Class _4-_fiAi_i 
 Book i— -2 . 
 
 Copyright IN^. 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 
 TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 ETHICAL AND MORAL 
 INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS 
 
 BY 
 GEORGE HERBERT PALMER 
 
 ALFORD PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 
 

 COPYRIGHT, I90S, BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction . . . . . . . v 
 
 I. Ethical Instruction in the Schools . i 
 
 II. Moral Instruction in the Schools . 25 
 
 Outline . . .... . 53 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The problem of moral education 
 
 The problem of moral education is an old one, — 
 older indeed than schools. The obligation for its 
 solution has therefore rested upon the shoulders 
 of others besides schoolmasters ; every responsi- 
 ble class in the community has borne a share of 
 the burden. That our present discussion should 
 emphasize schools and school-teaching merely 
 indicates the special form which the problem 
 takes in our time. In no wav does it denote that 
 moral education is wholly the business of the 
 school, or that it is the school's whole business. 
 It simply suggests that there is an increasing con- 
 scious dependence upon the school as a moulder 
 of character. 
 
 Social change in moral training 
 
 The conditions of our American life have 
 changed marvelously during the past century, and 
 we are now feeling the full momentum of the 
 consequences of these changes. The moral weak- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ness of men before the pressure of temptations 
 arising from our modern life has become pain- 
 fully apparent. Something needs to be done to 
 make men better able to meet the powerful at- 
 tacks upon their moral natures which seem to be 
 a part of modern social conditions. Life moves 
 swiftly and complexly now. The old day's work 
 in the field and the old neighborhood life, with 
 its exacting standards of conduct, are for the 
 most part gone. Even the home and the church 
 are feebler at their tasks than in years gone by. 
 We must wait — perhaps long and patiently — 
 for these conservative institutions to grow re- 
 sponsive and strong in the new ministries which 
 our day demands. Where, then, but to the school 
 can society turn for release from its threatened 
 moral degradation ? It has, in fact, already turned 
 to the public school as the most potent factor in 
 the solution of the great problem. 
 
 TAe effect of the school's increased "moral 
 responsibility 
 
 It has made a large difference in the teacher's 
 view of the moral nature of school-teaching to 
 
 vi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 have his responsibilities thus increased. School 
 education has always had a moral end in view 
 even while it specifically pursued culture, know- 
 ledge, or discipline. But in times past it was no 
 more conscious of the particular agencies and 
 processes that achieved this end than were other 
 less intellectual institutions. The bringing to 
 consciousness of the need of moral training in 
 the schools has focused the attention of teachers 
 upon the work of estimating the instruments of 
 school life through which the instincts and im- 
 pulses of growth are made into the rounded 
 characters of full-statured men. 
 
 Three recent policies in moral education 
 
 In the earnest but somewhat feverish attempts 
 of teachers to strengthen the moral power of the 
 school, they have not altogether agreed upon the 
 worth of the means at hand in school life. There 
 may be said to be three distinct positions on the 
 question that have been taken by various groups 
 of educational thinkers, (i) Those who believe 
 that in direct and systematic ethical teaching in 
 the classroom lies the best means for enlarging 
 
 vii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the moral influence of the school. This belief 
 expresses itself in the provision of regular courses 
 in "morals and manners," "ethics," "behavior," 
 "civics," and the like, — facts about morality 
 being taught in much the same way that facts 
 about land forms are taught in geography. 
 
 (2) Another group, with a much larger con- 
 stituency, hold that all true moral training must 
 be indirect, and that it will be best secured by 
 maintaining a high moral tone in all the work of 
 the school. This indirect method of moral educa- 
 tion expresses itself in the extension and super- 
 vision of the social activities of school life, and 
 in such a reform of classroom methods as will 
 lead to more nearly normal modes of doing work. 
 The new importance in our recent educational 
 literature of playgrounds, school athletics, and 
 sociable organizations on the one hand, and of 
 the doctrine of interest and cooperation in class 
 instruction on the other hand are evidences of 
 the progress of this point of view. 
 
 (3) The third point of view is that of the eclec- 
 tics. These hold that the policy for the public 
 schools to pursue is to extend the opportunities 
 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 for moral growth in both of these directions, — 
 to give more direct and systematic ethical teach- 
 ing and at the same time to enrich the human 
 relations of school life by giving them moral sig- 
 nificance. This point of view presupposes the 
 need of theory and practice in moral training as 
 in every other course of the curriculum. 
 
 It is the editor's privilege to offer in this com- 
 pact volume a masterly discussion of the issues 
 involved in the varying points of view named. 
 No more scholarly and practical estimate of the 
 worth of the various factors of school life for 
 moral training can be found in all our profes- 
 sional literature. It is commended not alone to 
 teachers, but to all citizens interested in the pro- 
 motion of our nation's moral welfare. 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION IN 
 THE SCHOOLS 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION IN 
 THE SCHOOLS 
 
 Within a few years a strong demand has arisen 
 for ethical teaching in the schools. Teachers 
 themselves have become interested, and where- 
 ever they are gathered the question, ** What shall 
 this teaching be ? " is eagerly discussed. The ed- 
 ucational journals are full of it. In the year in 
 which I write there have been published seven 
 books on the subject. Several of them — it would 
 be hardly an exaggeration to say all — are books 
 of marked excellence. Seldom does so large a 
 percentage of books in a single year, in a single 
 country, and on a single subject reach so high 
 a level of merit. I shall not criticise them, how- 
 ever, nor even engage in the popular discussion 
 of which they form a part. That discussion con- 
 cerns itself chiefly with the methods by which 
 ethics may be taught. I wish to go behind this 
 
 I 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 controversy and to raise the previous question 
 whether ethics should be taught to boys and girls 
 at all. 
 
 Evidently there are strong reasons why it 
 should be. Always and everywhere it is impor- 
 tant that men should be good. To be a good 
 man ! — it is more than half the fulfillment of 
 life. Better to miss fame, wealth, learning, than 
 to miss righteousness. And in America, too, we 
 must demand not the mere trifle that men shall 
 be good for their own sakes, but good in order 
 that the life of the state may be preserved. A 
 widespread righteousness is in a republic a mat- 
 ter of necessity. Where all rule all, each man 
 who falls into evil courses infects his neighbor, 
 corrupting the law and corrupting still more its 
 enforcement. The question of manufacturing 
 moral men becomes, accordingly, in a democracy, 
 urgent to a degree unknown in a country where 
 but a few selected persons guide the state. 
 
 There is also special urgency at the present 
 time. The ancient and accredited means of train- 
 ing youth in goodness are becoming, I will not 
 say broken, but enfeebled and distrusted. Hith- 
 
 2 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 erto a large part of the moral instruction of 
 mankind has been superintended by the clergy. 
 In every civilized state the expensive machinery 
 of the Church has been set up and placed in the 
 hands of men of dignity, because it has been be- 
 lieved that by no other engine can we so effect- 
 ively render people upright. I still believe this, 
 and I am pretty confident that a good many years 
 will pass before we shall dispense with the en- 
 nobling services of our ministers. And yet it is 
 plain that much of the work which formerly was 
 exclusively theirs is so no longer. Much of it is 
 performed by books, newspapers, and facilitated 
 human intercourse. Ministers do not now speak 
 with their old authority ; they speak merely as 
 other men speak ; and we are all asking whether 
 in the immense readjustment of faith now going 
 on something of their peculiar power of moral 
 as well as of intellectual guidance may not slip 
 away. 
 
