To sum up, let me say that the wise teacher will appeal to the taste,
the intelligence, and the feelings of his pupils; that he will touch
these various springs of conduct all the time, and get from them all the
help he can. Thus, when speaking of cleanliness, he will appeal to the
aesthetic instinct of the children, awakening in them a feeling of
disgust at untidiness. He will appeal to the prudential motive, by
showing that want of cleanliness breeds disease. "You do not wish to be
sick? You do not wish to suffer? Therefore, it is to your interest to be
clean." But, finally, he will touch a higher motive than any of these.
"If you are unclean, you cease to respect yourself." And the term
self-respect expresses in a condensed form the moral motive proper. It
implies the idea of moral personality, which it is not necessary, nor
possible, at this stage to analyze, but which the pupil will somehow
understand, for his conscience will respond. In many cases the appeal
will be made chiefly to the sympathetic feelings; for through these
feelings we become aware of the pains and joys of others, and thus of
the consequences of the benefits we confer or the evil we inflict. The
sympathetic feelings supply the information upon which the will can act.
They tell us that others suffer or are glad. And yet the strength to
labor persistently for the relief of others' suffering and the
enhancement of others' joy--that we can derive from the moral impulse
alone.
The moral motive is the highest, it is really the only sufficient
motive. Pray, understand me well at this point. I should say to the
child: It is wrong to lie. That is sufficient. It is wrong, it is
forbidden; you must yourself acknowledge the truth of my words, because
you despise yourself when you have told a lie. But, in order to
strengthen your weak resolution, to confirm you in well-doing, let me
show you that it is also contrary to self-interest to lie, and likewise
that it is disgusting to be unclean, and that a wrong done to another
causes pain. Thus the aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional faculties
are called in as witnesses to bear testimony to the moral truths; they
are invited to stand up in chorus and say Amen! to the moral commands.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] It must be remembered also that our knowledge of the right ethical
relations is still extremely imperfect, and that the duty of extending
the knowledge and promoting the recognition of them is perhaps the
highest of all--to which, on occasion, every lesser end must be
sacrificed.
III.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR MORAL TRAINING IN THE DAILY SCHOOL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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