The Moral Instruction of Children, Felix Adler [little readers .txt] 📗

over the mighty, the cause of justice triumphs against all apparent odds to the contrary. The slaves rise against their masters, the flower of Egyptian chivalry is destroyed. Pharaoh rallies his army and sets out in pursuit. But the Hebrews, under Moses's guidance, have gained the start, and escape into the wilderness in safety.

Freedom is a precious opportunity—no more. Its value depends on the use to which it is put. And therefore, no sooner was the act of liberation accomplished, than the great leader turned to the task of positive legislation, the task of developing a higher moral life among his people. But here a new and keener disappointment awaited him. When he descended from the mount, the glow of inspiration still upon his face, the tablets of the law in his hand, he saw the people dancing about the golden calf. It is at this moment that Michel Angelo, deeply realizing the human element in the biblical story, has represented the form of the liberator in the colossal figure which was destined for Pope Julius's tomb. "The right foot is slightly advanced; the long beard trembles with the emotion which quivers through the whole frame; the eyes flash indignant wrath; the right hand grasps the tablets of the law; in another moment, we see it plainly, he will leap from his sitting posture and shatter the work which he has made upon the rocks." This trait, too, is typical. Many a leader of a noble cause has felt, in moments of deep disappointment, as if he could shatter the whole work of his life. Many a man, in like situation, has said to himself: The people are willing enough to hail the message of the higher law to-day, but to-morrow they sink back into their dull, degraded condition, as if the vision from the mount had never been reported to them. Let me, then, leave them to their dreary ways, to dance about their golden calf. But a better and stronger mood prevailed in Moses. He ascended once more to the summit, and there prostrated himself in utter self-renunciation and self-effacement. He asked nothing for himself, only that the people whom he loved might be benefited ever so little, be raised ever so slowly above their low condition. And again the questioning spirit came upon him, and he said, as many another has said: The paths of progress are dark and twisted; the course of history seems so often to be in the wrong direction. How can I be sure that there is such a thing as eternal truth—that the right will prevail in the end? And then there came to him that grand revelation, the greatest, as I think, and the most sublime in the Old Testament, when the eternal voice answered his doubt, and said: "Thou wouldst know my ways, but canst not. No living being can see my face; only from the rearward canst thou know me." As a ship sails through the waters and leaves its wake behind, so the divine Power passes through the world and leaves behind the traces by which it can be known. And what are those traces? Justice and mercy. Cherish, therefore, the divine element in thine own nature, and thou wilt see it reflected in the world about thee. Wouldst thou be sure that there is such a thing as a divine Power? be thyself just and merciful. And so Moses descended again to his people, and became exceeding charitable in spirit. The Bible says: "The man Moses was exceeding humble; there was no one more humble than he on the face of the earth." He bore with resignation their complaints, their murmurings, their alternate cowardice and foolhardiness. He was made to feel, like many another in his place, that his foes were they of his own household. He had an only brother and an only sister. His brother and sister rose up against him. His kinsmen, too, revolted from him. He endured all their weakness, all their follies; he sought to lift them by slow degrees to the height of his own aims. He set the paths of life and death before them, and told them that the divine word can not be found by crossing the seas or by searching the heavens, but must be found in the human heart; and if men find it not there they will find it nowhere else. And so, at last, his pilgrimage drew to a close. He had reached the confines of Palestine. Once more he sought the mountain-top, and there beheld the promised land stretching far away—the land which his eyes were to see but which he was never to enter. Few great reformers, indeed few men who have started a great movement in history, and have been the means of producing deep and permanent changes in the ideas and institutions of society, have lived to see those changes consummated. The course of evolution is slow, and the reformer can hope at best to see the promised land from afar—as in a dream. Happy he if, like Moses, he retains the force of his convictions unabated, if his spiritual sight remains undimmed, if the splendid vision which attended him in the beginning inspires and consoles him to the end.

