages, that the exclusive study of books tends to increase to undue proportions the respect for authority. One of the present-day aims in teaching pupils how to study is to make them independent in their thinking; to lead them to form conclusions of their own ; to enable them to see that books and writers are not infallible; and that submission to dogmatic assertions is not the mark of an independent mind. Every excursion into science; every attempt to learn something in nature from first-hand observation and experiment, offers an opportunity for the exercise of the in- dividual's judgment. Pupils may think out their own conclusions. They may test them when formed, through application to other data or phenomena. They learn to stand upon their own feet, and to use their own reasoning powers. Of course, books permit this sort of study, but their use to such ends is fraught with greater difficulty. Independence of character. It is the peculiar merit of science that it tends to develop independent thinking in a high degree. " There is," says Jordan, " the greatest moral value as well as intellectual value in the independence that comes from knowing and knowing that one knows, and knowing why he knows." Respect for law and order. --The discovery of natural law and of nature's obedience to her laws is a discovery of moral worth to children. The regularity with which day and night alternate, the seasons succeed each other, and the tides ebb and flow ; the constancy with which principles of gravity, cohesion, and capillarity are exhibited ; the depend- 170 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME ability of nature in always behaving so-and-so under given conditions all are good antidotes for a tendency on the part of the young to act from caprice, and without due regard for law and order. It is a valuable lesson to learn that this is an orderly uni- verse, and that men can live more happily in social relationships as they come to be dependable and constant in something of the same fashion that nature is. In the laboratory the immutability of nature's laws is an effective rebuke'of the carelessness and inaccuracy of the student. Before he learns how reliable nature is, a child will frequently try to deceive his teacher, telling him that he followed instructions exactly, and yet got an unexpected result. Later he learns, and he knows that his teacher knows, that if his results are surprising, he has not followed instructions with scrupulous care. His failure to get desired results is his own condemnation and must be so understood. Appreciation of economic values. In recent years there has been a decided swing of the pendulum away from the sentimental aspects of nature study, and from the aimless attempts of teachers to have children merely observe and name and catalogue various natural objects. In harmony with the larger tendency to make all education serve some useful purpose in life, nature study is becoming practical. Its economic side is being studied as never before. This change, however, serves to increase the interest of most students in the subject, and to reveal the moral bearing of many of its phases at the same time. To the boy who sees in a bird only something to kill, or in a bird's nest some- THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 171 thing to rob, it is a revelation to learn of the economic value of birds because of their capacity to devour insects that are known to be the enemies of man. A study of birds becomes a study of man's friends, and their protection a matter of moral significance because it means the promotion of the social good. Bird study may well include an observation of the birds common to a given locality, their migrations, their nesting habits, their natural enemies, their food, etc. Bulletins published by the government tell of crop losses aggregating incredible millions of dollars annually losses that might be prevented by encouraging the presence of birds that would feed upon the insects responsible for these losses. In the " Birds of Killingworth," Longfellow has made the Poet's Tale tell the tragic fate of a village which decided to kill the birds because they "Levied blackmail upon the garden beds And cornfields." The Preceptor made an eloquent plea for them, but in vain. The dreadful massacre began, and ended in a " very St. Bartholomew of Birds." Summer came, and all the birds were dead ; ". . . in the orchards fed Myriads of caterpillars, and around The cultivated fields and garden beds Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found No foe to check their march, till they had made The land a desert without leaf or shade." What Longfellow here teaches in poetic prophecy, the naturalist now tells as a prosaic fact. The 172 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Audubon societies are therefore trying everywhere to get children to become acquainted with birds, to see their aesthetic values, to befriend them, and to understand the large service they render to man- kind in their power to destroy the insect life which would so easily become a real menace to man but for their presence. It has been estimated that every toad in a garden is worth more than eighteen dollars per annum to a farmer or gardener as a destroyer of insects. If the ancient stories about the jewel he wears in his head are all myths, there is still abundant reason for an interest in the toad's marvelous eye, and in his life history and habits in general, since it has been de- monstrated that he is such a valuable friend of man. But it is not toads and birds alone that can be rated as friends of man, and objects of study worthy of a place in a nature study course. Angleworms as instruments for increasing the porosity of soil; bees as a medium for the pollination and fertiliza- tion of flowers and fruits ; clover and vetch and peas as laboratories for converting the nitrogen of the air into nitrates that will enrich our fields ; coal that stores up the sun's rays of a hundred years and holds them in the form of latent heat for untold thousands of years to give them up again as man needs them for heat and power ; vegetables for his food ; trees and rocks and iron for his houses, his machinery, his furniture, and his other comforts, tools, and con- veniences; gold and silver for his coin; water for his very life itself these and a thousand other things can be studied in relation to man and his needs in civilized society. There are uses of every THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 173 one that are distinctly moral. There are other uses just as plainly immoral. Any study of things in nature that aids the young student to become interested in the proper use and to refrain from the abuse of them is achieving a moral purpose. The conservation of our natural resources is a moral obligation resting upon us. Every bit of science which aids us in achieving this result, every scientific discovery and every application of the truths of science, which enable man to subdue nature for the social good, may rightly be regarded as possessed of moral significance. Relation to medicine, etc. The scientific studies carried on in the agricultural schools and experiment stations of the country are designed to make it easier to feed the world ; the patient researches of such bacteriologists as Koch and Pasteur enable society to relieve its members from sickness and suffering and to save them from premature death ; the work of Edison ministers to the comfort and convenience of mankind in scores of ways ; the scientist who dis- covered the relation between a certain kind of mos- quito and yellow fever was a moral benefactor. War and science. Today, when the United States is taking its part in the great international conflict, in the name of civilization and for the sake of humanity, though it feels that its cause is just it must depend for success upon the combined contri- butions of men of science in every field of endeavor agriculture, physics, and chemistry especially. Patriotism and a righteous desire to serve humanity are no more availing at a time like this, if compelled to fight alone, than are piety and a desire to save the 174 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME world upon the part of a preacher. To them must obviously be added a period of intellectual and other forms of preparedness before the minister can trans- late his desire into effective action. Just so is a great and patriotic nation finding that it can be effective only by enlisting and utilizing every type of scientific endeavor in the effort to translate its purpose and its ideals into effective action. Science in relation to Deity. Herbert Spencer, in his essay, " What Knowledge Is of Most Worth," undertakes to show that the answer is science, whether considered for purposes of discipline or guidance. Most of the essay is devoted to a con- sideration of its intellectual values with which we are not here concerned, but in briefly arguing for the religious value of science, he closes with this remarkable paragraph : "While towards the traditions and authorities of men its attitude may be proud, before the impenetrable veil which hides the Absolute its attitude is humble a true pride and a true humility. Only the sincere man of science and by this title we do not mean the mere calculator of distances, or analyzer of compounds, or labeller of species ; but him who through lower truths seeks higher, and eventually the highest only the genuine man of science, we say, can truly know how utterly beyond, not only human knowledge, but human conception, is the Universal Power, of which Nature, and Life, and Thought are manifestations." Dr. Hodge, who has perhaps given us the best book on nature study that has yet been written, says, in kindred terms : THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 175 "No one can love nature and not love its Author, and if we can find a nature study that shall insure a sincere love, we shall be laying the surest possible foundation for religious character." l Religion involves man's love for God, but the modern world has learned from Jesus Christ that man's love for his fellow man is a fair measure of his love for his God, and that his love of both can best be shown in service. The student who learns nature's secrets that she may be made to serve humanity is thus approaching God through a legitimate channel. It is one way of thinking God's thoughts and pur- poses after him, and of joining hands with the Almighty in acts of creation. Any natural science study that enables two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before ; and any that results in the transformation of a desert place into a garden, is a study that must be rated as moral in its results and may easily become religious. Lowell had a similar thought in mind when he wrote : "Who does his duty is a question Too complex to be solved by me, But he, I venture the suggestion, Does part of his that plants a tree." Certainly one of the fine exhibitions of altruism which we may find is that of the old man who plants an orchard or a tree for the benefit of a future genera- tion, knowing full well that he can not hope to live long enough personally to enjoy its fruit or its shade, 1 Nature Study and Life, p. 30. 176 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME The actual practical observance of Arbor Day in the schoolroom, if it is accompanied by such in- struction in the planting, growth, and care of shrubs and trees as is appropriate to a given soil or locality, is to be commended on moral grounds. It tends towards the development of the social and altruistic impulses as well as the more immediate aesthetic results which may justify it. By no means can it be shown that everything which it is worth while to study in nature has the intimate relation to man, his needs and satisfactions that the apple tree has, but Bryant's " The Planting of the Apple-Tree " points out much that is typical of a phase of nature study that is most profitable for elementary school study. Three stanzas of the poem are given below because they best embody this moral aspect of nature, this social relationship be- tween nature and human nature : "What plant we in this apple-tree ? Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the May-wind's restless wings, When, from the orchard row, he pours Its fragrance through our open doors ; A world of blossoms for the bee, Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, We plant with the apple-tree. "What plant we in this apple-tree! Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, And redden in the August noon, And drop, when gentle airs come by, That fan the blue September sky, THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 177 While children come, with cries of glee, And seek them where the fragrant grass Betrays their bed to those who pass, At the foot of the apple-tree. "And when, above this apple-tree, The winter stars are quivering bright, And winds go howling through the night, Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth, And guests in prouder homes shall see, Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine And golden orange of the Line, The fruit of the apple-tree." QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Does knowledge of nature and science tend most towards or away from a development of the spiritual nature in man ? Find what you can in the life of Bryant, Wordsworth, Agassiz, Audubon, Muir, Burroughs, Spencer, Darwin, Pasteur, Huxley, and others to con- firm or disprove your opinion. 2. Comment upon the quotation from Huxley. 3. Justify the statement of the text that a study of science results in a higher regard for truth. What do you understand by the "scientific method" as applied to subjects outside the realm of science ? 4. Add to the illustrations in the text to show that certain very practical aspects of nature study have social and moral values. Use illustrations from the discoveries of Burbank, Edison, Koch, Pasteur, and Lister to prove this statement. 5. Discuss the quotations in the text from Spencer and from* Hodge. 178 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 6. Justify the observance of Arbor Day upon moral grounds ; upon aesthetic grounds. 7. Try to estimate the relative importance to your own character, from the standpoint of initiative and inde- pendence, of knowledge gained through first-hand ob- servation, study, and experiment, and that which came from books and the authority of some one else. 8. Think of the scientific studies that have resulted in the use of antiseptics, disinfectants, vaccines, anaesthesia, refrigeration, gas masks, pasteurization, fertilizers of soil, rotation of crops, successful war upon mosquitoes, tubercle bacilli, and codling moths, and other achievements that may occur to you, and discuss them in the light of their moral worth. 9. Does increased scientific knowledge and insight make one more dogmatic and intolerant or add to his humility ? Comment upon the following statement : "To know one thing well is to know the whole universe." REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING FISKE, JOHN : Through Nature to God. Houghton Mifflin Co. HAMILTON, LADY CLAUD : Louis Pasteur, His Life and Labors. D. Appleton & Co. HODGE, CLIFTON F. : Nature Study and Life, chapter n. Ginn &Co. JORDAN, DAVID STARR: Nature Study and Moral Culture, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1896, pp. 130-141. McMuRRY, CHARLES A. : Special Method in Elementary Science, chapters n, v, and vi. Macmillan Co. SPENCER, HERBERT: Education: What Knowledge Is of Most Worth. Hurst & Co. CHAPTER XIII MORAL INSTRUCTION THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING Meaning of the phrase as used. In this chap- ter the term manual training is used in a broad and untechnical sense. Let it be understood to include the training which comes from using the hand freely, as well as the mind, whether in the house- hold arts and sciences, agriculture, mechanic arts courses, or trades. It may, indeed, be applied as aptly to the training which comes from useful labor done by children outside of school, provided it be done under such parental or other supervision that standards and ideals of excellence are required of the worker, and habits of a proper sort are set up. In fact, some children seem to need a certain con- tact with the world of industry and with men of practical affairs to appreciate the fact that the standards of conduct urged and held up in the best schools are not merely academic standards but the standards of the business and industrial world, and for that very reason have a place in the school. In so far, therefore, as a boy learns lessons in obedi- ence, punctuality, fidelity, accuracy, industry, neat- ness, politeness, self-control, reliability, initiative, and cooperation, he is learning valuable moral les- 179 i8o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME sons, whether they are learned in school, shop, home, store, or office. Crediting outside work. The slowly growing custom of giving children school credit for home and other outside work is based upon a recognition of this principle. The social and moral value of the work done by the farmer boy who does the morning chores before starting to school and the evening chores after his return, including, perhaps, the watering and feeding of the stock, gathering the eggs, milking the cows, chopping and carrying in wood; or by the girl who does such household work as preparing, or helping to prepare, the morn- ing and evening meals, washing dishes, making beds, sweeping, dusting, ironing, sewing, darning, and other homely but very necessary domestic tasks, is not surpassed and seldom equaled by the more formal manual and domestic art courses offered in our good schools today. Where parents are wise enough to require such service at the hands of their children today; or, assuming such wisdom, where the condition of life make it possible for them to give their children such an opportunity for service, there is not a large need for such courses in school. It is remembered, of course, that there are thou- sands of parents in village and city who have noth- ing worth while for their children, and particularly their boys, to do. For these the manual courses in school offer almost the only opportunity to teach the lessons discussed in this chapter. Manual training found its way into the elementary schools upon other grounds than moral ones, but it is doubtful whether many subjects equal it in moral THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 181 values, and for the " motorminded " child it is probably superior to most other subjects having a moral aim. The teacher trained only in academic lines is likely to have more respect for this late- comer into the curriculum if she consider what it has to commend it in this direction. Reformatories first to see moral value of work. The reformatories of the country recognized the moral effects of labor before the schools gave evi- dence of seeing them. The transformation of prisons and penitentiaries into reformatory schools and workshops is one of the most important social re- forms of modern times. In the former, prisoners were kept in idleness, and sometimes in solitary confinement for long periods of years, only to come out at last bitter and resentful against society for what was too often rightly felt to be its unjust treatment of them. In the latter, there are social contact, books, music, sermons, and, best of all, useful labor, to occupy most of the waking hours of every prisoner. The vice of idleness more than any other is scrupulously avoided. A trade is followed and often taught, while the habit of industry is one of the best fruits of a prison sentence. The story has often been told of a visit to a well-managed reformatory by a man who had several idle, worth- less sons. He was so impressed by the discipline of the institution, the regular habits, and the indus- try of its inmates that he wanted to know on what terms his sons might be admitted ! The story may not be true, but might well be so, since it illustrates a truth so well. It seems strange that manual training was not 1 82 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME earlier recognized as being a great formative agent in the development of substantial character; but its reformative influence having been demonstrated in a number of institutions, it was not difficult to conclude, and then to demonstrate, that it has no less value for the normal child as a factor in char- acter-building. Today no system of public schools worthy of the name can be found without some form of manual training in grades, high school, or both. Appeal to interests of children. Viewed from the standpoint of morality alone, several things can be claimed for manual training. First of all, it ap- peals to the native interests of many children who can not be sufficiently interested in books and bookish courses. Without interest in the thing studied it is difficult for any child to grow much in stability of character while pursuing it. It is not necessary here to review the opposing claims of the advocates of interest and effort in education. The reader who wishes to pursue this subject may find it profitable to consult Dewey's splendid mono- graph. 1 But it may be conservatively asserted that thousands of children have found in industrial sub- jects which constantly require the use of hand and mind at the same time, their first genuine interest in school. Every teacher knows that without such an interest many children are daily exhibiting such traits as indifference, laziness, tardiness, truancy, and disobedience traits and tendencies for which the intellectual and other acquisitions resulting from the work of the school are very slight compensations. 1 Interest and Effort in Education, THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 183 Indeed, there is ground for the fear that both teachers and parents have been altogether too blind in their devotion to the school and in their tacit assumption that a child will necessarily be better off for spend- ing eight or twelve years in school, regardless of his attitude and habits resulting therefrom. " In our thirst for information we have become school mad. I say it because we undertake to absorb practically every moment of the time of the child in his academic work, most of it with books dealing either with ancient affairs or with abstract information which, good though it is, can not constitute a sufficient prep- aration for a life in the present and with the con- crete." l Surely it is true that if there is not some- thing in the school that is compelling enough in its interesting appeal to overcome the vices named above, it is better to take a child out of school and surround him with such opportunities for a rational and wholesome response as will tend towards habits and attitudes that are moral. With an abiding faith in the power for good in our public schools, may we not believe that some children are so con- stituted that many of the most desirable elements of character in them are sacrificed ; sacrificed, too, when they might be conserved and developed, were the children not compelled to remain in school in- different and unresponsive to its appeals ? For some such children manual training has proved to be the interesting educative factor in the cur- riculum. For many more it would prove so, if more time could be given the subject, and if a more varied curriculum of manual subjects could be of- 1 Davenport, Education for Efficiency, p. 78. 1 84 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME fered. My attention was called some time ago to a few boys who were the bane of their teachers' lives until they were given permission to enter a school blacksmith shop for an hour every day. Under the stimulus of their newly found interest in the shop, they became tractable, dutiful, regular in their attendance, and finally resumed their dis- continued study of formal grammar even, with a fair degree of success. But the point illustrated is just this : that the type of schoolwork which really educates is one in which the child is interested ; and that manual activities awaken interests in many children who are unre- sponsive to academic appeals. The pity is that most of our schools have but a few lines of manual studies in their curricula, and so fail to awaken many in- terests that would easily be aroused by a more varied and differentiated manual course. A lesson from Tuskegee. One of the secrets of the success of the late Booker T. Washington's school at Tuskegee, Alabama, is to be found at this point. It offers opportunities in a score or more of manual lines, and really teaches as many trades. Every student there can find something of interest to him, and having found it, he can devote himself to it with an energy and a singleness of purpose and enthusiasm that make for the development of character as well as technical skill. Indeed, Booker Washington himself was in the habit of saying that he was not less concerned with the problem of mak- ing a better man out of a brick-mason than of mak- ing a better mason out of a man. He did both, to be sure, but he could not have hoped to give technical THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 185 skill to his students and with the same training leave a permanent stamp upon their character if he had not had for each one of them a type of work in which his interests were engaged to the point of taking hold of his will, the very citadel of his morality. In view of the great numbers of colored people who are illiterate and unskilled in the trades, it is no wonder that the founder of Tuskegee had pride in saying on so many occasions that " not a single graduate of the Hampton Institute or the Tuskegee Institute can be found today in any jail or state penitentiary." To my mind this is one of the best testimonials to the value of training in interesting manual lines along with academic and religious instruction, such as Tuskegee gives, in developing well-rounded and stable moral char- acter in a student. Plato made the mistake of con- founding knowledge and virtue, and the prisons of the country are eloquent witnesses of the fact that collegiate training of an academic sort is not always sufficient to produce a virtuous man. Work in relation to sympathy and appreciation. In a democracy like ours, in which so much depends upon a mutual recognition of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of the rich and the poor, the educated and the less favored, capitalists and laborers, the native-born and the alien, there are few things which tend more to develop the spirit of brotherhood and of mutual respect, sympathy, and esteem in opposing classes, than manual activities in which children of these classes may have a part side by side. A man may be so wealthy that his son will never be likely to face the problem of having 1 86 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME to work with his hands to earn his own living ; but if this son works at something, if he learns from actual experience what it means in time, in patience, in energy, in skill, to fashion a vase, or make a table, or hammer into shape and weld the links of a chain, he will likely develop a more wholesome respect and sympathy for his neighbor's son who can do these things better than he, and may perforce be compelled to do these or similar things as long as he lives. A man may regard the work of his wife in man- aging the household and directing the study, work, and play of his children as petty in its nature and not at all taxing her powers ; but the first time he is required to take her place for a day or longer, he is likely to develop a degree of sympathy for her and an appreciation of the magnitude of her task that he never felt before. Not long ago I watched one of my boys, a boy of fourteen, as he painted the interior of a bedroom in our home. It was a vol- untary service on his part and he had spent some hours upon the task before I observed him. It looked both simple and easy to do, but as I watched him at work I soon concluded that he was not as careful as he should have been to confine his paint to the walls, apply it evenly over the whole surface, and keep it off of the woodwork, surrounding doors and windows in these walls. Happily for both of us, I did not reproach him for carelessness, but asked for the brush that I might show him just how to do it well. In less than two minutes I learned that it was not half so simple a task for an amateur as it looked to be, and after a few smears and badly THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 187 directed daubs from my brush, I returned it to him, and with it I paid