THE INDIRECT EDUCATION OF THE WILL

PROFESSOR HERMAN H. HORNE, PH.D.

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

By the direct education of the will, is usually meant teaching the will how to act, teaching morality, instilling right ideas, giving ethical instruction. By the indirect education of the will, I mean getting hold of the moral nature through action, rather than through instruction. Direct instruction must be present, but must be secondary to the control of conduct. The direct education of the will, through ethical teaching, utilizes the sensory processes; the indirect education of the will, through moral action, utilizes the motor processes. From the beginning of education until now the sensory processes have been overworked by teachers. When we recognize that the intellect is the outgrowth of the sensory processes, and the will of the motor processes, we are led to affirm the superiority of cultivating the will by action to cultivating it by instruction.

What, then, are the principles that should guide us in cultivating the will through action? To refer to a few of these in order: 1. We must utilize the inherited racial store of natural instincts and interests. Man has all the instincts and interests of the lower animal, and some of them, like constructiveness, imitation, and cleanliness, more highly developed. In natural life these inborn instincts are overlaid by reason; in adolescent life they are beginning to be; in young life they control. The moral problem of elementary education is the organization of these manifold natural and inherited instincts and impulses.

How shall they be organized? Not by crushing them out-they cannot be crushed out; nor by leaving them alone-they will run riot; nor even by impressing ideas upon them as their governors - they do not yet acknowledge the sovereignty of ideas;-but by directing their expression toward legitimate objects.

Children will imitate? Then provide worthy models for their imitation. Children are naturally constructive? Then provide courses in manual training and domestic science. Children will play? Then provide ample recesses and good games, and recognize play as a legitimate educator. Children are acquisitive? Then provide shelves for natural-history specimens. Children obey the group-impulse? Then let parents and teachers join in organizing proper bands and clubs. Children are curious? Then provide legitimate difficulties to engage

their curiosity. Children instinctively fear? Make the consequences of wrong-doing such as justly to excite their fear. Children so easily fly into a passion? When the fury is past, show the boy some wrong inflicted upon the innocent, and let his anger kindle as a flame to right it. Children are so secretive? Agree with them to keep all evil reports about another. Children are so emulous of each other? Confront each one with his own weak past self to excel. They are envious of another's good fortune? Point to some man of good character as having the most enviable treasure. And so on through the list. Catch the instinct in the act, and direct it toward a legitimate object. To do so skillfully is actually to fashion the good will.

2. Aim at a specific right act, instead of at a general principle of conduct. Save the deeds, and the habits will take care of themselves. There may be a cripple in school, or one slightly deficient in some sense-organ; there are sick persons in the neighborhood; secure some particular child to share to-day the other's burden. The deed of kindness done gives the child a new and finer feeling, itself a motive for another deed. Not moralizing, but incidental moral practice, is our better plan.

3. Let us form in the pupil's mind an indissoluble association between pleasure and right-doing, and pain and wrong-doing. To get pleasure and avoid pain is a part of our ancestral inheritance. These are practically the only motives of animals. They are the ruling motives of our children. In adolescent and mature life they are supplemented by higher incentives, and sometimes really supplanted, as in doing right for right's sake and in self-sacrifice. The progress to that high stage must be as rapid as possible through the pleasure-pain epoch. Let no real school offense go unpunished. "Pain is the rudder of education," said Aristotle. Let no faithful performance of duty go unrewarded. To enter into the joys of right-doing is part of a moral order. For the joy that is set before them, our pupils may come to endure the cross, despising the shame.

4. The great habit in organizing impulses, the saving virtue of childhood, is obedience. It implies righteous authority somewhere, and power to discipline. Obedience is the surrender of the whole personality to righteous rule. Outward conformity is but the shell of it. I do not say children must be taught the virtue of obedience, but this; children must obey. To obey is not to submit; it is to let the higher nature rule. The use of the child's interest does not mean to permit him to do as he pleases, but that he should find his pleasure in doing the right.

It will help us in forming this virtue to remember that directions for young children should be definite, rather than general; uniform, rather than inconsistent; and righteous, rather than questionable. The ultimate basis is not our authority as teachers, but its righteousness.

