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Francis Wayland's "The Elements of Moral Science," first
published in 1835, was one of the most widely used and influential
American textbooks of the nineteenth century. Direct and simple in
its presentation, the book was more a didactic manual than a
philosophic discussion of ethical problems. But because of its
success, and because it set the tone and form for so much
educational writing that was to follow, this first important
American textbook in moral philosophy is now of great value as a
document in the history of education.
The book grew naturally out of the lectures Wayland prepared for
the senior course in moral philosophy he taught as President of
Brown University beginning in 1827. Courses of this kind were
common at the time. As an undergraduate at Union College, Wayland
himself had taken one under President Eliphalet Nott, who was to
become his lifelong supporter. Loosely organized, such courses gave
the college president, most often interested in the training of
character rather than in learning for its own sake, an opportunity
to impress his personality and moral views on the seniors before
turning them out in the world. Wayland's course at Brown, less
rambling than many, was described by a former student as "one
garden spot in the waste of the curriculum."
In his lectures and, finally, in his book, Wayland stood in
opposition to the utilitarian ethics of the eighteenth century
which based moral judgments on the consequences of men's acts. He
held instead that conscience was a faculty directing man's actions
in accordance with moral law. Wayland developed this idea in the
first part of his book, called "Theoretical Ethics." In the second
part, "Practical Ethics," he established three working principles:
the eternal validity of moral law as revealed in the Scriptures,
the right of private judgment in accordance with Protestant
tradition, and the Jeffersonian republican limitation of the powers
of government. These he then applied to moral practice, vindicating
and validating the desirable virtues of justice, veracity,
chastity, and benevolence.
One section of Wayland's otherwise inoffensive text turned out
to be highly controversial. Under the heading "Personal Liberty" he
discussed the question of slavery, coming at length to the
conclusion that the duty of masters to slaves was to free them,
while the duty of slaves to masters was to obey them and be
faithful to them. In the climate of that time, his recommendation
to leave action to the Christian conscience of the individual
master was no more acceptable to the growing abolitionist sentiment
of the North than to the defensive, proslavery feeling of the
South. "The Elements of Moral Science" went on, nevertheless, to a
long and popular life, going through several revisions (in which
the slavery section was progressively altered) as well as
translations, and selling 100,000 copies by the end of the
century.
Francis Wayland (1796-1865), Mr. Blau writes, stands as 'a
central figure in the first great movement for reform of education
in the United States." Ordained first as a minister, he served as
President of Brown from 1827 to 1855, advocating a wider, more
liberal, more practical curriculum at a time when courses of study
were still tightly bound to the classics. In politics
anti-expansionist, and a pacifist by conviction, he bitterly
opposed the Mexican War and the admission of Texas. His opposition
to slavery gradually increased until, on the outbreak of the Civil
War, he could write, "Can it be doubted on which side God will
declare himself?... The best place to meet a difficulty is just
where God puts it. If we dodge it, it will come in a worse
place..."
This text reproduces the 1837 revision of "The Elements of
Moral Science." Minor variations from other editions are included
as footnotes. Variant versions of longer passages are carried in
full in appendices.
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