VI. Moral Training in Schools. By Principal EUGENE BOUTON, New Paltz Normal School. The objects of this paper are to stimulate inquiry concerning the status of our public schools as moral forces and to suggest what seem to the writer the true mission of those schools and some of the conditions necessary to the fulfillment of that mission. What are our public schools for? Upon what does the essential value of any study depend? How far does the study of arithmetic or grammar teach morality? What other means are necessary in order to secure efficient moral training in our schools? What measures are actually taken for this purpose? What other measures are feasible and advisable? These are some of the questions that have seemed to me fundamental in our system of public instruction, and the views here expressed are some of the conclusions to which I have found myself driven. Probably all agree that parents are primarily responsible for the education and training of their children. But the entire task of properly training children and furnishing their minds with such knowledge as they need, is too arduous for the average parent to perform. In the inability and indisposition of parents to properly instruct their children at home is found the origin of the school. Perhaps, too, those who might educate their own children, if they desired, find it more economical to pay their share of the common expense than to do individually for themselves the work which can with greater success be done collectively for many. So the teacher is hired and the school is maintained as an economical and more efficient agency for doing what the parents are fundamentally responsible for doing. But by and by it is discovered that, however true it may be that parents are in duty bound to look after their offspring, it is a fact that they frequently fail to do so. It is also discovered that this failure is usually quite as disastrous to others as to the parents themselves and frequently even more so. Society at large finds that its interests are imperiled by the prevalence of ignorance and vice in the community, and demands that the education of children shall be no longer left to the indifference of their parents. Thus the State, which is simply 80 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. society organized, assumes the management of the schools, because parents neglect this duty and because the State deems the proper instruction and training of children so important a duty that its efficient discharge is essential to the public safety and the public welfare. Eventually the State discovers that it cannot logically control the management of the schools without also contributing to their support. Finally the State assumes entirely the burden of maintaining the schools, and for this purpose taxes its citizens in proportion to their wealth. By thus compelling its citizens to pay for the support of the schools, the State places itself under obligations to so educate and train its children that the maximum of public safety and public weal shall result from the expenditure. If it be agreed that the foregoing account of the primitive origin and present purpose of the public schools is correct, the vital questions remaining are, whether these schools are practically accomplishing their mission, and, if they are not, how they can be made to do so. Probably no intelligent person who is really familiar with the average common school, doubts either that it is doing incalculable good or that on the other hand it is falling far short of its possibilities. It is manifest that even the tenderest conscience can not be a safe guide when the consequences of conduct are shut out from the view of conscience by ignorance. To obey conscience is no doubt a fundamental duty, but conscience can direct us no further than our intelligence extends. To increase our intelligence thus becomes as much our duty as to obey conscience within the limits of our knowledge; and, however faulty the public schools may be, no one will deny that they deserve most of the credit for whatever general intelligence prevails in the land. More than this can be said for the moral influence of public schools. The silent influence of the good and true natures of most public school teachers is very salutary. The formation of habits of punctuality and regularity, through necessary discipline, is not less The respect for truth which valuable because subtle and unseen. results from a continual search for it and from its habitual exaltation, becomes inherent in the pupil's nature. Occasional suggestions of good by instructors plant seeds of influence that often grow to overshadowing importance. Association with good companions may refine and ennoble. The systematic study of worthy historic deeds and the learning of ennobling gems of literature may mold the character for good. The enforced study of the effects of stimulants and narcotics will doubtless prevent many of the disastrous consequences that would The customary devotional exercises may otherwise follow their use. bring home to many souls the healing influence of religious truth. But after these credits have been given to the work of the schools, it must still be confessed that very heavy discounts must be conceded and that the moral training of the young is not satisfactory. The negative influence of the teacher will not outweigh the positive temptations of the saloon and the street. While the good teacher sleeps the venders of stimulants and narcotics and the impure literature of sensational books and newspapers are vigilant and active. The formation of any regular habits in school is balanced by the irregularities of the home and of society. The unconscious respect for truth that comes from the exercises of the school is outshone by the tricks of the trader and the sharp practices of speculators and professional villains. The desultory suggestions of good that are sometimes given by teachers when some unusual thing has happened are outnumbered by the abundant suggestions of evil that continually come to the child without the happening of anything unusual. The constrained and apologetic manner in which devotional exercises are sometimes conducted robs them of much of the good effect they might have, while the unblushing impudence of profanity, obscenity and conceited swagger, possess a certain glory in the eyes of the youthful observer. The negative attitude of well-meaning and well-behaved companions is less potent than the aggressive insinuations and outspoken bravado of the desperate young profligate. Inspiring germs of literature are out-dazzled by the seductive tales of the criminal gazette and the unpruned publication of court-room disclosures. short, the good influences tend to repress themselves through characteristic modesty, and the evil influences tend to multiply themselves by equally characteristic aggressiveness; the result being that wrongdoing in many cases seems popular and therefore desirable, while right-doing seems unsupported and therefore to be avoided. I assume that it is needless for me to picture the consequences of this condition of things. Youthful depravity, open and secret, is appalling in our midst, and is, perhaps, quite as conspicuous in our schools as anywhere else. Whether we consider the country district school or the more pretentious and exclusive select school, we may be sure that, except in rare cases, Satan is quite evidently unchained and making good use of his opportunity, even though he may be far from having his own way, and even though it would be unpardonable to characterize our schools as godless, or describe them as hotbeds of iniquity. If any one doubts the evil condition of society, in general, let him scan the unhealthful pages of the sensational newspaper or wander about the average city at night. I am aware that some will claim that, even if all this be true, the 82 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. fault lies with the parents and guardians and is not to be charged upon the schools. It is certainly true that every member of society shares the responsibility for the right training of the young; but the very origin and purpose of the schools make it preeminently their business to educate and train the children as their parents ought to educate and train them. The State assumes to stand in loco parentis, and is therefore inexcusable if it does not meet parental obligations. If it be found that the State through the schools is doing all in its power to remedy existing evils, then of course there is no profit in complaining. But I am convinced that the schools might do more in this direction and that the State is therefore to blame for their not doing it. I believe not that the State is making a total failure in its efforts to train good citizens, but that it is expending its efforts too exclusively on the intellectual requirements of citizenship, while the moral requirements are correspondingly slighted. It is doubtless true that a person is incapable of being a good citizen unless he is reasonably intelligent, but it is equally true that he may be unusually intelligent and still be a fit subject for the jail or the scaffold, and that too not because his nature was at first hopelessly bad, but because from his earliest years he has been left to infer that secular knowledge and skill were everything and to conclude that character and conduct were nothing. I hardly see how one who stops to think the matter over, can escape the conclusion that the essential value of school work, whether study or discipline, is measured by the extent to which it improves the character and conduct of those who are taught. The ordinary study of the subjects usually taught in schools such as arithmetic, grammar, geography, etc.,- is justified on the ground that it contributes to the ability to perform intelligently and successfully certain of the business and social duties of life. But there is nothing in a knowledge of arithmetic that prepares the mind to withstand a temptation to commit forgery. There are no grammatical rules that interdict obscenity and profanity. The natural inference from a diligent study of geography is that rum, tobacco and opium greatly benefit several countries. And I am not sure but the ordinary study of history leaves in many a student's mind, the impression that fighting is the most laudable occupation of mankind, and that the highest ambition that any one can cherish is to be a profligate king and rule over as much At any rate, it territory as he can manage to wrest from his rivals. seemes perfectly clear that the ordinary study of these subjects and the ordinary routine of school discipline, as usually administered, are inadequate to give the ethical training which the less favored classes |