We "dream," not "do" the "noble things." The
kindergarten does not fence off a half hour each day for moral
culture, but keeps it in view every moment of every day. Yet it is
never obtrusive; for the mental faculties are being addressed at the
same time, and the body strengthened for its special work.
With the methods generally practiced in the family and school, I fail
to see how we can expect any more delicate sense of right and wrong,
any clearer realization of duty, any greater enlightenment of
conscience, any higher conception of truth, than we now find in the
world. I care not what view you take of humanity, whether you have
Calvinistic tendencies and believe in the total depravity of infants,
or whether you are a disciple of Wordsworth and apostrophize the child
as a
"Mighty prophet! Seer blest,
On whom those truths do rest
Which we are toiling all our lives to find;"
if you are a fair-minded man or woman, and have had much experience
with young children, you will be compelled to confess that they
generally have a tolerably clear sense of right and wrong, needing
only gentle guidance to choose the right when it is put before them.
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