THE CHAOS IN MORAL TRAINING. 439 



punished, but was given a lecture on the words in the Revelation, 

 ' Without are . . . whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.' I was made 

 to see that the habit would grow and dishonor me in the sight of 

 God and man, and left with the promise of a good whipping if I 

 ever told another. In general, I remember that I was taught 

 that my faults had the peculiarity of increasing at an astonish- 

 ing rate ; that I was a very naughty child, and that every wrong 

 act grieved a heavenly Father who loved me and who was ever 

 present to see both the good and the bad." " After lying I was 

 told that I got no good from it ; that teachers and friends disliked 

 such persons ; that my honest playmates would look down on me ; 

 that God was grieved with me. The room was filled with the 

 splendor of the setting sun, and it seemed to me that God must 

 be up there looking at me and seeing what a naughty girl I was. 

 Then I was told that God would forgive me if only I confessed, 

 and that in the future he would help me to be good if only I 

 tried." 



I am not afraid that any one will despise these incidents as 

 trivial. It is easy, indeed, to recall our own childhood, to look 

 out at what is now around us, and say that there is nothing new 

 here ; that all this is commonplace and just what any one would 

 expect. Precisely ; and in that consists its value. It all simply 

 brings out the most familiar kind of facts, but still facts to which 

 we shut our eyes, or else ordinarily dismiss as of no particular 

 importance, while in reality they present considerations which 

 are of deeper import than any other one thing which can engage 

 attention. Every one will admit without dispute that the ques- 

 tion of the moral attitude and tendencies induced in youth by the 

 motives for conduct habitually brought to bear is the ultimate 

 question in all education whatever will admit it with a readi- 

 ness and cheerfulness which imply that any one who even raises 

 the question has a taste for moral truisms. Yet, as matter of 

 fact, moral education is the most haphazard of all things ; it is 

 assumed that the knowledge of the right reasons to be instilled 

 and knowledge of the methods to be used in instilling these rea- 

 sons " come by nature," as reading and writing came to Dogberry. 

 There is, if I mistake not, a disposition to resent as intrusion any 

 Discussion of the subject which goes beyond general platitudes 

 into the wisdom of the motives and methods actually used. Yet 

 I do not see how any successful training of children as to their 

 conduct is possible unless the parents are first educated themselves 

 as to what right conduct is, and what methods are fit for bring- 

 ing it about. I do not see how that is to be accomplished without 

 a free treatment of present aims and methods. 



The first thing which strikes one's attention in these answers 

 is the great gap existing at present between theory and practice. 



