Part 8 (2/2)

1 The Inner and the Outer

Since morality is concerned with conduct, any dualisms which are set up between mind and activity must reflect themselves in the theory of morals Since the formulations of the separation in the philosophic theory of morals are used to justify and idealize the practices e, a brief critical discussion is in place It is a co of character is a comprehensive aim of school instruction and discipline Hence it is iainst a conception of the relations of intelligence to character which hampers the realization of the aim, and on the look-out for the conditions which have to be provided in order that the aim may be successfully acted upon The first obstruction which meets us is the currency of moral ideas which split the course of activity into two opposed factors, often named respectively the inner and outer, or the spiritual and the physical This division is a culmination of the dualism of mind and the world, soul and body, end and means, which we have so frequently noted In morals it takes the form of a sharp demarcation of the motive of action from its consequences, and of character fro purely ”inner,” existing exclusively in consciousness, while consequences and conduct are regarded as outside ofto do simply with the movements which carry out motives; consequences hat happens as a result Different schools identify morality with either the inner state of mind or the outer act and results, each in separation from the other Action with a purpose is deliberate; it involves a consciously foreseen end and aof considerations pro and eon It also involves a conscious state of longing or desire for the end The deliberate choice of an ai this time complete overt action is suspended A person who does not have his mind made up, does not knohat to do Consequently he postpones definite action so far as possible His positionacross a ditch If he were sure he could or could not make it, definite activity in some direction would occur But if he considers, he is in doubt; he hesitates During the tile overt line of action is in suspense, his activities are confined to such redistributions of energy within the organism as will prepare a determinate course of action He et a feel of the energy at his disposal; he looks about for other ways across, he reflects upon the i across All thisin upon the individual's own attitudes, powers, wishes, etc

Obviously, however, this surging up of personal factors into conscious recognition is a part of the whole activity in its temporal development There is not first a purely psychical process, followed abruptly by a radically different physical one There is one continuous behavior, proceeding fro state to a more overt, determinate, or complete state The activity at first consists anisanism as a whole acts-souish, of course, the more explicitly conscious phase of the continuous activity as mental or psychical But that only identifies the mental or psychical to mean the indeterminate, formative state of an activity which in its fullness involves putting forth of overt energy to hts, observations, wishes, aversions are important, because they represent inchoate, nascent activities They fulfill their destiny in issuing, later on, into specific and perceptible acts And these inchoate, budding organic readjustments are important because they are our sole escape from the dominion of routine habits and blind i in process of development Hence, normally, there is an accentuation of personal consciousness whenever our instincts and ready formed habits find themselves blocked by novel conditions Then we are thrown back upon ourselves to reorganize our own attitude before proceeding to a definite and irretrievable course of action Unless we try to drive our way through by sheer brute force, we anic resources to adapt them to the specific features of the situation in which we find ourselves The conscious deliberating and desiring which precede overt action are, then, the methodic personal readjustment implied in activity in uncertain situations This role of mind in continuous activity is not alwaysdifferent, aversion to the given state of things caused by the blocking of successful activity, stiination The picture of a different state of things does not always function to aid ingenious observation and recollection to find a way out and on Except where there is a disciplined disposition, the tendency is for the i checked up by conditions with reference to their practicability in execution, they are allowed to develop because of the immediate emotional satisfaction which they yield When we find the successful display of our energies checked by uncongenial surroundings, natural and social, the easiest way out is to build castles in the air and let them be a substitute for an actual achieveht So in overt action we acquiesce, and build up an iht and conduct is reflected in those theories which make a sharp separation between mind as inner and conduct and consequences as merely outer

For the split may be more than an incident of a particular individual's experience The social situation iven to articulate reflection back into their own thoughts and desires without providing the means by which these ideas and aspirations can be used to reorganize the environe, as it were, upon the alien and hostile environ it a bad nae and consolation within their own states of s and wishes, which they co both more real and more ideal than the despised outer world Such periods have recurred in history In the early centuries of the Christian era, the influential moral systems of Stoicisious movements of the day, took shape under the influence of such conditions Theideals was checked, the arded as self-sufficient-as the essence of s was thought of as htforce in the world Much the sahteenth and early nineteenth centuries; it led to the Kantian insistence upon the good will as the solecoes or consequences effected in the world Later it led to any idealization of existing institutions as themselves the embodiment of reason

