The Moral Education of Youth

Abstract

IN view of the prevailing unrest it is natural that we should be finding a new significance in the old Hebrew aphorism, Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. It is true there was never a time when men were indifferent to the moral outlook of the rising generation. In the lowliest, most primitive social economy we know anything about it was already considered of paramount importance to make certain that those who should shortly constitutethe community were equipped to carry on its common beliefs and practices. And this has continued to be a central concern of men from generation to generation, from age to age, through every change of economic condition or spiritual state. In the last two decades, however, the subject has received new emphasis in this country and abroad. This new emphasis has taken the form of a demand for formal moral instruction of school children. In our own country associations and leagues for the promotion of such instruction have grown in numbers, laws have been put upon the statute books making moral education compulsory throughout the public schools, state-wide courses have been introduced even where no law existed, a whole library of books on the subject has been published, covering the field from kindergarten to college, while training courses have been introduced into the universities to prepare teachers for the supervision of moral education in the grades and in the high schools. In short, a widespread, well-organized movement is under way intent upon making it a function of public education to determine the ethical personality of the coming generation through formal instruction in morals. The movement will no doubt be greatly stimulated during the next few years in an effort to counteract the disintegrating effects of the war and the increasing tendency to irresponsi-