An Introduction to Ethics, for Training Colleges/Chapter 15

by G. A. Johnston

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XV.

 

 

THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE MORAL LIFE.

 

§ 1. Morality and Social Institutions. The moral life is essentially a social life. In the moral life, no man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. The earliest experience of the child is constituted by its association with other persons. The possibility of good moral conduct depends on the fact that men and women associate with one another, with a view to some end which is conceived as common and regarded as desirable, not as a private advantage, but as a public benefit. The good that is sought is a common good. In all virtuous action the end that is subserved is a common end. When a man acts courageously and temperately and wisely and justly, his action does not terminate in himself. Even when he seems to be consulting only his private advantage, his conduct necessarily has a social reference. The good that he seeks is not isolated. It may include the good of others, or it may result in the pain and misery of others. Every one of our actions, whether we wish it or not, exercises some influence on other human beings in the social community in which we live. By our conduct we help to uphold or undermine the principles on which the various social institutions are based; and, in turn, these institutions help to mould the characters of those who are brought up in them. The most important of these institutions are the state, the family, the school, and the church. All these institutions, as we saw in Chapter III., have a firm foundation in the instinctive basis of human nature. But in their developed forms they have risen far above the merely instinctive level. As we know them, they are capable of being the centres of man's highest aspirations and noblest ideals; and they provide the arena in which his severest moral conflicts are waged and his truest moral victories gained.

While, among these moral institutions, it is the special function of the school to undertake the conscious and deliberate education of character, all the institutions perform educative functions and have an educative value. All the institutions help to form the habits and interests of those who belong to them. Many of the specially educative functions which used to be performed by the other institutions are now being delegated to the school, or claimed by it. But the state, the family, and the church still exercise an indispensable educative influence on various departments of conduct; and from the point of view of education it is unwise for the school to try to arrogate to itself the complete control and education of childhood. It must be recognised that all the institutions have their proper contribution to make to the education of the young; and whatever experiments we make in education we should be careful that the school does not encroach upon the educational functions proper to the other institutions and most efficiently performed by them.

§2. The State. The most comprehensive of all moral institutions is the state. At different times and in different countries the state has been defined in very different ways. It has been taken to mean the monarch who is the actual embodiment of the power of the state, and in whose name all laws are passed and all justice administered. "L'État c'est moi." The state is also sometimes understood to mean the executive body of ministers (e.g. "the Cabinet"), or the particular party in power (e.g. "the Liberals"), or the gathering of representatives of the people (e.g. "Parliament"). But when we speak of the state as a moral institution, we are interpreting it in a much wider sense than that. By a state we mean, an organised community of people, in which each member performs his function, exercising wisely the powers with which he is invested, and giving willing obedience to those who are set over him.

Very different views have been taken of the proper relation of the state to its individual citizens. In our own day two main views frequently come into conflict. On the one hand an extreme individualism is asserted, on the other hand is preached an extreme socialism. On the one hand there is an insistence on the rights of the individual, on the other the rights of the state are emphasised. The settlement of the controversy between socialism and individualism is one of the gravest and most pressing moral tasks which face the twentieth century. If we are to suggest lines on which the opposition between socialism and individualism may be broken down, and are to have a true conception of the proper and fruitful relations of state and citizen, we must examine briefly the meaning of socialism and individualism, and indicate the errors which they contain in the extreme form which they often assume.

Individualism emphasises the rights which the individual possesses in the state and against the state. It assumes that the individual has, to start with, a large stock of natural rights, rights to live, to work, to enjoy the produce of his work, to perform his function without molestation from other individuals or from the state itself. In particular, individualism asserts the right of liberty. Liberty, it maintains, is a natural right, and every encroachment of the state upon the private freedom of its individual citizens must be resisted to the last. It is assumed that the laws of the state and political restrictions are constantly tending to lessen the freedom of the individual ; and that individual freedom is possible only if the state and its regulations are held at arms' length. In a state of nature, it is supposed, the individual is wholly free; but as social communities develop, slice after slice is cut from his freedom until hardly anything remains. An extreme individualism regards the free life of Robinson Crusoe as its ideal. Crusoe on his solitary island was free from all state interference; no social restrictions nor moral laws nor political regulations encroached upon his liberty of thought and action. He was monarch of all he surveyed.

