PROF. PERRY ON MODERN TEACHER

In a lecture delivered before the Harvard Teachers Association Saturday, Professor R. B. Perry '97 subjected the question of the instruction of school children to pschycological analysis. He first called attention to the general educational opinion of the day, that there must be a shift from purely intellectual to moral instruction. The importance of moral education is seen in the fact that moral education is seen in the fact that moral education is seen in the fact that ideals, to gain which he must see clearly the general end of his life's activities. "We are likely to forget we are human beings not merely doctors, lawyers or busness men." The need of moral instruction is more pressing than ever, for the binding authority of the past, the ideals of religion, nationality, custom, and even of honor are vaguely doubted in the democratic community of today. The sociological, political, and economic prob- lems of the day rest at bottom on the question of ethics.

The analysis of the resources for moral instruction is then the central question of modern education. There is in human nature a deep stratum, underlying the results of training. A rich manifold of instinct, containing the material from which good or bad conduct may evolve. This manifold of instinct is plastic and may be moulded, so that from nature arises second nature. The instinct of pugnacity may be transformed into a desire to fight for good or for bad.

Man is after all a higher animal, and as an animal, contains certain springs of action. Instruction is then fundamentally the manipulation of the underlying sources. The second nature is never fatal, but merely the result of the action of certain agencies. If exterior influences can create it from the underlying stratum, it is likewise true that it can be unmade and made again by similar agencies. The love of money, with some a second nature, is but the evolution of the principle of first nature that influences man to acquire and amass.

Here may be seen the great power of the teacher, to mould the character of the pupil. There are necessarily two ways by which this influence may be exerted, the paternal and the fraternal method of instruction. In the paternalistic method of education, the teacher does not impart the end of his instruction to the pupil. He assumes that he knows what is best for the child, and aims his instruction toward these ends, but their nature he does not explain to the child. The fraternalistic method of instruction where the reasons for education are imparted to the educated should replace the paternalistic method as soon as the child can realize the value of instruction. It is only by this latter method that the ideal of teaching can be reached, when teacher and pupil work together for a common goal