"The highest wisdom--that of ethics--seems closely affiliated with poetic truth. A prosaic moral is injurious to virtue, by making it repulsive. The moment goodness becomes tedious and unideal in a work of art, it is not real goodness; the would-be artist, though a very saint, has mistaken his form of expression. On the other hand, extreme beauty and power in a poem or picture always carry a moral, they are inseparable from a certain ethical standard; while vice suggests a depravity.... An obtrusive moral in poetic form is a fraud on its face, and outlawed of art. But that all great poetry is essentially ethical is plain from any consideration of Homer, Dante, and the best dramatists and lyrists, old and new." In literature, as in life, those persons make the strongest moral impression who have the least express discussion of morals. Their actions speak, and the moral qualities appear, not in didactic formality and isolation, but in their life setting. This is seen in the great dramas, novels, and epic poems. These masterpieces are of strong and lasting value to the schools because they bring out human conduct and character in a rich variety of forms corresponding to life. Against the background of scenery created by the poet, men and women and children march along to their varied performances. Theseus, Ulysses, Crusoe, Aladdin, Alfred, Horatius, Cinderella, Portia, Evangeline,--they speak and act before us with all the realism and fidelity to human instincts peculiar to the poet's art. These men and women, who are set in action before us, stir up all our dormant thought-energy. We observe and judge their motives and approve or condemn their actions. We are stirred to sympathy or pity or anger. Such an intense study of motives and conduct, as offered in literature, is like a fresh spring from which well up strengthening waters. The warmth and energy with which judgments are passed upon the deeds of children and adults is the original source of moral ideas. Literature is especially rich in opportunities to register these convictions. It is not the bare knowledge of right and wrong developed, but the deep springs of feeling and emotion are opened, which gush up into volitions and acts. Just as we form opinions of people from their individual acts, and draw inferences as to their character and motives, so the overt act of Brutus or of Miles Standish stands out so clear against the background of passing events that an unerring judgment falls upon the doer. A single act, seen in its relations, always calls forth such a sentence of good or ill. Whether it be a gentle deed of mercy, or the hammer-stroke that fells a giant or routs an army, as with Charles Martel or Alfred, the sense of right or wrong is the deep underflow that gives meaning to all events and stamps character.