LC L4S HE L CHILD MMMMHiWWayMM . G. MARTIN Book. M Copyright }]^_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSm MORAL TRAINING OF THE SCHOOL CHILD BY F. G. MARTIN Altadena, Calif. RICHARD G. BADGER BOSTON Copyright, 191 3, by Richard G. Badger All Rights Reicrved ^4 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. ©CI.A354732 ■K. . - • CONTENTS PAGE Preface 7 I Need of Moral Training in the Public Schools 13 Public Schools Only Nursery of Millions . . 18 Its Economic Phase 20 Its Civic Phase 23 Primary Object of Education 25 Public School a Democracy 26 Inherent Worth of a Human Soul .... 28 II Scope and Methods of Moral Training . . 32 Virile Moral Teaching 35 Elemental Moral Training . . . . . . 38 Teach Personal Responsibility 40 Practical Moral Teaching 42 Teach Moral Courage .43 Sources of Moral Instruction 47 Schools Civic Barracks ....... 49 III Qualifications for Teaching Morals . . 50 Teacher's Character and Personality . . .52 IV Benefits of Moral Training — General Re- marks 55 PREFACE PUBLIC schools have been a potential factor in the marvelous development of the United States. Their influence has flowed in every vein and artery of life in every generation since the Mayflower band put foot on Plymouth Rock. In these humble, homely halls of learning have ma- triculated men and women who have received inspiration and have gone forth into the greater school of life to make the name American illus- trious by their history-emblazoned deeds. The vestal fires of intelligence, progress and free institutions are perpetually burning in the thousands of public temples of learning dotting the hills and valleys and sentineling the crowded thoroughfares of the land. To perpetuate and preserve inviolate these educational fires is the fervid purpose of every true American. Because of the tremendous potentiality for good or evil inherent in the public schools they demand jealous guarding against harmful tendencies as well as sedulous cultivation and expansion and betterment. From the standpoint of mental and physical 8 PREFACE development the public school system of all the States has made marked improvement. Courses of study and text-books have been made to fit the evolutionary needs of the developing child mind. Methods of teaching have been modernized. Physiological, psychological and scientific facts and principles are more generally respected in the mental and physical training of the child. But while the public schools are sending out pupils better trained mentally and better equipped physically than ever before, the third and equally important side of triangular child nature is left deplorably ill-developed or, worse still, fallow, stunted and wholly undeveloped. There is cry- ing need of moral training in the public schools. Its need is so obvious to observant persons who come into contact with humanity in mixed masses as to call for little or no argument in its behalf. The portentous fact that crime and incorrigi- bility and flagrant moral turpitu/"e increase despite the increased facilities and greater efficiency of the public school system in itself argues something fundamentally awry or entirely lacking in the training of the children of the land. Millions of children are launched out into the world from the public schools without moral com- pass to guide them through the uncharted seas of life. Thousands drift upon the rocks and shoals of temptation and make moral shipwreck, mayhap PREFACE 9 carrying down others with them through their vitiating influence. Into the maelstroms of vice other thousands plunge, Impelled by hereditary predisposition or acquired moral taint. The moral mortality of the country is appalling, especially among Its youth. It Is a cancerous con- dition that demands an heroic remedy. No salve or unguent or palliative will suffice to eradicate It. The disease Is deep-seated. Constitutional treat- ment Is Imperative. Vicious tendencies must be torn up, root and branch, In the child, if possible. Its moral nature must be carefully cultivated in Its school days. Incipient Immoralities must be pruned away; dwarfed and stunted moral percep- tions must be nurtured. The child must serve an apprenticeship In morals and the teacher must turn the apprentice over to Its parents and society as nearly a moral master as possible, with a firm grasp upon Its own moral nature and with a clear understanding of Its duties toward the world with which it must mingle and cope. This Is Ameri- can childhood's overshadowing need of the hour. For the purposes of the discussion of this vital need, the subject will be treated under four heads, namely: I. Need of Moral Training in the Public Schools; II. Scope and Methods of Moral Training; III. Qualifications for Teaching Morals; IV. Benefits of Moral Training — Gen- eral Remarks. MORAL TRAINING OF THE SCHOOL CHILD MORAL TRAINING OF THE SCHOOL CHILD NEED OF MORAL TRAINING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS HON. ANDREW D. WHITE, former Am- bassador to Russia and first president of Cornell University, in a recent address, startled the country by a quasi-endorsement of lynching in certain instances of heinous crime. Mr. White said: " In the next year nine thousand people will be murdered in this country. As I stand here to-day I tell you that nine thousand people are doomed to death, with all the cruelty of the criminal heart and with no regard for home and family ties." It was this fearful menace which hangs like a Damoclean sword over the country that moved this eminent educator and conservative thinker boldly to assert: "Much may be said in favor of the quotation of 13 14 MORAL TRAINING the famous Englishman, Goldwin Smith, ^ There are some communities in the United States in which lynch law Is better than any other.' " Census figures are illuminating on this subject and as startling as Instructive. Eighty-five thou- sand persons accused of crimes or misdemeanors tenant the prisons of the United States and nine thousand homicides are committed every twelve- month. In round numbers, thirty-five thousand youth are in reform schools. And yet, turning to the school statistics, It Is seen that seventeen and one-half million pupils are enrolled in the pub- lic schools of the country; that the average at- tendance in every political division Is higher than ever before ; that there has been a general decrease in Illiteracy all along the line, from ocean to ocean, from the lakes to the gulf. Educational facilities were never so general and efficient, attendance at the public schools was never so large. Intelligence was never so widely disseminated, ignorance never showed so low a percentage. Truly encouraging figures these so far as they go. But there are more criminals now proportion- ately than ever before ; capital crimes are increas- ing In frightful ratio; incorrigibility and moral obliquity in children of tender years Is becoming appallingly prevalent. In a word, while illiteracy decreases, crime increases. It is an alarming fact that the cost entailed by criminality and delin- OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 15 quency in the United States is estimated as ex- ceeding, by several million dollars, the aggregate sum expended for all forms of education in the country, public and private. The logical conclusion to which the thinker irresistibly is driven is, either that education is not a moralizing force or else that the present meth- ods of instruction are woefully defective as touch- ing the moral side of American youth. While the statement cannot be substantiated by actual statistics and figures, yet it is safe to assert that a very large percentage of the criminals and criminally inclined who are not illiterates received their only training in the public schools. At the doors of the public schools, then, in the main, must be laid the indictment of defective moral training. The whole trend of educational discussion at con- ventions, institutes, in teachers' reading circles and in the educational publications indicates a recog- nized lack of morale in the public schools and there is a perennial agitation for teachers better trained in the psychological aspects of their work. That phase of public school training which would em- brace moral teaching is admittedly the palpably weak phase of the public school system in general. Herein lies in a large measure the source of stagnation that feeds the cesspools