The elements of characterWare, Mary G. (Mary Greene)
Philosophy
The elements of character
Ware, Mary G. (Mary Greene)
Character
Look in upon the assembled members of a school, of any grade from
primary to collegiate, and you will see one set of pupils with stolid
faces conning their tasks, as if they were indeed tasks in the hardest
sense of the term, and then reciting them word for word, in a monotonous
tone, as if their voices came from automata, and not from living
throats. These are they who study only with their Thoughts, and whose
Imaginations and Affections are untouched by all that passes through
their minds. Scattered among the preceding another class may be found,
with quickly glancing eyes, who seem all alive to everything they
study, who recite with earnest tones, and whose faces are bright with
expression. Here the Imagination is at work, and everything the mind
seizes upon stands there at once a living picture. These are the
brilliant scholars, who carry off all the prizes, and win all
admiration. There is still a third class, of a calmer aspect. Its
members may not shine so brightly, but there is more warmth in their
rays. They will not learn so much nor so rapidly as those of the second
class, but their whole being is permeated by what they know. They are
constantly studying the relations of the things that they learn to each
other and to life; and are endeavoring to form themselves in accordance
with the rationality they thus acquire; for their Affections have
fastened themselves upon it, and it is therefore becoming a part of
their being.
When these three classes of pupils become men and women, and go
forth into the various walks of life, the first, if they attempt any
handicraft, are the botchers and bunglers, who bring little more than
their hands to anything that they do; and who, therefore, do nothing
well. They are the dead weights of society, that must be helped through
life by their more active neighbors. If they are scholars, they are
collectors of facts, which they pile up in their memories as a miser
heaps his gold, for no end but the pleasure of heaping. They make
physicians without resource, lawyers without discernment, preachers who
dole out divinity in its baldest and heaviest forms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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