him the compliment his work deserved a compliment withheld at first because I could not know sooner how well he was doing. In these illustrations we may see one of the moral effects which come from any sort of manual or in- dustrial effort. It gives a basis for appreciation, for sympathy, for understanding, and for rightly evaluating the efforts of those who labor in these lines. The conflicts between capital and labor, between employers and employees, between pro- ducers and consumers in almost all lines of pro- duction, are unduly aggravated and heated ofttimes because the training and experience of these two classes have been too disparate to give a basis for the mutual sympathy, understanding, and tolerance necessary for harmony, cooperation, teamwork, and concessions that ought to be made to just demands at times. Inter-school athletics has reached a stage of development in many communities that permits a team and its rooters to cheer a splendid play made by the opposing team. A similar basis for un- derstanding the merits of an industrial game will make it easier for every one to commend, and in other appropriate ways suitably reward, the ex- cellent work done by the worker in whatever line it is exhibited. I confess that I feel like taking off my hat to thousands of skilled workers whose work makes it possible for me to enjoy comforts and conveniences that I could never secure without their services. This applies to the carpenters who built my house ; the cabinet-makers who made its furniture; the 1 88 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME man who sits in the cab with his hand on the throttle, master of the monster locomotive that pulls the train bearing me to a distant city while I sleep with a feeling of security not much less than I have when I retire for the night in my own home. Moral obligation of self-support. In vocational and even prevocational courses there is still another distinctly moral aim that may be realized. It lies in the courses wherein the student discovers his native bent, or having discovered it, continues to specialize as a student to increase his efficiency in his chosen career as a breadwinner. Among the most important of man's obligations is that of sup- porting himself and his family. The choice of a life career and the training for it are parts of the duty of each one of us. It is immoral to be a social parasite. Economic independence made pos- sible through a rational choice of a vocation and adequate training for it, is a prime consideration for good citizenship. Culture, enjoyment of leisure along aesthetic lines, and mental discipline as such, all have their place in the scheme of one's training, but more fundamental than these is the duty of self-support, of finding one's place in the world of workers. The world perhaps owes every man a living, and it stands ready to pay the debt, but only on condition that he make proper return in service of some sort which the world needs. It is, therefore, no mean type of morality which a student is acquiring when he learns, in school or out, those mechanical arts, that skill and technique, and those habits which can be made to function readily when he takes his place as a bread-winner. THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 189 Labor a fortification against vice. Not only is this a virtue in itself, but it is a bulwark which fortifies its possessor against the danger of many other vices. It is proverbial that the Devil finds something for idle hands to do. There are tempta- tions enough for any young man, to be sure, but* they are infinitely multiplied for the one who is not anchored in life by some worthy calling that demands most of his time and strength and talents during most of his waking hours. He is fortunate, there- fore, if he has been not merely educated in school, but educated for something, so that he can promptly find his place in the industrial or professional world on leaving school, without the opportunity or the temptation to sow a crop of wild oats while he has nothing else to do. The ranks of gamblers, drunk- ards, tramps, thieves, and other parasitical classes are recruited, for the most part, from men who not only have no worthier job, but no trade and no pro- fession whereby they can make an honest living. Any adequate training in morality, therefore, must include training in industry, and ought to increase a child's feeling that labor is dignified, honorable, and even obligatory for all men and women. It is important because it lessens vice, but is in itself a positive virtue. Service as the chief duty of man. --Training boys and girls to work is training them for service which must finally be regarded as the chief duty of man. The Great Teacher was able to say, .'" I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister/' On more than one occasion he taught that who would be great in the kingdom must become a servant. I go MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Paul, in writing to one of the churches of the day, acknowledged that he labored night and day that he " might not be chargeable to any of you/' Not to learn to do well some portion of the world's work is to miss one of the greatest moral obligations rest- ing upon us. Any manual training, therefore, using the term in its broad sense, that helps a boy or girl to discover the field in which he can work most happily and contentedly, and any later training that helps him to do that work most helpfully and effectively, is to be esteemed as a means of dis- charging this moral obligation. Agriculture, the mechanic arts, commercial sub- jects, various phases of engineering, the household arts all have a large place in the schools of the day because they have this combined moral and vocational trend. One of the suggestive and help- ful books l recently written for teachers is devoted to the very practical subject of vocational training and guidance, but the presupposition of nearly every chapter is that vocational guidance is fundamentally moral guidance as well. And so it is. Parents and teachers who succeed in guiding children into the most appropriate channels for life-work are com- pelled to consider the moral aspects of this work, and at the same time they have a right to think of a proper vocation as itself one of the moral assets of its possessor. 1 Davis, Vocational and Moral Guidance. THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 191 1. Show the psychological basis for manual and in- dustrial courses in school. Can courses in reading, history, geography, and mathematics be made to utilize so fully the instinct for construction and self-expression ? Why? 2. Discuss the sociological need of such courses in school today as compared with their need a generation ago. Enumerate the activities in which boys and girls formerly had a daily part in the home and upon the farm, and show whether you see in them an excuse for more or less attention to manual courses in school today. 3. From the following list of habits and ideals, show what ones a teacher might reasonably expect to set up or modify in his pupils through a manual course : (a) obe- dience ; (b) initiative ; (c) accuracy ; (d) neatness ; (e) cooperation ; (f) industry ; (g) sympathy. Has it been your observation and experience that any or all of these habits do result from such courses ? What can you say of the relation of such habits and ideals to character ? 4. Make a list of the leading men and women of your city and community those most active and influential in industrial, civic, moral, and religious lines. What do you know of their early training? To what can you ascribe their leadership ? 5. Should the girl from a wealthy home be expected to take any course in domestic science or art ? Justify your answer. If a boy resolves early in life to become a professional man, ought he take any manual or indus- trial course in school ? Why ? 6. Account for the influence of the school at Tuskegee upon the character of the negro. What influence has this school had upon public school education in the United States ? 192 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 7. What are the leading differences between the peni- tentiaries of the past and the reformatories of today ? Compare the results achieved in the two types of institu- tions. Discuss the aphorism, "We must not only be good, but be good for something." 8. Upon what theory of the function of the school is based the growing custom of giving credit for home work ? What is the effect of this practice upon the child so credited ? List the kinds of work for which credit is given in various schools. 9. What can the school do to dignify labor in the mind of pupils ? Read Lucy Larcom's An Idyl of Work> especially the preface. (See also "Working Together," Book IV, of the Edson-Laing Readers.) 10. Comment on William Hawley Smith's definition of an educated man : "An educated man is one who is on to his job." 11. Comment upon the following: "It is better to have a boy of nine or ten make a rickety, unsteady, likely-to-fall-any-minute table because he wanted to make it, than a whole wilderness of beautifully made miter joints, dovetails, T-joints, and the like, just be- cause they happened to be a part of the regular schedule of manual exercises." REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING ALDERMAN, L. R. : School Credit for Home Work. Houghton Mifflin Co. BATES, R. CHARLES : Possibilities of Manual Training for Moral Ends, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1901, pp. 270-275. DAVENPORT, EUGENE : Education for Efficiency, chapter iv. D. C. Heath and Co. DEWEY, JOHN : Democracy in Education, chapter xm. Mac- millan Co. HIRSCH, EMIL G. : The Moral Aspect of Industrial Education^ Educational Review, Vol. XXXV, pp. 449-454, CHAPTER XIV MORAL TRAINING THROUGH PLAY, PHYSICAL CULTURE, GAMES, AND ATHLETICS Attitude of the Puritans. Happily for children there are few people who still question the value of Elay. Our stern puritanical ancestors may have liled to distinguish between play and laziness. Many of them looked upon both as the enemies of work and of religion, and regarded both as impious in origin, and baneful in their effects upon character. In colonial times, especially, children found it difficult to give wholesome expression to the play instinct since their elders were convinced that it was devilish in its genesis, and an evidence of an unregenerate nature. Since those times there has been a gradual growth in tolerance and liberality of belief and practice upon the part of the church. Influence of the new psychology. Within the last twenty-five years this growth has been quick- ened by the development of a " new psychology " which is most strikingly shown in the new psychology of childhood and , adolescence. The modern psy- chologist has taught ministers, parents, and teachers to look for the springs of a child's conduct and the explanation of his behavior in those instincts, im- pulses, and racial tendencies that date back to the childhood of the race. Play viewed in this light is 193 194 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME no longer to be thought of as a pathological distor- tion of religion, but a biological necessity, as beauti- ful as it is natural and proper. No matter whether it is explained, as Spencer did it, by the " surplus energy " theory, or by the more commonly ac- cepted theory of Groos that it is nature's way of preparing young animals, including children, for their more serious duties of adult life, it is a phe- nomenon to be utilized and not to be inhibited as something inherently evil in itself. Teachings of Plato. Plato's scheme of educa- tion is set forth in considerable detail in his Republic, in which music for the soul and gymnastics for the body are advocated ; but he anticipated present-day beliefs when, in Book IV, he wrote, "Our youth should be educated in a stricter rule from the first, for if education becomes lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and meritorious citizens. . . . And the education must begin with their plays. The spirit of law must be imparted to them in music, and the spirit of order, attending them in all their actions, will make them grow ; and if there be any part of the state which has fallen down, will raise it up again." Aristotle's Politics has this to say of the first few years of a child's life (to the age of five) : "No demand should be made upon the child for study or labor lest its growth be impeded ; and there should be sufficient motion to prevent the limbs from being inactive. This can be secured, among other ways, by amusement, but the amusement should not be vulgar or tiring or riotous. The directors of education, as they are termed, THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 195 should be careful what tales or stories the children hear, for the sports of children are designed to prepare the way for the business of later life, and should be for the most part imitations of the occupations which they will here- after pursue in earnest." Quintilian commented upon the importance of relaxation and play in the following paragraph : "Yet some relaxation is to be allowed to all; not only because there is nothing that can bear perpetual labour (and even those things that are without sense and life are unbent by alternate rest, as it were, in order that they may preserve their vigour), but because application to learning depends on the will, which cannot be forced. Boys, accordingly, when re-invigorated and refreshed, bring more sprightliness to their learning, and a more determined spirit, which for the most part spurns com- pulsion. Nor will play in boys displease me ; it is also a sign of vivacity ; and I cannot expect that hej who is always dull and spiritless will be of an eager disposition in his studies, when he is indifferent even to that excite- ment which is natural to his age. There must however be bounds set to relaxation, lest the refusal of it beget an aversion to study, or too much indulgence in it a habit of idleness. There are some kinds of amusement, too, not unserviceable for sharpening the wits of boys, as when they contend with each other by proposing all sorts of questions in turn. In their plays, also, their moral dispositions show themselves more plainly, sup- posing that there is no age so tender that it may not readily learn what is right and wrong; and the tender age may best be formed at a time when it is ignorant of dissimulation, and most willingly submits to instruc- tors ; for you may break, sooner than mend, that which has hardened into deformity. A child is as early as 196 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME possible, therefore, to be admonished that he must do nothing too eagerly, nothing dishonestly, nothing without self-control ; and we must always keep in mind the maxim of Virgil, Adeo in teneris consuescere multum est, 'Of so much importance is the acquirement of habit in the young/" * Influence of Froebel. Froebel was perhaps the first great educator to appreciate the educative pos- sibilities of what we now know as the play instinct, though the good he saw in it for the training of the kindergarten child is now generally admitted to be little less deserving of a place in the scheme of edu- cation for older children and even adults. Of this truth the most obvious witness is the growth in num- bers and popularity of gymnasiums, playgrounds, and play apparatus. Cities and schools spend large sums of money to this end; employ supervisors of play, athletic coaches, and recreational directors ; close busy streets to traffic in the neighborhood of schools certain hours of the day in some cities ; and sometimes buy and tear down costly business houses to provide parks and playgrounds for chil- dren. Our conception of the place of play in life has so far changed, that one well-known writer 2 as- serts even that " the man who does not play in some way soon degenerates." With these preliminary general statements as a background, let us note the bearing of play upon the moral life of the child. Play and a physical basis for morality. It tends to give a better physical basis for a sound 1 Institutes of Oratory, chapter iii. 2 Kirkpatrick, The Fundamentals of Child Study, p. 151. THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 197 morality. The development of a physiological psy- chology has brought with it a new appreciation of the relation of morality and even religion itself to physical health. There is abundant clinical evi- dence of perversions of moral conduct on the part of children that were due to physical causes, and of moral reformation effected by a proper application of the surgeon's knife or a building up of the physical condition of the sufferer. Every one knows how closely related is pessimism to poor health, and how difficult it is for a dyspeptic rightly to evaluate the motives and acts of his fellow men. One need not be so badly afflicted as Job was to feel tempted to curse God and die, even if one inhibits the impulse. On the other hand, it is easiest to say with Brown- ing that " God's in his heaven All's right with the world ! " when one is feeling the buoyancy of abounding health and life. This relationship is well illustrated in the biblical story of Elijah* who lay down under the juniper tree, wearied and fatigued from his lonely travel, and crushed by the thought of his persecu- tions and the destruction of the Lord's prophets. In this condition it was easy for him to yield to the wish to die. It was then that his attention was arrested by an angel who bade him rise up and eat the provisions he had brought him. He did this and then slept a few hours. Awaking again, he once more ate and drank as bidden, and thus re- freshed with food, drink, and sleep, he was able to resume his journey and ultimately to hear the reassuring voice of the Lord once more. 1 98 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Now play is a physical tonic. Being instinctive, it is spontaneous, interesting, and exhilarating. It is indulged in by children with an abandon and a zest that seldom characterize work. It is almost always suited to the development and the powers of the one playing, since it is prompted from within and is done for its own sake. Work, on the other hand, is more likely to be done as a result of an in- fluence from without the worker, and for the sake of something ulterior which can be gained by the work. For this reason it may unduly tax the strength of the worker, or with a slighter stimulus, it may not sufficiently engage his powers, to be of physical benefit. But in the case of play, the de- gree of energy used and the state of mind accom- panying the act are both such as to result in a maximum of physical benefit in a minimum length of time. The result of free play, therefore, is al- most always a promotion of bodily functions and an increase of bodily vigor which we are justified in assuming as a foundation for a healthy morality. In play, a child is not only promoting his health and his more general bodily functions, but he is thereby developing certain brain centers which make pos- sible the completion of his sensori-motor circuits. In this way he comes into possession of a better neural basis for both intellectual and moral activities and in turn makes of his body a readier and more responsive instrument with which to express his mental and moral purposes. In subnormal children there is almost always a poor coordination of move- ments, and an awkwardness that is indicative of feeble control of accessory muscles. Free play, THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 199 physical exercises, and gymnastics can not supply the nerve centers that are deficient in structure in such cases, but they can develop their capacity to function, and in so doing increase the intellectual keenness and agility of the child. Even a child's self-respect is increased as he comes into possession of his powers as an individual. His confidence in himself grows with the development of his own personality. Every young child discovers himself in large measure through the medium of play, and in so doing prepares the way for his later develop- ment as a social being, for one needs to recognize himself as an individual before he can become a socialized unit of a larger group. James L. Hughes, in an address before the National Education Association, 1896, on " Physical Train- ing As a Factor in Character Building," said in part : "Physical culture influences character by making the body more definite, more forceful, more graceful, and more free. The improved attitude of the body reacts on the character in two ways. The functions of the vital organs are more fully performed because they are more free, and the character therefore gains in force; and the consciousness of erectness and poise brings with it an added consciousness of self-faith, dignity, and in- tegrity. The body becomes in time an external mani- festation of the character. The motions of the arms, the step, the habitual attitude, the poise of the head, even the way the fingers and thumbs are used or held, reveal to the experienced observer the character behind them. To a certain extent it is equally true that the body by its attitudes and its modes of action influences the mind. Body and mind are so intimately interrelated that the one necessarily reacts on the other. Make the 200 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME sweep of the arms more free and you widen the conception of freedom, and register the new conception on the brain and nerve centers by effecting changes in their develop- ment, their structure, or their paths of action to corre- spond with the new movements they have been required to direct. Change that boy's step from that shuffling gait, and make a definite free step habitual, and you have helped to change his character. That poor boy whose knees bend weakly as he stands, lacks moral fiber as well as physical definiteness. Straighten his knees and you have done a good deal to straighten and define his char- acter." Play as a revelation of character. In their play at home and school, children are more likely to exhibit their real selves, with whatever of moral strength and weakness they have, than in the class- room. In the latter there is a certain artificiality that is unavoidable. There is a standard of conduct to which children are required to conform, and the teacher may not always know how foreign it is to the real bent and will of some of them. If a child is selfish, unkind, cruel, or vulgar, these qualities will be exhibited upon the playground. A child is not likely to pose here. As Everett says, " There is, perhaps, no time in the world when a person shows himself for just what he is as truly as he does when he is amusing himself. Then he has no rules to observe ; he is off his guard, and whatever of good or bad there is in him is likely to show itself." 1 But every such exhibition is the teacher's opportunity. She must find appropriate ways of dealing with children, what- ever their individual weakness or moral needs. 1 Ethics for Young People. THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 201 Through the development of group standards of moral- ity that will rebuke the immoral child, through iso- lation, through punishment, through interviews that will attempt to show the ugliness of the acts she condemns, and to set up a better standard and ideal of behavior, she will minister to individual children as they need. She will do it persistently, in charity, and without fear of possible unpleasant consequences. She will do it, too, mindful of the fact that there are likely to be repetitions of the fault she is laboring to correct, for habits, dispositions, and attitudes are not permanently and instantly changed in a pupil, even when he is led to will with the teacher to have them so changed. The playground a cradle of democracy. The playground is the real cradle of democracy for chil- dren. Here they quickly learn to respect the rights of others in their miniature world. Often a child comes to school from a home in which he is petted and spoiled by overindulgent parents who prevent friction by uniformly yielding to his im- perious will. But on the school playground this is very properly changed. Such a child soon comes into conflict with others as commanding as he and sometimes with better right. Leadership is re- spected, but it must be leadership based upon quali- ties which the group can endorse. The will of the majority prevails. The pupil who sets himself in opposition to it soon loses caste and is whipped into line sooner or later by a social ostracism which the playground knows well how to inflict. Teamwork and moral training. But it is in the " teamwork " of the upper grades and the early 202 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME adolescent years that the playground has its largest opportunity to give moral training. No game can be played successfully until the players learn to subordinate themselves as individuals to the group composing the team. Cooperation is required. The honor of the team, or the reputation of the school, is at stake. The individual must be will- ing to go into eclipse, if need be. He must occa- sionally make a " sacrifice hit " that somebody else may make a " home run." He must play the game and play it " fair." Unnecessary and intentional personal fouls not only discredit the player who makes them, but react to the lessening of his team's chances to win. I can not do better here than to quote the words of a great teacher who sees the spiritualizing influence of the school as a social unit carried from the classroom to the playground. * There," he says, " a boy learns to play fair, ac- customs himself to that greatest of social ties, r esprit de corps. Throughout life a man needs con- tinually to merge his own interests in those of a group. He must act as the father of a family, an operative in a factory, a voter of Boston, an Ameri- can citizen, a member of an engine company, union, church, or business firm. His own small concerns are taken up into these larger ones, and devotion to them is not felt as self-sacrifice. A preparation for such ennoblement is laid in the sports of child- hood. What does a member of the football team care for battered shins or earth-scraped hands ? His side has won, and his own gains and losses are forgotten. Soon his team goes forth against an outside team, and now the honor of the whole school THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 203 is in his keeping. What pride is his ! As he puts on his uniform, he strips off his isolated personality and stands forth as the trusted champion of an institution/' 1 Moral and hygienic habits fostered. Other moral values are coupled with this in insistence upon a reasonable academic and scholarly standard as a requirement for membership in a contesting team ; in the weeks or months of practice and drill in preparation for a contest ; in the regulation of the players' diet that they may become physically fit and efficient; in prohibiting their use of tobacco and any sort of drink whose use is known to result in unsteady nerves and lowered vitality. An un- solved problem, as yet, is how to make this sort of training " carry over " and become the rule of life after the practice season is over for the players; but the moral values of such training are not to be despised even if the regulations imposed by it for a season are not voluntarily imposed and maintained later on. Perhaps the greatest test of the moral value of competitive games and inter-school athletics is the spirit and ideals fostered by them. If they result in a mastering passion to win at any price, they de- serve condemnation. It is a part of the moral training of any team and of any school to learn how to accept defeat. There is more honor in an honorable defeat than in a dishonorable victory. Principals, teachers, captains, and coaches can not too strongly stress this fact with their players and 1 Palmer, " Essay on Moral Instruction in the Schools," in The Teacher. 