Now this can be done, but not ad hoc, nor by one individual, but on the basis of syllabi, wrought out by collective wisdom, and with the systematic co-operation of a few high schools that would give a little time to it part here, part there. With such a method we might in a few years, by bringing into fruitful union the psychologist and the practical high school teacher who could work in freedom from college domination, possess a mine of teachable moral worths that would have a value and power of which we now little dream.

DISCUSSION

FREDERIC ALLISON TUPPER

HEAD MASTER OF THE BRIGHTON HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

First, the material side of the school must be given vastly more attention than it has received up to this time. The generous playground, the ample gymnasium, the suitable equipment of baths, luncheons not too hygienic for "human nature's daily food," all have their places in this problem. Let the sunlight into the schoolrooms at all hazards. Spare not soap and water. If the old ventilating apparatus is bad, have it torn out. Introduce some workable system of medical inspection which, by its skilled prevention, will forestall many an illness. Introduce moisture into the air of the schoolroom. Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness; so, furnish abundance of pure water, unstinted soap, and altogether too many towels.

Second, let that beauty which is truth characterize the school building and all of its surroundings. A noble approach has much to do with the architectural effect of a building. A noble building, nobly approached, and nobly surrounded, is a perpetual moral lesson.

The interior of the building must correspond with the exterior in dignity and truth. Broad corridors, wide stairways, ample classrooms, generous halls, waste no space, they are, as Emerson would say,

pure use." In the decoration of the building is found a most admirable opportunity of emphasizing the moral lessons of all time. When the time of widely extended liberal culture shall come, many of the pale casts and colorless photographs will be consigned to the museum, and in their stead beautiful original wall-paintings by native artists will fascinate with their beauty and elevate by their dignity. Such pictures, appropriate to their surroundings, might well influence the beholders. forever.

Our secondary schools are largely a mirror of the times, so that certain accepted elements of daily life must be eliminated before the

best results can be reasonably expected. With immoral books and papers for sale on every hand, with immoral plays at many a theater, and immoral bill-boards advertising the immoral plays, with immoral critics who term indecency "virility," whereas it is merely bestiality, the secondary schools have a problem of the most difficult nature.

The teacher's greatest influence is unconscious. There is a beautiful winning quality called "charm," characteristic of the "brightest, most consummate flower" of our civilization. When "charm" is combined with high character and great ability, there is a combination of matchless power. Where can that combination be so essential as in the profession of teaching? The voice of our Saviour said to the tumultuous sea, "Peace!" and it was still. To the tumultuous heart of youth, the spirit of loving-kindness, of the gentleman, of the gentlewoman, speaks with unconscious power and charm, and that stormy, impulsive heart grows calm. And so I welcome every measure that will improve the quality of our teaching force, for with them more, with any other element in the discussion, are "the issues of life."

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The best men and women, no matter what the cost of their services, are the only suitable guardians of the moral training of our boys and girls. In consequence of the number of such men and women in the profession of teaching, much more progress in moral training in secondary schools has been made than many eminent authorities suppose.

Some gentlemen tell us that our public schools are Godless and utterly irreligious! I deny the statement utterly. From an experience of twenty-five years in these schools I say that good progress is made in the moral and religious training of our youth in these schools. If the various communities desire more of this instruction than their children are now getting, they have every facility for making their wishes known. It may be that a more widely extended use of textbooks of moral and of mental science would be productive of good, but such books must be as unsectarian as sunlight, air, and water. Some years ago I had in my school-building two small, poorly lighted, badly ventilated recitation-rooms, and a dark passageway between them. I had the partition knocked out, and with what result? There is one broad, sunlit, airy classroom. If there is to be still more moral and religious training in the secondary schools, it must be moral and religious, with all the sectarian partitions knocked out, so that the air and sunshine of God, unrestrained by the devices of man, may permeate the school where his children meet on equal terms.

HAS THE READING OF LATIN AND GREEK LITERATURE ANY EFFECT, FAVORABLE OR UNFAVORABLE, UPON THE MORALS OF PUPILS ?

PRINCIPAL WILLIAM T. PECK, Sc. D.

CLASSICAL HIGH SCHOOL, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

The question assigned for the hour was probably put into this form in order to arouse attention and to cause the teacher to consider his obligations in the line of moral training. The question is very narrow. The word "pupils" indicates that it limits the reading of Latin and Greek literature to that pursued under the direction of teachers. The Departmental Session of the Religious Education Association, in which we are gathered, narrows the scope of the question further and causes it to limit the reading to that pursued under the direction of teachers of secondary public schools. The view of ancient life seen in the literary works of Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, and Demosthenes, or of Plautus, Terence, Lucretius, Cicero as philosopher, Horace, the elegiac poets, Tacitus, Juvenal, and Marcus Aurelius, must be banished from our minds. The range of Latin and Greek literature read in the secondary public schools is small, and consequently its presentation of life is limited. The amount read in Greek consists of selections from the Anabasis or Hellenica of Xenophon and from the Iliad of Homer, in all about three hundred pages; in Latin-selections from Cæsar's Gallic War or Civil War, selections from Ovid, the Catiline of Sallust, eight orations of Cicero, and six books of Virgil, in all about four hundred pages. The question, then, is, what effect has the reading of these seven hundred pages of Greek and Latin literature upon the morals of the pupils ?