The narrative which has thus been sketched touches on some of the weightiest problems of human existence, and deals with motives both complex and lofty. I have entered into the interpretation of these motives for the purpose of showing that they are too complex and too lofty to be within the comprehension of children, and that it is an error, though unfortunately a common one, to attempt to use the grand career of a reformer and liberator as a text for the moral edification of the very young. They are wholly unprepared to understand, and that which is not understood, if forced on the attention, awakens repugnance and disgust. Few of those who have been compelled to study the life of Moses in their childhood have ever succeeded in conquering this repugnance, or have drawn from it, even in later life, the inspiration and instruction which it might otherwise have afforded them. For our primary course, however, we can extract a few points interesting even to children, thus making them familiar with the name of Moses, and preparing the way for a deeper interest later on. The incidents of the story which I should select are these: The child Moses exposed on the Nile; the good sister watching over his safety; the kind princess adopting him as her son; the sympathy manifested by him for his enslaved brethren despite his exemption from their misfortunes. The killing of the Egyptian should be represented as a crime, palliated but not excused by the cruelty of the overseer. Special stress may be laid upon the chivalric conduct of Moses toward the young girls at the well of Midian. The teacher may then go on to say that Moses, having succeeded in freeing his people from the power of the Egyptian king, became their chief, that many wise laws are ascribed to him, etc. The story of the spies, and of the end of Moses, may also be briefly told.

The mention of the laws of Moses leads me to offer a suggestion. I have remarked above that children should be taught to observe moral pictures before any attempt is made to deduce moral principles; but certain simple rules should be given even to the very young—must, indeed, be given them for their guidance. Now, in the legislation ascribed to Moses we find a number of rules fit for children, and a collection of these rules might be made for the use of schools. They should be committed to memory by the pupils, and perhaps occasionally recited in chorus. I have in mind such rules as these:[12]

1. Ye shall not lie. (Many persons who pay attention only to the Decalogue, and forget the legislation of which it forms a part, seem not to be aware that there is in the Pentateuch [Lev. xix, 11] a distinct commandment against lying.)

2. Ye shall not deceive one another.

3. Ye shall take no bribe.

4. Honor thy father and thy mother.

5. Every one shall reverence his mother and his father. (Note that the father is placed first in the one passage and the mother first in the other, to indicate the equal title of both to their children's reverence.)

6. Thou shalt not speak disrespectfully of those in authority.

7. Before the hoary head thou shalt rise and pay honor to the aged.

10. Thou shalt not spread false reports.

11. Thou shalt not go about as a tale-bearer among thy fellows.

12. Thou shalt not hate thy neighbor in thy heart, but shalt warn him of his evil-doing.

13. Thou shalt not bear a grudge against any, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

8. Thou shalt not speak evil of the deaf (thinking that he can not hear thee), nor put an obstacle in the way of the blind.

9. If there be among you a poor man, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need.

14. If thou seest the property of thine enemy threatened with destruction, thou shalt do thy utmost to save it.

15. If thou findest what is not thine own, and the owner is not known to thee, guard it carefully, that thou mayest restore it to its rightful owner.

16. Thou shalt not do evil because many others are doing the same evil.

Bearing grudges, lying, mocking those who (like the deaf and blind) are afflicted with personal defects, appropriating what is found without attempting to discover the owner, seeking to excuse wrong on the plea that many others are guilty of it—all these are forms of moral evil with which children are perfectly familiar, and against which they need to be warned. It is more than strange that such commandments as the sixth and eighth of the Decalogue (the commandment against murder and against adultery, forsooth), which are inapplicable to little children, should be made so much of in primary moral instruction, while those other commandments which do come home to them are often overlooked. The theory here expounded, that moral teaching should keep pace with the experience and intelligence of the child, should save us from such mistakes.

To proceed with the stories, the book of Joshua offers nothing that we can turn to account, nor do the stories of Jael, Deborah, and Gideon contain moral lessons fit for the young. Sour milk is not proper food for children, nor do those stories afford the proper moral food in which, so to speak, the milk of human kindness has turned sour. The labors of Samson, the Hebrew Hercules, are likewise unfit to be used at this stage, at least for the purpose of moral instruction. The story of the daughter of Jephtha, the Hebrew Iphigenia, is exquisitely pathetic, but it involves the horrible idea of human sacrifice, and therefore had better be omitted. The acts and speeches of Samuel mark an epoch in the history of the Hebrew religion, and are of profound interest to the scholar. But there are certain features, such as the killing of Agag, which would have to be eliminated in any case; then the theological and moral elements are so blended that it would be difficult if not impossible to separate them; and altogether the character of this mighty ancient seer, this Hebrew Warwick, this king-maker and enemy of kings, is above the comprehension of primary scholars. We shall therefore omit the whole intervening period, and pass at once from the Moses cycle to

The David