Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/719

Rh moral principles from the experience of daily life. Children do not call for metaphysics; and to refrain from teaching them the principles of morals because you are not prepared to discuss with them those ultimate questions as to the final sanction of morality which are debated by philosophers and theologians, is like withholding from a builder all knowledge of the practical applications of geometry, because you can not carry him into the calculus, or make him feel at home in the fourth dimension. Mr. Gilman states his position very well in the following passage: "When, then, we have in mind, as a subject for public school instruction, not the science of ethics, not the speculations of moral philosophers, but the orderly presentation of the common facts and laws of the moral life which no one disputes, we perceive how the religious or theological difficulty disappears to a large degree. . . . Let the relation of religion and morality be as it may be, the teacher is not called upon to decide an issue of this magnitude. He can teach the duties of ordinary life, showing their reasonableness and their interdependence in a consecutive, orderly manner, without appealing to religion; he can use the plain and usual consequences of actions good or bad without being open to a just accusation of irreligion. These consequences are admitted by all. He has then a right in reason to stop with them, because of the practical limitations imposed upon him by the time at his disposal, the immaturity of the faculties which he is training, and, most of all, because of the wide difference of men's minds as to the final explanation."

Mr. Gilman makes due allowance for the fact that a well-ordered school has "a necessary moral discipline of its own, which is enforced by every capable teacher"; but he does not think that this should be regarded as a sufficient substitute for all direct moral teaching. He considers that the school has some special advantages for effective ethical teaching which the home does not possess, and that a teacher throws away very valuable opportunities who does not find frequent occasion for bringing home moral lessons to the minds of his pupils. In this we wholly agree with him. The teacher has what the parent has not, an ever-present and more or less numerous body of hearers, to whose common judgment he can appeal; and he has the established order and discipline of the school as a means of commanding attention. Moreover, the teacher's judgment is already assumed by the child to be more or less the judgment of the outside world, whereas the parent's opinion, like his jurisdiction, is apt to be looked upon as valid only within the limits of the household. It is evident, therefore, that a vast influence for good might be exerted by the teacher, provided only he himself possessed the requisite intelligence and earnestness. The real weakness of our public schools for the purpose in view comes to light just here. Before any teacher could make a wise and effective use of such a manual as the one before us his heart would have to be in his work; he would have to possess a really apostolic zeal for the moral benefit of the children committed to his care. Are such teachers numerous? Is there anything in the conditions under which teachers are trained and selected to encourage the hope that very many of them would, under any circumstances, be earnest exponents of moral truth? We are really not aware that there is. In the vast army of public-school teachers there must be many superior minds and many noble souls; but those who have studied our school system seem to be impressed rather with the lack, than with the presence, of what we may perhaps call ethical vitality in both teachers and scholars. A teacher must outwardly bear a good character; but what examination has ever been devised to test his or her interest in ethical questions or principles, in the