If the young person, upon entering the high school, is asked if murder, stealing, lying, cruelty, insolence, and disobedience to proper authority are right, he will at once answer, No; if he is asked if love, honesty, truthfulness, kindness, respect, and obedience are right, he will surely answer, Yes. From the very beginning the high school teacher relies upon his pupil's knowledge of right and wrong, and confidently asks if this is right and that is wrong. He feels that, if the pupil does the best that he knows, his conduct will be satisfactory, both within school and without. The teacher recognizes the difficulty of this doing of the best in accordance with knowledge, arising from indifference, stubbornness, and temptation to wrong. He desires to join with whatever forces

there are around the youth, it may be with the church, the home, and companions, in endeavoring to kindle the desire and direct the will, so that right may be followed. The greatest power in this direction is the example, character, and sympathy of the teacher. This may be shown in all his life, in set moral talks, but one of the places where it most naturally appears is in the study of literature. In the poets and the great prose writers, from the gems of thought and the lives of men, can be drawn those lessons by the believer in them and the practiser of them that will render virtue most desirable and of the greatest value, and vice most despicable and of the greatest loss. If the student is often brought into the thought of the true and the good, and if invitation to the nobler and the better is come and not go, it is evident, if the methods of all the great moral teachers of the ages are true, that some favorable effect will be produced upon his moral character. Can the selected portions of Latin and Greek literature afford such an opportunity to the true teacher? When, years ago, Latin, Greek, and mathematics were the only studies of the preparatory schools, were there not teachers famous for the moral power in their teaching? And to-day our teachers cannot fail to use for moral influence this material which is brought to their hands.

The Latin read during the first year consists of fables, the Viri Romæ, and a book of Cæsar. The pupil enters the high school with a receptive mind and ready sympathy. A new world of thought is opened before him, all the more eagerly grasped at because new. Then is the time to impress upon him the great lessons of right modes of thought and action, of love of home, of parents, and of country. The fable is especially valuable along this line. The work in the Viri Romæ takes the pupil farther in the same direction, by creating in him an interest in the deeds and virtues of Rome's greatest men. Devoted patriotism, self-sacrifice and bravery, filial affection, courage in danger, true friendship, and a high sense of honor are illustrated in concrete form. These stories coming, down through the ages, the young student takes in with his Latin verb and his Latin vocabulary, and makes them a part of his life.

Next comes Cæsar. We read three books of his Commentaries on the Gallic War. I follow the programme of my school, because I know what moral teaching is given there. One of my teachers used the second and third books with her class to draw out the qualities of a great commander. The following topics from the first book show how other teachers find the opportunity for moral instruction: In chapter seventeen, the duty of a citizen, if your companions are acting

treacherously, ought you to tell those in authority?-in chapter nineteen, the treachery of Dumnorix and Cæsar's respect for the feelings of Divitiacus; in chapter twenty, the motives that influence Divitiacus to plead for his brother; in chapter twenty-two, the hasty and inaccurate observations of Considius that defeat Cæsar's plans, while Labienus obeys orders of Cæsar under trying circumstances; in chapter twentyfive, Cæsar sets his men an example by removing his own horse; in chapter twenty-seven, ought the Helvetians, after surrendering, to try to escape by flight, because the opportunity seems good?

We come next to the Catiline of Sallust. It cannot be said that here there is no opportunity for moral instruction, for the work is almost a moral treatise. It deals with such subjects as the powers of man and their proper use, the noble character of the early Romans, the introduction of luxury and vice into Rome, the causes of Roman greatness, and the characters of Cæsar and Cato in comparison, the character of Catiline and his associates, and the great conspiracy. The introduction affords opportunity for moral instruction upon its every line, the main part of the work upon every page. Two teachers give me more than sixty places where they have spontaneously developed moral lessons. A view of their scope may be obtained by mentioning some of these in order:

Exertion necessary for development; mind godlike, everlasting; character dependent upon the active virtues, "labore, continentia, æquitate"; Sallust's stress upon the activity of the mental powers and the subordination of the physical, which makes a deep impression upon pupils; the powerful constructive force Catiline could have been, had his tendencies been in the right direction; generous treatment of friends; respect for age and experience; valor and glory the ideal; how individuals and consequently states retrograde; contrast in methods of securing ends; causes of corruption of army; evils of luxurious living.

From the orations of Cicero against Catiline similar lessons can be drawn. But instead of the moral criticism of Sallust we study the burning words of the leader of the forces of government in his endeavor to put down rebellion. The impassioned orator speaks in order to accomplish something; we get the moral lessons at first hand. In addition, we have the works in the surpassing literary form of one of the world's greatest orators, and the attractiveness of the clothing adds to the impressiveness of the lesson. The student cannot fail to consider the real friends and foes of one's country, the character of the forces of good and of evil, the uses of mercy and of justice, the power of conscience, the interposition of divine providence, the eternal rewards of a noble