Mr. Felix Adler, in “The Moral Instruction of Children,” undertakes a by no means easy task in setting himself to solve the problem of unsectarian moral instruction. He brings unusual qualifications to the work--a wide outlook, philosophic training, and that catholic love of literature and knowledge of books which is essential to the teacher of morals. The work before us is one which should find a place on every educated parent’s bookshelves, not perhaps to be swallowed whole as a “complete guide,” but to be studied with careful attention and some freedom of choice as to which counsel of perfection is worthy to be acted upon, and which other counsel may be rejected as not fitting in with that scheme of educational thought which the parent has already made for himself. Mr. Adler is most seriously handicapped at the outset. He writes for American schools, in which the first condition of moral instruction is that it must be unsectarian. This he, rightly or wrongly, interprets, to exclude all theistic teaching whatever; that is to say, the child he writes for has no sanctions beyond those he finds in his own breast. For example: “It is the business of the moral instructor in the school to deliver to his pupils the subject-matter of morality, but not to deal with the sanctions of it. He says to the pupil, ‘Thou shalt not lie.’ He takes it for granted that the pupil feels the force of this commandment, and acknowledges that he ought to yield obedience to it. For my part, I should suspect of quibbling and dishonest intention any boy or girl who would ask me, Why ought I not to lie? I should hold up before such a child the _ought_ in all its awful majesty. The right to reason about these matters cannot be conceded until after the mind has attained a certain maturity.” Where does the _ought_ get its awful majesty? That there is in the human breast an infallible sense of “ought” is an error prolific of much evil. It is a popular idea to-day that it is right to do that which the doer holds to be right; or, as it is popularly expressed, a man does all that can be expected of him when he acts according to his “lights.” Now, a very slight acquaintance with history demonstrates that every persecution and most outrages, from the Inquisition to Thuggee, are the outcome of that same majesty of “ought,” as it makes its voice heard in the breast of an individual or of a community. To attempt to treat of morals without dealing with the sanctions of morality is to work from the circumference instead of from the centre.