Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/257

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
240
AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS.

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