Now a little reflection is sufficient to show the inadequacy of an individualism of this extreme type. The whole individualist theory rests on a false view of freedom. It is not true that freedom means absolute independence of all restrictions and regulations. The purpose of laws is not to encroach upon the freedom of the individual, but to constitute it, and support it. That country is most free whose laws are most comprehensive and systematic. Real freedom is unknown in a land where justice consists in the capricious sentences of caliph or sultan. Freedom is made possible for the individual by the system of laws which the state administers. The individual's freedom does not mean simply liberty to act in accordance with the whim of the moment. Bather it implies the willingness of the individual to realise his own ideals by acting in accordance with the laws which he as a citizen may have helped to pass, which he supports by his loyal obedience to them, and which, so far from infringing upon his liberty of action, alone make it possible. The state is not, as extreme individualism implies, an alien power external to the individual and constraining his obedience by force of compulsion: it is a community of which he is a member, having a common will with which his will may be at one. In being a member of his state, he implicitly acknowledges the justice of its laws, and if by his actions he incurs the penalties which these laws sanction, the sentence is in a very real sense imposed by himself. He acknowledges the justice of the laws, for they are not imposed by an external power, but by his own state.

Socialism is one of the vaguest words in the language, but in the form in which it is often preached it is the doctrine according to which all the means of producing wealth, land, factories, machinery, and so on, should be possessed by the state. The state, it is maintained, should delegate the use of these means of production to individuals and groups of individuals justly and equitably; but the state itself should undertake all measures of great social importance, in order to ensure that they be carried out for the benefit, not of any one class or section of the community, but of the citizens as a whole. Socialism magnifies the office of the state and extends the range of its activities.

However lofty the ideals of such a socialism, it is apt to be defective or positively mischievous in practice. It tends to destroy the sense of personal responsibility in its citizens and weaken their initiative, energy, and individuality. If the citizens regard the state as simply an institution to do this for them and provide that for them, they will be apt to live not for the state but on the state. Such a socialism will make the citizens dependent on the state in spirit and will as well as in material circumstances.

Socialism and individualism, in the form in which they have been stated above, necessarily come into conflict. An individualism whose ideal is the jealous preservation and vigorous assertion of the natural rights of the individual resents what it regards as the encroachments of the state, and a socialism whose purpose is the extension of state enterprise at the expense of private initiative condemns any expansion of individual power.

But a true individualism does not necessarily clash with a true socialism. They are not inconsistent. A true individualism and a true socialism recognise that the interests of the state and the individual are not divergent; and that it does not follow that the more the activities of the state are extended the less room there will be for individual initiative. Quite the contrary. The more the functions of the state are enlarged, the greater the opportunities afforded for the development of the individual's capacities and powers. And the individual's interests are not inconsistent with those of the state. The more comprehensive and profound the interests of the individual, the more capable they are of promoting the good of the state as a whole.

When both state and citizens are strong, conflicts between them will be rare. On the other hand, when either state or citizens are unduly weak, constant collisions will occur. The regulations of the state will seem irksome to the citizens, and the pretensions of the citizens will seem to the state presumptuous. Both in state and citizens the sense of responsibility will be either weak or altogether lacking. But in the good and strong state it is recognised that the laws of the state supply the conditions under which the individual's best work can be done, and that the energy and initiative of the individual contribute not only to his own advantage, but also to the well-being of the state as a whole. Such state undertakings as the post office do not limit individual activity. Rather they widen the individual's sphere of legitimate enterprise, and enable him to use and organise more efficiently the means at his disposal.

