Character Training (Adolescent Period)
Abstract
What is character? There are many answers to that question and upon the answer to it rests the foundations of Christian education. In its primitive meaning the word character signifies a distinctive mark cut or engraved upon a substance. Janet Erskine Stuart, with her usual clearness and lucidity, defines a man of character as one in whom acquired qualities, orderly and consistent, stand out on a background of natural temperament as the result of training and especially of self-discipline. It is the sum total of acquired habits plus natural temperament. It is that which makes a man what he is, John Smith, and no one else."If habits," says Mother Stuart, "are not acquired by training, and temperament alone has its sway in the years of growth, the result is a want of character, or a weak character, showing itself in the various situations of life, inconsistent, variable, unequal to strain, acting on impulse, good or bad, of the moment, lacking the higher qualities of rational discernment and self-control."
Subject Area
Education|Religious education
Recommended Citation
Newton, Margaret Mary, "Character Training (Adolescent Period)" (1931). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI31189701.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI31189701
