Excerpt from Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record, Vol. 14: June, 1907 TO begin with, then, let me state my objection to the immediate introduction of an elaborate course of ethics into the public schools, even granted that such a course has been carefully planned in detail for the help of teach ers. As one of the speakers at the first convention of the Religious Education Association said in 1903: Moral or ethical knowledge no more comes naturally of itself to the teacher than to any one else; and especially if it is to be presented to others must it be learned in some orderly and systematic way. The possession of personal morality no more qualifies for teaching morality, than does the fact that I personally (as far as anybody knows) possess a perfect outfit of bones, muscles, arteries, veins, lungs, etc., qualify me to be demonstrator in anatomy in a university medical school. Moreover, the sort of teaching that is based on syllabi or textbooks in the teacher's hands can not be effective. To be effective, the lessons must be the outcome of the teacher's own experiences of life. There fore we must try to get the teacher to follow a course of reasoning and self-searching and observation that will bring him to the conviction of the truth and the import ance of the lessons he is to impart. Any less personal preparation will result in flat lessons, that will in the long296 moral instruction IN the public schools. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.