154 



NA TURE 



[December lo, 1908 



apparatus with simple means? Dr. Guthrie's suc- 

 cessors have not neglected the study of laboratory 

 arts either, and anyone who has been connected with 

 South Kensington must resent the suggestion that 

 the desideratum here set forth is now capable of at- 

 tainment for the first time. C. V. Boys. 



MORAL EDUCATION. 



(i) Moral Instruction and Training in Schools. Re- 

 port of an International Inquiry. 2 vols. Edited 

 by Prof. M. E. Sadler. Vol. i., pp. Iviii + ;i8; 

 vol. ii., pp. xxviii-l-378. (London : Longmans, Green 

 and Co., 1908.) Price 5^. net each. 



(2) Papers on Moral Education communicated to the 

 First International Moral Education Congrcs<. 

 (London : David Nutt, 1908.) Price 5.5. 



THE recent congress on moral education and tlie 

 volumes which contain the results of the inter- 

 national inquiry upon the subject have rendered at 

 least one great service to current educational thought. 

 They have given us, on the one hand, a large amount 

 of information on what is being done in various parts 

 of the world in the matter of moral instruction and 

 training, and, on the other hand, a series of valuable 

 essays upon the various aspects of the problem as it 

 presents itself to responsible persons, bv means of 

 which it is possible to examine some of the funda- 

 mental issues which are raised. 



As Prof. Sadler frankly admits in his admirable 

 preface to the committee's report, there is much variety 

 of opinion expressed in its pages, and we may note 

 at once that each of these many opinions is based 

 upon experience. They furnish another illustration of 

 the fact that successful experience is not always a 

 safe guide in reaching scientific conclusions. Suc- 

 cessful experience may even darken counsel ! Witness 

 the experience of those races who succeed in driving 

 away the evil spirits who are attempting to destroy 

 the light of the moon during an eclipse. In important 

 matters of practice w-e are naturally eager to arrive 

 at a guiding principle, and interest centres in the 

 successes of this or that method. In our impatience 

 to act, we do not wait to consider the failures, and 

 w-e have no time to give to the wearisome analysis 

 which aims at laying bare the elements that condi- 

 tion success and failure alike. Nevertheless, it re- 

 mains a fact that, until this has been done, all pro- 

 cedure, even successful procedure, is little more than 

 groping in the dark. 



Such general agreement as is revealed in these 

 volumes would perhaps be represented by a rather 

 empty formula defining the aim of moral education, 

 shall we say? to lead the individual to accept some 

 principle which will give unity and meaning to his 

 life. So soon as we step outside this or some similar 

 statement, differences of a two-fold character are re- 

 vealed. In the first place, we find them in the answers 

 to the question, What is to be the nature of this uni- 

 fying principle? "Service," says Mr. Gould; "the 

 freedom of the inner life," says Prof. Foerster; whilst 

 Dr. Penzig refuses teleological considerations anv 

 place in moral instruction, and others, again, would 

 NO. 2041, \OL. 7()] 



find the unifying principle in the conception of the 

 active interest and supervision of a Divine Personality ; 

 and in the next place we find them when we inquire 

 about the method to be followed in the effort to lead 

 pupils to this principle. Here the differences are in 

 part consequential upon the individual attitude to the 

 previous question. It will make a world of difi'er- 

 ence, for example, whether the definitely religious 

 point of view is accepted or not. But, leaving that 

 particular difficulty aside, there remains the conflict 

 between the advocates of the direct and systematic 

 treatment of morals and those who favour indirect 

 and incidental teaching. Both parties to the conflict 

 admit the fundamental importance of training, of 

 habit formation, but the former would have, in addi- 

 tion, definite lessons in the " oughts " of life, drawn 

 from the consideration of concrete illustrations of 

 virtuous and of foolish action, as told in storv bv 

 the teacher. The point of view is precisely that of 

 the teacher who w-ishes to establish a scientific law. 

 The pupil is led to derive the law from the comparison 

 of carefully chosen concrete examples. At a later 

 stage various generalisations may be reviewed and 

 compared with the view of arriving at a still more 

 general principle, until finally the most widely em- 

 bracing uniformities are conceived and formulated as 

 " laws of nature." 



This attitude towards the problem appears to rest 

 on two assumptions. It seems to place moral law 

 and physical law in the same category, and it seems; 

 to take for granted the child's capacity to analyse 

 conduct and motive in the objective manner of some 

 adults. It is not necessary to insist at length upon 

 the difference between an ethical principle and a 

 scientific generalisation. The ethical principle is a 

 matter of personal adoption ; it has a psychology and 

 a meaning which differ fundamentally from the intel- 

 lectual apprehension of a uniformity in the phenomenal 

 world. There can be no analogy between the two sucli 

 as would justify the statement that " the relation be- 

 tween indirect and direct moral instruction is the same 

 as that between nature-study and science." The point 

 is touched, though somewhat slightly, by M. Gabriel 

 Seailles in a thoughtful paper read to the conference. 

 Incidentally he also puts his finger upon the errors in 

 psychology which not infrequently underlie the ad- 

 vocacy of the systematic treatment of the subject. 



It is said, for example, that the children of poor 

 districts are face to face with problems of gambling, 

 intemperance, &c., and the school should come to 

 their rescue by teaching them the wickedness of all 

 these things that make up the daily life of their 

 parents. .As to the problems in the midst of which such 

 children are said to find themselves, are the facts of 

 their environment in any sense problems for the 

 children? The lad who plays pitch and toss finds his 

 problem in the effort to escape the vigilance of llie 

 policemai). A problem implies a contradiction felt in 

 the actual experience of the individual. A contradicti.m 

 between what the teacher says and the dominating 

 facts of an out-of-school life will cause no more difli- 

 culty than the mathematical treatment of a space ol 

 four dimensions will affect mv attitude to the facts 



