Part 5 (1/2)

But in all the training of the will on this social side, we reatest problem for the educator, that individuality is not to be sacrificed, that it must be most jealously preserved We have only to remember what has been so often said before, that education consists, not in destroying, but in training The will is only to be directed, never to be broken, or even weakened, and she who endeavors to do this is working in the interest of evil and not of good, while she who should, if it were possible, succeed in it, would have, as the result of her efforts, only a total ruin instead of a fair and stately edifice It then it, for without a strong will, the moral nature will fall a prey to the forces of evil as surely and quickly as the body, deprived of the life principle, rushes to corruption and disintegration

_Moral Culture_--In the previous division, the will has been supposed to be guided by the educator, but now another guide is to be followed, for it beco in the world has any absolute value except Will guided by the Right” We reat effect in this direction a considerable education of the intellect, in order that the child ht, othere shall be leaving her to the saddestconvinced that it was right for him, before baptism, to dispense with one of his tives, for both of whom he had a sincere affection, perfor one of theirl whose intellect has not been well trained can safely be delivered over to the direction of her own conscience The Spanish and the French nize the truth of this proposition, by the constant surveillance which they exercise over their daughters It is contrary to the whole spirit of our Aht we to see to it, that the conscience, to whose custody Ahters' actions, be an enlightened one No merely prescriptive external rules, borrowed froirls, can fully answer the purpose These may do for communities that are co Auide

It is not often recognized that the cause ofand a worry which is scarcely found in Europe--is only this truly Arowth[25] The o finds herself unable to understand her daughter's restlessness As great a distance divides the thought of the hter in Arandhter, and these latter named relatives are, by a wise provision of Providence, not often perins to assert her own individuality, and hence, the chafing referred to above, is saved If Methuselahs were not exceptional in these days in Aree the unavoidable friction of family society would be increased!

We et for one irls, froain, then, it is, in this point of view, of iirls be allowed, nay, forced, to complete their intellectual education

We have now so to educate the girl that she shall do what is right, siht, and not because it is useful or politic so to do; that she shall abstain fro, and not because it will be harmful to her if she do not These two statements would, however, be fully expressed by the first one, for it is evident that if she always do what is right she will never be able to do what is wrong, and positive education is ative, and an active, better than a passive state of irl's life this lesson can be impressed upon her only by exarandmother and le instance, however trifling, of deviation frohter of the voice of God” Though at first we did not knohat the poe felt, through all our childish consciousness, that there was a power behind the throne from which our laws emanated, whose voice was authority itself Some of us may even recall the ione years, e distinctly formulated in words, with a certain sense of satisfaction, the conviction that ”even grown-up people cannot do as they please;” and yet, that the pohich prevented this doing as they pleased was neither fashi+on, nor custoirl be so educated that ”while she praises and rejoices over, and receives into her soul, the good, and becoood, she will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of her youth, even before she is able to know the reason of the thing, and when Reason conize and salute her as a friend ho fairl is older, and especially at the time when the whole character is most impressible, this part of education can be firmly laid in the cement of rational conviction, and if it is laid on no shi+fting sands of contradictory character in the educator, wesupport There ood are happy, that honesty is the best policy, etc, are of no avail They will not do as a guide for life, and the sooner American mothers and teachers learn this, the better for Airl yields in every direction unquestioning obedience to Duty, she is virtuous, and she is virtuous only in so far as she does this

But as duty rules in every direction, to God, to the State, Society, the Family, and ourselves, and as her voice is as authoritative at one time as at another, it follows that no one virtue can be said to be superior to any other Those of us who have had the widest experience have learned that the whole hierarchy of virtues generally stand or fall together, for they are all only the ain froirls: ”The pupil ence, which consists in yielding to certain weaknesses, faults or crier, because he has fixed a certain time, after which he intends to do better Perhaps he will assert that his coed before he can alter his internal conduct Wherever education or temperament favors sentimentality, we shall find birthdays, New Year's day, confir points It is not to be denied that man proceeds, in his internal life, from epoch to epoch, and renews himself in his most internal nature, nor can we deny that moments like those mentioned are especially favorable in man to an effort towards self-transformation, because they invite introspection; but it is not to be endured that the youth, while looking forward to such aIf he does, when the solemn moment which he has set, at last arrives, he will, at the stirring of the first e in himself, that the same temptations are present to him, and the same weakness takes possession of himIn morality there are no vacations and no interims”[27]

The power of voluntary Renunciation is another pohich the educator has to develop in the girl It can be cultivated, of course, only by judicious exercise

But the forreat work of the educator, for this may be said to be the object of a woman's existence Character has been defined as ”a completely fashi+oned Will”--_ie_, a completely educated Will If it is ”completely fashi+oned,” it must of necessity be consistent It is scarcely necessary here to call attention to the fact that by character, in any educational sense, we ht to be by others

Character ood or bad; for one ood But we are concerned only with the building of character where that buildingpermanent the direction of the individual Will towards the actualization of the good”

The woood character is she hile she acts spontaneously, acts in all things consistently; the parts of whose life grow together, as it were, into one organic unity We knohat to expect of her In her friendshi+p we confide, on her love we safely rely, by her judgulate our action in times of difficulty and distress ”The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, and her children rise up and call her blessed,” and when she passes through the gate of death, her country should mourn, for it can ill-afford to irl has learned to accept duty as the decisive guide of her actions, she is acting conscientiously, and passes over into the real religious life A distinction y, the latter of which belongs to special educators At first, in the child, religion is a feeling, a sentienerally fosters and directs It appears in the form of wonder at natural phenoratitude when they are agreeable But this feeling or sentis, in civilized Christian coirl be not educated into a higher religion than this, and if, at the same time, her whole mental horizon have, from unfinished intellectual education, re of Theology can be based, and nothing which will bear the stress and strain of actual life In such a case--that is, if her religion is only gratitude for favors, if her only idea of God is that of a Benefactor--when benefits fail, her religion will fail also While she has all that she can desire, she is full of religious faith She loses parents, husband, and only child, and her faith has vanished, and she even doubts whether there be any God, since he can allow so ood and kind and loved his children, he could not have divided his gifts more equally, why he could not have taken one child frohbor who has seven, instead of her one ewe lamb Allowance must be made for the first unreason of terrible torture to the affections, and the first heart-broken exclaious faith But when in many a woman, this becomes a chronic state of mind, is it not a serious question for educators to ask, whether the fault does not lie in her narrow education? Ought she not to have had her intellect so cultured that she should be able to hold at once in her thought, and without confusion, these two truths: that God's thought and care for the Universe ht of Lahich cannot be broken for individual cases, and also that even one sparrow does not fall without his notice?

Ought she not to have been educated into so wide a horizon of thought that she herself, and her affairs, her loves, and hates, should not loom up before her in such disproportionate size? A woman is to live in her affections? But what if her affections have been outraged, betrayed, or crushed? The sentiood one, but it is but senti in their affections if we educate thee, as well as into e which belonged to the child is not led over into a soenerates into senti feeling in our Aood, in this way? Shall we not rather direct it by a sound religious education, into more healthy channels? In such a coround for any active acceptance of our lot ”The constant new birth out of the grave of the past, to the life of a enuine reconciliation with destiny”

Only e have accoirls, the best material the world has ever yet seen, enerations to their strong, intelligent, and religious guidance

FOOTNOTES:

[24] I a here, as elsewhere, the direction indicated by the Gerations to whoed, and froy I have so often quoted

[25] We ns of the saree, in Russia

[26] Plato, _Rep_, Book III

[27] _Pedagogics as a System_ Rosenkranz, p 83, Published by William T Harris, St Louis, Mo