SCHOOL ETHICS. 363 



I have sought to show that children try to bring meaning and 

 a consistent meaning into the jumble of communications about 

 the unseen world to which they are apt to be treated. I agree 

 with Miss Shinn that children about three and four are not dis- 

 posed to theologize, and are for the most part simply confused by 

 the accounts of God which they receive. Many of the less bright 

 of these small minds may remain untroubled by the incongrui- 

 ties that lurk in the mixture of ideas, half mythological or poet- 

 ical, half theological, which are thus introduced. Sucli children 

 are no worse than many adults who have a wonderful power of 

 entertaining contradictory ideas by keeping them safely apart in 

 separate chambers of their brain. The intelligent, thoughtful 

 child, on the other hand, tries at least to reconcile and to combine 

 in an intelligible whole. His mind has not, like that of so many 

 adults, become habituated to the water-tight-compartment ar- 

 rangement, in which there is no possibility of a leakage of ideas 

 from one group into another. Hence his puzzlings, his question- 

 ings, his brave attempts to reduce the chaos to order. I think it 

 is about time to ask whether parents are doing wisely in thus 

 adding to the perplexing problems of early days. 



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SCHOOL ETHICS. 



By H. C. BLACKWOOD COWELL. 



THE savage instincts which men, even in the most advanced 

 societies, still retain, are ever prompting them to pursue 

 courses of conduct which their civilized intellects condemn thus 

 causing them to be at war with themselves. " Do this,'' suggests 

 the nearsighted savage instinct ; " Nay, this," opposes the farsee- 

 ing civilized intellect ; and though much ensuing conduct is in 

 the nature of a compromise, yet the commands of instinct are 

 oftener obeyed than those of reason. Hence the saddest and 

 strangest of all anomalies : men who know what is good and do 

 what is evil. When all savage instincts shall have been sup- 

 planted by social ones, will it not seem marvelous to men that 

 their ancestors of the nineteenth century should have persisted 

 in courses of conduct whose evil consequences were well known 

 to them ? Even to many of us, who still feel the driving force of 

 savage instincts, it is a matter of wonder that some of the knowl- 

 edge we possess should affect in so slight a degree our habitual 

 conduct. Daily, science makes some discovery which might be 

 expected to alter our conduct, but we go on acting in much the 

 same way as we 'did before we had gained the new knowledge. 

 Though to-morrow it should be satisfactorily shown that the 



