The moral education of boys

Abstract

The moral sphere is the most important symptom of human intelligence. It is this type of intelligence which helps one to distinguish our behaviour and relations with others that leads to sanctity and joy, from a behaviour and attachments which bring about injury and suffering. Moral sensitivity enables one to distinguish between happiness and unhappiness, blessedness and malediction. It is the wisdom that literally saves our lives. The explanation of this truth to boys constitutes the foundation of moral education. Thanks to this, they understand that morality is not something imposed upon them by their parents or by God, it is not an unnecessary limiting of freedom, but the condition of a happy life. Moral maturity is achieved by those boys who are aware of the benefit gained by the respecting of the Decalogue and of how it protects them from injury and suffering. Moral education reaches its fullness then when a given boy learns to love maturely and when he already knows that only they are happy, who love in a manner at once faithful, ready to sacrifice oneself and to bear responsibility.