 The home too, which has hitherto been the 
 fundamental agency for fostering morality in the 
 young, is just now in sore need of repair. We can 
 no longer depend upon it alone for moral guard- 
 
 3 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 ianship. It must be supplemented, possibly re- 
 constructed. New dangers to it have arisen. In 
 the complex civilization of city life, in the huge 
 influx of untutored foreigners, in the substitution 
 of the apartment for the house, in the greater 
 ease of divorce, in the larger freedom now given 
 to children, to women, in the breaking down of 
 class distinctions and the readier accessibility of 
 man to man, there are perils for boy and girl 
 which did not exist before. And while these 
 changes in the outward form of domestic life are 
 advancing, certain protections against moral peril 
 which the home formerly afforded have decayed. 
 It would be curious to ascertain in how many 
 families of our immediate time daily prayers are 
 used, and to compare the number with that of 
 those in which the holy practice was common 
 fifty years ago. It would be interesting to know 
 how frequently parents to-day converse with their 
 children on subjects serious, pious, or personal. 
 The hurry of modern life has swept away many 
 uplifting intimacies. Even in families which prize 
 them most, a few minutes only can be had each 
 day for such fortifying things. Domestic training 
 
 4 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 has shrunk, while the training of haphazard com- 
 panions, the training of the streets, the training 
 of the newspapers, have acquired a potency hith- 
 erto unknown. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that in such a moral cri- 
 sis the community turns to that agency whose 
 power is already felt beneficently in a multitude 
 of other directions, the school. The cry comes to 
 us teachers, " We established you at first to make 
 our children wiser ; we want you now for a pro- 
 founder service. Can you not unite moral culture 
 with intellectual } " It may be ; though discipline 
 of the passions is enormously more difficult than 
 discipline of the mind. But at any rate we must 
 acknowledge that our success in the mental field 
 is largely staked on our success in the moral. 
 Our pupils will not learn their lessons in arith- 
 metic if they have not already made some pro- 
 gress in concentration, in self-forgetfulness, in 
 acceptance of duty. Nor can we touch them in a 
 single section of their nature and hope for results. 
 Instruction must go all through. We are obliged 
 to treat each little human being as a whole if 
 we would have our treatment wholesome. And 
 
 5 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 then, too, we have had such successes elsewhere 
 that we may well feel emboldened for the new 
 task. Nearly the whole of life is now advanta- 
 geously surveyed in one form or another in our 
 schools and colleges ; and we have usually found 
 that advance in instruction develops swiftly into 
 betterment of practice. We teach, for example, 
 social science and analyze the customs of the 
 past ; but soon we find bands of young men and 
 women in all the important cities criticising the 
 government of those cities, suggesting better 
 modes of voting, wiser forms of charity ; and be- 
 fore we know it the community is transformed. 
 We cannot teach the science of electricity with- 
 out improving our street-cars, or at least without 
 raising hopes that they may some day be im- 
 proved. Each science claims its brother art. 
 Theory creeps over into action. It will not stay 
 by itself; it is pervasive, diffusive. And as this 
 pervasive character of knowledge in the lower 
 ranges is perceived, we teachers are urged to 
 press forward its operation in the higher also. 
 Why have we no school-books on human charac- 
 ter, the highest of all themes ? Once direct the 
 
 6 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 attention of our pupils to this great topic, and 
 may we not ultimately bring about that moral 
 enlargement for which the time waits ? 
 
 I have stated somewhat at length the considera- 
 tions in behalf of ethical instruction in the schools 
 because those considerations on the whole appear 
 to me illusory. I cannot believe such instruction 
 feasible. Were it so, of course it would have my 
 eager support. But I see in it grave difficulties, 
 difficulties imperfectly understood; and a diffi- 
 culty disregarded becomes a danger, possibly a 
 catastrophe. Let me explain in a few words 
 where the danger lies. 
 
 Between morals and ethics there is a sharp dis- 
 tinction, frequently as the two words are confused. 
 Usage, however, shows the meaning. If I call a 
 man a man of bad morals, I evidently mean to as- 
 sert that his conduct is corrupt ; he does things 
 which the majority of mankind believe he ought 
 not to do. It is his practice I denounce, not his 
 intellectual formulation. In the same way we 
 speak of the petty morals of society, referring in 
 the phrase to the small practices of mankind, the 
 unnumbered actions which disclose good or bad 
 
 7 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 principles unconsciously hidden within. It is en- 
 tirely different when I call a man's ethics bad. I 
 then declare that I do not agree with his compre- 
 hension of moral principles. His practice may be 
 entirely correct. I do not speak of that; it is his 
 understanding that is at fault. For ethics, as was 
 long ago remarked, is related to morals as geo- 
 metry to carpentry : the one is a science, the other 
 its practical embodiment. In the former, con- 
 sciousness is a prime factor; from the latter it 
 often is absent altogether. 
 
 Now what is asked of us teachers is that we 
 invite our pupils to direct study of the principles 
 of right conduct, that we awaken their conscious- 
 ness about their modes of life, and so by degrees 
 impart to them a science of righteousness. This 
 is theory, ethics; not morals, practice; and in 
 my judgment it is dangerous business, with the 
 slenderest chance of success. Useless is it to say 
 that the aim of such instruction need not be eth- 
 ical, but moral. Whatever the ultimate aim, the 
 procedure of instruction is of necessity scientific. 
 It operates through intelligence, and only gets into 
 life so far as the instructed intelligence afterward 
 
 8 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 becomes a director. This is the work of books and 
 teachers everywhere : they discipline the knowing 
 act, and so bring within its influence that multi- 
 tude of matters which depend for excellent ad- 
 justment on clear and ordered knowledge. Such 
 a work, however, is evidently but partial. Many 
 matters do not take their rise in knowledge at all. 
 Morality does not. The boy as soon as born is 
 adopted unconsciously into some sort of moral 
 world. While he is growing up and is thinking 
 of other things, habits of character are seizing 
 him. By the time he comes to school he is in- 
 crusted with customs. The idea that his moral 
 education can be fashioned by his teacher in the 
 same way as his education in geography is fantas- 
 tic. It is only his ethical training which may now 
 begin. The attention of such a boy may be called 
 to habits already formed; he may be led to dissect 
 those habits, to pass judgment on them as right 
 or wrong, and to inquire why and how they may 
 be bettered. This is the only power teaching 
 professes : it critically inquires, it awakens inter- 
 est, it inspects facts, it discovers laws. And this 
 process applied in the field of character yields 
 
 9 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 ethics, the systematized knowledge of human con- 
 duct. It does not primarily yield morals, improved 
 performance. 
 
 Nor indeed is performance likely to be im- 
 proved by ethical enlightenment if, as I maintain, 
 the whole business of self-criticism in the child is 
 unwholesome. By a course of ethical training a 
 young person will, in my view, much more prob- 
 ably become demoralized than invigorated. What 
 we ought to desire, if we would have a boy grow 
 morally sturdy, is that introspection should not 
 set in early and that he should not become ac- 
 customed to watch his conduct. And the reason 
 is obvious. Much as we incline to laud our pre- 
 rogative of consciousness and to assert that it is 
 precisely what distinguishes us from our poor 
 relations, the brutes, we still must acknowledge 
 that consciousness has certain grave defects when 
 exalted into the position of a guide. Large tracts 
 of life lie altogether beyond its control, and the 
 conduct which can be affected by it is apt — es- 
 pecially in the initial stages — to be rendered 
 vague, slow, vacillating, and distorted. Only in- 
 stinctive action is swift, sure, and firm. For this 
 
 10 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 reason we distrust the man who calculates his 
 goodness. We find him vulgar and repellent. We 
 are far from sure that he will keep that goodness 
 long. If I offer to shake hands with a man with 
 precisely that degree of warmth which I have 
 decided it is well to express, will he willingly take 
 my hand.^ A few years ago there were some non- 
 sense verses on this subject going the rounds of 
 the English newspapers. They seemed to me 
 capitally to express the morbid influence of con- 
 sciousness in a complex organism. They ran some- 
 what as follows : — 
 
 The centipede was happy, quite, 
 
 Until the toad for fun 
 Said, " Pray which leg comes after which ? *' 
 This worked her mind to such a pitch 
 She lay distracted in a ditch, 
 
 Considering how to run. 
 
