幼托-多彩多姿
Moral Principles in
Education
(
John Dewey
1. THE MORAL PUPOSE OF
SCHOOL
An English
contemporary philosopher has called attention to
the difference between moral
ideals and
ideas about morality. “Moral ideas” are ideas of
any sort whatsover which take
effect in
conduct
and
improve
it,
make
it
better
than
it
otherwise
would
be.
Similarly,
one
may
say,
immoral
ideas are ideas of whatever sort (whether
arithmetical or geographical or physiological)
which
show
themselves
in
making
behavior
worse
than
it
would
otherwise
be;
and
non-moral
ideas, one way say, are
such
ideas and pieces of information as leave conduct
uninfluenced for
either the better or
the worse. Now “ideas about morality” may be
morally indifferent or immoral
or
moral. There is nothing in the nature of ideas
about
morality, of
information
about
honesty or
purity or kindness which automatically
transmutes such ideas into good character or good
conduct.
This distinction between moral
ideas, ideas of any sort whatsoever that have
become a part of
character and hence a
part of the working motives of behavior, and ideas
about
moral action that
may
remain
as
inert
and
ineffective
as
if
they
were
so
much
knowledge
about
Egyptian
archaeology, is fundamental to
discussion of moral education. The business of
educator
–
whether
parent or teacher
–
is 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-force
in
the
guidance
of
conduct.
This
demand
and
this
opportunity
make
the
moral
purpose
universal
and
dominant
in
all
instruction
–
whatsoever
the
topic.
Were
it
not
for
this
possibility,
the
familiar
statement
that
the
ultimate
purpose
of
all
education
is
character-forming
would
be
hypocritical
pretense; for as everyone knows, the
direct and immediate attention of teachers and
pupils must be,
for the greater part of
the time, upon intellectual matters. It is out of
the question to keep direct
moral
considerations
constantly
uppermost.
But
it
is
not
out
of
question
to
aim
at
making
the
methods of learning, of
acquiring intellectual power, and of assimilating
subject-matter, such that
they
will
render
behavior
more
enlightened,
moral
consistent,
more
vigorous
than
it
otherwise
would be.
The
same
distinction
between
“moral
ideas”
and
“ideas
about
morality”
explains
for
us
a
source
of
continual
misunderstanding
between
teachers
in
the
schools
and
critics
of
education
outside of the
schools. The later look through the school
programs, the school courses of study,
and
do
not
find
any
place
set
apart
for
instruction
in
ethics
or
for
“moral
teaching”.
Then
they
assert
that the schools are doing nothing, or next to
nothing, for character-training; they become
emphatic, even vehement, about the
moral deficiencies of public education. The
school-teachers,
on
the
other
hand,
resent
these
criticisms
as
an
injustice,
and
hold
not
only
that
the
do
“teach
morals,”
but
that
that
they
teach
them
every
moment
of
the
day,
five
days
in
the
week.
In
this
contention
the
teachers
in
principle
are
in
the
right;
if
they
are
in
the
wrong,
it
is
not
because
?
J. Dewey,
Moral
Principles in Education
. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909; Reprinted in
The Middle
Works of John Dew
ey
（
1899-1924
）
,
Vol.4
（
1
907-1909
）
. Southern Illinois
University Press, 1971, pp.266-333.
special periods are not set aside for
what after all can only be teaching
about
morals, but because
their own characters, or their school
atmosphere and ideals, or their methods of
teaching, or the
subject-matter
which
they
teach,
are
not
such
in
detail
as
to
bring
intellectual
results
into
vital
union
with
character
so
that
they
become
working
forces
in
behavior.
Without
discussing,
therefore, the
limits or the value of so-called direct moral
instruction (or, better, instruction about
morals), it may be laid down as
fundamental that the influence of direct moral
instruction, even at
its very best, is
comparatively
small in
amount and slight in influence, when the whole
field of
moral growth through education
is taken into account. This larger field of
indirect and vital moral
education, the
development of character through all the agencies,
instrumentalities, and materials
of
school life is, therefore, the subject of our
present discussion.
