Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/462

 442 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of those in the picture can be made uppermost in the minds of the boys and girls within sight of the picture. And I thus gain the vantage ground that comes naturally to the father when he discusses with his son a fight from which the son is smarting in body and in soul. I give them, while thus appreciative of a dififi- culty into which many a boy comes, emphatic and specific direc- tions as to what the finest conduct under these circumstances is, in my judgment, considered to be by the developed intelligence of their community, and express the sentiments of respect and contempt that attach to the various participants. I furnish them illustrations and thus interpret to them impressively the appli- cation of the ethical standards of their socius, and by "suggestion- imitation" they tend to habituate themselves to the fulfillment of these standards, a full understanding of which can come to them only in their adult mind.

The children have a right to better than the personal judg- ments of any one man, and if I submit for criticism to quite a circle of good judges of fine conduct these ethical lectures, then they can give to the children a consensus of adult opinion, and there need be no serious mistakes in doctrine, because we are not trying to give absolute ethical truth, but simply the judgments of the many who have good judgment in these matters. Some- one may defend the boy's right to fight at every insult, but it is certainly true that the boy who does this will get himself dis- liked b}' his socius, juvenile and adult.

Extemporaneous ethical lectures are entirely unsatisfactory except to the egotism of the lecturer, because the pedagogy of the education of the emotions requires an artistic presentation of the thought which cannot be gained except by laborious com- position ; the lecture must have literary qualities, and bear rehearing, and the pictures must be set at the effective place in the text. Further, it is desirable, in order to produce the degree of homogeneity needed, that the same ethical ideals be given the entire child life of city and nation. Effective lectures can be belivered from manuscript, since they are given in the dark, and any good teacher can easily prepare to deliver them. In the country schools where a stereopticon is not available an oil