A good state makes it possible for the individual to perform the function for which he is best fitted, and thus fulfil a worthy vocation. Every man has the right to choose his vocation, but the duty is laid upon every man to fulfil that vocation to the best of his ability. Thus, both rights and duties are involved in the fulfilment of vocation in the state. The individual has a right to follow some worthy occupation in the state; but he is under an obligation to render good service in that vocation. The state is under an obligation to provide its citizens with opportunities of finding worthy callings and working in them; but it has the right to demand that they shall not abuse these opportunities. Hence rights and duties are strictly correlative. No individual has any right which does not imply a duty; and every obligation the state enforces involves duties which it cannot refuse to perform. The individual citizen claims as a right that his house should be protected from burglary and his country from invasion. But these rights imply the duties of paying rates to his municipality and taxes to his country, and, if need be, of giving personal military service in its defence. Conversely, when the state claims as a right that its citizens should pay taxes and give service, it recognises that it is its duty to advance, as far as in it lies, their legitimate interests. It is no mere form of words that appears on the passport to which the humblest citizen is entitled: "These are to request and require in the name of His Majesty all those whom it may concern, to allow … to pass freely and without let or hindrance, and to afford him every assistance and protection of which he may stand in need." The state as a whole stands behind its meanest citizen. It guarantees his rights and encourages him in the performance of his duties. All duties and all rights are relative to society, and are maintained by it.

§3. The Family. Within the comprehensive unity of the state the most important moral institution is the family. Though—or perhaps because—it is narrower than the state, its influence is often more profound and intense. The family is the first moral institution with which the child comes in contact, and for most children the family is the primary school of character. From his earliest hours the child begins to learn the lessons that his family has to teach; and the kind of character he forms depends very largely on the sort of influences the family brings to bear upon him.

The members of a good family form a most intimate social unity. They develop a real common will, and seek a common good. They share the same joys and feel the same griefs. They seek common ends whose realisation is made possible only by a common life which involves mutual self-sacrifice. The authority of the family used to be centred legally in the father. To him belonged absolutely all the property of the family; and he possessed the right of life and death over its members. But gradually it was realised that the will of such a family was not really a common will, and its purposes were not directed to the attainment of really common ends. The family has evolved towards a real community of will and spirit by granting more rights and privileges to wife and children. The extension of rights to members of the family other than the father has greatly increased the complexity of family life, but, while it leaves more room for conflict and discord within the circle, it also provides immensely enhanced opportunities for the formation by the younger members of the family of a real common will with united interests and a social consciousness. Property can be possessed by the various members of the family individually, but it is not usually regarded by them as mine and therefore not thine. It can be both mine and thine. It is seen to be for the use of the family as a whole. And the family property is seen to be ours, to be employed by us in satisfying our common needs, and in seeking the common ends in which our private inclinations and interests have been merged.

Hence there is very little truth in the charge that the family is apt to produce selfishness. No doubt a family whose outlook is restricted and whose sympathies are narrow may be selfish as a family and may encourage selfishness in its members. But such selfishness is the exception. Even when the family as a social unit is selfish, it may foster unselfishness in its members. The family circle is a small one, and its members come into such close and intimate relation to one another, that unless they practise unselfishness and forbearance, the family could not exist at all. From one standpoint, the narrowness of the family, so far from being a defect, is one of its chief excellences. It concentrates the emotions and sentiments of its members in a centre of sympathy. This unity of feeling is very clearly seen when a special joy or sorrow falls upon any one member of the family. The family as a whole shares the joys and sorrows of any of its members: an injury to one is felt as an injury to all; if one brings disgrace upon himself, it is a disgrace to the family as a whole; if one wins success and honour, the whole family rejoices, not merely because of its pride in him, but because it feels that some at least of the credit belongs to it.

In the family the reciprocal relation of rights and duties becomes clearly manifest. The relation between parents and children is one of mutual responsibility. It has been said that in the family of past time the rights of parents and the duties of children were emphasised, while in the family of the present day the rights of children and the duties of parents are prominent. Though there is some truth in this, it is truer that we are only beginning to realise the full implications of the mutual responsibilities involved in family life. We are only gradually coming to understand the extent of the duties of parents to their children and of children to their parents.

As an educative institution the family is the nurse of virtue. Goodness is taught not only by precept, but by the example of mother and father and brothers and sisters. The child learns much from the conversation that takes place in the family circle, his curiosity is stimulated, he asks questions, acquires information, and begins to take up an attitude to life. But, since the influence of the family may not be a good one, the family may also become the foster-mother of many of the vices. The early nurture that we receive in the family is probably a more potent influence for good or evil than anything else in our lives. The family teaches the preciousness of mutual affection and the value of common purposes and ideals. The relation of parents to children is so intimate that the parents ought to know far better than outsiders can in what cases the child should be encouraged to bear his own burdens, and in what circumstances a stronger and wiser hand should lend assistance. The parents ought to know where the child needs to learn the lesson of self-help, and where the duty of mutual assistance should be advised and exemplified.

