The Cultivation of Moral Thoughtfulness

The Cultivation of Moral Thoughtfulness

BY MILTON BENNIOX

Moral training has to do chiefly with the cultivation of ap-propriate feeling's and modes of action. Such training, given tonormal individuals, by persons with high ideals of life, constitutesthe necessary basis of character. The home, the church, and theschool cooperate in this endeavor; but does any one of these in-stitutions carry its educational work to the point of cultivating inthe youth the habit of moral thoughtfulness? It often happensthat persons with the best of intentions will yet thoughtlessly dothings that cause themselves and others much loss, suffering, oreven death. Such conduct only criminals would be guilty of, ifall people were trained to see the remote as well as the immediateconsequences of their actions, and to picture vividly in imag-ination these consequences.

There is a popular notion that the cultivation of the imagina-tion is important only for artists, poets, and novelists. It has beenshown, however, that the use of the imagination is a most im-portant factor in the advancement of science. It is no less im-portant in the moral life. Tt has been said that we would neverwillingly allow another to starve who sat at the same table withus. So, too, we may abhor the unpleasant consequences of ourconduct, when those consequences are actually with us ; shouldnot these consequences be with us in imagination before we act?

This habit of mind can be developed only by systematic at-tention to the far-reaching consequences of various types of con-duct. By way of illustration consider the following:

1. Tn a city or town having a water system, but a limitedsupply of water, what effect does a careless or unnecessary useof water by the residents in the lower part of the town have uponthe peoole who live in the upper part? Do the people in the lowerpart who let water run to waste ever think of the inconvenience,if not suffering, they are causing their fellow townsmen who areunable to get a drop from their water pipes ?

2. Does a family that avoids medical inspection and quar-antine, in a mild case of scarlet fever, realize how, by their action,thev scatter the germs of this treacherous disease to enter thebodies of healthy children, and thus cause other families the in-convenience which thev themselves seek to escape? This, how-ever, is but the minor part of the result. This disease, in mildform, mav at anv time become verv malignant, leaving defectivesense organs, chronic kidnev trouble, and death in its trail. Yet

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the persons who are responsible for scattering these disease germsmay be very pious, well-meaning individuals, far from murder inintention.

Another type of case comes more nearly within the field ofpublic warning and exhortation, but these cases also illustratethe same want of moral thoughtfulness :

1. Does the youth in his first visit to the saloon, or indul-gence in liquor at the club house with fraternal companions, haveany vision of the end of the road upon which he is entering? Noman ever began drinking with the intention of becoming a drunk-ard ; and few see from the first that the saloon leads many tothe brothel with its moral and physical corruption—foul with dis-ease that either destroys the powers of reproduction or, unfor-tunately, is transmitted to plague suceeding generations.

2. Does a young woman have any image of her future des-tiny when she goes out with the dissolute young man ? Usuallyshe realizes it in bitter experience, instead of being forewarnedthrough vivid imagination of the consequences of her acceptanceof such a companion.

William James, in discussing the evil of cultivating sympa-thetic emotions that never find an outlet in action, remarked:"Hell is paved with good intentions." We may add that thought-less actions, though not thus intended, have much to do withpaving the way to hell.

UNIVEV6ITY OF UTAH

Tasks

The daily tasks to be performed,

If great or if but small,With willing hands and gladsome hearts,

We should accept them all.

The common toil, if such there be,

With grimy stain of earth,The grind that grows so wearisome,

It ofttimes proves our worth.

To labor on unrecompensed,

Recorded not by fame,While others thread the golden maize,

Or win an honored name,

'Tis hard, ah, yes, but know you not,

All work well done is great?For God deems naught as meager,

That reaches perfect state.

Grace Ingles Frost.