Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/120

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become a useful and successful citizen; the desire for culture, with all its superior values; the impulse of wonder, leading ever to the acquisition of knowledge; the impulse of admiration, to seek and appreciate the beautiful; the filial and social affections, which regard the feelings and wishes of the home and the sentiments of companions; the impulse to gratitude, as shown toward parents and teachers; the sentiment of reverence, as shown toward law and order and those who stand as their representatives. And all these neglected demands rise up and condemn him; he is divided from himself and his fair judgment, is not his complete self. On the other hand, the pupil spends the day in devotion to work, he maintains the integrity and balance of his nature, gives each impulse due consideration and makes a symmetrical and moral advance in his development. In restraining the impulse to play truant, he does justice to all the claims of his being; the resulting values as estimated in subjective experiences are the highest possible—the act is good. The problem, then, is to bring the pupil to a fuller understanding of the character of his impulses to action, and the relative value of each. In many ways the neglected elements of his nature may be brought into consciousness and emphasized. Everything that creates conceptions of ideal conduct, all concrete illustrations in the social life of the school, all conscious exercise of power in right ways, contribute toward his self-realization. The high-school pupil has not had a large personal experience; hence the need, in the ways proposed, of teaching virtue. In the first place, the situation is advantageous. It is conceded by every school of ethical thinkers that one finds his