204 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME schools. Clean athletics both reflects and promotes a high type of morality. Any other kind is so im- moral in its effects upon the players that it can not be defended at all. A team that can not go from home and refrain from rowdyism, profanity, and drinking would better be disbanded. No victory is a suf- ficient compensation for the stain which such con- duct gives. Even war has its rules which civilized nations engaged in it are bound to respect. Recently a great nation has brought upon itself the condem- nation of the civilized world by a disregard for the regulations thus imposed. Not less surely does a team in school incur the displeasure and the dis- respect of other teams if it violates the rules of the game which it is assumed all teams will follow. " A decent respect for the opinions of mankind " is an impelling force in making individuals and teams as well as nations conform to moral law in their behavior. Supervised playgrounds a necessity. As teach- ers and parents come to appreciate the educative value of play, supervision of play at school becomes the policy of schools more and more, and supervised municipal playgrounds are maintained in growing numbers through the long summer vacations. The advantages of supervision are twofold. First, it makes possible a better distribution of the privileges of the playground. Younger children are given their opportunity to play appropriate games without molestation by thoughtless and sometimes selfish older ones. To secure this result it is necessary for principals and teachers to assign different portions THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 205 of the school grounds to the different grades or age groups, and still further to designate certain portions for girls and others for boys. There is an increasing tendency, too, where grounds are small, for dif- ferent groups or grades of pupils to be given their recess or play period at different times of the day. One group, e.g., may use the grounds from ten to ten-fifteen; another, from ten-fifteen to ten-thirty; and still another, if necessary, for the quarter of an hour following. The second advantage is that the supervisor can really teach children what to play as well as how to play it. Though they have the play instinct, with- out guidance it may express itself in relatively un- satisfactory lines, just as the collecting instinct is no guarantee that pupils will busy themselves with profitable kinds of collecting unless their activities are guided into proper channels. But a more obvious advantage resulting from the presence of a teacher or supervisor on the play- ground is that of detecting the bully, the quarrel- some, profane, vulgar, or other child who may ex- hibit qualities that tend to lower the standards of the group. " It is true," as Colvin and Bagley put it, " that the cheat will be detected, and it is true that under certain conditions a much more effective punishment will be meted out to him by his fellows than the cleverest supervisor could devise. But these conditions do not always govern the situation. If the cheat happens to have the qualities of leadership he will infect with his virus a goodly following among his companions ; and the evil, which is bad enough when individually expressed, runs riot through the 206 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME entire social group. It has been found that un- supervised playgrounds in our large cities are veri- table hotbeds of vice, and the same may be true of unsupervised recesses and noon intermissions in the school. Where large numbers of children con- gregate, the welfare of society demands that a re- sponsible adult be present, with full authority to check in the bud the first expression of a dangerous tendency." 1 QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. State the two attitudes toward children's play and give reasons for your belief in the correctness of one of them. 2. Discuss the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian concerning the value of play. How far in advance of their ideas are we in theory today ? In practice ? 3. How are the teachings of Froebel modifying the practice of schools today ? Is his influence extending above the kindergarten ? Illustrate. 4. What useful suggestion comes to teachers from the big place given in Young Men's Christian Associations to the gymnasium and all its physical activities ? Why do busy business and professional men give up a portion of their time to golf or other forms of recreation ? 5. In what respect does the playground offer a better opportunity than the schoolroom for ministering to the moral side of a child's life ? 6. Cite instances that have come under your personal observation showing the playground as the cradle of democracy. Think of its place in democratizing children of foreign birth. 7. What can the school do to foster "clean sport" ? 1 Human Behavior, p. 158. THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 207 8. Is there sufficient attention given to the athletic needs of all the children in the schools today ? 9. What are the advantages of supervised playgrounds f The disadvantages, if any ? 10. What have you done to lead your board or your community to enlarge your playground if it is too small ? To equip it with needed playground apparatus ? Does a rural school need play apparatus ? Give reasons for your opinion. n. What suggestion to teachers and parents do you find in these words from Jane Addams : "Much vice is merely a love for pleasure" ? 12. In what sense was the Duke of Wellington right when he said the Battle of Waterloo was won on the play- grounds at Eton ? REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING ADDAMS, JANE : The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. Macmillan Company. FORBUSH, WILLIAM BYRON : The Boy Problem. The Pilgrim Press. GRIGGS, EDWARD HOWARD : Moral Education. B. W. Huebsch. JOHNSON, G. E. : Education by Plays and Games. Ginn & Co. KING, IRVING : Education for Social Efficiency, chapter vn. D. Appleton & Co. KLAPPER, PAUL : Principles of Educational Practice, chapter v. D. Appleton & Co. QUINTILIAN : Institutes of Oratory. CHAPTER XV MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION Modern schools train for life work. - - The best schools are endeavoring to set boys and girls to thinking of their life work even while in the grammar grades. The most highly developed junior high schools of the present day have come into existence in response to the demand, in part at least, for a richer variety of school experiences that would do one of two things for their pupils either give training that will better fit some of them for their immediate practical needs if they must get into the world of industry at an early age, or give them a better opportunity to discover their special talents and native bent so that they make their later school work minister more pointedly to that end. Vocational direction in Grand Rapids schools. Various means have been utilized to achieve the same general result. Grand Rapids, Michigan, e.g., has long been famous for its work in English, having a distinct vocational trend. The reading assigned and the reports of the students in class, whether oral or written, are all such as give desirable information concerning a large number of vocations and callings. If one student makes a special study 208 THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 209 of cabinet-making, another of millinery, another of nursing, another of civil engineering, another of salesmanship, one of landscape gardening, one of plumbing, another of printing, and so on, the report of each is listened to with eager attention by the whole class, for each one is making a contribution growing out of reading and investigation that others have not been privileged to do. Basic moral requirements. But whether this vocational work is done as a part of the English course, or as a distinct course, as it is in the Junior High School of Decatur, any detailed and analytical study of the various callings of men and women will reveal that there are certain basic moral principles underlying and common to them all. The greater and more widespread the study, the clearer the lesson to the student that there is no permanent and desir- able success in any kind of business that can be built up apart from character, and no kind so humble in its nature or so technical in its demands that it can stand without a moral foundation. Many parents endeavor to teach this very lesson to their own children, but when pupils learn it through their study of the lives of successful men and women, through a first-hand contact with business and pro- fessional men to whom they are directed for informa- tion, or from the letters of prospective employers emphasizing the traits desired in the boy or girl wanted, the parents' teaching has the sort of reen- forcement it needs to make it effective to the largest degree. Temperance is a virtue that can be urged upon many grounds, but boys who are about to find a 210 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME place in the industrial world will find in the demands of industry one of their strongest motives for its cultivation. There are scores of callings absolutely closed to the man who indulges in the use of alcoholic drinks, chief among them being railroad positions. But the shops, factories, stores, and offices that will not employ a boy or man who is intemperate are numbered by the thousand. Truthfulness and honesty are easily discovered by the student to be essential in every situation. A dishonest man is not wanted in any reputable busi- ness. Even promptness in paying one's bills and meeting his obligations goes a long way towards establishing one's reputation and insuring his success. There is no form of security that reaches farther than character in the conduct of business. The man who habitually makes his word as good as his bond is the man who can get credit when he needs it. Courtesy is another virtue which may easily be shown to have an important place in most callings and professions. There are clerks and saleswomen so polite and courteous that they make shopping a delight for the customers and patrons of their store. There are others so ungracious and so inconsiderate of both their employer's and his patrons' interests that one may leave their counter with a resolution not to visit the store again unless compelled to do so. A certain city has three important railroads connect- ing it with Chicago, and the train service, hours of departure, fare, and time required to reach the latter city are almost identical. But there is an agent in one of these three offices so superior to the others in courtesy that scores of people uniformly THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 21 1 choose his road for making the trip. His courtesy is literally worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to his employers annually. The pupils in any class, when set to thinking along this line, can give numerous illustrations of the same general sort. The habit of smoking, and smoking cigarettes particularly, is one that is under social condemnation in so many quarters, that this fact may be used with boys as one of the most effective arguments against it. A boy may think what he will about the innocence of the cigarette habit. He may honestly believe that his parents are unduly concerned about him, and that they are prone to exaggerate the evils of his habit; but when he learns that many em- ployers will not hire a boy who smokes cigarettes, he has a piece of valuable information that directly relates itself to his habits on the one hand and to his occupational life on the other. Punctuality, fidelity, dependableness, industrious- ness these are other moral qualities easily dis- covered to be among one's assets, whatever his calling. Curtain lectures upon the value of these virtues may not be very powerful agents in estab- lishing them, but when a boy learns of their relation to his success out in the world, they are at once invested with a sense of reality and importance that they did not have before. Professional ethics. But besides these moral prerequisites, common to almost all successful callings, there are a number of virtues essential to success that are more or less peculiar to any given calling. For example, the ethics of the medical profession requires that a doctor be willing to keep a 212 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME professional secret. He must not gossip about his patients. It is almost as inexcusable in him if he discusses matters pertaining to his patients' diseases as it would be for a priest to reveal to others secrets that come to him via the confessional. In like manner, secretarial positions all require a dis- creet silence at times. One's secretary must be entrusted with matters which can not be publicly discussed. A secretary who has not learned how mischievous her tongue may be is not fitted for her position, whatever her other good qualities. A teacher, finally, need not be superior to other people in many respects, but she can not succeed in her calling unless she has a high degree of patience and of sympathy. Lacking these she ought not try to teach. One may work upon wood or iron and do no violence to these materials even if largely lacking in these two respects, but teaching young im- pressionable lives calls for an hourly exercise of both patience and sympathy, and a lack of them upon the teacher's part must inevitably be to the hurt of the child. Initiative and self-reliance may be shown to be valuable qualities which contribute largely to one's success in any field of endeavor. But in certain positions they are indispensable. Any kind of supervisory, managerial, executive, or administrative work demands the presence of this virtue. Assuming new responsibility always tends to develop such latent powers as one may have. But some people are born to be leaders; others may not do more than be good followers, and do faithfully and well that which is prescribed and outlined for them. THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 213 Industry, persistent, everlasting work, is easily discovered to be a moral asset to the youth who would succeed. Lives of successful men nearly all show that their success was builded upon industry as one of the cornerstones. Even Edison has denied that inspiration has been as big a factor in his in- ventions as perspiration. The most valuable type of genius is the genius for hard work, long weary hours of it. Not long ago I rode for some hours with a banker. Our conversation was soon directed towards another banker, a mutual friend of ours, president of an institution of considerable importance. My travel- ing companion related how this mutual banker friend had always been a hustler, a worker, a leader in whatever engaged him. " As a young man on the farm," said he, " he was the first one of his neighborhood to husk a hundred bushels of corn in a day. People used to come for miles around to see him do it." Examples can be multiplied in any field the farm, factory, law office, teaching pro- fession, pulpit, commercial enterprise to show that industry counts, that laziness can not succeed. In the published proceedings of the N. E. A. for 1916 is a paper presented at the Detroit meeting of the Department of Superintendence by Milton Fairchild, upon "The National Morality Codes Competition." In his paper he refers to, and quotes, ' The Code of Successful Workers," as formulated by the National Institution for Moral Instruction. Because it is an excellent summary of just such principles as we have discussed in this chapter, I quote the following paragraphs from it : 214 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME The Ethics of Work "This 'Code of Successful Workers' has been formu- lated from personal experience by many men and women who have achieved great success as workers. It presents their personal attitude toward their work, and reveals the sort of people they have striven to make of them- selves. It is true and reliable. It is offered as a means by which young people can learn the requirements which success in work imposes on them. Those who work by this code will find satisfaction, honor, and a good living in the world of work/' THE CODE OF SUCCESSFUL WORKERS Resolutions they make for themselves "i. / will respect all useful work and be courteous to the workers. Work of all kinds is essential to the success of the world, and benefits come to many from the service rendered by each honest worker. I will respect myself, therefore, when doing any useful work, and show respect for good work done by others. I will be courteous to all workers, regard their rights, and make life more agreeable for them when I can. " 2. / will know my work and have ambition to do it well. I will keep determined to succeed in work, to master some one line, to develop aptitude and gain skill. I will keep my mind concentrated on my work, and make work my chief interest. I will accumulate knowledge and experience. "3. / will take the initiative and develop executive ability. I will use business sense, have courage to make decisions and go ahead, be quick-witted, well balanced, and of good insight. I will be adaptable, and make all I can of my powers of invention. THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 215 " 4. I will be industrious and willing. I will bring en- thusiasm to my work, be energetic and quick about it, and have endurance. I will be punctual, and always an attentive worker. I will be patient and persevering, and have system. I will keep myself in good health. "5. I will be honest and truthful. I will regard property rights, be economical of materials, and put in full time. I will be frank and honorable in my treatment of others, and preserve my personal integrity. " 6. 7 will educate myself into strong personality. I will develop force of character and have some worthy purpose in life. I will use my leisure wisely. I will be well in- formed, self-possessed, self-controlled, self-respecting, stable, open-minded and teachable, alert, observing. I will be quick to understand, and of good memory. I will use my imagination, and be ready to take responsibilities. I will gain knowledge of human nature, show sympathy, and take an interest in people. I will be friendly, cheer- ful, harmonious, and always tactful. " 7. 7 will be faithful to my work. I will hold to high ideals. I will be reliable, accurate, and careful. I will do my work right, for the people who need done the things I help to do. I will be thorough. I will keep my word. " 8. 7 will be loyal. I will take pride in my firm or com- pany, factory, store, or farm. I will protect its interests, and help to make its work successful. I will be unselfish and obedient in my service to my superiors, and do good teamwork. In professional work, I will hold to the ethics of my profession. In an institution, I will be true to its purposes. I will be devoted to my home. I will be loyal to the people with whom I work. "9. 7 will be a gentleman a lady. I will keep clean and neat, be pure and of good repute, courteous, and polite to all. I will form wise personal habits. 66 The world does not owe me a living, but I am proud to make a good living for myself." 216 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Conclusions. In closing this brief discussion of the matter it would seem that the school, even the elementary school, must be charged with failing to do its duty if it permits its students to leave the upper grades without the opportunity to face some of the problems presented by the choice of a life career. Chief among them must be counted the moral problems. The expert psychologist may determine that the " reaction time " of some boys is such that they could never achieve success in a calling in which quick and accurate responses to stimuli are imperative. Common sense may serve to keep certain boys and girls out of vocations for which they are unfitted by nature. But the school must supplement the home in making clear to every pupil the moral foundations upon which success is built in all worthy callings. It must place a pre- mium upon industry, honesty, courtesy, neatness, initiative, self-control, memory, obedience, a proper humility, punctuality, and temperance, and on speech that is always free from vulgarity and profanity, if not from false syntax, because the possession of these virtues multiplies the chances for success in life of any boy or girl in any calling, and the lack of any one of them as surely detracts from his chances to succeed. Earlier in his school life delinquency in any one of these lines may result in nothing worse, apparently, than a low grade in deportment, or a more or less severe punishment and loss of privilege in the school; but in life beyond the school, a boy may quickly lose his position or fail to get another because he is morally short in any of the respects just named. There are weightier reasons for em- THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 217 bodying moral traits in one's life than the reason just offered ; but it may well be doubted whether there is any motive more impelling than the life- career motive as it can be made to serve for their cultivation in boys and girls of grammar school age. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Tell what has been done in your school, or schools under your observation, to give vocational direction to pupils. 2. As you prepared for teaching in normal school or college, did you find that your knowledge of the moral as well as intellectual requirements of the profession had any effect upon your moral life ? If so, tell what. 3. Report upon the Grand Rapids, Michigan, plan of vocational guidance. (This plan is followed there in the high school rather than the grades.) 4. Prepare illustrations to use in your classes showing examples of success that have been due to unusual ex- hibitions of some one or more moral qualities. Cite instances of loss of position or failure to be promoted due to specific weaknesses of character. 5. In mathematics a series of factors, of which zero is one, multiplied together, gives zero, it matters not how large or how numerous all the other factors are. Char- acter is a product with numerous factors entering into its composition. Show the close parallelism between it and the mathematical law just stated. 6. Of a number of students under observation, telling their choice of a life career, one said he was going to be a banker because he was "fond of figures" ; another that he proposed to be a lawyer because "the world needs good lawyers"; a third that he expected to be a civil engineer because he loved outdoor life. Tell what additional vo- cational direction these boys needed. 21 8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 7. In what respect is one's moral nature strengthened by getting into the vocation he ought to follow ? How is it weakened by becoming an "industrial misfit" ? REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BLOOMFIELD, MEYER : Vocational Guidance of Youth. Hough- ton Mifflin Co. DAVIS, JESSE B. : Vocational and Moral Guidance. Ginn & Co. DEWEY, JOHN : Democracy in Education, chapter xxm. Mac- millan Co. JOHNSTON, EMMA L. : Vocational Guidance Throughout the School Course, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 645-648. KING, IRVING : Education for Social Efficiency, chapters xii and xiii. D. Appleton & Co. PARSONS, FRANK : Choosing a Vocation. Houghton Mifflin Co. SPAULDING, F. E. : Problems of Vocational Guidance, in Pro- ceedings N. E. A. 1915, pp. 331-335- WEAVER, E. W. : Profitable Vocations for Girls. A. S. Barnes Co. CHAPTER XVI THE TEACHING OF THRIFT AS MORAL TRAINING "To earn what you can; spend what you must; give what you should, and save the rest this is thrift." Reasons for teaching thrift. For years it has been a matter of common remark that we are an extravagant people ; that we are a nation of good livers and free spenders ; that we are prodigal with our resources to the point of wastefulness. No people of Europe knows anything of the lavish and unregulated freedom we enjoy in this field. For generations there seemed to be no good reason why we should be otherwise. So long as forests were opposing the advance of the pioneer settler, and virgin prairies were more easily broken up than worn-out fields improved ; so long as mines seemed inexhaustible, and other natural resources appeared boundless; so long as our population was small in relation to the size of our country ; and so long as we were a rural people and not a nation of city dwellers : we did not feel the need of thrift that has long been felt and practiced by European countries. But times have changed in all these respects. Today our economic problems are among our most serious problems, and financial independence is for most of 219 220 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME us a more difficult thing to achieve than was political independence for our Revolutionary fathers or religious freedom for our Colonial grandfathers. Never before in the history of the United States was it of so much importance that children learn the value of a dollar, the art of saving, and the no less difficult art of spending wisely. The duty of the school. Such lessons might be taught in the home, but the fact remains that they are not adequately taught there. Civics, patriotism, scientific temperance, personal and social hygiene, manual arts, domestic economy all might be taught in the home, in some homes, at least, but the schools undertook the task of supplementing the home teaching along these lines because they finally recognized that only by this means could " all the children of all the people " get the training they need in these important fields. In like manner, and for the same reason, the duty of teaching thrift to every child is being urged upon the public schools today. We can not much longer refuse to hear this newcomer as it knocks for admission into our curriculum, and we ought not if we could. Relation of money to spiritual values. It was said of old that " the love of money is the root of all evil/' and so it may be still ; but it is just as true that the possession of money is the basis upon which we build most that the world has pronounced good. Comfortably furnished homes, good schools, good roads, music, art, churches, everything that ministers to bodily comfort and to the culture of the spirit and soul of man in civilized society all require money. It does not require much imagination to THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 221 see that the individuals and the communities which are thriftless and penniless are invariably backward in their development along all these cultural and spiritual lines. Of course we are not foolish enough to claim that a rich man is necessarily rich in spirit ; or that a poor man may not be found, like Lazarus, resting upon the bosom of Abraham while Dives calls for a glass of water in Hades. But we may say that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of good things on earth are much more likely to be filled by those who learn to make, to save, and to use money aright, than by tramps, ne'er-do-wells, spendthrifts, beggars, and sluggards such as Solomon directed to go to the ant to " consider her ways and be wise." Thrift may, therefore, be assumed as a virtue which the schools are to teach. The question is, how can they do it ? What can teachers do with Erofit ? Of course no cut-and-dried rules can be lid down, but the few suggestions which follow in this chapter may help to open up the way. The thoughtful, resourceful teacher will find other helps no less useful. Motion-picture habit in relation to thrift. To begin with, you may find the extent to which your pupils are addicted to the motion-picture habit. The amount of money that is spent by children in this sort of amusement is wholly out of proportion to the good there is in it, and equally disproportionate to their ability to spend money upon non-essentials. Children who might be excused for going to a motion picture show once every week or two not infrequently go two, three, and sometimes five or six evenings per 222 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME week. An inquiry addressed to eight hundred students in a high school not long ago, asking how often they go to the movies, brought replies which, when tabulated, show the following : 78 students do not go to motion-picture shows 77 58 54 120 66 33 10 62 36 3 39 21 6 i 17 i i 5 i i 5 average i show per month 2 shows per month 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 ii 12 15 16 18 20 21 24 25 26 28 30 2 others go nearly every day. It will be seen that more than three hundred of the seven hundred thirty-one pupils replying, by their own admission, go to more than one show per week, while one hundred forty-five of them go more than twice per week, and several of them from three to seven shows per week. Wholly aside from the THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 223 moral and intellectual values of the pictures, is the question whether so much time can be given to this sort of dissipation and amusement without detriment to the student's health and standing in his school subjects, to say nothing of the fact that nickels and dimes thus spent might be saved and later* used for more valuable ends. In our cities can be found many parents who are willing to be rated as indigents that the public may furnish schoolbooks and supplies to their children, and yet from their meager income they will dole out nickels to their children to spend at movie shows, or for peanuts, candy, and other trifles. It is this condition, indeed, that makes it necessary for the schools to teach the lessons in thrift to children whose parents seem to have no conception of their obligation in this direction. Value of waste products. - - Teachers can show in many fields of industry that the difference between success and failure consists in learning how to utilize waste products. Many lines of business are conducted upon a very narrow margin of profit. Utilization of former waste products and volume of business are the two factors which together spell success in such cases. In the packing-house in- dustry, e.g., meat is the prime consideration, and was earlier almost the only one. But hides for leather, hair for plaster, bones and entrails for fertilizer, blood for buttons, and hoofs for glue have come to be matters of great, even if secondary, importance. So little of waste is there in this in- dustry that there is a grim truth in the jest that the packers have learned to utilize everything about a pig except its squeal. 