RECAPITULATION.
Let us now briefly review the ground we have gone over in the present course. In the five introductory lectures we discussed the problem of unsectarian moral teaching, the efficient motives of good conduct, the opportunities of moral influence in schools, the classification of duties, and the moral status of the child on entering school.
In mapping out the primary course we assumed as a starting-point the idea that the child rapidly passes through the same stages of evolution through which the human race has passed, and hence we endeavored to select our material for successive epochs in the child's life from the literature of the corresponding epochs in the life of the race.
In regard to the method of instruction, we observed that in the fairy tales the moral element should be touched on incidentally; that in teaching the fables isolated moral qualities should be presented in such a way that the pupil may always thereafter be able to recognize them; while the stories display a number of moral qualities in combination and have the value of moral pictures.
In the primary course the object has been to train the moral perceptions; in the grammar course, to work out moral concepts and to formulate rules of conduct. The method of getting at these rules may again be described as follows: Begin with some concrete case, suggest a rule which apparently fits that case or really fits it, adduce other cases which the rule does not fit, change the rule, modify it as often as necessary, until it has been brought into such shape that it will fit every case you can think of.
In planning the lessons on duty which make up the subject matter of the grammar course, we took the ground that each period of life has its specific duties, that in each period there is one paramount duty around which the others may be grouped, and that each new system of duties should embrace and absorb the preceding one.
It remains for me to add that the illustrations which I have used in the grammar course are intended merely to serve as specimens, and by no means to exclude the use of different illustrative matter which the teacher may find more suitable. Furthermore, I desire to express the hope that it may be possible, without too much difficulty, to eliminate whatever subjective conceptions may be found to have crept into these lessons, and that, due deduction having been made, there may remain a substratum of objective truth which all can accept. It should be remembered that these lectures are not intended to take the place of a text-book, but to serve as a guide to the teacher in preparing his lessons.
I hope hereafter to continue the work which has thus been begun. In the advanced course, which is to follow the present one, we shall have to reconsider from a higher point of view many of the subjects already treated, and in addition to take up such topics as the ethics of the professions, the ethics of friendship, conjugal ethics, etc., which have here been omitted.