Moral instruction

“ On such a basis, moral education is inevitably reduced to some kind of catechetical instruction, or lessons about morals. Lessons 'about morals' signify as matter of course lessons in what other people think about virtues and duties. ”

“ One party holds that the ends of moral education are most effectively promoted by moral instruction, the other that moral education, to be of any value, must be either primarily or wholly moral training. The aim of moral training is to help the child to form good habits of conduct; moral instruction seeks to give the child right ideas about conduct. Moral training insists that the important thing in life is that the child should as a matter of fact act rightly. Moral instruction claims that the child should not only act rightly, but should know why he acts rightly. ”

“ I. THE PROBLEM OF UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION.
It will be the aim of the present course of lectures to give in outline the subject-matter of moral instruction for children from six to fourteen or fifteen years of age, and to discuss the methods according to which this kind of instruction should be imparted. At the outset, however, we are confronted by what certainly is a grave difficulty, and to many may appear an insuperable one. ”

“ The ability of the school to affect moral character is not limited to the personal influence of the teacher and to the discipline and daily conduct of the children; but instruction itself, by illustrating and implanting moral ideas, and by closely relating all other kinds of knowledge to the historical series, can powerfully affect moral tendency and strength. ”

“ A vast amount of good, I am persuaded, can be done in this way by stimulating the moral nature, by enabling the scholar to detect the finer shades of right and wrong, helping him to trace temptation to its source, and erecting in his mind barriers against evil-doing, founded on a realizing sense of its consequences. ”

“ From this we perceive, that the legislative powers of conscience are usually dormant in the child, and [Pg 114] do not, when left to Nature, act till the reasoning powers have exhibited themselves; from which we are led to conclude, that it is by an early education,—by moral instruction alone,—that the young are to be guarded against crime, and prepared and furnished to good works. ”

“ It is in the power of the teacher to train the moral judgment and to increase the moral insight of his pupils by leading them to enter into the motives, and to weigh the right and wrong of the actions which history reports. He will also find many an occasion to warn against being dazzled by brilliant success to such a degree as to condone the moral turpitude by which it is often bought. ”

“ It is our business to discover such secondary principles, and in our instruction to lead the pupil to the recognition of them. The nature of the formulas of duty which we have in mind—formulas which shall express the generalized moral experience of civilized mankind, will appear more plainly if we examine the processes by which we arrive at them. An example will best elucidate: Suppose that I am asked to give a lesson on the duty of truthfulness. At the stage which we have now reached it will not be enough merely to emphasize the general commandment against lying. ”

“ May not the obliquity of moral vision, which is allowed to exist among a large class of Americans, be in some degree chargeable to those who have the care of their education—who do not place before them, as a part of their instruction, those principles of truth and morality, which, as revealed in Holy Scripture, lay the whole universe under obligations to obedience? ”

“ The Inner and the Outer.—Since morality is concerned with conduct, any dualisms which are set up between mind and activity must reflect themselves in the theory of morals. Since the formulations of the separation in the philosophic theory of morals are used to justify and idealize the practices employed in moral training, a brief critical discussion is in place. It is a commonplace of educational theory that the establishing of character is a comprehensive aim of school instruction and discipline. ”

“ We strive to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of an enlightened and well-principled moral sentiment. ”

“ The next topic of the lessons, therefore, will be the duties which we owe to all human beings.
Finally, life in school prepares for life in society and in the state, and so this course of elementary moral lesson will properly close with "The elements of civic duty." ”

“ New situations will demand new adjustments, and it is not possible to supply the child with a morality which will be sufficient for his future needs. The one preparation which will certainly be effective in making possible later growth is to be found in the moral action of to-day.
The subjects of instruction lend themselves to moral training. ”

“ Parents, in having their children taught, give them thereby a far more substantial and productive capital than what they could transmit to them by gift or legacy. In the second place, instruction elevates man and ennobles his nature. If it is reason that distinguishes man from the brute, knowledge enlarges and heightens reason. Instruction thus works together with moral education and forms one of its essential parts. ”

“ Moral judgments and feelings spring up originally only in connection with human action in the concrete. If we propose then to adapt moral teaching to youthful minds, we must make use of concrete materials, observations of people taken from what the children have seen, stories and biographies of historical characters. A story of a man's life is interesting because it brings out his particular motives and actions. This is the field in which instruction has its conquests to make over youthful minds. ”

“ In the five introductory lectures we discussed the problem of unsectarian moral teaching, the efficient motives of good conduct, the opportunities of moral influence in schools, the classification of duties, and the moral status of the child on entering school. ”

“ It is indispensable, I maintain, that the educator have the reverent consciousness of the extremely delicate moral value of every single word which he addresses to his pupils and of the profoundly ethical essence of the instruction which he imparts to them. ”

“ For instruction, theoretical and practical, as distinguished269 from education, masters are no doubt necessary. But moral education will be left entirely to women, until the time arrives for systematic teaching of moral science in the years immediately preceding majority. Here the philosopher is necessary. But the chief duties of the philosopher lie with adults; his aim being to recall them, individually or collectively, to principles impressed on them in childhood, and to enforce the right application of these principles to special cases as they may arise. ”

