AN EXPERIMENT IN MORAL TRAINING. 55 



I "believe lessons like the one recorded are unusual. The points 

 which seem to deserve emphasis are the freedom and sincerity 

 of the pupils, their entire lack of antagonism to such discussion, 

 their clear perception of the facts in the case and of the rela- 

 tions of cause and effect, their acknowledgment of their duty and 

 their resolve to do it. "While there was reference to the conduct 

 of Ward and Frank, the discussion mainly related to their own 

 duties and responsibilities. 



Being acquainted with the average youth of the age of these 

 pupils, I saw that the conversation I had heard was the latest of 

 many. The freedom, the seriousness, the consideration for others, 

 and the final decision to help, indicated that this class had passed 

 beyond the primary grade in morals. 



Another thing was impressive : These pupils were helped to a 

 correct emotion regarding duty, but the matter did not end in 

 emotion ; they were immediately and purposely so circumstanced 

 as to have continual opportunity to decide in accord with their 

 ideals of right or to decide against it. Further, it was evidently 

 Mr. Norton's plan to show the pupil his own good purpose when- 

 ever he seriously failed to execute it, and to inspire him again 

 with hope and decision. 



Is not this class in the practice department of the Oswego 

 Normal School getting moral training, not simply moral instruc- 

 tion ? Might we not indulge in cheering visions of the citizens 

 our schools might rear were all our children getting similar 

 training ? Give us a century of such work in our schools, and 

 such an article as that on Education and Crime, in the Monthly. 

 would be a curiosity 



Note. To-day, November 21st, nearly a month after the preceding was written, the 

 practice teacher in charge of the class before considered reports that Frank is daily im- 

 proving, but that Ward is still an annoying lad. " But," said she, " a glorious thing hap- 

 pened to-day. The pupils were hard at work, with the exception of Ward, who was very 

 troublesome, when Frank gave him a stern rebuke and then returned to his lesson. So you 

 see Frank is growing in self-control and in desire to help in our little community." 



In the old silver mines of Pribram, in Bohemia, there are several vertical shafts 

 exceeding 900 metres in depth. The shaft Saint Prokop is 909 metres ; Saint 

 Anne, 942 metres; Francis Joseph, 992 metres; Saint Adelbert, 1,099 metres; 

 and Holy Virgin, 3,116 metres deep. Subterranean observatories have been estab- 

 lished in the thirty-second stories of the two deepest shafts, for the notation of va- 

 riations of temperature and magnetic deviations. The rocks of central Bohemia 

 belong to the Silurian system, and these two shafts are certainly the deepest ver- 

 tical shafts in hard rock in existence. Besides silver and other precious metals, 

 more than eighty species of minerals, some of them very rare, have been found 

 here. This makes Pribram one of the most remarkable mineralogical locations 

 on the globe. 