5. Inspire a passion for right ideals. To do so, is to use the lever of feeling in moving the will. These two-feeling and will are so closely related that many psychologists identify them. To love the right supremely is a sure means of doing it. How shall such a passion be inspired? When it already animates the teacher's life; when a genuine and personal interest is taken in the best welfare of each pupil, when the school environment is made to suggest the beautiful; when the positive, rather than the negative, values in life are emphasized, and when an humble and reverent attitude is always maintained, when the treatment is of great themes. It is not necessary to preach the importance of virtue when we show forth a simple natural, winsome life in the midst of imitative children. We truly educate the will, not when we teach what were good to do, but when we fill little selves full of ourselves, who are Christ's, who is God's.

TESTED METHODS OF INCULCATING RELIGION AND

MORALS

"RELIGIONSUNTERRICHT," AND ITS RESULTS

MR. EDWARD O. SISSON, B. Sc., A. B.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS

Every school programme in Germany begins with Religion. Every child must be instructed in religion. In general, it may be said that the state provides three varieties, Protestant, Catholic, and, usually, Jewish. The parent may choose from these which he will, or he is free to seek or provide other instruction, more in accordance with his creed, provided he can satisfy the Department of Instruction as to the quantity and quality of this instruction. In actual fact, the vast majority profess one of the three prevailing faiths, and send their children to the corresponding instruction. The religious instruction is, in all cases, confessional; i. e., distinctively Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish.

One must bear in mind that the school in Germany is formed and governed by the state. The people, in general, have no voice in its curriculum or methods. With respect to the religious instruction, the real control is in the hands of the church authorities, who are, of course, themselves state officials.

My remarks will be confined to the Protestant, or in German phrase, evangelical, instruction, and will refer, where nothing is said to the contrary, to Prussia, for the reason that Prussia is the acknowledged leader in educational as well as in other affairs. Further, by the term "school," the public elementary school will be meant, unless otherwise specified.

I. THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN THE CURRICULUM. For the first three years of school life, from six to nine, religion has three hours a week; for the other five years, four hours a week. This makes a total of, roughly, 1,500 hours of instruction in religion in the elementary school. Religion gets a little over 13 per cent of the whole school time; only two subjects exceed it; the mother-tongue, including reading and composition, has 24 per cent, and arithmetic a trifle over 15 per cent.

This long series of lessons, extending through the whole school life, and having the same thorough and exacting character as other Prussian instruction, must impress us with the largeness of the work,

affecting, as it does, every child of whatever birth or rank, and so becoming the heritage of every adult Prussian.

II. THE SUBJECT-MATTER. The religious instruction includes four main constituents: 1. The Bible. 2. Luther's Shorter Catechism. 3. Hymns and prayers. 4. Church knowledge. In the higher schools, the gymnasiums and realschulen, there is added a small amount of doctrinal theology and Christian ethics.

1. Bible-study. The study of the Bible forms the backbone of the instruction. In the early years, it consists of Bible stories from Old and New Testaments, narrated freely by the teacher, and learned by the pupils, so that they can recite them readily. When the pupils can read, a book of selected stories, in words suited to their years, is put into their hands. The stories are those which are commonly taught in our Sunday schools. The list usually includes all varieties, pedagogically considered, from "Jesus in the Temple” and “Abraham's Unselfishness to Lot " to "The Sacrifice of Isaac" and "The Slaying of the Prophets of Baal."

In the last four or five years, Bible-reading takes the place of the Bible stories. Either the full Bible or an expurgated school Bible is used. There is a sharp conflict of opinion concerning the two plans; the teachers are, in general, strongly in favor of the school Bible, but the ecclesiastical authorities block its introduction to a large extent, insisting that the children must have the whole Bible in their hands, and this, in spite of the well-known fact that the boys get together and batten on the objectionable passages. The Bible-reading has the aim of giving a connected idea of the Bible, as a whole, and, in particular, of the development of the plan of salvation-"History of Redemption," as it is called in the courses of study.

At this time there is a little so-called "Bible-lore," the names and sequence of the books, a little Biblical geography, some points — very conservative concerning origin and authorship, and the like.

A good deal of the Bible is learned by heart; single verses, or "sayings," are learned and used, in a sense, as proof-texts for the catechism. In Berlin, where the memory-work is at a minimum, they learn fifty short passages, including about one hundred verses and five Psalms (Ps. 1, 23, 90, 121, 130). The Scripture, thus learned, is called for constantly to illustrate and emphasize points of teaching.

2. Catechism. Luther's Shorter Catechism includes five parts: 1. The Ten Commandments. 2. The Apostles' Creed. 2. The Apostles' Creed. 3. The Lord's Prayer. 4. The Sacrament of Baptism. 5. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.