MORAL TRAINING.
We shall not discuss the philosophical systems which underlie ethical theories, nor the theories themselves which consider the nature of the moral sense and the supreme aim of life, but shall treat practical ethics as a part of didactics, and as a part of that unspoken influence which should be the constant ally of instruction. It is not the purpose to present anything new, but rather to give confidence in methods that are well known and are successfully employed by skilful and devoted teachers.
The formation of right habits is the first step toward good character. Aristotle gives this fact special emphasis. Here are some detached sentences from his ethics: “Moral virtue is the outcome of habit, and, accordingly, its name is derived by a slight deflection from habit.... It is by playing the harp that both good and bad harpists are produced, and the case of builders and allartisansis similar, as it is by building well that they will be good builders, and by building badly that they will be bad builders.... Accordingly, the difference between one training of the habits and another, from early days, is not a light matter, but is serious or all-important.” Aristotle here expresses a truth that has become one of the tritest. All mental dispositions are strengthened by repetition. We learn toobserve by observing, to remember by exercising memory, to create by training the imagination, to reason by acts of inference. Passions grow by indulgence and diminish by restraint; the finer emotions gain strength by use. Courage, endurance, firmness are established by frequently facing dangers and difficulties. By practice, disagreeable acts may become a pleasure.
It is by practice that the mind gets possession of the body, that the separate movements of the child become correlated, and the most complex acts are performed with ease and accuracy. Physiological psychology has confirmed and strengthened the doctrine of habit. The functions of the brain and mental actions are correlated. A nerve tract once established in the brain, and action along that line recurs with increasing spontaneity. New lines of communication are formed with difficulty. Each physical act controlled by lower nerve centres leaves a tendency in those centres to repeat the act.
The inference is obvious and important. Whatever we wish the adult man to be, we must help him to become by early practice. Childhood is the period when tendencies are most easily established. The mind is teachable and receives impressions readily; around those cluster kindred impressions, and the formation of character is already begun. The brain and other nerve centres are plastic, and readily act in any manner not inconsistent with their natural functions. As they begin they tend to act thereafter.
Dr. Harris called attention a few years ago to the ethical import of the ordinary requirements and prohibitions of the schoolroom. Promptness, obedience,silence, respect, right positions in sitting and standing, regard for the rights of others, were named as helping to form habits that would make the child self-controlled and fit him to live in society.
Whatever you would wish the child to do and become, that let him practise. We learn to do, not by knowing, but by knowing and then doing. Ethical teaching, tales of heroic deeds, soul-stirring fiction that awakens sympathetic emotions may accomplish but little, unless in the child’s early life regard for the right, little acts of heroism, and deeds of sympathy are employed; unless the ideas and feeling find expression in action, and so become a part of the child’s power and tendency. George Eliot would have us make ready for great deeds by constant performance of little duties at hand.
Right habit is the only sure foundation for character. Sudden resolutions to change the tenor of life, sudden conversion from an evil life to one of ideal goodness are usually failures, because the old tendencies will hold on grimly until the new impulse, however great, has gradually evaporated. To prepare for the highest moral life and a persevering religious life, early habits of the right kind are the only secure foundation.
The teacher may have confidence in the value of requiring of pupils practice in self-restraint, practice in encountering difficulties that demand a little of courage, a little even of heroism—and each day furnishes opportunities. Pleasure may not always attend their efforts, but pleasure will come soon enough as a reward, in consciousness of strength and of noble development. Often we do wrong because it is pleasant, and avoid the right because it is painful.By habit we come to find pleasure in right action, and then the action is a true virtue as held by the Greek philosophers. Aristotle remarks: “Hence the importance of having had a certain training from very early days, as Plato says, such a training as produces pleasure and pain at the right objects; for this is the true education.”
The personality of the teacher is a potent factor in moral education. Perfection is not expected of the teacher; none ever attained it except the Great Prototype. All that we can say of the best man is that he averages high. The teacher who does not possess to a somewhat marked degree some quality eminently worthy of imitation will hardly be of the highest value in his profession. I remember with gratitude two men, each of whom impressed me with a noble quality that made an important contribution at the time to my thought, feeling, action, and growth. The ideal of one was action—energetic, persevering action—and he was a notable example of his ideal. His precept without his example would have been almost valueless. The other was a noble advocate of ideal thought, and his mind was always filled with the highest conceptions; moreover, in many large ways he exemplified his precept. His acquaintance was worth more than that of a thousand others who are satisfied with a commonplace view of life.
