G. A. Johnston

“ Conduct involves moral obligation. Every action is either right or wrong. Right conduct is conduct that ought to be as it is; and wrong conduct is conduct that ought not to be as it is. Of every moral action we can say either that it ought to have been done, or that it ought not to have been done. An ideal of duty is implied in all conduct. Now, moral obligation attaches only to conduct. ”

“ Man's moral responsibility is a consequence of his freedom. If all man's actions were mechanically produced, like those of the steam engine or electric dynamo, he could not be held accountable for them. The steam engine is not responsible for its breakdowns. The responsibility for them is shifted on to the shoulders of the engineer. A bull is not held responsible if he gores a child. The responsibility for the bull's acts is referred to its owner. In every case responsibility attaches to the character of a human being. Man acknowledges his conduct as his own and accepts responsibility for it. ”

“ It follows from what has just been said that the value-aspect of conduct is often inadequately developed in schools. Vast numbers of children pass through our schools without ever realising, without ever feeling, the sense of value in connection with their education. Their one desire is to be free of the drudgery of school at the earliest possible moment. Their education seems to have no value-for-life for them. ”

“ Training and habituation in the performance of actual good actions are necessary for the production of a good character. We start simply with capacities. Now, the capacity for being good is the same thing as the capacity for being bad. Every child is born with an infinite capacity for good or evil, and it depends on training and habituation in which of the two ways the capacities will become realised as character. "It is by doing just acts that we become just, by doing temperate acts that we become temperate, and by doing brave deeds that we become brave." ”

“ And in spite of all that has been done and advocated by Froebel and Montessori—to mention only two names—to minimise this difference and secure for the child a more natural school-life, it is certain that, from the nature of the case, school-life must continue to differ in some respects from the rest of the child's life. But it does not follow that the conduct of the child in school is something so utterly different from the rest of its conduct that the training it receives in school will have no influence on the formation of its character as a whole. ”

“ A good man may do wrong in a sudden gust of passion. Some overwhelming impulse may issue in action before he can marshal his moral strength to restrain it. In such cases a man is justly held responsible for his action on the ground that he ought to have been able to resist the temptation and control the impulse. But such an action is not really an expression of character. The man's character disclaims the impulsive action. ”

“ The notion of responsibility is strongly developed in the conduct of the child at school. He is held responsible for everything he does. He is responsible for every class task he performs, and he receives credit or blame accordingly. He is regarded as responsible for his punctuality and attendance, unless his parents expressly acknowledge by "note" that they accept responsibility for it. As the child grows older, he may be made responsible for the conduct of others. As monitor or prefect or captain of a games team his responsibility may be considerable, and to him may even seem oppressive. ”

“ Conduct consists of human actions, and these are always regarded as the expressions of the character of the man whose actions they are. A man's actions are determined by his character, so that if his character be good his actions will also be good, and if his character be evil his actions will also be evil. ”

“ Then, along two main lines, we traced the development of character out of the purely instinctive tendencies of human life. We showed that impulses, which may be regarded as instincts in their active or executive aspect, may be controlled and developed into desires, which are relatively permanent and pervasive. Again, emotions, which in their origin appear at the instinctive level of life, may be organised into systematic sentiments, which colour the whole moral life. ”

“ So far we have been concerned with the self and its processes rather than with the actions in which it manifests its activity, with its capacities and tendencies rather than with the actual behaviour in which they are realised. In a word, we have been studying the character of the self rather than its conduct. We must now ask, How is character related to conduct? ”

“ Conduct consists in actions. But not all actions constitute conduct. We speak of the action of a motor-car or a sewing-machine or a type-writer. But we should not dream of talking of their conduct. Mechanical action is not conduct. Nor is all human action conduct. Certain human actions, e.g. reflex actions, are really mechanical. ”

“ On the other hand, conduct determines character. As we have seen, character is not something absolutely fixed. Character is a growing system; it is in constant process of growth; and its development is influenced by the kind of actions it habitually performs. Every one of a self's actions has some effect, however infinitesimal, on the formation of its character. Aristotle constantly insists that a man acquires a good or bad character by the habitual repetition of good or bad actions. ”

“ According to this argument, the child's character at school issues in departments of conduct which are quite other than those which express its life in the outer world. Now, there are, of course, obvious differences between the life that the child lives in school and the life that he lives outside and will live after his school-days are over. ”

“ Such early associations of duty may do lifelong harm to the child by making it impossible for him to see that his duty may be at the same time his highest privilege and his truest pleasure. And moral progress depends on learning that lesson. ”

“ During the Middle Ages, pigs, rats, and other animals were prosecuted before the civil and ecclesiastical courts. Thus, in 1403 in Paris a pig was tried, condemned, and executed for the murder of a baby. Animals were thought to be both morally and legally responsible. ”