One important result of this educative process is the development of the individuality of the child. To strangers the child may seem just like any other child; but to his parents he is unique: he is "like his dear self alone." The growth of his individuality is largely influenced by the intense affection and interest with which his early steps are guided.

At present, owing to a variety of causes, the family seems to be in danger of losing its fitness to help the child in the task of character-building. These causes are partly economic. Self-help is not so necessary and not so possible in the family of to-day as it was a century ago. Prof. Dewey speaks of the time, only one or two generations ago, "when the household was practically the centre in which was carried on, or about which were clustered, all the typical forms of industrial occupation. The clothing worn was for the most part not only made in the house, but the members of the household were usually familiar with the shearing of the sheep, the carding and spinning of the wool, and the plying of the loom. … Practically every member of the household had his own share in the work. The children, as they gained in strength and capacity, were gradually initiated into the mysteries of the various processes. It was a matter of immediate and personal concern, even to the point of actual participation. We cannot overlook the factors of discipline and of character-building involved in this: training in habits of order and of industry, and in the idea of responsibility, of obligation to do something, to produce something in the world. There was always something which really needed to be done; and a real necessity that each member of the household should do his own part faithfully and in co-operation with others."^[1] In the modern family all this has been changed. It is often very difficult for the child to find any way in which his help will be of real use to the family, and it is consequently often very difficult for him to conceive the common purposes of the family. The community of will and purpose in the modern family is as real as ever it was, but because it is now so purely spiritual a thing, it is harder for the child to recognise its reality.

And there are other causes of a vague social kind which are affecting the efficiency of the family as a moral institution. " Thirty years ago, the large majority of women could enter upon their married life with the confidence of experience, gained as part of the usual equipment of their normal home surroundings. To-day, it is lamentably, almost ludicrously, frequent to find girls of twenty-one who have never washed an infant, cut out a night-gown, or passed disturbed nights with a teething youngster. There is a natural reluctance to perform duties with which we are unfamiliar; and the feeling of dislike, the sense of almost impotent despair with which many of them regard the possibility of having to undertake such offices, is a speaking comment on our present system of higher education for women."^[2] The result of this is, that the mother is only too ready to relegate the care of the infant to a nurse. The child sees very little of its mother or father; it is in the family, but not of it. Such a family as this consists really of the parents alone: to all intents and purposes the children are outside it. For these and other reasons, the family is more and more becoming inadequate as an educative institution, and the functions which it ought to perform are more and more being transferred to the school. This process is taking place in all grades of society. At the top of the social scale, children are packed off to a preparatory boarding-school at a very early age; at the lowest levels the child is provided for outside the home in crèches and kindergarten schools, and is often fed, clothed, and supplied with books by the educational authorities. To an ever-increasing extent the school is being forced to undertake the responsibility of the education of the characters of the nation's children.

§ 4. The School. With singular unanimity educators affirm that the ultimate aim of the school is the education of character. "That it should train character is one of the very few general statements about education which meet with universal assent."^[3] The English code claims that elementary education should aim at the training of character. "The teachers," it says, "can do much to lay the foundations of conduct. They can endeavour, by example and influence, aided by the sense of discipline that should pervade the school, to implant in the children habits of industry, self-control, and courageous perseverance in the face of difficulties: they can teach them to reverence what is noble, to be ready for self-sacrifice, and to strive their utmost after purity and truth; they can foster a strong sense of duty, and instil in them that consideration and respect for others which must be the foundation of unselfishness and the true basis of all good manners; while the corporate life of the school, especially in the playground, should develop that instinct for fair play and for loyalty to one another which is the germ of a wider sense of honour in later life."^[4]

This comprehensive aim cannot be realised unless the teachers are dominated by a conviction that the purpose of the school is an ethical one, and that they are fulfilling their vocation truly only in so far as they are helping their pupils to become upright members of the community in which they live, and worthy citizens of the country to which they belong. And they cannot do that unless they are themselves men and women of character, whose conduct corroborates the lessons they attempt to teach." The teacher must be so penetrated with the ethical nature of his task, and so governed in all he does by the ethical aim of his vocation as giving life and significance to all he teaches and all he does, that he cannot fail to mould the thoughts of his pupils to those high conceptions of duty, justice, humanity, and religion, which are the bond of society and the sole guarantee of its stability and progress. He must, in short, himself be dominated by ethical passion; and both the subjects taught and the methods pursued must be regarded by him as instruments for attaining an ethical result."^[5]

Granted, then, that the ultimate purpose of the school is an ethical one, and that the teachers must themselves be men and women of character, it must now be asked, How is the school to perform this task of moral education?

