The Mena weekly star. (Mena, Ark.) 1904-1977, 1911-03-09

with bearings OF its work on the period
of adolescence. The appeal has no-
where been made to the theoretical,
effort has been made to point out the
vast moral significance OF forms Of
school activity which have been amply
tested, and which. chiefly for that
reason, should be made universal ele-
ments of our education instead Of be-
ina confined to a few favored places.
We have now to deal more directly
with the business ofmoral instruction.
The conditions for moral instruction
are even more favorable in the public
schools than in the churches. because
the schools reach ali the children, and
one of our greatest moral needs is a
general dissemination of soun1 moral
thought. Moreover, the child is bet
ter equipped to receive moral instruc-
ton than the average adult. Chill
dren recognize themselves as RESPONSE
bic beings and do not charge necessity
with their misdemeanors. In them
villainy has not been perfected as in
Iago and Richard H., and none but
the few pitiful moral imbeciles will
say of conscience. with Antonio, i
feel not this deity in my bosom. The
dicta of conscience are still authorize
tive; its method harmonizes with the
fact that authority still stands in the
foreground of their experience. They
have not yet begun definitely to meas
ure vice and crime by scale of pen.
alties and a system Of casuistry.
Feeling still predominates over judg-
ment and so the time is favorable for
the training of both.
BY the time the children leave the
common schools the whole question
Of duty and its authority lies open be-
fore them. One of our chief concerns
is to know what view of morals will
create the greatest stability and give
moral principles validity under all cir
cumstances. If the general welfare
is accepted as the only sanction of
duty, its power breaks down at the
very place where it is needed most in
modern society. The spirit of tribal
morality is inadequate. because the
modern community is so large and
its interests are so complex and di-
verse, that there is almost nothing
! that the citizens have in common
The tendency grows stronger to re-
strict moral obligation to the affairs Of
those with whom we come in direct
contact.
Without either insisting or desiring
that the religious sanctions of morality
be directly taught in the schools, we
may here admit the secret of the per-
ennial power of the religious sanction
of morality as it is generally under
stood in our country. 1t is based not
on the power to command and the duty
to obey. but on personal, spiritual re-
lation between the individual and his
God "a relation that is immediate,
constant, worthy, and that no changes
in life or environment can modify.
History has proved this Hebrew
Christion view to be the only one that
can hold common men intellectually
and spiritually true to the best ideals
of the race. The imperative charac-
ter of duty is based on mutual inter-
ests that are permanent and vital; any
other view tends to let morals drop to
the level of calculation, where, as in
the opinion OF Epicurus. stealing is bad
only through the fear Of getting caught.
No sound moral condition can be es-
tablished on transitoriy personal in
terests, and am convinced that we
can get along without spiritual lead
ing. We have prefited so largely by
it that we naively assume that its re-
suits are native to us; but even the
agnostic. Huxley. feared lest a gener-
alton that had cut loose from Christian
moral sanctions might lose its grip up
on the things that are worth while in
life The man who feels that, limp
ing death. dashed on by fate. cuts off
his interests in moral as well as in
physical things, has no good reason
to curb his impulse. The doctrines of
God and immortality cannot be taught
in the schools, but those of freedom
and responsibility can be. and the 9TH
ers are bound to lie as moral assump-
tons beneath the actual work of the
schools. Let us see what history
says.
The growth of this spiritual relation
of the Hebrew to his God urged him.
constantly into higher moral concep-
tons and transformed his intense
tribal feeling into the nation of human
brotherhood. His pity and reverence
Tor law were no greater than those of