2. THE MORAL TRAINING GIVEN BY THE
SCHOOL COMMUNITY
There
cannot be two sets of ethical principles, one for
life in the school, and the other for life
outside of the school. As conduct is
one, so also the principles of conduct are one.
The tendency to
discuss the morals of
school as if the school were an institution by
itself is highly unfortunate. The
moral
responsibility
of
the
school,
and
of
those
conduct
it,
is
to
society.
The
school
is
fundamentally an institution erected by
society to do a certain specific work, - to
exercise a certain
specific
function
in
maintaining
the
life
and
advancing
the
welfare
of
society.
The
educational
system which
does not recognize that this fact entails upon it
an ethical responsibility is derelict
and defaulter. It is not doing what it
was called into existence to do, and what it
pretends to do.
Hence the entire
structure of the school in general and its
concrete workings in particular need to
be considered from time to time with
reference to the social position and function of
school.
The idea that the moral work of
public-school system as a whole are to be measured
by its
social value is, indeed, a
familiar notion. Hover, it is frequently taken in
too limited and rigid a
way. The social
work of the school is often limited to training
for citizenship, and citizenship is
then interpreted in a narrow sense as
meaning capacity
to vote intelligently,
disposition to obey
laws, etc. But it
is futile to contract and cramp the ethical
responsibility of the school in this way.
The child is one, and he must either
live his social life as an integral unified being,
or suffer loss
and
create
friction.
To
pick
out
the
out
of
many
social
relations
which
the
child
bears,
and
to
define the
work of the school by that alone, is like
instituting a vast and complicated system of
physical
exercise
which
would
have
for
its
object
simply
the
development
of
the
lungs
and
the
power
of
breathing,
independent
of
other
organs
and
functions.
The
child
is
an
organic
whole,
intellectually, socially, and morally,
as well as physically. We must take the child as a
member of
society
in
the
broadest
sense,
and
demand
for
and
from
the
schools
whatever
is
necessary
to
enable
the
child
intelligently
to
recognize
all
his
social
relations
and
take his
part
in
sustaining
them.
To
isolate
the
formal
relationship
of
citizenship
from
the
whole
system
of
relations
with
which
it
is
actually
interwoven;
to
suppose
that
there
is
some
one
particular
study
or
mode
of
treatment which can make
the child a good citizen; to suppose, in other
words, that a good citizen
is anything
more than a thoroughly efficient and serviceable
member of society, one with all his
powers of body and mind under control,
is a hampering superstition which it is hoped may
soon
disappear from educational
discussion.
The child is to be not only
a voter and subject of law; he is also to be a
member of a family,
himself in turn
responsible, in all probability, for rearing and
training of future children, thereby
maintaining the continuity of society.
He is to be a worker, engaged in some occupation
which will
be of use to society, and
which will maintain his own independence and self-
respect. He is to be a
member of some
particular neighborhood and community, and must
contribute to the values of life,
add
to the decencies and graces of civilization
wherever his. These are bare and formal
statements,
but if we let our
imagination translate them into their concrete
details, we have a wide and varied
scene.
For
the
child
properly
to
take
his
place
in
reference
to
these
various
functions
means
training in science, in art, in
history; means command of the fundamental methods
of inquiry and
the fundamental tools of
intercourse and communication; means habits of
industry, perseverance;
in short,
habits of serviceableness.
Moreover,
the
society
of
which
the
child
is
to
be
a
member
is,
in
the
United
States,
a
democratic
and
progressive
society.
The
child
must
be
educated
for
leadership
as
well
as
for
obedience.
He
must
have
power
of
self-direction
and
power
of
directing
others,
power
of
administration,
ability
to
assume
position
of
responsibility.
This
necessity
of
educating
for
leadership is as great in the
industrial as on the political side.
New inventions, new machines, new
methods of transportation and intercourse are
making
over the whole scene of action
year by year. It is an absolute impossibility to
educate the child for
any
fixed
station
in
life.
