Thus it is evident that there may be a method of dealing with this literature, which is akin to immorality. When attention of the pupil is directed to those elements which in themselves have no vitality because they are devoid of any power to inspire, interest dies, and with the death of interest comes the dislike of the subject. Such a result is immoral.

It follows thus that literature is but one of the forms of art through which man's aspiration, his ideals, are revealed. The soul of man takes the hues of that which environs it. It is literature which inspires; not linguistics, rhetoric, and grammar, valuable as these may be for other purposes. It is subtle, and mysterious in its power, and it is our business as teachers to create a nation of readers, not a special class of learned commentators. We know that literature will form the child, sustain the youth, and console age, and its history is its record of power in this direction, from the psalms of David to the songs of Burns, from Job to Tennyson. Witness the tributes of Darwin and Mill to the power of imaginative literature; these men mourned the fact that other things deprived them of that great power of culture of the feelings which the love of literature brought. Barrie has said that a young man may be better employed than in going to college; but when there, he is unfortunate if he does not meet some one who sends his life off at a new angle. "One such professor," says he, "is the most any university may hope for in a single generation." He says, "When you looked into my mother's eyes, you knew why it was that God sent her into the world; it was to open the eyes of all who looked to beautiful thoughts, and that is the beginning and end of literature." After having opened the eyes of people to beautiful thoughts, we must be willing to wait, for moral results do not come immediately. Read our great literature in such a way that the class feels the enthusiasm, nobility, and the naturalness of the men and women revealed, and then we shall never have to ask the question, "Is there any moral result from the study of literature ?"

THE AIMS AND PROCESSES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

FRANK H. ROBSON

HEAD MASTER BANCROFT SCHOOL, WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

To train a man in the science of numbers, and not to teach him that he is not to make false combinations; to train him in the art of writing, and not to teach him that he is not to forge his employer's name; to train him in the secrets of chemistry; and not to train him to respect his hidden and mysterious power over the life and welfare of his fellows; to give intellectual judgment only, and not to train moral judgment,— would be an abomination and a curse to the world.

Mentality unleavened by the preserving power of morality, or untouched by the inspiration of religion, opens the door wide to the flood of materialism, immorality, and crime.

Generally speaking, the child has three periods of growth - infancy, childhood, and adolescence. The home must bear the responsibilities of the first period, but the school must prepare itself in spirit and equipment for a share of the training of the second, the so-called period of childhood.

What, then, is this creature of five to seven years of age as he is usually turned into school life? Can we make of him what we will? What elements assist and what influences hinder us in our labors?

Taking childhood to begin with the dawn of conscious power, the child in this period runs through all the phases of individualism, a creature of instincts, with no moral or immoral quality at the beginning, seeking self-expression in all things.

This individualism stands psychologically at the basis of such home and school complaints as stubbornness, selfishness, impertinence, quarrelsomeness, and disobedience. This is the law of the survival of the fittest; morality of action is excluded; the animal instincts are seeking expression and gratification. This is one of nature's efforts to break the shackles of the past, to make an advance upon heredity, to open new fields, to function new-brain centers, and unconsciously to extend individual development along the line of evolutionary possibilities. Manifold stimuli effect a development of the child, regardless of moral content as viewed by adults, and gradually the functioning of the organs is accomplished. The child learns the corresponding values which adults attach to varying actions and states only by the effects produced upon others which are directly or indirectly reflected upon himself in

pleasure of approval or pain of disapproval and punishment. Thus repeating those actions which bring pleasure and satisfaction and avoiding those which bring pain and disapproval, tendencies become established and laws are gradually outlined in the nervous system.

John Fiske's law of the prolonged state of infancy of the human race has many moral as well as physical and mental correlations. The child is long dependent in body, mind, and moral standards. His volitional equipment is very meager. He does not know what is right. His capacity for discrimination is exceedingly small, and when he apparently exercises such precocious discriminating intelligence, it is rather an imitated state of mind, and not a developed functional capacity.

In the light of these prominent traits, what is the point of attack in these earlier years? and how can we develop effective character without a direct and disastrous conflict of will, destructive to strength, or a weakening of the imagination, fatal to future growth and initiative, and bring about a willing submission to law, parental, scholastic, and civil, an appreciation of the pure and the right in moral relations, and effect a real character, symbolized in the word 'self-control'?

Imitation is the dominant faculty of the young. It is the school of the animal world. It is the process by which the experience of the past and the practice of the present may be brought within the absorptive radius of the child. Mentally, childhood is the period of memory power of the reproduction of previous states. Likewise in the moral world, it is the period of reproduction and imitation; and the environment supplied by teachers, parents, and playmates supplies the concrete forms of speech and action to be imitated. Not being able to reason correctly and to discriminate moral values in the adult sense, there is great danger in unselected environment. Potency of action in the child is as liable to discharge itself in imitating a bad environment as a good

one.

