Moral Instruction.—Direct moral instruction—like drill—produces a pleasing veneer, but unless there is properly seasoned character below this will not stand wear.
Wise old Plato long ago gave us the right lead in education, and one which only now is beginning to be followed, when he said that there was innate good in every child, and the aim of education should be to develop these natural “instincts of virtue” through suitable practices.
Active versus passive education.—No mention of reading, writing, and ’rithmetic as essentials, but of enlarging the natural instincts, i.e., character by practices not merely by precepts.
The average girl (if there is such a thing as an average girl) does not want to sit down and passively receive theoretical instruction. She wants to be up and actually doing things in practice, and this is a good lever to work upon if only the teacher will recognise it as the instrument ready to her hand.
Your first step then is to study the girl herself; to recognise her likes and dislikes, her good qualities and her bad, and to direct her training on these.
How to Apply the Training
The scheme given in this book is little more than a suggestive outline. It is left to the ingenuity of the Captain to devise generally on these lines further activities such as will best suit her local conditions.
Games and practices selected or planned for the purpose can be made to teach, through the youthful enthusiasm of the girls, most of the moral attributes required, such as self-restraint, good temper, obedience to leaders and to rules, unselfishness, pluck, moral endurance, fairness, esprit de corps, etc., as well as physical hygiene. Further, they teach soberness in success, good humour in defeat, and repression of show-off and hysterics.
For example, if a girl faints on parade it should be a point of honour almost to take no notice of her beyond allowing her Corporal and one other Scout to look after her. The business of the moment should go on as if nothing untoward were happening.