The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1881-03-25

principle. We must see the living soul IN
the living act OF choice before we can be
conscious of any feeling of duty or OBJ
legation.
Again, there can be no moral growth |
without moral freedom. The right can |
not be chosen unless the wrong is also
before the mind at the same time, and
equally open TO choice. There can be
no such thing as compulsory virtue;
and, while we should not rashly thrust
temptation in the pupils way. we should
be defeating our own ends if we sought
to hedge him around with rules and
with espionage so as to make it impes-
be left to meet such temptations as Ordin-
arily come in the lives of children, and
our effort must be to develops principle
in him that shall help him overcome them
Again we have said that the teacher
must accomplish his work by presenting
occasions or objects of action to the pu-
pills mind. Now ii is aR easy matter to
bring, e. e., piece of iron into the reci-
tation, and so have something on which
to employ the Intellectual powers of the
class. The iron is material and can be
carried from place. 10 place. But an oc-
casion for 4 moral act, right course of
action and a wrong course of action be-
tween which an actual choice is to be
made, this cannot be brought to the
school room at will or manufactured 10
or1ar IVa r,auSf ,,7a;t For cY1eb oonaoiono
to arise in the ordinary intercourse of
life if we desire TO make use of them.
Moreover the school room, from the ma
ture of its employments, presents fewer
instances of this kind than almost any
other situation in the child's life. The
and so does the common life at home.
We see then that at least for the most
direct kind of moral training, that
which takes the child in the very crisis
of some decision and helps him to see
the right clearly and then with ali the
power of loving sympathy helps him to
choose 1.-THE school is not the fittest
place. Such training is best accomplish
| ed at home, where a more intimate rela-
ton between the child and his instructor
is possible.
But such training is not always, and
perhaps not usually, found at
home. The school still has
| field of usefulness in this di-
rection, and this we will now endeavor
to point out. The good choice we have
| saa,, ~, he q onY,,rliarna xx,;,b Tho ar1yaal
of conscience. If, then. we can in any
way strengthen the conscience, and so
make the right more clearly seen and its
claims more wildly felt, we shall fore
stall temptation by building up the pow
er that Is TO oppose it when it comes.
Now my conscience isarouscd, not only
when there is moral alternative before
mt calling for Il decision, but also when
/ see such an alternative presented be-
fore another; and although the act is
past, whether it be my own or another's,
/ conscience follows it with its appreciation
if right and with its condemnation if
wrong. In all these cases conscience
acts. and by its activity it grows in pow
er TO discern the right and to make US
feel its claim.
This opens the way for the teacher.
That which is pure and noble in actual
human life Is 10 be held up for the pupils
TO contemplate. There need be no POM
pous effort at moral lecture. If the pic
ture is VIVID one, the story well told,
the contemplation of it is enough. No
matter where it is found, in biography, in
history, in fiction, or In sacred story, or,
best of all, in the daily example
of those among whom helives and
mingles in constant intercourse, the pu-
pill may be pointed to the noble and the
true in human life with the confident as
surance that he will approve it, and, ap-
proving it, will come TO love it and to
shape his own life by it. The teacher
will of course, make his own life a
model, as far as he is able. What we
hear about unconscious teaching and
silent influence means, If it means any
thing, that the daily life of an individual,
in which his real character is mani
tested, whether he will or no, is potent
lesson for moral good or evil. The
teacher will likewise attend earthly to
the lives and characters of the pupils
who fix the standard of moral sentiment
for the school, and so do perhaps more
to form the characters of the mass of
the pupils than the teacher can do.
think it is Emerson who somewhere
says, "You send your boy TO school to be
taught by master, but it is his school
fellows from whom he learns"
This plan of moral instruction is not
without illustrious precedents Plato
gives this picture of part o. the train
ing in the Athenian schools: "Placing
the pupils on benches, the instructors
make them read and learn by heart the
poems of good poets, in which are many
moral lessons, many tales and eulOgies
and lays of brave men of old !;
that the boys may initiate them
with emulation, and strive to become
such themselves" The Christian relig-
ion, in its efforts to regenerate the world,
holds constantly before it the perfect hu-
man life of him who spake, and thought
and lived as no man had ever done be-
fore him OF has done since Examples
might be multiplied, but there Is no need
of more. We shall tread safely if we
follow those already given, and in these
and kindred ways perhaps do something
to save our pupils to themselves and to
society.