The Mena weekly star., 1911-03-16
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
Moral Training in the Public School.
writtsn By Prof joins frsiaef.
tContlnued from last week.

III OfueI 10 give Sutii hioAo
as will afterwards be effective unael
all circumstances. it is necessary tna'
general moral principles be dealt WIN
in the later grades. instruction can
not be confined to studies OF speciDc
virtues merely Il is far from Delns
true that the older children IN the
grades cannot grasp general moran
principles. Nothing is more impress,
sive to the growing mind than general
principles abundantly reinforced WIN
illustrations. The best proof OF TINS Is
that in other school subjects general
principles are easily dealt with. Inc
methods now used in schools are large.
ly new. New methods, better trained
teachers, and revised estimates OF val
ues have within two decades trans
| formed our education, and the meth
DDS required for moral training are
the same as those that have been so
vigorously discussed and so brilliantly
apr lied in the general work OF the
schools.
A special difficulty is the fact that
the question of morals is an intensely
personal one. Every wise teacher
knows that personal applications are
always dangerous, and in class work
usually not useful but beyond the
whole field OF public and private con-
duct will contribute materials. The
other limitation placed upon us by the
law is no greater than one that teach
ers frequently impose upon themselves
in other matters. A thoroughly good
foundation of biological knowledge
without formal consideration OF the
principle of ev- luton. Indeed, II IS
better to have a good sub-stratum OF
fact, and an understanding OF the laws
of structure and function, before the
unifying. explanatory principle is form
ally taken up. Likewise in moral in
struction, moral truths can be quite
well organized and moral principles
studied, without entering seriously IN
to the questions OF the natural history
of morals at all. Let us look seriously
at the possibilities ofmoral instruction.
The belief that retribution for wrong
is a part of the worlds constitution is
the most primitive contribution to the
world moral thought. The Greek
dramatists taught that it was a divine
principle that the sinner should suffer.
The friends of Job went so far as to
impute sin to him because evil had be-
fallen him. All the historical lines
through which we inherit our moral
thought have sent this doctrine down
to us.
Job could not account for his suffer-
ing. and proposed to do right regard
less of current philosophy. Despair OF
moral justice has been the minor strain
Of grief that runs through the music Of
human life. We know that the profit
and loss doctrine of morality is not
strickly true; the righteous have been
too often subjected to physical or so
cial torture; but whatever we may
think of the suffering of the innocent,
we not only cannot shake off the be-
lief that wrong doing will be punished
sooner or later, but there is a general
human desire that such punishment
shall be inflicted. Children can UNI
derstand requital better than why the
|raindrops fall a
Without a measurable relation be-
tween wrong doing and punishment
there could be no society. We con-
stantly seek to establish such rela-
ton in our l:ws and in our beliefs.
Both older and current history are
crowded with materials for the study
of every phase of the subject; and
nothing can affect the imagination of
Older children more powerfully than
moral studies that show to what
lengths consequences run through the
long, dim vistas of time. Such studies
make it clear that our lone inalien-
able right is the right to behave. =
Such training can furnish perma-
nent antidote for despair by a study
of resourcefulness: by teaching men
not to chide fate but to defeat its APP
parent purposes; by showing them how
a resourceful spirit can transform the
hard, flinty nodules of necessity into
opportunities with which to conquer
fate. And for such purposeful study
the record ofartists, teachers, soldiers,
statesmen and business men furnish
abundant materials. The desultory
reference to such things merely spoils
the material.
AS a supplementary study attention
can be given to the way in which time,
the great independent variable, brings
about the solution of our difficulties in
its own uncomfortable way; and for a
text might be taken the stinging words
of Epictetus; Art thou not ashamed
to be more cowardly than fugitive
slaves?"
If the schools fail to help us toward
spiritual calmness they will fail to
make possible contribution to our
happiness.
AS one of a thousand examples
might be cited the foolish action of the
Iowa harvestmen who smashed the
new reapers from fear of losing work.
Their fear was the force shadowing of
something which never came to pass.
Their fear was not only selfish, but
groundless.
If public morality is to have
quality, the moral judgment