Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-10-04
YOUR SENSE OF DUTY
CULTIVATE 1T TO THE EXTREME
LIMIT OF YOUR ABILITY

ton and the basis OF success. w nat
ever has been achieved of real impor-
lance in the world has been based up
on sense of duty. Religion itself is
founded upon duty, and it's main teach
ings deal with questions of duty-the
duty of men and women toward each
other and toward their Creator.
Children's minds will be strength
ened. their work made easier and their
ambition stimulated if they can De
made to feel toward duty that it is
not repulsive, but that it offers an OPP
portunity for achievement, an oppor-
tunity for every individual to prove his
worth and that he deserves to succeed.
If duty can be strongly developed in
the mind of n young child, the effect
will remain through life and make that
child's existence useful.
Parents should impress upon their
children-and young people should i'm
press upon themselves-the fact that a
sense of duty is the noblest, most man.
ly and at the same time most woman
ly of qualities.
The average small boy thinks that
there is something soft about duti-
full boy. He should be taught that
what made Washington q fighter and
Lincoln great among his fellows was
nothing else than q sense of duty to
their country.
What makes a fireman brave is
sense of duty. A sense of duty is at
the foundation of every effort made to
provide for children, to meet the obi
cations of life honestly.
The German philosopher Fichte, as
admirable a moral character as the
world has known, exemplifies as per-
fectly as any the beauty Of life in
spired by a sense of duty, and it is
life which may be well studied by
those engaged in shaping the charac-
ter of the young.
The very keynote of his philosophical
system was based on duty. "Unsere
Welt list das versinnlichte Material I'M
serer Pficht," said he.
This idea-that our world is but the
material incarnation of our duty-he
taught, and, what is more, he practiced
what he preached.
One preacher who practices his
preachings thoroughly is worth many
of the other kind, no matter how elo-
quent the others. And Fichte prac-
ticed his beliefs. When he was poor
and a young tutor, he set a good eX-
ample to every teacher. AS a tutor he
made his living, but he knew that his
duty to the child intrusted to him was
the principal thing. He knew also
that every child is really formed in
character and morals by the influence
of its parents.
Fichte kept a journal devoted to the
attitude of his employers toward their
child-his pupil. Every week he told
them the mistakes they had made and
held them accountable for spelling the
child through fiattery, too much kind
ness, i'll judged severity or in what
ever way. Strange to say, the parents
actually put up with this for two
whole years, so great was their adj
miration for the young tutors moral
character.
Duty well ingrained in the soul will
keep a man on the right path in easy
times and in hard times Fichte is
quoted here because no man better
than he proves the power of a sense
of duty. In small things duty guided
him, and it guided him at the end.
He was just past the half century of
his age and had been gloriously sue
| cessful. He had been called to the
chair OF philosophy at Berlin, and no
teacher of truth had ever been more
loved or more admired. On certain
day he was to lecture, and he had cho-
sen DUTY" for his subject. His coun-
try was at war and threatened with
invasion and absolute humiliation of
her liberties.
Fichte, who had talked much of the
little duties of life talked on this day
of mans duty to his country. The
sound of drums calling for conscripts
frequently interrupted his lecture. He
told the listening young man that each
mans duty is to lend his individual
strength and life to his country in
time of danger. 1t was a marvellous
address, and it ended well.
For at the close he said to his great
crowd of admiring students: This
course of lectures will be suspended
until the end of the campaign. We
shall resume them in a free country or
die in the attempt to recover her free
DOM"
Fichte left his lecture platform to en-
list as a simple soldier, and. needless
10 say, his students followed his exam
pie in crowds. That was at the be-
ginning of the campaign of 1913, but
the example is good enough to last I'M
til now and for many hundred years
to come. A year later, aged fifty-two.
he died. He caught the fever while
caring for those afflicted. among others
for his own wife, who had gone with
the army as nurse.
Make duty strong part of your
kchild's or your pupils moral educa-
ton. A sense of duty impels men to
struggle on and do their best even in
the face of failure; sense of duty i'm
pels the successful man to make good