of immorality and breeds crime. Multitudes of children, with moral natures untouched, are carried along in the 1 6 MORAL TRAINING school course like so many ponies or dogs trained mechanically to do certain things so as to make a good showing when they enter the world-wide hippodrome of actual life, their trainers giving no definite heed to whether or not these boys and girls go out into society to become educated ras- cals and denizens of the underworld, or to be useful, upright men and women. There is a gen- eral lack of a public school spirit of honor and integrity which the teacher alone — the *' system," so to speak — can inaugurate and foster. Masses of children are permitted to " just grow up," not primarily immoral, but Topsies, moral-less, by default of moral instruction. This is not generally true of the higher insti- tutions of learning. Much is heard of " college spirit " and it is a blessed thing that such spirit exists. It is a moral bulwark that saves many an otherwise weak nature. Along this line President Thwing, of Western Reserve University, bears graphic testimony when he says : " Statements emerge at various times that the heads of reform movements find no small number of college graduates among the human derelicts and wreckage that float to their doorways. That there are college men who are bad, and who go to the bad, is not to be denied. But the number of them, or the proportion of them, is very much less than these interpretations indicate. OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 17 " I have, in common with most college presi- dents, had a personal acquaintance with hundreds, or with thousands of college graduates. I have known them before they were graduates, and cared much for them. I have known them after they were college graduates, and also cared much for them. Their careers I have followed. Upon the evidence thus given, I want to bear testimony to the effect that seldom is it that a college gradu- ate goes to the bad, and also seldom is it that his life or career is inefficient. Less than five men out of a hundred become moral reprobates, and I think less than ten per cent, lead useless careers. Ninety-five men out of every hundred are reputable and ninety men out of every hundred are making some contribution of worth to the betterment of the community. " From the University of Maine, on the banks of the Penobscot, to the universities on the Golden Gate, college men are, as a body, clean, upright and efficient. " There is one cause which aids in bringing about this condition of integrity and success. Dissipation is usually, in certain stages, revolting to men of good taste. Dissipation is surrounded by, or consists of, certain types of nastiness. College men are supposed to be gentlemen. They embody the canons of good taste. Their intel- lectual character, even if not their nioral, develops 1 8 MORAL TRAINING high appreciation. Therefore most forms of dis- sipation are to them repulsive. The atmosphere and the training of the academic life are contra- dictory to the temptation of appetite. For doing the duties, therefore, which are Involved In up- rightness and In efficiency, college men are more inclined than are some other men." Public Schools Only Nursery of Millions. It Is no exaggeration to assert that the public schools of the country are the only nursery that millions of children ever know. Children in mul- titudes either have no home life or else have that which Is worse than no home life — the baleful influence of immoral or morally Indifferent par- ents. In the congested tenements of the great cities, amid the alien flotsam and jetsam, which has been cast adrift from Europe and Asia and has been beached on the shores of America, this appalling destitution of moral Influence and senti- ment stalks hand In hand with material destitution. But not alone to the miserable " Black Holes " of the great cities Is this dearth of moral Influence confined. It may be found in the smaller urban communities and even the most favored rural dis- tricts are not strangers to moral as well as material squalor. Every portion of the land brings forth its perennial crop of Ignorant, debased, dissipated OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 19 parents who foist upon society bevies of children predisposed by vitiated heredity to immorality and crime and with inherited tendencies aggravated by daily example in the home from those to whom they naturally look for guidance. It is from these cesspools of moral pollution that the public schools receive streams of moral- less childhood which imposes a tremendous re- sponsibility, because the public school is the only possible morally-purifying fountain through which these streams of childhood will flow before passing from their morally arid homes out into the de- moralizing world to fall more deeply into the slime of crime and vice if not buoyed by some strong Influence. The public school is the only moral hope for vast numbers of such children. The churches do not and cannot reach them. They are beyond the pale of practical religious influence. Should home mission effort succeed in reaching them It would be only with a rope of sand, a beacon light that would shine but a moment and would then be extinguished by the cruel blasts of environment, making rescue from that source well-nigh hopeless. Upon the public schools chiefly is the problem thrust. It is there these children will receive the only training the mass of them ever will get. No other school will they ever enter. Indeed, it is necessary that the State should step In and force 20 MORAL TRAINING indifferent parents to permit their offspring to avail themselves of even this comparatively meager source of aliment for their higher natures by compulsory education laws. The fact that millions of children are destined by circumstances never to pass through educa- tional institutions higher than or other than the public school and that the children most vitally in need of moral training make up a large portion of this great army of future citizens, is pregnant with fearful possibilities unless the public school is equipped and prepared to answer the Macedonian cry for moral aid from this source. Its Economic Phase. From the economic standpoint, moral training in the public schools is a manifest necessity. As hereinbefore observed, statistics show that crime and incorrigibility cost more, by millions of dol- lars, than does the whole American system of edu- cation, public and private. From the material viewpoint, therefore, if proper moral instruction and influence are given in the public schools, from whose walls go out the greater number of the youth who become incorrigibles and later, crimi- nals, the frightful saturnalia of crime and vice inevitably will decrease and with the decrease in the number of criminals will come a corresponding OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 21 saving in the entailed cost of criminality. The great sums expended for the capture, incarcer- ation, conviction and maintenance of criminals is not the only costly feature of the prevalence of criminality. There is the added positive public burden of caring for the worse than widowed and orphaned families of the criminals; the widows and orphans of the victims of homicides; and the currents of insanity and pauperism which flow in the wake of crime, resultant therefrom. Still another indirect and negative source of loss to the commonwealth is the fact that the lives of men and women, boys and girls, who, if upright, industrious and law-abiding, would be engaged in some self-supporting and productive industry, are neutralized by crime. Adding to the adult prison- ers of the land the youths in reformatories, the victims of homicides and the persons thrown into insanity or pauperism as a direct result of crime, fully one hundred and fifty thousand individuals annually are withdrawn from the wage-earning, self-supporting army of producers. This in itself is a startling item. But there is another economic phase more im« portant than that pertaining to mere material economy. The protection of society against the criminal is the problem, ever insolvable, which confronts the legislatures, the intricate machinery of the courts, the prisons, the reformatories and 22 MORAL TRAINING all the penal and reform institutions of the coun- try. There is the startling presage that