So
far
as
education
is
conducted
unconsciously
or
consciously
on
this
basis,
it
results
in
fitting
the
future
citizen
for
no
station
in
life,
but
makes
him
a
drone,
a
hanger-
on, or an actual retarding influence in the onward
movement. Instead of caring for himself
and others, he becomes one who has
himself to be cared for. Here, too, the ethical
responsibility of
the school on the
social side must be interpreted in the broadest
and freest spirit; it is equivalent to
that training of the child which will
give him such possession of himself that he may
take charge
of himself; may not only
adapt himself to the changes that are going on,
but have power to shape
and direct
them.
Apart from participation in
social life, the school has no moral end nor aim.
As long as we
confine ourselves to the
school as an isolated institution, we have no
directing principles, because
we have
no object. For example, the end of education is
said to be harmonious development of all
the powers of the individual. Here no
reference to social life or membership is
apparent, and yet
many think we have in
it an adequate and thoroughgoing definition of the
goal of education. But if
this
definition
be
taken
independently
of
social
relationship
we
have
no
way
of
telling
what
is
meant by any one of the
terms employed. We do not know what a power is; we
do not know what
development is; we do
not know what harmony is. A power is a power only
with reference to the
use to which it
is put, the function it has to serve. If we leave
out the uses supplied by social life
we
have nothing but the old “faculty psychology”
to tell what is meant by power and what
the
specific powers are. The
principle reduces itself to enumerating a lot of
faculties like perception,
memory,
reasoning, etc., and then stating that each one of
these powers needs to be developed.
Education
then
becomes
a
gymnastic
exercise.
Acute
powers
of
observation
and
memory
might
be
developed
by
studying
Chinese
characters;
acuteness
in
reasoning
might
be
got
by
discussing
the
scholastic
subtleties
of
middle
Ages.
The
simple
fact
is
that
there
is
no
isolated
faculty
of
observation,
or
memory,
or
reasoning
any
more
than
there
is
an
original
faculty
of
black-
smithing, carpentering, or steam engineering.
Faculties mean simply that particular impulses
and habits have been coordinated or
framed with reference to accomplishing certain
definite kinds
of work. We need to know
the social situations in which the individual will
have to use ability to
observe,
recollect,
imagine,
and
reason,
in
order
to
have
any
way
of
telling
what
a
training
of
mental powers actually means.
What
holds
in
the
illustration
of
this
particular
definition
of
education
holds
good
from
whatever
point
of
view
we
approach
the
matter.
Only
as
we
interpret
school
activities
with
reference to the larger
circle of social activities to which they relate
do we find and standard for
judging
their moral significance.
The school
itself must be a vital social institution to a
much greater extent than obtains at
present. I am told that there is a
swimming school in a certain city where youth are
taught to swim
without
going
into
the
water,
being
repeatedly
drilled
in
the
various
movements
which
are
necessary for swimming. When one of the
young men so trained was asked what he did when he
got
into
the
water,
he
laconically
replied,
“Sunk.”
The
story
happens
to
be
true;
were
it
not,
it
would
seem to be a fable made expressly for the purpose
of typifying the ethical relationship of
school
to
society.
The
school
cannot
be
a
preparation
for
social
life
excepting
as
it
reproduces,
within itself,
typical conditions of social life. At present it
is largely engaged in the futile task of
Sisyphus. It is endeavoring to form
habits in children for use in a social life which,
it would almost
seem, is carefully and
purposely kept away from vital contact with the
child undergoing training.
The
only
way
to
prepare
for
social
life
is
to
engage
in
social
life.
To
form
habits
of
social
usefulness
and
serviceableness
apart
from
any
direct
social
need
and
motive,
apart
from
any
existing
social
situation,
is,
to
the
letter,
teaching
the
child
to
swim
by
going
through
motions
outside
of
the
water.
The
most
indispensable
condition
is
left
our
account,
and
the
results
are
correspondingly partial.
