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

The question may now be asked, Why should we not utilize to this end the ordinary studies of the school curriculum—history, geography, arithmetic, etc.? All of these branches exercise and develop the faculty of serial and complex thinking. Any sum in multiplication gives a training of this kind. Let the task be to multiply a multiplicand of four figures by a multiplier of three. First the child must multiply every figure in the multiplicand by the units of the multiplier and write down the result; then by the tens, and then by the hundreds, and combine these results. Here is a lesson in combination, in serial, and, for a young child, somewhat complex thinking. Let the task be to bound the State of New York. The child must see the mental picture of the State in its relation to other States and parts of States, to lakes and rivers and mountains—a complex group of ideas. Or, let it be required to give a brief account of the American Revolution. Here is a whole series of events, each depending on the preceding ones. Why, then, may we not content ourselves with utilizing the ordinary studies of the school curriculum? There are two reasons.

First, because history, geography, and arithmetic are not, as a rule, interesting to young children, especially not to young children of the class with which we are now dealing. These listless minds are not easily roused to an interest in abstractions. Secondly, it is a notorious fact that intellectual culture, pure and simple, is quite consistent with weakness of the will. A person may have very high intellectual attainments, and yet be morally deficient. I need hardly warn my reflective hearers that, when emphasizing the importance for the will of intellectual culture, I had in mind the intellectual process as applied to acts. To cultivate the intellect in its own sphere of contemplation and abstraction, apart from action, may leave the will precisely as feeble as it was before.

And now, all that has been said thus far converges upon the point that has been in view from the beginning—the importance of manual training as an element in disciplining the will. Manual training fulfills the conditions I have just alluded to. It is interesting to the young, as history, geography, and arithmetic often are not. Precisely those pupils who take the least interest or show the least aptitude for literary study are often the most proficient in the workshop and the modeling-room. Nature has not left these neglected children without beautiful compensations. If they are deficient in intellectual power, they are all the more capable of being developed on their active side. Thus, manual training fulfills the one essential condition—it is interesting. It also fulfills the second. By manual training we cultivate the intellect in close connection with action. Manual training consists of a series of actions which are controlled by the mind, and which react on it. Let the task assigned be, for instance, the making of a wooden box. The first point to be gained is to attract the attention of the pupil to the task. A wooden box is interesting to a child, hence this first point will be gained. Lethargy is overcome, attention is aroused. Next, it is important to keep the attention fixed on the task: thus only can tenacity of purpose be cultivated. Manual training enables us to keep the attention of the child fixed upon the object of study, because the latter is concrete. Furthermore, the variety of occupations which enter into the making of the box constantly refreshes this interest after it has once been started. The wood must be sawed to line. The boards must be carefully planed and smoothed. The joints must be accurately worked out and fitted. The lid must be attached with hinges. The box must be painted or varnished. Here is a sequence of means leading to an end, a series of operations all pointing to a final object to be gained, to be created. Again, each of these means becomes in turn and for the time being a secondary end; and the pupil thus learns, in an elementary way, the lesson of subordinating minor ends to a major end. And, when finally the task is done, when the box stands before the boy's eyes a complete whole, a serviceable thing, sightly to the eyes, well adapted to its uses, with what a glow of triumph does he contemplate his work! The pleasure of achievement now comes in to crown his labor; and this sense of achievement, in connection with the work done, leaves in his mind a pleasant after-taste, which will stimulate him to similar work in the future. The child that has once acquired, in connection with the making of a box, the habits just described, has begun to master the secret of a strong will, and will be able to apply the same habits in other directions and on other occasions.

Or let the task be an artistic one. And let me here say that manual training is incomplete unless it covers art training. Many otherwise excellent and interesting experiments in manual training fail to give satisfaction because they do not include this element. The useful must flower into the beautiful, to be in the highest sense useful. Nor is it necessary to remind those who have given attention to the subject of education how important is the influence of the beautiful is in refining the sentiments and elevating the nature of the young. Let the task, then, be to model a leaf, a vase, a hand, a head. Here again we behold the same advantages as in the making of the box. The object is concrete, and therefore suitable for minds incapable of grasping abstractions. The object can be constantly kept before the pupil's eyes. There is gradual approximation toward completeness, and at last that glow of triumph! What child is not happy if he has produced something tangible, something that is the outgrowth of his own activity, especially if it be something which is charming to every beholder?