Minds that are not speculative, are not ingenious and creative, will hardly make their own ideals, or even be taught by abstractions. They can, however, readily comprehend the living embodiment of virtue, and there is still enough of our ancestral monkeyimitativeness remaining to give high value to example.
And it is important that the influence of the teacher shall not be merely a personal magnetism that influences only when it is present, but a quality that shall command respect in memory and help to establish principles of conduct. The influence should be one that will be regarded without the sanction of the personal relation. He who is wholly ruled either by fear or by love gains no power of self-control, and will be at a loss when thrown upon his own responsibility in the world of conflict and temptations. Character must be formed by habit and guided by principle.
The world’s moral heroes are few. Since they can not be our daily companions, we turn to biography and history, that their personality and deeds may be painted in our imagination. Concrete teaching is adapted to children, and select tales of great and noble men, vivid descriptions of deeds worthy of emulation may early impress their minds with unfading pictures that will stand as archetypes for their future character and conduct. Hence the value of mythology, of Bible stories, and Plutarch.
It is unnecessary to add that such literature should be at the command of every teacher, and there is enough adapted to every grade of work. Throughout the period of formal historic study important use should be made of the ethical character of men and events. The pupil thus fills his mind with examples from which he may draw valuable inferences, and with which he may illustrate principles of action. The ethical sense is developed through relations of theindividual to society, and the broader the scope of vision, the more just will be the estimate of human action.
Ideal literature, the better class of fiction and poetry, which not only reaches the intellect, but touches the feeling and brings the motive powers in harmony with ideal characters, deeds, and aspirations, may have the highest value in forming the ethical life of the pupil. Here is presented the very essence of the best ideas and feelings of humanity—thoughts that burn, emotions of divine quality, desires that go beyond our best realizations, acts that are heroic—all painted in vivid colors. By reading we enter into the life of greater souls, we share their aspirations, we make their treasure our own. A large share of the moralization of the world is done by this process of applying poetry to life.
There is, however, one important caution. There is a difference between sentiment and sentimentality. The latter weakens the mind and will; it is to be avoided as slow poison that will finally undermine a strong constitution. There must be a certain vigor in ideal sentiment that will not vanish in mawkish feeling, but will give tone for noble action. It is a question whether sentiment that sheds tears, and never, in consequence, does an additional praiseworthy act, has worth. You know the literature that leaves you with a feeling of stupid satiety, and you know that which gives you the feeling of strength in your limbs, and clearness in your intellect, and earnestness in your purpose, and determination in your will.
Use ideal literature from the earliest school days of the child; choose it with a wisdom that comesfrom a careful analysis of the subject and a knowledge of the adaptation of a particular selection to the end proposed. And when you reach the formal study of literature, find in it something more than dates, events, grammar, and rhetoric; find in it beauty, truth, goodness, and insight that will expand the mind and improve character.
There is much truth in the criticism that condemns precept without example; the two go together, the one is a complement of the other. We act in response to ideas, and a rule of action clearly understood and adopted will often be applied in a hundred specific instances that fall under it. A teacher of tact and skill can gain the interest of children to know the meaning and understand the application of many rich generalizations from human experiences that have passed into proverbs. The natural result of conduct which we condemn may be pointed out, with often a noticeable increase of regard for duty and prudence. We may not expect consistency of character, firmness of purpose, rigid observance of honesty, truthfulness, honor, and sympathy until the course of life is directed by principles that have taken firm hold of the mind.
When moral instruction in school passes into what the boys call preaching, the zealous teacher often dulls the point of any possible interest in the subject, and thereby defeats his purpose. Sometimes we, in our feeling of responsibility, trust too little to the better instincts of childhood, the influence of good surroundings, and the leavening power of all good work in the regular course of instruction.
