THE OFFICIAL PROGRAMME OF MORAL INSTRUCTION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS CF FRANCE. [Abridged from the original.] (1) General instructions and explanations--aims and characteristics.-Moral instruction is intended to complete, to elevate, and to ennoble all the other instruction of the school. While each of the other branches tends to develop a special order of aptitudes or of useful knowledge, this study tends to develop the man himself; that is to say, his heart, his intelligence, his conscience; hence moral education moves on a different plane from the other subjects. Its force depends less upon the precision and logical relation of the truths taught than upon intensity of feeling, vividness of impressions, and the contagious ardor of conviction. The aim of moral education is to cause one to will rather than to know; it arouses rather than demonstrates; it proceeds more from the feelings than from reasoning; it does not attempt to analyze all the reasons for a moral act; it seeks before all to produce it, to repeat it, to make of it a habit which will govern the life. In the elementary school it is not a science, but an art-the art of inclining the will toward the good. The role of the teacher.—In respect to this subject as to the other branches of education, the teacher is regarded as the representative of society. It is of the highest importance to a democratic secular society that all its members should be initiated early, and by lessons which can not be effaced, into a feeling of their dignity, and into a feeling not less deep of their duty and of their personal responsibility. To attain this end the teacher is not to proceed as if he were addressing children destitute of all previous knowledge of good and of evil; he will remember that the great majority of them have received or are receiving a religious instruction which familiarizes them with the idea of a God of the universe and a Father of men, with the traditions, the beliefs, the practices of a worship, either Christian or Jewish; that they have already received the fundamental ideas of morality, eternal and universal; but these ideas are still with them in the germ. They await ripening and developing by appropriate culture, and this culture it is for the teacher to give. His mission is, then, limited. He is to strengthen, to root into the minds of his pupils, for all their lives, through daily practice, those essential notions of a morality common to all civilized men. He can do this without making personal reference to any of the religious beliefs with which his pupils associate and blend the general principles of morals. He takes the children as they come to him with their ideas and their language, with the beliefs which they have derived from their parents, and his only care is to teach them to draw from these that which is most precious from the social standpoint, namely, the precepts of a high morality. Proper objects and limits of this instruction.-The moral teaching of the school is, then, distinguished from religious instruction without contradicting it. The teacher is neither a priest nor the father of a family; he joins his efforts to theirs to make each child an honest man. He should insist upon the duties which bring men together, and not upon the dogmas which separate them. He should aim to make all the children serve an effective apprenticeship to a moral life. Later in life they will perhaps become separated by dogmatic opinion, but they will be in accord in having the aim of life as high as possible; in having the same horror for what is base and vile, the same delicacy in the appreciation of duty, in aspiring to moral perfection, whatever effort it may cost, in feeling united in that fealty to the good, the beautiful, and the true, which is also a form, and not the least pure, of the religious sentiment. Methods. By his character, his conduct, his example, the teacher should be the most persuasive of examples. In moral instruction what does not come from the heart does not go to the heart. A master who recites precepts, who speaks of duty without convictions, without warmth, does much worse than waste his efforts. He is altogether wrong. A course of morals which is regular, but cold, commonplace, dry, does not teach morals, because it does not develop a love for the subject. The simplest recital in which the child can catch an accent of gravity, a single sincere word, is worth more than a long succession of mechanical lessons. On the other hand, it is hardly necessary to say, the teacher should carefully avoid any reflection either by language or expression upon the religious beliefs of the children confided to his care, anything that might betray on his part any lack of respect or of regard for the opinions of others. The only obligation imposed upon the teacher, and this is compatible with a respect for all convictions, is to watch in a practical and paternal manner the moral development of his pupils with the same solicitude with which he follows their progress in scholarship. He should not believe himself free from responsibilities toward any of them if he has not done as much for the education of character as for that of the intellect. At this price alone will the teacher have merited the title of educator and elementary instruction the name of liberal education. THE PROGRAMME. Infant section: Ages 5 to 7 years.-Very simple talks mingled with all the exercises of the class and of recreation. Simple poems explained and learned by heart; stories, songs. Special care by the teacher in regard to children showing any defect in character or any vicious tendency. Primary section: Ages 7 to 9 years.-Familiar conversations, readings (examples, precepts, parables). Practical exercises tending to moral activity in the class itself: 1. By observation of individual character, the gentle correction of faults, and the development of good qualities. 2. By the intelligent appreciation of school discipline as a means of education. 3. By appeal to the feelings and moral judgment of the child himself. 4. By the correction of vulgar notions, of prejudices, and of superstitions. 5. By instruction drawn from facts observed by the pupils themselves. Intermediate section: Ages 9 to 11 years.-Familiar talks, reading illustrative examples with comments, practical exercises as in the elementary section, but with a little more method and precision. I. (a) The child in the family: Duties toward parents and grandparents; obedience, respect, love, recognition; aiding parents in their work, tending them in sickness, caring for them in their old age. Duties of brothers and sisters: Loving each other; watchful care of the elder over the younger; effect of example. Duties toward servants: To treat them with politeness and with kindness. (b) The child in the school: Earnestness, docility, industry, civility. Duties toward the teacher. Duties toward comrades. (c) The country: Grandeur and misfortunes of France. Duties toward the country and society. II. Duties toward one's self: Care of the body; cleanliness, sobriety and temperance; dangers of drunkenness; gymnastics. Use and care of property: Economy; avoiding debts; effects of gambling, prodigality, avarice, etc. The soul: Veracity and sincerity; personal dignity and self-respect; modesty; recognition of one's own faults; evils of pride, vanity, coquetry, frivolity; shame of ignorance and idleness; courage in peril and misfortune; patience; personal initiative; evils of anger. Regard for animals: Kindness toward; society their natural protector. Duties toward other men: Justice and charity; the Golden Rule; kindliness, fraternity, tolerance, and respect for the beliefs of others. (NOTE.-In all these considerations the teacher should assume the existence of conscience, of the moral law, and moral obligation. He should appeal to the feeling and the idea of duty and of responsibility. He should not attempt to demonstrate these by theoretic statements.) III. Duties toward God: The teacher is not required to give a course upon the nature and attributes of God. The instruction which he is to give to all without distinction is limited to two points: First, he teaches his pupil not to speak the name of God lightly. He clearly associates in their minds with the idea of the First Cause and of the Perfect Being, a sentiment of respect and of veneration, the same as is associated with these ideas under the different aspects of their religious training. Then, and without concerning himself with the prescriptions special to the different religious beliefs, the teacher will strive to have the child comprehend and feel that the first duty he owes to divinity is obedience to the laws of God, as revealed to him in his conscience and his reason. Higher section: Ages 11 to 13 years.-Exercises on ideas of previous years continued and expounded; special development of social morality: 1. The family. 2. Society, justice, the conditions of all society; solidarity, fraternity (alcoholism; its destruction little by little of the social sentiments by destroying the power of the will and the feeling of personal responsibility); development of the idea of the native land; the duties of the citizen (obedience to the laws, the military service, discipline, devotion, fidelity to the flag); imposts (condemnation of fraud toward the State); the ballot (it is a moral obligation; it ought to be free,, conscientious, disinterested, enlightened); rights corresponding to these duties-personal liberty, liberty of conscience, liberty in respect to work, in respect to association; general security of life and property; the national sovereignty; explanation of the republican motto, “Liberty, equality, fraternity." "Under each head of the course in social morals the teacher should explain clearly, but without entering into metaphysical discussions: (1) The difference between duty and interest, even when they seem to be confounded with each other; that is to say, the imperative and disinterested nature of duty; (2) the distinction between the written and the moral law; the one fixes a minimum of prescriptions that society imposes upon all its members under definite penalties for violations of the same; the other imposes upon each one, in his secret conscience, a duty which no one obligates him to fulfill, but which he can not neglect without the sense of a wrong to himself and to God." The scope of the foregoing programmes of French primary schools will be made clearer to American students by comparison with the programmes of public schools in this country below the high schools. Selection in the latter case is somewhat difficult, because even for indvidual States there is no uniform official programme applicable alike to all schools. The State laws prescribe a minimum course of study, which is often greatly extended by the local school authorities. The graded schools of cities-that is, the schools below the high schools-and the rural schools correspond to what are termed elementary primary schools in France. There are presented below for the comparisons suggested: (1) Official time-tables for the graded schools of Boston showing subjects of instruction and time assigned to each; (2) official programme for the ninth grade (grade just below the high school), Washington, D. C.; (3) the typical programme drawn up by the committee of fifteen appointed by the National Educational Association to consider and report upon certain features of the public school system, among others, the organization of city systems. The programme submitted represents a consensus of opinion on the part of the committee as to the work of city schools below the high school. A subsequent committee appointed to consider and report on rural schools expresses the opinion that the course of study for these schools should be substantially the same as that of the city schools; (4) a scheme for the weekly distribution of time among the various subjects. By examination of the American programmes with reference to the corresponding French programmes, it will be observed that they cover nearly the same ground. There is a striking similarity in the language course, but in the French schools more time is given to the oral repetition of classical selections and dictation exercises, and less stress is placed upon what we term original composition or self-expression. Arithmetic covers about the same subjects excepting that the metric system is special to the French schools and geometry is introduced before algebra. History is more extended in the French programme than in the programme of the Washington schools, but is about the same as in that of the Boston schools, the force of the instruction in each case centering in the modern national history. Manual training, which in the American schools is very generally confined to a few years, is invariably a feature of the entire programme in the French schools, and moral instruction has an elaboration quite unknown in the schools of this country. Other points of resemblance and difference will be noticed by careful comparison of the programmes of the two countries: (1) Course of study for the graded_schools (i. e., schools below the high schoo!) of Boston, Mass. PRIMARY SCHOOLS-THREE YEARS OR GRADES. GRAMMAR SCHOOLS-SIX YEARS OR GRADES. Branches pursued.—Elementary science; manual training; drawing; English language, including reading, exercises in oral and written expression; composition; grammar; recitation of classical selections; geography; history; arithmetic; bookkeeping. Weekly programme for the ninth or highest grade. (2) Course of study for the graded schools (i. e., schools below the high schools) of Washington, D. C. Reading; writing; language lessons; grammar; geography; United States history; civics; arithmetic; algebra; nature study, i. e., plant life; animal life (oral instruction with illustrative material in the lower grades); physiology and hygiene; physical exercises; drawing; manual training; for girls, sewing and cooking. Detailed programme of eighth or highest grade.-Language: Reading and composition; orthography; grammar with practical exercises and principles of composition; rhetorical and critical study of classic selections. History: Local history and civics; constitution of the United States; forms of local government in the United States. Arithmetic: percentage with its applications to interest, discount, etc.; ratio and proportion; mensuration; powers and roots; measurement of solids. Algebra: Algebraic notation; four fundamental processes; factoring; simple equations. Physiology and hygiene, including instruction as to the evil effects of alcohol and tobacco. |