CORRESP ONBENCE. 



121 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



ETIIICS IN THE SCHOOLS. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



SIR : There is evidently a wide-spread 

 dissatisfaction with the lack of moral 

 influences in our public schools. Religious 

 people declare that the schools are godless, 

 and are producing a generation of atheists. 

 An earnest and growing class think that 

 some modification of the school work should 

 be made that would aim at developing every 

 pupil into the noblest type of a human be- 

 ing. At present, from the lowest primary 

 class to the university diploma, there is not 

 a single study introduced that is designed 

 primarily for the development of any side 

 of character. Moral philosophy, to be sure, 

 is taught in some higher-grade schools and 

 in all the colleges, not for the purpose of 

 making moral men and women, but that the 

 student may know the theories about the 

 existence of God, his relation to men, the 

 basis of morals, freedom of will, etc. 



Among those who are not actually op- 

 posed to moral teaching, we may recognize 

 four groups, each occupying a different atti- 

 tude toward this matter the indifferent, 

 the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant 

 Church, and scientists. The first class base 

 their estimate of the value of a school upon 

 its success in teaching those subjects that 

 will help the pupil to satisfy his material 

 wants. The question whether the school 

 might not be made to accomplish a nobler 

 end does not seem to concern them. Many 

 of this class would not be disturbed by the 

 introduction of instruction in ethics or even 

 religion into the schools. 



From the standpoint of the Catholic 

 Church, the most important thing for a child 

 to learn in this world is how to obtain salva- 

 tion in the next. Nothing whatever should 

 prevent him from gaining this knowledge. 

 Hence they demand that religion should be 

 taught in the schools, and, because the state 

 schools do not provide for such instruction, 

 the hierarchy has forbidden the children of 

 the Church to attend them, and provides 

 parochial schools instead. They are more 

 strenuous for instruction in religion than in 

 ethics, for the teaching of doctrine than of 

 practical morals. Whether, if it were pro- 

 posed to introduce instruction in ethics 

 apart from religion, they would favor or op- 

 pose such a movement, is a question on 

 which they have not expressed an opinion. 

 To oppose it would seem to be a very incon- 

 sistent ground for a Christian body. 



The Protestant Church has not yet de- 

 fined itself so explicitly, but it evidently 

 desires that the schools shall accomplish 

 something better than what they are now 



doing. The fact that a conference of rep- 

 resentatives from the Protestant denomina- 

 tions of New York State was recently held 

 for the purpose of considering religious and 

 moral instruction in the schools is very sig- 

 nificant- This conference may be taken as 

 fairly representing the leading sentiment of 

 the Protestant Church in general. Some 

 prominent clergymen present, like their 

 Catholic brethren, would ask the state to 

 give religious instruction ; others equally 

 prominent, either because they think that re- 

 ligion is not the province of the school or 

 that it is hopeless to ask for religious in- 

 struction, were strongly opposed to this, but 

 would perhaps rather favor carefully re- 

 stricted instruction in Christian morals. 



I have called scientists a fourth class. 

 The term is used in this connection to desig- 

 nate those whose habits of study and thought 

 are scientific rather than religious. They are 

 not necessarily opposed to religion, but seem 

 to have no use for it for themselves. The 

 great advantage to the world which they see 

 in religion is its ethics, but they derive their 

 own code of ethics from another source. 

 Whatever rules of conduct have been proved 

 by experience to be for the good of man in 

 our nineteenth - century civilization consti- 

 tute the scientist's code of ethics. The ques- 

 tion for him, then, in reference to the 

 schools, is not whether any religious creed 

 shall be taught, but, Shall instruction be 

 given in pure, human ethics ? Shall the 

 children be instructed in the principles of 

 conduct which have been tested and proved 

 worthy of trust by centuries of experience ? 

 This very greatly simplifies the matter, 

 which is hopelessly involved when connected 

 with religion, and at the same time suggests 

 a possible ground for compromise. 



A grave difficulty in the way of a com- 

 promise is a general lack of definition be- 

 tween religion and ethics. The Church is 

 the one institution which has demanded 

 moral conduct of men. It has taught that 

 eternal damnation is the penalty of wrong- 

 doing and eternal bliss the reward of right- 

 doing, conjoined with the acceptance of a 

 certain belief. It has gone so far as to 

 say that there is absolutely no saving vir- 

 tue in kindness, in justice, in benevolence, 

 in philanthropy of themselves that there 

 is no salvation in the next world except 

 by means of a so-called " plan " drawn 

 by the Church from Scripture. When an 

 institution of such unmeasured power as 

 the Christian Church has wielded for the 

 past fifteen hundred years utters her dictum 

 on eternal life and death, the world listens, 

 because it believes in immortality. For this 

 reason morality and religion throughout 



