The Elements of General Method | Page 4

Having once firmly grasped this idea, they will find that
there is no other having half its potency. It will put a substantial
foundation under educational labors, both theoretical and practical,
which will make them the noblest of enterprises. Can we expect the
public school to drop into such a purely subordinate function as that of
intellectual training; to limit its influence to an almost mechanical
action, the sharpening of the mental tools? Stated in this form, it
becomes an absurdity.
Is it reasonable to suppose that the rank and file of our teachers will
realize the importance of this aim in teaching so long as it has no
recognition in our public system of instruction? The moral element is
largely present among educators as an instinct, but it ought to be
evolved into a clear purpose with definite means of accomplishment. It
is an open secret in fact, that while our public instruction is ostensibly
secular, having nothing to do directly with religion or morals, there is
nothing about which good teachers are more thoughtful and anxious
than about the means of moral influence. Occasionally some one from
the outside attacks our public schools as without morals and godless,
but there is no lack of staunch defenders on moral grounds.
Theoretically and even practically, to a considerable extent, we are all
agreed upon the great value of moral education. But there is a striking
inconsistency in our whole position on the school problem. While the
supreme value of the moral aim will be generally admitted, it has no

open recognition in our school course, either as a principal or as a
subordinate aim of instruction. Moral education is not germane to the
avowed purposes of the public school. If it gets in at all it is by the back
door. It is incidental, not primary. The importance of making the
leading aim of education clear and conscious to teachers, is great. If
their conviction on this point is not clear they will certainly not
concentrate their attention and efforts upon its realization. Again, in a
business like education, where there are so many important and
necessary results to be reached, it is very easy and common to put
forward a subordinate aim, and to lift it into undue prominence, even
allowing it to swallow up all the energies of teacher and pupils. Owing
to this diversity of opinion among teachers as to the results to be
reached, our public schools exhibit a chaos of conflicting theory and
practice, and a numberless brood of hobby-riders.
How to establish the moral aim in the center of the school course, how
to subordinate and realize the other educational aims while keeping this
chiefly in view, how to make instruction and school discipline
contribute unitedly to the formation of vigorous moral character, and
how to unite home, school, and other life experiences of a child in
perfecting the one great aim of education--these are some of the
problems whose solution will be sought in the following chapters.
It will be especially our purpose to show how school instruction can be
brought into the direct service of character-building. This is the point
upon which most teachers are skeptical. Not much effort has been made
of late to put the best moral materials into the school course. In one
whole set of school studies, and that the most important (reading,
literature, and history), there is opportunity through all the grades for a
vivid and direct cultivation of moral ideas and convictions. The second
great series of studies, the natural sciences, come in to support the
moral aims, while the personal example and influence of the teacher,
and the common experiences and incidents of school life and conduct,
give abundant occasion to apply and enforce moral ideas.
That the other justifiable aims of education, such as physical training,
mental discipline, orderly habits, gentlemanly conduct, practical utility

of knowledge, liberal culture, and the free development of individuality
will not be weakened by placing the moral aim in the forefront of
educational motives, we are convinced. To some extent these questions
will be discussed in the following pages.
CHAPTER II.
RELATIVE VALUE OF STUDIES.
Being convinced that the controlling aim of education should be moral,
we shall now inquire into the relative value of different studies and
their fitness to reach and satisfy this aim. As measured upon this
cardinal purpose, what is the intrinsic value of each school study? The
branches of knowledge furnish the materials upon which a child's mind
works. Before entering upon such a long and up-hill task as education,
with its weighty results, it is prudent to estimate not only the end in
view, but the best means of reaching it. Many means are offered, some
trivial, others valuable. A careful measurement, with some reliable