Vol. XV

No. 9

Before the break of day, some twenty-five centuries ago, Hippocrates had knocked at the door of Socrates. The master must arise, the great Sophist Protagoras wished to challenge him in argument! The subject was: "Can Virtue Be Taught?" How could philosophers argue over a subject so fundamental? Must they not agree lest the youth of Athens become corrupt?

"Do I understand you, Protagoras, and is your meaning that you teach the art of politics, and that you promise to make men good citizens? That, Socrates, is exactly the profession which I make. But, Protagoras, the best and wisest of our citizens are unable to impart their political wisdom to others. Pericles could not teach his own sons politics, nor his ward, Cleinias, virtue, but they were allowed to wander at their own free will in a sort of hope that they would light upon virtue of their own accord. Will Protagoras be so good as to prove that virtue can be taught?"

"O Socrates, education and admonition commence in the earliest years of childhood and last to the very end of life. The child can not turn without his hearing that this is just and that is unjust; this is honorable and that is

dishonorable; this is holy, that is unholy; do this and abstain from that. At a later age his teachers enjoin him to see to his manners even more than to his reading and music. They put into his hands the works of great poets. In these are contained many tales and encomia of ancient famous men which he learns by heart in order that he may imitate or emulate them. The harmony and rhythm of music is quite familiar to children's souls and they are made more gentle and more fitted for speech and action. The master of gymnastic trains their bodies. that they may minister to a more virtuous mind. When they have done with masters the state again compels them to learn the laws and live after the pattern which they furnish. And just as in learning to write, the writing master first draws lines with a style for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention of good law givers of old time. These are given to the young man in order to guide him in his conduct whether as ruler or ruled, and he who transgresses them is to be corrected or called to account. Now when there is all this care about vir

tue, private and public, why, O Cocrates, do you still wonder and doubt whether virtue can be taught? Cease to wonder, for the opposite would be far more surprising."

The Sophists believed that morality could be taught; Socrates believed it could not be taught. When philosophers disagree, how can common man hope to settle a question of such vital moment? To Socrates "Knowledge was virtue;" knowledge not as the offhand information of the Sophist but knowledge functioning in the power of thought or reason. To Socrates every individual should have within himself power to appreciate truth, honesty, wisdom, virtue, be he cobbler or be he statesman. Make man a reasoning being and he would be virtuous. But Socrates did not show how one who possessed knowledge would be led to do the right. It was intellectual knowledge, not emotional.

To Plato "ideas" were of universal validity. He sought the vision of "truth." The philosopher alone could attain this truth. In the ideal republic the pholosopher must lead. Aris

totle left the world of ideas and dwelt

Aristotle, to me, is the philosopher of all. From him I take my text and make my theme with you, and it is this: the power of doing without the doing is of little value. I wish to bring to you this afternoon the doctrine that morality is as morality does.

In the old period of Greek education the training in morals was strenuous and severe as Protagoras has shown us. But it was above all a training in habits by doing. The method was method was one of direct example. The mother reared the boy until he was seven. As a boy he was the direct associate of an elder or "inspirer." His life was in the open and public. The approval or disapproval of his elders was of import. His games and sports were controlled by the state. He was compelled to attend the theatre, the law court, the banquet, to participate in the religious festival, that by such direct example in living models, and such participation, his moral conduct might be moulded. Gymnastics were to teach him to control his

passions and co-ordinate thought and

act. Success was not so much in win

with things real. We could expect him to be more practical. Virtue to

knowing; "Virtue was a state of the will; a state of the will was not so much a condition as it was a process; hence goodness, the highest end attainable by man, was not a condition but an activity." Reality to Aristotle was accomplishment. Plato's "well being" became for him "well doing." Well doing is virtue in action; it is knowledge functioning in in conduct.

"if one does the deed, the knowledge of doctrine will follow." From such direct training in moral doing, Greece was able to give to the world the Golden Age of Pericles.

What lesson has this for us? My friends, it is not the knowledge of Socrates that impels us to do the right. One may be a Solomon in wisdom but

a Nero in acts. One may have the knowledge of right yet do the wrong. "Bacon was designated as the wisest and meanest of mankind. He knew the way, approved it, too, but still pursued the wrong."

It is doing the right that leaves its sediment of strength. As our friend, Dr. Grossmann, in "The Real Life,"

says:

"Knowledge is not power. It is merely the tool for the power. The real strength is the will. The man who knows things is not half as strong as he who does them."

