The Moral Instruction of Children

by Felix Adler

In speaking of the temptation of Joseph in the house of Potiphar, it is enough to say that the wife conspired against her husband, and endeavored to induce Joseph to betray his master. A pretty addition to the story is to be found in the Talmud, to the effect that Joseph saw in imagination the face of his father before him in the moment of temptation, and was thereby strengthened to resist.

The light of a superior mind can not be hidden even in a prison.—Joseph wins the favor of his fellow-prisoners, and an opportunity is thus opened to him to exercise his talents on the largest scale.

Affliction chastens.—The famine had in the mean time spread to Palestine. The shadow of the grief for Joseph still lay heavily on the household of the patriarch. Joseph is lost; shall Benjamin, too, perish? It is pleasant to observe that the character of the brothers in the mean time has been changed for the better. There is evidently a lurking sense of guilt and a desire to atone for it in the manner in which Judah pledges himself for the safety of the youngest child. And the same marked change is visible in the conduct of all the brothers on the journey. The stratagem of the cup was cunningly devised to test their feelings. They might have escaped by throwing the blame on Benjamin. Instead of that, they dread nothing so much as that he may have to suffer, and are willing to sacrifice everything to save him. When this new spirit has become thoroughly apparent, the end to which the whole group of Jacob stories pointed all along is reached; the work of moral regeneration is complete. Jacob himself has been purified by affliction, and the brothers and Joseph have been developed by the same hard taskmaster into true men. The scene of recognition which follows, when the great vice-regent orders his attendants from the apartment and embraces those who once attempted his life, with the words, "I am Joseph, your brother: does my father still live?" is touching in the extreme, and the whole ends happily in a blaze of royal pomp, like a true Eastern tale.

A word as to the method which should be used in teaching these stories. If the fairy tale holds the moral element in solution, if the fable drills the pupil in distinguishing one moral trait at a time, the biblical stories exhibit a combination of moral qualities, or, more precisely, the interaction of moral causes and effects; and it is important for the teacher to give expression to this difference in the manner in which he handles the stories. Thus, in the fables we have simply one trait, like ingratitude, and its immediate consequences. The snake bites the countryman, and is cast out; there the matter ends. In the story of Joseph we have, first, the partiality of the father, which produces or encourages self-conceit in the son; Joseph's conceit produces envy in the brothers. This envy reacts on all concerned—on Joseph, who in consequence is sold into slavery; on the father, who is plunged into inconsolable grief; on the brothers, who nearly become murderers. The servitude of Joseph destroys his conceit and develops his nobler nature. Industry, fidelity, and sagacity raise him to high power. The sight of the constant affliction of their father on account of Joseph's loss mellows the heart of the brothers, etc. It is this interweaving of moral causes and effects that gives to the stories their peculiar value. They are true moral pictures; and, like the pictures used in ordinary object lessons, they serve to train the power of observation. Trained observation, however, is the indispensable preliminary of correct moral judgment.

The Moses Cycle.

The figures of the patriarchs and the prophets appeal to us with a fresh interest the moment we regard them as human beings like ourselves, who were tempted as we are, who struggled as we are bound to do, and who acted, howsoever the divine economy might supervene, on their own responsibility. Looked at from this point of view, the figure of Moses, the Liberator, approaches our sympathies at the same time that he towers in imposing proportions above our level. Let us briefly review his career. Like Arminius at a later day, he is educated at the court of the enemies of his people. In dress, in manners, in speech, he doubtless resembles the grandees of Pharaoh's court. When he approaches the well in Midian, the daughter of Jethro exclaims, "Behold, an Egyptian is coming!" But at heart he remains a Hebrew, and is deeply touched by the cruel sufferings of his race. His first public intervention on their behalf takes place when he strikes down and kills a native overseer whom he detects in the act of maltreating a Hebrew slave. This is characteristic of the manner in which reformers begin. They direct their first efforts against the particular consequences of some great general wrong. Later on they perceive the uselessness of such a procedure and take heart to attack the evil at its source. Moses flees into the desert. The lonely life he leads there is necessary to the development of his ideas. Solitude is essential to the growth of genius. The burning bush is the outward symbol of an inward fact. The fire which can not be quenched is in his own breast, and out of that inward burning he hears more and more distinctly the voice which bids him go back and free his people. But when he considers the means at his disposal, when in fancy he sees his people, a miserable horde of slaves, pitted against the armed hosts of Pharaoh, he is ready to despair; until he hears the comforting voice, which says, "The Eternal is with thee; the unchangeable power of right is on thy side: it will prevail!" Like Jeremiah, like Isaiah, like all great reformers, Moses is profoundly imbued with the sense of his unfitness for the task laid upon him. He pleads that he is heavy of speech. He can only stammer forth the message of freedom. But he is reassured by the thought that a brother will be found, that helpers will arise, that the thought which he can barely formulate will be translated by other lesser men into a form suitable for the popular understanding. He returns to Egypt to find that the greatest obstacle in his way is the lethargy and unbelief of the very people whom he wishes to help. This again is a typical feature of his career. The greatest trials of the reformer are due not to the open enmity of the oppressor, but to the meanness, the distrust and jealousy, of those whom oppression has degraded. At last, however, the miracle of salvation is wrought, the weak prevail over the mighty, the cause of justice triumphs against all apparent odds to the contrary. The slaves rise against their masters, the flower of Egyptian chivalry is destroyed. Pharaoh rallies his army and sets out in pursuit. But the Hebrews, under Moses's guidance, have gained the start, and escape into the wilderness in safety.

