§ 30. Habit lays aside its indifference to an external action through reflection on the advantage or disadvantage of the same. Whatever tends as a harmonious means to the realization of an end is advantageous, but that is disadvantageous which, by contradicting its idea, hinders or destroys it. Advantage and disadvantage being then only relative terms, a habit which is advantageous for one man in one case may be disadvantageous for another man, or even for the same man, under different circumstances. Education must, therefore, accustom the youth to judge as to the expediency or inexpediency of any action in its relation to the essential vocation of his life, so that he shall avoid that which does not promote its success.
§ 31. But the absolute distinction of habit is the moral distinction between the good and the bad. For from this standpoint alone can we finally decide what is allowable and what is forbidden, what is advantageous and what is disadvantageous.
§ 32. As relates to form, habit may be either passive or active. The passive is that which teaches us to bear the vicissitudes of nature as well as of history with such composure that we shall hold our ground against them, being always equal to ourselves, and that we shall not allow our power of acting to be paralyzed through any mutations of fortune. Passive habit is not to be confounded with obtuseness in receiving impressions, a blank abstraction from the affair in hand which at bottom is found to be nothing more than a selfishness which desires to be left undisturbed: it is simply composure of mind in view of changes over which we have no control. While we vividly experience joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure—inwoven as these are with the change of seasons, of the weather, &c.—with the alternation of life and death, of happiness and misery, we ought nevertheless to harden ourselves against them so that at the same time in our consciousness of the supreme worth of the mind we shall build up the inaccessible stronghold of Freedom in ourselves.—Active habit [or behavior] is found realized in a wide range of activity which appears in manifold forms, such as skill, dexterity, readiness of information, &c. It is a steeling of the internal for action upon the external, as the Passive is a steeling of the internal against the influences of the external.
§ 33. Habit is the general form which instruction takes. For since it reduces a condition or an activity within ourselves to an instinctive use and wont, it is necessary for any thorough instruction. But as, according to its content, it may be either proper or improper, advantageous or disadvantageous, good or bad, and according to its form may be the assimilation of the external by the internal, or the impress of the internal upon the external, Education must procure for the pupil the power of being able to free himself from one habit and to adopt another. Through his freedom he must be able not only to renounce any habit formed, but to form a new one; and he must so govern his system of habits that it shall exhibit a constant progress of development into greater freedom. We must discipline ourselves, as a means toward the ever-changing realization of the Good in us, constantly to form and to break habits.
—We must characterize those habits as bad which relate only to our convenience or our enjoyment. They are often not blamable in themselves, but there lies in them a hidden danger that they may allure us into luxury or effeminacy. But it is a false and mechanical way of looking at the affair if we suppose that a habit which has been formed by a certain number of repetitions can be broken by an equal number of denials. We can never renounce a habit utterly except through a clearness of judgment which decides it to be undesirable, and through firmness of will.—
§ 34. Education comprehends also the reciprocal action of the opposites, authority and obedience, rationality and individuality, work and play, habit and spontaneity. If we imagine that these can be reconciled by rules, it will be in vain that we try to restrain the youth in these relations. But a failure in education in this particular is very possible through the freedom of the pupil, through special circumstances, or through the errors of the educator himself. And for this very reason any theory of Education must take into account in the beginning this negative possibility. It must consider beforehand the dangers which threaten the pupil in all possible ways even before they surround him, and fortify him against them. Intentionally to expose him to temptation in order to prove his strength, is devilish; and, on the other hand, to guard him against the chance of dangerous temptation, to wrap him in cotton (as the proverb says), is womanish, ridiculous, fruitless, and much more dangerous; for temptation comes not alone from without, but quite as often from within, and secret inclination seeks and creates for itself the opportunity for its gratification, often perhaps an unnatural one. The truly preventive activity consists not in an abstract seclusion from the world, all of whose elements are innate in each individual, but in the activity of knowledge and discipline, modified according to age and culture.
—If one endeavors to deprive the youth of all free and individual intercourse with the world, one only falls into a continual watching of him, and the consciousness that he is watched destroys in him all elasticity of spirit, all confidence, all originality. The police shadow of control obscures all independence and systematically accustoms him to dependence. As the tragi-comic story of Peter Schlemihl shows, one cannot lose his own shadow without falling into the saddest fatalities; but the shadow of a constant companion, as in the pedagogical system of the Jesuits, undermines all naturalness. And if one endeavors too strictly to guard against that which is evil and forbidden, the intelligence of the pupils reacts in deceit against such efforts, till the educators are amazed that such crimes as come often to light can have arisen under such careful control.—
§ 35. If there should appear in the youth any decided moral deformity which is opposed to the ideal of his education, the instructor must at once make inquiry as to the history of its origin, because the negative and the positive are very closely connected in his being, so that what appears to be negligence, rudeness, immorality, foolishness, or oddity, may arise from some real needs of the youth which in their development have only taken a wrong direction.
§ 36. If it should appear on such examination that the negative action was only a product of wilful ignorance, of caprice, or of arbitrariness on the part of the youth, then this calls for a simple prohibition on the part of the educator, no reason being assigned. His authority must be sufficient to the pupil without any reason. Only when this has happened more than once, and the youth is old enough to understand, should the prohibition, together with the reason therefor, be given.
—This should, however, be brief; the explanation must retain its disciplinary character, and must not become extended into a doctrinal essay, for in such a case the youth easily forgets that it was his own misbehavior which was the occasion of the explanation. The statement of the reason must be honest, and it must present to the youth the point most easy for him to seize. False reasons are morally blamable in themselves, and they tend only to confuse. It is a great mistake to unfold to the youth the broadening consequences which his act may bring. These uncertain possibilities seem to him too powerless to affect him particularly. The severe lecture wearies him, especially if it be stereotyped, as is apt to be the case with fault-finding and talkative instructors. But more unfortunate is it if the painting of the gloomy background to which the consequences of the wrong-doing of the youth may lead, should fill his feelings and imagination prematurely with gloomy fancies, because then the representation has led him one step toward a state of wretchedness which in the future man may become fearful depression and degradation.—