within the coming twelvemonth nine thousand human souls will be hurled into eternity by the bullet or knife or bludgeon of the assassin, and that the number will increase in succeeding twelvemonths unless some powerful crime-deterring influence is set In motion. The protection of life and prop- erty against criminal ravage is a mighty problem and, let It be repeated, the burden of relief must fall upon the public schools In providing the deter- rent, through moral training. Again, the criminal influence is by no means a negligible menace. Every crime Is a public peril. Every outbreaking criminal deed sets in motion a wave of moral blight that sweeps over society with its baneful influence — the more atrocious the deed the more baneful and blighting and the wider sweeps the demoralizing wave. It is known that peculiarly horrible crimes are quickly imi- tated, oftentimes In places distant from the scene of the original atrocity. Thus otherwise harm- less natures often give way under the impulse of an Influence toward criminality of peculiar enor- mity and not only does the unhappy Individual thus Influenced suffer, but some member of society, unscathed of such influence. It may be, meets a tragic fate because of it. Crime ramifies in its OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 23 effects and Influences and, directly or indirectly, deleteriously affects every stratum of society. Its Civic Phase. The need of sturdy, honest, upright, fearless citizenship in the United States was never more keenly felt than today. As never before the weal of the country demands " Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain." The bad citizenship of the good citizen is not only generally recognized and deplored in this country but has become proverbial abroad. Amid the simple conditions of the New England colonies, when population was so sparse every man, of his own knowledge, could take a census of his colony; when the chief issue was the ele- mental one of how to protect life against the rude blasts of nature and the ruder incursions of the savage, the democracy which found its expression in the town meeting sufficed and citizenship was the essence of simplicity. But complex problems and multifarious civic duties confront the Ameri- can citizen of to-day. While problems multiply and thicken in com- plexity and while civic duties much more abound than in the days of simple pioneer living and a not 24 MORAL TRAINING numerous population, yet the individual is as much a civic factor to-day as in the dawn of our national existence. It is a manifest truism that every man is a civic power for good or ill. There is no neu- tral ground. The nation in any analysis is but an aggregation of individual entities. And the broadest statesmanship and wisest publicism unite on the simple yet all-important truth that the perpetuity of the country and its beneficent insti- tutions rests upon the high general average of morality and intelligence. Ex-President Roose- velt is one of the most consistent and persistent exponents of this truth which he epitomizes as follows : '' We must strive to bring about clean living and right thinking. We appreciate that the things of the body are important; but we appreciate also that the things of the soul are immeasurably more important. The foundation stone of national life is, and ever must be, the high individual character of the average citizen." Here unfolds the province of the public school — to inculcate the lessons that make for good citizenship. The desideratum of good govern- ment will not come from intelligence alone nor from marked physical superiority. A moralized citizenship is the sine qua non of national bene- faction. Moral instruction in the public schools must be the leaven to leaven the whole lump of OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 25 citizenship. One of the most inspiring features of common school instruction should be this privi- lege of giving to the nation the corpuscular ele- ment to enrich its very life blood. The country's extremity with its vitiated blood of bad citizenship should be seized upon as the glorious opportunity of the public school. Primary Object of Education, The process of orderly " drawing out," which education elementally implies, is too generally re- stricted in its application to the mental, or at most to the mental and physical, in the child. In the broadening educational horizon of the twentieth century the end and aim of education is not to make of children animated knowledge-boxes and peregrinating encyclopedias, but to draw out and develop and symmetrize their three-fold natures. If there be no moral training in the public schools and children grow up, because of this lack of moral development, to lives of crime and shame, the whole object of education, so far as they indi- vidually are concerned and so far as society in general is concerned, has been defeated. The mentally and physically trained but morally un- trained youth, turned loose upon society, is like unto an infant given a firebrand amid the draperies and combustibles of the nursery and left to itself 26 MORAL TRAINING to ply the element of destruction In Its Infantile Ignorance. Such untrained youths carry unwit- tingly the Instruments of their own destruction and of resultant danger to the society of which they are designed to be ornaments and conservators. What though multiplied millions are poured out annually for the support of public schools, If the product of those schools be a juvenile army with mental wits sharpened but with moral sensibilities dormant or blunted — an army without moral banners, ready to be swept by demoralizing winds of Influence under the black banner of vice and crime. All the money and effort expended upon their training are thus rendered nugatory. If moral training be neglected the dereliction not only recoils upon the individual child thus robbed of Its birthright but it acts and reacts detrimentally and disastrously upon society. Public School a Democracy. Each and every public school in the land, no matter how humble, Is a republic In miniature. So strikingly does this Idea appeal to educators, in many city schools model mimic governments, municipal and national, are conducted under the supervision of the pupils themselves. In the schools exist, In the main, the functions of the OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 27 principal Institutions of general civic government. Here also prevail In embryo the virtues and vices of the larger sphere of the citizen. How funda- mentally important Is It, therefore, that these embryonic citizens should have their feet set upon the king's highway of civic virtue ! Here In this republic, bounded by four walls, may be and should be instilled the virtues that will fit children In a large measure for the responsibilities of citi- zenship. Here public and private honesty and honor may and should be impressed; here the noxious weeds of selfishness, deceit, craft, the domineering spirit, idleness, talebearing and gos- sip, hate, envy, lying, may be checked in their growth In the fallow moral nature of the child and in their stead may be planted the antithetic virtues that will tend to spring up and root out the poi- sonous growth and bring forth abundant fruit of good citizenship in adult years. The public school teacher Is chief magistrate over a sover- eignty where the highest moral good of the minia- ture commonwealth should be one of the very foremost objects. Such a teacher. In a way, is a counterpart of Moses, promulgating wholesome moral laws, and of Alfred the Great and all the wise and beneficent rulers who have administered laws for the highest good of all. 28 MORAL TRAINING Inherent Worth of a Human SouL One of the primal claims in behalf of moral training may be based upon the Inherent worth of the individual child. The weight of responsi- bility impresses deeply every conscientious teacher when it is considered that the destiny of immortal souls in large measure hangs upon the training given and Influence wielded In the schoolroom. " What will a man give in exchange for his soul? 