The Moral Instruction of Children Part 1

The Moral Instruction of Children.

by Felix Adler.

PREFACE.

Moral education is everywhere acknowledged to be the most important part of all education; but there has not been the same agreement in regard to the best means of securing it in the school. This has been due in part to a want of insight into the twofold nature of this sort of education; for instruction in morals includes two things: the formation of right ideas and the formation of right habits. Right ideas are necessary to guide the will, but right habits are the product of the will itself.

It is possible to have right ideas to some extent without the corresponding moral habits. On this account the formation of correct habits has been esteemed by some to be the chief thing. But unconscious habits--mere use and wont--do not seem to deserve the t.i.tle of moral in its highest sense. The moral act should be a considerate one, and rest on the adoption of principles to guide one's actions.

To those who lay stress on the practical side and demand the formation of correct habits, the school as it is seems to be a great ethical instrumentality. To those who see in theoretical instruction the only true basis of moral character, the existing school methods seem sadly deficient.

The school as it is looks first after its discipline, and next after its instruction. Discipline concerns the behavior, and instruction concerns the intellectual progress of the pupil. That part of moral education which relates to habits of good behavior is much better provided for in the school than any part of intellectual education.

There is, however, a conflict here between old and new ideals. The old-fashioned school regarded obedience to authority the one essential; the new ideal regards insight into the reasonableness of moral commands the chief end. It is said, with truth, that a habit of unreasoning obedience does not fit one for the exigencies of modern life, with its partisan appeals to the individual and its perpetual display of grounds and reasons, specious and otherwise, in the newspapers. The unreasoning obedience to a moral guide in school may become in after life unreasoning obedience to a demagogue or to a leader in crime.

It is not obedience to external authority that we need so much as enlightened moral sense, and yet there remains and will remain much good in the old-fashioned habit of implicit obedience.

The new education aims at building up self-control and individual insight. It subst.i.tutes the internal authority of conscience for the external authority of the master. It claims by this to educate the citizen fitted for the exercise of suffrage in a free government. He will weigh political and social questions in his mind, and decide for himself. He will be apt to reject the scheme of the demagogue. While the old-fashioned school-master relied on the rod to sustain his external authority, he produced, it is said, a reaction against all authority in the minds of strong-willed pupils. The new education saves the strong-willed pupil from this tension against const.i.tuted authority, and makes him law-abiding from the beginning.

It will be admitted that the school under both its forms--old as well as new--secures in the main the formation of the cardinal moral habits. It is obliged to insist on regularity, punctuality, silence, and industry as indispensable for the performance of its school tasks. A private tutor may permit his charge to neglect all these things, and yet secure some progress in studies carried on by fits and starts, with noise and zeal to-day, followed by indolence to-morrow. But a school, on account of its numbers, must insist on the semi-mechanical virtues of regularity, punctuality, silence, and industry. Although these are semi-mechanical in their nature, for with much practice they become unconscious habits, yet they furnish the very ground-work of all combinations of man with his fellow-men. They are fundamental conditions of social life. The increase of city population, consequent on the growth of productive industry and the subst.i.tution of machines for hand labor, renders necessary the universal prevalence of these cardinal virtues of the school.

Even the management of machines requires that sort of alertness which comes from regularity and punctuality. The travel on the railroad, the management of steam-engines, the necessities of concerted action, require punctuality and rhythmic action.

The school habit of silence means considerate regard for the rights of fellow-workmen. They must not be interfered with; their attention must not be distracted from their several tasks. A rational self-restraint grows out of this school habit--rational, because it rests on considerateness for the work of others. This is a great lesson in co-operation. Morals in their essence deal with the relation of man to his fellow-men, and rest on a considerateness for the rights of others.

"Do unto others," etc., sums up the moral code.

Industry, likewise, takes a high rank as a citizen's virtue. By it man learns to re-enforce the moments by the hours, and the days by the years. He learns how the puny individual can conquer great obstacles.

The school demands of the youth a difficult kind of industry. He must think and remember, giving close and unremitting attention to subjects strange and far off from his daily life. He must do this in order to discover eventually that these strange and far-off matters are connected in a close manner to his own history and destiny.

There is another phase of the pupil's industry that has an important bearing on morals. All his intellectual work in the cla.s.s has to do with critical accuracy, and respect for the truth. Loose statements and careless logical inference meet with severe reproof.

Finally, there is an enforced politeness and courtesy toward teachers and fellow-pupils--at least to the extent of preventing quarrels. This is directly tributary to the highest of virtues, namely, kindness and generosity.

