Civic engagement

“ I conceive the possibility of each group developing into a trust, capable of acting in the interests of the city in years to come, exercising a mighty influence, being relied upon for guidance, and administering great funds for the common good. If we could get in each of our populous centres a dozen thoroughly intelligent broad-minded men, capable of watching all the streams of tendency—all the developments of civic life, bringing their judgment to bear on its progress, and urging the public to move in the right direction, a great service might be rendered. ”

“ But these duties become diversified and specialized according as we view man either in the light of the private functions he fills in society, which are his professional duties, or in the light of the particular society of which he is a member, and which is called the State or the country, and these are the civic duties. ”

“ It gives habits of analyzing the aims and motives of men, and the means they employ to attain their ends, i.e., it gives insight into character and hence makes social adjustment easier.
(b) It develops tolerance for the opinions, convictions, and ideals of others, and tends to prevent hard, dogmatic, and uncompromising judgments and attitudes.
(c) It gives appreciation of the civic and political institutions of to-day—their origin, development, and purposes—and hence teaches the rights and obligations that are inherent in citizenship. ”

“ As a Nation, we have a renewed dedication to our freedom, our country, and our principles. In homes, schools, places of worship, the workplace, and civic and social organizations, we must continue to encourage responsibility, compassion, and good citizenship. ”

“ Not only be ready to defend it with your lives; but constantly cultivate and encourage the inspiring qualities of civic pride and virtue, so that your whole future career will reflect a sincere and patriotic affection for and just appreciation of the noble institutions of our great republic. ”

“ This plan follows the natural growth and development of the child’s mind, and aims by teaching the civic virtues and simplest community relations to lay the foundations of good citizenship. See Outline of Work on page 231.
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CONTENTS
[1]
PART I
CIVIC VIRTUES Stories Teaching Thoroughness, Honesty,
Respect, Patriotism, Kindness to
Animals
These stories also teach, incidentally, the co-ordinate virtues of obedience, cleanliness, orderliness, courtesy, helpfulness, punctuality, truthfulness, care of property, and fair play. ”

“ The establishment of an economical, simple, and efficient government, the maintenance of an independent civil service; the implantation of an adequate system of public instruction to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic conscience, and vocational efficiency; the safeguarding of the health and vigor of the race ”

“ The benevolence, charity, capacity, and industry which, exerted in private life, would make a family, a parish, or a town happy, employed upon a larger scale, in support of the great principles of virtue and freedom of political regulations, might secure whole nations and generations from misery, want, and contempt. Public virtues and political qualities, therefore, should be incessantly cherished in our children. ”

“ Let law and religion, learning and scholarship, pure speech, noble ideas, and sacred principles—the order and moral dignity of the family—man's moral strength, woman's winning beauty, her stainless purity, her exalted excellence and piety,—and the simplicity of youth,—let these be the agencies we use in forming and compacting the main and master instrument for the fulfilment of a nation's mission—its mind and manhood! ”

“ Here, then, lie the first Foundations of civil Liberty: In forming the Habits of the youthful Heart, to a Coincidence with the general Welfare: In checking every rising Appetite that is contrary to This, and in forwarding every Passion that may promote the Happiness of the Community: In implanting and improving Benevolence, Self-Controul, Humility, Integrity, and Truth ”

“ He best understood the indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and individual felicity: watching with an equal and comprehensive eye over this great assemblage of communities and interests, he laid the foundations of our national policy in the unerring, immutable principles of morality, based on religion, exemplifying the preeminence of free government, by all the attributes which win the affection of its citizens or command the respect of the world. ”

“ Shall our lives be secure? Shall our homes be safe? Shall our wives and children live in quiet? Shall right, and not might, be the governing principle of society?
“It is to decide questions thus vital to our happiness and that of those who are dependent upon us, that we have now met; and I beg you as fellow-men, as brothers, as friends and neighbors, as you value life, and liberty, and justice, and a good conscience, to come to their consideration ready and determined to act for the best good of the greatest number. ”

“ Each social formation, through each of its material activities, exerts its influence upon the civic whole; and each of its ideas and ideals wins also its place and power. ”

“ They established a community and a government solidly founded on love of freedom and belief in progress, on civil liberty and religious toleration, on industrial cooperation and individual honesty and industry, on even-handed justice and a real equality before the laws, on peace and goodwill supported by protective force. ”

“ This is a wonderful government, but it can be made much better, with more freedom and more justice, if the people will only learn more about their power and their duty, especially if they will only cultivate the right spirit—the spirit of America, the spirit of justice, humility, kindness, and charity.
“Love thy neighbor as thyself” is not only a Christian duty, but it is the foundation of social life in a democracy. ”

“ What, for example, are the qualities in the citizens individually which conduce most to keep up the amount of good conduct, of good management, of success and prosperity, which already exist in society? Every body will agree that those qualities are industry, integrity, justice, and prudence. But are not these, of all qualities, the most conducive to improvement? and is not any growth of these virtues in the community in itself the greatest of improvements? ”

“ Read the history of what has been done in this commonwealth, in this city, during the last twenty-five years for humanity, for education, for science and the arts, for every form of public use or human need, and then say, if you can, that public spirit has been dying out. Our people have never been otherwise than public spirited, and hence the promptness and unanimity of their response to this new call to public duty. ”