'V comes the divine interrogatory that has no possible estimable answer. There is no material consid- eration which can be put in the balance and weighed over against one human soul, although tenanted, It may be, In the most humble and re- pulsive fleshly edifice. Expense, effort, sacrifice, years of preparation on the part of the teacher — all these are not worthy to be compared with the intrinsic value of the Immortal part of the meanest and least promising child that presents Its lean, hungry, attenuated but receptive nature to be fed and nurtured in its mental, moral and physical aspects. It Is a sad commentary on the public school system of the United States that provision was not made long ago for supplying moral aliment to the youth of the land. The incongruity of building up an edifice on a foundation of sand, liable to topple and fall and not only be destroyed Itself but ruin other edifices OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 29 in its collapse, seems so palpable in the matter of training children, the marvel is that so great a mission, so vital a part of the educational archi- tecture should not only be indifferently regarded but wholly ignored oftentimes. What profits it to rear with infinite pains and through an elabor- ate and costly governmental enginery, the frame- work of young manhood and womanhood, using only their mental and physical capabilities as structural material, while that which every con- scientious educator and every thoughtful man and woman must recognize as the essential found- ation of all good in education -— the moral devel- opment of the individual — is left out? What result more natural than that such a structure should topple and become a menace as soon as the demoralizing influences of life beat upon it in the inevitable tempests which sweep every human structure? How long must it be until the stone of moral training which these educational builders have put at nought shall become the head of the corner ? As between the educated criminal and the ig- norant lawbreaker the former is a far greater menace to society. Not only is the educated criminal more capable of committing graver crimes than his illiterate brother in crime, but society has been mulcted of the time and effort and money spent in his education and is subject to the shock 30 MORAL TRAINING and demoralizing Impress which a conspicuous career, wrecked In crime, gives. To what pur- pose Is the youth taught the elements of chemistry, in the line of his mental development, if infor- mation thus gleaned, not guided and controlled by a moral helm, is turned to the criminal purpose of compounding an insidious poison to commit murder without discovery, or to devising a chemi- cal solution that will reduce forgery to an exact science? The public schools owe It to each and every in- dividual child In the land firmly to plant the found- ations of elementary education on the solid rock of moral truth. The obligation Is due primarily to the child Itself, whose eternal destiny Is largely in the keeping of the teacher. The debt Is owing, secondarily, to society in general, whose sponsor the teacher Is in preparing the child for useful, honorable life. The foregoing are but a few of the more cogent reasons why there should be moral training of the millions of youths of the land who will never ma- triculate In educational institutions higher than the public schools. The need of such training is patent, pressing; the demand for It does not rest upon fanatical zeal or sectarian whim. It is most eloquently attested by the census tables of crime, incorrigibility, pauperism and Insanity; every po- lice court In every city, town and village In the OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 31 land Is a testimonial to the need; the blood of the victim of every homicide cries out from the ground in appeal for training calculated to hold in leash the fearful passions which, untrained, plunge through the gradations of crime to the gory depths of assassination. Christianity and en- lightened civilization would hail such instruction as the surest harbinger of "on earth peace, good will toward men." II SCOPE AND METHODS OF MORAL TRAINING 4t^Tr^RAIN Up a child in the way he should go X and when he is old he will not depart from it." The sacred writer not only impresses the obligation to teach morality but gives comfort- ing assurance that the child instructed systemati- cally " in the way he should go " will not depart from his teaching *' when he is old." This is at once a solemn obligation and an encouraging promise; a manifest duty and an assured reward for the faithful performance thereof. It were vain to argue that every child well- taught morally will keep strictly to the path of rectitude throughout life. There are so many adverse influences with which moral natures must combat, so many snares and pitfalls for the un- wary, so many weaknesses of heredity or tem- perament which beset the individual that in many cases even the wisest and best of moral training by parents and teachers may not suffice to sustain the child when it shall have " put away childish things " and gone forth in its maturer years to meet temptations and responsibilities. The gen- 32 OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 33 cral truth of the sacred adjuration and the reward of its fulfillment, literally, however, are attested on every hand and have borne the test of the ages. So universally is childhood recognized as the ductile, impressionable, habit-forming period of life — the age when most lasting impressions are most readily made — this phase of the subject of child-training may be passed over with but a word. That the aged remember vividly the scenes and incidents of their extreme youth, things in them- selves oftentimes the most trivial in character, but emphasizes the indelibility of impressions made upon the fresh, retentive nature of the child. At birth the child's moral nature is as a blank tablet, an unwritten page susceptible to the slight- est and most delicate exterior influence. Here and there upon that page may be the blotches of hereditary moral taint which later in life will blur the most perfect moral influence which may come into contact therewith. As the child comes into being it may be said to be non-moral — that is, negatively, without any fixed moral impressions or impulses. But from the hour of birth begins that rapid growth and expansion and absorption under exterior influence which in a few short years is destined to make of the youth an intelligent moral being. To be effective, moral training must be deep and sincere. The youth superficially trained in 34 MORAL TRAINING morals may go out into society with his moral re- pulsiveness concealed under a polished exterior, but the result Is only a thin veneer over a rotten or decaying framework. The poultice of polish that heals the surface leaves the festering sore within, liable at any time to break out Into moral recrudescence. Webster defines '* morals " thus: " The doctrine or practice of the duties of life; manner of living as regards right and wrong; con- duct; behavior." " Moral " as an adjective is defined: *' Pertaining to those intentions and actions of which right and wrong, virtue and vice, are predi- cated, or the rules by which such Intentions and actions ought to be directed; relating to the prac- tice, manners or conduct of men as social beings in relation to each other, as respects right and wrong so far as they are properly subject to rules." The definition, analyzed, discloses a twofold duty binding upon the Individual — right living and thinking on the part of the individual as his moral duty to his better self; right thinking and acting toward mankind in general as his moral social duty. From this it is seen that proper moral teaching of children comprehends incul- cating the rules by which the child is to develop itself so as best to subserve its own happiness, health and well-being, this development to be OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 35 symmetrical, so as to equip the child for the larger duties and responsibilities of life, involving Its relations toward mankind, as a social being. Morality in the child properly has a distinct intrinsic and extrinsic existence and manifestation. Children primarily need to be taught to respect themselves, to keep their own minds and bodies and moral impulses pure; this Idea thoroughly rooted, the larger duty toward society will impress itself in the orderly development of the moral nature. The child's first lesson Is Its moral duty to Itself and this lesson should be deeply implanted. Then in the evolution of training as to moral