The Forrest City times., 1891-04-24
EDUCATIONAL COLUMN.
V. V ?. ?: MNsehfIEWA,N, Editors.
Moral and SociaI StudIes

the most essential to the education of our children is that in which instruction and education tend to coalesee and blend themselves Certain tutors pre- fer to leave its decision to the spontane- ous action of lectures, ot conversations, of circumstances. They believe that morality is inspired. in some form inhaled, rather than taught; that education should limit itself to the creation of sort of atmos- phere aud moral climate, out of which it will become impossible to live. For this reason one applies himself exclusively to literary and historic studies; it is be- lieved that it will suffice to read in classic authors a certain number of fine pages, or to learn from the mouth of historians the recital of facts, at one moment heroic at another criminal, in order to develop in the student, together with literary taste. the moral sense This empirIc regimen is sufficient, perhaps, among a people that receive elsewhere a sound re- ligious training, and that has preserved a theological faith. If every idea, every example, every lecture is suggestion, can one declare that literature and history do not contain, alongside of suggestions of practical good sense, d great number of
 
 ideas. without bond, often contradictory; all these sentiments immatured and often opposed each to the other, result in colli- bining with the natural tendencies of different characters. But the final result ant will it be good, or will 1t be bad? Sometimes the one, often the other It Is moraization remitted to Providence, or else to chance. We do not discover, in our own country certainly, that the re- suits of this moralization aIe satisfactory. Too often this system, or rather absence of system, ends ill America i'll Sponta- neOus decentralization. Add to It the substitution of the life of the inmate of u boarding school for the life in the domes- tic home circle. and ask yourself whether Virgil, Horace, Cicero and Titus Livy will suffice for the education of the Amerl- can youth. lf on the contrary, the young American, volatile by nature, be abandoned to every wind. to every impul- sion good and bad, without taking any thing into account; if he know not how either to resist or to voluntarily consent to moral impressions which come to him from without his volition can fashion it. self only in an imperfect variable and unstable manner. That tirinness of char acter will not have been given to our children which is the foundation of morality and the surest basis for the sup port of nation. For the questionable chances of spontaneous mOrallzation by literature and history we demand that a precise doctrine of lite--a scientific educa- ton ill morals-be substituted The fact is that in the science of moral ethics there is a positive and purely scientific side, as there is a metaphysical side The latter. which is not the less important. should be left to the class in philosophy. the other may and should be taught betlne 6 Life i'll community has its necessary conditions. which can be determined scientifically; the subordnation of the in- dlvidual to the group of which he forms a part--to the national community--is one of these conditions. The positive. utili- tartan, evoutionist schools can here fur nish all ample harvest of facts and laws to constitute the positive part of the sci ence of moral ethics: that of manners, correctly termed. and the science of so- ciety-social science. There k then, in a word, in moral goodness q private and a public utility, an aesthetic beauty, d phiosophic nationality. which can be the subject of transmission to others. In this sense, as Socrates. said: Virtue can be taught" Will a child be less inclined to egotism when you have demonstrated to him all that his family, his country. so- ciety at large have given to him. are still giving to him every hour, and all that he owes the latter in return? An error of conduct is sophism in action. and Dante has told us: the devil himself is q good logician Ethics-moraS, earnestly stud ied-~can alone substitute truth for the sophisius of the heart; il alone can cle. vate the thoughts of youth to the con slderation of his universal attainments. 1t would be necessary, therefore, to intro duce into the education of a layman that which is in use in religious education; constant action upon the sentiments. and constant action ligewis; upon the ideas, by a more and more profound study of moral principles and their application. - Public Opinion,