There is in the child an orderly sequence of development of mental traits.  While these powers are in their earlier, so to speak embryonic, stages of development, they can be fostered and increased or retarded.  They are still plastic.  Very early in a child’s life acquisitiveness shows itself; he begins to say “I,” and “mine,” and desires things to be his “very own.”  And this can be fostered so that the child will grow up a “covetous machine.”  Or he may be taught to share with others.

Not so much later, while the child is still in the lower grades of his school life, comes the period of moral development.  If, during this period, these powers are fostered and cultivated, they may, and probably will, be dominant throughout his life.  And herein lies the dignity and glory of the unappreciated, underpaid, and overworked teachers of our “lower” schools, that they have the opportunity to cultivate these moral powers of the child during these most critical years of his life.  Repression or neglect here works life-long and irreparable harm.  The young man goes out into the world.  Here “practical” men continually instruct him by precept upon precept, line upon line, that he cannot afford to be generous until he has acquired wealth; that he must first win success for himself, and that he can then help others.  And, unless his character is like pasture-grown oak, he follows and improves upon their teachings. He reverses the sequence of functions. He puts acquisitiveness first and right and sterling honesty and unselfishness second.  For a score or more of years he labors.  At first he honestly intends to build up a strong character and a generous nature just as soon as he can afford to; but for the present he cannot afford it.  If he is to succeed, he must do as others do and walk in the beaten track.  He wins wealth and position, or learning and fame.  He now has the ability and means to help others, but he no longer cares to do so.  Loyalty to truth, sterling honesty—­the genuine, not the conventional counterfeit—­unselfishness, in one word, character, these are plants of slow growth.  They require cultivation by habit through long years.  In his case they have become aborted and incapable of rejuvenescence.  But his rudiment of a moral nature feels twinges of remorse.  He ought not to have reversed the sequence of functions, and he knows it.  But he cannot retrace his steps.  He made the development of character impossible when he made wealth his first and chief aim.  If he has a million dollars he tries to insure his soul by leaving in his will one-tenth to build a church, or, possibly, one-half for foreign missions.  In the latter case he will be held up as a shining example to all the youth of the land, and the churches will ring with his praises.  But what has been the effect of his life on the moral, social capital of the community?  Is the world better or worse for his life?  He has all his life been disseminating the germs of a soul-blight more infectious and deadly than any bodily disease.