On this question there are two sharply contrasted views, which have divided the educational world into two opposed camps. One party holds that the ends of moral education are most effectively promoted by moral instruction, the other that moral education, to be of any value, must be either primarily or wholly moral training. The aim of moral training is to help the child to form good habits of conduct; moral instruction seeks to give the child right ideas about conduct. Moral training insists that the important thing in life is that the child should as a matter of fact act rightly. Moral instruction claims that the child should not only act rightly, but should know why he acts rightly.

This difference in aim is reflected in the different methods advocated by the two parties. Moral training is essentially indirect, moral instruction is direct.

Moral training is secured by the discipline of the school, maintained by the authority of the teacher and senior scholars; by the duties and responsibilities which the older children assume in organised school games; by the manifold influences of the corporate life of the school; and by the disciplinary and inspiring effect of the studies of the school curriculum. By making use of all these instruments for moral training, the wise teacher may exercise an influence, all the more profound because the child is unconscious of it. on the formation of his pupil's character.

On the other hand, moral instruction gives definite information and exhortation on definite points, and looks for definite results. It believes in the importance of knowledge, and holds that the best way to direct the child's conduct is to tell him what is right and what is wrong, and why it is right and why it is wrong. Moral instruction may be given in different ways and on different occasions, but it is always definitely instruction. It may be given as a formal lesson at a regular hour, or as an informal talk as occasion arises, or in an incidental word or two in connection with some historical character or fact, or it may be veiled in parabolic form in story or poem. But in all cases alike the aim is to educate the child's character by giving him right ideas about conduct.

Now, many theorists set up these two views in sharp opposition to one another, some insisting on the value of moral training, others maintaining that moral instruction is of greater importance. But it is quite unnecessary, and may be highly mischievous, to state the issue as "moral training versus moral instruction." In practice, we are not confined to one of the two alternatives. We need not make an irrevocable decision to stake all either on moral training or on moral instruction. Both are necessary to moral education, and the methods advocated by both may therefore be employed.

In most schools there is some moral instruction. In many cases regular periods are set aside on the school time-table at which the teacher gives lessons on temperance, thrift, hygiene, and good manners. In other cases the headmaster has "talks" to gatherings of the children in his school. But in most schools instruction is given, not according to a pre-arranged scheme, but incidentally as occasion offers. While much controversy still rages as to the best methods of imparting moral instruction, there is practical unanimity that direct moral instruction in some.form should be given. This was established by the important and representative committee which was appointed in 1907 to conduct an international inquiry into the influence of education upon character and conduct. Their elaborate report, issued under the title Moral Instruction and Training in Schools, embodies the result of much patient investigation of the practice and theory of moral instruction throughout the world, and contains the recommendation that direct moral instruction should be given in all public elementary schools.

In the attempt to give moral instruction, two mistakes have to be avoided. (1) The moral lesson should not be made to seem the same as any other lesson. While the teacher should certainly follow some plan in giving his course of lessons, they will have most influence on the children if the teacher attaches them to some "text," e.g. some important or striking event in the school or neighbourhood or state. If this be done, the lessons are much more likely to strike home than if they simply issued from a cast-iron scheme. But while the lessons will be all the more effective if they appear to be informal and incidental, there should be system in the teacher's mind. The teacher should have clearly before his mind's eye at the beginning of the session what he wants to teach the children, and should constantly ask himself, "Am I succeeding in teaching what I intended to teach?"

