to understand the child. Should have a desire to grow to live, and be endued with the true spirit of our great disciple, Froebel, which is the most important in the hurry and stress of today. Everyone would be the better man or woman, boy or girl, if he or she had some of the spirit of that master mind.

To those of us who are working with the children, I would say, let us in working out our problems endeavor to make the children more self-reliant, capable of doing and obedient.

Teach the children to live in harmony, first by living that way and then by having playthings which all must share. If they quarrel, and they occasionally do, try to have them understand that they must play harmoniously, they must share or no play.

The coöperative work, by using large materials to build houses, facorties, etc., on the floor, helps the child to realize he has to do his part as perfectly as he can, for on each part depends the whole.

If we teach the children to be obedient, self-reliant, to do for themselves, to live in harmony and do their share of the work, and do it well, we are helping them to grow, and gain, and give. But they must get this knowledge in a logical, scientific wayas well as a beautiful spiritual one.

As the practice work depends upon the course of study, let only those who can work out their theories in a logical, scientific way, and who have the spirit, undertake this noble calling.

[ABSTRACT OF PAPER.]

INSTRUCTION IN CHARACTER-BUILDING.

H. E. BENNETT, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY, WILLIAMSBURG, VA.

An inquiry was recently sent to about seventy representative institutions engaged in training public school teachers. Replies were received from forty-seven, pretty evenly distributed through the country and representing universities, city training schools and public normals in about the same proportion as the whole number of such institutions. It is believed that the whole field is fairly represented.

The first question was, "Does your institution offer any distinct courses on moral training?" Thirty-five answered "No;" six offer some form of ethics for this purpose, and six others treat the subject definitely under psychology, management or principles. Apparently none treat instruction in characterbuilding as a separate study.

The second question was, "Do you regard such courses as desirable?" Twenty-five answer definitely in the affirimative, nine as definitely in the negative. Of the doubtful remainder, four at least may be regarded as affirmative, subject to the organizing of a suitable content for such course. We may fairly say that the vote stands three to one in favor of specific courses in moral training, among those who have reached a conclusion upon the subject.

The third question asked for (a) the ground covered by such courses or (b) the policy approved in lieu thereof. The replies were so varied, touch upon so many topics and show so little agreement, that a digest would consume practically all the time available here and reach no conclusion. The more frequent views are presented in the following discussion and all have been carefully considered in preparing it. The greatest difficulty arises through the common confusion of the problem before us, i. e., the specific preparation of teachers to build character, with two quite different ones; (a) the moral development of the prospective teachers themselves and (b) the formal moral instruction of children.

Though nearly every educational writer might be cited to the effect that the chief function of the school is to develop good moral character, a widely used modern text states that "under present conditions moral training must be a by-product of the schools." Still, we believe that it will readily be agreed that the following points are practically settled. (a) The schools are responsible for the moral development of the child so far as it is within their power; (b) nearly every kind of school activity may have a moral significance; (c) moralizing and "preaching" may take the edge off the child's moral consciousness, and (d) a sine qua non of character-building is the formation of right habits. The first point raises the question, just what is that moral character for which the schools should aim? The next, by what test shall we know certainly that each school exercise does have its

due moral value? What part of the moral structure is contributed to by each kind of activity? How shall we know that these are balanced so as to round out the character and not merely duplicating some parts while omitting other essentials? The next one, (c), demands at just what angle may we apply the whetstone of precept to the juvenile moral consciousness, that we may sharpen and not dull it? or must we reject that time-honored instrument altogether? And finally, what habits have moral worth? Which have the greatest value? What, if anything, does habit-forming lack of being the whole of effective character-building? Most emphactically arises the problem, much mooted of late, how may we be assured that the habits carefully formed in school will be carried over into the activities of life? Surely, if education is a science and character its aim, these and other such questions should be studied until answered by everyone who assumes to practice the art of teaching.

To make more definite our plea for a character-centered pedagogy, the following central topics are suggested as a possible content, though detail or defense is impossible here.

