Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/463

 ETHICAL INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOL AND CHURCH 443

lantern will serve. The University of the State of New York rents stereopticons to country schools in the state.

If these lectures be printed and these slides duplicated, and the schools of the United States incorporate this discipline into their curricula, then approximately every child of our nation is brought under the same ethical ideals. At present the child of the home of culture and the child of the slums get very different training. The fruits of this thorough ethical education would be — the churches being also at work to relate the gospel of love to practical life — an approach to that needed higher degree of community and national ethical homo- geneity.

A little more definiteness as to manner of handling these episodes will give a better ground for discussion. The group on the dump containing the girls who hid behind the fence was photographed before I interrupted the industry. If I take proper precautions to avoid any recognition of the children, I can show this picture on the screen, and tell the incident. I have also a picture of two girls who might have been their snob- bish persecutors. And I have a picture of children gathering wood in a snowstorm, and of hovels where they live. A combi- nation of these pictures and others, and an earnest expression of the sympathy for the girls that work on the dump for their mother that burns in every true woman's heart, and of contempt for the idle, parasoled stuckups who sneered at them, will tend to change the youthful snobs into loving women, and arouse self- respect in those who do their share of the world's work even while they are children. Another series of pictures and an explanation will impress the idea that cleanliness is demanded of the gentleman, and slovenliness is punished by social ostra- cism. The lecture which I have used to test the method in the public schools deals with fighting, and is now a combination of forty pictures and six transparencies. Twenty-four children of the seventh grade made a report in writing without knowl- edge at the time of the lecture that this would be required. The Albany Argus gives the following boy's report of the lecture.