other agencies. More or less unknown to teachers there exists a
considerable amount of well-written literature, true stories and
fiction, in which, without any clumsy insistence upon moral points,
fine actions are displayed in their elementary fineness, and baseness
is seen to be base. There are also a few theatres, and there might be
more, in which fine action is finely displayed. Now one nobly conceived
and nobly rendered play will give a stronger moral impression than the
best schoolmaster conceivable, talking ethics for a year on end. One
great and stirring book may give an impression less powerful, perhaps,
but even more permanent. Practically these things are as good as
example--they are example. Surround your growing boy or girl with a
generous supply of good books, and leave writer and growing soul to do
their business together without any scholastic control of their
intercourse. Make your state healthy, your economic life healthy and
honest, be honest and truthful in the pulpit, behind the counter, in
the office, and your children will need no specific ethical teaching;
they will inhale right. And without these things all the ethical
teaching in the world will only sour to cant at the first wind of the
breath of the world.

Quite without ethical pretension at all the school is of course bound
to influence the moral development of the child. That most important
matter, the habit and disposition towards industry, should be acquired
there, the sense of thoroughness in execution, the profound belief that
difficulty is bound to yield to a resolute attack--all these things are
the necessary by-products of a good school. A teacher who is punctual,
persistent, just, who tells the truth, and insists upon the truth, who
is truthful, not merely technically but in a constant search for exact
expression, whose own share of the school work is faultlessly done, who
is tolerant to effort and a tireless helper, who is obviously more