Chapter II: =The Aim of Training=

141. While the aim of instruction was rendered sufficiently determinate, as we saw above (17, 64, 65), by the injunction, be perfect, the aim of training, which supplements educative instruction, comprehends virtue as a whole. Now virtue is an ideal, the approximation toward which is denoted by the term _morality_. Again, since, generally speaking, a child passes on from mere capacity for culture to culture itself, from the indeterminate to fixedness of knowledge, the approximation to virtue consists likewise in development toward stability. Where conduct in moral affairs vacillates, there is a deficiency; where something morally hateful becomes confirmed, there is a defect. Excluding both, we define the aim of training properly as moral strength of character.

“Training” means such will-training as conduces to the formation
of good character; “government” means such training as conduces
to good order. The first is for a permanent, the second for
an immediate, purpose. In government we can appeal both to a
positive and a negative means. The positive means is interest in
a study and the affairs of the schoolroom; the negative means
is inhibition of disturbing impulses. As Professor James, in his
“Talks on Psychology,”[13] points out, this inhibition may be of
two sorts,--that of forcible suppression, and that of substitution.
A teacher who uses negative means of inhibiting mischief or
inattention, employs command or punishment. This method, though
sometimes seemingly unavoidable, often results in mental strain,
if not permanent alienation between teacher and pupil. The method
of substitution attempts to secure inhibition of the undesirable
state of mind by giving rise to a set of favorable ideas strong
enough to displace it. “If, without saying anything about the street
disturbances,” which may be distracting the attention of your pupils,
“you open a counter attraction by starting some very interesting
talk or demonstration yourself, they will altogether forget the
distracting incident, and, without any effort, follow you along.”
Training, however, has a more difficult task. It must succeed in
implanting what may be called regulative principles in the mind.
It must furthermore succeed in establishing habits of conduct that
will enable the pupil to become self-governing. That is, we must
establish in him habits of feeling and action that will enable him
to substitute the higher for the lower good, or, at least, instantly
to inhibit the temptation to evil. This is a task not for a day or a
year, but for the whole school period.

[13] James, “Talks on Psychology,” p. 193, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1899.

142. In succeeding chapters character and moral conduct will each have to be differentiated more minutely. For our present purpose we need only to remind ourselves that the determinateness of the will, which is called character, depends not only on willing, but also on not willing. The latter is either a deficient or a denying willing, which repels or rejects. Stern methods of governing, which bar access to everything that might lead astray, are likely to produce a deficient will rather than the permanence of formed strength; with the end of school days, the dreaded opportunities arrive after all, and the pupil may quickly undergo a change beyond recognition. The task of training must therefore be thought of as embracing both affirmative willing and rejecting.