224 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Crude oil, as it comes from the well, is thick and dark as sorghum. It looks very little like the refined high-grade coal oil and gasoline so much in use everywhere. In the process of refining it many substances are extracted, and most of them were once thrown away as waste products. Today they are valuable products, and include such commercial items as benzine, axle-grease, paraffine, naphtha, asphaltum, tar, vaselines, pomades, ointments, and drugs. The cotton seed that was once so slowly and laboriously extracted from the bolls of cotton and then thrown away is found to have a great commer- cial value, and now finds a ready market in meals and oils and lard compounds all over the world. Before paper manufacturers began to experience difficulty in securing enough wood pulp for their needs, nobody thought that old paper had any value. But the forests have largely been denuded, and trees enough are not available any longer for making wood pulp from which most paper is made. For this reason there is a universal shortage of paper, and to overcome it people everywhere are urged to save and sell their old paper that it may be used again by the manufacturers. Even the Secretary of Com- merce, of the President's Cabinet, recently issued an appeal to the school children of the country to assist in the paper conservation movement for the good of the nation. The experience of one city in compliance with this request may be told here as an illustration of the possibilities in this one field of conservation. Waste paper campaigns. Decatur, Illinois, is a city of nearly forty-five thousand inhabitants and THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 225 has an enrollment of nearly sixty-five hundred children in its public schools. Through the en- couragement of two civic organizations of the city, the schools made a concerted effort to gather up, bale, and sell waste paper and old magazines for one week. Principals, teachers, pupils, and janitors caught the spirit of the movement and entered upon the contest with zeal. On Saturday following the last day of the effort, the paper was hauled from the various schools to a central spot in the city, where it proved a remarkably interesting object lesson in thrift. Neither those who initiated the movement nor those who participated in it had anticipated half of what was realized, for it was found that from fifteen public schools and four parochial schools had been collected 73,505 pounds of baled paper and 32,355 pounds of old magazines, a total of 105,860 pounds or nearly fifty-three tons ! Bids were offered by a number of dealers for the whole amount, the highest coming from a local dealer, who wrote his check for $1014.56 for it. His estimate was that it would require one whole car for the magazines and nearly three cars for the baled paper. The money was distributed among the schools, each receiving pay for just the amount of paper it had collected. Besides the money itself, several good results are traceable to this cooperative enterprise. It was a " clean-up " campaign which made cellars and closets more sightly in hundreds of homes. The fire department of the city saw in it a reduction of the city's fire hazard. The health department thinks it was a good sanitary movement. But the chief 226 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME result was the demonstration to old and young alike that thousands of dollars' worth of paper in the city annually goes up in smoke when it is really worth saving. In the future much of it will be saved. Thrift and school savings. School savings, and deposits in savings banks through some sort of cooperation between local banks and the public schools, is another effective means of establishing habits of thrift. This movement is growing in popularity and deserves to become even more general than it now is. Recent replies from thirty-two cities having some school-savings system reveal eleven different systems in operation. Only two superintendents out of that number seem to think it makes enough extra work for the teachers to offset its advantages. That the teachers are friendly to the movement where it is in vogue is the almost universal testimony. Twenty- four replies state unqualifiedly that school savings are growing in popularity and amount in the schools that have had some system for a period of years. One did not reply to the question, and seven stated that they are waning. The banks receiving the school savings are reported in twenty-five cases as being " favorable," " friendly," or " enthusiastic " over the plan. In just three cases were they reported as " indifferent/' while one reply indicated ignorance of the bankers' attitude, and three did not report on this point at all. There seem to be very wide variations in the ratio of the number of school depositors to the total school enrollment in cities having school-savings systems. One small city with an enrollment of 3000 pupils THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 227 reports 1500 depositors. Two or three others report depositors ranging from one third to one half the enrollment. At the other extreme are systems in which only about one pupil out of twenty-five enrolled, becomes a depositor. The median expe- rience seems to be one depositor for every four or five pupils enrolled. The reports showing aggregate school savings per year are just as varied when reduced to a per capita basis ; but a school system in which the per capita deposits for all the depositors is five or six dollars would have reason to congratulate itself. Even two or three dollars is not a discouraging beginning, though forty dollars and more is reported by one city, and more than twenty by several. The good results which come from school savings as seen by those having experience with them are : " It teaches thrift " ; " Increases the interest of parents in the schools " ; " Many pupils continue their savings accounts after leaving school " ; " Many children save enough to buy their books and clothes " ; " Encourages them to establish and maintain bank accounts " ; " Interests pupils in saving " ; " Teaches the habit of thrift " ; " Pupils learn business methods " ; " Acquaints children and their parents with banks and their uses " ; " Prevents spending of money without cause " ; " Reduces the amount of money spent for candy " ; etc. Such testimonials from the authorities in cities which have had experience with systematic school savings are sufficient as a recommendation. What these schools have done to promote habits of thrift other schools can do if they try. 228 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME School and home gardening. The promotion of home and school gardening is still another means of accomplishing the same purpose. It can be urged for a number of reasons. Working in the garden insures a needed amount of sunshine, fresh air, and exercise, all of which tend to promote health. It affords an opportunity for a most vital sort of nature study and training in science. It fosters and builds up habits of industry. But it does even more for children in making it possible for them to be producers of a commodity for which there is an increasing demand everywhere. The cost of living and the price of nearly everything we eat has in- creased to such an extent in recent years that the receipts which may easily be derived from the sale of vegetables grown in a home or school garden or upon a vacant forty-foot lot are not to be despised. Few children and perhaps not many parents realize what a small garden spot may be made to yield under favorable conditions. As an illustration of its possibilities, the following paragraph telling of the achievement of one Decatur schoolboy is submitted : ' got permission from his parents to convert their back lot, a forty-foot one, into a garden. Then from a neighbor next door he secured the same concession. The two lots gave him a total area for garden purposes of about 4000 square feet. Carefully preparing the soil and fertilizing it, he planted it in vegetables, principally tomatoes. Throughout the summer he cultivated and watered his garden. As his harvest tame on he found a good market for it among his neighbors, who were pleased to pay the highest market price for vegetables fresh from his garden day by day. At the end of the season he THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 229 found that his gross sales were approximately $165, while his net gain was but a few dollars less than that amount." The next year five hundred school children in the same city entered a garden contest. While no contestant reported the same degree of success as that of the boy just referred to, no child entered the contest in vain. The movement is so important and has so much to recommend it that the United States Commissioner of Education is urging its extension throughout the country and offering practical aid through bulletins and extension workers whose help may be had for the asking. In many cities the mayors are cooperating with the school authorities in finding every available vacant lot for garden use and .then in bringing the right boys and lots together for that work. Since health and happiness and habits of thrift are all promoted by this means, the movement is one that deserves the endorsement of every teacher and parent throughout the country. Promotion of clubs. The promotion of corn clubs, tomato clubs, pig clubs, calf clubs, and still others of like purpose is another means of en- couraging thrift in rural districts. The effort which the government is making through its field workers to teach girls and women how to can, not only fruits, but many kinds of vegetables as well, is really an effort to teach thrift to our people. Few more striking economies are within reach of the average family than that of canning for winter use the fruits and vegetables which are so much more plentiful and lower-priced in their proper season. 230 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Household budgets. In connection with the courses in household economics or the arithmetic of the grammar grades valuable lessons in thrift are taught in many schools. This is sorely needed, for investigation in some school systems shows that only about one child out of one hundred comes from a home in which household accounts are carefully kept and anything like a scientific budget of expendi- tures is adhered to. To take a family income of ten dollars per week, another of twenty, and still another of thirty, forty, fifty or more, and try to determine what percentage of it may safely go for rent, for food, for clothing, for operating expenses, for higher life books, magazines, entertainments, church, charity, for savings, etc., is not only a very practical aspect of ordinary schoolwork that will increase the interest in certain phases of arithmetic and household arts courses, but, more than that, it gives most students their first insight into the very difficult problem of adjusting family or personal outlay to income. It is just about as true of families as of school systems and business organizations that a standardization of expenses makes for efficiency, solvency, and peace of mind. The most elementary lessons in thrift as a practice and a habit require such standardization. It really matters very little what one's income is, it could easily all go for rent, or for the table, or for clothing, or for travel, or for charity, or for any combination of these, to the neg- lect of other important appeals and obligations. Thrift wisely practiced has as much reference to wise spending as to saving. It certainly ought to result in something better than penuriousness, stinginess, or THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 231 miserliness on the one hand ; and something better than the gratification of Epicurean desires from day to day, to the neglect of the claims of the higher 'life, on the other hand. ' There is a happy medium," says Straus, " between extravagance and penurious- ness. One of the evils of the day lies in the fact that many of us live far beyond our resources. Jealousy, social ambitions, business rivalry, personal egotism, false pride all play their part in the strife and the stress and mad rush of the twentieth century. Many of our false economic conditions are due to this baneful tendency to overlive, to over- spend, to overindulge, and to overplay our part in life's daily round. On the other hand, we have those citizens who are cheap and tight-fisted in their habits who are unwilling to reward their fellow men for work well done. With them progress halts; they contribute little or nothing to the up- building of the things that are worth while. Midway between miserliness and extravagance lies the path- way of the greater thrift and I say that it is in the better understanding of this fact and the applica- tion of it in our lives and in the lives of those around us, that we have a problem and an opportunity." The financial value of an education. Since statistics prove that there is, within certain limits, a very constant ratio between education and income, teachers in the upper grammar grades of the ele- mentary schools can promote the cause of thrift by teaching the facts of this relationship. From the United States Bureau of Education exhibit at the Panama Pacific Exposition the following was taken : 232 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME EVERY DAY SPENT IN SCHOOL PAYS THE CHILD NINE DOLLARS HERE Is THE PROOF Uneducated laborers earn on the average $500 per year for forty years, a total of $20,000. High school graduates earn on the average $1000 per year for forty years, a total of $40,000. This education required 12 years of schooling of 180 days each, a total of 2160 days in school. If 2160 days at school add $20,000 to the income for life, then each day at school adds $9.02. THE CHILD THAT STAYS OUT OF SCHOOL TO EARN LESS THAN $9.00 A DAY Is LOSING MONEY, NOT MAKING MONEY. Health in relation to thrift. Some lessons in hygiene can be made to function more readily by teaching them in relation to thrift. Indeed, the National Society for the Promotion of Thrift recognizes that this subject is in large measure one that relates to a proper physical education. The teacher who forfeits her salary every day she is absent from her school, and the workman who loses his wages every day he is unable to work, can appreciate this relationship. The parent who saves a hundred dollars to apply to the payment of an installment due upon his house and then finds that sickness in his family takes it all and more to pay doctors' bills, has a similar basis for understanding it. The wisest thrift certainly demands good health and good health habits. Any one who jeopardizes his health to make money, and any one who un- THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 233 necessarily disregards the most obvious laws of health in following his gainful occupation, is unwise and in the end not likely to be thrifty. Sickness and disease are among the most stubborn enemies of thrift. They make doubly difficult the accomplish- ment of its aims, and may rob one of the ultimate enjoyment of all that thrift succeeds in bringing. Many a man, by dint of great industry, self-denial, and wise investments, has succeeded in building up a fortune, but during the period of years spent in doing it has so transgressed the laws of hygiene as to break down his health permanently. The rest of his life is not infrequently spent in wretchedness, suffering, and fruitless attempts to recover his health, for which he would gladly give his last dollar if that would avail anything. The great insurance companies appreciate so well the relationship we are here discussing, that many of them are engaged in a campaign of educating their policyholders in matters pertaining to health and hygiene. Indeed, some of the periodic literature issued by these companies is superior to some of the textbooks in physiology and hygiene used in our schools, because it contains only minimal essentials, with nothing else to distract the reader's attention. Insurance companies encourage thrift among their policyholders, but they know so well that sickness, disease, and lowered vitality do so much to counter- act it that they can well afford to spend large sums of money in disseminating information and encourag- ing habits that will conserve the health, and increase both the productivity and the longevity of these policyholders. 234 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME " Saving money is one of the foundation stones in the building of a thrifty character but it is no more the sum total of thrift than one stone is the sum total in the foundation of a great house. A man may be a money-saver, and yet if he dissipates or is immoral, he is not thrifty. A man may save money yet if he works eighteen hours a day, to the detriment of his health, he is not thrifty. True thrift consists in the judicious use of all our mental, material, and physical resources, and when we merely save money we have only gone part way." David Starr Jordan has been quoted as saying that, " The spirit of thrift is opposed to waste on the one hand and to recklessness on the other. It does not involve stinginess, which is an abuse of thrift, nor does it require that each item of savings should be a financial investment ; the money that is spent in the education of one's self or of one's family, in travel, in music, in art, or in helpfulness to others, if it brings real returns in personal development or in a better understanding of the world we live in, is in accordance with the spirit of thrift." One of the phrases we often hear these days is " learning to earn " ; another is " earning to learn." Ambitious young people are doing both in large numbers. Habits of thrift that react favorably upon character can be fixed by either practice. In our colleges and normal schools no students command more respect than those who are self-supporting, working at anything honorable their hands find to do to make their way through school. But this practice is not confined to students of college age. THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 235 Many high-school students are making efforts equally praiseworthy to complete their high-school course. Wishing to know how many such students were in the Decatur high school, I made, an inves- tigation recently and ascertained the facts here submitted : "Approximately one out of five students, or 162 in all, are found to be working mornings, evenings, or Saturdays, at something for which they are paid amounts ranging from I5f to $15 per week. Only one pupil reports earn- ings of the lower limit, and one the higher. The news- papers, as might be inferred, offer opportunity to the largest number of this group of workers, employing 40, or 25 per cent of the whole number, in part-time service as carriers, reporters, etc. Twenty-nine find employ- ment as clerks, 9 as delivery hands, 8 in tending furnaces, 5 as nursemaids, 6 take tickets or serve as ushers at motion-picture shows. One, two, or three find it possible to earn something at each of the following : band or orchestra engraving setting pins in bank clerk lumberyards bowling alley bookkeeping machine shops show-card writing chauffeur meat market soda-dispensing coal agent messenger service soliciting magazine collecting giving music lessons subscriptions crocheting picking poultry soliciting soap sub- dairy work playing piano at scriptions doing chores Y. M. C. A. telephone operator elevator boy pressing clothes tending poultry shoveling snow waiting on tables wrapper in a store "The total weekly earnings by these 162 students is $402.85. For the school year of 38 weeks this gives the very respectable sum of $15,308.30. But better than 236 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME the financial contribution of these students is the habit of work, of self-reliance, of initiative, of thrift, thus ac- quired. No other student can ever know the value of a dollar quite so well as the one who has measured it in terms of actual service rendered, and hours spent in earning it. Such knowledge is a most valuable supple- mentary factor in any one's education. Without it, no education is quite complete. "Four hundred sixty-eight students, most of them girls, worked at nothing for which they were paid, dur- ing the summer vacation. About 300 others, or approxi- mately 37 per cent of the whole student body, earned and received amounts ranging from $i, the lowest, to $425, the highest earned. The total earnings for the group was $16,097, an average of approximately $50 each. 32 students report earnings from 35 19 29 22 12 26 6 18 35 Others who reported did not remember the amount earned. "Combining this record with that of students' earnings while school is in session, it appears that there is an annual amount of $31,405.00 earned by the high-school students in Decatur. While this record can be improved through the cooperation of parents and school, still it is rather encouraging to see 'earning and learning' moving thus from $1.00 to $10.00 12.00 20.00 25.00 30.00 32.00 40.00 44.00 52.00 63.00 72.00 84.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00 90.00 95.00 above 100.00 100.00 THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 237 together towards the realization of an all-round educational ideal/' * Using biography to teach thrift. Biography may certainly be used by teachers all through the grades to teach the lessons of thrift effectively. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ought to be read by every schoolboy before he leaves the grammar grades. It tells an interesting story of personal achievement in industry, in science, in patriotism and statesmanship, but more pertinent to our theme, it tells such a story of thrift and of adherence to well-defined and carefully followed rules of life as make easier the practice of thrift by any one who believes Franklin's life worthy of emulation in this respect. His story is an example literally illustra- tive of the scriptural text, " Seest thou a man diligent at his business : he shall stand before kings/' for Franklin did stand before the kings of both France and Great Britain, and rendered conspicuous and patriotic service for his country before these two courts. Russell Sage was not always the possessor of the millions with which he has endowed great founda- tions, for he started out as a grocery clerk at one dollar per week, and later worked as an office boy at very low wages. He attributes his financial success, not to luck, but to the habits of hard work and the practice of saving some of his earnings, how- ever, small they were. The president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, 1 Published in the Fiftieth Annual Report of the Board of Education, Decatur, Illinois, and in Educational Administration and Supervision, January, 1916. 238 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME which spans Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, is quoted as saying that the proudest day in his life was the day on which he received his first pay, which " he took to his mother for her to bank not to the ice-cream parlor nor to the candy store. His first job was that of office boy in the purchasing department of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad. In that department he learned the value of carefulness in expenditure, and carried it out in his daily life as well as in the office." He was the son of a Milwaukee policeman, but rose from a lowly position, often called a " blind alley " job, to one of commanding influence and power " chiefly because he has considered thrift the greatest of all virtues." The stories of John Wanamaker and Edison and Luther Burbank and Booker T. Washington and Garfield and Lincoln and scores of others which can easily be found by the teacher, will teach the same lesson of success achieved through the practice of industry, self-denial, thrift, and kindred virtues. The more intimately children come to know these lives and the principles which actuated them, the more clearly they can see that success is achieved in no worthy calling by royal roads or short and easy cuts. Hard work, great labor, economy, frugality, self-denial, persistence, these are the earmarks of those who have made the most of life, whether in amassing fortunes or rendering large service to hu- manity in other fields than finance. THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 239 QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Show what factors and tendencies in American life make the practice of thrift a difficult one to establish today. 2. Is poverty a blessing or a curse to an individual ? To a community ? What determines the answer ? 3. Show by comparisons the correlation that exists in different communities between wealth on the one hand, and on the other hand pay of teachers and preachers, length of schools, kind of roads, number of students going to college, etc. 4. Make a local survey that will show the habits of children with reference to spending money for motion pictures, candy, chewing gum, tobacco, ice cream, etc. 5. Find how many in your school have bank accounts, savings in a building and loan association, or other prop- erty of their own. What can the school do to encourage such practices ? 6. Make it apparent that either hoarding and miser- liness or reckless spending is an immoral act. 7. Collect information concerning successful men and women, and be prepared to show to your school the means they used in getting their start in life. 8. Compare the moral values of money used in the promotion of legitimate industry and that used in getting an education for service. 9. Is a man who comes by his wealth honestly under a moral obligation to give any portion of it away to chari- table, benevolent, religious, educational, or other in- stitutions ? 10. Discuss the thrift suggestions in the chapter. Add others growing out of your experience and observa- tion. 11. To what extent have the schools of your com- 240 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME munity utilized the government's plan for promoting thrift through the sale of thrift stamps and war savings stamps ? REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BEXELL, J. A. : Thrift and Its Relation to Banking, in Proceed- ings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 210^215. BLAKE, KATE DEVEREUX : Thrift in Its Relation to the Home, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 220-225. DEMPSEY, CLARENCE H. : Thrift in Relation to Industries, in Proceedings N. E.A. 1916, pp. 205-210. PRITCHARD and TURKINGTON : Stories of Thrift for Young Americans. Scribner's. STRAUS, S. W. : Thrift An Educational Necessity, in Pro- ceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 196-201. STUART, MILO H. : Thrift in Its Relation to Conservation, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 215-220. WILSON, ROBERT H. : Thrift in Its Relation to Country Life, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 201-205. CHAPTER XVII SEX INSTRUCTION IN RELATION TO MORALITY Consequences of sex perversions. There are many mooted questions concerning the need, nature, extent, time, and place of sex instruction ; but there is a consensus of opinion that the whole problem is intimately bound up with moral questions. That there is a fearful amount of immorality, ranging from vulgar stories and jests to practices of mas- turbation, illicit relations between the sexes, white slave traffic, and prostitution, all due, in large meas- ure, to a lack of proper instruction and training at the right time, is all too apparent. Some of the effects resulting from these practices are the birth of illegitimate children, the breaking up of homes, crowded divorce courts, spread of loathsome venereal diseases, children born blind, wives finding pre- mature graves, and wrecks of human lives, with hope gone, seeking relief through suicide. