The Mena weekly star., 1911-02-23

And not only the feelings, but the
Imagination needs definite training Tor
moral purposes. do not mean that
we as a people need buster imagina-
ton, for it is already too active
but that the Imagination needs to be
provided with solid material to work
upon. Sin often strikes its first deep
roots in daydreams, but, as a rule,
sin is marked by deficient magma
ton. The criminal world is notorious
| w defective in this respect. lie who
lacks Imagination has no means OF
making impressive to himself things
that are distant in time or place. lie
cannot reach out and think clearly
over distant consequences, and so his
Impulse trots after every temptation,
much as a pampas lamb will leave its
mother to follow a horse. When once
the imagination is powerfully enlisted
lin behalf of the doctrine OF conse-
auences all the virtues will breathe
more freely. The knowledge which
the schools have impaired has been
so largely verbal that the imagination
finds but little to work on. The prob
lem, from our point of view, is that OF
Transforming mere verbal grasp OF
moral thing into something like reality,
and we shall see that the only way TO
make varied and accurate knowledge
useful to the imagination is to subject
| ii to the control of general principles.
On the other hand, one real ex-
perience, like visit to a police court
or jail, will give the imagination
materials for contemplation, types
upon which to model pictures of things
that need to be known but cannot be
seen. This contemplation would fill
our greatest moral want.
There are indications that nations,
like men. many suffer nervous pros
trotion or moral collapse if they
do not let themselves grow drowsy.
What Thorean said of tired students is
good for all of us; we should be bet
ter off if we would honestly slumber a
fools allowance. Then there would
be a slower and longer wakin9-up time
in which to let the threads of COM
mon sense arrange themselves.
| Whatever incidental service the
school may render to the child's pre-
sent life, its chief service is intended
to be for the child future good, when
the leading strings of the house have
been worn thin and those of the school
have been cut. Now at least nine
tenths of our children leave school at
the dawn of adolescence, the most
critical period in their lives, when
moral guidance is more necessary to
them than at any other time between
birth and death; when the methods o.
childhood are becoming obsolete. when
responsibility begins. but judgment is
Immature; when moral storms tear up
the moral growths of childhood and
dreams float in the air: when children
seem strange to themselves; when
they are morally more lonely than
ever before or afterwards. when they
must not only face the great tempta-
tons of life, but make its great de-
cisions without experience; when they
least desire others to penetrate their
thoughts or mold their judgments
The greatest need of this period is a
moral one. What provision do the
schools make for it?
| 1t is a fact recognized in the edu-
cation circles of all civilized countries,
that during adolescence there is a
progressive loss of interest in the
things the schools deal with. there is a
sense of escape, and Discrimination to
other connections. The blame for this
collapse cannot be laid entirely to the
schools, but the moral problem of this
dangerous period will not be solved
until the individual can drift lastly
out of the school into organizations
whose influence is in the direction of
| clean activity.
There are signs of great promise. "A
profound change of mood is coming
over the churches; the drift is setting
strongly TOWARD the Messianic notion
of redeemed earth. 1t finds express
sion in Chautauqua circles, institution
al churches, and all the activities that
seek to bring to the surface what is