Inasmuch as a child cannot select from its environment suitable details for imitation, and has no personal standards of action, obedience to some authority becomes a necessity. Through imitation of a selected environment, aided by the exercise of a wise authority, there is reproduced in the child life a series of activities, and through them there is developed the germ of a personal consciousness of truly moral conduct. By using the highest motive which is effective, by inducing a pleasurable mental state by the effects of emulation and appreciation, proper lines of work become chosen more and more consciously, and the habit of right performance becomes established.

Right habits at the direction of another are good but they are not

moral. Hence the parent or teacher must gradually withdraw his influence or authority and give the child the privilege of choice. Blind obedience is only for the undeveloped child; arrested moral growth must surely follow if the ability to decide personal questions is present and the opportunity is not afforded. As the powers increase, the opportunities of choice must increase also. As nature teaches by punishing the violator of her laws, so through making mistakes and suffering the penalty therefrom the individual develops the capacity of choice and wise direction of his own affairs. The true test of the effectiveness of the training in obedience, in the establishment of right habits, and the power of a moral choice, is the growing conscious intention of the child.

One of the common causes of difficulty in moral training springs from the fact that the child needs interpretation as well as guidance. Physically, the automatic ganglion centers are developed first, then those of the main muscular movements, then the centers affecting sensation, and finally the ganglion centers controlling thought and will. Physical and mental processes are so definitely connected, that they follow in logical order; that the proper functioning of one stage depends upon a vigorous development of each preceding stage; that abnormal development of later stages, known as precocity, destroys later vitality, and undue emphasis upon a lower process prolongs elementary stages, and thus produces" arrested development."

The only logical order of moral training is to be found in a true genetic development of moral capacities. Undoubtedly, in a large and untechnical way the successive evolutionary moral states of the race are reproduced in the individual, but specifically the moral basis is to be found in the parallel development of his nervous and mental systems. Hence the necessity for wise interpretation on the part of parents and teachers. Fatigue, illness, hunger, depressed nervous vitality, physical suffering, may easily make normal mental action almost impossible for the child, and additional pressure, either personal or disciplinary, is not only blindly stupid, but is criminal. What the child needs is, not the mental, moral, or physical rod, but food, sleep, medicine, sympathy and love, and restful words. Ignorance, inability, and fear are frequently wrongly interpreted as unwillingness and opposition.

But the largest opportunity for the teacher is in the guidance of these changing conditions. Remembering that vigorous functioning of elementary powers is necessary to later growth, we must beware how we limit later possibilities by attempts at repressing and destroying certain normal expressions of child life. Expect the child to be individualistic, to be selfish, to relate everything to himself, to be proud of his home,

his father, and his big brother. Many things that would appear egotistic and selfish in a man or youth who has had opportunity to learn altruism and self-control appear normal in a child. The frank acknowledgement of personal pride, combativeness, and open self-approbation, tend to establish an individuality and a confidence which show later in the man of executive vigor and personal initiation. Do not destroy these qualities or impede their vigorous functioning. They are the most hopeful signs of future success. Repress and destroy them, and you have the timid goody-goody, who sits with folded hands and blushing cheek, afraid to call his soul his own, and always waiting as a child and adult to do another's bidding.

A strong individuality is the true starting-point; temper it gradually, show the beauty and joy of helping others, punish conscious wrong, teach justice, mercy, and forgiveness, let the playground fully show the danger of infringing on the rights of others, but let not the teacher anticipate or infringe upon nature's laws. This is effective training of the will this formation of the habit of right and vigorous performance after the emotions have been brought before the bar of the intellect and found worthy.

If Schopenhauer is right in saying that we are two thirds will and one third intellect, then the end of education is not knowledge, but character. The end of discipline is, not to preserve order, but to develop independent men and women, and the test of any training is the increment of character gradually given. Development and discipline thus assume their proper places. Development is positive, discipline is negative; development is progressive, discipline is repressive; the more you have of the one, the less you need of the other; the more completely the normal needs of the growing child and youth are supplied, the less need will there be for repressive discipline. The more you fill the mind with high ideals and right performance, the less need will there be to fight against low practices; the more moral ozone you can infuse into the air, the less you will need to fight the germs of bad conduct..

I must hasten to say a few closing words about the means of moral training ready at the hand of the teacher. If we remember that in primary stages we are to develop clear conceptions; in grammar stages, rules of conduct and clear moral concepts; and in adolescence, altruism and social and spiritual relations and obligations,-the whole school life becomes luminous with opportunity to the inventive teacher. The proper and necessary punctuality, regularity, courtesy, and quick obedience of school routine form a basis for training moral habits. Com