Character education

“ Let us take it to ourselves that great character comes out of great thoughts, and that great thought must be initiated by great thinkers; then we shall have a definite aim in education. Thinking and not doing is the source of character. ”

“ It is a stubborn age in which teaching has to be on strong lines and deep ones; when the evolution of character is in the critical period that is to make or mar its future, it needs a strong hand over it, with power both to control and to support, a strong mind to command its respect, strong convictions to impress it, and strong principles on which to test its own young strength; and all those who have the privilege of teaching history to children of this age have an incomparable opportunity of training mind and character. ”

“ No one who has the good of children at heart, and the training of their characters, can leave the subject without some grave thoughts on the formation of their own character, which is first in order of importance, and in order of time must go before, and accompany their work to the very end.
"What is developed to perfection can make other things like unto itself." ”

“ Character must be formed by habit and guided by principle.
The world’s moral heroes are few. Since they can not be our daily companions, we turn to biography and history, that their personality and deeds may be painted in our imagination. Concrete teaching is adapted to children, and select tales of great and noble men, vivid descriptions of deeds worthy of emulation may early impress their minds with unfading pictures that will stand as archetypes for their future character and conduct. ”

“ Fortunately, at this time we need to give attention to only one phase of the great question.
Character is the one important thing. Great as is the value of book education, of practical power and of good health, still greater is the importance of sound, wholesome character; and, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, the teacher and the parent are incessantly at work building the characters of the young people placed in their charge. Most of us, too, are working toward right ends as conscientiously as possible. ”

“ The value set on character, even if the appreciation goes no further than words, has increased very markedly within the last few years, and in reaction against an exclusively mental training we hear louder and louder the plea for the formation and training of character. ”

“ Further, as education does not consist merely in the training of the mind, but must include the emotions and the will, we shall take the utmost care in the training of the child that its intellectual impressions are converted into the sap of sentiment. When this attains a certain degree of intensity, it spreads through the whole being, colouring and refining the individual character. And as the conduct of the youth revolves entirely in the sphere of character, he must learn to adopt science as the sole mistress of his life. ”

“ If the development of character rather than of faculty is the main work of education, and if people are born, so to speak, ready-made, with all the elements of their after-character in them certain to be developed by time and circumstances, what is left for education to do? ”

“ In what I have already said about the philosophy of life which a young person forms during the process of education, I have suggested that education must exert a great influence on character. It is sometimes asserted that education ought to mold character—ought to have that object and work towards it, of set purpose. ”

“ Character and education, as we are not too often reminded, are not the same; and these men have character, which is sound in the warp and the woof, though it lacks frills and misses the motion pictures 'round the corner from the soda fountain. ”

“ I believe in the remedial power of education, not that it can change the quality of the soul, but the character of the individual. A bold, free spirit will not by education be made delicate, but its boldness may be employed on worthy objects, and so of other traits. Truth too can be shown to be beautiful to some, but to others to be only manly, or respectable.
I have known children, who apparently had very little sensibility, to be touched by the fact of never being unnecessarily exposed to others. This care awakened in them a perception of delicacy. ”

“ As there are good, strong and beautiful characters, so there are also bad, weak, and detestable ones. When in Pedagogics, therefore, we speak so much of the building up of a character, we mean the making permanent of a direction of the individual will towards the actualization of the Good. Freedom ought to be the character of character. Education must therefore observe closely the inter-action of the factors which go to form character, viz., (α) the temperament, as the natural character of the man ”

“ If we are to work to good purpose we must take our stand, with the great thinkers and educators, on the broad field of man's nature, and act in the light of the only true ideal of education,—that its end is wisdom, virtue, knowledge, power, reverence, faith, health, behavior, hope, and love; in a word, whatever powers and capacities make for intelligence, for conduct, for character, for completeness of life. ”

“ However, education involves more than books, facts, and homework assignments. Education also concerns the building of character. Character is an anchor of our society, and we should work hard to cultivate it among our young people. If our Nation is to continue to thrive and prosper, we must continue to live up to our ideals. ”

“ To some people the shaping ideals of what character should be, often held unconsciously, come from the books they read; but to the majority they are given by the persons whom they most admire before they are twenty years old. The greatest thing any friend or teacher, either in school or college, can do for a student is to furnish him with a personal ideal. ”

“ To assume and hold this attitude with sincerity and tact is difficult; it requires both character and culture; it implies a genuine love of mankind and of human excellence; reverence for whatever uplifts, purifies, and strengthens the heart; knowledge of the world, of literature, and of history, united with an earnest desire to do whatever may be possible to lead each pupil toward life in its completeness, which is health and healthful activity of body and mind and heart and soul. ”

“ What we will is more important than what we know; and the importance of what we know is derived largely from its influence on the will or conduct.
A nation, like an individual, receives rank from character more than from knowledge; since the true measure of human worth is moral rather than intellectual. The teaching of the school becomes a subject of passionate interest, through our belief in its power to educate sentiment, stimulate will, and mould character. ”

“ Character, like mind, has to be developed by education; and it needs all the elements of strength which can be given it, from without as well as from within, from the government of man and the government of God. ”