 And well she might ! Imagine the hundred legs 
 steered consciously — now it is time to move this 
 one, now to move that ! The creature would never 
 move at all, but would be as incapable of action 
 as Hamlet himself. And are the young less com- 
 
 II 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 plex than centipedes ? Shall their little lives be 
 suddenly turned over to a fumbling guide ? Shall 
 they not rather be stimulated to unconscious rec- 
 titude, gently led into those blind but holy habits 
 which make goodness easy, and so be saved from 
 the perilous perplexities of marking out their own 
 way ? So thought the sagacious Aristotle. To the 
 crude early opinion of Socrates that virtue is 
 knowledge, he opposed the ripened doctrine that 
 it is practice and habit. 
 
 This, then, is the inexpugnable objection to 
 the ethical instruction of children : the end which 
 should be sought is performance, not Tknowledge, 
 and we cannot by supplying the latter induce the 
 former. But do not these considerations cut the 
 ground from under practical teaching of every 
 kind.!* Instruction is given in other subjects in 
 the hope that it may finally issue in strengthened 
 action, and I have acknowledged that as a fact 
 this hope is repeatedly justified. Why may not 
 a similar result appear in ethics ? What puts a 
 difference between that study and electricity, 
 social science, or manual training } This : accord- 
 ing as the work studied includes a creative ele- 
 
 12 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 ment and is intended to give expression to a per- 
 sonal life, consciousness becomes an increasingly 
 dangerous dependence. Why are there no classes 
 and text-books for the study of deportment ? Is 
 it because manners are unimportant? No, but 
 because they make the man, and to be of any 
 worth must be an expression of his very nature. 
 Conscious study would tend to distort rather than 
 to fashion them. Their practice cannot be learned 
 in the same way as carpentry. 
 
 But an analogy more enlightening for showing 
 the inaptitude of the child for direct study of the 
 laws of conduct is found in the case of speech. 
 Between speech and morals the analogies are 
 subtle and wide. So minute are they that speech 
 might almost be called a kind of vocal morality. 
 Like morality, it is something possessed long be- 
 fore we are aware of it, and it becomes perfect 
 or debased with our growth. We employ it to 
 express ourselves and to come into ordered con- 
 tact with our neighbor. By it we confer benefits, 
 and by it receive benefits in turn. Rigid as are 
 its laws, we still feel ourselves free in its use, 
 though obliged to give to our spontaneous feel- 
 
 13 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 ings forms constructed by men of the past. Ease, 
 accuracy, and scope are here confessedly of vast 
 consequence. It has consequently been found a 
 matter of extreme difficulty to bring a young 
 person's attention helpfully to bear upon his 
 speech. Indirect methods seem to be the only 
 profitable ones. Philology, grammar, rhetoric, 
 systematic study of the laws of language, are 
 dangerous tools for a boy below his teens. The 
 child who is to acquire excellent speech must be 
 encouraged to keep attention away from the 
 words he uses and to fix it upon that which he 
 is to express. Abstract grammar will either con- 
 found the tongue which it should ease, or else it 
 will seem to have no connection with living re- 
 ality, but to be an ingenious contrivance invented 
 by some Dry-as-dust for the torture of school- 
 boys. 
 
 And a similar pair of dangers await the young 
 student of the laws of conduct. On the one hand, 
 it is highly probable that he will not understand 
 what his teacher is talking about. He may learn 
 his lesson ; he may answer questions correctly ; 
 but he will assume that these things have no- 
 
 14 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 thing to do with him. He becomes dulled to moral 
 distinctions, and it is the teaching of ethics that 
 dulls him. We see the disastrous process in full 
 operation in a neighboring field. There are coun- 
 tries which have regular public instruction in 
 religion. The argument runs that schools are es- 
 tablished to teach what is of consequence to citi- 
 zens, and religion is of more consequence than 
 anything else. Therefore introduce it, is the con- 
 clusion. Therefore keep it out, is the sound con- 
 clusion. It lies too near the life to be announced 
 in official propositions and still to retain a recog- 
 nizable meaning. I have known a large number 
 of German young men. I have yet to meet one 
 whose religious nature has been deepened by his 
 instruction in school. And the lack of influence 
 is noticeable not merely in those who have failed 
 in the study, but quite as much in those who 
 have ranked highest. In neither case has the au- 
 gust discipline meant anything. The danger would 
 be wider, the disaster from the benumbing influ- 
 ence more serious, if ethical instruction should be 
 organized ; wider, because morality underlies re- 
 ligion, and insensitiveness to the moral claim is 
 
 15 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 more immediately and concretely destructive. 
 Yet here, as in the case of religion, of manners, 
 or of speech, the child will probably take to heart 
 very little of what is said. At most he will assume 
 that the text-book statement of the rules of right- 
 eousness represents the way in which the game of 
 life is played by some people ; but he will prefer 
 to play it in his own way still. Young people are 
 constructed with happy protective arrangements ; 
 they are enviably impervious. So in expounding 
 moral principles in the schoolroom, I believe we 
 shall touch the child in very few moral spots. 
 Nevertheless, he becomes dulled and hardened if 
 he listens long to sacred words untouched. 
 
 But the benumbing influence is not the gravest 
 danger ; analogies of speech suggest a graver still. 
 If we try to teach speech too early and really 
 succeed in fixing the child's attention upon his 
 tongue, we enfeeble his power of utterance. Con- 
 sciousness once awakened, the child is perpetually 
 inquiring whether the word is the right word, 
 and suspecting that it is not quite sufficiently 
 right to be allowed free passage. Just so a mo- 
 mentous trouble appears when the moral con- 
 
 i6 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 sciousness has been too early stirred. That self- 
 questioning spirit springs up which impels its 
 tortured possessor to be continually fingering his 
 motives in unwholesome preoccupation with him- 
 self. Instead of entering heartily into outward in- 
 terests, the watchful little moralist is " question- 
 ing about himself whether he has been as good as 
 he should have been, and whether a better man 
 would not have acted otherwise." No part of us 
 is more susceptible of morbidness than the moral 
 sense ; none demoralizes more thoroughly when 
 morbid. The trouble, too, affects chiefly those 
 of finer fibre. The majority of healthy children, 
 as has been said, harden themselves against the- 
 oretic talk, and it passes over them like the wind. 
 Here and there a sensitive soul absorbs the poison 
 and sets itself seriously to work installing duty as 
 the mainspring of its life. We all know the un- 
 wholesome result : the person from whom spon- 
 taneity is gone, who criticises everything he does, 
 who has lost his sense of proportion, who teases 
 himself endlessly and teases his friends — so far 
 as they remain his friends — about the right and 
 wrong of each petty act. It is a disease, a moral 
 
 17 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 disease, and takes the place in the spiritual life 
 of that which the doctors are fond of calling 
 " nervous prostration " in the physical. Few coun- 
 tries have been so desolated by it as New Eng- 
 land. It is our special scourge. Many here carry 
 a conscience about with them which makes us 
 say, " How much better off they would be with 
 none ! " I declare, at times when I see the 
 ravages which conscientiousness works in our 
 New England stock, I wish these New England- 
 ers had never heard moral distinctions mentioned. 
 Better their vices than their virtues. The wise 
 teacher will extirpate the first sproutings of the 
 weed ; for a weed more difficult to extirpate when 
 grown there is not. We run a serious risk of im- 
 planting it in our children when we undertake 
 their class instruction in ethics. 
 
