Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/238

221 based; and, in turn, these institutions help to mould the characters of those who are brought up in them. The most important of these institutions are the state, the family, the school, and the church. All these institutions, as we saw in Chapter III., have a firm foundation in the instinctive basis of human nature. But in their developed forms they have risen far above the merely instinctive level. As we know them, they are capable of being the centres of man's highest aspirations and noblest ideals; and they provide the arena in which his severest moral conflicts are waged and his truest moral victories gained.

While, among these moral institutions, it is the special function of the school to undertake the conscious and deliberate education of character, all the institutions perform educative functions and have an educative value. All the institutions help to form the habits and interests of those who belong to them. Many of the specially educative functions which used to be performed by the other institutions are now being delegated to the school, or claimed by it. But the state, the family, and the church still exercise an indispensable educative influence on various departments of conduct; and from the point of view of education it is unwise for the school to try to arrogate to itself the complete control and education of childhood. It must be recognised that all the institutions have their proper contribution to make to the education of the young; and whatever experiments we make in education we should be careful that the school does not encroach upon the educational functions proper to the other institutions and most efficiently performed by them.