WHY ARE MORALS UNATTRACTIVE?

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3241, 10 June 1911, Page 9

WHY ARE MORALS UNATTRACTIVE?

A SINGULAR. IDEA. i ‘ ‘As I travel to and fro on behalf of the Moral Education League, a' very singular idea- perpetually confronts and challenges me,” writes Mr F. J. Gould, in the “Inquirer.” “Sometimes it speaks through a lady who is primed with the latest -academic theory or magazine aritcles. Sometimes it raps out a message by-means of a very ‘practical schoolmaster,’ who is devoted to the fine issues of boys’ camps, scouting, football, and the like-. Sometimes it announces itself in a newspaper,, usually Conservative. The- idea is this—that morals are an unattractive subject, and particularly apt to rouse antipathy in a normal and healthy-minded boy. ETHICAL VALUE OF FRONTIER LIFE. “A writer in the ‘Morning Post’ recently enlarged on the ethical values of frontier life, lumbering, fishing, landsurveying, and active outdoor and indoor industries in general, and, after contrasting the splendid realities of action, with the feeble effects of mere verbal exhortation, he'Closes : “ ‘Culture without manhood is a contemptible tiling. As for moral instruction; there will be no need of it.’ “And this he says at the end of a long essay which is virtually a lively form of moral instruction itself! for the praiseworthy attempt to paint the joys of digging, draining, and fencing cannot be realised without the aid of the very preaching which our energetic journalist abhors. A 6 to the special plea on behalf of the spade and axe, I may say for myself that I have constantly advocated industrial training for ordinary youth (and not only for juvenile offenders). . But one lias to exercise discrimination on this question. If the spade and axe are peculiarly productive of righteousness, then lumbermen and navvies will afford excellent patterns of conduct; and it is not for me, an admirer of Walt Whitman, to say nay, only let us be quite sure that the ethical quality is realy due to axe and spade. Moreover, the axe and spade are. at present, tlie instruments of boy and man; and one has to reflect in just what way and degree the moral or religious constitution of the gill and woman, come under the influence of axe, spade and fowlingpiece. “Tlie relevant thing to do is to, ask why it is that morals have taken on so hideous a guise that a well-constituted young person is excused for evading instruction, on temperance, courage, justice and wisdom. If our healthyminded: English boy is right in dreading a moral lesson, his friends or his medical adviser will quite properly warn him ' to ‘flee from the instruction to come,’ but in so doing will themselves be guilty of moral instruction. In any case, we sin in good company. The great story-makers must all be condemned—Hoiner, iFschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Firdausi, Tulsi Das, Dante, Shakespeare, and the authors of the Bible, Apoeryha, Talmud, and tlie- rest; and even the Imperial Kipling must recede with his Recessional and Junglebook. The decree is worse than the Edict of Nantes, and more far-reaching than Plato’s stern cstracism of poets from his Republic! We mournfully depart laden with our Golden Legends and twice-told tales, and leave the edu- ! cated Paradise in charge of the athletes of the axe and spade. WHAT HAS EDUCATION DONE? “But what lias the genius of education been doing all these years ? What chill and withering influence lias breathed upon so vital a life-factor as morality, and rendered it harsh, crabbed and jejune? How is it that we cannot speak to ingenuous youth about the high themes of the noble-path ,of .justice, of gentleness, of generosity, of service, of. valorous and efficient kindness, without incurring the reproach of Chadband or being branded with the fatal mark of the goody-goody ? Is it the fault of the Victorian school-book “Genuine moral instruction draws aid from life, science, art, and vision; and he who derides it is jeering at the Muses and blurring the windows from which the child may be eagerly gazing at the many-coloured world.”