Second, the part played by suggestion in bringing about moral habits and ideals must be recognized. The human personalities surrounding the child are his most influential teachers in this line. This influence of personalities begins when the child is yet a baby. Reflex imitation first, and later conscious imitation plus the feeling of dependence which a little child has for the adults in his environment, results in the child reflecting to a large extent the characters of those about him. Good temper, stability, care for others, self-control, and many other habits; respect for truth, for the opinion of others, and many other ideals, are unconsciously absorbed by the child in his early years. Example not precept, actions not words, are the controlling forces in moral education. Hence the great importance of the characters of a child's companions, friends, and teachers, to say nothing of his parents. Next to personalities, theaters, moving pictures, and books, all have great suggestive power.
Third, there is always a danger that theory become divorced from practice, and this is particularly true here because morality is conduct. Knowing what is right is one thing, doing it is another, and knowing does not result in doing unless definite connections are made between the two. Instruction in morals may have but little effect on conduct. It is only as the knowledge of what is right and good comes in connection with social situations when there is the call for action that true morality can be gained. Mere classroom instruction cannot insure conduct. It is only as the family and the school become more truly social institutions, where group activity such as one finds in life is the dominant note, that we can hope to have morality and not ethics, ideals and not passive appreciation, as a result of our teaching.
Fourth, it is without question true that in so far as the habits fixed are "school habits" or "Sunday habits," or any other special type of habits, formed only in connection with special situations, to that extent we have no reason to expect moral conduct in the broader life situations. The habits formed are those that will be put into practice, and they are the only ones we are sure of. Because a child is truthful in school, prompt in attendance, polite to his teacher, and so on is no warrant that he will be the same on the playground or on the street. Because a child can think out a problem in history or mathematics is no warrant that he will therefore think out moral problems. The only sure way is to see to it that he forms many useful habits out of school as well as in, that he has opportunity to think out moral problems as well as problems in school subjects.[18]
Fifth, individual differences must not be forgotten in moral training. Individual differences in suggestibility will influence the use of this factor in habit formation. Individual differences in power of appreciation will influence the formation of ideals. Differences in interest in books will result in differing degrees of knowledge. Differences in maturity will mean that certain children in a class are ready for facts concerning sex, labor and capital, crime, and so on, long before other children in the same class should have such knowledge. Differences in thinking power will determine efficiency in moral situations just as in others.
The more carefully we consider the problem of moral social conduct, the more apparent it becomes that the work of the school can be modified so as to produce more significant results than are commonly now secured. Indeed, it may be contended that in some respects the activities of the school operate to develop an attitude which is largely individualistic, competitive, and, if not anti-social, at least non-social. Although we may not expect that the habits and attitudes which are developed in the school will entirely determine the life led outside, yet one may not forget that a large part of the life of children is spent under school supervision. As children work in an atmosphere of coöperation, and as they form habits of helpfulness and openmindedness, we may expect that in some degree these types of activity will persist, especially in their association with each other. In a school which is organized to bring about the right sort of moral social conduct we ought to expect that children would grow in their power to accept responsibility for each other. The writer knows of a fourth grade in which during the past year a boy was absent from the room after recess. The teacher, instead of sending the janitor, or she herself going to find the boy, asked the class what they were going to do about it, and suggested to them their responsibility for maintaining the good name which they had always borne as a group. Two of the more mature boys volunteered to go and find the boy who was absent. When they brought him into the room a little while later, they remarked to the teacher in a most matter-of-fact way, "We do not think that he will stay out after recess again." In the corridor of an elementary school the writer saw during the past year two boys sitting on a table before school hours in the morning. The one was teaching the multiplication tables to the other. They were both sixth-grade pupils,--the one a boy who had for some reason or other never quite thoroughly learned his tables. The teacher had suggested that somebody might help him, and a boy had volunteered to come early to school in order that he might teach the boy who was backward. A great many teachers have discovered that the strongest motive which they can find for good work in the field of English is to be found in providing an audience, both for the reading or story-telling, and for the English composition. The idea which prevails is that if one is to read, he ought to read well enough to entertain others. If one has enjoyed a story, he may, if he prepares himself sufficiently well, tell it to the class or to some other group.
