s implies that the will is strong enough
to resist all opposition. David's will to go out and meet Goliath was
perfect. A boy desires to get his lesson, but indolence and the love
of play are too strong for his will. There is nothing which goes so
far to make up the character of the hero as strength of will which
yields to no difficulties.

5. _Inner freedom_. This is the obedience of the will to its _highest_
moral incentive. It is ability to set the will free from all selfish
or wrong desires and to yield implicit obedience to moral ideas. This
of course depends upon the cultivation of the other ideas and their
proper subordination, one to another.

The five moral ideas just given indicate the lines along which strength
of moral character is shown. They are of some interest to the teacher
as a systematic arrangement of morals, but they are of no direct value
in teaching. They are the most abstract and general classes of moral
ideas and are of no interest whatever to children.

In morals the only thing that interests children is _moral action_.
Whether it be in actual life or in a story or history, the child is
aroused by a deed of kindness or courage. But all talk of kindness or
goodness in general, disconnected from particular persons and actions,
is dry and uninteresting. This gives us _the key to the child's_ mind
in morals. Not moralizing, not preaching, not lecturing, not reproof,
can ever be the _original source_ of moral ideas with the young, but
the _actions_ of people they see, and of those about whom they read or
hear. Moral judgments and feelings spring up originally only in
connection with human action in the concrete. If we propose then to
_adapt moral teaching_ to youthful minds, we must make use of concrete
materials, observations of people taken from what the children have
seen, stories and biographies of historical characters. A story of a
man's life is interesting because it brings out his particular motives
and actions. This is the field in which instruction has its conquests
to make over youthful minds.

We will gather up the fruits of our discussion in the preceding
chapters. Having fixed the chief aim in the effort to influence and
strengthen moral character, we find _concentration_ to be the central
principle in which all others unite. It is the focusing of life and
school experiences in the unity of the personality. The worth and
choice of studies is determined by this. I