Industry, likewise, takes a high rank as a citizen's virtue. By it man
learns to re-enforce the moments by the hours, and the days by the
years. He learns how the puny individual can conquer great obstacles.
The school demands of the youth a difficult kind of industry. He must
think and remember, giving close and unremitting attention to subjects
strange and far off from his daily life. He must do this in order to
discover eventually that these strange and far-off matters are connected
in a close manner to his own history and destiny.
There is another phase of the pupil's industry that has an important
bearing on morals. All his intellectual work in the class has to do with
critical accuracy, and respect for the truth. Loose statements and
careless logical inference meet with severe reproof.
Finally, there is an enforced politeness and courtesy toward teachers
and fellow-pupils--at least to the extent of preventing quarrels. This
is directly tributary to the highest of virtues, namely, kindness and
generosity.
All these moral phases mentioned have to do with the side of school
discipline rather than instruction, and they do not necessarily have any
bearing on the theory of morals or on ethical philosophy, except in the
fact that they make a very strong impression on the mind of the youth,
and cause him to feel that he is a member of a moral order. He learns
that moral demands are far more stern than the demands of the body for
food or drink or repose. The school thus does much to change the pupil
from a natural being to a spiritual being. Physical nature becomes
subordinated to the interests of human nature.
Notwithstanding the fact that the school is so efficient as a means of
training in moral habits, it is as yet only a small influence in the
realm of moral theory. Even our colleges and universities, it must be
confessed, do little in this respect, although there has been of late an
effort to increase in the programmes the amount of time devoted to
ethical study. The cause of this is the divorce of moral theory from
theology. All was easy so long as ethics was directly associated with
the prevailing religious confession. The separation of Church and
State, slowly progressing everywhere since the middle ages, has at
length touched the question of education.
The attempt to find an independent basis for ethics in the science of
sociology has developed conflicting systems. The college student is
rarely strengthened in his faith in moral theories by his theoretic
study. Too often his faith is sapped. Those who master a spiritual
philosophy are strengthened; the many who drift toward a so-called
"scientific" basis are led to weaken their moral convictions to the
standpoint of fashion, or custom, or utility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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