Much more emphasis on the undertakings in the attempt to have children accept responsibility, and to engage in a type of activity which has a definite moral social value, is to be found in the schools in which children are responsible for the morning exercises, or for publishing a school paper, or for preparing a school festival. One of the most notable achievements in this type of activity which the writer has ever known occurred in a school in which a group of seventh-grade children were thought to be particularly incompetent. The teachers had almost despaired of having them show normal development, either intellectually or socially. After a conference of all of the teachers who knew the members of this group, it was decided to allow them to prepare a patriot's day festival. The idea among those teachers who had failed with this group was that if the children had a large responsibility, they would show a correspondingly significant development. The children responded to the motive which was provided, became earnest students of history in order that they might find a dramatic situation, and worked at their composition when they came to write their play, some of them exercising a critical as well as a creative faculty which no one had known that they possessed. But possibly the best thing about the whole situation was that every member of the class found something to do in their coöperative enterprise. Some members of the class were engaged in building and in decorating the stage scenery; others were responsible for costumes; those who were strong in music devoted themselves to this field. The search for a proper dramatic situation in history and the writing of the play have already been suggested. The staging of the play and its presentation to a large group of parents and other interested patrons of the school required still further specialization and ability. Out of it all came a realization of the possibility of accomplishing great things when all worked together for the success of a common enterprise. When the festival day came, the most common statement heard in the room on the part of the parents and others interested in the work of the children was expressed by one who said: "This is the most wonderful group of seventh-grade children that I have ever seen. They are as capable as most high school boys and girls." It is to be recalled that this was the group in whom the teachers originally had little faith, and who had sometimes been called in their school a group of misfits.
Some schools have found, especially in the upper grades, an opportunity for a type of social activity which is entirely comparable with the demand made upon the older members of our communities. This work for social improvement or betterment is carried on frequently in connection with a course in civics. In some schools there is organized what is known as the junior police. This organization has been in some cases coordinated with the police department. The boys who belong pledge themselves to maintain, in so far as they are able, proper conditions on the streets with respect to play, to abstain from the illegal use of tobacco or other narcotics, and to be responsible for the correct handling of garbage, especially to see that paper, ashes, and other refuse are placed in separate receptacles, and that these receptacles are removed from the street promptly after they are emptied by the department concerned. In one city with which the writer is acquainted, the children in the upper grades, according to the common testimony of the citizens of their community, have been responsible for the cleaning up of the street cars. In other cities they have become interested, and have interested their parents, in the question of milk and water supply. In some cases they have studied many different departments of the city government, and have, in so far as it was possible, lent their coöperation. In one case a group of children became very much excited concerning a dead horse that was allowed to remain on a street near the school, and they learned before they were through just whose responsibility it was, and how to secure the action that should have been taken earlier.
Still another type of activity which may have significance for the moral social development of children is found in the study of the life activities in the communities in which they live. There is no reason why children, especially in the upper grades or in the high school, should not think about working conditions, especially as they involve sweat-shops or work under unsanitary conditions. They may very properly become interested in the problems of relief, and of the measures taken to eliminate crime. Indeed, from the standpoint of the development of socially efficient children, it would seem to be more important that some elementary treatment of industrial and social conditions might be found to be more important in the upper grades and in the high school than any single subject which we now teach.
Another attempt to develop a reasonable attitude concerning moral situations is found in the schools which have organized pupils for the participation in school government. There is no particular value to be attached to any such form of organization. It may be true that there is considerable advantage in dramatizing the form of government in which the children live, and for that purpose policemen, councilmen or aldermen, mayors, and other officials, together with their election, may help in the understanding of the social obligations which they will have to meet later on. But the main thing is to have these children come to accept responsibility for each other, and to seek to make the school a place where each respects the rights of others and where every one is working together for the common good. In this connection it is important to suggest that schemes of self-government have succeeded only where there has been a leader in the position of principal or other supervisory officer concerned. Children's judgments are apt to be too severe when they are allowed to discipline members of their group. There will always be need, whatever attempt we may make to have them accept responsibility, for the guidance and direction of the more mature mind.
We seek in all of these activities, as has already been suggested, to have children come to take, in so far as they are able, the rational attitude toward the problems of conduct which they have to face. It is important for teachers to realize the fallacy of making a set of rules by which all children are to be controlled. It is only with respect to those types of activity in which the response, in order to further the good of the group, must be invariable that we should expect to have pupils become automatic. It is important in the case of a fire drill, or in the passing of materials, and the like, that the response, although it does involve social obligation, should be reduced to the level of mechanized routine. Most school situations involve, or may involve, judgment, and it is only as pupils grow in power of self-control and in their willingness to think through a situation before acting, that we may expect significant moral development. In the case of offenses which seem to demand punishment, that teacher is wise who is able to place responsibility with the pupil who has offended. The question ought to be common, "What can I do to help you?" The question which the teacher should ask herself is not, "What can I do to punish the pupil?" but rather, "How can I have him realize the significance of his action and place upon him the responsibility of reinstating himself with the social group?" The high school principal who solved the problem of a teacher who said that she would not teach unless a particular pupil were removed from her class, and of the pupil who said that she would not stay in school if she had to go to that teacher, by telling them both to take time to think it through and decide how they would reconcile their differences, is a case in point. What we need is not the punishment which follows rapidly upon our feeling of resentment, but rather the wisdom of waiting and accepting the mistake or offense of the pupil as an opportunity for careful consideration upon his part and as a possible means of growth for him.