The school should be to the pupil not an intellectual drill-ground, but
a second home; a place dear at the time, and to be gratefully remembered
ever after; a place in which his whole nature, and especially what is
best in him, may expand and grow. The educational aim should be, not
merely to pave the pupil's way to future success, not merely to make of
his mind a perfect instrument of thought, a kind of intellectual loom,
capable of turning out the most complicated intellectual patterns. The
aim should be, above all; to build up manhood, to develop character.
There is no school in which moral influence is wanting. The pity is,
that in many schools it is incidental, not purposed. And yet there are
manifold opportunities in every school for influencing the moral life.
Let us consider a few of these.
_1._ The teaching of _science_ lends itself to the cultivation of
truthfulness. Truthfulness may be defined as the correspondence between
thought and word and fact. When the thought in the mind fits the fact,
and the word on the tongue fits the thought, then the circuit of truth
is complete. Now, with respect to the inculcating of truthfulness,
science teaching has this advantage above other branches, that the
palpable nature of the facts dealt with makes it possible to note and
check the least deviation from the truth. The fact is present, right
before the pupil, to rebuke him if he strays from it in thought or
speech. And this circumstance may be utilized even in the humble
beginnings of science teaching, in the so-called object-lessons. For
instance, a bird, or the picture of one, is placed before the child. The
teacher says, "Observe closely and tell me exactly what you see--the
length of the neck, the curve of the beak, the colors of the plumage,"
etc. The pupil replies. The teacher objects: "You have not observed
accurately. The color is not what you describe it to be. Look again. The
curve of the beak does not resemble what you have just drawn on the
blackboard. You must tell me exactly what you see. Your words must tally
with the facts." And the same sort of practice may be continued in the
science-lessons of the upper classes.
Scientists are distinguished from other observers by their greater
accuracy. Intellectual honesty is that moral quality which science is
best calculated to foster. All the great scientists have been haunted by
a high ideal of truth, and a gleam of that ideal, however faint, may be
made to shed its light even into the school-room. It is obvious that
this realistic tutoring into veracity will be of special use to children
who are led into lying by a too vivid imagination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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