(2) The teacher should also remember that merely to impart knowledge about right and wrong and good and evil is not moral instruction. The comparative failure of moral instruction in France has been due almost entirely to the fact that this apparently obvious truth has been overlooked. In his sympathetic report on moral education in France, Mr. Harrold Johnson, Secretary of the Moral Instruction League, says, "No child need leave the French public primary school in ignorance of the fundamental moral distinctions. And so far this is excellent. But one is not always so sure that he leaves with firmly embedded moral principles and with any considerable driving power towards good. Moral instruction of a kind he has. Has he not committed to heart hundreds of résumés of moral lessons; repeated hundreds of them word for word; inscribed countless maxims in his copy-books; composed numerous compositions on all the virtues; gazed daily on mottoes on the blackboard and the walls; copied them in the writing-lesson—by every means, at every hour, has he not had moral facts impressed on his memory, even if they have not penetrated deeper into his constitution?"^[6] If these are the only results moral instruction has to show, it stands self-condemned. French moral teaching is too artificial. It has no point of contact with the actual life of the child. Now, if the teacher knows his children, he can make the moral lesson really touch their lives. The pupils should be made to realise that the moral lesson is concerned not with abstract distinctions, but with the actual task of "fighting the good fight," in which they are all engaged.

Moral education should seek to secure that the child not only knows what is right and what is wrong, but that he learns to love what is good and hate what is evil. In the struggle of the moral life we should not merely know what we fight for, but should love what we know.^[7] Though we may agree that "evil is wrought by want of thought as well as by want of heart," yet it is also true that a man will never do his best in the moral struggle unless his heart is in the fight.

In order that moral principles may not remain simply facts known, but may become dynamic forces in conduct, moral education must, in addition to proceeding by way of instruction, make use of every means of actual moral training.

We have seen, in former chapters, how the instincts and impulses and desires of the child may be controlled and directed, how his emotions and sentiments may be developed and organised, how his will may be trained and his conscience enlightened. These aspects of moral education have already been dealt with at length, and we mention them again only to emphasise that in all these ways the growing self of the child is undergoing moral training.

The moral training of the child is furthered by the corporate life of the school of which he is a pupil. Though "corporate life" has a very vague sound, and would be very difficult to define, it exercises an influence that is all the more pervasive because it so often operates subtly and imperceptibly. The corporate life of the school is part of the child's social environment. The social environment as a whole affects the child intensely and profoundly; but when its forces are focussed in the narrow but most vigorous life of the school, its influence becomes strictly incalculable. From the corporate life of the school, which includes all that we mean by its "spirit" or "tone" or "tradition," the child adopts the conventions that determine his moral standards; and his moral ideals are apt to be high or low in proportion as the ideals expressed in the corporate life of the school are high or low. The corporate life of the school, maintained by the scholars and fostered by the teachers, not only influences the children in the formation of their moral ideals and the adoption of their moral standards, but helps to train them in the application of these standards and the realisation of these ideals, by granting them certain responsibilities for the maintenance of school discipline and the preservation of school honour.

As a factor in the training of character the ordinary school curriculum is also of importance. The course of studies as a whole, if it be well planned and the subjects well taught, ought to be the means of exerting an influence on character. But from the ethical standpoint, certain parts of it are of peculiarly great significance. It is obvious that literature and history, drawing and music, and manual activities are all capable of exercising a great influence on the development of character. It is a mistake to ask, Which has the greatest influence? Their influence is greatest when they are all present, for each subject has its special contribution to make to moral training. In the study of literature and history, the child's attitude is passive and receptive; it receives passively the ideals which literature and history have to teach it. On the other hand, in manual activity the mind is active and re-creative. It strives to express its ideals, to reproduce them in tangible and visible form, to impose its will on wood or stone or marble. And in drawing and music both these attitudes are present together. On the one hand, the mind is passive and receptive in so far as it allows the melody of a piece of music or the beauty of a landscape to impress it; but active and re-creative in so far as it seeks to express the melody it has heard or the composition it has read or the beauty it has seen—to express them in beautiful sounds or lines or colours. These studies are morally valuable, not merely because they educate eye and ear and mind and will, but because they educate them not disproportionately but harmoniously.

