PREFACE

This book represents an attempt to draw on the best of ancient and modern thought for contributions to an effort toward the solution of the main problems of moral education. Its chief concern is to trace conduct to its sources, and to show briefly how the principles evolved may be applied to the actual work of teaching.

The book was not written for specialists. It is intended for the use of teachers and those preparing to teach, and contains material elaborated and tested in the author's classes during a period of ten years. The educational applications of the principles studied are worked out only in part, as the teacher will readily make his own applications to the varying situations and conditions he meets in the course of his work.

No great amount of originality is claimed for the book. Something of the historical development of certain phases of the problem of moral education has been given, and numerous quotations are made from Kant to show that to-day the problems of ethical theory and of moral education are practically what they were in the days of that great thinker.

I am under especial obligations to Dr. James H. Tufts, of the University of Chicago, for most valuable suggestions and criticisms. Other helpful suggestions

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were given by Pres Albert Salisbury, of the Whitewater Normal School, and by Prof. William T. Stephens, of the Milwaukee Normal School. I am also indebted to my colleague, Prof. J. R. Sherrick, for a careful reading of the manuscript, and to Mr. William Grenzow for assistance in reading proof. I wish also to express my appreciation for the courtesy of the International Journal of Ethics in extending permission to embody in this book my article on "Self-esteem and the Love of Recognition as Sources of Conduct," appearing in January, 1909; and to the Educational Review for permission to republish some of the material in my article on "The Religious Element in the Public Schools," which appeared in April, 1909. H. H. S.

Whitewater, Wis., May, 1911.