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive of any social problems with more of moral significance than is presented by the questions and problems which grow out of sex, though teachers and parents seem to have real- ized but recently how serious the problem is, and how very important is its solution as a part of the program of moral education. 241 242 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Changing attitude of parents and teachers. For generations there was a tacit assumption on the part of refined people that sex matters could not be discussed with propriety, and that children must be kept in ignorance of every law pertaining to the reproduction of life, to insure a proper amount of modesty and chastity. At last we have awakened to the fact that the social evils mentioned above have all flourished under that sort of regimen, and that the truth taught in this field by the right persons at the right time is just as likely to result in a beneficent freedom as it does when taught in other lines. It is difficult to understand why we* have been so long in seeing that children have not remained so innocent of all knowledge of sex as parents generally have assumed they would remain. Of many things which they ought to know they have be'en ignorant, to be sure, but of others they have learned from sources that polluted both thought and practice. Ignorant servants, the " hired man," and vulgar older boys have been the gratuitous and often as- siduous teachers of. children, answering their ques- tions, and volunteering bits of information about matters both scientific and sacred, in terms and spirit that debauch and degrade the learner. The remedy for such a situation is for parents and teachers to become more frank, and, without be- coming immodest, to throw aside the veil of false modesty, and teach the truths that children ought to know when their curiosity is ripe and their need is recognized. Shall mothers explain the origin of life ? One of the first questions of the child which has been SEX INSTRUCTION 243 answered in the past with a myth or a falsehood is, " Where do babies come from ? " For the parent to reply that a good fairy, or the stork, or a doctor brings them, and then to vouchsafe no further in- struction, may suffice for a time to stop further in- quiry, but it will not be long until the child will inquire from some one else where the doctor gets the babies. The answers he gets are by no means such as to minister to his deeper needs, nor such as to show the sacred aspects of motherhood nor the beauty of right conjugal relationships. Some mothers have learned that they dare to answer such a question with the truth. Why should they not tell that babies are born, i.e., that they grow within the mother's own body, are tenderly carried there for months until they are mature enough to be taken from her and live ? The interest that may be awakened in a child for an unborn baby brother or sister is a beautiful thing to see. It may be made to react most helpfully upon the child's relation to his mother during the anxious months that precede delivery; but best of all, the question thus answered makes it unnecessary to seek in- formation from those who will give vulgar and dis- torted notions concerning a natural and sacred phenomenon. Simple biological facts pertaining to reproduction. When a child develops a curiosity that is un- satisfied by the mere statement that babies come from the mother's own body, he is probably pre- pared for some further explanation of the biological facts pertaining to reproduction. The time is ripe for an approach to the subject through analogies in 244 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME the plant world, and in the animal world below man. One of the most elementary facts having a bearing in this direction is that there is such a thing as sex in plants. The necessity for fertilization, i.e., the union of a generative cell from a grain of pollen with that of an egg cell at the apex of the embryo sac, and the wonderful anatomy of a flower, with special reference to stamens, pollen, and pistil, af- ford a starting point. For the students who go through high school and take a course in botany, such a lesson will find its place as a part of a normal botanical sequence, but it may be taught even to grammar-school students, and children still younger, in accounting for the development of a new life. The wise parent will find it helpful to discuss the facts of reproduction in fishes, frogs, fowls, and mammals to teach one characteristic common to them all, i.e., that new life starts with an egg, ovum, after it has been fertilized and not till this happens. In the case of most plants each flower has both male and female parts, the pollen being transferred from the former to the latter to start the new life, often with the help of insects or the wind. Among the animals named there are males and females of their kind, each with its own peculiar function. But whether in plant or animal, the essentials for the development of a new life are the same. In frogs, the female's eggs are fertilized by the male just as they leave her body. In fishes, the female's eggs are fertilized by the male after they are deposited in the water. In fowls, they are fertilized within the female's body, then laid, and later hatched by the SEX INSTRUCTION 245 warmth of her body as she sits on her nest. In mammals, they are fertilized within the female's body, but retained there during the whole period of development into new life. Such a provision on the part of nature insures to the young of these higher, more important forms of life, of which the baby is the very highest, the maximum of protection and care during this critical formative period. Sex hygiene for early adolescents. The early adolescent years marking the approach of puberty bring with them new problems fraught with still greater moral bearing. The promptings of the new- born sex impulse of this age call for a type of in- struction and a warning that are unnecessary and even meaningless to younger children. Perhaps the personal need of boys is greatest at this time, for theirs is the greater danger of suffering through ignorance. The supremely important lesson in sex hygiene for boys of this age is that the vital procreative fluid, semen, corresponding to the pollen of plants, is essential not only for the fertilization of an ovum, but its presence in the young adolescent is a pre- requisite for his personal development into a strong, robust, and virile man. It is this latter fact that makes the secret practice of self-abuse a hazardous thing. Boys should be taught the necessity of bridling their sex impulses for their own physical welfare ; that every voluntary act resulting in a loss of fluids so vital is done at the expense of the whole organism ; and that the manly qualities which characterize the best of men are sacrificed in a large 246 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME measure unless there is a conservation of this fluid throughout the whole period of youth. It is helpful to show wherein eunuchs differ from other men and why. With their testes removed in childhood, they not only can never become fathers, but they can not develop even the superficial char- acteristics belonging to the normal adult male. Their voices do not change as boys' voices ought to change at puberty. Their beard does not grow. They remain soft and effeminate, lacking in the qualities, both physical and mental, which ought to characterize men. All these masculine charac- teristics are made possible by the reaction of the seminal secretions when they are permitted to re- main in the body throughout youth until they are ultimately needed in begetting a new life. Personal honor to be developed. Though such a lesson should be taught early adolescent boys, it need not be dwelt on at length. Much more im- portant is it to shield them from the evil influence of vulgar companions ; to encourage them in an ac- tive physical life and acts of athletic prowess ; to give them clean, wholesome books to read ; to keep from them pictures that are obscene or suggestive ; and in other ways fill their waking hours with that which inspires and ennobles life. The temptation to satisfy sexual desires in youth by illicit relations with the opposite sex can be offset by the development of a code of ethics and a sense of personal honor in both boys and girls. Society has placed the stamp of its sternest disap- proval upon such relationships, for excellent reasons. Among civilized and Christian peoples the demand SEX INSTRUCTION 247 has always been made that girls be chaste, and no other sort are eligible for the honorable and sacred estate of marriage. A different standard of morality for boys and men has come to be repugnant to the sensibilities of the best men and women alike. No boy has a right to take liberties with any girl that he would resent if taken with his sister by some other boy. If he is manly he will not take them. But besides an attempt to develop ideals of honor as a safeguard, there remains the necessity of taking such precautions as may lessen the temptation to sexual immorality. Certain games played in young people's parties, public dance halls, and especially certain of the newer dances bordering on the inde- cent, are all calculated to inflame the passions and make chastity a more difficult thing to maintain than it ought to be. As for the temptation to visit a red-light district for sexual indulgence, if boys of the early teens age were made aware in time of the personal risks in- curred in such visits and of their possible social con- sequences, there could hardly be a temptation any longer. Immoral women are all diseased at one time or another, and no man can hope to visit them and escape physical contamination with a loathsome venereal disease, sooner or later, to say nothing of what he does to his own manhood and self-respect in seeking a dearly bought experience in such a place. The testimony of physicians. Physicians state that seventy per cent of all the blindness in the world and forty per cent of all the operations upon women are due to venereal infections. How any one who ever aspires to be the husband of a virtuous 248 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME wife, or the father of a strong and physically perfect child, could take a step so likely to cheat him out of the greatest happiness home life can bring, is difficult to understand. The sowing of wild oats should be contemplated in connection with its later consequences suffering, disease, regret, blasted hopes, blind children, death itself, for it can truly be asserted here that the wages of sin is death, though it is too often the death of innocent wives and chil- dren rather than of the sinner. Who shall give lessons in matters of sex. The question as to who should give instruction in sex hygiene is not easy to answer. That the ideal place is in the home is generally admitted. But the fact remains that thousands of homes are incompetent to give it, and that other thousands ignore the duty. It is for this reason that social workers and educators are turning to the public schools for the discharge of this delicate duty. The teacher of physiology and hygiene has an opportunity in her classes, but it is limited because these classes have both boys and girls. Certain as- pects of the subject may well be taught in nature- study groups, but this, too, is open to the same ob- jection. The biology teacher in the high school deals with older pupils, but he encounters the same obstacle. The physical directors and athletic coaches, dealing with boys and girls in separate groups, are free from this handicap and if capable can, therefore, give valuable instruction in this line. Some schools have found it profitable to arrange for a few talks by physicians, men for boys and women for girls. Their more accurate knowledge SEX INSTRUCTION 249 and their wide experience give the weight of au- thority to their words and doubtless produce an impression that no teacher can so easily make. Other schools have found a way of approach to the subject through mothers' clubs. Where these clubs can be induced to take up a study of the subject this solution of the problem seems one of the most hopeful ones, particularly if the clubs in- clude in their membership most of the mothers hav- ing children in the schools. In Decatur, Illinois, e.g., a few such clubs, on the recommendation of the superintendent, studied in their monthly meetings for one school year Galloway's The Biology of Sex. 1 This book is sane in the method and matter sug- gested, and popular enough in its language, though written by a scientist, to be a profitable guide to parents who would teach their children but feel their unpreparedness to attempt it. The results of the study were gratifying to all who pursued it. Some time ago the Indiana State Board of Health issued a health circular, entitled " Social Hygiene vs. The Sexual Plagues," calling the attention of the public and of parents in particular to " the direful consequences of sex secrecy and the obligation of parents and the state to protect the rising genera- tion." No one can read this bulletin without feel- ing that both home and school must soon find a way to solve this problem or permit our people to suffer the moral decay that has overtaken several older civilizations. An excellent little pamphlet, entitled " Sex in Life," written in 1916 for boys and girls from twelve 1 D. C. Heath & Co. 250 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME to sixteen years, was awarded the prize of $1000 pro- vided by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com- pany. It is now issued by the American Social Hygiene Association, New York City. For teachers much help may be found in a pam- phlet issued as the Report of the Special Committee on the Matter and Methods of Sex Education, pre- sented before the subsection on sex hygiene of the Fifteenth International Congress on Hygiene and Demography held in Washington, D. C., 1912. It is issued by the American Federation for Sex Hy- giene, New York City. The personnel of the committee Maurice A. Bigelow, Thomas M. Balliet, and Prince A. Morrow, M.D. is such as to give unusual weight to this report. Some generally accepted principles. --That por- tion of the report which offers a general outline of a plan of sex education constitutes eleven pages of the thirty-four in the pamphlet. Some of the more salient points in the outline are herewith quoted. "i. Sex instruction has a purely practical aim and should be strictly limited by this aim. Its purpose is to impart such knowledge of sex at each period of the child's life as may be necessary to preserve health, de- velop right thinking, and control conduct. Its aim is both hygienic and ethical. . . . "2. Sex instruction must differ in one important respect from other scientific instruction, in that it must not seek to create interest and awaken curiosity in the subject with which it deals, but merely to satisfy the curiosity which spontaneously arises in the child's mind, by answering his questions truthfully, but only so com- SEX INSTRUCTION 251 pletely as may be necessary to give proper guidance to his conduct, both hygienic and ethical. . . . "3. It follows from the above principles that detailed descriptions of external human anatomy are to be avoided ; and that descriptions of internal anatomy should be limited to what is necessary to make clear and to impress the hygienic bearing of the facts to be taught. . . . "4. The purely scientific basis for such instruction must be laid in the biological nature study in elementary schools and in the more systematic instruction in biology and hygiene in secondary schools and colleges. . . . "5. It must be supplemented by providing proper physical exercises; by insisting in the home on regular hours of sleep ; by providing adequate facilities for play and wholesome amusements; by protecting children from the unwholesome associations and corrupting in- fluences of debasing shows and immoral literature; and by maintaining the confidence of children in their parents and teachers so that signs of danger may be the more promptly detected. "6. The purely scientific instruction must be reen- forced as strongly as possible by ethical instruction, both direct and indirect, with due regard to the maturity of those taught. . . . Appeals to the sense of personal self-respect and purity and to the instinct of chivalry can be effectively made in the earliest years of adoles- cence, and even before. "7. The value of physical exercise, especially in the form of play and athletic sport, in its bearing on the control of the sex instinct, is so generally recognized that it needs no special emphasis here. . . . "8. The period from six to twelve, which might be subdivided into that of early childhood and that of later childhood, covers the greater part of the elementary school period. Here the school must share with the home the hygienic and moral care of the child. . . 252 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME "9. Truthful and delicate answering of the child's questions as to the origin of the individual human life, and instruction which will protect it from forming in- jurious sexual habits, constitute the chief features of sex instruction during the early years of this period. Such instruction at this period is best given privately, and should be carefully adapted to the child's individual needs. . . . "10. The aim should be, so far as specific sex instruc- tion is concerned, to impress deeply the mind of the child with the beautiful and marvelous processes of nature by which life is reproduced from life, both in the plant world and in the animal world. It is not necessary, and in most cases not desirable, that children should make ap- plication of this knowledge to reproduction in man before the beginning of adolescence, further than that the human infant is developed within the mother. . . . "ii. The ethical relations in the home between parents and children and between brothers and sisters should be emphasized. It should be impressed upon every boy that every girl is somebody's daughter and usually some- body's sister, and that it is his sacred duty to accord her the same respect and protection which he would exact from another boy toward his own sister. It has been found by actual experience that this point of view can be made to appeal strongly to boys even when some other points of view do not appeal effectively. . . . "In conclusion, your Committee would emphasize the necessity of good judgment and tact in introducing sex instruction into schools. It should not be introduced prematurely, but only so fast as teachers can be found or trained who are competent to give it, and so fast as public sentiment will support it. On the other hand, undue weight must not be given to the difficulties attend- ing such instruction even under present conditions, in- asmuch as even occasional mistakes will do far less harm SEX INSTRUCTION 253 than allowing children to continue to gain this knowl- edge, as many of them now do, from impure sources receiving a pernicious first impression which induces in them an attitude of mind toward the subject that makes it extremely difficult later to give them the best instruc- tion. In not a few such cases subsequent sound teach- ing is practically fruitless." The excerpts quoted in the foregoing paragraphs constitute a summary of the most important judg- ments that have been expressed with reference to sex instruction. They leave much by way of specific direction to be desired, but no parent or teacher can go far afield in this vital matter if he permits himself to be guided by such principles. As a closing word it seems in place to suggest once more the fact that whether sex instruction is to re- sult in something noble or ignoble depends not so much upon when it is given, nor at what age the child receives it, but that it does matter tremendously whether sex knowledge is learned from vulgar sources, or from pure-minded men and women who approach the subject with a reverent regard for its importance and a desire to have the boy or girl as reverently learn what he ought to know. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Why have homes and schools failed to give the definite sex instruction which it is now generally agreed children ought to have ? Account for the more recent changed attitude concerning the matter. 2. To what extent is ignorance responsible for the misery, disease, and immorality resulting from abnormal sex relationships ? 254 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 3. Does knowledge of sex reverently learned from proper sources tend in any way to make the learner less modest ? Does ignorance tend to make him in any way more virtuous ? Discuss. 4. Is coeducation in high school helpful or hurtful in maintaining standards of sex morality ? Give reasons for your answer. Is the attitude towards the opposite sex any more rational in a girls' school than in a coedu- cational school ? Is there a finer personal honor in the boys of a boys' school than in the boys of a mixed school ? 5. Write out a brief statement of the facts you think an adolescent should be taught concerning the sex life. If necessary, consult Galloway's Biology of Sex, or some other similar source of information. 6. What are the advantages in, and the objections to, having sex instruction given by the home, the physician, the elementary school teacher, the physical education director, the teacher of biology in the high school, re- spectively ? 7. Consult the health board of your community for information concerning the sex hygiene and habits of its young people. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BALLIET, THOMAS M. : Sex Hygiene and Sex Morality as the Aim of Sex Education, in Proceedings N. E.A. 1915, pp. 148-152. BLOUNT, RALPH E. : The Responsibility of the Teacher with Regard to the Teaching of Sex Hygiene, in Proceedings N. E.A. 1914, pp. 470-475- FORBUSH, WILLIAM BYRON: The Boy Problem, pp. 147-152. The Pilgrim Press. GALLOWAY, T. W. : Biology of Sex. D. C. Heath & Co. GALLOWAY, T. W. : Sex Instruction, in Proceedings N. E. A. 3> PP- 640-647. SEX INSTRUCTION 255 GRIGGS, EDWARD HOWARD : Moral Education. B. W. Huebsch. PEABODY, JAMES E. : Some Experiments in Sex Education, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1914, pp. 475-481. SNEATH and HODGES : Mora! Training in the School and Home, pp. 39-54. Macmillan Co. CHAPTER XVIII BOY SCOUTING AS A FACTOR IN MORAL TRAINING Cooperation between schools and other educative agencies. One of the most promising facts about the public schools of today is that they are trying to utilize and correlate the educative work of a large number of agencies which they once ignored. In various cities cooperative arrangements are made whereby students may alternate their formal school work with work in shop, factory, office, or store. In this way pupils get the most valuable vocational training possible for them and at the same time have the most potent motive for effective school work. Cincinnati is a good example of a city which has been most successful in developing this sort of reciprocity between school and industry. In other places the schools have recognized the churches and Sunday schools as allies of a helpful sort, capable of doing a work that ought to be done, yet one which the schools can not do so well, if at all. In many places the schools have been able to recognize and to credit the moral and religious teaching and training thus done by the church. In still other places the musical tastes and inter- ests of children are fostered through giving them school credit for work done in music under approved 256 BOY SCOUTING 257 teachers not connected with the schools. In other words, leading school systems are endeavoring to capitalize the numerous agencies which touch child life in helpful ways, because they recognize more and more clearly that education in the broad sense is a life process, and not a mere matter of intel- lectual training within the four walls of a schoolroom. Recognition of the Scout movement by the N. E. A. Most significant among the innovations just suggested is the recognition of the educative pos- sibilities of the Boy Scout movement. One evidence of this is the place that was given to its discussion in a recent meeting of the National Education Associ- ation. Another is the appearance of some notable articles upon Boy Scouting in leading educational journals by such leaders among school men as Dean Russell l and Professor Snedden. 1 Relation of Scouting to formal school work. No one sees in the Scout movement anything that can supplant the work of the schools, but it is prov- ing a most valuable supplement to them, and seems especially strong where the schools are weakest, i.e., in giving moral training of a dynamic sort. As Dean Russell has pointed out : " The scout program is essentially moral training for the sake of efficient democratic citizenship. It gives definite embodi- ment to the ideals of the school, and supplements the efforts of home and church. It works adroitly, by a thousand specific habits, to anchor a boy to modes of right living as securely as if held by chains of steel ; but best of all, it exhibits positive genius 1 See Educational Review, June, 1917, and Teachers College Record, January, 1917. 258 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME in devising situations that test a boy's self-reliance and give full scope to his talents for originality and leadership." A statement of aims. Perhaps we should ex- pect to find in the literature of the organization the best statement of its aims. Hence we quote from the Seventh Annual Report of the Boy Scouts of America as follows : "The aim of the Scout Movement is to inculcate char- acter, which, though essential to success in life, is not taught within the school, and being largely a matter of environment is too generally left to chance, often with deplorable results. The Scout Movement endeavors to supply the required environment and ambitions through games and outdoor activities, which lead a boy to become a better man, a good citizen." WHAT SCOUTING MEANS "Scouting means outdoor life and so health, strength, happiness, and practical education. By combining whole- some, attractive outdoor activities with the influence of the Scout Oath and Law the Movement develops character. "It develops the power of initiative and resourcefulness. "It helps boys. "It insures good citizenship. "The Boy Scout Movement healthfully and sanely offsets the disadvantages which civilization has caused." THE SCOUT OATH "Before he becomes a Scout a boy must promise: "'On my honor I will do my best "'i. To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout law ; BOY SCOUTING 259 "2. To help other people at all times; "'3. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight." 3 THE SCOUT LAW "i. A Scout is trustworthy. "A Scout's honor is to be trusted. If he were to violate his honor by telling a lie, or by cheating, or by not doing exactly a given task, when trusted on his honor, he may be directed to hand over his scout badge. "2. A Scout is loyal. "He is loyal to all to whom loyalty is due: his scout leader, his home, and parents and country. "3. A Scout is helpful. "He must be prepared at any time to save life, help injured persons, and share the home duties. He must do at least one good turn to somebody every day. "4. A Scout is friendly. "He is a friend to all and a brother to every other Scout. "5. A Scout is courteous. "He is polite to all, especially to women, children, old people, and the weak and helpless. He must not take pay for being helpful or courteous. "6. A Scout is kind. "He is a friend to animals. He will not kill nor hurt any living creature needlessly, but will strive to save and protect all harmless life. "7. A Scout is obedient. "He obeys his parents, scoutmaster, patrol leader, and all other duly constituted authorities. "8. A Scout is cheerful. "He smiles whenever he can. His obedience to orders is prompt and cheery. He never shirks nor grumbles at hardships. 