Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/453

 THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Volume IV JANUARY, I 899 Number 4

SOCIETY'S NEED OF EFFECTIVE ETHICAL INSTRUC- TION IN SCHOOL AND CHURCH, AND THE SUG- GESTION OF AN AVAILABLE METHOD.

As THE practical portion of an article on the " Function of the Church," in the September, 1896, issue of this Journal, a discipline was outlined that seems to me likely to prove effective for the development of the ethical and religious life. Mrs. Fair- child's article, "The Scientific Study of Philanthropy" (this Journal, January, 1897), furnishes the method for the class in philanthropy provided for in the original article, and this is an attempt to supplement still farther by supplying the needed method of ethical education.'

In this article a consideration of a desirable result will lead to a statement of a method of its attainment. One of the neces- sary conditions of a peaceful and joyful world-progress in civili- zation is a world-homogeneity of the ethical ideals in which peoples believe. The cause of the war with Spain was a sentiment in the United States in favor of freedom. Spain seemed to us to hinder, for the sake of her national greed, the development of Cuba. Had Spain's ethical development kept pace with ours, Spain's service to Cuba would have become what ours will be, and resentment against oppression would not have arisen among us, because there would have been no oppression.

' This method, worked out to supplement the present work of the church, is also available for the public schools. It Is hoped that the school superintendents and

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