CHARACTER. By character is meant those established and fixed tendencies that are so strong as to give direction to conduct.-Baldwin. We gradually make our characters by separate acts of will, just as a blacksmith by separate blows beats out a horseshoe or an anchor from a shapeless mass of iron.-Halleck. Character is the supreme end of all home training and all school work. As we sow habits in muscle and nerve and brain, so shall we, and those who come after us, reap in aptitude, in skill, and in character.— Roark. We inherit a nature, but we acquire a character. Habit forms character, and character determines destiny.-Hill. Education is the outworking of God's design into character.-Parker. Character is both a result and a cause—a result of influences and a cause of results.-Garfield. Stability of character is created on a foundation of definite thought.-Halleck. In the public school for the people and for the whole people, moral character must ever stand before intellectual culture.-E. E. White. Character is what we are; reputation is what others think we are.-Dr. Arnold. Character is the most potential condition of wealth. Dr. Steele. Our character is in ourselves, but our reputation is in others.-Beecher. The atmosphere of the school is formed by the character of its teachers.-Dr. Thwing. Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us.-Humboldt. We cannot live without acquiring character.— Ladd. The combination of will power with the other mental endowments forms the character of the individual.-Fathergill. If right character is to be produced in connection with an institution, it must be through the influence of those who have a right character.Mark Hopkins. To steal a man's property, to injure his health, or even to take his life, is not so great a wrong as to harm or degrade his character.-Dr. Steele. Character is organized choices. Culture of will is character building. Character building is preeminently the mission of the teacher. Baldwin. The slowest thing that can be done in this world is the building up of moral character.— Beecher. For character building the first twelve years of the child's life are worth all the rest. If the work of these years is not what it should be, all subsequent teaching is of the nature of reformation rather than education.-Horace Mann. THE WILL. Theoretical education relates to the intellect; practical education relates to the will.-Froebel. Arrested development of will produces blind followers of custom.-Preyer. Education must lay stress on the truth that nothing in the world has any absolute value except will guided by the right.-Rosenkranz. The end of education ought to be to associate and unite desire and will-to bring into accord pleasure and duty.—Compayre. Conscious will is the only true basis of moral action, while weakness of will is the greatest enemy of moral culture.-Greenwood. The power of dismissing a subject from the mind is an exercise of will.—Bain. The education of the will is the essential part of moral education.-Compayre. The purpose of moral education is not to add to a pupil's knowledge but to affect his will.Harris. Strength of will is the power to resist, to persist, to endure, to attack, to conquer obstacles, to snatch success from the jaws of death and despair. It is the most vital element of character. -James Freeman Clarke. A man's being in a good or bad humor depends upon his will.-Dr. Johnson. Feebleness of will brings about weakness of head and of heart.-Amiel's Journal. To give firmness to the will, to quicken it, and to make it pure, strong and enduring, in a life of pure humanity, is the chief concern in instruction and in school.-Froebel. Every man stamps his value on himself; -Schiller. |