Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/121

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

moral awakening in contact with society. Society is the mirror in which one sees a reflection of himself, and comes to realize himself and his character. The school of the people, which is in an important sense an epitome of that larger world which he is to enter, furnishes an admirable field for development. Moreover, it is a community where the restraint, the guidance, the ideals come of right from properly constituted authority. The whole problem of objective relations and corresponding subjective values may find illustration and experiment in the daily life of the school. The constructive imagination may be employed to infer from experiences in school to larger experiences of kindred quality in the field of life. By judging real or supposed cases of conduct the pupil makes at least a theoretical choice. By learning and interpreting characters and events in history his view is broadened.

The whole school curriculum should contribute to moral development. Whatever of intellect, emotion, and will is exercised in a rational field expands the soul normally. The pursuit of studies with the right spirit, and with regard for the activities and relations incidental thereto, is moral growth. Studies awaken rational interest, cultivate habits of industry, are devoted to the discovery of truth, reveal important relations of the individual to society, and present the purest ideals of the race. There is hardly a more valuable moralizer than healthy employment itself, employment that engages the whole man—perception, imagination, thought, emotion, and will—employment that looks toward ennobling and useful consequences, employment that has the sanction of every consideration that regards man's full develop-