Yet when it is so undertaken, when those only are invited to partake of it who in their own hearts have heard its painful call, even then I would hedge it about with two conditions. First, it should be pursued as a science, critically, and the student should be informed at the outset that the aim of the course is knowledge, not the endeavor to make better men. And, secondly, I would insist that the students themselves do the work; that they do not passively listen to opinions set forth by their instructor, but that they address themselves to research and learn to construct moral judgments which will bear critical inspection. Some teachers, no doubt, will think it wisest to accomplish these things by tracing the course of ethics in the past, treating it as a historical science. Others will prefer, by announcing their own beliefs, to stimulate their students to criticise those beliefs and to venture on their own little constructions. The method is unimportant; it is only of consequence that the students themselves do the ethicizing, that they trace the logic of their own beliefs and do not rest in dogmatic statement. Yet such an undertaking may well sober a teacher. I never see my class in ethics come to their first lecture that I do not tremble and say to myself that I am set for the downfall of some of them. In every such studious company there must be unprepared persons whom the teacher will damage. He cannot help it. He must move calmly forward, confident in his subject, but knowing that because it is living it is dangerous. III MORAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS