MORALS IN OUR SCHOOLS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 104, 2 May 1879, Page 4

MORALS IN OUR SCHOOLS.

(From the New York Tribune.) Education in its true sense —to amplify President Chadbourre's sentence — is not the cramming of certain facts and roles into the hard little head of yoong Adorn — it is the training that shall mnke his mind and moral nature malleable for the work of life; that shall cultivate honesty as well »b mathematical capacity, truthfulness as well as linguis ics ; that shall end the bey oat to his labour with a clean soul ag wall as a clever head. The teacher, who pees to his wotk with a eenee of its immense importance, with a realisation of his obligation to something higher thnn a Board of Education — such a teacher holds a tremendous power in heart, and voice. *n heart we say — for it is (be practical Christianity that moves to god living and thinking that ie wanted, ra<her than that catanidried morality of a third-rate dogmatist. A child may he given an upward bent with a single sentence coming in a ihappy moment, but (hat sentence must be a thin? of spirit; never mind the •form. We do not advocate long moral sermons in the schools; but let there be a constant current of quiet instruction in Ibe things that go to make mpu and women true, honest, and highminded. Fifteen minutes, for instance, ; could well be spared from a day 'a German instruction, if they want to make two or three boya feel keenly that cruelty, of which there is far too much in schools, is a stupid and sneaking thing. Not long ago in a Wf stern school, a boy received such savage and merciless treatment from his mates that he dieJ a day or ! two after from bia injuries. What eort of education ia it that does not teach children to feel themselves degraded by brutality like this ? It is folly to leave all moral training to home and parents; the boors in . which a child comes under those influences are more than balanced by the hours of school and play. Instruction io goo3' liviag, if it be not continuous like daily bread and Sunshine, is of small account; and instruction in good living given con. ! stantly, with heartfelt sincerity and : kindness, is what children especially need (o receive from their teachers. Whatflhall it profit a boy if he leaves school skilled in figures, bat untaught io the manly honour that would make him an upright man of business ? Or a girl with her grammar and her rhetoric, if she has not learned to speak tbe words of truth, of unaelfhhneae, of Christian charity ?