“ Primarily the word character signifies a distinctive mark, cut, engraved, or stamped upon a substance, and by analogy, this is likewise character in the sense in which it concerns education. A "man of character" is one in whom acquired qualities, orderly and consistent, stand out on the background of natural temperament, as the result of training and especially of self-discipline, and therefore stamped or engraved upon something receptive which was prepared for them. ”

“ Education is greatly simplified by this method. If a tale of some heroic deed is read to the child, and he is told to "become a hero"; if some moral action is narrated and is concluded with the recommendation, "be thou virtuous"; if some instance of remarkable character is noted together with the exhortation, "you too must acquire a strong character," the child has been put in the way of becoming a great man! ”

“ Therefore, by the rightly conducted processes of a higher education, we may form an evenly developed character of the highest order. A character, unfolded physically, intellectually and spiritually, in harmony with the requirements of cosmic law. ”

“ Stronger far than education—going on before education can commence, possibly from the very first moments of consciousness, we begin to impress ourselves on our children. Our character, voice, features, qualities—modified, no doubt, by entering into a new human being, and into a different organization—are impressed upon our children. Not the inculcation of opinions, but much rather the formation of principles, and of the tone of character, the derivation of qualities. Physiologists tell us of the derivation of the mental qualities from the father, and of the moral from the mother. ”

“ He ought to handle the method of deductive reasoning at least as well as that of induction, and beyond these (purely intellectual) attainments a human education making claim to completeness should cultivate the imagination and poetic sentiment; should “soften manners,” as the literae humaniores proverbially did of old; should widen the sympathies, dignify the character, inspire enthusiasm for noble actions, and chivalrous tenderness towards women and all who need defence; and thus send forth the accomplished student a gentleman in the true sense of the word. ”

“ Moreover, in my opinion, there is in such books a means of liberal education for the character, supposing that one understands how, like a craftsman, setting before himself as patterns the noblest men and words and deeds, to mould his own character to match them, and make his words resemble theirs. ”

“ In education we recognise that the supreme end is the building of character, but many of us have never thought clearly how directly this character-building rests upon the public library. It is reading that begets reflection, reflection begets motive, motive begets action, and action begets habit, and habit begets character ”

“ Education is never finished. Half the character is formed after we cease to learn lessons from books; and at that active and eager age it is formed with a rapidity and strength absolutely startling to think of. Do you ask what forms it? I answer the every-day conversation they hear, the habits they witness, and the people they are taught to respect. Sentiments thrown out in jest, or carelessness, and perhaps forgotten by the speaker as soon as uttered, often sink deeply into the youthful mind, and have a powerful influence on future character. This is true in very early childhood ”

“ The influence of good people, good homes, good example—in a word truly religious influence, as we shall all admit—is the strongest element in the formation of character; but the next strongest is assuredly that education [Pg 23] which teaches us to admire "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are of good report;" and this ought to be, and is, one of the results of the literary teaching given by well-educated mistresses. ”

“ The latter, on the other hand, assuming the completion 177 of this practical edification, proceeds to the mental formation of the personality, considered as progressive acquirement of culture. Discipline in this system appears to be the morals of the school. I use the word morals in a very broad sense—just as morality might be considered as the discipline of society and of life in general. For everybody, it is argued, distinguishes between the character of man and his intelligence, between his conduct and his knowledge. ”

“ Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved. ”

“ It can never be more than half, and sometimes not that. Nothing can take the place of the education of the home; and that education must be largely the unconscious influence of character upon character. ”

“ The possibility of sound moral education depends upon the presumption that if the foundations of character are well and truly laid during school life, by the habitual doing of virtuous actions in those departments of life which are open to the child, the character in after-life will naturally express itself in conduct which reveals these virtues in any situation in which it may find itself. ”

“ Everybody knows that education, bringing-up, and intelligence are indubitably expressed in style, but it may also be observed that style clearly expresses softness or hardness of a character, kindness or cruelty, determination or weakness, integrity or carelessness, and hundreds of other qualities. ”

“ This body, in which thought organises and consolidates itself; this body, by means of which thought is 216 enabled to press on its vigorous development, reabsorbing in its actual present the past accomplishment, and to proceed on its ascent, scaling the height step by step, never sliding downward, because every grade it builds remains as a firm support of the next one;—this is man’s character, which is not an attribute of the will considered as practical activity in contra-distinction to theoretic activity. Character is an attribute of the spirit qua spirit, without any adjectives. ”

“ There is both a physical and moral education, to which we are constantly subjected, from birth to manhood, entirely independent of professed teachers, which perhaps exercises the greatest sway in the formation of our characters. Most persons are apt to forget, in the calculation of character, the effect of physical circumstances ”

“ The school of character has an infinite variety of courses and an unending curriculum.
Folks who are sighing for goodness usually go away sorrowful when they learn what it costs. But life ever is putting to us just such tests as the wise teacher put to the rich young man. You say you desire character, the perfection of manhood or womanhood above all other things; do you desire this enough to pay for it your ease, your coveted fame, your cherished gold, perhaps your present good name and peace of mind? Is the search for character a passion or only a pastime? ”