The Moral Instruction of Children

I feel tempted to pause here a moment and to say a word in passing about the extreme importance of the constituent elements of the concept self. For it must not be supposed that the pronoun "I" means the same thing on the lips of every person who uses it. "I" is a label denoting a mass of associated ideas, and as these ideas are capable of almost endless variation, so the notion of selfhood is correspondingly diversified in different individuals. In the case of children, perhaps the principal constituents of the concept are supplied by their outward appearance and environment. When a child speaks of itself, it thinks primarily of its body, especially its face, then of the clothes it usually wears, the house it lives in, the streets through which it habitually walks, its parents, brothers, sisters, school-masters, etc.7 If we analyze the meaning of "I" in the case of two children, the one well-born and well brought up, the other without these advantages, we shall perhaps find such differences as the following: "I" in the one case will mean a being living in a certain decent and comfortable house, always wearing neat clothing, surrounded by parents, brothers, and sisters who speak kindly to one another and have gentle manners, etc. In the other case, the constituents of the concept self may be very different. "I" in the case of the second child may mean a creature that lives in a dark, filthy hovel and walks every day through narrow streets, reeking with garbage. "I" may mean the child of a father who comes home drunk and strikes the mother when the angry fit is upon him. "I" stands for a poor waif that wears torn clothes, and when he sits in school by the side of well-dressed children is looked at askance and put to shame. It is obvious that the elements which go to make up the concept self affect the child's moral nature by lowering or raising its self-esteem. I remember the case of one, who as a boy was the laughing-stock of his class on account of the old-fashioned, ill-fitting clothes which he was compelled to wear, and who has confessed that even late in life he could not entirely overcome the effect of this early humiliation, and that he continued to be painfully aware in himself, in consequence, of a certain lack of ease and self-possession. Hence we should see to it that the constituent elements of the concept self are of the right kind. It is a mistake to suppose that the idea of selfhood stands off independently from the elements of our environment. The latter enter into, and when they are bad eat into, the very kernel of our nature.

We have seen that the development of the intellect as it appears in the growing distinctness of self-consciousness exercises an important influence on the development of the moral faculty. But there is still another way in which this influence becomes apparent. The function of conscience further depends on the power of keeping alternative courses of action before the mind. Angels capable only of the good, or fiends actuated exclusively by malice, could not be called moral creatures. A moral act always presupposes a previous choice between two possible lines of action. And until the power of holding the judgment in suspense, of hesitating between alternative lines of conduct, has been acquired, conscience, strictly speaking, does not manifest itself. We may say that the voice of conscience begins to be heard when, the parent being absent, the child hesitates between a forbidden pleasure and obedience to the parental command. Of course, not every choice between alternative courses is a moral act. If any one hesitates whether to remain at home or to go for a walk, whether to take a road to the right or to the left, the decision is morally indifferent. But whenever one of the alternative courses is good and the other bad, conscience does come into play.

