The Mena weekly star., 1911-04-20
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
Moral Training in the Public School.
wiitsn by Prof. lehn Trainer. Continued from fast week. ]

The future of moral training and the use of available material hinges on the settlement of a preliminary question. There has been a great amount of the relative value of the formal and the incidental methods of giving moral instruc- tion. If this contention is sound, that moral instruction, to be effec- tive, must group it's materials around general principles. the in- cidental method is ruled out of con- sideration; because general prin- ciples can never be adequately treated by occasional references to them in the course of other work. The general criticism to be made against most of the efforts at moral instruction hitherto put forth in tho public school is that they have been ineffective just because they have been desultory. When they have been extensive they have pro- duced monotony, as constant harp ing on one string will always dc The incidental method cannot pro- vide definite progression. Instead of giving the pupil sound grasp on moral principles. it merely leads him to apply such views as he al- ready holds to whatever case happens to come up.
 If formal instruction is neces- sary in order to make the moral work effective, we do not have to invent new plans. In graded schools the supervisions of are and music have become almost necessities, and their coming is almost like a morning breeze. When moral in- struction begins in earnest it can at first be handled best ny some one teacher, say the principle, for the building. but in mixed schools, as in the country, the teacher must present the subject. The children will thus get what they need, and the teachers by degrees will learn to cooperate and grow familiar with the material and methods. The in- dividual teachers active part in the work will alone save it from de- yeloping, in the pupils eyes, into professionalism.
 It would not be advisable to have children use graded text books in morals, but the teacher needs to be equipped with a systematic meth- od, and the materials adjusted to the grades. The studies can be varied in form by means of formal talks, conference, reading, a study of principles and cases, without much casuistry. and with no hair splitting at all. When such in- struction is given by the living voice once or twice a week it will come like musicals relief f-and will meet with co-operation on the part of the pupils, if the amount of analysis is carefully graded to their capacity. That, at least has been the result in the comparativ- ely few experiments that have been made with Q clear grasp of means and ends. There is really nothing in our experiences to cause dis couragement. Even the Sunday schools themselves have failed chiefly through their desultory methods. Instruction founded care- fully on general principles, given by the living voice, in an atmoS- pherc free from the spirit of reef tation and examination. in period eonsecrated to the contemplation of life and it's meaning, could not fail to affect personal life to some extent, and even if it did not. 1t would give form of intellectual stimulus that it alone can provide.
 The most serious handicap to sound moral training in the schools has been and is from this point of view. The ideals of the profession find formal expression in the ex- animation system, and the pressure