750 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



In other words, the term implies that the adults of one generation 

 have the power of consciously moulding the nature of the generation 

 to come after them. We can make our children, not only more 

 healthy in body and keener in intellect than we are, we can also make 

 them nobler in character, we can endow them with an emotional 

 hygiene. 



The origin of ethical training lies in a remote past, among the 

 earliest forms of human societies. The most primitive parent would 

 make some attempt to qualify his child for the society in which he 

 had to live. As the society became more organised, the attention 

 given to the training of its future members received more attention. 

 Along with the other functions arising out of social life, the function 

 of the educator became more and more specialised in character. But 

 from the beginning, the aim of training has been to produce fit 

 members for the next generation of society. 



Until a quite recent yesterday, the means employed to attain this 

 desirable end were empirical in essence and objective in method. 

 But, during late years, the basis of ethical sanction has been under- 

 going a radical change. The objective sanction for right conduct 

 is being superseded by a subjective sanction. The old order relied 

 upon an arbitrary "Thou shalt not," supported by the entire 

 weight of the ecclesiastic and civic powers. Under this order, ethical 

 training consisted chiefly in the inculcation of maxims regulating 

 conduct. These maxims were designed to impart a categorical 

 knowledge of things to be done, and things not to be done. Under- 

 lying the system was the mistaken assumption that an intellectual 

 conception of right conduct would lead to the practice of right 

 conduct. The only effectiveness which the system possessed was 

 derived from the potency of the authority by which the rules of 

 conduct were enforced. It was believed that whenever this authority 

 failed to sway the mind, the categorically imparted maxim failed to 

 sway the conduct. During late years the general acceptance of 

 scientific knowledge has tended to weaken eveiy form of objective 

 authority, and has led us to seek for a more stable sanction for 

 right conduct in the mental and social nature of man himself. The 

 savage father, who, on the birth of a boy, submits to long sustained 

 torture, in order that his son may be endowed with courage; the 

 royal Hebrew poet and sage who declared that to spare the rod was 

 to spoil the child ; and the man of to-day, who asserts that the moral 

 conduct of the future adult can be influenced for good, by making 

 the child commit moral maxims to memory, have one point in 

 common. They all fix their attention upon something outside the 

 child. Each of them would use objective means to gain ethical 

 results. An alliance of the sciences of psycholosy and sociology 

 has provided us with an ethical conception which has superseded 

 the earlier conception which marked the childhood of the raca 

 Under the old order the moralist was the prophet and seer; under 

 the new order the moralist will be the man of science. 



With the object of right conduct this paper is not directly 

 concerned. We will, therefore, simply accept the conclusion arrived 

 at by the study of sociology: — ^That right conduct is that conduct 

 which leads to individual and social well-beins:. Ethical teachers 



