Do not expect to get the facts concerning these suggested conditions by inquiry among your children. They are reticent, naturally, on such matters when talking with adults; besides, the sense of school honor holds them to silence. If they tell you voluntarily, you are happy in their free confidence. Do not betray it; simply let it lead you to make further inquiry at the school from the authorities and stimulate you to insist that, for the sake of the spiritual good of the young, the school must furnish conditions of moral health. I. References for Study Ella Lyman Cabot, _Voluntary Help to the Schools_, chaps. vii, viii. Houghton Mifflin Co., $0.60. W.A. Baldwin, "The Home and the Public Schools," _Religious Education_, February, 1912. $0.65. II. Further Reading M. Sadler, _Moral Instruction and Training in Schools_. 2 vols. Longmans. John Dewey, _The School and Society_. The University of Chicago Press, $1.00. Smith, _All the Children of All the People_. Macmillan, $1.50. G.A. Coe, "Virtue and the Virtues," _Religious Education_, February, 1912. III. Topics for Discussion 1. What ought parents to know about public-school life? 2. In visiting a school what may the parent do to acquire information in the proper way? 3. How may the home co-operate with the school? 4. What degree of instruction in morals ought the school to give? 5. In what way does the school best help in moral training? 6. What do you know about the conditions on the playgrounds of your own school? CHAPTER XIX DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES Moral crises arise in every family. Deeply as we may desire to maintain an even tenor of character-development, in harmony and quietness, occasions will bring either our own imperfections or those of our children--or of our neighbors' children--to a focus and throw them in high relief on the screen. Progress comes not alone in perpetual placidity. When temper slips from control, when angry passions rule, when the spirit under discipline rebels, when a course of petty wrongdoing comes to a head, when secret sins are discovered, and when we suddenly find ourselves confronted with a tragic problem in the higher life, it is still important to remember that the crisis is just as truly a part of the educational process as is the orderly, gradual method of development. A moral crisis is an experience in which our acts are such, or have such results, that they are thrown out in a white light that reveals their inner meaning, so that they are sharply discerned for their spiritual and character values. Then in that light courses of conduct have to be valued anew, reconsidered, and determined.