And this brings us to the distinction between "ideas about morality" and "moral ideas." Who does not know that he should regard his obligations to others; speak good and not evil; be truthful; do unto his neighbor as he would be done to." When he knows these, he has "ideas about morality." But when he pays his ob ligation; when he speaks a good; when he tells a truth; when he does unto his neighbor, then and not till then does he have "moral ideas." "Ideas about morality" are static, they are the knowledge of Socrates. "Moral ideas" are dynamic, they carry over into conduct, they are the "well doing" of Aristotle. It is the business It is the business of the educator, whether parent of teacher, says Dewey, "to see to it that the greatest possible number of ideas acquired by children and youth are acquired in such a vital way that they become moving ideas, motive forces in the guidance of conduct." How may such moral ideas be taught? We often hear the criticism of the school that no place is given on the daily program for the teaching of

morals, as if morality could be taught as arithmetic or history is taught, ten problems for today, the next chapter for tomorrow! Morality can not be taught at the period just before recess or just after. If a stated time were allotted in the program, the period would resolve itself into one for the teaching of "ideas about morality," not necessarily "moral ideas." What then does the school do for the morals of the youth? My friends, moral ideas are inculcated every minute of the day, every day of the week. Moral influences surround the pupil in the form of practice, and example teaches. The child will be virtuous by your example and mine sooner than by your precept or mine. No man or woman is more consecrated to his work than the faithful teacher of the school room and her daily life before the child becomes as a large candle in a wicked world. This example may not always be of the human element but of the material equipment. Who of you can doubt the moral influence of the school bath, the medical clinic, the fresh air school, the Little Mothers' League, the special class, the savings bank, the social center, the Boy Scouts; every one of which was unheard of a decade ago? Who of you can doubt the habits of fair play inculcated by the supervised game where instruction is not so much to tell the boy to play fair as it is to see that he does play fair; the return to which brings us to the old Greek school of the Spartan youth? Moral acts are being formed each day into moral habits and morality as a habit should be established long before it should trouble us as a principle. Froebel tells us that "morality is produced by moral practices."

The value of practice and example all men accept although it may be too indifferently carried out. Does the parent expect more from the teacher than from himself? Precept to him is as full as the pages back on the training of children, Plutarch, for one, in his "Morals" telling us: "The chiefest thing that fathers are to look to is that they themselves become effectual examples to their children." Yes, my friends, morality can be taught; it is taught each hour by practice and example; we only err when we think it can be delegated to the class room teacher and hold him alone responsible when, as Protagoras pleads to Socrates: "Every man is a teacher of virtue, each one according to his ability, and you say, 'where are the teachers?' You might as well ask, 'who teaches Greek?" "

And this brings us to the question of service. The time was when the

ideal of education was that of piety, but piety within the cloistered wall. Within our own day we have heard much of "education for leisure," but my friends there is something more needed than the salvation of our souls or the Platonic enjoyment of the contemplation of the beautiful. The most chastening influence of the human cycle is aflame in the land and that is the spirit of service. Can morality be taught? Morality is being done, and moral ideas are (rampant) is community service. No people can bet ter be proud in this than the Jew and all honor to him. In one of our newest large downtown schools a few days ago a ragged urchin of the street had come hungry to school and paused at the recess lunch room, I thought,

with the childish disappointment of no penny with which to buy his first bite of food for the day, but with the air of a master of finance he clapped his two pennies down upon the table. "What do you want Angelo?" came from a handsome, well dressed woman of another race. "I want a spagetti cone and a sandwich." "Where did he get his pennies?" I asked the lady with whom I was talking. "Sh! we've already given out six hundred this month and no one but the boy himself has known it!" Befriend a dog and you become his God; will this service of a noble society of Jewish women bear no fruit in a future citizen of our land? Morality is not what I think, morality is what I do. These women not only have "ideas about morality" but they practice "moral ideas."

You new Talmud Torah movement is conceived as I understand it in the

spirit of service by surrounding the boy with every moral influence for The records of the Juvenile good. Courts of our cities are replete with cases answering affirmatively to no religious instruction. While the doing of the good must build upon precept, the time is not far distant in our public schools when formal instruction in the Book will again be given as it is now given in some of our most progressive schools for a period each day in the various churches of the pupils' choice. Every moral influence harkens back to the Proverb of Solomon, "Train up the child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

Service is finding more expression in our schools by encouraging the ac