a dim
and uncertain future which means little or nothing to them. I have in
mind rather the habitual procrastination that develops when the motive
for work is future, not present; and the false standards of judgment
that are created when work is estimated, not on the basis of present
need and present responsibility, but by reference to an external result,
like passing an examination, getting promoted, entering high school,
getting into college, etc. Who can reckon up the loss of moral power
that arises from the constant impression that nothing is worth doing in
itself, but only as a preparation for something else, which in turn is
only a getting ready for some genuinely serious end beyond? Moreover, as
a rule, it will be found that remote success is an end which appeals
most to those in whom egoistic desire to get ahead--to get ahead of
others--is already only too strong a motive. Those in whom personal
ambition is already so strong that it paints glowing pictures of future
victories may be touched; others of a more generous nature do not
respond.

I cannot stop to paint the other side. I can only say that the
introduction of every method that appeals to the child's active powers,
to his capacities in construction, production, and creation, marks an
opportunity to shift the centre of ethical gravity from an absorption
which is selfish to a service which is social. Manual training is more
than manual; it is more than intellectual; in the hands of any good
teacher it lends itself easily, and almost as a matter of course, to
development of social habits. Ever since the philosophy of Kant, it has
been a commonplace of aesthetic theory, that art is universal; that it is
not the product of purely personal desire or appetite, or capable of
merely individual appropriation, but has a value participated in by all
who perceive it. Even in the schools where most conscious attention is
paid to moral considerations, the methods of study and recitation may be
such as to emphasize appreciation rather than power, an emotional
readiness to assimilate the experiences of others, rather than
enlightened and trained capacity to carry forward those values which in
other conditions and past times made those experiences worth having. At
all events, separation between instruction and character continues in
our schools (in spite of the efforts of individual teachers) as a result
of divorce between learning and doing. The attempt to attach genuine