Lessons on Morals ARRANGED FOR GRAMMAR SCHOOLS, HIGH SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES BY JULIA M. DEWEY Author of "How to Teach Manners" and COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY HINDS & NOBle HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE, Publishers The Best American Orations of To-day (Blackstone) $1.25 Ross' Southern Speaker New Dialogues and Plays (Primary, Inter..., Adv.) 1.25 1.00 1.25 1.25 1.00 1.00 .50 .50 Pros and Cons (Questions of To-day Fully Discussed) How to Organize and Conduct a Meeting Howe's Hand Book of Parliamentary Usage HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE 31-33-35 West 15th Street, New York City INTRODUCTION It is sometimes urged that with the innate impulse to duty and the intuitive idea of obligation, the "unconscious" ethical influences of the schools afford all the moral training that pupils should receive. If perfect conditions existed, this theory might hold, but in many schools there is not that ideal excellence necessary to make such influences impressive, and it is doubtful if in any school there are not found children who lack the innate impulse and are thus impervious to this kind of moral training. It is also claimed that the conduct of pupils furnishes abundant opportunities for concrete instruction in duty, and that it should be used for this purpose. While it may be possible for a discreet and skillful teacher to turn the experiences of school to good account, the personal element involved oftentimes induces harm that overbalances any good accomplished. Moreover, such instruction is haphazard and irregular. Effective moral training does not differ from the intellectual in that it involves a rational and intelligible order of instruction. An eminent teacher of ethics says: "The determining of what is one's duty in varying circumstances calls for knowledge, and the fuller one's knowledge, the clearer will be the way of duty. Ignorance is not the mother of virtues." When children are mature enough to comprehend the more obvious principles of right and wrong as applied to conduct, moral instruction of a somewhat didactic or positive character should have a definite place in the weekly programme of a school. Such instruction should not be given by preaching or exhortation, nor by tedious harangues on duty, but by clear-cut, common-sense conversations and discussions until it becomes clear to the minds of the pupils that moral subjects have a place in a system of knowledge, and that putting this knowledge into practice is essential to happiness in life. It is said that moral instruction in the school is repugnant to the young. This is not in accordance with the observation of the writer nor with the testimony of hosts of teachers whose opinions have been sought. On the contrary lessons on morals usually excite the lively interest of the pupils, but when they do not, possibly the fault lies with the teacher's methods and manners. The object of the lessons contained in this volume |