THE ETHICAL PROBLEM OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 5 



duties and future of their children; and this thought for the 

 welfare of others has had a wholesome reaction upon their 

 own lives. 



In naming the elements that give moral value to the 

 public schools mention should be made of the indirect good 

 accomplished by keeping large numbers of children from the 

 haphazard companionship of the streets, and from idleness 

 and degrading influences. Especially in the larger towns and 

 cities has this been true. To this negative protective good 

 should be added the positive advantage derived from the 

 acciuisition of habits of neatness, personal cleanliness, and, 

 in many schools, good manners. 



After enumerating these things, which are more or less 

 incidental to the system, and others that might and ought to 

 be considered, it still remains to be said that the greatest 

 ethical value in the public school system is, and must ever be, 

 the intellectual work that is accomplished by it. There can 

 be no doubt that there is a great amount of teaching that is 

 not only unmoral, but positively immoral, in its direct or 

 indirect influence. Recent publications demonstrate this 

 fact, and show that the public schools will be at their best as 

 a moral force when their work is thoroughly scientific. 



Their success, then, in achieving the purpose for which 

 they have been created depends primarily upon the character 

 of the instruction that is given in them. It may be true that 

 " pupils will not learn their lessons in arithmetic if they have 

 not already made some progress in concentration, in self- 

 forgetfulness, in acceptance of duty;" but it is equally true 

 that mental exactitude and thoroughness of work, under the 

 influence of a teacher whose method is scientific and whose 

 spirit is earnest, will develop the elements that produce con- 

 centration, self-forgetfulness, and dutifulness. The tendency 

 of mechanical, unscientific instruction is towards immorality. 

 Schools that are under the control of selfish officials, with in- 

 competent supervision and antiquated methods of teaching, 

 have no power to quicken those springs of action which are 

 the sources of morality. On the other hand, ethical capacity 

 and moral strength can and ought to be produced by a high- 



