Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/53

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36
AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS.

of the individual child. To do this, it is necessary to know something of the child's parents. In the rural school this is quite possible, and the excellence of the results obtained by the old educational system of rural Scotland was largely due to the intimacy of the relation which usually existed between the village dominie and the parents of his pupils. In the city school it is rarely possible, except in isolated instances, for the teacher to meet his pupils' parents. In some kindergarten schools opportunities are provided for teachers and parents to meet. This experiment might usefully be extended to all elementary schools.[1] Regular social evenings might be promoted by the school, to which parents would be invited, and thus have an opportunity of meeting their children's teachers.[2] If one looks at the matter sanely, it is one of the most absurd things in the world that parents and teachers, the two groups which have the most profound influence on the development of the child's character, should work in entire ignorance of one another's aims and aspirations for the children.

But under present conditions the teacher must usually be content to study the child alone. He should certainly do this. As education becomes more and more systematised, there is great danger that an artificially mechanical scheme may ignore the individual differences between children. The teacher must seek to counteract one of the necessary

  1. Many schools have "Parents' Days," on which the parents may come and see their children at work.
  2. This is already done in many schools. See Moral Instruction and Training in Schools, edited by M. E. Sadler, p. 121.