The Forgotten Man, and Other EssaysSumner, William Graham
Science
The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays
Sumner, William Graham
Economics; Social sciences
Before quitting the subject, I desire to point out its relation to
one other matter, that is, to morals, or manners. It is a common
opinion that the higher man attains, the freer he becomes. A moment’s
reflection will show that this is not true--but rather quite the
contrary. The rowdy has far less restraints to consider than the
gentleman. “Noblesse oblige” was perverted in its application, perhaps,
before the Revolution, but it contains a sound principle and a great
truth. The higher you go in social attainments, the greater will be
the restraints upon you. The gait, the voice, the manner, the rough
independence, of one order of men is unbecoming in another. Education
above all brings this responsibility. Discipline in manners and morals
does not belong to the specific matter of education, but it follows of
itself on true education. The educated man must work by himself without
any overseer over him. He finds his compulsion in himself and it holds
him to his task longer and closer than any external compulsion.
This responsibility to self we call honor, and it is one of the
highest fruits of discipline when discipline, having wrought through
intellect, has reached character. Honor falls under the rule which I
mentioned early in this lecture. You cannot reach it because you want
it. You cannot reach it by direct effort. It cannot be taught to you
as a literary theory. True honor can only grow in men by the long
practice of conduct which is good and noble under motives which are
pure. We laugh at the artificial honor of the Middle Ages and despise
that of the dueling code, but let us not throw away the kernel with
the shell. Honor is a tribunal within one’s self whose code is simply
the best truth one knows. There are no advocates, no witnesses, and no
technicalities. To feel one’s self condemned by that tribunal is to
feel at discord with one’s self and to sustain a wound which rankles
longer and stings more deeply than any wound in the body. It is the
highest achievement of educational discipline to produce this sense
of honor in minds of young men, which gives them a guide in the midst
of temptation and at a time when all codes and standards seem to be
matter of opinion. I have said some things about lack of discipline in
thought and discussion, but that is nothing compared with the lack of
discipline in conduct which you see in a man who has never known what
honor is, whose whole moral constitution is so formless and flabby that
it can perform none of its functions, and who is continually seeking
some special plea, or sophistry, or deceptive device for paying homage
to the right while he does the wrong. Education ought to act against
all this and in favor of a high code of honor, not simply the education
of schools and academies, but that together with the education of
home and family. Our great educational institutions ought to have an
atmosphere of their own and impose traditions of their own, for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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