And now let me briefly summarize certain conclusions to which reflection has led me in regard to the subject of manual training in reformatory institutions. Manual training should be introduced into every reformatory. In New York city we have tested a system of work-shop lessons for children between six and fourteen. There is, I am persuaded, no reason why manual training should not be applied to the youngest children in reformatories. Manual training should always include art training. The labor of the children of reformatories should never be let to contractors. I heartily agree with what was said on that subject this morning. The pupils of reformatories should never make heads of pins or the ninetieth fraction of a shoe. Let there be no machine work. Let the pupils turn out complete articles, for only thus can the full intellectual and moral benefits of manual training be reaped. Agriculture, wherever the opportunities are favorable, offers, on the whole, the same advantages as manual training, and should be employed if possible, in connection with it.

I have thus far attempted to show how the will can be made strong. But a strong will is not necessarily a good will. It is true, there are influences in manual training, as it has been described, which are favorable to a virtuous disposition. Squareness in things is not without relation to squareness in action and in thinking. A child that has learned to be exact—that is, truthful—in his work will be predisposed to be scrupulous and truthful in his speech, in his thought, in his acts. The refining and elevating influence of artistic work I have already mentioned. But, along with and over and above all these influences, I need hardly say to you that, in the remarks which I have offered this evening, I have all along taken for granted the continued application of those tried and excellent methods which prevail in our best reformatories. I have taken for granted that isolation from society, which shuts out temptation; that routine of institutional life, which induces regularity of habit; that strict surveillance of the whole body of inmates and of every individual, which prevents excesses of the passions, and therefore starves them into disuse. I have taken for granted the cultivation of the emotions, the importance of which I am the last to undervalue. I have taken for granted the influence of good example, good literature, good music, poetry, and religion. All I have intended to urge is that between good feeling and the realization of good feeling there exists, in persons whose will-power is weak, a hiatus, and that manual training is admirably adapted to fill that hiatus.

There is another advantage to be noted in connection with manual training—namely, that it develops the property sense. What, after all, apart from artificial social convention, is the foundation of the right of property? On what basis does it rest? I have a proprietary right in my own thoughts. I have a right to follow my tastes in the adornment of my person and my house. I have a right to the whole sphere of my individuality, my selfhood; and I have a right in things so far as I use them to express my personality. The child that has made a wooden box has put a part of himself into the making of that box—his thought, his patience, his skill, his toil—and therefore the child feels that that box is in a certain sense his own. And as only those who have the sense of ownership are likely to respect the right of ownership in others, we may by manual training cultivate the property sense of the child; and this, in the case of the delinquent child, it will be admitted, is no small advantage.

I have confined myself till now to speaking of the importance of manual training in its influence on the character of delinquent children. I wish to add a few words touching the influence of manual training on character in general, and its importance for children of all classes of society. I need not here speak of the value of manual training to the artisan class. That has been amply demonstrated of late by the many technical and art schools which the leading manufacturing nations of Europe have established and are establishing. I need not speak of the value of manual training to the future surgeon, dentist, scientist, and to all those who require deftness of hand in the pursuit of their vocations. But I do wish to speak of the value of manual training to the future lawyer and clergyman, and to all those who will perhaps never be called upon to labor with their hands. Precisely because they will not labor with their hands is manual training so important for them—in the interest of an all-round culture—in order that they may not be entirely crippled on one side of their nature. The Greek legend says that the giant Antæus was invincible so long as his feet were planted on the solid earth. We need to have a care that our civilization shall remain planted on the solid earth. There is danger lest it may be developed too much into the air—that we may become too much separated from those primal sources of strength from which mankind has always drawn its vitality. The English nobility have deliberately adopted hunting as their favorite pastime. They follow as a matter of physical exercise, in order to keep up their physical strength, a pursuit which the savage man followed from