The Press., 1903-05-14
YOUR SENSE OF DUTY
IT TO THE EXTREME
 LIMIT OF YOUR ABILITY.

CUlTtVATE IT 10 TIE ENtdEME
 LIMIT OF YOUR ABILITY.
 It Is the Modest, Most Manly and al
 the Same Time Most WOmanly o1
 Qualities-Thc Real Basis of Edu-
 cation and Success.
 Teachers and parents are asked to consider, the statement that sense of duty is the foundation of real educa- ton and the basis of success. What ever has been achieved of real impor- tance in the world has been based up on a 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 be made to feel toward duty that 1t is not repulsive, but that 1t offers an Op- 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 a 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 im- 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 a fighter and Lincoln great among his fellows was nothing else than sense of duty to their country.
 What makes a fireman brave is a sense of duty. A sense of duty is at the foundation of every effort made to provide for children, to meet the obli- gations 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 sense of duty, and it is a life which may be we'll 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 ist das versinnlichte Material un- serer Pfiicht," 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 young tutor, he set good ex- ample to every teacher. As 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 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 flattery, 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 ad- miration for the young tutors moral character.
 Duty well ingrained in the soul will keep a man on the right path in easy fimoo and fin hard fir,oS LNioH,&o S. quoted here because no man better than he proves the power of a sense of duty. In small things duty guided him, and 1t 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 a 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 annihilation 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 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. It was marvellous address, and 1t 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 to 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 un- 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 child'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; a sense of duty im- pels the successful man to make good use of his success. The hideous. emp ty. selfish lives of the self indulgent class are based upon utter lack of the sense Of duty. In the education of a child moral teachings should come first; in q child's mental equipment moral qualities should be first consid- cred. By example. precept, argument and through history impress upon your children the fact that without a sense of duty they are unworthy of the Op-