The
much lamented separation in the schools of
intellectual and moral training, of acquiring
information
and
growing
in
character,
is
simply
one
expression
of
failure
to
conceive
and
construct the school as a social
institution, having social life and value within
itself. Except so far
as the school is
an embryonic typical community life, moral
training must be partly pathological
and partly formal. Training is
pathological when stress is laid upon correcting
wrong-doing instead
of upon forming
habits of positive service. Too often the
teacher’s concern with the moral life of
pupils
takes
the
form
of
alertness
for
failures
to
conform
to
school
rules
and
routine.
These
regulations, judged from the standpoint
of development of the child at the time, are more
or less
conventional and arbitrary.
They are rules which have to be made in order that
the existing modes
of school work may
go on; but the lack of inherent necessity in these
school modes reflects itself
in
a
feeling,
on
the
part
of
the
child,
that
the
moral
discipline
of
the
school
is
arbitrary.
Any
conditions that compel the teacher to
take note of failures rather than healthy growth
give false
standards and
result in distortion and perversion. Attending to
wrong-doing ought to be an incident
rather than a principle. The child
ought to have a positive consciousness of what he
is about, so as
to judge his acts from
the standpoint of reference to the work which he
has to do. Only in this way
does he
have a vital standard, one that enables him to
turn failures to account for the future.
By
saying
that
the
moral
training
of
the
school
is
formal,
I
mean
that
the
moral
habits
currently emphasize by the school are
habits which are created, as it were,
ad hoc
. Even the habits
of
promptness,
regularity,
industry,
non-interference
with
the
work
others,
faithfulness
to
tasks
imposed, which are
specially inculcated in the school, are habits
that are necessary simply because
the
school system is what it is, and must be preserved
intact. If we grant the inviolability of the
school system as it is, these habits
represent permanent and necessary moral ideas; but
just in so
far
as
the
school
system
is
itself
isolates
and
mechanical,
insistence
upon
these
moral
habits
is
more or
less unreal, because the ideal to which they
relate is not itself necessary. The duties, in
other words, are distinctly school
duties, not life duties. If we compare this
condition with that of
the
well-ordered
home,
we
find
that
the
duties
and
responsibilities
that
the
child
has
there
to
recognize do not belong to the family
as a specialized and isolated instruction, but
flow from the
very nature of the social
life in which the family participates and to which
it contributes. The child
ought to have
the same motive for right doing and to be judge by
the same standard in the school,
as the
adult in the wider social life to which he
belongs. Interest in community welfare, an
interest
that
is
intellectual
and
practical,
as
well
as
emotional
–
an
interest,
that
is
to
say,
in
perceiving
whatever makes
for social order and progress, and in carrying
these principles into execution
–
is
the moral
habit to which all the special school habits must
be related if they are to be animated by
the breath of life.
3. THE MORAL TRAINING FROM
METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
The
principle of the social character of the school as
the basic factor in the moral education
given may be also applied to the
question of methods of instruction, - not in their
details, but their
general spirit. The
emphasis then falls upon construction and giving
out, rather upon absorption
and mere
learning. We fail to recognize how essentially
individualistic the latter methods are, and
how
unconsciously,
yet
certainly
and
effectively,
they
react
into
the
child’s
way
of
judging and
acting. Imagine
forty children all engaged in reading the same
books, and in preparing and reciting
the same lessons day after day. Suppose
this process constitutes by far the larger part of
their work,
and that they are
continually judged from the standpoint of what
they are able to take in in a study
hour and reproduce in a recitation
hour. There is next to no opportunity for any
social division of
labor. There is no
opportunity for each child to work out something
specially his own, which he
may
contribute to the common stock, while he, in turn,
participates in the productions of others.
All are set to do exactly the same work
and turn out the same products.
The
social spirit is not
cultivated,
–
in fact, in so far as the
purely individualistic method gets in its work, it
atrophies for
lack of use. One reason
why reading aloud in school is poor is that the
real motive for the use of
language
–
the desire to communicate
and to learn
–
is not
utilized. The child knows perfectly well
that the teacher and all his fellow
pupils have exactly the same facts and ideas
before them that he
has; he is not
giving
them anything at all.
