New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1909-10-13

in The Schools.
world. The chief Of these is the neg
lect to put ourselves in the place of
others Morality is based on sym
pathy. And sympathy is a product of
the imagination. Mans inhumanity
to man and his inhumanity to the
other inha bitants of this sphere are
both due largely to the unframed con-
dition of the Imagination. We don't
think. Our attention is not arrested,
is not educated. 1t is possible, by
story, incident and example, with in
terpolations of more formal teaching,
to establish permanently in the minds
of boys and girls the fact that other
human beings. and non-human beings,
too, to large extent, are similar in
makeup and powers to themselves, and
that these others suffer and enjoy as
a result of their acts toward them in
quite the same way as they themselves
suffer and enjoy from similar acts
done to them.
It is possible also to teach to boys
and girls the general facts of the ORR
gin of their own natures-that every
human being has in his bosom large
number of impulses which are there,
not to be acted upon, but to be ignor-
ed and crushed impulses which have
come to us, like the vestigial organs
OF our body, as heritage from the
past.
Take the hunting impulse. This i'm
pulse is purely anachronistic among
industrial peoples. 1t is an inherl-
lance from our savage ancestors, who
made their living in this way. The
savage never hunts for pastime
though, but in order to live. The
civilized" man hunts in order to
exercise or cater to this lingering and
leftover impulse from his ancestors,
just as the shepherd dog occasionally
lapses into the wol6sh psychology of
his ancestors and goes on a debauch
of ''sheep killing
Any boy or girl who will read or
listen to Seton's olives of the Hun.
ted" Longs "Secrets of the Woods"
H. S. Salts "Animals' Rights,' or
Olive Thorne Miller's "Books of
Birds" or any other of dozens of such
books that have been produced in the
last decade or two, can't help but get
over into the places of these beings,
and suffer and enjoy with them, and
acquire feeling of sympathy and kin
ship and humanity for them.
This law is new, and, like everything.
else that is new, it will be inconvenient
at first. It probably also contains
defects, like the first rough drafts of
everything. But it represents the
future. 1t amounts almost to the be-
ginning of new education. It is GER
tainly more importa at and bigger with
romise than several innovations that
have been called "the new education"
in the past.
It is unfortunate Tor fortunate, de-
pending on the point of view that we
teachers do not live so or 100 years
later, SO we could have everything cut
and dried for US. But we should be
willing to do our part. Pioneering is
not pleasant, but it is necessary If
men and women had not been willing
to blaze ways in the past we would
still be indulging in the avocation of
eating our grandfathers and grand
mothers in the jungle.
1t will be in this case as it was with
nature study. When nature study was
thrown at the teachers for the first
time few years ago, they held their
hands up in utter horror. ''For
mercy's sake, - they cried, sswe don't
know anything about that" Nature
great, beautiful, wonderful-was
something foreign to them. They had
been too busy teaching youngsters to
read to teach them to open their eyes,
or even to open their own eyes.
But it is all over now. Nature study
is regular and established part of
primary education. The course of
study was full, but we found place
for it. The teachers got out of doors
and into the arms ofnature andlearned
something for the first time of this
great mother of US all. The most of
them probably, if they had not been
compelled to do it, would never have
learned the earthworm S ways or seen
understandingly the great blue roof Of
May.
We should be little more disposed
to move along. We live in world
that is neither petrifed nor perfect.