4H 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Moral Instruction of Children. By Felix 

 Adler. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 

 International Education Series. Pp. 270. 

 Price, $1.50. 



This book is a sign of the times. It is 

 one among many responses to the deepening 

 public conviction that character, no less than 

 intellect, demands education if it is to come 

 to its best ; education as well reasoned, sys- 

 tematic, and thorough as science and sympa- 

 thy can make it. In giving this conviction 

 effect, a formidable difficulty is encountered 

 at the very outset. A portion of the Ameri- 

 can people, neither few in number nor lacking 

 weight in legislation, maintains that the teach- 

 ing of right conduct can proceed only upon re- 

 ligious sanctions. Hence come the reiterated 

 demands for a division of school-taxes to en- 

 able separate schools to be administered by 

 specific churches. On the threshold of his 

 subject Prof. Adler considers these demands, 

 and reviews in particular the example of 

 Germany in uniting church and state educa- 

 tion, pressed as it so often is for acceptance 

 in the United States. He points out that in 

 Germany the churches founded the schools ; 

 that their control has now passed to the state 

 marks the advance to supremacy of political 

 sentiment. In this country the state it was 

 which founded the schools ; were it to admit 

 the churches into partnership in their control, 

 the change would mean a reversal of the 

 current of progress as progress is understood 

 in Germany. Prof. Adler argues that the 

 American nation has a paramount interest in 

 keeping its schools unrestrictedly public, in 

 ignoring the party walls of sects, for in no 

 other way can the diverse elements of its 

 population be fused into unity. And the 

 state in disregarding the sects does not array 

 itself against religion. As to rules of right 

 conduct, all good men are agreed ; let these 

 rules be taught in the public schools, leaving 

 their sanctions to be enforced in the churches 

 and Sunday schools, whose work can accom- 

 pany without antagonism that of secular in- 

 struction. In the public school the teacher 

 has a vastly better opportunity to observe 

 character and direct its development than is 

 possible in the brief and casual work of the 

 religious instructor on Sundays. Moreover, 

 education in duty should be dominant in 



school work, not incidental. An ethical at- 

 mosphere should pervade and mold every 

 lesson. Knowledge and skill are valuable; 

 character is priceless ; and knowledge and 

 skill take on a new edge when wisely subor- 

 dinated to ideals of duty. 



Taking a rapid survey of the ordinary 

 course of school instruction, Prof. Adler 

 suggestively brings out the moral side of 

 each study. A child is asked to describe a 

 bird placed before it, and the teacher is not 

 satisfied until the description is strictly accu- 

 rate. In making the eye conscientious science 

 thus begins; it proceeds step by step only 

 as it faithfully keeps to truth, as it brings 

 thought and word to absolute accordance 

 with fact. History, properly taught, also 

 has high moral utility. It presents exam- 

 ples of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of love of 

 country, of unswerving devotion to princi- 

 ple. The best literature, and especially the 

 best poetry, make an appeal not less stirring 

 to rightward impulses. The great creative 

 books — the masterpieces of Plato, Dante, 

 Shakespeare, Goethe — touch the deepest 

 springs of character; the student rises from 

 their study ennobled by a new sympathy, 

 with a quickened sense of the dignity of 

 human nature. Music, apart from its subtle 

 power to arouse refined emotion, has dis- 

 tinctive value in socializing the will. Love 

 of home and country made the themes of 

 song are echoed in life. Sentiment can be 

 wisely used to re-enforce the reasoned claims 

 of hearth and country, so that at last public 

 opinion brought to a new breadth and sound- 

 ness shall deservedly have a profounder in- 

 fluence than ever upon the individual life. 



Coming to moral instruction proper, Prof. 

 Adler points out that it should always be 

 suited to the age of the child, and he 

 sketches courses for primary and grammar 

 grades. For young children he holds the best 

 vehicle of instruction to be the fairy tale ; the 

 excursions of fancy delight a budding mind ; 

 the love of adventure, the delight in disguises, 

 can be made to play a telling part in arousing 

 interest in the faithfulness of a Cinderella, or 

 the merciful traits of the younger brother em- 

 balmed in the story of the Queen Bee. A good 

 fable always has interest apart from the lesson 

 it conveys ; it is essentially truer than history, 

 for it is history's composite photograph ; a 

 judicious teacher can select from iEsop, from 