The purely internal ardless of what coenerally known as either hedonism or utilitarianis morally is not what a man is inside of his own consciousness, but what he does-the consequences which issue, the charges he actually effects Inner nify and shi+eld any dog to i it an intuition or an ideal of conscience Results, conduct, are what counts; they afford the sole measure of morality Ordinary morality, and hence that of the schoolroom, is likely to be an inconsistent co are made much of; the individual ood, if he had the right sort of emotional consciousness, he may be relieved of responsibility for full results in conduct But since, on the other hand, certain things have to be done to meet the convenience and the requirereat insistence upon the doing of certain things, irrespective of whether the individual has any concern or intelligence in their doing He rindstone; he must obey; he must form useful habits; heunderstood in a hich eibly done, irrespective of the spirit of thought and desire in which it is done, and irrespective therefore of its effect upon other less obvious doings

It is hoped that the prior discussion has sufficiently elaborated the method by which both of these evils are avoided One or both of these evilsor old, cannot engage in a progressively cue their interest and require their reflection For only in such cases is it possible that the disposition of desire and thinking should be an organic factor in overt and obvious conduct Given a consecutive activity e the student's own interest, where a definite result is to be obtained, and where neither routine habit nor the following of dictated directions nor capricious i will suffice, and there the rise of conscious purpose, conscious desire, and deliberate reflection are inevitable They are inevitable as the spirit and quality of an activity having specific consequences, not as for an isolated realm of inner consciousness

2 The Opposition of Duty and Interest Probably there is no antithesisfrom ”principle” and from ”interest” To act on principle is to act disinterestedly, according to a general lahich is above all personal considerations To act according to interest is, so the allegation runs, to act selfishly, with one's own personal profit in view It substitutes the changing expediency of thethis opposition has already been criticized (See Chapter X), but some moral aspects of the question will now be considered A clew to the matter may be found in the fact that the supporters of the ”interest” side of the controversy habitually use the ter from the premises that unless there is interest in an object or idea, there is no motive force, they end with the conclusion that even when a person clai from principle or from a sense of duty, he really acts as he does because there ”is so in it” for himself The premise is sound; the conclusion false In reply the other school argues that sinceand even self-sacrificing action, he is capable of acting without interest Again the premise is sound, and the conclusion false The error on both sides lies in a false notion of the relation of interest and the self

Both sides assume that the self is a fixed and hence isolated quantity As a consequence, there is a rigid dile for an interest of the self and without interest If the self is so froet more in the way of possessions for the self-whether in the way of fame, approval of others, power over others, pecuniary profit, or pleasure Then the reaction from this view as a cynical depreciation of human nature leads to the view that men who act nobly act with no interest at all Yet to an unbiased judgment it would appear plain that aor he would not do it A physician who continues to serve the sick in a plague at aler to his own life must be interested in the efficient performance of his profession-more interested in that than in the safety of his own bodily life But it is distorting facts to say that this interest is ets by continuing his custoood repute or virtue; that it is only a nize that the self is not so in continuous forh choice of action, the whole situation clears up A er to life ave up, and preferred his personal safety or comfort, it would mean that he preferred to be that kind of a self Thea separation between interest and self, and supposing that the latter is the end to which interest in objects and acts and others is a mere means In fact, self and interest are two names for the same fact; the kind and a reveals and measures the quality of selfhood which exists Bear inidentity of the self with a certain object, and the whole alleged dileround

Unselfishness, for exanifies neither lack of interest in what is done (that would mean only machine-like indifference) nor selflessness-which would mean absence of virility and character As employed everywhere outside of this particular theoretical controversy, the term ”unselfishness” refers to the kind of aims and objects which habitually interest a man And if we make a mental survey of the kind of interests which evoke the use of this epithet, we shall see that they have two intienerous self consciously identifies itself with the full range of relationshi+ps i a sharp line between itself and considerations which are excluded as alien or indifferent; (ii) it readjusts and expands its past ideas of itself to take in new consequences as they becoan his career he ht of a pestilence; he may not have consciously identified himself with service under such conditions But, if he has a nor or active self, when he finds that his vocation involves such risks, he willingly adopts theer self which means inclusion instead of denial of relationshi+ps is identical with a self which enlarges in order to assume previously unforeseen ties

In such crises of readjustreat-there may be a transitional conflict of ”principle” with ”interest” It is the nature of a habit to involve ease in the accusto of habit to involve an effort which is disagreeable-so to which a man has deliberately to hold himself In other words, there is a tendency to identify the self-or take interest-in what one has got used to, and to turn away thewhich involves an unpleasant modification of habit comes up Since in the past one has done one's duty without having to face such a disagreeable circuo on as one has been? To yield to this teht of the self-to treat it as complete Any habit, no matter how efficient in the past, which has beco this teency is not to act on soe; it is to act upon the principle of a course of action, instead of upon the circumstances which have attended it The principle of a physician's conduct is its ani aim and spirit-the care for the diseased The principle is not what justifies an activity, for the principle is but another name for the continuity of the activity If the activity as manifested in its consequences is undesirable, to act upon principle is to accentuate its evil And aupon principle is likely to be afrom experience what is the better way He fancies that some abstract principle justifies his course of action without recognizing that his principle needs justification

assu, however, that school conditions are such as to provide desirable occupations, it is interest in the occupation as a whole-that is, in its continuous development-which keeps a pupil at his work in spite of temporary diversions and unpleasant obstacles Where there is no activity having a growing significance, appeal to principle is either purely verbal, or a form of obstinate pride or an appeal to extraneous considerations clothed with a dignified title Undoubtedly there are junctures where s, and where reinforcement is needed But what carries a person over these hard stretches is not loyalty to duty in the abstract, but interest in his occupation Duties are ”offices”-they are the specific acts needed for the fulfilling of a function-or, in hoenuinely interested in his job is the ement, to persist in the face of obstacles, to take the lean with the fat: hedifficulties and distraction

3 Intelligence and Character A noteworthy paradox often accompanies discussions of morals On the one hand, there is an identification of the moral with the rational Reason is set up as a faculty from which proceed ultimate moral intuitions, and sometimes, as in the Kantian theory, it is said to supply the only proper moral motive On the other hand, the value of concrete, everyday intelligence is constantly underestimated, and even deliberately depreciated Morals is often thought to be an affair hich ordinary knowledge has nothing to do Moral knowledge is thought to be a thing apart, and conscience is thought of as so radically different fronificance for education Moral education in school is practically hopeless e set up the development of character as a supree and the develop, which of necessity occupy the chief part of school ti to do with character On such a basis, moral education is inevitably reduced to some kind of catechetical instruction, or lessons about nify as matter of course lessons in what other people think about virtues and duties It aree in which pupils happen to be already aniard for the sentiard, it has no more influence on character than inforard, it increases dependence upon others, and throws upon those in authority the responsibility for conduct As a matter of fact, direct instruction in roups where it was a part of the authoritative control of theas such but the reinforceime of which it was an incident et similar results from lessons about ic

At the other end of the scale stands the Socratic-Platonic teaching which identifies knowledge and virtue-which holds that no ood This doctrine is co is ood and yet do the bad: not knowledge, but habituation or practice, and motive are what is required Aristotle, in fact, at once attacked the Platonic teaching on the ground that moral virtue is like an art, such as medicine; the experienced practitioner is better than a e but no practical experience of disease and remedies The issue turns, however, upon what is ist of Plato's teaching to the effect that ood except as he had passed through years of practical habituation and strenuous discipline Knowledge of the good was not a thing to be got either froed education It was the final and culrace of a mature experience of life Irrespective of Plato's position, it is easy to perceive that the ters as far apart as intiained and tested in experience,-and a second-handed, largely syeneral believe so and so-a devitalized reuarantee conduct, that it does not profoundly affect character, goes without saying But if knowledge ained by trying and testing that sugar is sweet and quinine bitter, the case stands otherwise Every time a man sits on a chair rather than on a stove, carries an umbrella when it rains, consults a doctor when ill-or in short performs any of the thousand acts which e of a certain kind finds direct issue in conduct There is every reason to suppose that the saood” is an empty term unless it includes the satisfactions experienced in such situations as those e that other persons are supposed to know soht lead one to act so as to win the approbation others attach to certain actions, or at least so as to give others the irees with them; there is no reason why it should lead to personal initiative and loyalty in behalf of the beliefs attributed to thely, to dispute about the proper h for educational purposes to note the different qualities covered by the one naained at first hand through the exigencies of experience which affects conduct in significant ways If a pupil learns things from books simply in connection with school lessons and for the sake of reciting what he has learned when called upon, then knowledge will have effect upon so state that such ”knowledge” should not have much influence in the life out of school But this is not a reason for e and conduct, but for holding in low estee e which relates merely to an isolated and technical specialty; it modifies action but only in its own narrow line In truth, the problem of moral education in the schools is one with the problee connected with the system of impulses and habits For the use to which any known fact is put depends upon its connections The knowledge of dynamite of a safecracker may be identical in verbal form with that of a chemist; in fact, it is different, for it is knit into connection with different aims and habits, and thus has a different import

Our prior discussion of subject- an iraphy and history, and then to scientifically organized knowledge, was based upon the idea of e and activity What is learned and e cooperation with others is arded or not For it builds up a social interest and confers the intelligence needed to make that interest effective in practice Just because the studies of the curriculuans of initiation into social values As mere school studies, their acquisition has only a technical worth Acquired under conditions where their social significance is realized, they feed ht Moreover, the qualities ofare all of thele-hness, assu the consequences of ideas which are accepted, aremoral characteristics with external confornore the ethical value of these intellectual attitudes, but the same habit tends to reduce morals to a dead and machinelike routine Consequently while such an attitude has moral results, the results are morally undesirable-above all in a democratic society where so much depends upon personal disposition

