For it is the concrete that grips and molds.  Our greatest interest and best attention center in persons.  The world is neither formed nor reformed by abstract truths nor by general theories.  Whatever ideals we would impress upon others we must first have realized in ourselves.  What we are often drowns out what we say.  Words and maxims may be misunderstood; character seldom is.  Precepts may fail to impress; personality never does.  God tried through the ages to reveal his purposes to man by means of the law and the prophets, but man refused to heed or understand.  It was only when God had made his thought and plan for man concrete in the person of Jesus of Nazareth that man began to understand.

The first and most difficult requirement of the teacher, therefore, is—­himself, his personality.  He must combine in himself the qualities of life and character he seeks to develop in his pupils.  He must look to his personality as the source of his influence and the measure of his power.  He must be the living embodiment of what he would lead his pupils to become.  He must live the religion he would teach them.  He must possess the vital religious experience he would have them attain.

The building of personality.—­Personality is not born, it is made.  A strong, inspiring personality is not a gift of the gods, nor is a weak and ineffective personality a visitation of Providence.  Things do not happen in the realm of the spiritual any more than in the realm of nature.  Everything is caused.  Personality grows.  It takes its form in the thick of the day’s work and its play.  It is shaped in the crush and stress of life’s problems and its duties.  It gains its quality from the character of the thoughts and acts that make up the common round of experience.  It bears the marks of whatever spiritual fellowship and communion we keep with the Divine.

Professor Dewey tells us that character is largely dependent on the mode of assembling its parts.  A teacher may have a splendid native inheritance, a fine education, and may move in the best social circles, and yet not come to his best in personality.  It requires some high and exalted task in order to assemble the powers and organize them to their full efficiency.  The urge of a great work is needed to make potential ability actual.  Paul did not become the giant of his latter years until he took upon himself the great task of carrying the gospel to the Gentiles.

Our own responsibility.—­It follows then that the building of our personalities is largely in our own hands.  True, the influence of heredity is not to be overlooked.  It is easier for some to develop attractive, compelling qualities than for others.  The raw material of our nature comes with us; is what heredity decrees.  But the finished product bears the stamp of our training and development.  Fate or destiny never takes the reins from our hands.  We are free to shape ourselves largely as we will.