The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-10-05
DISCIPLINE AND CHARACTER.
The Perfect Result of an Old Tradition
Found In Admiral Tryon's Death.

The Perfect Result OF an Old Tradition
Found in Admiral Tryon's Death.
To our minds the charm of Admiral
Tryon's bearing in the hour of his fare
is the perfection of the system which
for centuries has bred men capable of
his conduct and his death. They have
not had his opportunity of being visi-
BILE, not his strangely scenic surround
ings, not perhaps the temperament
which could have inspired them to
that farewell in the moment of disap-
pearance: but there have been hun
dreds of men in the navy, and even in
the merchant service, who would have
died as bravely as he did. 1t is the ira
| dition of both services-not, we think,
the order-that the highest in rank on
a ship in peril must be the last to quit
the vessel: that, as occurred a few
years ago, even stowaway, who is al
most a criminal in sailors eyes, must
take precedence of the captain in Sc
curing safety. The origin of the rule
is, we fancy, policy-that the state or
the owner be protected by the cap
tain's authority to the last-but it has
become an etiquette and pride, and
in the records of hundreds of wrecks
you will find few in which it was ever
broken. THE captain was the last to
! quit the ship is the end of almost
every telegram of marine disaster. In
other words, discipline continaed for
centuries under the pressure OF the
same necessities and the same ideas
has cXtinguished in class by no means
devoid OF either faults or vices a
: most natural and tempting form OF self
ishness, has induced whole series OF
men, many of them hardly educated,
to face "A slow and painful form of death
rather than fail in the performance of
a professional duty. That is wonder
ful result of training, and it is one
which makes those who see it clearly
doubt whether the modern world is al
together i'll the right path. The old
ideal for the formation Of character
was discipline, hardship, pressure, alike
from the law and from teachers and
from opinion, and it certainly pro-
duced many of the virtues, especially
that one of obedience which the world
y
there are few unrealities and men carry
their lives in their hands -has taken to
despising. The modern idea is that
discipline even for children is an OPP
pressive thing, that it turns men into
machines. and it quenthes individual
ity; that it is, in shdrt, unpleasant,
whereas plcasantness is the end of life.
We see the result of tie change in the
disappearance of many forms of OPP
preston, and a lighter atmosphere for
men to move in, but we see it also in
the slow disappearance of many noble
elements in character. The old sys-
TEN, working with good material pro-
duces as its perfect result Admiral Try
on; the new, working also on the right
material produces the British agitator.
Admiral Tryon was no doubt brave
man and a gentleman without help
from the service or it's traditions but
the service has annealed his character
into what it was, something for ana
ton to be proud of, which would hardly
have been exhibited or have existed
amid the indiscipline and softness Of
civil life. London Spectator.