 Such, then, are some of the considerations 
 which should. give us pause when the public is 
 clamoring at our schoolhouse doors and saying 
 to us teachers, " We cannot bring up our children 
 so as to make them righteous citizens. Undertake 
 the work for us. You have done so much already 
 that we turn to you again and entreat your help." 
 
 i8 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 I think we must sadly reply, "There are limits 
 to what we can do. If you respect us, you will 
 not urge us to do the thing that is not ours. By 
 pressing into certain regions we shall bring upon 
 you more disaster than benefit." 
 
 Fully, however, as the dangers here pointed 
 out may be acknowledged, much of a different 
 sort remains also true. Have we not ail received 
 a large measure of moral culture at school ? And 
 are we quite content to say that the greatest of 
 subjects is unteachable .'* I would not say this; on 
 the contrary, I hold that no college is properly 
 organized where the teaching of ethics does not 
 occupy a position of honor. The college, not the 
 school, is the place for the study. It would be 
 absurd to maintain that all other subjects of study 
 are nutritious to man except that of his own na- 
 ture ; but it is far from absurd to ask that a young 
 man first possess a nature before he undertakes 
 to analyze it. A study useless for developing in- 
 itial power may still be highly profitable for doc- 
 trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
 in righteousness. Youth should be spontaneous, 
 instinctive, ebullient ; reflection whispers to the 
 
 19 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 growing man. Many of the evils that I have thus 
 far traced are brought about by projecting upon 
 a young mind problems which it has not yet en- 
 countered in itself. Such problems abound in the 
 later teens and in the twenties, and then is the 
 time to set about their discussion. 
 
 But even in college I would have ethical study 
 more guarded than the rest. Had I the power, I 
 would never allow it to be required of all. It 
 should be offered only as an elective and in the 
 later years of the course. When I entered college 
 I was put in my freshman year into a prescribed 
 study of this sort. Happily I received no influ- 
 ence from it whatever. It passed over and left 
 me untouched ; and I think it had no more effect 
 on the majority of my classmates. Possibly some 
 of the more reflective took it to heart and were 
 harmed ; but, in general, it was a mere wasting of 
 precious ointment which might have soothed our 
 wounds if elected in the senior year. Of course 
 great teachers defy all rules ; and under a Hop- 
 kins, a Garman, or a Hyde, the distinctions of 
 elective and prescribed become unimportant. Yet 
 the principle is clear : wait till the young man is 
 
 20 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 confronted with the problems before you invite 
 him to their solution. Has he grown up unques- 
 tioning ? Has he accepted the moral code in- 
 herited from honored parents? Can he rest in 
 wise habits ? Then let him be thankful and go his 
 way untaught. But has he, on the other hand, 
 felt that the moral mechanism by which he was 
 early guided does not fit all cases ? Has he found 
 one class of duties in conflict with another ? Has 
 he discovered that the moral standards obtaining 
 in different sections of society, in different parts 
 of the world, are irreconcilable ? In short, is he 
 puzzled and desirous of working his way through 
 his puzzles, of facing them and tracking them to 
 their beginnings ? Then is he ripe for the study 
 of ethics. 
 
 Yet when it is so undertaken, when those only 
 are invited to partake of it who in their own hearts 
 have heard its painful call, even then I would hedge 
 it about with two conditions. First, it should be 
 pursued as a science, critically, and the student 
 should be informed at the outset that the aim of 
 the course is knowledge, not the endeavor to make 
 better men. And, secondly, I would insist that the 
 
 21 
 
ETHICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 students themselves do the work; that they do not 
 passively listen to opinions set forth by their in- 
 structor, but that they address themselves to re- 
 search and learn to construct moral judgments 
 which will bear critical inspection. Some teachers, 
 no doubt, will think it wisest to accomplish these 
 things by tracing the course of ethics in the past, 
 treating it as a historical science. Others will pre- 
 fer, by announcing their own beliefs, to stimulate 
 their students to criticise those beliefs and to ven- 
 ture on their own little constructions. The method 
 is unimportant; it is only of consequence that the 
 students themselves do the ethicising, that they 
 trace the logic of their own beliefs and do not 
 rest in dogmatic statement. Yet such an under- 
 taking may well sober a teacher. I never see my 
 class in ethics come to their first lecture that I 
 do not tremble and say to myself that I am set 
 for the downfall of some of them. In every such 
 studious company there must be unprepared per- 
 sons whom the teacher will damage. He cannot 
 help it. He must move calmly forward, confident 
 in his subject, but knowing that because it is liv- 
 ing it is dangerous. 
 
 22 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION IN 
 THE SCHOOLS 
 
II 
 
 MORAL INSTRUCTION IN 
 THE SCHOOLS 
 
 The preceding paper has discussed sufficiently 
 the negative side of moral education. It has shown 
 how children should not be approached. But few 
 readers will be willing to leave the matter here. 
 Are there no positive measures to be taken ? Is 
 there no room in our schools for any teaching of 
 morality, or must the most important of subjects 
 be altogether banished from their doors ? There 
 is much which might lead us to think so. If a 
 teacher may not instruct his pupils in morality, 
 what other concern with it he should have is not 
 at once apparent. One may even suspect that at- 
 tention to it will distract him from his proper work. 
 Every human undertaking has some central aim 
 and succeeds by loyalty to it. Each profession, 
 for example, singles out one of our many needs 
 and to this devotes itself whole-heartedly. Such 
 
 25 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 a restriction is wise. No profession could be strong 
 which attempted to meet the requirements of man 
 as a whole. The physician accordingly selects his 
 little aim of extirpating suffering and disease. His 
 studies, his occupation, his aptitudes, his hopes 
 of gain, his dignity as a public character, all have 
 reference to this. Whatever is incompatible with 
 it, of however great worth in itself, is rightly 
 ignored. To save the soul of a patient may be of 
 larger consequence than to invigorate his body. 
 But the faithful physician attends to spiritual 
 matters only so far as he thinks them conducive 
 to bodily health. Or again the painter, because 
 he is setting ocular beauty before us, concerns 
 himself with harmonies of color, balance of masses, 
 rhythms of line, rather than with history, anec- 
 dote, or incitements to noble living. I once heard 
 a painter say, " There is religion enough for me 
 in seeing how half-a-dozen figures can be made 
 to go together," and I honored him for the say- 
 ing. So, too, I should hold that the proper aim of 
 the merchant is money-making, and that only so 
 much of charity or public usefulness can fairly be 
 demanded of him as does not conflict with his 
 
 26 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 profits. It is true that there are large ways and 
 petty ways of acquiring gain, and one's own ad- 
 vantage cannot for long be separated from that 
 of others. Still, the merchant rightly desists from 
 any course which he finds in the long run com- 
 mercially unprofitable. 
 
 What, then, is the central aim of teaching } Con- 
 fessedly it is the impartation of knowledge. What- 
 ever furthers this should be eagerly pursued ; and 
 all that hinders it, rejected. When schoolmasters 
 understand their business it will be useless for 
 the public to call to them, " We want our children 
 to be patriotic. Drop for a time your multiplica- 
 tion table while you rouse enthusiasm for the old 
 flag." They would properly reply, " We are ready 
 to teach American history. As a part of human 
 knowledge, it belongs to our province. But though 
 the politicians fail to stir patriotism, do not put 
 their neglected work upon us. We have more than 
 we can attend to already." 
 
