In discussing the development of character in children one hears often the question, “Which is the earliest virtue to appear in a child?” People will debate whether it is truthfulness, reverence, kindness, or some other virtue.  All this implies a picture of the child as a tree that sends forth shoots of separate virtues one after another.  But the character desired is not a series of branches, it is rather like a symmetrical tree; it is not certain parts, but it is the whole of a personality.  The development of religious character is not a matter of consciously separable virtues, but is the determination of the trend and quality of the whole life.  Moral training is not a matter of cultivating honesty today, purity tomorrow, and kindness the day after.  Virtues have no separate value.  Character cannot be disintegrated into a list of independent qualities.  We seek a life that, as a whole life, loves and follows truth, goodness, and service.

Sec. 6.  EARLY TENDENCIES

But it is wise to inquire as to those manifestations of a pure and spiritual life which will earliest appear.  One does not need to look far for the answer.  Children are always affectionate; they manifest the possibilities of love.  True, this affection is rooted in physiological experience, based on relations to the mother and on daily propinquity to the rest of the family, but it is that which may be colored by devotion, elevated by unselfish service, and may become the first great, ideal loyalty of the child’s life.  Little boys will fight and girls will quarrel more readily over the question of the merits of their respective parents than over any other issue.  Almost as soon as a child can talk he boasts of the valor of his father, the beauty of his mother.  Here is loyalty at work.  He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as to their superiority, not because they give him food and shelter, but because they are his, because to him they are worthy; in all things they have the worth, the highest good; they are, in person, the virtue of life.  Therefore in fighting for the reputation of his parents he is practicing loyalty to an ideal.

The principle of loyalty is the life-force of virtue; it is like the power that sends the tree toward the heavens, the upthrust of life.  It may be cultivated in a thousand ways.  Provided there is the outreach and upreach of loyalty within and that there is furnished without the worthy object, ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and increase in character, beauty, and strength.

Next to the affectionate idealization of parents and home-folk one of the earliest manifestations of the spirit of loyalty in the child is his desire to have a share in the activities of the home.  He would not only look like those he admires; he would do what they do.  This is more than mere imitation; it is loyalty at work again.  The direction of this tendency is one of the largest opportunities before parents and can make the most important contribution to character.