“ Conceive the modern educational methods to have been applied to that stock of moral truths which all good men accept, and you will have the material for the moral lessons which are needed in a public school. ”

“ And this will be all the more feasible, because the faithful performance of the duties of any one period is the best preparation for the true understanding and fulfillment of those of the next. From these statements the following conclusions may be drawn with respect to the question under discussion—namely, the proper sequence of the topics of duty in a course of moral lessons.
The moral lessons being given in school, must cover the duties which are peculiar to the school age. The paramount duty should be placed in the foreground. ”

“ Not the least advantage to be reaped from lessons on duty is the fixing in the pupil's mind of the moral vocabulary. The moral terms as a rule are loosely used, and this can not but lead to confusion in their application. Precise definitions, based on thorough discussion, are an excellent means of moral training. [6]
II. The duties which we owe to all men are Justice and Charity:
Be just is equivalent to—Do not hinder the development of any of thy fellow-men. Be charitable is equivalent to—Assist the development of thy fellow-men. ”

“ The moral element is largely present among educators as an instinct, but it ought to be evolved into a clear purpose with definite means of accomplishment. It is an open secret in fact, that while our public instruction is ostensibly secular, having nothing to do directly with religion or morals, there is nothing about which good teachers are more thoughtful and anxious than about the means of moral influence. ”

“ There is a body of moral truth upon which all good men, of whatever sect or opinion, are agreed: it is the business of the public schools to deliver to their pupils this common fund of moral truth. But I must hasten to add, to deliver it not in the style of the preacher, but according to the methods of the pedagogue—i. e., in a systematic way, the moral [Pg 16] lessons being graded to suit the varying ages and capacities of the pupils, and the illustrative material being sorted and arranged in like manner. ”

“ They consider it to be so admirable, indeed, that they declare it should form part of the moral curriculum of every young boy and girl. In fact, they declare it to be applicable to everyone—everyone except themselves. ”

“ Education must make it its first aim to awaken in the pupil a sensitiveness to spiritual and ethical distinctions which knows that nothing is in its own nature morally insignificant or indifferent, but shall recognize, even in things seemingly small, a universal human significance. But, yet, in relation to the highest interests of morality or the well-being of society, the pupil must be taught to subordinate without hesitation all that relates exclusively to his own personal comfort or welfare for the well-being of his fellow-men, or for moral rectitude. ”

“ Examine your rules of education; you will find them all topsy-turvy, especially in all that concerns virtue and morals. The only moral lesson which is suited for a child—the most important lesson for every time of life—is this: "Never hurt anybody." The very rule of well-doing, if not subordinated to this rule, is dangerous, false, and contradictory. Who is there who does no good? Every one does some good, the wicked as well as the righteous; he makes one happy at the cost of the misery of a hundred, and hence spring all our misfortunes. ”

“ But when we approach the subject with an express view to moral culture, we must cross the field of emotional association in general by a new track.
The newly-appointed professors of the theory of education are perhaps not yet fully aware that, when they venture upon the troubled arena of moral education, they will not be able to evade the long-standing question. What is the moral faculty? ”

“ Let us not then attempt a better method than God has sanctioned; and in our intercourse with the young, let us not only deter them from the commission of evil by the fear of disfavour or the rod, but let us also incite them to virtue, by the hope of approbation and of a future reward.
3. In our enquiry into the practical working of the moral sense, we found, not only that there were motives of action employed for encouraging the pupil to virtue, and for deterring him from vice; but we found also, that these motives referred chiefly to God, to a future judgment, and to eternity. ”

“ His education and rank of life, instead of having been by any means of the lowest order, were such as, in the judgment of the world, and on the authority of experience, are held of necessity to humanize and inform the mind, and to communicate perfectly just conceptions of moral distinctions. ”

“ Every parent who restrains his child from the commission of a wrongful act, or approves its conduct when praiseworthy, does so in recognition of the importance of moral education. Every individual who uses his influence to keep others from evil associations, or who commends a noble or kindly act, thus manifests his appreciation of the necessity of moral or ethical culture. ”

“ I am in the habit of speaking of God to children as the Giver of love and goodness, and of the power of thought and action, rather than as the Creator of the outward world, and have found that the tyrannizing unity of the soul's instinct did the rest.
In what is called religious education, teachers often do great harm, with the best intentions, to finely strung moral organizations. Encouragement to good should altogether predominate over warning and fault-finding. ”

“ This general maxim being laid down, it remains for the student to study history, to analyse experience, and by a close and careful investigation into human nature and human relations to elaborate a moral code which would bring about general happiness and well-being. ”

“ It does not harm the scholar to have before him the ideal of perfect scholarship; nor the teacher to have before him the ideal of a perfect school; nor the legislator to have before him the ideal of perfect law. Gordon, The Christ of To-day, 134—“The moral goal must be a flying goal; the standard to which we are to grow must be ever rising; the type to which we are to be conformed must have in it inexhaustible fulness.” ”

“ He should look for the good even in the spoilt and vicious pupil, and should try to bring it to light, no matter how many weeds may have sprung up alongside of it. For all subsequent moral education must start from this point. ”