But the most potent factor in all moral education has still to be mentioned. It is the personality of the teacher. The teacher can scarcely hope to exert an influence on the hidden springs of conduct of his pupils, unless he possesses the mysterious power of personality. Mysterious it is, like everything great and real; but though it is more easily felt than defined, some of the elements which go to constitute it may be mentioned. It includes a generous sympathy, combined with an acute moral insight; tact and prudence, combined with frankness of spirit and candour of heart; a sense of fairness and justice manifested in self-discipline and in a genuine respect for the rights and the infirmities of others; and, above all, a consciousness of vocation. The personality of the teacher is centred in his sense of vocation. A reasoned enthusiasm for education and a conviction of its value, a firm faith in goodness and in the possibilities of training in goodness, lofty ideals which repeated disappointment and failure cannot shatter, and a whole-hearted loyalty to the cause to which he has dedicated his life—these, and nothing less than these, are the essential qualities of the teacher who hopes to exercise an influence on the development of character.

But the best teacher is the first to recognise that the school cannot do everything. While the concentration of the school on moral education does give special power to its work, it is, after all, only one of the institutions by which the child is influenced; and it is only when it is leagued with the others that it performs its own proper functions most effectively. In particular, the school looks to the church for assistance in the task of inspiring children with noble ideals, and furnishing them with a real driving power towards good. The religious spirit may be present in the school; indeed the power of many schools has been due largely to their strong religious atmosphere; but, in general, religious influences must be supplied by the church.

§5. The Church. The church differs in an important respect from the institutions which we have already considered. It is a voluntary society, and a man may be a member of it or not, as he pleases. A man not merely chooses to be an adherent of some particular religion, and a member of some particular denomination, he chooses whether or no he will be connected with any religious society at all. But participation in the activities of all the other institutions is obligatory. The child must be a member of some family, and a national of some state; and when he is old enough he must go to some school. The family, the school, and the state are institutions under whose influence he is bound to come.^[8] But with the church it is different. Unless his parents have chosen to associate themselves with some religious society, the child will never receive that training which the church is peculiarly well fitted to give. There can be little doubt that the child who is debarred from learning the lessons which the church has to teach is being severely handicapped for the struggle of the moral life. At all times the church has exercised a profound moral influence; and that in two ways.

(1) The church has done more than all the other institutions put together to cherish lofty ideals, ideals which are capable of becoming in the characters of those who are inspired by them, not the empty visions of a day-dream, but dynamic forces with a real driving power towards good. There is all the difference in the world between sentimental visions and operative ideals. A sentimental vision is blind to reality, and seeks to live in an unreal realm from which all evil and misery have been excluded. But an operative ideal is firmly founded in the bedrock of things as they are. Yet it recognises that this is not the best of all possible worlds, and it is convinced that all moral progress consists in the attempt to attain an ideal goal. The ideal is itself the force which demands loyalty to its claims, and which directs the whole process of the moral life. It supplies motives for conduct, it is an incentive to action, and, though it is never completely realised, it is the source of all man's moral endeavour. Such an ideal, loyalty to which is suffused with a passionate enthusiasm for the good and the true, is rarely found in one who has not been influenced by the church. Religious ideals are not only more intense and dynamic than others, they are also more comprehensive. A noble enthusiasm for humanity organises a man's life as a whole, and inspires his every thought and deed to be serviceable to its comprehensive ends. His interests become unified, and his purposes systematic, for all are regarded as having worth only in relation to his governing ideal.

(2) In particular, the vital church inspires its members by precept and by example with the spirit of loyal service. Whenever the church fails to inculcate the duty of loyal service, it ceases to deserve the name. The church consists of those who believe that they possess "good news" of incalculable value; and it is not a real church unless it seeks to enlist all its members in the service of "the good cause of the world." This is service and the highest kind of service.

The reason why the church is so successful in instilling the spirit of service is not far to seek. It demands loyalty, not to an abstract idea or to a vague cause, but to a Person. Now the child (and not only the child) naturally tends to personify its ideals. While an ideal in the abstract has no meaning for it, a person excites its interest, claims its respect, and influences its actions. Hence the child is readily attracted to such an ideal figure as Jesus, and willingly takes up an attitude of personal loyalty to him. Jesus appeals to the child as a real person, whose ideal character is framed in a setting of common incidents and familiar situations. This person, the child is taught, claims from it loyal service, which need not be given in any special calling, but may be rendered in performing the duties of any worthy occupation. For the world is the scene of a great struggle between the forces of evil and the powers of good; and on this field no post is secular.