 Now in my previous paper I showed how a theo- 
 retic knowledge of good conduct had better not be 
 given to children. By exposition of holy laws they 
 are not nourished, but enfeebled. What they need 
 
 27 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 is right habits, not an understanding of them : to 
 become good persons rather than to acquire a criti- 
 cal acquaintance with goodness. What moral func- 
 tion then remains for the schools ? To furnish a 
 knowledge of morality has been proved danger- 
 ous. For teachers to turn away from imparting 
 knowledge and devote their scanty time to fash- 
 ioning character is to abandon work which they 
 alone are fitted to perform. Yet to let them send 
 forth boys and girls alert in mind and loose in char- 
 acter is something which no community will long 
 endure. 
 
 Until one has clearly faced these alternative 
 perplexities he is in no condition to advise about 
 grafting morality into a school curriculum ; for 
 until then he will be pretty sure to be misled by 
 the popular notion of morality as a thing apart, 
 demanding separate study, a topic like geography 
 or English literature. But the morality nutritious 
 for school-children is nothing of this kind. No ad- 
 ditional hour need be provided for its teaching. 
 In teaching anything, we teach it. A false an- 
 tithesis was therefore set up just now when we 
 suggested that a teacher's business was to impart 
 
 28 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 knowledge rather than to fashion character. He 
 cannot do the one without the other. Let him be 
 altogether true to his scientific aims and refuse 
 to accommodate them to anything else; he will be 
 all the better teacher of morality. Carlyle tells of 
 a carpenter who broke all the ten commandments 
 with every stroke of his hammer. A scholar breaks 
 or keeps them with every lesson learned. So con- 
 ditioned on morality is the process of knowing, 
 so inwrought is it in the very structure of the 
 school, that a school might well be called an ethi- 
 cal instrument and its daily sessions hours for the 
 manufacture of character. Only the species of 
 character manufactured will largely depend on the 
 teacher's acquaintance with the instrument he is 
 using. To increase that acquaintance and give 
 greater deftness in the use of so exquisite an in- 
 strument is the object of this paper. Once mas- 
 tered, the tools of his own trade will be more prized 
 by the earnest teacher than any additional hand- 
 book of ethics. 
 
 It will be easiest to point out the kind of moral 
 instruction a school is fitted to give, if we dis- 
 tinguish with somewhat exaggerated sharpness 
 
 29 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 its several lines of activity. A school is primarily 
 a place of learning; it is unavoidably a social unit, 
 and it is incidentally a dependent fellowship. No 
 one of these aspects is ever absent from it. Each 
 affords its own opportunity for moral training. 
 The combination of them gives a school its power. 
 Yet each is so detachable that it may well become 
 the subject of independent study. 
 
 I. A school is primarily a place of learning, 
 and to this purpose all else in it is rightfully 
 subordinated. But learning is itself an act, and 
 one more dependent than most on moral guid- 
 ance. It occurs, too, at a period of life whose 
 chief business is the transformation of a thing 
 of nature into a spiritual being. Several stages 
 in this spiritual transformation through which 
 the process of learning takes us I will point out. 
 
 A school generally gives a child his first ac- 
 quaintance with an authoritatively organized 
 world and reveals his dependence upon it. By 
 nature, impulses and appetites rule him. A child 
 is charmingly self-centred. The world and all its 
 ordered goings he notices merely as ministering 
 to his desires. Nothing but what he wishes, and 
 
 30 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 wishes just now, is important. He relates all this 
 but little to the wishes of other people, to the 
 inherent fixities of things, to his own future states, 
 to whether one wish is compatible with another. 
 His immediate mood is everything. Of any dif- 
 ference between what is whimsical or momentary 
 and what is rational or permanent he is oblivious. 
 To him dreams and fancies are as substantial as 
 stars, hills, or moving creatures. He has, in short, 
 BO idea of law nor any standards of reality. 
 
 Now it is the first business of instruction to 
 impart such ideas and standards ; but no less is 
 this a work of moralization. The two accordingly 
 go on together. Whether we call the chaotic 
 conditions of nature in which we begin life ig- 
 norance or deficient morality, it is equally the 
 work of education to abolish them. Both educa- 
 tion and morality set themselves to rationalize 
 the moody, lawless, transient, isolated, self-as- 
 sertive, and impatient aspects of things, intro- 
 ducing the wondering scholar to the inherent 
 necessities which surround him. *^ Schoolmas- 
 ters," says George Herbert, "deliver us to laws." 
 And probably most of us make our earliest ac- 
 
 31 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 quaintancewith these impalpable and controlling 
 entities when we take our places in the school. 
 There our primary lesson is submission. We are 
 bidden to put away personal likings and see how 
 in themselves things really are. Eight times nine 
 does not permit itself to be seventy-three or 
 sixty-four, but exactly and forever seventy-two. 
 Cincinnati lies obstinately on the Ohio, not on 
 the Mississippi, and it is nonsense to speak of 
 Daniel Webster as a President of the United 
 States. The agreement of verbs and nouns, the 
 reactions of chemical elements were, it seems, 
 settled some time before we appeared. They pay 
 little attention to our humors. We must accept 
 an already constituted world and adjust our little 
 self to its august realities. Of course the process 
 is not completed at school. Begun there, it con- 
 tinues throughout life ; its extent, tenacity, and 
 instantaneous application marking the degree 
 which we reach in scientific and moral culture. 
 Let a teacher attempt to lighten the task of 
 himself or his pupil by accepting an inexact 
 observation, a slipshod remembrance, a careless 
 statement, or a distorted truth, and he will cor- 
 
 32 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 rupt the child's character no less than his intel- 
 ligence. He confirms the child's habit of intrud- 
 ing himself into reality and of remaining listless 
 when ordained facts are calling. Education may 
 well be defined as the banishment of moods at 
 the bidding of the permanently real. 
 
 But to acquire such obedient alertness persist- 
 ence is necessary, and in gaining it a child wins 
 a second victory over disorderly nature. By this 
 he becomes acquainted not merely with an outer 
 world, but with a still stranger object, himself. 
 I have spoken already of the eagerness of young 
 desires. They are blind and disruptive things. 
 One of them pays small heed to another, but 
 each blocks the other's way, preventing anything 
 like a coherent and united life. A child is noto- 
 riously a creature of the moment, looking little 
 before and after. He must be taught to do so 
 before he can know anything or be anybody. A 
 school matures him by connecting his doings of 
 to-day with those of to-morrow. Here he begins 
 to estimate the worth of the present by noticing 
 what it contributes to an organic plan. Each 
 hour of study brings precious discipline in pre- 
 
 33 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 ferring what is distantly important to what is 
 momentarily agreeable. A personal being, in some 
 degree emancipated from time, consequently 
 emerges, and a selfhood appears, built up through 
 enduring interests. The whole process is in the 
 teacher's charge. It is his to enforce diligence 
 and so to assist the vague little life to knit itself 
 solidly together. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that to become each 
 day the possessor of increasing stores of novel 
 and interesting truths normally brings dignity 
 and pleasure. This honorable delight reacts, too, 
 on the process of learning, quickening its pace, 
 sharpening its observation, and confirming its 
 persistence. It is of no less importance for the 
 character, to which it imparts ease, courage, 
 beauty, and resourcefulness. But on the teacher 
 it will depend whether such pleasure is found. 
 A teacher who has entered deeply into his sub- 
 ject, and is not afraid of allowing enthusiasm to 
 appear, will make the densest subject and the 
 densest pupil glow ; while a dull teacher can in a 
 few minutes strip the most engrossing subject of 
 interest and make the diligence exacted in its 
 
 34 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 pursuit deadening. It is dangerous to dissociate 
 toil and delight. The school is the place to initiate 
 their genial union. Whoever learns there to love 
 knowledge, will be pretty secure of becoming an 
 educated and useful man and of finding satisfac- 
 tion in whatever employment may afterwards be 
 his. 
 