duty will come in natural sequence the comprehensive grasp of duty toward parents, brothers and sis- ters, schoolmates and companions, and the Cre- ator. For, avoiding sectarianism, every child reverently should be led to '' Remember now thy Creator In the days of thy youth while the evil days come not." Virile Moral Teaching. Moral Instruction in the public schools, to be effective, must be vitalized, earnest, compre- hensible. Children should not be fed upon over- done, underdone, or Illy-prepared and indigestible moral food ; the resultant dyspepsia will be a veri- table moral plague and the last estate of children 36 MORAL TRAINING so taught will be worse than the first. Stereo- typed, parrot-like, hackneyed, dogmatic or homi- letic teaching is a menace to morals. Like every other phase of teaching it is Impossible to lay down empirical rules as to methods of training in morals; but, in general, the cravings and suscepti- bilities of the moral nature of the child should be gauged and instruction should be given in such manner and to such extent as will Insure agreeable receptivity on the part of the child, and thus pro- mote the digestive process which will turn the carefully prepared and properly administered food into aliment to nourish and develop the moral being. " Men must be taught as if you taught them not '' is a truism which applies with particular force to the realm of childhood. It will never do to reduce moral teaching to a text-book basis. Whenever moral lessons are set down alongside arithmetic, to be learned by rote, a revulsion in child nature will be superinduced fatal to every beneficent aim of moral training. The giving of moral nourishment must in a measure be so sea- soned and sugar-coated as to render it not only palatable but inviting, and the child-nature, if possible, must be so prepared for the reception of the more vital moral truths that the partaking thereof will come as much a matter of course and with the same sharpened appetite as If It were a OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 37 feast of dainties tempting an empty stomach. Only as this method is approximated will be in- duced that healthful assimilation which consum- mates moral training. If the stomach be gorged with an unseasonable mass of indigestibles, the child's physical body not only fails to assimilate, but the outraged stomach revolts and makes itself painfully felt. Equally true is it that if the child is crammed full of indigestible moral truths, illy- prepared and ignorantly or indifferently adminis- tered by the teacher, the moral nature not only will not assimilate the gorge but there will ensue a painful revulsion which will bode ill for subse- quent efforts to develop the moral nature of the child. Historians relate how Lycurgus withdrew from his people to Crete and there formed an intimacy with Thales, a poet of great abilities, whom he engaged so far in his designs as to persuaHe him to go and settle at Sparta and, by poems suited to the purpose, endeavor to prepare the minds of the people for receiving those alterations in gov- ernment and manners which Lycurgus hoped he might, one day, have it in his power to propose to their consideration. Accordingly, when Lycurgus returned to Sparta he had already, by insensible degrees, prepared the minds of the people; for, while listening to the poems of Thales they had been imbibing gradually sentiments favorable to 38 MORAL TRAINING the plans which Lycurgus had in contemplation. By proceeding in a gentle and cautious manner Lycurgus was thus enabled to bring about distinct reforms that otherwise would have been impos- sible without violence and revolution. The lesson in this for the teacher who essays to train in morals is obvious. Children cannot be driven back into the moral Eden. They must be led by ways so inviting and agreeable that flowers will conceal the ruggedness of the path. This idea, however, should not be abused. Moral sturdiness must be inculcated. Teaching must not be made so attractive as to become false, flaccid and insipid. The proper proportions of '* blood and iron " must be in the moral compound upon which the child is fed. Discrimination, tact and keen insight into child nature will commend to the teacher the happy median method of making innately rugged moral truths acceptable and as- similable to the child. Elemental Moral Traimng[. The homeliest phase of the teacher's work has its possibilities of moral instruction. The sim- plest and most elemental incidents and circum- stances of the schoolroom, of child life, lend themselves admirably to the inculcation of moral truth. No attempt is made here to lay down ab- OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 39 solute rules or to outline In any degree of com- pleteness the sources from which moral Instruc- tion may be garnered. But the humblest school room has as rich possibilities for moral gleanings as the field of Boaz presented to Ruth In the way of ripened grain. From the most common actions of the pupils habits may be developed by the teacher, through her deft training, which in them- selves will become a fruitful source of moral growth. Orderliness, neatness, respect for elders, thoughtfulness, unselfishness, honesty, truthful- ness, may be taught every day and every hour in the routine work of the school in the relations of pupils to teacher and to each other. The im- portance of small actions in the formation of habits, the necessity of keeping Impulses pure, the absolutism of habit — all these and their multi- form suggestions and applications the teacher may emphasize by methods which occasion will dictate as best. It is a sublime thought that should give en- thusiasm and ardor to every conscientious teacher that in the homely routine of the school may be developed the most momentous moral truths in the universe. Here aptly applies Shakespeare's beautiful thought on " the uses of adversity " ; — " Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." 40 MORAL TRAINING Amid bare walls and floors, ugly desks and un- adorned envlronlngs of thousands of schools lie the precious jewels of moral truth within reach of the poorest and most unpromising child if the teacher but be the skilled lapidary to polish these gems of truth and present them to the receptive minds and hearts of the children. While, as heretofore observed, sectarianism never should enter the public schools in any guise, yet accountability to God should be a part of the teaching in morals. The advantages of upright living hkewise should be emphasized. In the teacher's own way and by suitable illustrations, the truth should be made manifest that " honesty is the best policy"; that "righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people " — and here the application should be individualized; that " a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches " ; that an untroubled conscience is a better asset than a plethoric purse filled with ill- gotten gains. As sordidity and sensual artifici- ality are common besetments of present-day Americans, these demoralizing tendencies should be especially combatted in the child nature. Teach Personal Responsibility. The teacher may lay the foundation of a liberal moral education by impressing upon each pupil OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 41 personal responsibility in the successful conduct of the school. Every teacher comes to realize the value of the personal equation of pupils in governing the school. Nothing so appeals to the pride and better impulses of boys and girls as to be put upon their good behavior — to be made to feel that the success or failure of an adult upon whom they look with respect lies largely with them individually. To the degree that the teacher stimulates this rivalry among pupils as to who shall do most and best toward making the school work in all its phases a success, to that extent not only will the school become practically self-governing, but the pupils unconsciously will have acquired some of the most inestimable civic and social vir- tues — orderliness, respect for constituted author- ity, helpfulness, magnanimity, self-control and sense of personal responsibility. Judicious use of the means thus put within the reach of every teacher not only will prove a wholesome course In morals, but a valuable assistance In the way of " governing " the school, which is the bane of many teachers' lives. Discipline largely may be placed upon a basis of pride and honor by the teacher so that the pupils will come to govern themselves In a large measure and the school thus will become virtually autonomous. It Is needless to dilate upon the beneficial effects of such con- ditions In the school upon both teacher and pupils. 