260 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME "9. A Scout is thrifty. "He does not wantonly destroy property. He works faithfully, wastes nothing, and makes the best use of his opportunities. He saves his money so that he may pay his own way, be generous to those in need, and helpful to worthy objects. "He may work for pay, but must not receive tips for courtesies or good turns. "10. A Scout is brave. "He has the courage to face danger in spite of fear, and has to stand up for the right against the coaxings of friends or the jeers or threats of enemies, and the defeat does not down him. "n. A Scout is clean. "He keeps clean in body and thought, stands for clean speech, clean sport, clean habits, and travels with a clean crowd. "12. A Scout is reverent. "He is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties, and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion/ 5 It will be seen from a statement of the twelve laws which every Scout promises to obey when he takes the Scout Oath, that the whole program of action is a positive one. It is based upon sound psychology. Any parent, any teacher, and any organization which can succeed in inducing boys to regulate their lives in accordance with such laws has largely solved the problem of character-building. Forbidden fruits and negative commands, "thou- shalt-nots," have no place in this series. The empha- sis is all upon the virtues to be incorporated into life. Illustrations of " good turns." - If we take the one injunction, " Do a good turn daily," and read BOY SCOUTING 261 reports from different scout organizations, telling the specific ways in which this law was obeyed within the past year, its far-reaching effect may be better understood. The following are typical, and are all taken from the last annual report of the organiza- tion, as submitted in New York City, March 14, 1917 : "Assisted in Clean-Up Campaigns. Conducted suc- cessful campaign during city clean-up week. One thou- sand circulars distributed in neighborhood, displayed 300 posters, and reported objectionable places to Health Department, 20 boys of troops took part, and each set an example in his own district. (Buffalo, N. Y.) "Performed Charity Work. Carried flowers to hos- pitals, magazines and papers to asylum for poor and hospitals. Furnished supplies to a needy family. (Mem- phis, Tenn.) "Kindness to Animals. The boys held a bird-house building contest and put the houses up in those places where the birds would not be molested. (Roselle, N. J.) " Searched for Lost Persons. On January 4th and 6th Scouts were a part of large civic body who engaged in a search for the late Mayor of Waltham, Thomas E. Kearns, who disappeared and was later found under ice in river. (West Newton, Mass.) "Acted as Guides or Escorts. During the year we have served as escort to Spanish War Veterans, G. A. R. Veterans, and 8th Regiment, M. V. M. (Somerville, Mass.) Ushered when President Wilson was in St. Louis. Took care of the traffic when "Liberty Bell" passed through here. Served as guides for Southwestern Division State Teachers' meetings here last spring. (East St. Louis, 111.) "Assisted Church. The troop pledge $100 towards the building of a new church parish house. (West Haven, Conn.) 262 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME "Assisted in Public Functions. Carried and guarded Japan Day Flag, P.O.I. E., August 31, 1915; guided the children and their parents from other sections of the state through the exposition grounds, July 16-18, 1915. Sold two hundred memorial flags and raised twenty dollars for the Home Industry Association in Japan. (San Francisco, Cal.) "Assisted in Safety First Campaign. Elmer Tice dis- covered a broken rail and informed the agent at the depot. (Greenville, 111.) "Memorial Day. Assisted the G. A. R. in their pre- paredness program. Assisted the Confederate Veter- ans on several occasions. Served the City Council on several occasions. Participated in several parades, be- sides the individuals whom we have served, and in each instance proved very satisfactory. (Natchez, Miss.) "Fourth of July. July 4th we had two first-aid stations along the line of march of the municipal parade, two patients were treated at one of the stations. (Bridge- port, Conn.) "Labor Day. Labor Day celebration, taking water and other refreshments to veterans, firemen, etc. (Pitts- field, Mass.) "Assisted Poor or Aged People. Upon learning of the serious illness of a poor farmer in the community, and knowing that his cotton, which was his dependence for sustenance, needed immediate gathering, the entire troop, without even consulting the Scoutmaster, gathered his cotton and placed it in safe storage for him. This re- quired 'real work' of the Scouts. (Oxford, Ala.) "Assisted at Municipal Christmas Tree. Our chief good turn was guarding the community Christmas Tree and helping the King's Daughters deliver Christmas cheer to the poor. (Berwick, Pa.) "Assisted at Mosquito and Fly Campaign. The Scout troop undertook to exterminate the mosquito in our BOY SCOUTING 263 village, and carried on the work regularly each week throughout the summer with excellent results. (Auburn, Ala.) " Aided Police. Took care of several hundred lost children at big school picnic in a crowd of 40,000 people. Helped patrol river front during boat races. (East St. Louis, 111.) "Assisted Red Cross Society. Secured over 200 new members for American Red Cross Society, also assisted the local chapter of the American Red Cross Society in rolling bandages and making surgical dressings. (Brook- lyn, N. Y.) "Acted as Volunteer Forestry Wardens. During the five weeks' camp at Indian Lake, Troop 8 planted 150,000 spruce trees on 150 acres of land for the State Forestry. Assistant Scoutmaster Kuehn and Scouts Stalker and Blanchfield received the first scout medals, which were presented to them March 14, 1916. (Rome, N. Y.) "Persons Saved from Drowning. One of our boys saved five persons from drowning this year, two of them National Guardsmen ; one was sent to the hospital com- pletely exhausted. The Scout is an expert swimmer and merit-badge boy; another, the youngest and smallest Scout, brought in a little girl 6 years old who had fallen from our diving board. Fifteen persons were taught to swim at our camp. (Manitowoc, Wis.) "Rendered Service to Poor on Christmas and Thanks- giving. The troop gave donation of dinners at Thanks- giving and Christmas donation to orphan asylum and day nursery to the value of $10, and are to give a cot to the hospital to celebrate its birthday. (Elizabeth, N.J.) "Kept Fire Apparatus in Good Condition. Last winter our troop located the nearest fire plug to our homes and kept the snow away, so the firemen would not have to take time to do this if they wanted to use the plug. (Cleveland, O.) 264 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME "Census of Condition of Lawns and Backyards. In the spring the Scouts assisted the city in clean-up days, ad- vertising it, notifying property owners and city officers of unsanitary conditions, and kept the people informed when the city rubbish wagons would be on their streets. In August took census of condition of lawns and back- yards and reported to the city. (Nevada, Mo.)" Scouting as an example of expression in education. Throughout the country Boy Scouts have more recently rendered valuable and patriotic service in canvassing for the sale of Liberty Loan Bonds, se- curing subscriptions for the Red Cross funds, Army Y. M. C. A. funds, and other worthy war agencies. Though their services were recognized and rewarded by words of appreciation from President Wilson himself, the boys themselves profited most by what they did. In no other way could they have been schooled in patriotic lessons more effectively. Think- ing and feeling was translated by them into action. And action of the right sort never fails to leave its indelible imprint upon character. There are hundreds of communities in which for a variety of reasons, it is either not possible or not feasible to organize Scout companies. But in all such places a knowledge upon the part of parents and teachers of what Scouts do, of what they are, and of the principles governing their conduct may enable the school, home, and church to utilize more fully than they do at present the instincts of boys to which a proper appeal must be made before char- acter of a dynamic sort can be built up. It may be remarked in conclusion that the recent attempts at socializing the curricula of our schools, BOY SCOUTING 265 socializing the recitation, and motivating instruction in school and Sunday school are all steps in the direction of greater initiative, self-reliance, and in- dependent thinking and acting upon the part of children. In all of this the psychology and peda- gogy of the Scout movement will have much that is suggestive to the teacher who will take the pains to discover its bearing and application. If the schools of the past have failed in a measure to ac- complish their task of training boys and girls to become socially efficient men and women, it is be- cause they have not made sufficient provision for expression of life. The really moral character is dynamic, not static. It is revealed in what one does, rather than what one knows. But more than that it results from what one does even more than from what one knows. Hence the significance of the Scouting program which combines opportunity for learning and doing, for impression and expres- sion, for thinking and acting as well. It is in this way that boys build into their character those quali- ties of self-reliance, self-direction, and self-control which characterize leaders in all walks of life, and fit them for life in a democracy. ' The naturalist may praise it (the Boy Scout movement) for its success in putting the boy close to nature's heart ; the moralist, for its splendid code of ethics ; the hygienist, for its methods of physical training; the parent, for its ability to keep his boy out of mischief; but from the stand- point of the educator, it has marvelous potency for converting the restless, irresponsible, self-centered boy into the staightforward, dependable, helpful 266 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME young citizen. To the boy who will give himself to it, there is plenty of work that looks like play, standards of excellence which he can appreciate, rules of conduct which he must obey, positions of responsibility which he may occupy as soon as he qualifies himself in a word, a program that ap- Eeals to a boy's instincts, and a method adapted to a oy's nature/' 1 Influence of the leader. Finally, it may be added that after recognizing the constructive positive pro- gram of Scouting, appealing as it does to the in- stincts and sentiments of boys, its ultimate moral and religious value to any particular group of boys " will reflect very largely the Scoutmaster's own personal attitude toward morality and religion. . . . It is what he is that counts in this regard. ... It is not his primary function to teach Bible lessons and to deliver lectures on ethics. . . . His part is to live the right kind of a life with the boys and to help them to do the same. In this connection example has immeasurable weight. Usually boys do not imitate or emulate one whose attitudes are half- hearted or merely perfunctory. Religion as well as Scouting becomes contagious only when lived with enthusiasm and genuineness." 2 QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS i. Find out by first-hand inquiry what effect the Boy Scout organization is having upon the boys so organized in your community. 1 James E. Russell, "Scouting Education," in Teachers College Record, January, 1917, pp. 6-7. 2 Richardson and Loomis, The Boy Scout Movement Applied by the Church, p. 375. BOY SCOUTING 267 2. Would you condemn the movement if you should find a number of Scouts failing to keep the Oath ? Justify your answer. 3. What is there in the Scout program that the schools might appropriate with profit ? What is there that is not applicable to school work ? 4. Compare the Scout movement with other organized efforts to accomplish similar results. 5. Is there any danger of Boy Scouts becoming too much imbued with military ideals for their own or their country's good ? 6. Discuss the movement in the light of the principles of psychology involved, relating it especially to interest, instinct, habit-formation, suggestion, will. 7. Dean Russell says, "It gives definite embodiment to the ideals of the school." What are those ideals ? Can the school not give "definite embodiment" to its own ideals ? Give reasons for your answer. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING CURTIS, HENRY S. : The Boy Scouts. Educational Review, Vol. 50, pp. 495-508. CURTIS, HENRY S. : Play and Recreation : The Boy Scouts the Salvation of the Village Boy, chapter x. Ginn & Co. RICHARDSON and LOOMIS : The Boy Scout Movement Applied by the Church. Scribner's. Rns, JACOB : The Boy Scouts. Outlook, Oct. 25, 1913. RUSSELL, JAMES E. : Scouting Education. Teachers College Rec- ord, January, 1917. SNEDDEN, DAVID : Some Pedagogical Interpretations and Ap- plications of the Methods of Boy Scout Education. Teachers College Record, January, 1917. WEST, ANDREW : Scouting as an Educational Asset, in Proceed- ings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 1012 ff. CHAPTER XIX MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS Why there is a question. We are told that thirty millions of people see motion pictures daily. The motion-picture house has doubtless, therefore, come to stay. Its thousands of patrons in every city attest its popularity. Casual observers can see, and careful studies prove, that its hold upon high-school students, and, to a slightly less extent upon elementary school students, is one with which parents and teachers must reckon. It is but a rela- tively small minority of school children in village and city who do not have the movie habit. Most of them see one or two shows every week, while many attend three, four, five, or six exhibitions weekly. The question stated. The question of concern is not whether children shall go to the movies or not ; it is certain that they do go and will go. The vital question is, what kind of pictures we shall suffer them to see. Though in many cases there is an un- warranted amount of time given even to good shows there is nothing inherently good or bad in the movie as such. The good or ill effect is determined by the nature of the picture shown. In spite of the usual censorship exercised when pictures are first released, any thoughtful person 268 MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 269 has but to see the posters used in advertising many of the shows, to realize that their influence is baneful. The business is thoroughly commercialized. It is promoted in most cases to make money, and too often any sort of thriller is shown for the distinct purpose of attracting the crowd, the management knowing that the larger the crowd, the greater the financial gain. Like cheap vaudeville shows, some of them are coarse and degrading, tending to corrupt the manners, pollute the morals, and lower the ideals of all who see them. When nothing worse results, many of them tend, through low comedy and the highly melodramatic, to unfit their patrons for more intellectual, more wholesome and instructive forms of amusement and recreation. Types of pictures. Within the past few months, it has been the writer's privilege to speak in a good many motion-picture houses as a Government Four-Minute-Man in the interest of the various campaigns for the Red Cross, Liberty Loan Bonds, Army Y. M. C. A. support, food conservation, and other movements. Incidentally, an opportunity was afforded thereby for observing the types of pictures shown in most of these houses. It is fair to state that some of the pictures observed are innocent enough of harmful effects, a few are even morally and intellectually helpful, but more are merely inane and silly. On the other hand some are seen to represent evil drunkenness, duplicity, improper relations between the sexes, for example in such a way as to make it appear inconsequential or funny. The effect of such an exhibition must be morally bad. It is possible, of course, to exhibit 270 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME certain vices upon the screen, as upon the stage, without detriment to any one, but this probably happens only when the vice is so presented as to arouse in the beholder a feeling of condemnation for the wrong or when retributive justice is seen to overtake the guilty person, causing in the onlooker a feeling of gratitude for the outcome in the exercise of a world order that punishes wrongdoers and wrongdoing. When vice is presented in such guise as to seem alluring, and when it provokes nothing sterner than an indulgent smile, parents may well fear that its effect on their children will be pernicious. On the other hand it has been demonstrated over and over again, and sometimes by the commercial motion picture house itself, that there are exhibitions which, within reasonable limits, it is highly desir- able to have children see. In this category is to be found the great range of educational pictures deal- ing with travel, industrial processes, scientific sub- jects, wholesome comedy, fairy stories, and the dram- atization of good literature. The school and the home can well afford to cooperate with reputable houses in the effort to popularize pictures of this sort. Indeed, their efforts and the efforts of other civic bodies interested in the moral welfare of the community are needed in the promotion of a cam- paign of education that will elevate the tone of motion-picture shows and help them to play the part they are so easily capable of playing in the educa- tion of the young. Experience of one city in solving the problem. In Decatur, Illinois, the schools, recognizing the far-reaching effects of motion pictures upon school MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 271 children, undertook to popularize pictures of the right sort. Though somewhat similar attempts have been made in a number of cities, the Decatur plan may be of interest. Hence the following ac- count of it. Through the cooperation of a number of indi- viduals and civic organizations, a good motion- picture machine was bought and properly installed in a fireproof booth in the high-school auditorium. For two or three years after this, good educational reels were rented from time to time for a day, and all, or nearly all, the pupils of the whole city were brought by their teachers to the high school for the exhibition, which was given to them free of cost. Omitting the children of the first two grades, it required five exhibitions of the same pictures in a day (two in the morning, two in the afternoon, and one in the evening) to accommodate them. Such exhibitions were later discontinued because they demoralized the regular work of every school- room for almost half a day, and because no reel was found to be interesting alike to children from the third grade to the twelfth. A second experiment. - - Two years ago a new experiment was tried. Found to be successful, it has been continued. Again reels were rented by the schools for a day, and the exhibitions given Saturday afternoons and evenings in the high-school auditorium. The cooperation of the fourteen par- ent-teacher associations was secured, and they took turns in having charge of the sale of tickets, usher- ing, and other matters in connection with the shows. A five-cent admission fee was charged. The paid 272 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME admissions ranged from 200 to 800 each Saturday, but a large number of free tickets were regularly given to children known to be too poor to pay the small admission fee. From the titles of the reels used the past two years the character of the pictures may be inferred. The influence of objectionable pictures was elim- inated by substitution. It will be observed that a large number of the legends, fairy tales, and other stories having a place in the literary work of the schools was used. To this extent the exhibitions easily correlated with the regular work in reading, story-telling, and dramatization, and the teachers so used them. Other reels were travel, industrial, or in other respects educational, reenforcing the regular work in nature study, geography, and language. A few were merely innocently comic, with nothing better, but nothing worse, than the merriment caused to recommend them. To most teachers the titles given will indicate the character of the picture. SHOWN DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR 1915-1916 1. Snow White, Hunting in Crazyland 2. Robin Hood, Trained Seals 3. Wizard of Oz 4. Rumpelstiltskin 5. Heart of a Princess, Elephant Circus 6. Robinson Crusoe 7. Hansel and Gretel, Five Senses, When the Lily Died 8. Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp, Goldie Locks 9. Sleeping Beauty, Gretchen MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 273 10. The Lady of the Lake, Puss in Well 11. Little Lord Fauntleroy 12. Rip Van Winkle 13. Treasure Island, Three Wishes 14. Taming of the Shrew, Little Shepherd 15. Goose Girl 1 6. Cinderella 17. Patchwork Girl of Oz 1 8. Ivanhoe 19. Washington at Valley Forge 20. William Tell SHOWN DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR 1916-1917 1. Sport and Travel in Central Africa 2. Rags 3. Wrestling, By Parcel Post, Manufacture of Paper 4. Ragamuffin 5. Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Quarantined, Manu- facture of Varnish, Grand Canyon, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas 6. Mollie Make-Believe 7. The Prince and the Pauper 8. Manufacture of Big Guns, Close of the American Revolution, Lumbering in China and Canada, Pineapple, General of the Future 9. Hulda of Holland 10. Fairies' Hallowe'en, Aix-les-Bains, Peeps into Italy, Thames, Scotland, Cornwall, Landing of the Pilgrims 11. Silas Marner 12. Making Rope, Malay Capitol, Swiss Customs, Ani- mals of South America, Interesting Scenes from Abroad, Rubber Industry 13. Scrooge, Nicholas Nickleby 14. Boy Blue, Such a Princess 274 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 15. Making Modern Shoes, Argentine to Chile, Alps, Ice in Sweden, Coasting and Skiing, Dogs 16. Little Napoleon, The Shepherd's Flute, The Acrobatic Monkey 17. Uncle Tom's Cabin 18. Silks and Satins 19. Pinocchio, Swallowed by the Deep 20. The Foundling A thkd experiment. For the past semester a new experiment has been tried in the Decatur schools in the use of motion pictures, A high-school civics class, under the direction of a progressive teacher who seizes every opportunity to vitalize his sub- ject, is bringing a series of valuable films to the school from week to week, and exhibiting them in the high-school auditorium during the two luncheon periods, n : 30 to i : 30. Students with ten, fifteen, or more minutes to spend after their lunch is eaten, may step into the auditorium, be seated, entertained and instructed, relieve the corridors of their con- gestion and necessary attendant disorder, and thus improve the morale of the whole school. The motion-picture programs are usually given three times a week under the direct management of a committee of students from the civics department. This committee was organized with a chairman, a subchairman, head usher, eight assistant ushers, a musician, stage manager, machine operator, and secretary. Students are seated in the auditorium with a view to direct supervision the boys in sections reserved for them and the girls in other sections exclusively reserved for their use. Stu- dents are permitted to enter at any time, but may MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 275 leave only at the end of a recitation period. At- tendance in all cases is wholly optional. The aim is to supplement the vocational guidance activities of the school with actual pictures of vo- cations in the industries and social service, mis- sions, the professions, transportation, the consular service, city planning, etc. ; to bring to students a broader conception of community, national, and world relations through the travel films covering every nation on the globe; to compete with the commercialized films which call out the coarser emotions, by substituting films drawn from the realm of literature, fairy tales, folklore, and pure humor, which stimulate the best emotions in stu- dents and develop in them a discriminating taste for the best. The aim is further to provide another activity wherein the civics students may function without remuneration as good citizens in the in- terest of a community project in this case, the community being the high school and to demon- strate how cooperation may bring the best things to a community at a minimum of expense. Two reels of 1000 feet each were shown usually. On days of special programs as many as four reels of 1000 feet each would be shown. Community singing was introduced the last month of the semester. Led by the High School Glee Clubs under the direction of the head of the music department, the students sing from words thrown upon the screen the standard patriotic songs sent out by the National Committee on Community Sings. The response is always hearty, dignified, patriotic. 276 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Films are shown with the accompaniment of the best selections from world masters played on a good player piano owned by the public schools. The general tone created by this music is high and pure. The attention of the students is uniformly respect- ful. Still slides showing the President, the Governor, the Flag, the Capitol, American statesmen, mes- sages from the food administration, etc., are shown before each program. Each is roundly applauded. PROGRAM FOR THE SEMESTER 1. Canadian Rockies A travel film (1000 ft.) Pure Foods A trip through the Battle Creek Plant (1000 ft.) 2. From the Pine Forests to the Home A trip through the Long-Bell Lumber Company (4000 ft.) 3. Hearst-Pathe News Current events in all parts of the world (1000 ft.) Ford Educational Weekly A trip to Denver, Colorado (1000 ft.) 4. From Cow to Consumer A trip through the Bor- den Condensed Milk Plant and Great Farms (4000 ft.). 