has, of late, fallen into
a singular disregard, while the constructive forces that count have
either been discredited and largely abandoned, as in the case of
religion, or, like education, turned into other channels or reversed
altogether, as has happened with the idea and practice of obedience,
discipline, self-denial, duty, honour and unselfishness; surely the most
fantastic issue of the era of enlightenment, of liberty and of freedom
of conscience.

As a matter of fact character, as the chief end of man and the sole
guaranty of a decent society, has been neglected; it was not disregarded
by any conscious process, but the headlong events that have followed
since the fifteenth century have steadily distorted our judgment and
confused our standards of value even to reversal. By an imperceptible
process other matters have come to engage our interest and control our
action, until at last we are confronted by the nemesis of our own
unwisdom, and we entertain the threat of a dissolving civilization just
because the forces we have engendered or set loose have not been curbed
or directed by that vigorous and potent personal character informing a
people and a society, that we had forgot in our haste and that alone
could give us safety.

Formal education is but one of the factors that may be employed towards
the development of character; you cannot so easily separate one force in
life from another, assigning a specific duty here, a definite task
there. That is one of the weaknesses of our time, the water-tight
compartment plan of high specialization, the cellular theory of
efficiency. Life must be seen as a whole, organized as a whole, lived as
a whole. Every thought, every emotion, every action, works for the
building or the unbuilding of character, and this synthesis of living
must be reestablished before we can hope for social regeneration.
Nevertheless formal education may be made a powerful factor, even now,
and not only in this one specific direction, but through this, for the
accomplishing of that unification of life that already is indicated as
the next great task that is set before us; and this brings me to a
consideration of the last of the questions I have proposed for answer,
viz.: is our present system of education adequate to the sufficient
development of character, and if not, how should it be modified?

I do not think it adequate, and experience seems to me to prove the
point. It has not maintained the sturdy