At this point, however, the question forcibly presents itself, How does it come to pass in the experience of children that they learn to regard certain lines of action as good and others as bad? You will readily answer, The parent characterizes certain acts as good and others as bad, and the child accepts his definition; and this is undoubtedly true. The parent's word is the main prop of the budding conscience. But how comes the parent's word to produce belief? This is indeed the crucial question touching the development of the moral faculty. Mr. Bain says that the child fears the punishment which the parent will inflict in case of disobedience; that the essential form and defining quality of conscience from first to last is of the nature of dread. He seems to classify the child's conscience with the criminal conscience, the rebel conscience which must be energized by the fear of penalties. But this explanation seems very unsatisfactory. Every one, of course, must admit that the confirmations of experience tend greatly to strengthen the parent's authority. The parent says, You must be neat. The child, if it does as it is bidden, finds an æsthetic pleasure in its becoming appearance. The parent says, You must not strike your little brother, but be kind to him; and the child, on restraining its anger, is gratified by the loving words and looks which it receives in return. The parent says, You must not touch the stove, or you will be burned. The disobedient child is effectually warned by the pain it suffers to be more obedient in future. But all such confirmations are mere external aids to parental authority. They do not explain the feeling of reverence with which even a young child, when rightly brought up, is wont to look up to his father's face. To explain this sentiment of reverence, I must ask you to consider the following train of reasoning. It has been remarked already that the parent should be to the child the visible embodiment of a higher law. This higher law shining from the father's countenance, making its sublime presence felt in the mother's eye, wakens an answering vibration in the child's heart. The child feels the higher presence and bows to it, though it could not, if it tried, analyze or explain what it feels. We should never forget that children possess the capacity for moral development from the outset. It is indeed the fashion with some modern writers to speak of the child as if it were at first a mere animal, and as if reflection and morality were mechanically superadded later on. But the whole future man is already hidden, not yet declared, but latent all the same in the child's heart. The germs of humanity in its totality exist in the young being. Else how could it ever unfold into full-grown morality? It will perhaps serve to make my meaning clearer if I call attention to analogous facts relating to the intellectual faculty. The formula of causality is a very abstract one, which only a thoroughly trained mind can grasp. But even very young children are constantly asking questions as to the causes of things. What makes the trees grow? what makes the stars shine? – i. e., what is the cause of the trees growing and the stars shining? The child is constantly pushing, or rather groping, its way back from effects to causes. The child's mind acts under what maybe called the causative instinct long before it can apprehend the law of causation. In the same way young children perfectly follow the process of syllogistic reasoning. If a father says, on leaving the house for a walk: I can take with me only a child that has been good; now, you have not been good to-day; the child without any difficulty draws the conclusion, Therefore I can not go out walking with my father to-day. The logical laws are, as it were, prefigured in the child's mind long before, under the chemical action of experience they come out in the bright colors of consciousness. Or, to use another figure, they exert a pressure on the child of which he himself can give no account. And in like manner the moral law – the law which prescribes certain relations between self and others – is, so to speak, prefigured in the child's mind, and when it is expressed in commands uttered by the parent, the pressure of external authority is confirmed by a pressure coming from within. We can illustrate the same idea from another point of view. Whenever a man of commanding moral genius appears in the world and speaks to the multitude from his height, they are for the moment lifted to his level and feel the afflatus of his spirit. This is so because he expresses potentialities of human nature which also exist in them, only not unfolded to the same degree as in him. It is a matter of common observation that persons who under ordinary circumstances are content to admire what is third rate and fourth rate are yet able to appreciate what is first rate when it is presented to them – at least to the extent of recognizing that it is first rate. And yet their lack of development shows itself in the fact that presently they again lose their hold on the higher standard of excellence, and are thereafter content to put up with what is inferior as if the glimpses of better things had never been opened to them. Is it not because, though capable of rising to the higher level, they are not capable of maintaining themselves on it unassisted. Now, the case of the parent with respect to the child is analogous. He is on a superior moral plane. The child feels that he is, without being able to understand why. It feels the afflatus of the higher spirit dwelling in the parent, and out of this feeling is generated the sentiment of reverence. And there is no greater benefit which father or mother can confer on their offspring than to deepen this sentiment. It is by this means that they can most efficiently promote the development of the child's conscience, for out of this reverence will grow eventually respect for all rightly constituted authority, respect and reverence for law, human and divine. The essential form and defining quality of conscience is not, therefore, as Bain has it – fear of punishment. In my opinion such fear is abject and cowardly. The sentiment engendered by fear is totally different from the one we are contemplating, as the following consideration will serve to show: A child fears its father when he punishes it in anger; and the more violent his passion, the more does the child fear him. But, no matter how stern the penalty may be which he has to inflict, the child reveres its father in proportion as the traces of anger are banished from his mien and bearing, in proportion as the parent shows by his manner that he acts from a sense of duty, that he has his eye fixed on the sacred measures of right and wrong, that he himself stands in awe of the sublime commands of which he is, for the time being, the exponent.

To recapitulate briefly the points which we have gone over: regular habits can be inculcated and obedience can be taught even in infancy. By obedience is meant the yielding of a wayward and ignorant will to a firm and enlightened one. The child between three and six years of age learns clearly to distinguish self from others, and to deliberate between alternative courses of action. It is highly important to control the elements which enter into the concept self. The desire to choose the good is promoted chiefly by the sentiment of reverence.

We are thus prepared to describe in a general way the moral outfit of the child on entering school. We have, indeed, already described it. The moral acquirements of the child at the age of which we speak express themselves in habits. The normal child, under the influences of parental example and command, has acquired such habits as that of personal cleanliness, of temperance in eating, of respect for the truth. Having learned to use the pronouns I and thou, it also begins to understand the difference between meum and tuum. The property sense begins to be developed. It claims its own seat at table, its own toys against the aggression of others. It has gained in an elementary way the notion of rights.

This is a stock of acquirements by no means inconsiderable. The next step in the progress of conscience must be taken in the school. Until now the child has been aware of duties relating only or principally to persons whom it loves and who love it. The motive of love is now to become less prominent. A part of that reverence which the child has felt for the parents whom it loves is now to be transferred to the teacher. A part of that respect for the rights of equals which has been impressed upon it in its intercourse with brothers and sisters, to whom it is bound by the ties of blood, is now to be transferred to its school companions, who are at first strangers to it. Thus the conscience of the child will be expanded, thus it will be prepared for intercourse with the world. Thus it will begin to gain that higher understanding of morality, according to which authority is to be obeyed simply because it is rightful, and equals are to be treated as equals, even when they are not and can not be regarded with affection.

