The Moral Instruction of Children by Felix Adler (inspiring books for teens TXT) 📖

Project Gutenberg's The Moral Instruction of Children, by Felix Adler

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: The Moral Instruction of Children

Author: Felix Adler

Release Date: January 31, 2012 [EBook #38730]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN ***




Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

International Education Series

EDITED BY

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A.M., LL.D.

Volume XXI.

THE

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES.

12mo, cloth, uniform binding.

THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES was projected for the purpose of bringing together in orderly arrangement the best writings, new and old, upon educational subjects, and presenting a complete course of reading and training for teachers generally. It is edited by W. T. Harris, LL.D., now United States Commissioner of Education, who has contributed for the different volumes in the way of introductions, analysis, and commentary. The volumes are tastefully and substantially bound in uniform style.

VOLUMES NOW READY:

Vol I.—THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. By Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz, Doctor of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kônigsberg. Translated from the German by Anna C. Brackett. Second edition, revised, and accompanied with Commentary and complete Analysis. Price, $1.50.

Vol. II.—A HISTORY OF EDUCATION. By F. V. N. Painter, A.M., Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Roanoke College, Va. Price, $1.50.

Vol. III.—THE RISE AND EARLY CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. With a Survey of Medieval Education. By S. S. Laurie, LL.D., Professor of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of Edinburgh. Price, $1.50.

Vol. IV—THE VENTILATION AND WARMING OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS. By Gilbert B. Morrison, Teacher of Physics and Chemistry in Kansas City High School. Price, $1.00.

Vol V.—THE EDUCATION OF MAN. By Friedrich Froebel. Translated and furnished with ample notes by W. N. Hailmann, A.M., Superintendent of Public Schools, La Porte, Ind. Price, $1.50.

VOL VI—ELEMENTARY PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION. By Dr. J. Baldwin, author of "The Art of School Management." Price, $1.50.

Vol. VII.—THE SENSES AND THE WILL. (Part I of "The Mind of the Child.") By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Translated from the original German by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. Price, $1.50.

VOL VIII.—MEMORY: What it is and how to Improve it. By David Kay, F.R.G.S., author of "Education and Educators," etc. Price, $1.50.

VOL IX.—THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. (Part II of "The Mind of the Child.") By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Translated from the original German by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. Price, $1.50.

Vol. X.—HOW TO STUDY GEOGRAPHY. A Practical Exposition of Methods and Devices in Teaching Geography which apply the Principles and Plans of Ritter and Guyot. By Francis W. Parker, Principal of the Cook County (Illinois) Normal School. Price, $1.50.

Vol. XI.—EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: Its History from the Earliest Settlements. By Richard G. Boone, A.M., Professor of Pedagogy in Indiana University. Price, $1.50.

Vol. XII.—EUROPEAN SCHOOLS; or, What I Saw in the Schools of Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland. By L. R. Klemm, Ph.D., Principal of the Cincinnati Technical School, author of "Chips from a Teacher's Workshop," etc. Fully illustrated. Price, $2.00.

Vol. XIII.—PRACTICAL HINTS FOR THE TEACHERS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. By George Howland, Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools. Price, $1.00.

Vol. XIV.—PESTALOZZI: His Life and Work. By Roger de Guimps. Authorized translation from the second French edition, by J. Russell, B.A., Assistant Master in University College, London. With an Introduction by Rev. R. H. Quick, M.A. Price, $1.50.

Vol. XV.—SCHOOL SUPERVISION. By J. L. Pickard, LL.D. Price, $1.00.

Vol. XVI.—HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN EUROPE. By Helene Lange, Berlin. Translated and accompanied by comparative statistics by L. R. Klemm. Price, $1.00.

Vol. XVII.—ESSAYS ON EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS. By Robert Herbert Quick, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; formerly Assistant Master at Harrow, and Lecturer on the History of Education at Cambridge; late Vicar of Ledbergh. Only authorized edition of the work as rewritten in 1890. Price, $1.50.

Vol. XVIII.—A TEXT-BOOK IN PSYCHOLOGY. An Attempt to found the Science of Psychology on Experience, Metaphysics, and Mathematics. By Johann Friedrich Herbart. Translated from the original German by Margaret K. Smith, Teacher in the State Normal School at Oswego, New York. Price, $1.00.

Vol. XIX.—PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO THE ART OF TEACHING. By Dr. Joseph Baldwin. Price, $1.50.

Vol. XX.—ROUSSEAU'S ÉMILE. By W. H. Payne. Price, $1.50.

Vol. XXI.—ETHICAL TRAINING IN SCHOOLS. By Felix Adler.

Vol. XXII.—ENGLISH EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS. By Isaac Sharpless, LL.D. Price, $1.00.

Vol. XXIII.—EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. By Alfred Fouillée. Price, $1.50.

Circular, describing the volumes more in detail, mailed to any address on request.

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES

THE
MORAL INSTRUCTION
OF CHILDREN

BY FELIX ADLER

 

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1892

Copyright, 1892,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

Electrotyped and Printed
at the Appleton Press, U.S.A.

EDITOR'S 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 title 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 substitutes 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 constituted 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 substitution 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 class 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