434 'J'HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



left by the outcome upon his own mind, especially the impression 

 as to the reason for the virtue in question. The answers brought 

 out a considerable mass of material, incidentally *as well as di- 

 rectly. Some of this seems to me to have value beyond the imme- 

 diate pedagogical occasion which called it forth, as furnishing a 

 fairly representative sample * of the motives instilled by existing 

 methods of moral training, and the impressions which these meth- 

 ods leave behind. 



Nine tenths of the answers may be classified under one of the 

 following heads : The impression left by the mode of treatment 

 was that the motive for right doing is (1) found in the conse- 

 quences of the act ; (2) fear of being punished ; (3) simply be- 

 cause it is right ; (4) because right doing pleases the parent, while 

 wrongdoing displeases ; (5) the religious motive. In number the 

 religious motive predominates ; next to that comes fear of pun- 

 ishment. In -many cases, of course, several of these reasons were 

 inculcated. 



1. The regard for consequences as a reason for morality takes 

 the form of regard either for external consequences or for in- 

 trinsic reactions that is to say, upon the character of the agent 

 or upon those about him. A number seem to have learned the 

 value of obedience by observation of disagreeable results proceed- 

 ing from its opposite. For example, one child was told not to take 

 off her shoes and stockings ; she disobeyed, and had croup in the 

 night whence, she remarks, she derived the idea that others knew 

 more than she, and that disobedience was dangerous. Another 

 girl was told not to wear a lawn dress to a picnic ; she disobeyed, 

 but a rain storm came up and faded it out. " From this and other 

 similar experiences I deduced the idea that obedience was wise. 

 Yet this was with the reservation that obedience was to be tem- 

 pered with discretion, as I observed that in some instances acting 

 upon my own judgment was justified by the outcome." 



When we come to the moral motive as determined by the in- 

 trinsic results of the act, we are obviously approaching the ques- 

 tion, so mooted upon its theoretical side, of intuitionalism versus 

 empiricism. Nothing was said upon this point in giving out the 

 questions ; the students may fairly be presumed to have been un- 

 conscious of any such bearing in their answers, and so these may 

 be taken as fairly free from any bias. No one reply indicates any 

 distinct recognition of right or wrong prior to the commission of 



* The class numbered over one hundred. About ninety replied. About twenty of the 

 answers were put aside, as indulging in general statements, or as bearing the stamp of 

 artificiality. The remaining answers represent Central Western States, particularly the 

 States of Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. Pretty much all grades of homes are represented, 

 and at least three lines of descent beside native American. 



