ises. Can we
expect the public school to drop into such a purely subordinate
function as that of intellectual training; to limit its influence to an
almost mechanical action, the sharpening of the mental tools? Stated
in this form, it becomes an absurdity.

Is it reasonable to suppose that the rank and file of our teachers will
realize the importance of this aim in teaching so long as it has no
recognition in our public system of instruction? The moral element is
largely present among educators as an _instinct_, but it ought to be
evolved into a _clear purpose_ with definite means of accomplishment.
It is an open secret in fact, that while our public instruction is
ostensibly secular, having nothing to do directly with religion or
morals, there is nothing about which good teachers are more thoughtful
and anxious than about the means of moral influence. Occasionally some
one from the outside attacks our public schools as without morals and
godless, but there is no lack of staunch defenders on moral grounds.
Theoretically and even practically, to a considerable extent, we are
all agreed upon the great value of moral education. But there is a
striking inconsistency in our whole position on the school problem.
While the supreme value of the moral aim will be generally admitted, it
has no open recognition in our school course, either as a principal or
as a subordinate aim of instruction. Moral education is not germane to
the avowed purposes of the public school. If it gets in at all it is
by the back door. It is incidental, not primary. The importance of
making the leading aim of education clear and _conscious_ to teachers,
is great. If their conviction on this point is not clear they will
certainly not concentrate their attention and efforts upon its
realization. Again, in a business like education, where there are so
many important and necessary results to be reached, it is very easy and
common to put forward a subordinate aim, and to lift it into undue
prominence, even allowing it to swallow up all the energies of teacher
and pupils. Owing to this diversity of opinion among teachers as to
the results to be reached, our public schools exhibit a chaos of
conflicting theory and practice, and a numberless brood of hobby-riders.

How to establish the moral aim in the center of the school course, how
to subordinate and realize the other educational aims while keeping
this chiefly in view, how to make instruction an