90 SCIENTIST 



purely scientific grounds. Decisions of this kind, in which 

 the evidence can never be conclusive in a scientific sense, 

 are characteristic of the world of affairs and require among 

 other things such qualities as courage, steadfastness, and 

 an elusive trait known as good judgment which can be 

 acquired only by general experience. Some of this experi- 

 ence can be gained vicariously by reading about how other 

 people have met their problems in the past. In a former time 

 young Americans prepared themselves for responsible living 

 by mastering the Bible and studying the lives of the ancient 

 Greeks and Romans. Most of us have learned in school that 

 Abraham Lincoln studied Plutarch's Lives by the firelight 

 in his Kentucky cabin, but we are not much encouraged 

 to read him ourselves. Few of us even remember that 

 Plutarch undertook the preparation of his Lives as a com- 

 parative study in moral behavior with the deliberate pur- 

 pose of helping young people to develop better characters. 



There is a general feeling today that standards of conduct 

 are deteriorating and that something should be done to 

 improve them. The recent furor over the Supreme Court's 

 decision about praying in the public schools has revealed 

 the intensity of feeling on this matter, but to some of us 

 it seems largely to have missed the point. The development 

 of good character is not primarily a matter of indulging in 

 routine religious exercise. It is not necessarily a matter of 

 religion at all. Plenty of people with good characters belong 

 to no church, and plenty of people with bad ones have been 

 notable for their formal devotions. 



Much can be learned about the subject, however, by 

 studying the lives of the figures in the Jewish and the 

 Christian Bible and in the books of other great religions. 

 And there is also much to be gained by knowledge of such 

 secular or even pagan characters as Confucius, Marcus 

 Aurelius, and Agamemnon. Biographical and historical 



