The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-03-03
MORAL AND ETHICAL TRAINING
IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

MORAL AND ETHICAL TRAINING
IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
South Dakota has taken steps to i'm
prove the moral atmosphere of her
schools, an act, very commendable, to
which every state should give proper
attention.
When the football and basketball
games were introduced we used our
pen to cry them down because we
could foresee in these games, Il ten
dency toward depravity.
The passage of the flag law has
met with some opposition and not UNI
justly So The idea was to cultivate
patriotism and love for ones country,
hut to require schools to erect flag
poles and place thereon a flag to be
whipped out by the prairie gales
meant an expense which patrons did
not feel justified in meeting. A few
small silk flags placed in the school
loom, plan which some of our city
schools have adopted. seems a much
better idea. This, together with due
attention to memory gems calculated
to inspire the young mind with due
Veneration for the flag of the free,
will do much more to enthuse the
young American and make him a bet
ter citizen.
The athletic and patriotic spirit
seems to have taken our attention
away from that higher aim-moral
training-until there is cry for a
higher moral spirit.
Let us go about this wisely and not
enter into it with our wonted enthu-
siasm with such a dash that we shall
create q nauseOus dose of which we
shall soon tire.
PROPOSED PLAN.
Memory Gems.
President Eliot, of Harvard univer-
sity, said that the short memory gems
which he learned as boy in school
have done him more good in the hour
of temptation than all sermons he
ever heard preached.
The mind that has stored up in
youth good selection of such
thoughts as are expressed in memory
gems, will surely bear good fruit
The Greeks found the true method
of impartins culture to the youth
whom they required to learn some
Gting each day from the writings of
the great poets. constantly dwelling
upon and storing in their minds the
roblest and most beautifully expressed
thoughts.
Robert Louis Stevenson, in speaking
of his boyllood days, says: Whenever
read book or a passage that par
ticularly pleased me, in which thing
was said or ar effect rendered. in
which there was some conspicuous
force or some happy distinction in the
style, l must sit down at once and
set myself to ape and follow it. +
This is the way to learn to write"
All who have enjoyed Stevenson's
works and who has not know how
we'll he succeeded
Thus 1t will be seen that two-fod
work will be accomplished in the
study of me'ncry gems--the mind will
be stored with purer thoughts and
higher aspirations and at the same
time there will be mastery of Ian
guage gained that cannot in any other
way be SO effectively accomplished.
BY the proper use OF memery gems
we may stimulate patriotism, honesty,
goodness and greatness and SO inter-
Irvine into the minds of the youth the
highest thoughts of our most profound
: thinkers and writer's that these rich
4 thoughts become legacy of untold
worth.
How to Teach Memory Gems
Effectively.
This is a question that successful
experience alone will decide
: We give our readers the benefit Of
our experience in this work and to
convince you. before giving that ex-
perience. that we met with some de-
gree of success we will quote from a
letter received from one pupil after
having left school many years:
q, M and I are as firm
friends as when we went to school to
you at C. fifteen years ago and
sat in the back seat beneath the mot
to. We Love Each Other hanging
On the wall.
There is no time in my life that
! look back to with as many happy
recollections as when 1 used to STUN
BILE through my lessons in the old
white school house, and it may do
you good to know that the interest
you took in me and the faith you had
in me has helped me more than any
thing else in my whole life"
1t will be seen from the above ex-
tract that the motto on the wall was
not forgotten. This we believe to be
good plan: Have appropriate mot
toes, printed in large type, placed up