Volume 1
Moral instruction and training in schools : report of an international inquiry / ed., on behalf of the committee, by M. E. Sadler.
- Date:
- 1908
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Moral instruction and training in schools : report of an international inquiry / ed., on behalf of the committee, by M. E. Sadler. Source: Wellcome Collection.
82/608 page 18
![often in connection with hygiene), thrift (suggested by the Charity Organisation Society), courtesy, civics, and lastly patriotism. I would also refer in passing to the fact that many educationists, like the present Head- master of Eton, have traced some sexual evils to “ignor- ance,” and here again there are proposals of instruction. If these attempts have severally any justification, it is hard to see how the definite recognition of direct moral instruction can be regarded as a retrograde step. (3) Again, we are not actually going to exclude direct moral instruction by branding it as impossible or unscien- tific. It is in the schools already, though often in un- systematic form. The Churches are not likely to agree with any “sixteen-year-old” doctrine, even if that doctrine were not founded partly on quicksands. “Duty towards one’s neighbour” is in the Catechism. Hence there is a very practical reason for making efforts in the direction of a proper grading and systematising of the subject. At the same time there are reasons for leaving the subject, while in its present transitional stage, to those members of the school staff who have a special interest in it; per- haps the head teacher can here render especially valuable service, though I believe that in the end nearly all teachers will gladly give it and may even derive a reflex benefit from it. IV. EXPERIMENTS. I now pass on to actual experzments in systematic moral instruction. I would say that there are head teachers of Catholic, Church and Council Schools [I emphasise “Catholic” and “Church” because we have a right to infer that even the most careful religious instruction leaves some moral gaps] who have felt the need for such ex- plicit instruction, and gladly introduced it when its import- ance was referred to in the Code. But I must content myself with briefly quoting from the evidence of teachers](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32843409_0001_0082.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
