Chapter XVII: The Individualization of Moral Teaching

This subject is of the greatest importance. It really requires extended and careful treatment, but a few hints must suffice. The teacher should remember that he is educating not boys and girls in general, but particular boys and girls, each of whom has particular faults needing to be corrected and actual or potential virtues to be developed and encouraged. Therefore a conscientious study of the character of the pupils is necessary. This constitutes an additional reason why moral instruction should be given in a daily school rather than in a Sunday school, the opportunities for the study of character being vastly better in the former than they can possibly be in the latter. The teacher who gives the moral lessons, in undertaking this study, should solicit the co-operation of all the other teachers of the school. He should request from time to time from each of his fellow-teachers reports stating the good and bad traits observed in each pupil, or rather the facts on which the various teachers base their estimates of the good and bad qualities of the scholars; for the opinions of teachers are sometimes unreliable, are sometimes discolored by prejudice, while facts tell their own story. These facts should be collated by the moral teacher, and, with them as a basis, he may endeavor to work out a kind of chart of the character of each of his pupils. It goes without saying, that he should also seek the co-operation of the parents, for the purpose of discovering what characteristic traits the pupil displays at home; and if the reputation which a pupil bears among his companions, can be ascertained without undue prying, this, too, will be found of use in forming an estimate of his disposition. The teacher who knows the special temptations of his pupils will have many opportunities, in the course of the moral lessons, to give them pertinent warnings and advice, without seeming to address them in particular or exposing their faults to the class. He will also be able to exercise a helpful surveillance over their conduct in school, and to become in private their friend and counselor. Moreover, the material thus collected will in time prove serviceable in helping us to a more exact knowledge of the different varieties of human character--a knowledge which would give to the art of ethical training something like a scientific basis.[22]

FOOTNOTE:

[22] See some remarks on types of character in my lecture on the Punishment of Children.

RECAPITULATION.

Let us now briefly review the ground we have gone over in the present course. In the five introductory lectures we discussed the problem of unsectarian moral teaching, the efficient motives of good conduct, the opportunities of moral influence in schools, the classification of duties, and the moral status of the child on entering school.

In mapping out the primary course we assumed as a starting-point the idea that the child rapidly passes through the same stages of evolution through which the human race has passed, and hence we endeavored to select our material for successive epochs in the child's life from the literature of the corresponding epochs in the life of the race.

In regard to the method of instruction, we observed that in the fairy tales the moral element should be touched on incidentally; that in teaching the fables isolated moral qualities should be presented in such a way that the pupil may always thereafter be able to recognize them; while the stories display a number of moral qualities in combination and have the value of moral pictures.

In the primary course the object has been to train the moral perceptions; in the grammar course, to work out moral concepts and to formulate rules of conduct. The method of getting at these rules may again be described as follows: Begin with some concrete case, suggest a rule which apparently fits that case or really fits it, adduce other cases which the rule does not fit, change the rule, modify it as often as necessary, until it has been brought into such shape that it will fit every case you can think of.

In planning the lessons on duty which make up the subject matter of the grammar course, we took the ground that each period of life has its specific duties, that in each period there is one paramount duty around which the others may be grouped, and that each new system of duties should embrace and absorb the preceding one.

It remains for me to add that the illustrations which I have used in the grammar course are intended merely to serve as specimens, and by no means to exclude the use of different illustrative matter which the teacher may find more suitable. Furthermore, I desire to express the hope that it may be possible, without too much difficulty, to eliminate whatever subjective conceptions may be found to have crept into these lessons, and that, due deduction having been made, there may remain a substratum of objective truth which all can accept. It should be remembered that these lectures are not intended to take the place of a text-book, but to serve as a guide to the teacher in preparing his lessons.

I hope hereafter to continue the work which has thus been begun. In the advanced course, which is to follow the present one, we shall have to reconsider from a higher point of view many of the subjects already treated, and in addition to take up such topics as the ethics of the professions, the ethics of friendship, conjugal ethics, etc., which have here been omitted.

I shall also attempt to indicate the lines for a systematic study of biographies, and to lay out a course of selected readings from the best ethical literature of ancient and modern times.