also punished by the contempt of one's fellows; that those who are
unkind, as the horse was to the ass, may have to bear the ass's burden.
The checks and curbs supplied by such considerations as these serve the
purpose of strengthening the weak conscience of the young, and are not
to be dispensed with, provided always they are treated not as
substitutes for but as auxiliaries to the moral motives, properly
speaking.
As to the place in the primary course which I have assigned to the
fables, I have the following remark to offer: In speaking of fairy
tales, it was stated that the moral element should be touched on
incidentally, and that it should not be separated from the other, the
naturalistic elements. The pedagogical reason which leads me to assign
to the fables the second place in the course, is that each fable deals
exclusively with one moral quality, which is thus isolated and held up
to be contemplated. In the stories which will occupy the third place a
number of moral qualities are presented in combination. We have,
therefore, what seems to be a logical and progressive order--first,
fairy tales in which the moral is still blended with other elements;
secondly, a single moral quality set off by itself; then, a combination
of such qualities.
The peculiar value of the fables is that they are instantaneous
photographs, which reproduce, as it were, in a single flash of light,
some one aspect of human nature, and which, excluding everything else,
permit the entire attention to be fixed on that one.
As to the method of handling them, I should say to the teacher: Relate
the fable; let the pupil repeat it in his own words, making sure that
the essential points are stated correctly. By means of questions elicit
a clean-cut expression of the point which the fable illustrates; then
ask the pupil to give out of his experience other instances illustrating
the same point. This is precisely the method pursued in the so-called
primary object lessons. The child, for instance, having been shown a red
ball, is asked to state the color of the ball, and then to name other
objects of the same color; or to give the shape of the ball, and then to
name other objects having the same shape. In like manner, when the pupil
has heard the fable of the Fox and the Wolf, and has gathered from it
that compassion when expressed merely in words is useless, and that it
must lead to deeds to be really praiseworthy, it will be easy for him
out of his own experience to multiply instances which illustrate the
same truth. The search for instances makes the point of the fable
clearer, while the expression of the thought in precise language, on
which the teacher should always insist, tends to drive it home. It will
be our aim in the present course of lectures to apply the methods of
object teaching, now generally adopted in other branches, to the
earliest moral instruction of children--an undertaking, of course, not
without difficulties.
FOOTNOTES:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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