DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL FACULTY. 33 



should be supplemented by the page of history and of fiction. In this 

 way a wider variety of moral action is exhibited, and the level of every- 

 day experience is transcended. Such a widening of the moral horizon 

 is necessary both for enlarging and refining the feeling of duty, and 

 for rendering the meaning of moral terms deeper and more exact. And 

 it stimulates the mind to frame an ideal conception of what is good and 

 praiseworthy. 



The problem of determining the exact relation of intellectual to 

 moral culture is one which has perplexed men's minds from the days 

 of Socrates. On the one hand, as has been remarked, the enlighten- 

 ment of the intelligence is essential to the growth of a clear and finely 

 discriminative moral sense. On the other hand, it is possible to exer- 

 cise the intellect in dealing with the formal distinctions of morality 

 without calling the moral faculty into full vital activity. 



This practical difficulty presses with peculiar force when we come 

 on to the later exercises of moral instruction. The full carrying out 

 of the process of informing the moral intelligence naturally conducts 

 to the more or less systematic exposition of the ideas and truths of 

 ethics. An enlightened conscience is one to which the deepest grounds 

 of duty have begun to disclose themselves, and which has approximated 

 to a complete and harmonious ideal of goodness by a systematic survey 

 and co- ordination of the several divisions of human duty and the cor- 

 responding directions of moral virtue and excellence. Something in 

 the shape of ethical exposition is thus called for when the child reaches 

 a certain point in moral progress. But the educator must be careful 

 to make this dogmatic instruction supplementary to, and not a substi- 

 tute for, the drawing forth of the whole moral faculty on its sensitive 

 and on its reflective side alike by the presentation of living concrete 

 illustrations of moral truth. Divorced from this, it can only degener- 

 ate into a dead formal exercise of the logical faculty and the memory. 



The education of the moral sentiment is, as we have seen, carried 

 out in part by the influence of the child's companions. To surround 

 him with companions is not only necessary for his comfort, but is a 

 condition of developing and strengthening the moral feelings, as the 

 sentiment of justice, the feeling of honor, and so on. The larger com- 

 munity of the school has an important moral function in familiarizing 

 the child's mind with the idea that the moral law is not the imposition 

 of an individual will, but of the community. The standard of good 

 conduct set up and enforced by this community is all authoritative in 

 fixing the early directions of the moral judgment. 



This being so, it is evident that the moral educator must take pains 

 to control and guide the public opinion of the school. And in connec- 

 tion with this he should seek to counteract the excessive influence of 

 numbers, and to stimulate the individual to independent moral re- 

 flection. 



VOL. XXIX. 3 



