The Moral Instruction of Children by Felix Adler (read after txt) 📕

[22] See some remarks on types of character in my lecture on the Punishment of Children.

Let us now briefly review the ground we have gone over in the present course. In the five introductory lectures we discussed the problem of unsectarian moral teaching, the efficient motives of good conduct, the opportunities of moral influence in schools, the classification of duties, and the moral status of the child on entering school.

In mapping out the primary course we assumed as a starting-point the idea that the child rapidly passes through the same stages of evolution through which the human race has passed, and hence we endeavored to select our material for successive epochs in the child's life from the literature of the corresponding epochs in the life of the race.

In regard to the method of instruction, we observed that in the fairy tales the moral element should be touched on incidentally; that in teaching the fables isolated moral qualities should be presented in such a way that the pupil may always thereafter be able to recognize them; while the stories display a number of moral qualities in combination and have the value of moral pictures.

In the primary course the object has been to train the moral perceptions; in the grammar course, to work out moral concepts and to formulate rules of conduct. The method of getting at these rules may again be described as follows: Begin with some concrete case, suggest a rule which apparently fits that case or really fits it, adduce other cases which the rule does not fit, change the rule, modify it as often as necessary, until it has been brought into such shape that it will fit every case you can think of.

In planning the lessons on duty which make up the subject matter of the grammar course, we took the ground that each period of life has its specific duties, that in each period there is one paramount duty around which the others may be grouped, and that each new system of duties should embrace and absorb the preceding one.

It remains for me to add that the illustrations which I have used in the grammar course are intended merely to serve as specimens, and by no means to exclude the use of different illustrative matter which the teacher may find more suitable. Furthermore, I desire to express the hope that it may be possible, without too much difficulty, to eliminate whatever subjective conceptions may be found to have crept into these lessons, and that, due deduction having been made, there may remain a substratum of objective truth which all can accept. It should be remembered that these lectures are not intended to take the place of a text-book, but to serve as a guide to the teacher in preparing his lessons.

I hope hereafter to continue the work which has thus been begun. In the advanced course, which is to follow the present one, we shall have to reconsider from a higher point of view many of the subjects already treated, and in addition to take up such topics as the ethics of the professions, the ethics of friendship, conjugal ethics, etc., which have here been omitted.

I shall also attempt to indicate the lines for a systematic study of biographies, and to lay out a course of selected readings from the best ethical literature of ancient and modern times.

Manual training has recently been suggested as one of the means of combating the criminal tendency in the young, and this suggestion is being received with increasing favor. But until now the theory of manual training has hardly begun to be worked out. The confidence which is expressed in it is based, for the most part, on unclassified experience. But experience without theory is altogether insufficient. Theory, it is true, without experience is without feet to stand. But experience without the guiding and directing help of theory is without eyes to see. I shall now offer, in a somewhat tentative way, a few remarks intended to be a contribution to the philosophy of manual training as applied to the reformation of delinquent children. I shall confine myself, however, to one type of criminality in children—a not uncommon type—that of moral deterioration arising from weakness of the will.

In the first place, let us distinguish between feeling, desiring, and willing. A person who is without food feels hunger. A person who, being hungry, calls up in his mind images of food, will experience a desire. A person who adopts means to obtain food performs an act of the will. A Russian prisoner in Siberia who suffers from the restraints of confinement is in a state of feeling. The same person, when he recalls images of home and friends, is in a state of desire; but when he sets about adopting the means to effect his escape, concerts signals with his fellow-prisoners, undermines the walls of his dungeon, etc., he is performing acts of the will. Permit me to call particular attention to the fact that the will is characterized at its birth by the intellectual factor which enters into it; for the calculation of means to ends is an intellectual process, and every conscious act of volition involves such a process. If the will is thus characterized at its birth, we can at once anticipate the conclusion that any will will be strong in proportion as the intellectual factor in it predominates. It was said by one of the speakers that "an ounce of affection is better than a ton of intellect." Give me a proper mixture of the two. Give me at least an ounce of intellect together with an ounce of affection. There is great danger lest we exaggerate the importance of the emotions for morality. The opinion is widely entertained that good feeling, kind feeling, loving feeling, is the whole of morality, or, at least, the essential factor in it. But this opinion is surely erroneous. The will may be compared to the power which propels a ship through the waves. Feeling is the rudder. The intellect is the helmsman.

Let me give illustrations to bring into view the characteristics of a strong and of a weak will. Great inventors, great statesmen, great reformers, illustrate strength of will. We note in them especially tenacity of purpose and a marvelous faculty for adjusting and readjusting means to ends. Persons who are swayed by the sensual appetites illustrate weakness of will. We note in them vacillation of purpose, and the power of adjusting means to ends only in its rudimentary form. The ideas of virtue are complex. No one can illustrate virtue on a high plane unless he is capable of holding in mind long trains and complex groups of ideas. The lowest vices, on the other hand, are distinguished by the circumstance that the ends to which they look are simple, and the means employed often of the crudest kind. Thus, suppose that a person of weak will is hungry. He knows that gold will buy food. He adopts the readiest way to get gold. Incapable of that long and complex method of attaining his end, which is exhibited, for instance, by the farmer who breaks the soil, plants the corn, watches his crops, and systematizes his labors from the year's beginning to its end, he takes the shortest road toward the possession of gold—he stretches forth his hand and takes it where he finds it. The man of weak will, who has a grudge against his rival, is not capable of putting forth a sustained and complex series of efforts toward obtaining satisfaction, for instance, by laboring arduously to outstrip his rival. He is, furthermore, incapable of those larger considerations, those complex groups of ideas relating to society and its permanent interests, which check the angry passions in the educated. He gives free and immediate rein to the passion as it rises. He takes the readiest means of getting satisfaction: he draws the knife and kills. The man of weak will, who burns with sensual desire, assaults the object of his desire. The virtues depend in no small degree on the power of serial and complex thinking. Those vices which are due to weakness of will are characterized by the crudeness of the aim and the crudeness of the means.

To strengthen the will, therefore, it is necessary to give to the person of weak will the power to think connectedly, and especially to reach an end by long and complex trains of means.

Let us pause here for a moment to elucidate this point by briefly considering a type of criminality which is familiar to all guardians of delinquent children. This type is marked by a group of salient traits, which may be roughly described as follows: Mental incoherency is the first. The thoughts of the child are, as it were, slippery, tending to glide past one another without mutual attachments. A second trait is indolence. A third, deficiency in the sense of shame; to which may be added that the severest punishments fail to act as deterrents.

Mental incoherency is the leading trait, and supplies the key for the understanding of the others. Lack of connectedness between ideas is the radical defect. Each idea, as it rises, becomes an impulse, and takes effect to the full limit of its suggestions. A kind thought rises in the mind of such a child, and issues in a demonstrative impulse of affection. Shortly after, a cruel thought may rise in the mind of the same child; and the cruel thought will, in like manner, take effect in a cruel act. Children answering to this type are alternately kind, affectionate, and cruel. The child's indolence is due to the same cause—lack of connectedness between ideas. It is incapable of sustained effort, because every task implies the ability to pass from one idea to related ideas. The child is deficient in shame, because the sense of shame depends on a vivid realization of the idea of self. The idea of self, however, is a complex idea, which is not distinctly and clearly present to such a child. Lastly, the most severe punishments fail to act as deterrents for the same reason. The two impressions left in the mind, "I did a wrong," "I suffered a pain," lie apart. The memory of one does not excite the recollection of the other. The thought of the wrong does not lift permanently into consciousness the thought of the pain which followed. The punishment, as we say, is quickly forgotten. If, therefore, we wish