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Show QUESTION OF IMPORTANCE How Important Questions Are Answered Future Man Depends on Parental Care and Ambitions Substantiate in Training Train-ing Character Analyzed Its Essentials. Essen-tials. What sort of men do we want our children to turn out? that is the first question. A hundred people would give a hundred answers according to the limited standpoint of each. The business man would say : "I want my son to become a successful merchant"; the cultured man would say: "I want my son to become a perfect gentleman"; the religious-minded man would say : "I want my son to become be-come an upright Christian; the Catholic would say: "I want my son to become a model Catholic." All this is good as far as it goes, but it is too narrow. A more comprehensive view would be this : "I want my son to become intellectually well-informed and clever, conscientious and morally upright, up-right, sanely religious, strong and healthv, energetic and enterprising, cultivated in taste and feeling." This is a fairly good summary, but it does not quite meet our requirements. What we want is something more radical some sterling thing or other which lies at the root of the best in human nature, and embodies it. Our boy may become a very Hercules of physical health and strength, and yet be aperfect dolt. He may be as clever as the devil and yet as wicked. He may be as good as gold and pius as a saint, and yet a flabby, helpless creature. He may be the pink of aesthetic refinement refine-ment and yet a sensual libertine. He may be a perfect per-fect genius and yet as fantastic as a goblin. The best qualities in one line may be discounted or even cancelled by some glaring disability in another the head of gold and the trunk of brass and the legs of iron and the feet of clay a bundle of disparities rather than a man. The first thing, therefore, we look for is a certain cer-tain balance of parts-verything in its proper weights and measure. There may be corruscations of excellence besides now in this direction and now in that; but these do not count for much unless un-less there is a substantial building up of the main structure proper to a man. There must be no glaring glar-ing deficiencies, at least so far as training can prevent pre-vent them. We look first for the substantial in each department a fair equipment of knowledge, a fair intelligence, a fair judgment, a fair amount of moral strength and stamina, of energy and enterprise, en-terprise, of refinement and culture in due proportion propor-tion to the status to which our family belongs a golden mean, at least, in every part. This is so farpretty obvious, but it does not go deep enough. The thing we really want is character. char-acter. But the word needs defining. In common parlance par-lance we speak of all sorts of character some of which we certainly do XOT want. We speak of good and bad character, strong and weak character, charac-ter, stable and unstable character, odd character, and no character. In this we are quite etymological without knowing it. . For originally the word meant merely the mark impressed on a coin or seal, indicating indi-cating its nature or value, and distinguishing it from others; and thus'in its applied sense character-comes character-comes to mean marked individuality. Experience shows that people can be good and bad, weak and strong, with or without a marked individuality and therefore with or without character. Xow, the end and aim of our training is not merely to make our children good and strong, but to ensure and develop in them a character which shall be good and strong. Parents and trainers of the young are, of course, fully alive to the idea of turning out their subjects good and strong; but often enough they plaster goodness and strength on from the outside in the hope that it will stick, quite regardless of the structure underneath. Plastering Plas-tering will last no longer than the wall which it overlays ; if the wall be of mud it will be preserved for a time by the veneer, but before long it will crumble away, and down comes the house, plaster and all. What we want is not a mere plastering business, but strong walls of cut stone wdiich need .no plaster, and will stand till the day of doom. And this solid cut stone structure spells "character." I define character (in the sense required) as life dominated by principles. The terms are pregnant. preg-nant. Life comprises thoughts, words and actions, but the question is, how are thoughts, words and actions determined? Directly and immediately they spring from the spontaneous vitality of the organism ; but what is the ulterior cause which sets the organism going and determines its direction and results? The man of no character thinks, speaks and acts just as the impulse seizes him, whether for good or bad; or, if there is anything of reasoned motive behind, is determined by chance or circumstances circum-stances rather than by any reflex and stable purpose. pur-pose. If there is any consistency about his life, this is due simply to the fact that his. impulses or his circumstances are more or less the same the year round, or because he has got into a groove, and lacks initiative and originality. The life of such a man may be good or bad according as good or bad impulses happen to predominate internally, or good or bad influences bear upon him externally. Possibly he may be doing nothing very wrong, either because he has not enough spirit to be really wicked, or because he is afraid of being caught, or simply because he feels no inclination that way. He may be an innocent creature enough, but lie will not rise to anything worthy of the name of virtue. He is, in short, more or less what he finds himself the passive instrument of his internal dispositions dis-positions and his ontward circumstances, and their comfortable (or uncomfortable) slave. His life t consists of a succession of thoughts, words and actions ac-tions following each other more or less at random a series of phenomena strung together loosely, or not at all, and so promiscuous that they cannot be reduced to a unity or summed up as a whole. Such is the man without character. Bombay Examiuer. (To be continued.) |