The Moral Instruction of Children

by Felix Adler

The Story of Noah and his Sons.

Describe the beauty of the vine, and of the purple grapes hanging in clusters amid the green leaves. How sweet is this fruit to the taste! But the juice of it has a dangerous property. Once there lived a man, Noah, who had three sons. He planted a vine, plucked the grapes, but did not know the dangerous property of the juice. The second son, on seeing his father in a state of intoxication, allowed his sense of the ridiculous to overcome his feeling of reverence. But the eldest and the youngest sons acted differently. They took a garment, covered their father with it, and averted their faces so as not to see his disgrace. The moral is quite important. An intelligent child can not help detecting a fault now and then even in the best of parents. But the right course for him to take is to throw the mantle over the fault, and to turn away his face. He should say to himself: Am I the one to judge my parents—I who have been the recipient of so many benefits at their hands, and who see in them so many virtues, so much superior wisdom? By such reasoning the feeling of reverence is even deepened. The momentary superiority which the child feels serves only to bring out his general inferiority.

The Abraham Cycle.

There is a whole series of stories belonging to this group, illustrating in turn the virtues of brotherly harmony, generosity toward the weak, hospitality toward strangers, and maternal love. Abraham and Lot are near kinsmen. Their servants quarrel, and to avoid strife the former advises a separation. "If thou wilt go to the left," he says, "I will turn to the right; if thou preferrest the land to the right, I will take the left." Abraham, being the older, was entitled to the first choice, but he waived his claim. Lot chose the fairer portion, and Abraham willingly assented. "Let there be no strife between us, for we be brethren." The lesson is, that the older and wiser of two brothers or kinsmen may well yield a part of his rights for harmony's sake.

Abraham's conduct toward the King of Sodom is an instance of generosity. The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah may be introduced by describing the Dead Sea and the surrounding scene of desolation. The moral lies in the circumstance that ill treatment of strangers brought down the doom. Hospitality toward strangers is one of the shining virtues of the Old Testament heroes. Even at the present day strangers are still despised and ridiculed by the vulgar, their foreign manners, language, and habits seeming contemptible; the lesson of hospitality is not yet superfluous.

The story of Hagar and her Child I should recast in such a way as to exclude what in it is repellent, and retain the touching picture of maternal affection. I should relate it somewhat as follows: There was once a little lad whose name was Ishmael. He had lost his father and had only his mother to cling to. She was a tall, beautiful lady, with dark eyes which were often very sad, but they would light up, and there was always a sweet smile on her lips whenever she looked at her darling boy. Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, had never been separated; they were all in all to each other. One day it happened that they walked away from their home, which was near the great, sandy desert. Ishmael's mother was in deep distress, there was something troubling her, and every now and then a tear would steal down her cheeks. Ishmael was sad, too, because his mother was, but he did not dare to ask her what it was that grieved her, fearing to give her pain. So they walked on and on, holding each other's hands in silence. But at last they saw that they had lost their way; and they tried first one direction, and then another, thinking that it would bring them back toward home, but they only got deeper and deeper into the vast, lonely desert. And the sun burned hot and hotter above their heads, and little Ishmael, who had tried to keep up like a brave lad, at last became so parched with thirst, and so faint with want of food, and so tired with walking—for they had wandered about for many, many hours—that he could go on no farther. Then his mother took him up in her arms and laid him under a bush, where there was a little shade. And then, oh then, how her poor heart was wrung, and how she wept to see her darling in such suffering, and how she cried for help! Then she sat down on the glaring sand at some distance away, and turned her face in the direction opposite to where Ishmael was lying; for she said, "I can not bear to see my boy die." But just as she had given up all hope, suddenly she saw a noble-looking man, wearing the dress of the Bedouins, approach her. He had come from behind one of the sand hills, and it seemed to her as if he had come down straight from the sky. He asked her why she was in such grief, and when she told him, and pointed to her little son, he said: "It is fortunate that you have come to this place. There is a beautiful oasis close by." An oasis, children, is a spot of fruitful green earth right in the midst of the desert, like an island in the ocean. And the man took the boy up and carried him in his arms, and Hagar followed after him. And presently, when they came to the oasis, they found a cool, clear spring, full of the most delicious water, and palm-trees with ever so many dates on them, and all the people who lived there gathered around them. And the man who had been so kind proved to be the chief. And he took charge of Ishmael's education, showed him how to shoot with the bow and how to hunt, and was like a real father to him. And when Ishmael grew up he became a great chief of the Bedouins. But he always remained true to his mother, and loved her with all his heart.

I am strongly in favor of omitting the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac. I do not think we can afford to tell young children that a father was prepared to draw the knife against his own son, even though he desisted in the end. I should not be willing to inform a child that so horrible an impulse could have been entertained even for a moment in a parent's heart. I regard the story, indeed, as, from an historical point of view, one of the most valuable in the Bible; it has a deep meaning; but it is not food fit for children. A great mistake has been made all along in supposing that whatever is true in religion must be communicated to children; and that if anything be very true and very important we ought to hasten to give it to children as early as possible; but there must be preparatory training. And the greatest truths are often of such a kind as only the mature mind, ripe in thought and experience, is fitted to assimilate.

One of the most charming idyls of patriarchal times is the story of Rebecca at the Well. It illustrates positively, as the story of Sodom does negatively, the duty of hospitality toward strangers. "Drink, lord, and I will give thy camels drink also," is a pleasant phrase which is apt to stick in the memory. Moreover, the story shows the high place which the trusted servant occupied in the household of his master, and offers to the teacher an opportunity of dwelling on the respect due to faithful servants.

The Jacob Cycle.

What treatment shall Jacob receive at our hands, he, the sly trickster, who cheats his brother of his birthright and steals a father's blessing? Yet he is one of the patriarchs, and is accorded the honorable title of "champion of God." To hold him up to the admiration of the young is impossible. To gloss over his faults and try to explain them away were a sorry business, and honesty forbids. The Bible itself gives us the right clew. His faults are nowhere disguised. He is represented as a person who makes a bad start in life—a very bad start, indeed—but who pays the penalty of his wrong-doing. His is a story of penitential discipline.