ETHICAL TRAIMXG. 759 



children lived in a street through which policemen were forbidden 

 to walk alone, the regulations requiring them to patrol in pairs 

 for mutual safety. Daily contact with a young teacher of ethical 

 principles, and some knowledge of psychology, had taught these 

 little ones to walk uprightly among their fellows. This teacher had 

 created for her scholars an ethical atmosphere in which the elementary 

 virtues were persistently regarded as normal, and the unethical 

 tendencies as abnormal. There can be no doubt that public praise 

 for ordinary moral conduct is detrimental to ethical progress, because 

 it implies that such conduct is unexpected. Praise should be reserved 

 for special occasions. 



The natural emotions are the only healthy stimuli to ethical 

 growth. They may be classified under three heads: First, there is 

 the functional pleasure experienced in the acquiring of knowledge. 

 If this emotion is not present, if, on the contrary, the child shows 

 indifference towards or distaste for his lesson, something is wrong. 

 The intellectual faculty has been overstrained, or he is ill, or the 

 subject presented is not suited to the stage of mental development 

 he has reached, or it is not presented in a fitting form. The 

 acquisition of knowledge, under proper conditions, is always pleasur- 

 able. In the second place there is the gratification experienced in 

 applying knowledge already acquired, and in the third, the pleasure 

 of earning the approbation of teacher and parent. In other words, 

 of giving pleasure to persons who are loved and respected — an 

 emotion which has its foundation in affection, and which differs 

 essentially from the vulgar love of applause. We pass on to note 

 that the system of prize-giving is injux'ious in two ways^one 

 negative, the other positive. By diverting the attention from the 

 emotional pleasures which are the normal reward of effort it prevents 

 the formation of an important association of ideas ; and by creating 

 a desire for something over and above the natural reward of effort, 

 it gives rise to an artificial craving. The boy who crams at school, 

 triumphantly beating his classmates, and Avho brings away with 

 his prizes a more or less disguised contempt for knowledge, has 

 received a serious ethical blow on the threshold of manhood. Gifted 

 with a retentive memory, or with abnormal powers of application, 

 he has succeeded where* others have failed, and glories in his success, 

 without feeling any sympathy for those he has beaten. The selfish 

 egotism of youth has been strengthened; the feeble altruistic 

 sentiments have been repressed. Tlie prizes may be placed upon the 

 parental shelf and soon forgotten ; but this stimulation of the egoistic 

 emotions at the expense of the altiiiistic, may leave results, which, 

 in after life, will tend to make that boy an indifferent friend, a selfish 

 husband, a careless father, and a citizen who puts the consideration ' 

 of personal advantage before the higher consideration of civic duty. 

 But the harmful results of prize-giving do not end with the prize- 

 winner. In a class of forty boys, let us suppose that half the imiiiber 

 possess nervous, excitable temperaments, while the other half possess 

 lymphatic temperaments. The former are thrown into an excited 

 state of keen pursuit, by this competitive system of prize-hunting. 

 The instincts of the chase are aroused; they work for that alone. 

 Their intellectual horizon is narrowed : they ai*e receptive of nothing 