 One more contribution to character which 
 comes from the school as a place of learning I 
 will mention : it should create a sense of freedom. 
 Without this both learning and the learner are 
 distorted. It is not enough that the child become 
 submissive to an already constituted world, obe- 
 dient to its authoritative organization ; not enough 
 that he find pleasure in it, or even discover him- 
 self emerging, as one day's diligence is bound up 
 with that of another. All these influences may 
 easily make him think of himself as a passive 
 creature, and consequently leave him half formed. 
 There is something more. Rightly does the Psalm- 
 ist call the fear of the Lord the beginning of 
 wisdom rather than its end ; for that education 
 is defective which fashions a docile and slavish 
 learner. As the child introduces order into his 
 
 35 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 previously capricious acts, thoughts, and feelings, 
 he should feel in himself a power of control un- 
 known before, and be encouraged to find an 
 honorable use for his very peculiarities. He should 
 be brought to see that the world is unfinished 
 and needs his joyful cooperation, that it has room 
 for individual activity and admits rationally con- 
 structed purposes. From his earliest years a child 
 should be encouraged to criticise, to have prefer- 
 ences, and to busy himself with imaginative con- 
 structions ; for all this development of orderly 
 freedom and of rejoicing in its exercise is build- 
 ing up at once both knowledge and character. 
 
 II. Yet a school becomes an ethical instrument 
 not merely through being a place of learning, but 
 because it is also a social unit. It is a cooperative 
 group, or company of persons pledged every in- 
 stant to consider one another, their common pur- 
 pose being jarred by the obtrusion of any one's 
 dissenting will. Accordingly much that is proper 
 elsewhere becomes improper here. As soon as a 
 child enters a schoolroom he is impressed by the 
 unaccustomed silence. A happy idea springs in 
 his mind and clamors for the same outgo it would 
 
 36 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 have at home, but it is restrained in deference 
 to the assembled company. In crossing the room 
 he is taught to tread lightly, though for himself 
 a joyous dash might be agreeable ; but might it 
 not distract the attention of those who are study- 
 ing ? The school begins at nine o'clock and each 
 recitation at its fixed hour, these times being no 
 better than others except as facilitating common 
 corporate action. To this each one's private ways 
 become adjusted. The subordination of each to 
 all is written large on every arrangement of school 
 life ; and it needs must be so if there is to be 
 moral advance. For morality itself is nothing but 
 the acceptance of such habits as express the help- 
 ful relations of society and the individual. Punc- 
 tuality, order, quiet, are signs that the child's life 
 is beginning to be socialized. A teacher who fails 
 to impress their elementary righteousness on his 
 pupils brutalizes every child in his charge. 
 
 Such relations between the social whole and 
 the part assume a variety of forms, and the school 
 is the best place for introducing a child to their 
 niceties. Those other persons whom a school-boy 
 is called on continually to regard may be either 
 
 37 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 his superiors, equals, or inferiors. To each we 
 have specific duties, expressed in an appropriate 
 type of manners. Our teachers are above us, — 
 above us in age, experience, wisdom, and author- 
 ity. To treat them as comrades is unseemly. 
 Confession of their superiority colors all our 
 approaches. They are to be listened to as others 
 are not. Their will has the right of way. Our 
 bearing toward them, however trustful or even 
 affectionate, shows a respectfulness somewhat re- 
 moved from familiarity. On the other hand, school- 
 mates are comrades, at least those of the same 
 sex, class, strength, and intelligence. Among 
 them we assert ourselves freely, yet with constant 
 care to secure no less freedom for them, and 
 we guard them against any damage or annoyance 
 which our hasty assertiveness might cause. In 
 case of clash between their interest and our own, 
 ours is withdrawn. And then toward those who 
 are below us, either in rank or powers, helpful- 
 ness springs forth. We are eager to bridge over 
 the separating chasm and by our will to abolish 
 hindering defects. These three types of personal 
 adjustment — respect, courtesy, and helpfulness, 
 
 38 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 with their wide variety of combination — form 
 the groundwork of all good manners. In their 
 beginnings they need prompting and oversight 
 from some one who is already mature. A school 
 which neglects to cultivate them works almost 
 irreparable injury to its pupils. For if these pos- 
 sibilities of refined human intercourse are not 
 opened in the school years, it is with great diffi- 
 culty they are arrived at afterwards. 
 
 The spiritualizing influence of the school as a 
 social unit is, however, not confined to the class- 
 room. It is quite as active on the playground. 
 There a boy learns to play fair, accustoms him- 
 self to that greatest of social ties, V esprit du 
 corps. Throughout life a man needs continually 
 to merge his own interests in those of a group. 
 He must act as the father of a family, an opera- 
 tive in a factory, a voter of Boston, an American 
 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 moral ennoblement is laid in the sports 
 of childhood. What does a member of the foot- 
 
 39 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 ball 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 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. Nor does this 
 august supersession of the private consciousness 
 by the public arise in connection with sports alone. 
 As a member of the school, a boy acts differently 
 from what he otherwise would. There is a stand- 
 ard of conduct recognized as suitable for a Wash- 
 ington School boy, and from it his own does not 
 widely depart. For good or for ill each school 
 has its ideals of "good form " which are compul- 
 sive over its members, and are handed on from 
 class to class. To assist in moulding, refining, 
 and maintaining these is the weightiest work 
 of a schoolmaster. For these ideals have about 
 them the sacredness of what is traditional, 
 institutional, and are of an unseen, august, and 
 penetrative power, comparable to nothing else 
 in character-formation. To modify them ever 
 
 40 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 so slightly a teacher should be content to work 
 for years. 
 
 III. A third aspect of the school I have called 
 its character as a Dependent Fellowship, and I 
 have said that this is merely incidental. A highly 
 important incident it is, however, and one that 
 never fails to recur. What I would indicate by 
 the dark phrase is this : in every school an imper- 
 fect life is associated with one similar but more 
 advanced, one from which it perpetually re- 
 ceives influences that are not official nor meas- 
 urable in money payment. A teacher is hired 
 primarily to teach, and with a view also to his 
 ability to keep order throughout his little society 
 and to make his authority respected there. But 
 side by side with these public duties runs the 
 expression of his personality. This is his own, 
 something which he hides or discloses at his 
 pleasure. To his pupils, however, he must always 
 appear in the threefold character of teacher, 
 master, and developed human being ; while they 
 correspondingly present themselves to him as 
 pupils, members of the school, and elementary 
 human beings. Of these pairs of relationships 
 
 41 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 two are contrasted and supplemental, — teacher 
 and pupil, master and scholar, having nothing 
 in common, each being precisely what the other 
 is not. As human beings, however, pupil and 
 teacher are akin and removed from one another 
 merely by the degree of progression made by the 
 elder along a common path. Here, then, the rela- 
 tion is one of fellowship, but a fellowship where 
 the younger is largely dependent on the older 
 for an understanding of what he should be. By 
 example, friendship, and personal influence a 
 teacher is certain to affect for good or ill every 
 member of his school. In any account of the 
 school as an ethical instrument this subtlest of 
 its moral agencies deserves careful analysis. 
 
