Eugenics; Sexual ethics; Women -- Social and moral questions
of Genesis); but it must always be remembered, from the Christian point
of view, that nothing should be given at this early age which is to be
regarded as essential at a later age, for the youth turns against the
tales of his childhood as he turns against its milk-foods. Some day,
perhaps, it may be thought worth while to compile a Bible for childhood,
not a mere miscellaneous assortment of stories, but a collection of
books as various in origin and nature as are the books of the
Hebraic-Christian Bible, so that every kind of child in all his moods
and stages of growth might here find fit pasture. Children would not
then be left wholly to the mercy of the thin and frothy literature which
the contemporary press pours upon them so copiously; they would possess
at least one great and essential book which, however fantastic and
extravagant it might often be, would yet have sprung from the deepest
instincts of the primitive soul, and furnish answers to the most
insistent demands of primitive hearts. Such a book, even when finally
dropped from the youth's or girl's hands, would still leave its vague
perfume behind.
It may be pointed out, finally, that the fact that it is impossible to
teach children even the elements of adult religion and philosophy, as
well as unwise to attempt it, by no means proves that all serious
teaching is impossible in childhood. On the imaginative and spiritual
side, it is true, the child is re-born and transformed during
adolescence, but on the practical and concrete side his life and thought
are for the most part but the regular and orderly development of the
habits he has already acquired. The elements of ethics on the one hand,
as well as of natural science on the other, may alike be taught to
children, and indeed they become a necessary part of early education, if
the imaginative side of training is to be duly balanced and
complemented. The child as much as the adult can be taught, and is
indeed apt to learn, the meaning and value of truth and honesty, of
justice and pity, of kindness and courtesy; we have wrangled and worried
for so long concerning the teaching of religion in schools that we have
failed altogether to realize that these fundamental notions of morality
are a far more essential part of school training. It must, however,
always be remembered that they cannot be adequately treated merely as an
isolated subject of instruction, and possibly ought not to be so treated
at all. As Harriet Finlay-Johnson wisely says in her _Dramatic Method of
Instruction_: "It is impossible to shut away moral teaching into a
compartment of the mind. It should be firmly and openly diffused
throughout the thoughts, to 'leaven the whole of the lump.'" She adds
the fruitful suggestion: "There is real need for some lessons in which
the emotions shall not be ignored. Nature study, properly treated, can
touch both senses and emotions."[180]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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