Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/12

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is to reform our own and other men's characters, and ourselves to be what manner of man among men we would have the nation be among nations. It is of some of the elements of character of which men stand specially in need to-day that we are to speak in these lectures. What is good in our lives as individuals and in our life as a nation is not in need of discussion here. And there is no nobility in analyzing and deriding our weaknesses. Our purpose is to urge our keeping if we have not lost them, and our regaining if we feel them slipping from us, some of the elemental moral qualities and spiritual resources which are vital to the capacity for duty and to the living of a full and efficient life.

It has seemed best, on the whole, to preserve in the printed volume the free colloquialism of the lectures as they were delivered.

R. E. S.


New York.