1. The teacher must be brought to realize the possibility of establishing a definite type of character, individual or national, definitely planned in advance and wrought out through specific, organized educational effort. He must magnify his office and have a vitalizing faith that schools may make the nation. Selections from the history of education, studied strictly from this point of view, are quite conclusive. The conscious policy or organized practice introduced into the education of any people should be correlated with the resulting type of character. Materials are needed for the definite illustration of the influence of local school organization or individual teachers upon community or individual life. Nearly everyone knows a few such instances of an inspiring sort, but we need enough of them to establish a conclusive correlation.

2. An ideal of the character to be established should be definitely considered, but not as an aggregation of abstract "virtues." Certainly not with a view to moulding all in one cast, to restraining spontaneity in the slightest, or assuming the divine function of making men in one's own image. There should be a concrete recognition of qualities that make for good and traits that make for evil, based upon some sympathetic but

scientific child study. Heroes of history and literature will afford concrete materials for comparison and analysis. In pursuing those studies we are forbidden to spoil a good story by moralizing. Here, having the facts, let us moralize, not mawkishly, but with frank, vigorous selective thinking as in any other subject. Here we may study educational aims. To the classic three, practical, disciplinary, and culture, add citizenship, social efficiency, self-realization and as many more as may appeal to student or teacher. Then we will find that all these are not antagonistic, but harmonious and mutually supplementary, and that moral character involves and co-ordinates them all. Possibly the formulation of the ideal, so far as that may be desirable, would eventuate in something like this: The integration into a stable and balanced self, or personality, of every mental and physical capacity, each being developed to its fullest and highest functioning, and all dominated by a habit of aligning motives and conduct in harmony with the highest ideal of which the self can at the time conceive.

3. Having the design, the character builder may well turn to consider the materials with which he has to deal. The recent development of psychology on genetic, functional, dynamic and social lines is peculiarly happy for this purpose. The laws of habit, the essential unity not only of the higher psychical processes, but of all psycho-physical functioning, their indissolubility for purposes of training, the utter interdependence of all the parts of the complex nature, all these are inspiring facts, simple to learn and apply and yet crowded out for the "compartment plan" of teaching psychology. "The whole mind active, this is will." but the whole mind is not truly active and functioning without the whole body vigorous and duly contributing. The will in action is the true meaning of the whole psychic life and of man's significance as a human being and hence is his moral character. Such problems may well be treated in a most untechnical fashion, clear even to those who have had no previous training in psychology, and with constant reference to the periods of child-life-the gradual and sound building of character through psychical and physical activity. The analysis of conduct, in which the pupils may well be more keen than the teacher, will tend to show that back of every act, however evil, is an instructive impulse which is fundamentally

good and usable in the noblest of living if rightly directed. A habit of such analysis would of itself be of incalculable service to any trainer of children.

4. Some guiding principles of moral training would evolve from such preparatory study and might take some such lines as these:

(a) Moral education is concerned with the whole child. Every capacity is available for and essential to full moral development. Avoidable failure to develop any capacity is immoral.

(b) It is concerned with every relation, activity and time of life. It is contributed to by all conscious and unconscious influences, institutions and environments. Especially is every phase of school activity significant.

(c) It is a positive, not negative, process; accomplished through expression, not repression; activity, not passivity; what the child does, not what is done to him; dynamic, not static; directive, not corrective; not exorcising of devils, but exercising of God-given impulses; making, not breaking the will.

(d) Development of any tendency is through use, suppression through disuse.

(e) Conscious coöperation of the child is essential to economy of process and permanence of results. Children do appreciate and respond to the highest motives which are concerned with the activities of their several stages of development, and these may be made as effective as any lower ones in conduct, while adult motives would be useless in child conduct. Few errors are more serious than underestimating the child's moral perception and bolstering up conduct on temporary and insincere motives instead of developing the highest through use.

(f) Desirable habits and attitudes developed in school or home must be brought to definitely formulated concepts in order to insure their being carried over into the general activities of life.

The last (e) and (f), seem to follow naturally from the various studies of "formal discipline" and the conclusions reached.

Objections to formal moral instruction on the ground of its being uninteresting to the child or tending to make the child morbid or blazé, are best explained by the traditional content of many such courses. Time forbids more than the insistence