The attitudes aim.—­Life demands goals set ahead for achievement.  It must have clearly defined the “worth whiles” which lead to endeavor.  Along with the knowledge that guides our steps must be the impulses that drive to right action.  Besides knowing what to do there must be inner compelling forces that get things done.  The chief source of our goals and of the driving power within us is what, for want of a better term, we may call our attitudes.

Prominent among our attitudes are the interests, enthusiasms, affections, ambitions, ideals, appreciations, loyalties, standards, and attachments which predominate.  These all have their roots set deep in our emotions; they are the measure of life’s values.  They are the “worth whiles” which give life its quality, and which define the goal for effort.

Chesterton tells us that the most important thing about any man is the kind of philosophy he keeps—­that is to say, his attitudes.  For it is out of one’s attitudes that his philosophy of life develops, and that he settles upon the great aims to which he devotes himself.  It is in one’s attitudes that we find the springs of action and the incentives to endeavor.  It is in attitudes that we find the forces that direct conduct and lead to character.

To train the intellect and store the mind with knowledge without developing a fund of right attitudes to shape the course of action is therefore even fraught with danger.  The men in positions of political power who often misgovern cities or use public office as a means to private gain do not act from lack of knowledge or in ignorance of civic duty; their failure is one of ideals and loyalties; their attitude toward social trust and service to their fellow men is wrong.  The men who use their power of wealth to oppress the poor and helpless, or unfairly exploit the labor of others to their own selfish advantage do not sin from lack of knowledge; their weakness lies in false standards and unsocial attitudes.  Men and women everywhere who depart from paths of honor and rectitude fall more often from the lack of high ideals than because they do not know the better way.

The goal and the motive power in all such cases comes from a false philosophy of life; it is grounded in wrong attitudes.  The education of those who thus misconceive life has failed of one of its chief aims—­to develop right attitudes.  Hence character is wanting.

The conduct, or application, aim.—­The third and ultimate aim of education has been implied in the first two; it is conduct, right living.  This is the final and sure test of the value of what we teach—­how does it find expression in action?  Do our pupils think differently, speak differently, act differently here and now because of what we teach them?  Are they stronger when they meet temptation from day to day?  Are they more sure to rise to the occasion when they confront duty or opportunity?  Are their lives more pure and free from sin?  Do the lessons we teach find expression in the home, in the school, and on the playground?  Is there a real outcome in terms of daily living?