Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/533

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METHOD OF TEACHING IN PRACTICE.
513

fices and arduous exertions of man: purity, humility, meekness, patience, self-denial, but he always points also to the reward, "theirs is the kingdom of heaven," "your reward in heaven is exceedingly great." God promises also earthly blessings to those that observe his commandments: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee." Why, then, should it be unlawful and immoral to employ rewards in the education of the young, who are not yet able to grasp the highest motives of well-doing? Or is it probable that young pupils will readily be diligent, when told that they ought to do their work? Kant's teaching of the autonomy of human reason is not only deficient, but positively erroneous[1]; but least of all will the rule, you ought because reason tells you so, have any effect on the young. On this point also Professor Kemp, in his otherwise fair treatment of Jesuit education, has been led into an error, when he states that "emulation was carried to such extremes that, apparently, it must have obscured the true ends of study and cultivated improper feeling among the students."[2] Such a priori conclusions are very dangerous; and the "must have" is frequently only "apparent." Kant, indeed, said: "The child must be taught to act from a pure sense of duty, not from inclination." Still, in another place he declares that "it is lost labor to speak to a child of duty." Children must be treated, as St. Paul says: "as little ones in Christ, to whom I gave milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet."[3] This milk, in education, is some sort of

  1. See Rickaby, S. J., Moral Philosophy, pp. 115-118.
  2. History of Education, p. 191.
  3. 1 Cor. 3, 1-2.