All these moral phases mentioned have to do with the side of school discipline rather than instruction, and they do not necessarily have any bearing on the theory of morals or on ethical philosophy, except in the fact that they make a very strong impression on the mind of the youth, and cause him to feel that he is a member of a moral order. He learns that moral demands are far more stern than the demands of the body for food or drink or repose. The school thus does much to change the pupil from a natural being to a spiritual being. Physical nature becomes subordinated to the interests of human nature.

Notwithstanding the fact that the school is so efficient as a means of training in moral habits, it is as yet only a small influence in the realm of moral theory. Even our colleges and universities, it must be confessed, do little in this respect, although there has been of late an effort to increase in the programmes the amount of time devoted to ethical study. The cause of this is the divorce of moral theory from theology. All was easy so long as ethics was directly a.s.sociated with the prevailing religious confession. The separation of Church and State, slowly progressing everywhere since the middle ages, has at length touched the question of education.

The attempt to find an independent basis for ethics in the science of sociology has developed conflicting systems. The college student is rarely strengthened in his faith in moral theories by his theoretic study. Too often his faith is sapped. Those who master a spiritual philosophy are strengthened; the many who drift toward a so-called "scientific" basis are led to weaken their moral convictions to the standpoint of fashion, or custom, or utility.

Meanwhile the demand of the age to separate Church from State becomes more and more exacting. Religious instruction has almost entirely ceased in the public schools, and it is rapidly disappearing from the programmes of colleges and preparatory schools, and few academies are now scenes of religious revival, as once was common.

The publishers of this series are glad, therefore, to offer a book so timely and full of helpful suggestions as this of Mr. Adler. It is hoped that it may open for many teachers a new road to theoretic instruction in morality, and at the same time re-enforce the study of literature in our schools.

W. T. HARRIS.

WASHINGTON, D.C., _July, 1892_.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The following lectures were delivered in the School of Applied Ethics during its first session in 1891, at Plymouth, Ma.s.s. A few of the lectures have been condensed, in order to bring more clearly into view the logical scheme which underlies the plan of instruction here outlined. The others are published substantially as delivered.

I am deeply conscious of the difficulties of the problem which I have ventured to approach, and realize that any contribution toward its solution, at the present time, must be most imperfect. I should, for my part, have preferred to wait longer before submitting my thought to teachers and parents. But I have been persuaded that even in its present shape it may be of some use. I earnestly hope that, at all events, it may serve to help on the rising tide of interest in moral education, and may stimulate to further inquiry.

FELIX ADLER.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURES.

I.

THE PROBLEM OF UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION.

It will be the aim of the present course of lectures to give in outline the subject-matter of moral instruction for children from six to fourteen or fifteen years of age, and to discuss the methods according to which this kind of instruction should be imparted. At the outset, however, we are confronted by what certainly is a grave difficulty, and to many may appear an insuperable one. The opinion is widely held that morality depends on religious sanctions, and that right conduct can not be taught--especially not to children--except it be under the authority of some sort of religious belief. To those who think in this way the very phrase, unsectarian moral teaching, is suspicious, as savoring of infidelity. And the attempt to mark off a neutral moral zone, outside the domains of the churches, is apt to be regarded as masking a covert design on religion itself.

The principle of unsectarian moral instruction, however, is neither irreligious nor anti-religious. In fact--as will appear later on--it rests on purely educational grounds, with which the religious bias of the educator has nothing whatever to do. But there are also grounds of expediency which, at least in the United States, compel us, whether we care to do so or not, to face this problem of unsectarian moral education, and to these let us first give our attention. Even if we were to admit, for argument's sake, the correctness of the proposition that moral truths can only be taught as corollaries of some form of religious belief, the question would at once present itself to the educator, To which form of religious belief shall he give the preference? I am speaking now of the public schools of the United States.

These schools are supported out of the general fund of taxation to which all citizens are compelled to contribute. Clearly it would be an act of gross injustice to force a citizen belonging to one denomination to pay for instilling the doctrines of some other into the minds of the young--in other words, to compel him to support and a.s.sist in spreading religious ideas in which he does not believe. This would be an outrage on the freedom of conscience. But the act of injustice would become simply monstrous if parents were to be compelled to help indoctrinate their own children with such religious opinions as are repugnant to them.

There is no state religion in the United States. In the eyes of the state all shades of belief and disbelief are on a par. There are in this country Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Jews, etc. They are alike citizens. They contribute alike toward the maintenance of the public schools. With what show of fairness, then, could the belief of any one of these sects be adopted by the state as a basis for the inculcation of moral truths? The case seems, on the face of it, a hopeless one. But the following devices have been suggested to remove, or rather to circ.u.mvent, the difficulty.

