The Reconstructed School by Francis B. Pearson
page 99 of 113 (87%)
page 99 of 113 (87%)
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN LIFE Finally, we come to the chief among the goals, which is life itself. In fact, life is the super-goal. We study manual arts, science, and language that we may achieve the goals of integrity, imagination, aspiration, and serenity, and these qualities we weave into the fabric of life. Upon the spiritual qualities we weave into it, depend the texture and pattern of this fabric and the generating and developing of these qualities and the weaving of them into this fabric--this we call life. When we look upon a person who is well-conditioned and whose life is well-ordered, in body, in mind, and in spirit, we know, at once, that he possesses integrity, initiative, a sense of responsibility, reverence, and other high qualities that compose the person as we see him. We do not reflect upon what he knows of history, of geography, or of music, for we are taking note of an exemplification of life. Indeed, the presence or absence of these qualities determines the character of the person's life. Hence it is that life is the supreme goal of endeavor. Life is a composite and the crown-piece of all the qualities toward which we strive by means of arithmetic and grammar--in short, of all our activities both in school and out. One of our mistakes is that we confuse life and lifetime, and construe life to mean the span of life. In this conception the unit of measurement is so large that our concept of life evaporates into a vague generalization. Life is too specific, too definite for that. The quality |
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