42 MORAL TRAINING With the evolution of moral training schools can be placed more and more upon an honor basis, so far as discipline is concerned, to the marked ad- vantage of all schools. Practical Moral Teaching. The fault of much of present-day teaching lies In its vagueness, abstruseness and attenuated gen- erality. If moral training Is to be of lasting bene- fit It must be made distinctively practical. It is no field for the mere theorist or the visionaire to enter. The homely saying that ^' hell is paved with good intentions " might well be supplemented with the assertion that much of the infernal as- phaltum Is also furnished from ill-considered, purposeless moral cramming. To a certain ex- tent the Squeers method must prevail in effective moral training. When the child has learned to spell and define moral duty there must be coupled with this Instruction the impulse to perform moral duties as they present themselves. A form of teaching morals open to vitiating abuse Is that which holds out a material, tangible reward for every right action the child performs. This Is liable to become disastrous to all moral ends. The teacher should endeavor to teach goodness for goodness' sake and so far as possible wean the child away from expectation of immedi- 1 OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 43 ate, material reward for every right action and impulse. Many teachers are in danger of build- ing upon quicksand in this respect and only dis- cover their error after the child has awakened to the fact that it has been flim-flammed in its moral teaching by being promised recompense of a na- ture which does not materialize. Your twentieth century youth is by nature an intense materialist and generally is acute beyond his years in deter- mining the sincerity of the teacher and the truth or falsity of teachings as affecting material re- wards or portended punishments. Teach Moral Courage, In no aspect is moral training more sadly needed in this country than in inspiring moral courage. This virtue generally and conspicu- ously either is lacking or feebly developed. Through false or indifferent training, or from lack of training, masses of boys and girls grow up to the years of manhood and womanhood spineless so far as moral courage is concerned. These, be- cause of their moral cowardice, so deteriorate and are so " driven about by every wind of doctrine," simply because it is popular, as to be a positive peril to orderly society. Moral stability has been belittled or Ignored or promulgated in such a milk- and-water manner by teachers as to leave no im- 44 MORAL TRAINING pression on the natures of multitudes of youth. On the other hand, physical daring and prowess have been glorified inordinately in the schools, in the homes and in books and newspapers until we are in danger of becoming a nation of bullies and braggarts. It is known even to the wayfaring man that many a man who has the courage to face frowning batteries and the most fearful physical danger un- daunted, will shrink and cower before a sneer. Strong, persistent, wholesome training of youth in the rudiments of moral manliness and courage is a nation-wide necessity. To be independent, to stand firmly for the right if need be in the face of sneers, insults, misrepresentations; to live so as to be above just cause for reproach but if re- proach come to have the moral sinew and fiber so well developed they will stand firm and unshaken amid the tumult of vituperation — this is the kind of training every child should receive. The pages of history and biography are rich with shin- ing examples of the highest type of moral courage and afford an exhaustless fountain upon which the teacher may draw for the edification and interest of the child. The discriminating teacher, without straining the point, may show the child that the type of courage that impelled Henry Clay to ex- claim *' I would rather be right than be Presi- OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 45 dent," and to act accordingly, Is extremely rare and as admirable as rare. There are biographies of eminent Americans which are as fascinating to youth as romance and which in themselves teach grand moral lessons. For instance, there may be put before the pupils the physical courage and moral cowardice of Benedict Arnold, forming a repellant antithesis to the group of Revolutionary heroes which Includes such physically and morally courageous men as George Washington and Nathan Hale. A conspicuous fault of many school histories and biographical works Is the tendency to glorify the warrior and wars out of all normal and just proportion. The fame of Alexander and Caesar and Napoleon thrills the heart of youth, but the moral effect of hero worship in Idealizing such characters of history Is very questionable. Youth Is Impulsively extreme and does not weigh motives and discriminate between the good and the evil of the great. The halo of glorification that Indis- criminately Is thrown around the genius of the battlefield by some perfervid historians Is not cal- culated to foster the spirit of peace and order and justice In the natures of the young. While giving due meed of praise and rank to military genius, the teaching given should empha- size the beneficent achievements of inventors, ex- 46 MORAL TRAINING plorers, statesmen, authors and philanthropists who have contributed largely toward making the world better. Franklin toying with the lightning through his kite ; Watt gathering the fundamental idea of a momentous invention from watching the steam tilt the lid of a tea kettle; Newton grasping the idea of gravitation from seeing an apple fall, sublime suggestion which the poet has set to rhyme : " That very law that molds a tear And bids it trickle from its source, That law preserves the earth a sphere And guides the planets in their course "— - All these fascinate youth like the weavings of the romancer. The achievements of men who have struggled and wrought to make the world better should be exalted, not fanatically and dispropor- tionately, but judiciously, soberly. Children are quick to grasp and sympathize with tales of hard- ships and struggles against adversity; the seeds of morality may be sown with success in the fertile soil of receptive, interested minds where concrete examples from history, faithfully portrayed, are held up to their mental gaze. It is high time that children should be made to believe and realize that " peace hath her victories no less renowned than war"; that heroes have lived in all ages who never trod the crimson path of martial glory; that the world is much more in OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 47 need of '' men, high-minded men " who will be heroic in peace, who have the moral courage to meet and conquer adversity and to do the right at all hazards, than it needs " mighty men of re- nown " to lead its armies and command its navies. Sources of Moral Instruction. Sources of moral instruction are embarrassingly numerous. Newspapers, books, magazines, text- books, nature, the daily routine of school work, social relations of pupils with each other — these are but a few of the fields teeming with possi- bilities. Graphic lessons of a moral nature may be im- pressed from momentous events of current history as recorded in the better class of newspapers. The San Francisco disaster, for instance, had manifold teachings, such as the innate charity and magnanimity of the mass of humanity when aroused by suffering and destitution; the splendid courage of whole communities in the face of al- most overwhelming disaster, and like patent lessons. Moral teaching is best subserved by dwelling upon the beauties and advantages of pursuing a goodly career rather than emphasizing the re- pulsiveness and disastrous consequences of evil living. In this connection arises a duty all teachers 48 MORAL TRAINING owe the children under their guidance — to shield them against the sensational newspaper. This is coming to be one of the recognized demoralizing agencies of the country. Mr. Arthur J. Pillsbury, Secretary