And it may be questioned whether the moral lack is
not
as
great
as
the
intellectual.
The
child
is
born
with
a
natural
desire
to
give
out,
to
do,
to
serve.
When this tendency is not used, when
conditions are such that other motives are
substituted, the
accumulation of an
influence working against the social spirit is
much larger than we have any
idea of,
–
especially when the burden of work, week after
week, and year after year, fails upon this
side.
But
lack
of
cultivation
of
the
social
spirit
is
not
all.
Positively
individualistic
motives
and
standards are inculcated. Some stimulus
must be found to keep the child at his studies. At
the best
this will be his affection for
his teachers, together with a feeling that he is
not violating school
rules,
and
thus
negatively,
if
not
positively,
is
contributing
to
the
good
of
the
school.
I
have
nothing to
say against these motives so far as the go, but
they are inadequate. The relation between
the
piece
of
work
to
be
done
and
affection
for
a
third
person
is
external,
not
intrinsic.
It
is
therefore
liable
to
break
down
whenever
the
external
conditions
are
changed.
Moreover,
this
attachment to a particular person,
while in a way social, may become so isolated and
excusive as
to be selfish in quality.
In any case, the child should gradually grow out
of this relatively external
motive into
an appreciation, for its own sake, of the social
value of what he has to do, because of
its larger relation to life, not pinned
down to two or three persons.
But,
unfortunately,
the
motive
is
not
always
at
this
relative
best,
but
mixed
with
lower
motives
which
are
distinctly
egoistic.
Fear
is
a
motive
which
is
almost
sure
to
enter
in,
–
not
necessarily physical fear, or fear of
punishment, but fear of losing the approbation of
others; or
fear of failure, so extreme
as to be morbid and paralyzing. On the other side,
emulation and rivalry
enter
in.
just
because
all
are
doing
the
same
work,
and
are
judged
(either
in
recitation
or
examination with reference to grading
and to promotion) not from the standpoint of their
personal
contribution, but from that of
comparative
success, the
feeling of superiority over others is unduly
applied to, while timid children are
depressed. Children are judged with reference to
their capacity
to realized the same
external standard. The weaker gradually lose their
sense of power, and accept
a position
of continuous and persistent inferiority. The
effect upon both self-respect and respect for
work need not to de dwelt upon. The
strong learn to glory, not in their strength, but
in the fact that
they are stronger. The
child is prematurely launched into the region of
individualistic competition,
and
this
in
a
direction
where
competition
is
least
applicable,
namely,
in
intellectual
and
artistic
matters, whose law
is cooperation and participation.
Next,
perhaps, to the evils of passive absorption and
competition for external standing come,
perhaps, those which result from the
eternal emphasis upon preparation for a remote
future. I do
not refer here to the
waste of energy and vitality that accrues when
children, who live so largely in
the
immediate present, are appealed to in the name of
a dim and uncertain future which means
little or nothing to them. I have in
mind rather the habitual procrastination that
develops when the
motive for work is
future, not present; and the false standards of
judgment that are created when
work is
estimated, not on the basis of present
responsibility, but by reference to an external
result,
like passing an examination,
getting promoted, entering high school, getting
into college, etc. Who
can
reckon
up
the
loss
of
moral
power
that
arises
from
the
constant
impression
that
nothing
is
worth
doing in itself, but only as a preparation for
something else, which in turn is only a getting
ready for some genuinely serious end
beyond? Moreover, as a rule, it will be found that
remote
success is end which appeal most
to those in whom egoistic desire to get ahead
–
to get ahead of
others
–
is
already only too strong a motive. Those in whom
personal ambition is already so strong
that it paints glowing pictures of
future victories may be touched; others of a more
generous nature
do not respond.
I cannot stop to paint the other side.