4 The Social and the Moral All of the separations which we have been criticizing-and which the idea of education set forth in the previous chapters is designed to avoid-spring fro theoody turn without reference to effective ability to do what is socially needed, and, on the other side, overe convention and tradition so as to limit morals to a list of definitely stated acts As a matter of fact, morals are as broad as acts which concern our relationshi+ps with others And potentially this includes all our acts, even though their social bearing ht of at the time of performance For every act, by the principle of habit, modifies disposition-it sets up a certain kind of inclination and desire And it is ithened may have a direct and perceptible influence on our association with others Certain traits of character have such an obvious connection with our social relationshi+ps that we call them ”moral” in an emphatic sense-truthfulness, honesty, chastity, amiability, etc But this only means that they are, as compared with some other attitudes, central:-that they carry other attitudes with them They are moral in an emphatic sense not because they are isolated and exclusive, but because they are so intimately connected with thousands of other attitudes which we do not explicitly recognize-which perhaps we have not even names for To call the the skeleton for the living body The bones are certainly important, but their ians of the body in such a way as to rated effective activity And the same is true of the qualities of character which we specifically designate virtues Morals concern nothing less than the whole character, and the whole character is identical with the man in all his concrete nify to have cultivated a few namable and exclusive traits; it means to be fully and adequately what one is capable of becoh association with others in all the offices of life

The moral and the social quality of conduct are, in the last analysis, identical with each other It is then but to restate explicitly the i the social function of education to say that the measure of the worth of the administration, curriculum, and methods of instruction of the school is the extent to which they are anier which threatens school work is the absence of conditions which reat ene For this spirit can be actively present only when certain conditions are met

(i) In the first place, the school must itself be a community life in all which that implies Social perceptions and interests can be developed only in a genuinely socialup of a cos can be acquired in relative isolation by any one who previously has had enough intercourse with others to have learned language But realization of the ns is quite another matter That involves a context of work and play in association with others The plea which has been h continued constructive activities in this book rests upon the fact they afford an opportunity for a social atmosphere In place of a school set apart fro lessons, we have a rowth are incidents of present shared experience Playgrounds, shops, workrooms, laboratories not only direct the natural active tendencies of youth, but they involve intercourse, co the perception of connections

(ii) The learning in school should be continuous with that out of school There should be a free interplay between the two This is possible only when there are numerous points of contact between the social interests of the one and of the other A school is conceivable in which there should be a spirit of companionshi+p and shared activity, but where its social life would no more represent or typify that of the world beyond the school walls than that of awould be developed, but they would not be available outside; they would not carry over The proverbial separation of town and gown, the cultivation of academic seclusion, operate in this direction So does such adherence to the culture of the past as generates a reminiscent social spirit, for this makes an individual feel more at home in the life of other days than in his own A professedly cultural education is peculiarly exposed to this danger An idealized past becoe and solace of the spirit; present-day concerns are found sordid, and unworthy of attention But as a rule, the absence of a social environ is a need and a reward is the chief reason for the isolation of the school; and this isolation renders school knowledge inapplicable to life and so infertile in character

A narrow and moralistic view of nize that all the aims and values which are desirable in education are themselves moral Discipline, natural development, culture, social efficiency, are moral traits-marks of a person who is a worthy member of that society which it is the business of education to further There is an old saying to the effect that it is not enough for afor which a ood is capacity to live as a socialwith others balances hat he contributes What he gets and gives as a hu with desires, emotions, and ideas, is not external possessions, but a widening and deepening of conscious life-arealization of ives is at most opportunities and means for the evolution of conscious life Otherwise, it is neither giving nor taking, but a shi+fting about of the position of things in space, like the stirring of water and sand with a stick Discipline, culture, social efficiency, personal refinerowth of capacity nobly to share in such a balanced experience And education is not a mere means to such a life Education is such a life To maintain capacity for such education is the essence ofafresh

Summary The most important problem of moral education in the school

concerns the relationshi+p of knowledge and conduct For unless the learning which accrues in the regular course of study affects character, it is futile to conceive theend of education When there is no intianic connection between the rowth, particular lessons and e is not integrated into the usual springs of action and the outlook on life, while morals become moralistic-a scheme of separate virtues

The two theories chiefly associated with the separation of learning from activity, and hence from morals, are those which cut off inner disposition and motive-the conscious personal factor-and