of the State Board of Examiners of California, made a tour of investigation of some eighty reformatory and eleemosynary institutions of the East and middle West and, reporting upon the chief causes which conspire to fill such insti- tutions, he has this to say of the harmful influence of '* yellow journalism ^^ : " It is perfectly clear to sociologists that the increase of criminality, the world over, and espe- cially in this country, is largely due to the power of suggestion of the ' yellow ' press. Sensational papers are mainly taken by persons most likely to be influenced by the power of suggestion, and the reading of graphic reports of murders, suicides, robberies, domestic scandals, etc., day after day, year after year, cannot fail of producing untoward results in minds of that character. It has been observed that atrocities of every kind, blazoned in the columns of such papers, are imitated shortly after, incident by incident. Time was when the dime novel was charged with many heinous of- fenses against social well-being, but how much greater the evil now that daily novels of as worth- less character are hawked about the streets at one cent per copy ! The ' yellow ' papers not only OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 49 use a deal of fiction in their daily grist, but they tell whatever truth they do tell in the language of fiction so that it tastes like fiction in the mouths of their readers and has the same influence upon their overwrought nervous systems." Schools Civic Barracks. The nation, ever mindful of the advice of Washington — in time of peace to prepare for war — maintains at the highest possible state of efficiency an elaborate military and naval estab- lishment. Not one whit less important for the maintenance of the honor and glory of the nation is the vast civic establishment represented in the public schools of the country. Every school house is a civic barracks. It is of the utmost im- portance that from these barracks should be turned out armies of youth trained in moral duties and capabilities, to fight the nation's battles for honesty, uprightness, clean living, right thinking and just, helpful governing. Ill will fare the land if the means are neglected for the training of its youth to become moral, industrious, law-abiding citizens. As the public school is the chief recruit- ing station of citizenship, the vital necessity of maintaining the high moral standard of the re- cruits thus turned out is apparent. Ill QUALIFICATIONS FOR TEACHING MORALS LIKE the poet, the good teacher Is born, not made ; and however blessed with tact and tal- ent for teaching, no one is so abundantly endowed as not to be better equipped for imparting In- struction by themselves undergoing a thorough disciplinary course in training. Notwithstanding the persistent crusade for trained teachers for the public schools there may be found to-day all too many, usurping the place of real teachers, who have had no adequate training for their work and who cannot, in the nature of things, be equipped for its delicate responsibilities. While mental in- struction of children calls for the most careful preparation on the part of the teacher, what must be said of the preparation demanded of him or her who would undertake to " train up a child in the way he should go " morally? For the work of molding symmetrical moral vessels out of the raw and dissimilar clay of the schoolroom the teacher needs not only the vital teachings of the best psychological writers for 50 OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 51 guidance, but there are many essential qualifi- cations that must be acquired outside the well- beaten psychological paths blazed by books. Systematic thought, observation of child-nature first hand, intense earnestness and devotion to the work In hand, diagnosis of each individual child and application of remedies to meet the peculiar moral need of each one — herein lies the broad and yet specific province of the successful teacher of morals. As the moral physician of the juvenile com- munity the teacher must maintain an ample apothecary shop, with reserve stores of special knowledge, skill and dexterity. The teacher must determine, with the quickness and accuracy of the experienced physician, what the ailment Is and what treatment to apply. This child's moral sensibilities are blunted by heredity — here the alterative, the tonic; there a youth has suffered a wound of pride from a thoughtless playmate which, if not healed promptly, will become an angry sore of hate — there the teacher's moral emollient Is demanded; yonder a boy physically robust and ebullient with animal spirits, as full of mischief as a June rosebush of bees — here the mild sedative is demanded to curb to moderation the mischievousness which, if not held In bounds, will lead the boy Into some current of flagitious moral transgression ; and so on through the whole 52 MORAL TRAINING moral pharmacopoeia, remedies may be found of known virtue in moral therapeutics. « Teacher^ s Character and Personality. The public school teacher should have a clear passport as to moral character — a character in which are conspicuously developed the cardinal virtues which are to be instilled into the pupils. Dionysius of Halicarnassus defines history as " philosophy teaching by example." This graphic definition, personified, may not inaptly be applied to the teacher — a moral philosopher teaching by example. The influence of the char- acter and personality of the teacher upon the pupil is beyond calculation and ramifies amazingly. Therefore is it a prime necessity that the teacher should be self-poised, optimistic, patient, sympa- thetic, industrious, neat, orderly — in a word, not only the moral exemplar but the moral inspiration of the whole school. There is an indefinable mag- netic moral influence that teachers exert upon chil- dren. A clean, wholesome, cheerful mind and heart sending out magnetic waves from the teach- er's desk beget a like state among the pupils. This influence of teachers, manifested in similitude of actions and impulses on the part of pupils, is strikingly apparent, especially in remote districts where life is simple and children do not have OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 53 counteracting and distracting influences. It be- hooves every teacher to make use of these obviously potential possibilities of moral stew- ardship. Every teacher should be thoroughly honest and conscientious in every phase of school work and not shirk or imperfectly or indifferently perform duties. Children are quick to note such defection and its demoralizing influence is marked. Many teachers are themselves the sorry prod- ucts of the lack of moral training in the public schools. They, by hook or crook, cram enough jumbled information into their brains to be able to " pass examination " and then, without any natural aptitude or acquired qualifications for teaching, they sally forth to play havoc with the training of children. Themselves untrained, knowing little or nothing of child nature or the psychological order of Its development, they cheat the pupils out of their priceless birthright and obtain their salaries under false pretenses. They are not teachers, only " sounding brass and tinkling cymbals," masqueraders wearing the livery of a calling with sacred responsibilities. All the states are giving more and more atten- tion to the training of teachers and stricter re- quirements along this line are being adopted. As moral training becomes a more distinct part of public school work, teachers of necessity will have 54 MORAL TRAINING to be fitted carefully and thoroughly for this deli- cate function. Beacon lights of a new and better era in public school teaching already are shining afar. False teachers are being displaced. Teaching is being made a profession, is being elevated from its long- abused position of " stepping stone to something better." Enlightened public sentiment is de- manding trained, thoroughly qualified men and women as teachers. The days of the superficial, untrained and unfit information-monger are num- bered. Another generation will witness the cul- mination of a notable evolution in this respect. IV BENEFITS OF MORAL TRAINING GENERAL REMARKS IN the primal dawn of creation, as the AI- nighty breathed into existence the varied forms of plant and animal life and pronounced the eternal fiat