5. A Trip Through the Overland Automobile Factory (4000 ft.) 6. Pleasure Side of Life in Australia A travel film (1000 ft.) Salmon Industry on the Pacific Coast Ford Edu- cational Weekly (1000 ft.) 7. Hearst-Pathe News Current events in all parts of the world (1000 ft.) Irrigation in Canada Travel film (1000 ft.) MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 277 8. A Trip to Indianapolis Ford Educational Weekly (ipoo ft.) Making of Matches A trip through the Red Crown Plant (1000 ft.) 9. A Trip Through the Studebaker Factory Manufac- ture of automobiles (2000 ft.) 10. Life in Normandy A travel film through France (ipoo ft.) A trip to St. Augustine, Florida (1000 ft.) 11. A Trip Through the Ford Factory (2000 ft.) The Ford Idea in Education Showing the making of American citizens in the Ford Plant (1000 ft.) Safety First How the Ford Motor Company pro- tects its employees (1000 ft.) 12. Reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic at Vicksburg Ford Educational Weekly (1000 ft.) Hearst-Pathe News Current events in all parts of the world (1000 ft.) 13. From Sheep to a Suit of Clothes The wool industry (1000 ft.) How to Set Your Table Manufacture of silverware (ipoo ft.) 14. A Trip Through Yosemite Park Ford Educational Weekly (ipoo ft.) Modern Railroading The Pennsylvania Railroad Company (1000 ft.) 15."" Jack and the Beanstalk Ford Educational Weekly (500 ft.) Making of Bread A trip through the National Biscuit Co. (1000 ft.) 16. The Pacific Northwest Travel film (1000 ft.) Hearst-Pathe News Current events in all parts of the world (1000 ft.) 17. Farming with Dynamite A trip through the Du- pont Plant and demonstrations of explosives on the farm (1000 ft.) 278 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Glimpses of Buenos Aires A travel film (800 ft.) 1 8. Making of Crepe Paper (1000 ft.) Manufacture of Hershey Chocolates (1000 ft.) 19. A Trip through Los Angeles Travel film (1000 ft.) A Trip to New Orleans Ford Educational Weekly (loop ft.) 20. The Vicar of Wakefield In four parts (4000 ft.) 21. Travels in Indo-China (4000 ft.) 22. From Ore to Lead Pipe With lecturer from Na- tional Tube Co. (4000 ft.) The pictures were shown gratis. The only ex- pense involved, other than the regular fees paid the licensed operator in the employ of the school, was the express charges, which averaged twenty-one and one-half cents per thousand feet of films. The films were secured from four distinct sources : 1. The Bureau of Commercial Economics, Washington 2. The Ford Motor Company, St. Louis 3. Individual industries 4. Local motion-picture theaters and studios The Bureau of Commercial Economics is an as- sociation of the governments, institutions, manu- facturers, producers, and transportation lines of America and other countries, to engage in dissemi- nating geographical, commercial, industrial, and vo- cational information by " the graphic method of motography," showing how things in common use are made or produced, and under what conditions. The Bureau displays its reels and slides in univer- sities, colleges, technical and agricultural schools, public libraries, state armories, high schools, people's institutes, public institutions, state granges, settle- MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 279 ment houses, missions, chambers of commerce, boards of trade, commercial clubs, rotary clubs, trade conventions, welfare forums by corporations, fraternal organizations ; also with powerful pro- jectors, operated from auto trucks, in parks, play- grounds, rural communities, and other centers for the general welfare of the public. The films are lent to such institutions gratis, with the special provisions, however, that express charges be assumed one way by the institution receiving the films ; and that the admission to the public be free. For large audiences the Bureau agrees to provide, without expense, special lecturers on current sub- jects and banking. The Ford Motor Company, St. Louis, sends out to educational institutions in the Mississippi Valley, gratis, an Educational Weekly which covers the same field as the films of the Bureau of Commercial Economics with the addition of a large proportion of current events films. These films are wonder- fully artistic in make-up, and are easily the features of our motion-picture programs. The subjects are not announced in advance, but the films are sent out from the St. Louis office each week. The current events films recently featured the army cantonments, scenes in Washington, D. C., great conventions and parades in cities over the country ; city planning as indicated in the leading cities of the world ; trips to literary shrines in America ; trips through America's most beautiful parks. Individual industries such as the Ford Motor Company, Detroit ; Long-Bell Lumber Company, Kansas City, Mo. ; John B. Stetson Company, 28o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Philadelphia ; Lamb-Fish Lumber Company, Charles- ton, Miss. ; United Shoe Machinery Company, Boston, Mass. ; and others, send out as a rule very interesting and artistic films showing the processes in their individual plants. That of the Ford Motor Company is by far the most interesting and comprehensive film we have seen. It covers every phase of modern industrial efficiency with special stress on the general welfare note which is characteristic of the Ford plant. Their English school is an admirable lesson in citizen-making. Their " safety " film covers every phase of the governmental regulations for safety devices in manu- facturing plants. The following very brief summary of the semester's work may be suggestive to other schools : Total number of programs 22 Total number of feet of films exhibited . . . 56,300 Total express charges $12 Total attendance 18,700 The daily average attendance 850 The highest attendance in one day 1,200 (at which the Vicar of Wakefield was shown) Total cost per student in grand total attendance was less than a fourth of a cent. While it is too early to pronounce on such an experiment as that which has just been described, there is almost every reason for believing that it marks a great forward step in the elevation of motion-picture shows and their utilization for educa- tional ends. It is hardly conceivable that the hun- MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 281 dreds of young people from the high school and junior high school, who see these exhibitions weekly, will long be content with the cheap, sensational, vulgar, or fatuous sort of picture too often exhibited by the commercial houses. Conclusion. In conclusion it should be remarked, however, that in many cities the commercial picture houses have been induced to make a feature of edu- cational films certain days of the week. In such cases, through the cooperation of the public school authorities, the school children are directed and encouraged to patronize these shows. The result is an elevation of the character of the shows, a pros- perous business for the managers, and wholesome recreation for the children. Indeed, most pro- prietors of moving-picture houses are willing and even glad to furnish worth-while films when they learn that the public demand it, and their just claim is that they give the people just what they want. Note : The writer acknowledges his obligation to Mr. William C. Casey, instructor in civics in the Decatur High School, for an excellent report of the motion-picture programs given under direction of his class. He has drawn freely from the facts in this report and in several para- graphs has used the language of Mr. Casey. QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Find the extent to which your children or pupils have the "movie" habit. 2. What do you know of the character of the pictures shown in your neighborhood ? Are the picture houses safe from a sanitary standpoint ? 282 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 3. Is any organization woman's club, parent-teacher association, or other agency actively interested in se- curing good pictures for your community ? 4. Have you had experience with motion pictures in your school ? If so, what use have you made of them ? What objections, if any, have you to their use ? 5. Study the list of reels mentioned in this chapter and estimate the merit and demerit of each. List other sub- jects or reels that you think profitable for children. 6. Do motion pictures have a moral value for children when they are merely unmoral in their nature neither immoral in their effects, nor meant to teach a distinct moral lesson ? CHAPTER XX MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE The Bible as literature. In another chapter we have discussed the teaching of morality through literature. The field is a wide one and the possi- bilities are boundless. Within its scope we might include the Bible, for we find in it most of the im- portant types of literature biography, lyric and epic poetry, short story, allegory, parable, drama, history, etc. The influence of the Bible, particu- larly the King James version of it, upon the develop- ment of the English language and literature, has been attested by critics for generations. The best in literature is so full of biblical allusions that it is hardly intelligible except to one who has con- siderable familiarity with characters and incidents drawn from the Scriptures. Many great writers, indeed, acknowledge that their style has been created largely by their Bible study. Influence of the Bible upon literature. Ruskin, e.g., says, in Prceterita, Chapter I : "My mother forced me, by steady toil, to learn long chapters of the Bible by heart ; as well as to read it every syllable through, aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, about once a year; and to that dis- cipline patient, accurate, and resolute I owe, not 283 284 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME only a knowledge of the book which I find occasionally serviceable, but much of my general power of taking pains, and the best part of my taste in literature." Some literary masterpieces, such as Paradise Lost, e.g., involve not merely allusions to biblical char- acters and incidents, but their very warp and woof, their form and spirit and teaching are unintelligible apart from their biblical basis. Dante's Divine Comedy gives a medieval concep- tion of hell, purgatory, and heaven, based upon a biblical theme, whatever one may think today of the naive understanding of the writer. Goethe's Faust profoundly sets forth scriptural teachings, and shows wherein knowledge, power, culture, self-indulgence, fail to satisfy the deeper longings of the human soul. Paul's teaching that " the wages of sin is death " has been a favorite theme of more recent writers, the great tragedies of Shakespeare Hamlet, Mac- beth, and King Lear, being among the best illustra- tions of this teaching, which has a place in the Eng- lish courses of high school and college today. No other people has produced a body of literature so saturated with the moral and religious spirit as that which the Hebrews gave us. They may be said to have had a genius for religion, as the Greeks had for art and philosophy, and the Romans for organization and practical affairs. Through the Bible they have been able to communicate to other peoples for successive centuries their own exalted ideas of Jehovah, of man's relation to him, and the reciprocal duties of man to man. MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 285 Practical objections to the use of the Bible in school. Though it is almost universally recognized that the Bible is superior to all other books as a textbook for the teaching of morals and religion, there are certain very practical objections to its in- discriminate use in the public schools. The most important of these is the legal one. In some states legislation actually prohibits its use in schools sup- ported by public taxation. The reason is obvious. Certain well-marked theological and sectarian differ- ences, involving both creed and ritual, have devel- oped from differences in interpretation of the Bible. Men have always been sensitive on these points. In many states, therefore, all use of the Bible in the public schools has been prohibited that no child might be exposed to interpretations and teachings offensive to his parents' belief. Possible uses. On the other hand, there are portions of the Bible presenting through character, incident, and didactic teaching just such duties as ought to be impressed on all children, and doing it more effectively than it can be done through any other material accessible to teachers or parents. It is a great misfortune to children not to become familiar with them, either in home or school. To indicate some of the more valuable portions of the Bible for the teaching of morals acceptable to all, regardless of sect or creed, is the aim of the follow- ing pages of this chapter. It may be said in advance that the danger of giving offense to people of conflicting religious be- liefs through well-selected Bible readings, even in school, is much more fanciful than real. In twelve 286 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME years of service as a high-school principal, with fre- quent assemblies of high-school pupils and teachers, in some of which the two great divisions of the Christian church were almost equally represented, the writer never heard a word of criticism of the character of an exercise, however frequently it in- volved a reading of some scriptural passage. Importance of wisdom. In the Book of Prov- erbs are many expressions declaring the importance of wisdom. Such passages tend to dignify the work of the school and to show the importance of its work as compared with other things which children desire and for which they are tempted too often to sacrifice an education. "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies : and all the things thou canst desire are not to be com- pared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand ; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth ; by understanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew. My son, let not them depart from thine eyes : keep sound wisdom and discretion : So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck." Respect for parents. Respect for parents was a moral trait which had a large place in the training MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 287 given to children in the Jewish homes of ancient times. Young Americans begin very early to think that the '; Old Man " and the " Old Woman " are well meaning enough, but hardly up to date. Both the Old and the New Testament offer an antidote for this tendency in such teachings and admonitions as these : "My son, keep the commandment of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually upon thy heart ; tie them about thy neck." Proverbs I : 8-9. "A wise son maketh a glad father; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother/' Proverbs 15 : 20. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth/' Ephe- sians 6 : 1-2. Laziness and improvidence. Laziness and im- providence are effectively contrasted with industry and providence in Proverbs : "I went by the field of the sluggard, And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding ; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, The face thereof was covered with nettles, And the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I beheld and considered well ; I saw and received instruction. . . . "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; Consider her ways and be wise : 288 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Which having no chief, Overseer, or ruler, Provideth her bread in the summer, And gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard ? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep ? Yet a little more sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep ; So shall thy poverty come as a robber, And thy want as an armed man." "And let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Galatians 5 : 9. The evils resulting from the use of alcoholic drinks were proclaimed as a warning to youth in these words : "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath con- tentions ? Who hath complaining ? Who hath wounds without cause ? Who hath redness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkleth in the cup, When it goeth down smoothly. At last it biteth like a serpent, And stingeth like an adder." Proverbs. The Golden Rule, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," deserves teaching to all children. Its application to life does more than anything else can do to lessen friction between man and man. The conflict be- MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 289 tween capital and labor is minimized just to the extent that this rule is appreciated and applied. ' Ye that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak." This is a social leaven which is slowly leavening the lump of society. Paul closes one of his letters to an early church with the following admonition, the epitome of all moral instruction, and the clearest statement of its psychology as well : "Finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are true, K Whatsoever things are honorable, Whatsoever things are just, Whatsoever things are pure, Whatsoever things are lovely, Whatsoever things are of good report ; If there be any virtue, And if there be any praise, Think on these things." Mutual relationships. In teaching children the mutual relationship that members of a home, a school, a church, a neighborhood, or a state sustain to each other, and the reciprocal duties imposed, the parable of the Body and its Members may well be used. "The body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of the body. And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body ; it is not therefore not of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling ? But now hath God set the members each one of them in the body, even 290 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME as it pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body ? But now they are many members, but one body. "And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee : or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary : and those parts of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness ; whereas our comely parts have no need : but God tempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that part which lacked ; that there should be no schism in the body ; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it ; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it." Neighborliness. - - The parable of the Good Sa- maritan teaches a lesson of such universal need that it may well find a place among the moral lessons of the public schools. "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho ; and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down that way : and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was : and when he saw him, he was moved with com- passion, and came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine ; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow he took out two shillings, and gave MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 29! them to the host, and said, Take care of him ; and what- soever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again, will repay thee. "Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers ? And he said, He that showed mercy on him." In the Old Testament are stories of numerous char- acters which children should know. Many of the stories need to be recast ; some should be expur- gated ; some ought to be omitted. The rich variety of moral lessons which can easily be taught by the skillful teacher who knows how to analyze them and present them in paraphrase is nowhere more striking than here. Adam and Eve, their disobedience, consciousness of guilt, and expulsion from Paradise in punishment ; Cain and Abel and the warning to children of all generations that one can not lightly set aside the duty he owes his brother ; the beauty of conduct exhibited by Abraham in yielding a portion of his rights for the sake of harmony with his kins- man Lot ; the maternal affection of Hagar for her child ; the beauty of hospitality toward strangers as illustrated in the story of Rebecca at the Well; the friendship between David and Jonathan ; the love of a father even for an unworthy son, as shown in the story of David and Absalom all of these and scores of others present moral pictures from which moral principles and ethical standards may be easily drawn. A method illustrated. But whether in home, or Sunday school or public school, he who would use these stories for the instruction of children is often puzzled with the question of selection, of analysis, 292 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME and of method. Because I have seen no saner treat- ment of them than that given by Adler in his book, which was more widely read nearly a generation ago, I venture to quote his Jacob Cycle as an illustration of their possibilities in the hands of a wise teacher. "What treatment shall Jacob receive at our hands, he, the sly trickster, who cheats his brother of his birthright and steals a father's blessing ? Yet he is one of the patriarchs, and is accorded the honorable title of ' champion of God/ To hold him up to the admiration of the young is impossible. To gloss over his faults and try to explain them away were a sorry business, and honesty forbids. The Bible itself gives us the right clew. His faults are nowhere disguised. He is represented as a person who makes a bad start in life a very bad start, indeed but who pays the penalty of his wrong-doing. His is a story of penitential discipline. "In telling the story, all reference to the duplicity of Rebecca should be omitted, for the same reason that malicious stepmothers and cruel fathers have been ex- cluded from the fairy tales. "The points to be discussed may be summarized as follows : " Taking advantage of a brother in distress. Jacob purchases the birthright for a mess of pottage. "Tender attachment to a helpless old father.. Esau goes out hunting to supply a special delicacy for his father's table. This is a point which children will ap- preciate. Unable to confer material benefits on their parents, they can only show their love by slight attentions. "Deceit. Jacob simulates the appearance of his older brother and steals the blessing. In this connection it will be necessary to say that a special power was supposed to attach to a father's blessing, and that the words once spoken were deemed irrevocable. MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 293 "Jacob's penitential discipline begins. The deceiver is deceived, and made to feel in his own person the pain and disappointment which deceit causes. He is re- peatedly cheated by his master Laban, especially in the matter which is nearest to him, his love for Rachel. " The forgiveness of injuries. Esau's magnanimous conduct toward his brother. " The evil consequences of tale-bearing and conceit. It is a significant fact that Joseph is not a mere coxcomb. He is a man of genius, as his later career proves, and the stirrings of his genius manifest themselves in his early dreams of future greatness. Persons of this description are not always pleasant companions, especially in their youth. They have not yet accomplished anything to warrant distinction, and yet they feel within themselves the presentiment of a destiny and of achievements above the ordinary. Their faults, their arrogance, their seem- ingly preposterous claims, are not to be excused, but neither is the envy they excite excusable. One of the hardest things to learn is to recognize without envy the superiority of a brother. " Moral cowardice. Reuben is guilty of moral coward- ice. He was an opportunist, who sought to accomplish his ends by diplomacy. If he, as the oldest brother, had used his authority and boldly denounced the contemplated crime, he might have averted the long train of miseries that followed. "Strength and depth of paternal love. * Joseph is no more : an evil beast has devoured him. I will go mourn- ing for my son Joseph into the grave/ It is a piece of poetic justice that Jacob, who deceived his father in the matter of the blessing by covering himself with the skin of a kid, is himself deceived by the blood of a kid of the goats with which the coat of Joseph had been stained. "In speaking of the temptation of Joseph in the house 294 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME of Potiphar, it is enough to say that the wife conspired against her husband, and endeavored to induce Joseph to betray his master. A pretty addition to the story is to be found in the Talmud, to the effect that Joseph saw in imagination the face of his father before him in the moment of temptation, and was thereby strengthened to resist. " The light of a superior mind can not be hidden even in a prison. Joseph wins the favor of his fellow-prisoners, and an opportunity is thus opened to him to exercise his talents on the largest scale. "Affliction chastens. The famine had in the mean- time spread to Palestine. The shadow of the grief for Joseph still lay heavily on the household of the patriarch. Joseph is lost ; shall Benjamin, too, perish ? It is pleasant to observe that the character of the brothers in the mean- time has been changed for the better. There is evidently a lurking sense of guilt and a desire to atone for it in the manner in which Judah pledges himself for the safety of the youngest child. And the same marked change is visible in the conduct of all the brothers on the journey. The stratagem of the cup was cunningly devised to test their feelings. They might have escaped by throwing the blame on Benjamin. Instead of that, they dread nothing so much as that he may have to suffer, and are willing to sacrifice everything to save him. When this new spirit has become thoroughly apparent, the end to which the whole group of Jacob stories pointed all along is reached ; the work of moral regeneration is complete. Jacob himself has been purified by affliction, and the brothers and Joseph have been developed by the same hard taskmaster into true men. The scene of recognition which follows, when the great vice-regent orders his attendants from the apartment and embraces those who once attempted his life, with the words, 'I am Joseph, your brother: does my father still live?' is touching in MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 295 the extreme, and the whole ends happily in a blaze of royal pomp, like a true Eastern tale. "A word as to the method which should be used in teaching these stories. If the fairy tale holds the moral element in solution, if the fable drills the pupil in dis- tinguishing one moral trait at a time, the biblical stories exhibit a combination of moral qualities, or, more pre- cisely, the interaction of moral causes and effects ; and it is important for the teacher to give expression to this difference in the manner in which he handles the stories. Thus, in the fables we have simply one trait, like ingrati- tude, and its immediate consequences. The snake bites the countryman, and is cast out; there the matter ends. In the story of Joseph we have, first, the partiality of the father, which produces or encourages self-conceit in the son ; Joseph's conceit produces envy in the brothers. This envy reacts on all concerned on Joseph, who in consequence is sold into slavery; on the father, who is plunged into inconsolable grief; on the brothers, who nearly become murderers. The servitude of Joseph de- stroys his conceit and develops his nobler nature. In- dustry, fidelity, and sagacity raise him to high power. The sight of the constant affliction of their father on account of Joseph's loss mellows the hearts of the brothers, etc. It is this interweaving of moral causes and effects that gives to the stories their peculiar value. They are true moral pictures ; and, like the pictures used in or- dinary object lessons, they serve to train the power of observation. Trained observation, however, is the in- dispensable preliminary of correct moral judgment." 1 Use of quotations. Many teachers have the com- mendable habit of writing on the blackboard in the front of the schoolroom a verse from the Bible 1 Moral Instruction of Children, chapter ix, pp. 126-130. 296 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME which they leave for a few days and then replace by another, or by a sentence from some other source, emphasizing some moral virtue or truth. The teacher may never know the extent to which seed thus sown is ultimately to germinate, spring up, and bear fruit. But I remember well the pleasure one such teacher had in telling me of the testimony of a former pupil in his country school. The teacher and pupil met after a separation of twenty years. In the course of their conversation the former pupil said : " Do you remember the commandment you had on the blackboard for a week ' Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth ' ? Well/' he said, " that marked the beginning of my Christian life, though you never made a comment upon the verse, and you^never knew that it was responsible for any change in my life." Jesus as a teacher. - - The life of Jesus, wholly apart from the mooted questions concerning his birth, his resurrection, his ascension, and his inter- cession for man in the forgiveness >of sin, is still one of such singular beauty, purity, and power, that its story ought to be the heritage of every child in Christendom. His childhood spent in growth " in stature, in wisdom, in favor with God and man " ; His long preparation for three short years of service ; His ministry to man in healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping deaf ears, cleansing lepers, making the halt and the cripple to walk, de- nouncing hypocrisy, rebuking evildoers, eating with publicans and sinners; His attitude towards the Sabbath day, towards marriage, towards rulers in authority, towards little children, towards His MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 297 enemies ; His teaching, by precept and example, of the lessons of humility, service, sincerity, and love - love for God and love for man, for his brother and his neighbor : these are all moral lessons which rise above creed and make Him an example and an in- spiration to youth always and everywhere. Influence of the Bible upon civilization. It would unduly lengthen this chapter to specify the helpful passages and incidents that might well be taken from the Bible to give moral instruction void of offense to child, teacher, or parent. It is in place, however, to be reminded of the fact that the Bible has been the concomitant and usually the inspiration of the great forward steps the civilized nations have taken since the advent of Christ. One may find the proof of this statement in the best architecture of the world today its churches, temples, and ca- thedrals ; in the art galleries of Europe and America, with their masterpieces of Christian conception ; in the sacred hymns, cantatas, and oratorios compris- ing the best which music knows today; in the dig- nity of Christian womanhood as contrasted with the degradation of woman in lands not yet under its in- fluence ; in the recognition of children's rights and the dominant place they occupy among all Christian peoples ; and in the increasing tendency of the strong, the rich, and the fortunate to bear the burdens of the weak, the poor, and the unfortunate in Europe and America. Where the Bible goes art is inspired, education is encouraged, asylums spring up, marriage becomes a sacrament, woman becomes man's equal, and children are accorded a central place in parental affection and family life. 2Q8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME Its teaching and influence, especially those of the New Testament, all tend towards the purest of domestic relationships, a mutually helpful relation between masters and servants, a proper use of money, due obedience to the state and its civil rep- resentatives, and the promotion of every wise form of benevolent, philanthropic, and humanitarian work which social needs suggest. Whatever differences in creed may find their basis in its teachings, its moral precepts and social mandates scarcely admit more than one interpretation. In no other book that has yet appeared is there anything like the material in parable, illustration, story, commandment, and per- sonal example making clear the moral relationships of man to man. Viewed from the moral standpoint alone the whole Bible is an affirmative answer to Cain's indignant question, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " Since it is inconceivable that any rational mind could wish evil for itself, the social and moral obligation imposed upon every one is well expressed in its words which for generations have been rightly considered the golden rule of conduct: "Whatso- ever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Account for the fact that the Bible was the "best seller" of all the books published last year. 2. Estimate the influence the Bible has had upon the fine arts. 3. Discuss the influence of the Bible upon the writings of Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lew Wallace, Tennyson, Browning, Milton, Bunyan, Shakespeare. MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 299 4. Compare the moral teachings of the Bible with those of the sacred writings of Confucius ; the Koran. Think of their relative bearings upon the status of women ; of children ; the poor. 5. Characterize Jesus as a Teacher, considering: a. His preparation. b. His method. c. His most significant teachings. d. His personal example. e. His influence upon the history of the world. 