This book is a new departure. It is not a theoretical discussion of the subject of Moral Education of Children. To one who loves to peruse a discussion of the training of an imaginary child under impossible conditions, the book will prove a disappointment. The author is a trained psychologist and tells in a. plain, straight-forward manner, of the efforts he has made to develop the moral character of some real school children in Philadelphia. Realizing that the church is reluctantly admitting its inability to meet the situation and that the modern home is more or less incapable of solving the problem, the author believes that the public school is forced, by the conditions of modern life, to assume the responsibility of the child's fundamental moral training. He recognizes three forms of moral conduct: political morality, commercial morality and private morality. Mr. Taylor outlines the methods necessary to attain the three forms of morality. For example, he tells of the work of the Thomas Wood School, which selected a few rooms in a representative tenement house in its neighborhood and placed the furnishing and care of these rooms in the hands of the girls of the school. The children were taught by actual experience how to buy food for such a home and how to prepare it. They were also taught how to care for the babies and smaller children. Nearly all the moral problems of the home were made to center around this activity.
While similar efforts have been made elsewhere, the book marks a new epoch in the writing of books on morality. It will prove of great value to educators and parents who are seeking for some practical help in the solution of the question of moral education.
–The Annals, Vol. 45 [1913]