# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

16 Proceedings of the eighteenth convention

the source, the world is in possession of a large body of morals, the reasonableness and authority of which are beyond question, and these truths as the common property of our civilization, the state may wisely incorporate in its system of instruction and practice. The basis of all effectual teaching in morals must be in training, as distinguished from moral instruction. Hence the virtues of courtesy, self-denial, and the like must first be made known to the child by example, and be developed in his character through those activities that belong to the social relations of child life, children with children and their elders. That this is by far the most important part of the teacher's work, and without which the memorizing of precepts will be of little amount, will not be questioned. But following and based upon this, these experiences should be formulated into those principles and precepts which will have an ever enlarging application as the child's relations and responsibilities become more extended. Report U. S. Commiss. of Ed. for 1890—91, p. 1052 f.)

Consider what Kiehle says here. The moral teachings whose reasonableness and authority are beyond all question (which ones they are, he of course must decide himself) the state is to take into its system of instruction and education; it is to declare that killing, stealing, adultery are sin, that courtesy, generosity, temperance are virtues, and then the children are to be trained to refrain from the former and to do the latter. That is not religion, but neither is it morality; for the state is not God, that it could say what is right and wrong, what is to be held and believed.

Therefore many are also dissatisfied with this and demand more and better. Finger, State School Superintendent of North Carolina, writes, for example: "Besides practical discipline of the mind we insist on moral and religious development. Naturally we can give no religious instruction, except in general suggestions, since all teachings of the denominations or sects are excluded. But there is a common and undisputed ground on which all can stand. No man rises to the full stature of manhood until he resolves to shape his life according to the eternal principles of right, and this means as much as: until he resolves to act so as to please God. Love of God and fear of God must become the source of reverence for God and obedience to his commandments. . . . All obedience in the family, in the school or in the state must be required, because this obedience is in harmony with the eternal principles of right. I do not intend to speak about the basis of obligation — whether, that is, a certain conduct is right because it produces good, or whether it is right because it is commanded by the great Creator of all things. The Ten Commandments