I have in the above used the word habits advisedly. The morality of the young child assumes the concrete form of habits; abstract principles are still beyond its grasp. Habits are acquired by imitation and repetition. Good examples must be so persistently presented and so often copied that the line of moral conduct may become the line of least resistance. The example of parents and teachers is indeed specially important in this respect. But after all it is not sufficient. For the temptations of adults differ in many ways from those of children, and on the other hand in the lives of older persons occasions are often wanting for illustrating just the peculiar virtues of childhood. On this account it is necessary to set before the child ideal examples of the virtues of children and of the particular temptations, against which they need to be warned. Of such examples we find a large stock ready to hand in the literature of fairy tales, fables, and stories. In our next lecture therefore we shall begin to consider the use of fairy tales, fables, and stories as means of creating in children those habits which are essential to the safe guarding and unfolding of their moral life.

PRIMARY COURSE

VI.

THE USE OF FAIRY TALES

There has been and still is considerable difference of opinion among educators as to the value of fairy tales. I venture to think that, as in many other cases, the cause of the quarrel is what logicians call an undistributed middle– in other words, that the parties to the dispute have each a different kind of fairy tale in mind. This species of literature can be divided broadly into two classes – one consisting of tales which ought to be rejected because they are really harmful, and children ought to be protected from their bad influence, the other of tales which have a most beautiful and elevating effect, and which we can not possibly afford to leave unutilized.

The chief pedagogic value they possess is that they exercise and cultivate the imagination. Now, the imagination is a most powerful auxiliary in the development of the mind and will. The familiar anecdote related of Marie Antoinette, who is said to have asked why the people did not eat cake when she was told that they were in want of bread, indicates a deficiency of imagination. Brought up amid the splendor of courts, surrounded by luxury, she could not put herself in the place of those who lack the very necessaries. Much of the selfishness of the world is due not to actual hard-heartedness, but to a similar lack of imaginative power. It is difficult for the happy to realize the needs of the miserable. Did they realize those needs, they would in many cases be melted to pity and roused to help. The faculty of putting one's self in the place of others is therefore of great, though indirect, service to the cause of morality, and this faculty may be cultivated by means of fairy tales. As they follow intently the progress of the story, the young listeners are constantly called upon to place themselves in the situations in which they have never been, to imagine trials, dangers, difficulties, such as they have never experienced, to reproduce in themselves, for instance, such feelings as that of being alone in the wide world, of being separated from father's and mother's love, of being hungry and without bread, exposed to enemies without protection, etc. Thus their sympathy in a variety of forms is aroused.

In the next place, fairy tales stimulate the idealizing tendency. What were life worth without ideals! How could hope or even religion germinate in the human heart were we not able to confront the disappointing present with visions which represent the fulfillment of our desires. "Faith," says Paul, "is the confidence of things hoped for, the certainty of things not seen." Thus faith itself can not abide unless supported by a vivid idealism. It is true, the ideals of childhood are childish. In the story called Das Marienkind we hear of the little daughter of a poor wood-cutter who was taken up bodily into heaven. There she ate sweetmeats and drank cream every day and wore dresses made of gold, and the angels played with her. Sweetmeats and cream in plenty and golden dresses and dear little angels to play with may represent the ideals of a young child, and these are materialistic enough. But I hold nevertheless that something – nay, much – has been gained if a child has learned to take the wishes out of its heart, as it were, and to project them on the screen of fancy. As it grows up to manhood, the wishes will become more spiritual, and the ideals, too, will become correspondingly elevated. In speaking of fairy tales I have in mind chiefly the German Märchen of which the word fairy tale is but an inaccurate rendering. The Märchen are more than mere tales of helpful fairies. They have, as is well-known, a mythological background. They still bear distinct traces of ancient animism, and the myths which center about the phenomena of the storm, the battle of the sun with the clouds, the struggle of the fair spring god with the dark winter demons, are in them leading themes. But what originally was the outgrowth of superstition has now, to a great extent at least, been purified of its dross and converted into mere poetry. The Märchen come to us from a time when the world was young. They represent the childhood of mankind, and it is for this reason that they never cease to appeal to children. The Märchen have a subtile flavor all their own. They are pervaded by the poetry of forest life, are full of the sense of mystery and awe, which is apt to overcome one on penetrating deeper and deeper into the woods, away from human habitations. The Märchen deal with the underground life of nature, which weaves in caverns and in the heart of mountains, where gnomes and dwarfs are at work gathering hidden treasures. And with this underground life children have a marvelous sympathy. The Märchen present glowing pictures of sheltered firesides, where man finds rest and security from howling winds and nipping cold. But perhaps their chief attraction is due to their representing the child as living in brotherly fellowship with nature and all creatures. Trees, flowers, animals wild and tame, even the stars, are represented as the comrades of children. That animals are only human beings in disguise is an axiom in the fairy tales. Animals are humanized – i. e., the kinship between animal and human life is still strongly felt, and this reminds us of those early animistic interpretations of nature, which subsequently led to doctrines of metempsychosis. Plants, too, are often represented as incarnations of human spirits. Thus the twelve lilies are inhabited by the twelve brothers, and in the story of Snow-white and Rose-red the life of the two maidens appears to be bound up with the life of the white and red rosebush. The kinship of all life whatsoever is still realized. This being so, it is not surprising that men should understand the language of animals, and that these should interfere to protect the heroes and heroines of the Märchen from threatened dangers. In the story of the faithful servant John, the three ravens flying above the ship reveal the secret of the red horse, the sulphurous shirt, and the three drops of blood, and John, who understands their communications, is thereby enabled to save his master's life. What, again, can be more beautiful than the way in which the tree and the two white doves co-operate to secure the happiness of the injured Cinderella! The tree rains down the golden dresses with which she appears at the ball, and the doves continue to warn the prince as he rides by that he has chosen the wrong bride until Cinderella herself passes, when they light on her shoulders, one on her right and the other on her left, making, perhaps, the loveliest picture to be found in all fairy lore. The child still lives in unbroken communion with the whole of nature; the harmony between its own life and the enveloping life has not yet been disturbed, and it is this harmony of the human with the natural world that reflects itself in the atmosphere of the Märchen, and makes them so admirably suited to satisfy the heart of childhood.

