Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1902-10-17
YOUR SENSE OF DUTY
CULTIVATE 1T TO THE EXTREME
LIMIT OF YOUR Ability.
1t In the NOblest. Most Manly and ~
the Same Time Most WOmnnly 81
cation and Success,

Teachers and parents are asked t,
i consider the statement that a sense O.
duty is the foundation of real educa
ton and the basis Of success. What
ever has been achieved of real impor
lance in the world has been based up
OH sense of duty. Religion itself /.
founded upon duty, and its main teach
ings deal with questions of duiy-tl,
duty of men and women toward eacl
other and toward their Creator
Chidren's minds will be strength
ened, their work made easier and tleil
ambition stimulated If they can bq
made to feel toward duty that it il.
not rapulsive, but that it offers an CD.
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 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.
I press upon themselves-the fact that a
/
| ly and at the same time most woman
ly of qualities.
Ihe average small boy thinks thai,
there is something $50" about duff
full boy. He should be taught thai,
what made Washington a fighter aal
Lincoln great Among his fellows W..
nothing else than il sense of duty t.
their country.
What makes fireman brave is q
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 Tie
world has known, exemplties as per.
fectly as any the beauty of life in,
splred by sense Of duty, and it is a
life which may be we'll studied by
those engaged in shaping the clarac
ter of the young.
The very keynote of his philosophical
system was based on duty. "Cnsere
Welt list das versinnlchte Material un.
serer PLIGHT" said he.
This idea-that our world is but the
material incarnation of our duty--Le
taught, and. what is more, he practiccl
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 Door
anu 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.
flchte kept jouulNr devoted to the
attitude or his employers toward their
chlld-his pupil. Every week he told =,
them the mistakes they had made and
held them accountable for spelling the
child through tlattery,, too much kind
1ess' Ill judged severity or in what
,ver way. Strange to say, the parents ,
actually put up with this for two
Whole years, so gIeat was their adj I
niration for the young tutors moral ,
character :
Duty we'll ingrained in the soul will ,
ieep man on the right path in easy .
lines and in hard times. Fichte is
!uoted here because. no man better q
han he proves the power OF a sense r
4 duty In small things duty guided q
i'm, and it guided him at the end.
He was just past the half century of h
lls age and had been gloriously sue
essful. lie had been called to the
hair Of philosophy at Berlin, and no 4
eacher Of truth had ever been more :,
'ved or more admired. On certain
ay he was to lecture, and he had cho- r
en- DUTY for his subject. His coun, a
~ was at war and threatened with n
lvasion and absolute humiliation of :,
err liberties. -
flchte, who had talked much of the q
tile duties Of life, talked on this day
mans duty to his country. The a
'und Of drums calling for conscripts +,
'equently interrupted his lecture. He h
10 the listening young man that each Il.
ahs duty is to lend his individual n,
fehgth and life to his country in +,
me of danger 1t was a marvellous h,
idress. and it ended we'll. 1r
For at the close he said to his great ~,
owd of admring students: This h,
'urse of lectures will be suspended a,
It'll the end of the campaign. We b,
all resume them in free country Or h,
III the attempt to recover her free. az
M" ~.
tichte left his lecture platform to en-.
t as simple soldier. and, needless ON
say, his students followed his exam RI
in crowds. That was at the be- n,
ming of the campaign of 1913, but of
example is good enough to last un, hi
now and for many hundred years M
come. year later aged fifty-two, ha
died. He caught the fever while +b
ring for those afflicted among Others +b
his own wife. who had gone with th
, army as nurse nv
Make duty Il strong part Of your
Ids or your pupils moral educa- ra,
H. sense of duty impels men to tb,
uggle on and do their best ever, in ~,