In the past, the church has deserved well of the world for the loyal service it has animated; and to-day more than ever before we need to learn the lesson it has to teach. Such ideals as those of "humanitarianism" or "social service," noble as they are, have conspicuously failed, when divorced from religion, to elicit any considerable wealth of loyal service. The church, with all its weaknesses and faults, still enjoys a unique power, and sustains a unique responsibility as the institution which, above all others, inspires men and women with the noblest ideals, and stimulates them to work them out in the activities of loyal service.

§6. Moral Progress and Optimism. For thousands of years these moral institutions, the church, the state, the school, and the family, have been in existence; and sometimes we feel a doubt whether, after all, the toil of ages has not been in vain. Have these institutions succeeded in raising the general level of character and improving the general conditions of life? Can we indulge any sure and certain hope that the work of education will be increasingly fruitful? Or is the apparent progress of the world illusory?

The question whether there has been moral progress in the past is a question of fact. On the whole, it is generally agreed that if we survey the history of the world as a whole, it is possible to trace a general movement, which, in spite of many reactions and retrogressions, has been one of moral advance. The great moral institutions are in many respects more powerful than ever they were, and on the whole they maintain with greater equity than in any previous age the rights and duties, the privileges and obligations, of their members.

But even those who would be inclined to deny that the world has seen any real moral progress are prepared to admit that in all the tale of history, discouraging as it often is, there is nothing to prevent us cherishing the hope that the future will be better than the present. We have a right to this hope, and it is only as this hope becomes an ideal to inspire our work, that we can render our best service. Only the optimist can give loyal and whole-hearted service. Unless a man believes in the value of his work and the future of his cause, he cannot throw himself with all his energy into the tasks of his vocation.

But it is well to remember not merely that we have a right to be optimistic, but that optimism is imposed upon us almost as a duty. For optimism is a kind of courage. True optimism does not consist in building castles in the air and hiding like an ostrich from things as they are. Such a combination of sentimentality and timidity is removed by the world's breadth from true optimism. True optimism does not refuse to look facts in the face, nor does it indulge in futile day-dreams. It recognises the evil and misery in the world, it is conscious of ignorance and failure and sin, but it believes that its ideals are capable of being progressively realised in the world as it is. The optimistic man is perfectly courageous: optimism has been called "the horizon of courage." He is not deterred by the obstacles and hazards which he perceives in the path of moral progress. And when he fails, as often he must, in the moral struggle, his failure does not fill him with despair. Rather, it becomes the incentive to a fresh determination and renewed effort. It is "the sting that bids not sit, nor stand, but go."

Such an optimism is peculiarly necessary to us as teachers. For, though in no profession is it possible to have higher ideals, in none is it easier to be content with low ones. When we see how very inadequately some of those who cherish lofty ideals of their vocation succeed in fulfilling its tasks, and when we have ourselves conspicuously failed in achieving the great results for which we had hoped, we are very apt to "lose heart," become pessimistic and cynical, and decide to rest content with doing the minimum of work and securing mediocre results. It is then that a courageous optimism is necessary. For such an optimism means a refusal to acknowledge defeat, it involves a conviction that human nature is infinitely capable of improvement, and it is inspired by faith and hope that, if loyal service be rendered, failure will not always be its meed.

 

For further reading: C. F. D'Arcy: Short Study of Ethics, xii. and xiii.; Helen Bosanquet: The Family, x. and xiii.; J. Dewey: The School and Society, i. and ii.; J. H. Muirhead: The Service of the State, i.-iii.; J. R. Seeley: Ecce Homo, iii., vii., ix., xi., xiv., xvi.; Sir Henry Jones: Idealism as a Practical Creed, vi. and vii.; Graham Wallas: The Great Society, xi.-xiii.

1. J. Dewey: The School and Society, pp. 22-24.
2. W. C. D. and C. D. Whetham: Heredity and Society, p. 91.
3. Welton: Psychology of Education, p. 463.
4. Code of Regulations for Elementary Day Schools in England.
5. S. S. Laurie: Institutes of Education, p. ix.
6. Moral Instruction and Training in Schools, ii. 17.
7. Cf. Cromwell in his letter to Sir William Spring: "I had rather have a plain russet-coated Captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than that which you call a 'gentleman' and is nothing else. I honour a gentleman that is so indeed" (Carlyle: Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, i. 147).
8. Exceptional cases are possible.