 There are different sorts of example. I may 
 observe how the shopman does up a package, and 
 do one so myself the next morning. A companion 
 may have a special inflection of voice, which I 
 may catch. I may be drawn to industry by see- 
 ing how steadily my classmate studies. I may 
 adopt a phrase, a smile, or a polite gesture, which 
 was originally my teacher's. All these are cases 
 of direct imitation. Some one possesses a trait 
 
 42 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 or an act which is passed over entire to another 
 person, by whom it is substituted for one of his 
 own. Though the adoption of such alien ways is 
 dangerous, society could hardly go on without it. 
 It is its mode of transmitting what is supposed to 
 be already tested and of lodging it in the lives 
 of persons of less experience, with the least cost 
 to the receivers. Most teachers will have habits 
 which their pupils may advantageously copy. 
 Yet supposing the imitated ways altogether 
 good, which they seldom are, direct imitation is 
 questionable as disregarding the particular char- 
 acter of him in whom the ways are found and in 
 assuming that they will be equally appropriate 
 if engrafted on anybody. But this is far from 
 true, and consequently he who imitates much is, 
 or soon will be, a weakling. On the whole, a 
 teacher needs to guard his pupils against his imi- 
 table peculiarities. If sensible, he will snub who- 
 ever is disposed to repeat them. 
 
 Still, there is a noble sort of imitation, and 
 that school is a poor place where it does not go 
 on. Certain persons have a strange power of in- 
 vigorating us by their presence. When with 
 
 43 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 them, we can do what seems impossible alone. 
 They are our examples rather as wholes, and in 
 their strength and spirit, than in their single 
 traits or acts ; and so whatever is most distinctive 
 of ourselves becomes renewed through contact 
 with them. It was said of the late Dr. Jowett that 
 he sent out more pupils who were widely unlike 
 himself than any Oxford teacher of his time. 
 That is enviable praise ; for the wholesomeness 
 of example is tested by inquiring whether it de- 
 velops differences or has only the power of du- 
 plicating the original. Every teacher knows how 
 easy it is to send out cheap editions of himself, 
 and in his weaker moments he inclines to issue 
 them. But it is ignoble business. Our manners 
 and tones and phrases and the ways we have of 
 doing this and that are after all valuable only as 
 expressions of ourselves. For anybody else they 
 are rubbish. What we should like to impart is 
 that earnestness, accuracy, unselfishness, can- 
 dor, reverence for God's laws, and sturdiness 
 through hardship, toward which we aspire, — - 
 matters in reality only half ours and which spring 
 up with fresh and griginal beauty in every soul 
 
 44 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 where they once take root. The Dependent Fel- 
 lowship of a school makes these larger, enkin- 
 dling, and diversifying influences peculiarly pos- 
 sible. It should be a teacher's highest ambition 
 to exercise them. And though we might natu- 
 rally expect that such inspiring teachers would be 
 rare, I seldom enter a school without finding in- 
 dications of the presence of at least one of them. 
 But for those who would acquire this larger 
 influence a strange caution is necessary : Exam- 
 ples do not work that are not real. We sometimes 
 try to *'set an example," that is, to put on a type 
 of character for the benefit of a beholder ; and 
 are usually disappointed. Personal influence is 
 not an affair of acting, but of being. Those about 
 us are strangely affected by what we veritably 
 are, only slightly by what we would have them 
 see. If we are indisposed to study, yet, knowing 
 that industry is good for our scholars, assume a 
 bustling diligence, they are more likely to feel 
 the real portion of the affair, our laziness, than 
 the activity which was designed for their copying. 
 Astonishingly shrewd are the young at scenting 
 humbug and being unaffected by its pretensions. 
 
 45 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 There is consequently no method to be learned 
 for gaining personal influence. Almost every- 
 thing else requires plan and effort. This precious 
 power needs little attention. It will not come in 
 one way better than another. A fair measure of 
 sympathetic tact is useful for starting it ; but in 
 the long run persons rude and suave, talkative 
 and silent, handsome and ugly, stalwart and 
 slight, possess it in about equal degree, the very 
 characteristics which we should be disposed to 
 count disadvantageous often seeming to confirm 
 its hold. Since it generally comes about that our 
 individual interests become in some measure 
 those of our pupils too, the only safe rule for 
 personal influence is to go heartily about our own 
 affairs, with a friendly spirit, and let our usual 
 nature have whatever effect it may. 
 
 Still, there is one important mode of prepara- 
 tion : seeing that personal influence springs from 
 what we are, we can really be a good deal. In a 
 former paper, on The Ideal Teacher, I pointed 
 this out and insisted that to be of any use in the 
 classroom we teachers must bring there an al- 
 ready accumulated wealth. I will not repeat what 
 
 46 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 I have said already, for a little reflection will con- 
 vince any one that when he lacks personal influ- 
 ence he lacks much besides. A great example 
 comes from a great nature, and we who live in 
 fellowship with dependent and imitative youth 
 should acquire natures large enough to serve 
 both their needs and our own. Let teachers be 
 big, bounteous, and unconventional, and they 
 will have few backward pupils. 
 
 Personal influence is often assumed to be 
 greater the closer the intimacy. I believe the 
 contrary to be the case. Familiarity, says the 
 shrewd proverb, breeds contempt. And certainly 
 the young, who are little trained in estimating 
 values, when brought into close association with 
 their elders are apt to fix their attention on petty 
 points and so to miss the larger lines of char- 
 acter. These they see best across an interval 
 where, though visible only in outline, they are 
 clear, unconfused with anything else, and so 
 productive of their best effect. For the immature, 
 distance is a considerable help in inducing en- 
 chantment, and nothing is so destructive of high 
 influence as a slap-on-the-back acquaintance. One 
 
 47 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 who is to help us much must be above us. A 
 teacher should carefully respect his own dignity 
 and no less carefully that of his pupil. In our 
 eagerness to help, we may easily cheapen a fine 
 nature by intruding too frequently into its re- 
 serves ; and, on the other hand, I have observed 
 that the boy who comes oftenest for advice is he 
 who profits by it least. It is safest not to meddle 
 much with the insides of our pupils. An occa- 
 sional weighty word is more compulsive than 
 frequent talk. 
 
 Within the limits, then, here marked out we 
 who live in these Dependent Fellowships must 
 submit to be admired. We must allow our pupils 
 to idealize us and even offer ourselves for imita- 
 tion. It is not pleasant. Usually nobody knows 
 his weaknesses better than the one who is mis^ 
 taken for an example. But what a helpful mistake! 
 What ennobling influences come to school-boys 
 when once they can think their teacher is the 
 sort of person they would like to be ! Perhaps at 
 the very moment that teacher is thinking they 
 are the sort of person he would like to be. No 
 matter. What they admire is worthy, even if not 
 
 48 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 embodied precisely where they imagine. In hu- 
 mility we accept their admiration, knowing that 
 nothing else can so enlarge their lives. As I re- 
 call my college days, there rise before me two 
 teachers. As I entered the lecture rooms of those 
 two men, I said to myself, " Oh, if some day I 
 could be like that ! " And always afterwards as 
 I went to those respective rooms, the impression 
 of dignity deepened. I have forgotten the lessons 
 I learned from those instructors. I never can 
 discharge my debt to the instructors themselves. 
 Such are the moral resources of our schools. 
 Without turning aside in the slightest from their 
 proper aim of imparting knowledge, teachers are 
 able — almost compelled — to supply their pupils 
 with an intellectual, social, and personal righteous- 
 ness. What more is wanted ? When such oppor- 
 tunities for moral instruction are already within 
 their grasp, is it worth while to incur the grave 
 dangers of ethical instruction too ? I think not, 
 and I even fear that the establishment of courses 
 in moral theory might weaken the sense of re- 
 sponsibility among the other teachers and lead 
 them to attach less importance to the moraliza- 
 
 49 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 tion of their pupils by themselves. This is bur- 
 densome business, no doubt, but we must not 
 shift it to a single pair of shoulders. Rather let 
 us insist, when bad boys and girls continue in a 
 school, that the blame belongs to the teachers 
 as a whole, and not to some ethical coach. It is 
 from the management and temper of a school 
 that its formative influence proceeds. We cannot 
 safely turn over anything so all-pervading to the 
 instructors of a single department. That school 
 where neatness, courtesy, simplicity, obtain ; 
 where enthusiasm goes with mental exactitude, 
 thoroughness of work with interest, and absence 
 of artificiality with refinement ; where sneaks, 
 liars, loafers, pretenders, rough persons are de- 
 spised, while teachers who refuse to be mechani- 
 cal hold sway — that school is engaged in moral 
 training all day long. 
 
