The Irish standard., 1901-03-02


within by overcoming ignorance and
greed makes us think well not only of
himself but of his country also. Chill
dren love their parents not when they
praise them but when by their intelli-
gent and virtuous behavior they make
them happy. And so those who boast
of the greatness of their country do
not, therefore, love it; but it's true lov-
ers are they who strengthen and
glorify it by their wisdom, honesty,
unselfshness, sincerity and courage.
"1f in foreign land we see an
American who is drunk, or loud and
vulgar, we are forced to confess that
he Is not true but false and traitor
GUS American; and here at home the
miserable victims of greed who offer
and take bribes, who combine to crush
the weak, who, to increase their trade,
make war on defenscless people, are
not true Americans but false and
traitorous Americans.
'The characteristics of a true Ameri-
can are good will, sympathy with the
helpless and oppressed, intelligence,
uprightness, energy, courage, and in
dustry; and if we love our country,
and desire to make it's institutions per-
manent, we must labor to cultivate
these virtues in ourselves and in those
whom we are able to influence The
love of education in the deep sense Of
the word, and the love Of country are
one and the same love. Nothing but
education-domestic, religious, and
scholastic-can form, the virtues which
make patriots. Primarily education is
growth, and it is made possible and
promoted by nutrition.
"The food we take and assimilato
makes us what we are. In the case
Of the body this is plain. We grow
and maintain strength by throwing
day by day into the life current the
substances Of which the body is COM
posed. If this ceases, we cease to
grow and begin to decay. The taking
of nourishment is not something which
is done once for all: it is an habitual
process, which goes on whether we
eat or abstain, whether we wake or
sleep.
"This is also true Of our spiritual
being. The mind grows by what it
feeds on habitually, day by day; and
the kind OF nourishment it assimilates,
and the thoroughness with which it
assmilates, determines it's quality and
power.
''The proper nourishment of our spir-
itual being is not knowledge or specu-
lative truth. What we merely know
hardly enters into the fiber Of our
higher nature. Hence, the information
we get in school about the surface of
the earth and the stars, about kings
and wars about algebraic and geomet-
ric problems, about philosophers and
litcraturas neither makes deep i'm
preston nor is long remembered.
"Such information does not so at
tract us rs to cause us to live with it
and find in it cur habitual nourish-
mcnt 1t has therefore little to do with
the formation Of character. When we
ask what kind Of man one is, we
do not mean to inquire about his in
formation or possessions. but about his
character; and to get insight into his
character we wish to learn not what
he knows, but what in his inmost soul
he believes, hopes, and strives for-his
tastes and preferences, his bearing and
behavior, the breadth and depth of his
love, the largeness and fullness of his
sympathies, his attitude towards the
temporal and eternal.
'"Thus character Is primarily moral
it is what man is, not the kind of
clothes he wears or the kind of infor-
nation he possesses. 1t Is Il result of
nutrition and growth, and can no wise
be formed by mechanical processes.
And since character is the man himself
it is precisely this moral growth which
it is the chief business of the school to
promote, and If it fails in this it fails
radically. A characterless man is nei-
ther good in himself nor good in his
relations to any form Of the social en-
vironment
Character is formed by cultivating
a taste for what is true, good, and fair;
love of Justice, honesty, and kindli-
ness, for reverence, modesty. and
courage; loathing for dirt, physical
and moral, in thought, word, and deed;
a scorn Of lies, hypocrisy and can't; by
filling the young with profound faith
in the worth and sacredness of life, by
helping them to feel how divine a
thing 1t is to be alive when one has
hope and enthusiasm, is chaste and
loving, wise and hopeful.
'In learning to know their teachers
the pupils should be able to perceive
and love in them the fairest and mob.
lest virtues. Heroic and sanity men
md x,n,non on1 x-omon a1co nc %hov