372. Moral Catechism.—Those who know to what a height Kant could raise the theory of morality, will not be surprised at the importance which he ascribes to the teaching of morals.
“Our schools,” he says, “are almost entirely lacking in one thing which, however, would be very useful for training children in probity,—I mean a catechism on duty. It should contain, in a popular form, cases concerning the conduct to be observed in ordinary life, and which would always naturally raise this question: Is this right or not?”
He had begun to write a book of this kind under the title Moral Catechism;[193] and he would have desired that an hour a day of school time be given to its study, “in order to teach pupils to know and to learn by heart their duty to men,—that power of God on the earth.” The child, he says again, would there learn to substitute the fear of his own conscience for that of men and divine punishment, inward dignity for the opinion of others, the intrinsic value of actions for the apparent value of words, and, finally, a serene and cheerful piety for a sad and gloomy devotion.
[373. Analytical Summary.—1. This study exhibits the influence of philosophical systems on education. New conceptions of human destiny, new theories with respect to the composition of human nature, or a new hypothesis concerning man’s place in nature, determine corresponding changes in educational theory.
2. Perhaps the broadest generalization yet reached in educational theory is the assumption made by Condillac, that the education of each individual should be a repetition of civilization in petto. With Mr. Spencer this hypothesis becomes a law.
3. In theory, the secularization of education has begun. The Church is to lose one of its historical prerogatives, and the modern State is to become an educator.
4. Helvetius typifies what may be called the plastic theory in education, or the conception that the teacher, if wise enough, may ignore all differences in natural endowment. This makes man the victim of his environment. The truth evidently is that man is the only creature which can bend circumstances to his will; and he has such an endowment of power in this direction that he can virtually recreate his environment and thus rise superior to it. And farther than this, there are innate differences in endowment that will persist in spite of all that education can do.
5. The culture value of literary studies is justly exhibited in the quotation from Marmontel, and in particular the disciplinary value of translation.
6. Education for training, discipline, or culture, as distinguished from an education whose chief aim is to impart knowledge, receives definite recognition from Kant.]