The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1890-08-01

connection. Speaking TO the teachers he
said The children who will enter Your
schooiroCms, will, in some cases, be I'M
able to understand one another. They
will represent the most violent antagon-
isms political, social and religious.
When they leave your presence see TO it
that they go speaking the same language,
eager In the same pursuits OF knowledge,
loving the same institutions, loyal TO the
same flag. proud OF the same history aud
acknowledging one God, the maker oi US
all. The fathers may indeed be strangers,
aliens, enemies. See to it that the chill
dren shall be companions, friends, breth
rem" This transformation can be accom-
plisbed only in the schools, the common
meeting place of all classes and all races,
where they are brought under the same
government and engaged in the same
pursuits. There is the center of power.
There the differences melt away and the
spirit of a common humanity and man
hood finds its way into every mind and
heart. There the sowing for the harvest
oil the coming years must be done. What
would you have the harvest be? "What-
soever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap" We have the divine warrant for
the law, and all observation bears it out.
Says the Chief Inspector OF the New York
City police THE common schools are
rapidly educating the turbulent masses
of this city into order, respect for law,
and a growing reluctance to violent
measures"
To accomplish this effectually, intel
lectual training, however excellent, is
not in itself enough. Our schools should
be instituted to make not merely intel
ligent but good citizens. Says DR.. White,
1.-The central, guiding, determining aim
OF the school must be manhood, and this
is the one product that may be demand
ed OF the public school,"
Only good men can make good citi-
zens, and if we fail to provide the posi-
tive and aggressive moral influences in
our schools we are not doing our whole
duty by the children or the future. We
should aim to produce self-governing
men and women, and although we
may tail to realize our ideal, neverthe
less, except we aim high, set up the
most perfect standards the more conspi-
cuous and lamentable will be our fail
ure, and disastrous the results to the
future. OF course, no man or woman
who is immoral can hope to teach
morals. Keen and to the point are the
words of Matthew Vassar to the trustees
of the college established by him: "All
sectarian influences should be carefully
excluded; but the training of our stu
dents should never be intrusted to the
skeptical, the religious or the immoral"
Truer words could not be spok-
en-, and we must recognize and act upon
the principle that the most potent factor
in the work of education is the person
atty of the teacher. The stream will
rise no higher than the source, and if the
life and character of the teachers is
tainted by dishonesty, untruthfulness,
profanity, intemperance, impurity or
gambling, that teacher cannot teach
morality, any more than can the same
servant serve two masters, but must, by
the law of necessity, teach immortality
just so far as these things are known by
his pupils. Next to example in its int1u-
ence and power comes the reiteratiOn OF
the rules of practical ethics. If the state is
going to educate for citizenship it must
teach these great laws of life and con-
duct as really and as earnestly as any
other laws. These moral laws are nat
ural laws just as truly as any law of
physics, while it will be much safer for
the individual and the community to re-
main in ignorance of the physical laws
than of the moral.
Now as you insist that the teacher
shall be fitted to teach the physical laws,
and do not leave him to teach at option
these branches of our courses OF curri-
Gle study, | maintain that it should be
less optional with him to teach the fun
damental principles of morality and citi-
zenship inasmuch as they are the more
important aud vital. But if you, the
thinking, rejecting citizens of to-day
if you, in whose hands are placed the
control Of the present and the veal of
the future, if you, who are the employ
ers of the large company of teachers
now molding the minds of your children,
care little or nothing for these things, if
you place only small emphasis upon this
part of the work, what can you expect OF
your teachers?
One thought more and 1 am done.
The moral nature is the balance wheel
of humanity. If the intellect is developed
and educated at the expense or neglect
even of the moral nature, the individual
is so far thrown out of balances alb
normal.
l am not sure but here is the secret OF
the present condition of affairs in all the
civilized lands. These nations possess and
are developing a deformed humanity.
The great regulator of thought and life,
the moral nature, has become dwarfed.
The governor of the engine of human life
has not been kept in repair, and the con-
troll of these tremendous forces OF nature
aas been lost thereby.
''The brighter and more highly edu
Gated the boy, the worse man he will
make, unless he has moral principles
and quick conscience to guide and re-
strain Mr.. Bryce in his admirable
work-the American Commonwealth
points out cause for the lamentable de-
ficiency of SO many of Americas public
men, when he remarks in substance
"That the government of the United
States is founded on d theory of the total
depravity of man, and seems to rely far
more on a system of legal checks and
balances than on great moral forces and
moral character for its working" States
men and people, there and here, need to
learn the vital truth that moral principle
when ingrained into the web and wool
of character is better safeguard than
any or all artificial checks. But moral
principle never appears as a natural
growth in human nature. In sense it
is an exotic, altho', as many foreign
plant brought to these islands, is quickly
at home in this genial cline, so moral
principle finds the human heart its nat
ural home. But it must be implanted
and cultivated in the minds and hearts
of the children and then demanded of
the citizen before it will become the
universal governing principle. For these
reasons, then, urge you to employ in
your schools only teachers OF high char