 Yet while I hold that the systematic study of 
 ethics had on the whole better be left to the 
 colleges, I confess that the line which I have at- 
 tempted to draw between consciousness and un- 
 consciousness, between the age which is best 
 
 50 
 
IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 directed by instinct and the age when the ques- 
 tioning faculties put forward their inexorable 
 demands, is a wavering one and cannot be sharply- 
 drawn. By one child it is crossed at one period, 
 by another at another. Seldom is the crossing 
 noticed. Before we are aware we find ourselves 
 in sorrow on the farther side. Happy the youth 
 who during the transition time has a wise friend 
 at hand to answer a question, to speak a steadying 
 word, to open up the vista which at the moment 
 needs to be cleared. Only one in close personal 
 touch is serviceable here. But in defect of home 
 guidance, to us teachers falls much of the charge 
 of developing the youthful consciousness of moral 
 matters naturally, smoothly, and without jar. This 
 has always been a part of the teacher's office. So 
 far as I can ascertain, schools of the olden time 
 had in them a large amount of wholesome ethical 
 training. Schools were unsystematic then ; there 
 lay no examination paper ahead of them ; there 
 was time for pause and talk. If a subject arose 
 which the teacher deemed important for his 
 pupils' personal lives, he could lead them on to 
 question about it, so far as he believed discussion 
 
 51 
 
MORAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 useful. This sort of ethical training the hurry of 
 our time has largely exterminated ; and now that 
 wholesome incidental instruction is gone, we de- 
 mand in the modern way that a clear-cut depart- 
 ment of ethics be introduced into the curriculum. 
 But such things do not let themselves be treated 
 in departmental fashion. The teacher must still 
 work as a friend. He cannot be discharged from 
 knowing when and how to stimulate a question, 
 from discerning which boy or girl would be helped 
 by consciousness and which would be harmed. In 
 these high regions our pupils cannot be ap- 
 proached in classes. They require individual at- 
 tention. And not because we are teachers merely, 
 but because we and they are human beings, we 
 must be ready with spiritual aid. 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 I. ETHICAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 1. The demand for ethical teaching in the schools . i 
 
 2. The importance of righteousness in a democracy . 2 
 
 3. The moral power of the church is changed ... 2 
 
 4. The moral guardianship of the home is impaired . 3 
 
 5. The community turns urgently to the schools . . 5 
 
 6. Direct ethical instruction is not feasible .... 7 
 
 7. The sharp distinction between morals and ethics . 7 
 
 8. Conscious study of right conduct does not prima- 
 
 rily yield morals .8 
 
 9. Self-criticism in the child is unwholesome ... 10 
 10. The difference between ethics and other studies . 12 
 
 II. The analogies between speech and morals ... 13 
 
 12. The danger of dulling the child to moral distinc- 
 
 tions 14 
 
 13. The danger of enfeebling hearty moral action . .16 
 
 14. There are limits to the teacher's power . . . .18 
 
 15. A developed moral nature is basic to ethical study 19 
 
 16. Ethical study may well wait on the consciousness 
 
 of moral problems 20 
 
 17. Its aim is to train the individual to make sound 
 
 moral judgments 21 
 
 53 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 II. MORAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS 
 
 1. Every human undertaking has a central aim . . 25 
 
 2. Impartation of knowledge as the aim of teaching 27 
 
 3. Intellectual training and the moral function . . 28 
 
 4. Good teaching is conditioned on morality ... 29 
 
 5. The three lines of school activity 29 
 
 6. A school is primarily a place of learning .... 30 
 
 7. Learning is dependent on moral guidance ... 30 
 
 8. The school is an authoritatively organized world . 30 
 
 9. The scholar meets in the school the inherent ne- 
 
 cessities 31 
 
 10. Each hour of study contributes to personal disci- 
 
 pline 33 
 
 11. The school can associate toil and delight ... 34 
 
 12. It can also create a sense of orderly freedom . .35 
 
 13. A school is unavoidably a social unit 36 
 
 14. It is a cooperative group with a subordinating pur- 
 
 pose 37 
 
 15. Respect, courtesy, and helpfulness as types of per- 
 
 sonal adjustment 38 
 
 16. The spiritualizing influence of the playground . , 39 
 
 17. A school is incidentally a dependent fellowship . 41 
 
 18. Example, friendship, and personal influence as 
 
 moral agencies 42 
 
 19. The danger of direct imitation of externals ... 45 
 
 20. The nobler imitation of enduring inner qualities . 46 
 
 54 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 21. Personal influence comes from being, not from 
 
 acting 46 
 
 22. Let teachers be big, bounteous, and unconventional 47 
 
 23. The effect of intimacy on personal influence . . 47 
 
 24. Teachers must submit to admiration 48 
 
 25. The school is engaged in moral training all day 
 
 long 50 
 
 26. It is the teacher's office to minister to individual 
 
 moral needs 51 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
aR(bet;j5itie cEDucational jmonogtapi^js 
 
 Editor, Henry Suzzallo, Professor of The Philosophy of 
 Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New 
 York. 
 
 NUMBERS READY OR IN PREPARATION 
 
 General Educational Theory 
 
 EDUCATION. An essay and other selections. By Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson. Ready. 
 
 THE MEANING OF INFANCY, and The Part Played by Infancy in 
 the Evolution of Man. By John Fiske. Ready. 
 
 EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY, and The New Definition of the Cul- 
 tivated Man. By Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University. 
 
 Ready. 
 
 MORAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATION. By John Dewey, Professor 
 of Philosophy, Columbia University. Ready. 
 
 OUR NATIONAL IDEALS IN EDUCATION. By Elmer E. 
 Brown, United States Commissioner of Education. In preparation. 
 
 THE SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION. By Henry Suzzallo, 
 Professor of the Philosophy of Education, Teachers College, Columbia 
 University. In preparation. 
 
 Administration and Supervision of Schools 
 
 CONTINUATION SCHOOLS. By Paul H. Hanus, Professor of Educa- 
 tion, Harvard University. /« preparation. 
 
 CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION. By E. P.Cubbhrly, 
 Professor of Education, Leland Stanford Jr. University. 
 
 Methods of Teaching 
 
 SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH. By George Herbert Palmer. 
 Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. Ready. 
 
 ETHICAL AND MORAL INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS. By George 
 Herbert Palmer, Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. 
 
 Ready. 
 
 TEACHING CHILDREN TO STUDY. By Lida B. Earhart, In- 
 structor in Elementary Education, Teachers College, Columbia Univer- 
 sity. Ready. 
 
 TYPES OF TEACHING. By Frederic Ernest Farrington, Asso- 
 ciate Professor of Education, University of Texas. In preparation. 
 
 Price 35 cents, each, net, postpaid 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 Boston New York Chicago 
 
OCT 7 1909