6. Find biblical characters, incidents, and teachings that may well be used in showing a. Friendship. b. Paternal affection. c. Filial devotion. d. Obedience. e. The dangers of drunkenness. /. The rewards of industry. g. Indignation at evildoing. h. The test of neighborliness. i. The beauty of forgiveness. j. The spirit of humility. 7. Consult some good book on "How to Tell Stories to Children" for suggestions on telling Bible stories. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING ADLER, FELIX: Moral Instruction of Children. D. Appleton & Co. ATHEARN, WALTER S. : The Church School. The Pilgrim Press. COE, GEORGE ALBERT : Education in Morals and Religion. Fleming H. Revell Co. GALLOWAY, T. W. : The Use of Motives in Teaching Morals and Religion. The Pilgrim Press. HORNE, H. H. : Psychological Principles of Education : chapter xxxn, Religious Education in the Public School; and chapter xxxiv, The Text-Book of Religious Education. Macmillan Co. PAINTER, F. V. N. : Introduction to Bible Study. Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. CHAPTER XXI MORAL LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR The value of physical preparedness. --The war has taught the American people a number of lessons political, industrial, economic, and educational and some of them are distinctly moral in their bearings. The first is this : Physical preparedness as truly as military preparedness must go hand in hand with love of country and devotion to humani- tarian ideals and impulses in order to make the latter effective. The recent examination of con- scripts throughout the country has resulted in the rejection, by the examining boards, of numbers varying from fifteen to sixty-five per cent. The size of the army of the physically unfit is almost appalling. It is a serious reflection upon our schools and the results they get in physical education. It is already causing thoughtful school men and women everywhere to take an inventory of their courses and methods in physical training to find, if possible, how they can make them more helpful to the youth of the land. As some one has said in substance, there is not much to choose between the man who can serve his country when it calls, but will not, and the man who would serve, but, when the crisis comes, finds that 300 LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 301 because of his neglect of himself or his earlier sins against his own body he can not serve. In either case the country goes without a defender. The loss is a national one. If patriotism is a virtue to be fostered and cherished by every citizen, becoming and keeping physically fit to make one's patriotism dynamic is a duty equally incumbent upon us all. To be able and willing to shoot as we shout is the epigrammatic statement of this duty as recently phrased by a most distinguished and virile patriot. Social vice can be made unattractive. Another lesson which the war is teaching anew is that social vice must and can be made unattractive to soldiers. In the past it has sometimes happened, in both Europe and America, that armies have been deci- mated more by venereal disease than by bullets and bayonets. In a pamphlet on " Prostitution in Relation to the Army on the Mexican Border," so eminent an authority as Dr. M. J. Exner makes the statement that " during the first eighteen months of the war, one of the great powers had more men in- capacitated for service by venereal disease contracted in the mobilization camps than in all the fighting at the front/' Today one of the most encouraging words which reach American homes is the assurance of General Pershing and others in command that vice among the soldiers is reduced to a minimum, and that parents need have no fear that their sons will come back home after the war diseased and debilitated from their own immoral indulgences while in service. Never in the history of civilization have such elaborate and costly preparations been made by a 302 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME people to safeguard and protect the moral integrity of its soldiers. Never before has a government seemed to feel so keenly its responsibility to the men in service for eliminating the evils with which armies have hitherto been surrounded. The creation of a Federal Commission on Training Camp Activities is a notable step in the accomplishment of the gov- ernment's purpose. Millions of dollars have been raised by popular subscription and put into the hands of the Army Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., Knights of Columbus, and other organizations charged with the responsibility of providing a wholesome environ- ment and a positive program of safe recreations for enlisted men. Music, lectures, reading rooms and libraries, box- ing, wrestling, bayonet exercises, and the promotion of every sort of athletic sport and hard physical game is encouraged. An appeal is made to competitive instincts. In some of the exercises everybody must take part. " Squads compete with squads, companies with companies, regiments with regiments, brigades with brigades, and divisions with divisions." With such a program are the leisure hours of the soldiers filled, and by such a method is the influence of vicious resorts effectually overcome. A further result of this army program is likely to be an extension of its application to the solution of similar problems of every neighborhood in times of peace. It is not enough to deplore the appeal which certain forms of evil make to men and boys, but safe and sane substitutes must be provided and made to utilize the surplus of their physical and intellectual energies. Upon an unprecedented LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 303 scale is the world learning not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. The lesson was taught a long, long time ago. It seems now about to be understood. Impetus of the temperance movement. In an- other chapter of this book reference has been made to the new impetus given the temperance movement by the war. Although the movement has long been spreading, it well may be doubted whether twenty years of continued peace would have witnessed its progress at home and abroad to the extent that it has grown during the period of the war. While the list of " dry " states has been steadily increasing for years, the action of Congress in amending the Con- stitution of the United States and establishing national prohibition after six years, subject to ratification by the separate states within that period, came with almost precipitate suddenness as a result of the war. Whatever the extent of moral results from the growth of the temperance and prohibition move- ment, it must be admitted that one of the biggest factors operating to hasten it is the economic one. The unprecedented demands of the Entente allies for food supplies that could be furnished only by the United States; the necessity for food conservation here to supply those demands; the governmental regulation of the meat, wheat, and sugar consumption of the people all tended to make thoughtful people see the absurdity of using millions of bushels of our grain supply in the making of alcoholic drinks when such heroic measures were made necessary to keep our allies from positive suffering if not from actual 304 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME starvation. The lesson learned, though imposed by the crisis of war, will not be wholly forgotten even when peace comes. Decorations for personal bravery. It is popularly supposed that war brutalizes the individual soldier, and dulls his finest feelings and instincts. But this war, like others that have preceded it, just as truly affords the opportunity for an exercise of some of the highest and holiest impulses that men may have. " Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friend/' With all its horrors the battlefield is daily exhibiting scores of examples of men of heroic mold. Their forgetfulness of self, their willingness to make any sacrifice, even of life itself, in volunteer service to save another man, is one of the finest results of every battle. For hundreds of years the world has delighted to tell the story of Sir Philip Sidney who is said to have pushed aside the proffered cup of water while he was lying feverish and wounded upon the field of battle, in favor of a dying soldier because, as Sir Philip said, " Thy need is greater than mine." But this story pales into insignificance when compared with many of the deeds of heroism, whether noted, or unknown to the world, that make up a part of every day's program in the present war zone. The French have long recognized distinguished valor and unusual exhibitions of bravery by con- ferring the " croix de guerre " upon those who merit it. The British have, in like manner conferred the simple Victoria Cross, with its modest motto, " For Valor," as the most honored and coveted military decoration in the world. Lately the United LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 305 States has seen fit to give similar recognition to its heroes. Almost daily dispatches tell the story of American soldiers, some of them privates, upon whom the French or the British have conferred these badges of honor for " distinguished service " ; and it would be difficult to estimate the moral in- fluence of these deeds deeds of " supermen, who without a thought of self, dash into the fiery blast to save a stricken comrade, or who strike a ringing blow for their cause under the jaws of horrid death, whose hands are stretched out to clutch them/' 1 Unity, cooperation, sacrifice, and service promoted. One of the obvious moral fruits of the war, and one the most important of all, is the development within the nations involved of a spirit of unity, of cooperation, of sacrifice and service, of devotion to a lofty purpose and noble cause that was largely un- known before the war began. Men are forgetting their differences of creed, of politics, of social stand- ing, of culture, of economic status, and finding their common brotherhood. The appeals for Red Cross funds, for Y. M. C. A. support, for Belgium, for the Armenians, for the purchase of Liberty Loan Bonds, for food conservation, are all striking responsive chords in hearts that beat as one. When side by side with capitalists and wealthy corporation heads who invest their millions in bonds, the day laborer in shop and factory, the bookkeeper and stenog- rapher in the office, newsboys from the street, and widows with their mite make personal sacrifice to buy a single bond from a sense of duty, there is 1 Michael McDonagh, The Irish at the Front, page 130. 306 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME evidence enough that the fires of patriotism are still burning upon the altar of this country. Revival of religion. But, more than that, there is abundant evidence that the war is even bringing about a revival of religion throughout Europe and America. In a recent magazine article Washington Gladden quotes Dr. Eliot as saying at the Andover commencement that he felt " that the underlying cause of the war was that no church has succeeded in setting forth to the world an adequate conception of Almighty God." Whatever the truth in this statement, it is comforting to know that nations and men who had forgotten God are now sponta- neously turning to him, and finding him through obedience to the teachings of sacrifice, service, and self-denial enjoined by Christ himself, the completest revelation of God the world has yet known. John R. Mott, after months spent in the war zones of Europe, in observation of conditions and inter- views with high civil and military authorities, was impressed with the quickened religious spirit of the European people and the breaking down of the sectarian barriers separating them. In his address before the N. E.A. in New York, G. Stanley Hall related the fact that " a grandson of Pasteur, also a literary star, who died heading a charge on the Marne, left behind him a book sold and read every- where, urging that no man can be a mature, com- plete man who is not a -Christian, and that every true Christian is a soldier, and every true soldier a Christian, because both consist in finding something the individual would die for if called to do so." In the same address he quoted Bergmann as saying LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 307 that " the chief culture effect of the war in Germany is the development of deep and strong religious feeling, and that the student soldier who went out with Nietzsche in his knapsack now reads the New Testament, the sale of which has immensely in- creased." One of the clearest statements of the change that has come throughout Europe and of the larger place given to religion in men's lives as a result of the war is that with which H. G. Wells makes his principal character to conclude his meditations in Mr. Britling Sees It Through. When it is remembered that Mr. Britling's own .son lost his life in the war, the reader is better prepared to appreciate the following : "Religion is the first thing and the last thing, and until a man has found God and been found by God, he begins at no beginning, he works to no end. He may have his friendships, his party loyalties, his scraps of honor. But all these things fall into place and life falls into place only with God. Only with God. God who fights through men against Blind Force and Night and Non-Existence ; who is the end, who is the meaning. He is the only King. . . . Of course I must write about Him. I must tell all my world of Him. And before the coming of the true King, the inevitable King, the King who is present whenever just men foregather, this bloodstained rubbish of the ancient world, these puny kings and tawdry emperors, these wily politicians and artful lawyers, these men who claim and grab and trick and compel, these war-makers and expressors, will presently shrivel and pass like paper thrust into a flame. . . ." Then after a time he said : "Our sons who have shown us God. . . ." 308 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME While the roots of the war are usually asserted to be in the historic ambitions and racial and national differences of the nations contending, scholars have been wont to find its philosophic causes in the pro- fessorial teachings of such men as Treitschke, who long ago declared that it is an inexorable law of nature that " the strong should triumph over the weak," and in the writings of Nietzsche, who taught that " might makes right," a doctrine all too pleasing to the Prussian aristocracy and the imperial house of the Hohenzollerns. Clearly this doctrine has overleaped itself, and its antidote is being found in the Sermon on the Mount and the teaching and life of Him who taught that life means both sacrifice and service, and that bearing one another's burdens is the highest duty of nations as well as men. The opportunity of the school, as well as the church, was never so great as it is now. In spite of the hymns of hate that may be sung while the war lasts, when the nations now at war have purged themselves of their several degrees of selfishness and greed, when the baptism by fire and blood and tears has done its work, the schools must be ready to do their part in the period of reconstruction. Their influence must be felt from the elementary grades on up. They can never again be so much aloof from life as they have been heretofore. The grammar grades and high schools- will continue to stress, as they are now beginning to do, the mutual relation- ships of life community, nation, and world. Civics, economics, and ethics must all be taught in relation to history and the domestic and industrial LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 309 arts and sciences of the present day. In so doing we may hope that there will be an increased develop- ment in the men and women of a new generation, of the moral judgment and the ethical will, and a hastening of the coming of " the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world/' New work of the schools. It is already certain that a period of reconstruction and readjustment, both within and between the nations involved, must follow the war. The isolation of the United States is gone forever. It has become not only a world- power but a world-leader. It must henceforth recognize that its destiny, for weal or woe, is in- exorably bound up with that of the European na- tions, perhaps with all other nations of the world as well. International relationships must be cultivated. These will involve the active agencies of business, politics, school, and church, each of which must bear a part of the burden of making the necessary changes. Out of it all is coming a new social order, moral in its essence, from which the common man must emerge, more broadly democratic, more tolerant, more intelligent, more disposed to look beneath the surface, and to recognize and pay trib- ute to those qualities in men and nations which are elemental and fundamental. In one respect, at least, the effect of the war will be not unlike that of the great crusades of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries men's minds and souls are growing larger to take in the larger world they have found. 310 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. Show the relation between physical preparedness and success in war. 2. Justify the common assertion that the war is resulting in a development of the spirit of unity and of brotherhood, both among the peoples of our nation, and between them and those of other nations as well. 3. Show the effect of the war upon the religion of the peoples engaged in it. 4. Discuss the influence of Treitschke; of Nietzsche. 5. Make clear the extent to which you believe the war has promoted a. Thrift. b. Industry. c. Sympathy. d. Hatred. e. Love for man. /. Patriotism. g. Temperance. h. Sex morality. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING BARRY, W. : Return of Religion. Nineteenth Century, July, 1917. FOSDICK, HARRY EMERSON: The Challenge of the Present Crisis. Westminster Press. GANNETT, REV. DR. WILLIAM C. : A New Estimate of the Spiritual Gains of the War. Current Opinion, July, 1917. GERARD, JAMES W. : My Four Years in Germany. George H. Doran. HILL, DAVID JAYNE : The Rebuilding of Europe. Century Co. VAN DYKE, HENRY C. : Fighting For Peace. Scribner's. WELLS, H. G. : Mr. Britling Sees It Through. Macmillan Co. WISTER, OWEN : The Pentecost of Calamity. Macmillan Co. WOOD, H. G. : War and Religion. Living Age, February 24. 1917. INDEX Acts, moral, significance of personal examples, 96 Aim, modern, must be composite, H moral, not chief aim, 162 Altruism, practical methods of developing, 24 Altruistic, vs. egoistic feelings, 24 Angell, 29 Appearance, personal, influence of the teacher's, 148 Aristotle, 194 Arnold of Rugby, 47 Art, Caffin's view on, 157 for life's sake, 154 Ruskin's view on, 155 Art education and morality, ch. xi what makes it moral, 148 Barton, Clara, 108 Betts, 34 Bible, the, as literature, 283 influence of, upon civilization, 297 influence of, upon literature, 283 Jacob cycle, 291 made vital, 107 moral education through, ch. xx mutual relationships, 289 neighborliness, 290 possible uses of, 285 practical objections to the use of, in school, 285 respect for parents, 286 wisdom, importance of, 286 Biography, appeal to children, 105 morals through, ch. vm Biology, suggestions from, 70 Bonaventure, lesson from, 42 Boy Scouting as a factor in moral training, ch. xvin as an example of expression in education, 264 illustrations of "good turns," 261 influence of leader, 266 recognition of the movement by the N. E. A., 257 statement of aims, 258 Buisson, Ferdinand, 19 Burbank, Luther, in Character, a by product, 9 Character building, the end of edu- cation, 14 Chauvinism to be avoided, 100 Child, a, lesson learned from, 107 Childs, George W., 128 Citizenship as an end of education, 13 Coleridge, 168 Cooperation between schools and other educative agencies, 256 of social forces necessary, 2 Courtesy, 210 Current events, moral training through, ch. ix Daily papers, 131 Disciplinarian, good, popular esti- mate of, 59 3 I2 INDEX Discipline, a difficult process, 69 as a means to an end, 57 good, the best guarantee of, 60 good, what constitutes, 59 moral education through, school, ch. v Domsie of Drumtochty, 44 Earnings and occupations of stu- dents, 235 Edison, Thomas, 112 Education, financial value of, 231 Efficiency, 128 Emotional life, modern theory of, 22 Ethics, professional, 211 European War, the, moral lessons from, ch. xxi unity, cooperation, sacrifice, and service promoted, 305 Exner, Dr. M. J., 301 Fidelity, 211 Froebel, influence of, 196 Froude, 98 Gardening, school and home, 228 Golden Rule, 288 Grenfell, Doctor, 116 Griggs, 158 Habit formation, laws of, 30 Habits, moral and hygienic, fos- tered, 203 of a moral sort, establishing of, 27 Hall, G. Stanley, 71 Handicaps, 112 Health in relation to thrift, 232 Herbartians, the, 14 Heroes in unromantic walks, 121 History, American, moral involved in, 94 morality through, ch. vn Lecky's stress on the moral as- pects of, 97 History, American Continued -teaching, patriotism an outcome of, 98 Hodge, Clifton H., 174 Honesty, 210 Honor, personal, to be developed, 247 Home, H. H., 26 Household budgets, 230 Hubbard, Elbert, 40 Hughes, James L., 199 Huntington, n Huxley, 164 Hyde, 41 Ideal, the educational, ch. n Industriousness, 211 Industry, 213 Initiative, 212 Instinct, the place of, in moral training, 25 Interest in moral education, revival of, i Interest of the child, approach to the, 86 International spirit, America and the, 1 02 James, 28 -Lange theory, 23 Jesus as a teacher, 296 Judgment, moral, opportunity Tor the exercise of, 90 Kant, 14 Keller, Helen, 45, 115 Kirkpatrick, E. A., 26 Labor, a fortification against vice, 189 Life, what ma'kes it significant, 121 Mann, Horace, 47 Manual training, appeal to chil- dren, 182 INDEX 313 Manual training Continued meaning of phrase as used, 179 moral instruction through, ch. XIII McTurnan on personality, 49 Measurements, 16 Money, relation of, to spiritual values, 220 Moral requirements, basic, 209 Morality code, national, 213 Motion pictures and morals, ch. xix experience of one city in solving the problem of, 270 -habit in relation to thrift, 221 second experiment in solving problem of, 271 third experiment in solving prob- lem of, 274 types of, 269 Mott, John R., 306 Music and discipline, 138 and patriotism, 138 and worship, 139 danger of intellectualizing too much, 142 in penal institutions, 141 ministry of, ch. x Plato upon the place of, 143 psychologist's attitude towards, social values of, 134 Nature study, accuracy and fidelity, 167 and health, 167 and science, moral education through, ch. xn humane spirit, 168 in relation to relaxation and pleasure, 164 law and order, respect for, 169 medicine, relation to, 173 truth, regard for, 165 Nietzsche, 308 Nightingale, Florence, 113 Oratorios, great, the effect of, 140 Origin of life, shall mothers explain, 242 Outside work, crediting of, 180 Palmer, George Herbert, 39 Pershing, Gen., 301 Personal examples of moral acts, 96 Personality defined, 49 Pestalozzi's method of developing sympathy, 127 Phonograph, function of, 141 Physical culture and games, moral education through, ch. xiv Physical preparedness, 30x3 Pictures, Landseer's, 151 Millet's, 152 Rembrandt's, 152 Plato, teachings of, 194 Play and a physical basis for moral- ity, 196 as a revelation of character, 200 Playgrounds, supervised, a neces- sity, 204 Psychology, new, influence of, 193 of moral education, ch. in Punctuality, 211 Punishment, corporal, sometimes necessary, 67 forms of, to avoid, 68 motives must be considered, 62 should be reformative, not re- tributive, 64 should be suited to the individ- uality of the child, 65 Quintilian, 195 Reading and literature, moral edu- cation through, ch. vi Reading, influence of the teacher's, 75 voluntary, 86 3*4 INDEX Reading, moral or ethical, 82 three types of, 77 wholesome literature, 80 Red Cross, 24, 34, 305 Reformatories first to see moral values of work, 181 Relationships, moral, writ large in the pages of history, 91 Religion in art, 153 revival of, 306 Reproduction, simple biological facts pertaining to, 243 Results, intellectual, measured, 16 Riis, Jacob, 115 Ruskin, 51, 155 Sacrifice, 305 School, duty of, 220 or college, the best thing it does, 32 Schoolroom, influence of, 149 Schools, modern, train for life work, 208 new work of, 309 Science, in relation to Deity, 174 Science, reflex influence of study of, 163 Self-control in the teacher, impor- tance of, 63 -reliance, 212 -support, moral obligation of, 188 Search, Preston, 38 Service chief duty of man, 189 Sex .hygiene for early adolescents, 245 instruction in relation to moral- ity, ch. xvn some generally accepted prin- ciples, 250 Smoking, habit of, 211 Socrates, 14 Strong, Doctor, his appeal to the honor of boys, 45 Sunday school, strength and limi- tations of, 3. Tagore, Rabindranath, 101 Teacher, moral education through example and personality of, ch. iv the ideal, 39 Teachers, the best, as seen by high school students, 50 Teamwork and moral training, 201 Temperance, 209 Tests, scientific, 16 Thrift and school savings, 226 reasons for teaching, 219 Thrift, taught by use of biography, 237 teaching of, as moral training, ch. xvi Thwing, C. F., 38 Tompkins, Arnold, I, 65 Treitschke, 308 Truthfulness, 210 Tuition, conscious vs. unconscious, Tuskegee, a lesson from, 185 Utilitarianism a present-day con- cept, 13 Victoria Cross, 304 Vocational direction in Grand Rapids schools, 209 moral education through, ch. xv War and science, 173 Washington, Booker, 115 Waste paper campaigns, 224 Waste products, value of, 223 Will, moral, as highest expression of moral life, 33 Willard, Frances, 114 Work, ethics of, 214 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. JAN 231948 AR'51CM 24Feb'58RH| REC'D LD FEB 1 1958 DEC 8 3* LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 FEB 1 6 196? 4 MAR'63AE REC'D LD FEB 241963 YB 064 8( UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY '