"Morality in the Public Schools" [pp. 709-717]

710 "MoRAHTY liv TIfE PUBLIC SCiiOOLS~" [Aug.~
spiritual things. Hence in Protestant religious journals, in denominational conventions, from independent pulpits, startling
voices have been heard; and what they say is that, after all,
the child has a soul, whose destiny is eternal, and it is a crime
against him to crowd the theory and practice of winning eternal life out of the common business of his education.
Distinguished educators, too, like President Eliot of Harvard
and President Seelye of Amherst, have uttered like admonitions.
Even Emerson declared "that the intellectual tuition of society
is going on out of all proportion faster than its moral training." But what seems to have fairly stampeded the public-school
forces is that Mr. Herbert Spencer, when he visited us last winter, instead of praising our glorious school system actually condemned it. The writer in the Adantic tells us that he declared
that the notion that education is a panacea for political evils is
a delusion; the fitting of men for free institutions is "essentially
[Mr. Spencer's own words] a question of character, and only in
a secondary degree a question of knowledge"; and that "not
lack of information, but lack of certain moral sentiments, is the
root of the evil."
So, says Mr. Johnson, "fierce controversies have arisen in
many places, and are still raging, to the great detriment of the
schools." "The Catholics almost unanimously, and not a few
Protestants, -.. unite in pronouncing`godless' the schools in
which the pupils are not instructed in the duties they owe to
God." "The necessity of some more efficient method of teaching morality in the schools is generally acknowledged."
"We have come, it would seem," continues our writer in the
Atlantic, "to a time when the whole subject needs to be carefully considered.'~ Are not these important admissions? When
that side begins to admit anything at all we may report progress. When the admissions touch the question of morality we
have reached an epoch in the controversy. "The state," says
Mr. Johnson, "must no longer content itself with imparting secular and scientific instruction alone. The consciences and the affections, or, as Mr. Spencer says, the moral sentiments, of children
must be cultivated, or the quality of citizenship will so deteriorate as to endanger the republic. If the state is incapacitated for
this work, then it has no excuse for engaging at all in the business of education and should take itself out of the way, leaving a
clear field for other and more appropriate agencies." And if we
ask him just what system of morality shall be taught, he answers
that we shall agree upon a compromise code of morals. It