But how shall we handle these Märchen and what method shall we employ in putting them to account for our special purpose? I have a few thoughts on this subject, which I shall venture to submit in the form of counsels.

My first counsel is: Tell the story; do not give it to the child to read. There is an obvious practical reason for this. Children are able to benefit by hearing fairy tales before they can read. But that is not the only reason. It is the childhood of the race, as we have seen, that speaks in the fairy story to the child of to-day. It is the voice of an ancient, far-off past that echoes from the lips of the story-teller. The words "once upon a time" open up a vague retrospect into the past, and the child gets its first indistinct notions of history in this way. The stories embody the tradition of the childhood of mankind. They have on this account an authority all their own, not indeed that of literal truth, but one derived from their being types of certain feelings and longings which belong to childhood as such. The child as it listens to the Märchen, looks up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person who tells the story, and thrills responsive as the touch of the earlier life of the race thus falls upon its own. Such an effect, of course, can not be produced by cold type. Tradition is a living thing, and should use the living voice for its vehicle.

My second counsel is also of a practical nature, and I make bold to say quite essential to the successful use of the stories. Do not take the moral plum out of the fairy-tale pudding, but let the child enjoy it as a whole. Do not make the story taper toward a single point, the moral point. You will squeeze all the juice out of it if you try. Do not subordinate the purely fanciful and naturalistic elements of the story, such as the love of mystery, the passion for roving, the sense of fellowship with the animal world, in order to fix attention solely on the moral element. On the contrary, you will gain the best moral effect by proceeding in exactly the opposite way. Treat the moral element as an incident; emphasize, it indeed, but incidentally. Pluck it as a wayside flower. How often does it happen that, having set out on a journey with a distinct object in mind, something occurs on the way which we had not foreseen, but which in the end leaves the deepest impression on the mind. The object which we had in view is long forgotten, but the incident which happened by the way is remembered for years after. So the moral result of the Märchen will not be less sure because gained incidentally. An illustration will make plain what I mean. In the story of the Frog King we are told that there was once a young princess who was so beautiful that even the Sun, which sees a great many things, had never seen anything so beautiful as she was. A golden ball was her favorite plaything. One day, as she sat by a well under an old linden tree, she tossed the ball into the air and it fell into the well. She was very unhappy, and cried bitterly. Presently a frog put his ugly head out of the water, and offered to dive for the ball, on condition, however, that she would promise to take him for her playmate, to let him eat off her golden plate and drink out of her golden cup and sleep in her little snow-white bed. The princess promised everything. But no sooner had the frog brought her the ball than she scampered away, heedless of his cries. The next day as the royal family sat at dinner a knock was heard at the door. The princess opened and beheld the ugly toad claiming admittance. She screamed with fright and hastily shut the door in his face. But when the king, her father, had questioned her, he said, "What you have promised, you must keep"; and she obeyed her father, though it was sorely against her inclination to do so. That was right, children, was it not? One must always obey, even if one does not like what one is told to do. So the toad was brought in and lifted to the table, and he ate off the little golden plate and drank out of the golden cup. And when he had had enough, he said, "I am tired now, put me into your little snow-white bed." And again when she refused her father said: "What you have promised you must keep. Ugly though he is, he helped you when you were in distress, and you must not despise him now." And the upshot of the story is that the ugly toad, having been thrown against the wall, was changed into a beautiful prince, and of course some time after the prince and the princess were married.