_First Device._--Let representatives of the various theistic churches, including Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, meet in council. Let them eliminate all those points in respect to which they differ, and formulate a common creed containing only those articles on which they can agree. Such a creed would include, for instance, the belief in the existence of Deity, in the immortality of the soul, and in future reward and punishment. Upon this as a foundation let the edifice of moral instruction be erected. There are, however, two obvious objections to this plan. In the first place, this "Dreibund" of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism would leave out of account the party of the agnostics, whose views may indeed be erroneous, or even detestable, but whose rights as citizens ought not the less on that account to be respected. "_Neminem laede_," hurt no one, is a cardinal rule of justice, and should be observed by the friends of religion in their dealings with their opponents as well as with one another. The agnostic party has grown to quite considerable dimensions in the United States. But, if it had not, if there were only a single person who held such opinions, and he a citizen, any attempt on the part of the majority to trample upon the rights of this one person would still be inexcusable. In the sphere of political action the majority rules, and must rule; in matters that touch the conscience the smallest minority possesses rights on which even an overwhelming majority arrayed on the opposite side can not afford to trespa.s.s. It is one of the most notable achievements of the American commonwealths that they have so distinctly separated between the domain of religion and of politics, adopting in the one case the maxim of coercion by majority rule, in the other allowing the full measure of individual liberty. From this standpoint there should be no departure.

But the second objection is even more cogent. It is proposed to eliminate the differences which separate the various sects, and to formulate their points of agreement into a common creed. But does it not occur to those who propose this plan that the very life of a religion is to be found precisely in those points in which it differs from its neighbors, and that an abstract scheme of belief, such as has been sketched, would, in truth, satisfy no one? Thus, out of respect for the sentiments of the Jews, it is proposed to omit the doctrines of the divinity of Christ and of the atonement. But would any earnest Christian give his a.s.sent, even provisionally, to a creed from which those quintessential doctrines of Christianity have been left out? When the Christian maintains that morality must be based on religion, does he not mean, above all, on the belief in Christ? Is it not indispensable, from his point of view, that the figure of the Saviour shall stand in the foreground of moral inculcation and exhortation? Again, when the Catholic affirms that the moral teaching of the young must be based on religion, is it to be supposed for an instant that he would accept as satisfying his conception of religion a skeleton creed like that above mentioned, denuded of all those peculiar dogmas which make religion in his eyes beautiful and dear? This first device, therefore, is to be rejected. It is unjust to the agnostics, and it will never content the really religious persons of any denomination. It could prove acceptable only to theists pure and simple, whose creed is practically limited to the three articles mentioned; namely, the belief in Deity, immortality, and future punishment and reward. But this cla.s.s const.i.tutes a small fraction of the community; and it would be absurd, under the specious plea of reconciling the various creeds, in effect to impose the rationalistic opinions of a few on the whole community.

The _second device_ seems to promise better results. It provides that religious and moral instruction combined shall be given in the public schools under the auspices of the several denominations. According to this plan, the pupils are to be divided, for purposes of moral instruction, into separate cla.s.ses, according to their sectarian affiliations, and are to be taught separately by their own clergymen or by teachers acting under instructions from the latter. The high authority of Germany is invoked in support of this plan. If I am correctly informed, the president of one of our leading universities has recently spoken in favor of it, and it is likely that an attempt will be made to introduce it in the United States. Already in some of our reformatory schools and other public inst.i.tutions separate religious services are held by the ministers of the various sects, and we may expect that an a.n.a.logous arrangement will be proposed with respect to moral teaching in the common schools. It is necessary, therefore, to pay some attention to the German system, and to explain the reasons which have induced or compelled the Germans to adopt the compromise just described. The chief points to be noted are these: In Germany, church and state are united. The King of Prussia, for instance, is the head of the Evangelical Church. This const.i.tutes a vital difference between America and Germany. Secondly, in Germany the schools existed before the state took charge of them. The school system was founded by the Church, and the problem which confronted the Government was how to convert church schools into state schools. An attempt was made to do this by limiting the influence of the clergy, which formerly had been all-powerful and all-pervasive, to certain branches and certain hours of instruction, thereby securing the supremacy of the state in respect to all other branches and at all other hours. In America, on the other hand, the state founded the schools _ab initio_. In Germany the state has actually encroached upon the Church, has entered church schools and reconstructed them in its own interest. To adopt the German system in America would be to permit the Church to encroach upon the state, to enter state schools and subordinate them to sectarian purposes. The example of Germany can not, therefore, be quoted as a precedent in point. The system of compromise in Germany marks an advance in the direction of increasing state influence. Its adoption in this country would mark a retrograde movement in the direction of increasing church influence.