fixing the functions of each animated kingdom, He is represented by the sacred writer as looking upon the product of His omnipotent will through the eyes of omniscience and putting the stamp of His approval upon all the orderly systems thus inaugurated upon the earth. " And God saw everything that He had made and, be- hold, it was very good." As there are three distinct kingdoms in the ma- terial world, each with a separate function in the universal plan, and yet all closely interrelated and interdependent, so man was created a trinity, his nature composed of three distinct yet closely in- terrelated kingdoms. Philosophy and science, as well as the Bible, teach that nothing was created without a definite purpose. No part of the three- fold nature of man, therefore, properly can be regarded as a superfluity. Neither can immunity 55 S6 MORAL TRAINING from development be claimed for any part of man's nature on the ground that It has no func- tion. The mental, the moral and the physical kingdoms In man each has Its peculiar capabilities, Its distinct functions, and yet so closely related, so sympathetic are they that none may suffer or be neglected without all being affected. In the or- derly and symmetrical development of the child- man the moral nature cannot be neglected or Ignored without the mental and physical being made to suffer. Thus It Is seen that the child of vicious habits drains Its own physical being and sows the seeds of physical and mental decay. There Is no more fearful physical truth In the Scriptures than that voicing of the Inexorable operations of a natural law of the physical world, " Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap; he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.'' Nor does the mental nature escape unscathed amid vicious indulgence. The mind most readily responds to the blighting Influence of vitiated morals. Its faculties, besotted and blunted, be- come deformed and the deformities turn awry the best efforts toward mental training on the part of parents and teachers. To cast out, so far as possible, these tares of moral corruption which children have sown or inherited; so to cultivate the moral nature of OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 57 youth not yet tainted by immorality that the seeds of corruption may not find lodgment and take root — this is the province of moral training. As the great mass of children of this country receive practically all their instruction in public schools, it is there moral training must be intrenched for the moral salvation of the future. The benefits that would flow from moral training of public school children are so many and diverse as to defy com- plete summary. Let us contemplate the child comprehensively as it sets out upon the uncertain pilgrimage of life, not of itself knowing the safe way, ignorant of the laws that govern each stage of its existence, not comprehending its duty to itself or its fellow- beings. If haply the public schools supply a moral guide, this mentor of the child takes the unwitting nature and step by step leads it on, all the while writing upon the tablet of its impres- sionable nature the rules for safe moral conduct along the whole pathway from childhood to the goal of age. Gradually the way unfolds and is mapped out in detail in the child's mind and heart, so that it needs but refer thereto at any parting of the ways or at any doubtful point on the journey to determine the true path of up- rightness. At the beginning of the journey the little pil- grim is taught introspectively — instructed in its 58 MORAL TRAINING own powers and weaknesses, how to conserve and develop the one and how to overcome the other; how to travel so as to get the most good and the minimum of ill for itself out of life. Then, as the eager pilgrim waxes in strength and under- standing, its moral horizon is widened and its duties toward fellow-pilgrims is made clea^r. It is taught that giving moral aid to those in need does not impoverish the giver nor does withhold- ing enrich, but on the contrary that giving has its reflex action of blessing while withholding has its baneful, dwarfing influence upon him who with- holds. Gradually the whole range of elementary civic and social obligations is traversed. The as- piring embryonic pilgrim is Impressed that life's road is not a solitary thoroughfare, that its prob- lems and pleasures are not for self alone, that its duties and responsibilities embrace society and the state, the present and the future. The weaknesses of the young traveler's moral nature are bolstered against the Inevitable pit- falls and quicksands of temptation which will beset the path. The lesson Is Impressed that, should the pilgrim scrupulously regard the in- structions given and safely cross these dangerous places it not only will have added strength unto itself but its Influence will have helped other weak natures to withstand the same dangers. As it ad- vances on the moral way it is instructed from the OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 59 human wrecks that strew its path — the idle, the vicious, who have wearied of well-doing and have fallen by the wayside, or are struggling hope- lessly to keep in the right way. The child's moral vision is sharpened. It sees other pilgrims like itself go cheerily on their way bearing not only their own burdens but stopping now and again to assist some weaker pilgrim. On the other hand, it sees the dread consequences and tendencies of vice. Boys and girls, men and women, them- selves throwing away their opportunities to walk in the safe and manifest road of moral duty and taking to the crooked and unsafe by-roads, bor- dered by precipices and strewn by thorns, instead of being impelled by their own fearful mistakes to warn others, set about to snare their fellows who are keeping to the right way; and even though they do not actively try to accomplish the downfall of others, yet their influence unbidden goes forth to its fell work. Some weak pilgrim who hitherto has kept in the straight path, looks aside at some acquaintance or friend in the by- ways and, either overcome with discouragement with the sight of others failing, or lured by the siren voice of vice, he yields and falls and evil influence has scored its victim. And thus is our young impulsive pilgrim given a comprehensive, kaleidoscopic view of the path- way it must traverse from the cradle to the grave. 6o MORAL TRAINING Its eyes behold the good and the evil — the one it is taught to choose at all times and in all circum- stances, the other consistently to eschew ; and with the knapsack of its mind and its heart well-stored with moral viands, with its physical frame trained for the stern realities of the journey and with its mind developed to its keenest capacity, this ideal pilgrim is a splendid specimen of symmetrical youth " trained up in the way he should go '' — the ideal product of the public schools of the fu- ture. Surely such a consummation will not be dismissed as Utopian. Temperance teaching in public schools in many states of the union has demonstrated its efficacy and the results attained argue eloquently in behalf of systematic general moral training. The tendency of the age toward mad material- ism makes the demand for moral training of chil- dren immediate and urgent. Let the public schools replenish the moral blood of society with the rich life-current of active, progressive, ag- gressive moral citizenship and soon an age of gold will be transmuted into a golden age; an era of " plain living and high thinking " will dawn; citi- zenship will cease to be a cloak for whited sepul- chers and will rise to its full stature ; the land will flow with the milk and honey of '^ good will toward men," exemplified in the marts of trade and amid the strenuosities of commerce and in- OF THE SCHOOL CHILD 6i dustry, as well as in the sequestered vales of life ; men and women will lift themselves to loftier planes of living; the normal, well-poised, manly, ideal American will be in flower and individual, community, state and nation will go forward, new-fledged, to hasten the fullest fruition of the most beneficent type of civilization the world has seen. Great is to be the America of the future and the public school, fostering public morals, is to be its prophet ! OCT 1 ! 1913 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS • 029 467 957 1 •?*v ft *. ^c '