Freedom is a precious opportunity—no more. Its value depends on the use to which it is put. And therefore, no sooner was the act of liberation accomplished, than the great leader turned to the task of positive legislation, the task of developing a higher moral life among his people. But here a new and keener disappointment awaited him. When he descended from the mount, the glow of inspiration still upon his face, the tablets of the law in his hand, he saw the people dancing about the golden calf. It is at this moment that Michel Angelo, deeply realizing the human element in the biblical story, has represented the form of the liberator in the colossal figure which was destined for Pope Julius's tomb. "The right foot is slightly advanced; the long beard trembles with the emotion which quivers through the whole frame; the eyes flash indignant wrath; the right hand grasps the tablets of the law; in another moment, we see it plainly, he will leap from his sitting posture and shatter the work which he has made upon the rocks." This trait, too, is typical. Many a leader of a noble cause has felt, in moments of deep disappointment, as if he could shatter the whole work of his life. Many a man, in like situation, has said to himself: The people are willing enough to hail the message of the higher law to-day, but to-morrow they sink back into their dull, degraded condition, as if the vision from the mount had never been reported to them. Let me, then, leave them to their dreary ways, to dance about their golden calf. But a better and stronger mood prevailed in Moses. He ascended once more to the summit, and there prostrated himself in utter self-renunciation and self-effacement. He asked nothing for himself, only that the people whom he loved might be benefited ever so little, be raised ever so slowly above their low condition. And again the questioning spirit came upon him, and he said, as many another has said: The paths of progress are dark and twisted; the course of history seems so often to be in the wrong direction. How can I be sure that there is such a thing as eternal truth—that the right will prevail in the end? And then there came to him that grand revelation, the greatest, as I think, and the most sublime in the Old Testament, when the eternal voice answered his doubt, and said: "Thou wouldst know my ways, but canst not. No living being can see my face; only from the rearward canst thou know me." As a ship sails through the waters and leaves its wake behind, so the divine Power passes through the world and leaves behind the traces by which it can be known. And what are those traces? Justice and mercy. Cherish, therefore, the divine element in thine own nature, and thou wilt see it reflected in the world about thee. Wouldst thou be sure that there is such a thing as a divine Power? be thyself just and merciful. And so Moses descended again to his people, and became exceeding charitable in spirit. The Bible says: "The man Moses was exceeding humble; there was no one more humble than he on the face of the earth." He bore with resignation their complaints, their murmurings, their alternate cowardice and foolhardiness. He was made to feel, like many another in his place, that his foes were they of his own household. He had an only brother and an only sister. His brother and sister rose up against him. His kinsmen, too, revolted from him. He endured all their weakness, all their follies; he sought to lift them by slow degrees to the height of his own aims. He set the paths of life and death before them, and told them that the divine word can not be found by crossing the seas or by searching the heavens, but must be found in the human heart; and if men find it not there they will find it nowhere else. And so, at last, his pilgrimage drew to a close. He had reached the confines of Palestine. Once more he sought the mountain-top, and there beheld the promised land stretching far away—the land which his eyes were to see but which he was never to enter. Few great reformers, indeed few men who have started a great movement in history, and have been the means of producing deep and permanent changes in the ideas and institutions of society, have lived to see those changes consummated. The course of evolution is slow, and the reformer can hope at best to see the promised land from afar—as in a dream. Happy he if, like Moses, he retains the force of his convictions unabated, if his spiritual sight remains undimmed, if the splendid vision which attended him in the beginning inspires and consoles him to the end.

The narrative which has thus been sketched touches on some of the weightiest problems of human existence, and deals with motives both complex and lofty. I have entered into the interpretation of these motives for the purpose of showing that they are too complex and too lofty to be within the comprehension of children, and that it is an error, though unfortunately a common one, to attempt to use the grand career of a reformer and liberator as a text for the moral edification of the very young. They are wholly unprepared to understand, and that which is not understood, if forced on the attention, awakens repugnance and disgust. Few of those who have been compelled to study the life of Moses in their childhood have ever succeeded in conquering this repugnance, or have drawn from it, even in later life, the inspiration and instruction which it might otherwise have afforded them. For our primary course, however, we can extract a few points interesting even to children, thus making them familiar with the name of Moses, and preparing the way for a deeper interest later on. The incidents of the story which I should select are these: The child Moses exposed on the Nile; the good sister watching over his safety; the kind princess adopting him as her son; the sympathy manifested by him for his enslaved brethren despite his exemption from their misfortunes. The killing of the Egyptian should be represented as a crime, palliated but not excused by the cruelty of the overseer. Special stress may be laid upon the chivalric conduct of Moses toward the young girls at the well of Midian. The teacher may then go on to say that Moses, having succeeded in freeing his people from the power of the Egyptian king, became their chief, that many wise laws are ascribed to him, etc. The story of the spies, and of the end of Moses, may also be briefly told.

The mention of the laws of Moses leads me to offer a suggestion. I have remarked above that children should be taught to observe moral pictures before any attempt is made to deduce moral principles; but certain simple rules should be given even to the very young—must, indeed, be given them for their guidance. Now, in the legislation ascribed to Moses we find a number of rules fit for children, and a collection of these rules might be made for the use of schools. They should be committed to memory by the pupils, and perhaps occasionally recited in chorus. I have in mind such rules as these:[12]