“ I can conceive such a community organized in running order, powers judiciously delegated—farming, building, trade, courts, mails, schools, elections, all attended to; and then the rest of life, the main thing, freely branching and blossoming in each individual, and bearing golden fruit. I can see there, in every young and old man, after his kind, and in every woman after hers, a true personality, develop'd, exercised proportionately in body, mind, and spirit. ”

“ Shall we enable them to keep, to improve, to double manifold the political, social, and personal blessings they now possess; shall we give them this power to create riches, to promote order, peace, happiness — all forms of human welfare, or shall wo not ? ”

“ Above all, This will give Stability to civil Liberty, if the social Passions of Individuals can be so far extended, as to include the Welfare of the whole Community, as their chief and primary Object. This Affection is distinguished by the Name of public Spirit, or the Love of our Country; the highest Passion that can sway the human Heart, considered as a permanent Foundation of true Liberty. ”

“ Only those are called to leadership in political life who have recognized the community-bound law of all human life in purest clarity and in the all-embracing extent of its validity and who will place all the powers of their personal lives with the help of a politically moral character in the service of the formation of community life ... ”

“ In this new nation was realized the dream of the social philosophers and philanthropists of all ages: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, resting on the deep and solid foundations of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. ”

“ Public spirit is the life of the community in the heart of the individual.—This recognition that we belong to society, and that society belongs to us, that its interests are our interests, that its wrongs are ours to redress, its rights are ours to maintain, its losses are ours to bear, its blessings are ours to enjoy, is public spirit. ”

“ The persuasive faculties of its members will evoke from one another such a lively exercise of all the passions and abilities of human nature that in the resulting devotion to family, church, industry, and country, the people will effect the greatest con- quest of nature and production of wealth, will promote the purest family life, will plant morality and religion deepest in the individual heart, will inspire the intensest patriotism, and so will construct the equipment for national survival. ”

“ As they have the public society under their care and power, so they have advantage to promote the public interest every way; and if they are such rulers as have been spoken of, they are some of the greatest blessings to the public. Their influence has a tendency to promote their wealth and cause their temporal possessions and blessings to abound: and to promote virtue amongst them, and so to unite them one to another in peace and mutual benevolence, and make them happy in society, each one the instrument of his neighbor’s quietness, comfort and prosperity ”

“ The head and the heart should act in concert; the head perceiving that the same general principles should be used to direct the forms of every department of life, and endeavoring to apply them to control humanity, should head the appeals of the heart, which, from its mainsprings of love and tenderness, feels, that the whole universe is bound together by the indissoluble ties of fraternity, and, therefore, should realize that as a father and mother, they should govern their children. Of these principles, government should be the true exponent, representative and administrator. ”

“ Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. ”

“ The powers of state, therefore, should embrace individual life in its entirety; from infancy to mature age, “in all conditions and relations, whether domestic, religious, social, industrial or political.” ”

“ And have not I, more than once, heard your Majesty express the wish and the hope for “a community on earth in which all the members should have equal opportunity for the attainment of virtue, knowledge, a life of activity and prosperity: a community in which goodness and capacity should constitute the highest aristocracy, and in which the highest rank should depend upon the highest human worth?” ”

“ If we are to heed the sentiment of our people and become faithful to their welfare, we must endeavor, whatever our parties may be, to work constructively and harmoniously together not to promote our personal interests, political or otherwise, but to advance the progress of our country and the prosperity, well-being and happiness of the greatest number of our people. ”

“ Mortified to see, by the faces of my listeners, that I did not make the favourable impression I had anticipated, I elevated my theme; dwelling on the excellence of democratic institutions, their promotion of tranquil happiness by the government of party, and the mode in which they diffused such happiness throughout the community by preferring, for the exercise of power and the acquisition of honours, the lowliest citizens in point of property, education, and character. ”

“ Instilling sound character in our children is essential to maintaining the strength of our Nation into the 21st century. The core ethical values of trustworthiness, fairness, responsibility, caring, respect, and citizenship form the foundation of our democracy, our economy, and our society. ”

“ Besides, the community has come clearly to feel within itself, and has clearly and forcibly expressed the same in word and deed, that it is the duty of the State so to provide for every individual member that he may become a perfected human being. ”

“ Shall we not rather take the place to which we are entitled, as the leaders, rather than the followers, in the customs of society, turn back the tide of aristocratic inroads, and carry through the whole, not only of civil and political, but of social and domestic, life, the true principles of democratic freedom and equality? ”

“ What, then, shall we assign as the decisive elements, the controlling constituents, of character—and what the assurance of their persistence and their force—which this youth could bring to the service of the State, or contribute to the advancement of society and the well-being of mankind? ”

“ We have on many occasions given you our thanks for the broad moral foundation upon which you have, so to speak, reared the edifice of our community. On this occasion we offer our homage especially to the clear-sighted, indefatigable, unselfish--nay, self-sacrificing citizen who has taken the initiative in an undertaking which, we are assured on all sides, will give a powerful impetus to the temporal prosperity and welfare of our community. ”

“ Our policies must be premised on and must reinforce values such as family, hard work, integrity, personal responsibility. ”