To begin with, we do not want all men to be alike. We do not want to
lay down a pattern or type to which men of all sorts are to be made by
some means or another to approximate. This is the ideal of the
impatient administrator. A bad teacher will aim at imposing his
opinion, and turning out a set of pupils all of whom will give the
same definite answer on a doubtful point. Mr. Bernard Shaw is said to
hold that _Troilus and Cressida_ is the best of Shakespeare's plays.
Although I disagree with this opinion, I should welcome it in a pupil
as a sign of individuality; but most teachers would not tolerate such
a heterodox view. Not only teachers, but all commonplace persons in
authority, desire in their subordinates that kind of uniformity which
makes their actions easily predictable and never inconvenient. The
result is that they crush initiative and individuality when they can,
and when they cannot, they quarrel with it.

It is not one ideal for all men, but a separate ideal for each
separate man, that has to be realized if possible. Every man has it
in his being to develop into something good or bad: there is a best
possible for him, and a worst possible. His circumstances will
determine whether his capacities for good are developed or crushed,
and whether his bad impulses are strengthened or gradually diverted
into better channels.

But although we cannot set up in any detail an ideal of character
which is to be universally applicable--although we cannot say, for
instance, that all men ought to be industrious, or self-sacrificing,
or fond of music--there are some broad principles which can be used to
guide our estimates as to what is possible or desirable.