An Introduction to Ethics for Training Colleges

Abstract

MORALITY of some sort, from the most ideal to the mere “reach-me-down” variety, has been indirectly taught in schools ever since schools became an institution. But, like the morality which is taught by all experience, to the primitive as well as to the civilised member of society, such instruction is founded in group-morality, which varies with climate, epoch, and other phases of environment. The various systems of theological morality are not to be excluded from the genus of group. When an attempt is made towards absolutism, whether by the a priori or the comparative method, we have ethical “science,” the “moral philosophy” of European mental tradition. Ethics is actually a subject in French schools, a fact probably due to the logical bias of the French intellect. There is also a tendency now towards a moral entente between the different interests and racial features of the world. Mr. G. A. Johnston's very complete little volume, designed for those who will teach in elementary schools, aims very sensibly at a psychological answer to the instructional problem as it is presented to-day. Every moral influence of our civilisation is evaluated into simple terms by means of proved psychological conclusions. An Introduction to Ethics for Training Colleges. By G. A. Johnston. Pp. x + 254. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1915.) Price 3s. net.