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Essay / Schools without a soul: the moral community and the public...
Schools are like small communities of small people where children learn to cope with real-life scenarios and develop necessary life skills at their beginnings in society. Children learn by example, and what better example for society than a school? Schools must take responsibility for the ethics they impart to the child, as this will reflect on that child's subsequent actions as a member of society. Eleanor Roosevelt discussed the importance of fostering good citizenship in students in her essay “Good Citizenship: The Purpose of Education” because students use school as an example to emulate society. She writes: “The practical aspect of civics is developed most effectively in school because in miniature one lives in a society, and the conditions and problems of society as a whole are more easily reproduced, encountered and solved » (Roosevelt). Moral education also has an impact on government. Carl Becker, a prominent historian, noted certain conditions required for successful democratic government in his essay “Ideal Democracy.” One of the conditions for a successful democracy requires citizens to possess certain virtues and skills, such as rationality and goodwill (Becker 152). The truth of such a statement becomes striking when we think back to King and his example of Talmadge as an educated governor holding office and carrying out political office.