Nor can the system, when considered on its own merits, be called a happy one. Prof. Gneist, in his valuable treatise, Die Konfessionelle Schule (which may be read by those who desire to inform themselves on the historical evolution of the Prussian system), maintains that scientific instruction must be unsectarian, while religious instruction must be sectarian. I agree to both his propositions. But to my mind it follows that, if religious instruction must be sectarian, it ought not to have a place in state schools, at least not in a country in which the separation of church and state is complete. Moreover, the limitation of religious teaching to a few hours a week can never satisfy the earnest sectarian. If he wants religion in the schools at all, then he will also want that specific kind of religious influence which he favors to permeate the whole school. He will insist that history shall be taught from his point of view, that the readers shall breathe the spirit of his faith, that the science teaching shall be made to harmonize with its doctrines, etc. What a paltry concession, indeed, to open the door to the clergyman twice or three times a week, and to permit him to teach the catechism to the pupils, while the rest of the teaching is withdrawn from his control, and is perhaps informed by a spirit alien to his! This kind of compromise can never heartily be indorsed; it may be accepted under pressure, but submission to it will always be under protest.[1]

The third arrangement that has been suggested is that each sect shall build its own schools, and draw upon the fund supplied by taxation proportionately to the number of children educated. But to this there are again two great objections: First, it is the duty of the state to see to it that a high educational standard shall be maintained in the schools, and that the money spent on them shall bear fruit in raising the general intelligence of the community. But the experience of the past proves conclusively that in sectarian schools, especially where there are no rival unsectarian inst.i.tutions to force them into compet.i.tion, the preponderance of zeal and interest is so markedly on the side of religious teaching that the secular branches unavoidably suffer.[2] If it is said that the state may prescribe rules and set up standards of its own, to which the sectarian schools shall be held to conform, we ask, Who is to secure such conformance? The various sects, once having gained possession of the public funds, would resent the interference of the State. The Inspectors who might be appointed would never be allowed to exercise any real control, and the rules which the State might prescribe would remain dead letter.

In the second place, under such an arrangement, the highest purpose for which the public schools exist would be defeated. Sectarian schools tend to separate the members of the various denominations from one another, and to hinder the growth of that spirit of national unity which it is, on the other hand, the prime duty of the public school to create and foster. The support of a system of public education out of the proceeds of taxation is justifiable in the last a.n.a.lysis as a measure dictated to the State by the law of self-preservation. The State maintains public schools in order to preserve itself--i. e., its unity. And this is especially true in a republic. In a monarchy the strong arm of the reigning dynasty, supported by a ruling cla.s.s, may perhaps suppress discord, and hold the antagonistic elements among the people in subjection by sheer force. In a republic only the spirit of unity among the people themselves can keep them a people. And this spirit is fostered in public schools, where children of all cla.s.ses and sects are brought into daily, friendly contact, and where together they are indoctrinated into the history, tradition, and aspirations of the nation to which they belong.

What then? We have seen that we can not encourage, that we can not permit, the establishment of sectarian schools at the public expense. We have also seen that we can not teach religion in the public schools.

Must we, therefore, abandon altogether the hope of teaching the elements of morals? Is not moral education conceded to be one of the most important, if not the most important, of all branches of education? Must we forego the splendid opportunities afforded by the daily schools for this purpose? Is there not a way of imparting moral instruction without giving just offense to any religious belief or any religious believer, or doing violence to the rights of any sect or of any party whatsoever?

The correct answer to this question would be the solution of the problem of unsectarian moral education. I can merely state my answer to-day, in the hope that the entire course before us may substantiate it. The answer, as I conceive it, is this: It is the business of the moral instructor in the school to deliver to his pupils the subject-matter of morality, but not to deal with the sanctions of it; to give his pupils a clearer understanding of what _is_ right and what _is_ wrong, but not to enter into the question why the right should be done and the wrong avoided. For example, let us suppose that the teacher is treating of veracity. He says to the pupil, Thou shalt not lie. He takes it for granted that the pupil feels the force of this commandment, and acknowledges that he ought to yield obedience to it. For my part, I should suspect of quibbling and dishonest intention any boy or girl who would ask me, Why ought I not to lie? I should hold up before such a child the Ought in all its awful majesty. The right to reason about these matters can not be conceded until after the mind has attained a certain maturity. And as a matter of fact every good child agrees with the teacher unhesitatingly when he says, It is wrong to lie. There is an answering echo in its heart which confirms the teacher's words. But what, then, is it my business as a moral teacher to do? In the first place, to deepen the impression of the wrongfulness of lying, and the sacredness of truth, by the spirit in which I approach the subject. My first business is to convey the spirit of moral reverence to my pupils.