For the purpose of moral instruction in the schools we should take the broad view of the Greek ethics. As summed up by Professor Green the Good Will aims (1) to know what is true and create what is beautiful; (2) to endure pain and fear; (3) to resist the allurements of false pleasure; (4) to take for one’s self and to give to others, not what one is inclined to, but what is due. This is larger than the conventional moral code. It makes virtues not only of justice and temperance, but of courage and wisdom. By implication it condemns cowardice and lazy ignorance. It urges one to strive for the realization of all his best possibilities, to enlarge his powers, his usefulness, and aim at the gradual perfection of his being through the worthy use of all his energies. It does not dwell morbidly on petty distinctions of casuistry, but generously expands the soul to receive wisdom, the wisdom that regards all good.
We are creatures of numerous native impulses, all useful in their proper exercise. Each impulse is susceptible of growth until it becomes predominant. The lower animals follow their instincts. Man is rational, has the power to discriminate, to estimate right and wrong, to educate and be educated. He is called upon to subordinate some impulses and to cultivate others. The child is full of power of action, and it must be exercised in some direction. The work of the teacher is to invite the native impulses that reach out toward right and useful things, by offering the proper objects for their exercise. When these tendencies of the child’s being are encouraged, his growth will be ethical.
What is the relation of the doctrine of duty tothe practical subject in hand? This is a question that rests upon the broad foundation of philosophy and religion, and we cannot discuss the grounds of belief. We may believe that the sense of duty is indispensable to moral character. True, much has been done in the name of duty that has been harmful and repellent. Many things have been thought to be duty that would rule healthful spontaneity and cheerfulness and needful recreation out of life, and place the child under a solemn restraint that rests on his spirit like an incubus and drives him to rebellion and sin. We do not mean duty in this caricature of the reality. But this is a world in which the highest good is to be obtained by courage to overcome evil and difficulty. The great Fichte said: “I have found out now that man’s will is free, and that not happiness, but worthiness is the end of our being.” And Professor Royce in the same vein says: “The spiritual life isn’t a gentle or an easy thing.... Spirituality consists in being heroic enough to accept the tragedy of existence, and to glory in the strength wherewith it is given to the true lords of life to conquer this tragedy, and to make their world, after all, divine.” In the name of evolution and physiological psychology much good has been done in driving to the realm of darkness, whence it emanated, the spirit of harshness and cruelty in education and in discipline; at the same time much harm has been done by superficial interpreters by the attempt to make all education and training a pleasure. The highest good cannot be gained without struggle. Character cannot be formed without struggle. You and I would give nothing for acquisitions that have cost us nothing. While thechild’s will is to be invited in the right direction by every worthy motive that tends to make the path pleasant, the child at the same time should know by daily experience that some things must be because they are right, because they are part of his duty; that they may be at first disagreeable and require stern effort. Only then will he be prepared to resist temptation, and to actively pursue a course that will lead toward the perfection of his being and toward a life of usefulness. Along the paths of pleasure are the wrecks of innumerable lives, and this view is one of the greatest practical importance in the every-day work of the schoolroom.
All proper education is ethical education. How the teacher encourages the acquisition of truth! With what care he corrects error in experiment and inference! With what zeal he leads the pupil to further knowledge! With what feeling he points out beauty in natural forms and in literary art! With what hope he encourages him to overcome difficulties! With what solicitude he regards his ways and his choice of company! What use he makes of every opportunity to emphasize a lesson of justice in this little society of children, which is in many ways a type of the larger society into which the child is to enter! If teachers are learned and skilful, and of strong character, if they awaken interest in studies and not disgust, if they have insight into the moral order of the world as revealed in all departments of learning, the whole curriculum of study, from the kindergarten to the university, will be a disclosure of ethical conceptions, a practice of right activity, an encouragement of right aim. Ifthe better tendencies of the child’s nature are repelled instead of invited, in so far will instruction lack the ethical element. And herein lies the great responsibility of the teacher for his own education, methods, and personal influence.
What are the schools doing for moral training? We believe they are doing much that is satisfactory and encouraging. The public schools have at their command the various ethical forces. They form right habits by every-day requirements of the schoolroom; they provide the personal influence of teachers whose good character is the first passport to their position; they employ the lessons of history and literature, and in distinct ways impart principles of right conduct; they inspire courage to overcome difficulties; they direct the better impulses of children toward discovery in the great world of truth, and, by the very exercise of power required in the process of education, prepare them for life.