Page:Education as the Training of Personality.djvu/20

 owe their value to the contributions which they make to the progress in civilisation of the nation or of the race.

And, thirdly, we must ourselves take an active part in the process by which we, as persons, obtain value. Our value is, indeed, in the last resort due to our position in the scheme of things; it is of grace, not works. But it becomes actual only by our own exertions. The process is one often involving strain and stress, demanding courage and endurance. "If the 'searching of our hearts and reins,'" says William James, "be the purpose of this human drama, then what is sought seems to be what effort we can make." "It is an everlasting duty," says Carlyle, "the duty of being brave. Valour is still value." If, therefore, the aim of education is to make our boys and girls into more valuable persons, this aim will be attained only by rendering them more capable of effort, more courageous and enduring.

The implications of this principle are important for our present purpose, and we shall put the point more definitely if we say that our value as persons is measured by the worthiness of our interests and the extent to which we are capable of achieving them. This mode of statement I cannot now attempt to justify, but must ask you to accept it as sufficiently accurate for the general survey to which we must confine ourselves.

What I mean by the achievement of an interest may be made clearer by an example. Let us take as an illustration the interest we may feel in botany.