I can only say that the introduction of every
method that
appeals
to
the
child’s
active
powers,
to
his
capacities
in
construction,
production,
and
creation,
marks an
opportunity to shift the centre of ethical gravity
from an absorption which is selfish to a
service which is social; it is more
than intellectual; in the hands of any good
teacher it lends itself
easily, and
almost as matter of course, to development of
social habits. Ever since the philosophy
of
Kant,
it
has
been
a
commonplace
of
aesthetic
theory,
that
art
is
universal;
that
it
is
not
the
product of purely
personal desire or appetite, or capable of merely
individual appropriation, but
has
a
value
participated
in
by
all
who
perceive
it.
Even
in
the
schools
where
most
conscious
attention is paid
to moral considerations, the methods of study and
recitation may be such as to
emphasize
appreciation rather than power, an emotional
readiness to assimilate the experiences of
others, rather than enlightened and
trained capacity to carry forward those values
which in other
conditions and past
times made those experiences worth having. At all
events, separation between
instruction
and character continues in our schools (in spite
of the efforts of individual teachers) as
a result of divorce between learning
and doing. The attempt to attach genuine moral
effectiveness
to the mere processes of
learning, and to the habits which go along with
learning, can result only
in a training
infected with formality, arbitrariness, and an
undue emphasis upon failure to conform.
That
there
is
as
much
accomplished
as
there
is
shows
the
possibilities
involved
in
methods
of
school
activity
which
afford
opportunity
for
reciprocity,
cooperation,
and
positive
personal
achievement.
4. THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THE COURSE OF
STUDY
In
many
respects,
it
is
subject-matter
used
in
school
life
which
decides
both
the
general
atmosphere
of
the
school
and
the
methods
of
instruction
and
discipline
which
rule.
A
barren
“course of study”,
that is
to say, a meager and narrow field of school
activities, cannot possibly
lend itself
to the development of a vital social spirit or to
methods that appeal to sympathy and
cooperation
instead
of
to
absorption,
exclusiveness,
and
competition.
Hence
it
becomes
an
all-important
matter
to
know
how
we
shall
apply
our
social
standard
of
moral
value
to
the
subject-matter of school work, to what
we call, traditionally, the
“studies”
that occupy
pupils.
A study is to be considered as
a means of bringing the child to realize the
social scene of
action
. Thus
considered it gives a criterion for selection of
material and for judgment of values.
We
have at present three independent values set up:
one of culture, another of information, and
another
of
discipline.
In
reality,
these
refer
only
to
three
phrases
of
social
interpretation.
Information is genuine or educative
only in so far as it presents definite images and
conceptions of
materials placed in a
context of social life. Discipline is genuinely
educative only as it represents a
reaction of information into the
individual
’
s own powers so
that he brings them under control for
social
ends.
Culture,
if
it
is
to
be
genuinely
educative
and
not
an
external
polish
or
factitious
varnish, represents the vital union of
information and discipline. It marks the
socialization of the
individual in his
outlook upon life.
This
point
may
be
illustrated
by
brief
reference
to
a
few
of
the
school
studies.
In
the
first
place, there is on
line of demarcation within faces themselves which
classifies them as belonging
to
science, history, or geography, respectively. The
pigeon-hole classification which is so prevalent
at
present
(fostered
by
introducing
the
pupil
at
the
outset
into
a
number
of
different
studies
contained in different textbooks) gives
an utterly erroneous idea of the relations of
studies to one
anther and to the
intellectual whole to which all belong. In fact,
these subjects have to do with the
same
ultimate
reality,
namely,
the
conscious
experience
of
man.
It
is
only
because
we
have
different
interests, or different ends, that we sort out the
material and label part of it science, part
of
it
history,
part
geography,
and
so
on.
Each
“
sorting
”
represents
materials
arranged
with
reference to some one
dominant typical aim or process of social life.
4This social criterion is necessary,
not only to mark off studies from one anther, but
also to
grasp the reasons for each
study, - the motives in connection with which it
shall be presented. How,
for example,
should we define geography? What is the unity in
the different so-called divisions of
geography,
-
mathematical
geography,
physical
geography,
political
geography,
commercial
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