HONOR 



2829 



HONOR 



Do what thy manhood bids thee do ; 



From none but self expect applause ; 

 He noblest lives and noblest dies 



Who makes and keeps his self-made laws. 



Cultivating the Sense of Honor. Children 

 can be educated to be honorable in all their 

 actions and to consider themselves disgraced 

 by anything that is mean or cowardly. They 

 should early be taught the lesson that a lie 

 dishonors them, that breaking a promise is 

 equivalent to lying, that violating a confidence 

 is disloyal. 



They should be trained to regard a neglected 

 duty as something dishonorable. The first step 

 in educating children to fidelity in the per- 

 formance of their duties is to hold them re- 

 sponsible for certain simple home tasks, mak- 

 ing it plain that they are being trusted to 

 do the work, and then praising them warmly 

 for faithfulness and promptness. Such respon- 

 sibility and confidence, linked with apprecia- 

 tion, are as flattering and stimulating to chil- 

 dren as to older folks. By following this plan 

 even the boy or girl who is naturally careless 

 and undependable can be "trusted" into a 

 lively sense of honor regarding any work that 

 is undertaken. It is as George Eliot wrote 

 "Those who trust us educate us." 



More and more the "honor system" which 

 has made such excellent records for itself in 

 prison reform work is being put into practice 

 in the general educational process. Parents 

 and teachers are coming to see that it pays to 

 appeal to the child's honor that the child 

 responds more quickly to trust than to 

 coercion. The boy who is put "on his honor" 

 not to cheat in an examination and then freed 

 from distasteful policing as he prepares his 

 paper; the girl who at home is "bound in 

 honor" to speak the truth on all occasions and 

 whose statements are accepted without ques- 

 tion; the pupil who is intrusted with school 

 or personal property and made to feel the con- 

 fidence that is thereby reposed in him all 

 such are receiving practical, everyday lessons in 

 honor. Knowing that they are being implicitly 

 trusted, that there is no danger of being found 

 out and punished, they are ashamed to do the 

 dishonorable things which, under the old plan 

 of suspicion and supervision, might not have 

 caused them a moment's hesitation or worry. 

 Wise, indeed, is the saying of George Mac- 

 Donald, that "to be trusted is a greater com- 

 pliment than to be loved." 



The boy whose early education has laid such 

 a foundation in honor is in a fair way to 



develop into the sort of man to whom the 

 "graft" that pollutes our business and political 

 life stands as a thing unclean; who will neither 

 sell his vote, bargain for favor, scamp his work 

 nor resort to petty trickery and deceit to gain 

 success. He will set too much store by his 

 "honor bright" to be willing to stain it in the 

 slime of corrupt methods. L.M.B. 



Outline on Honor 



Motto : 



"Come what will, I will keep my faith with 

 friend and foe." Lincoln. 

 Essay on Honor: 



(a) The bigness of the term 



(b) Requirements of personal honor 



(c) Official honor and its obligations 



(d) What "national honor" means 

 Biography : 



Cicero Thomas Jefferson 



Mark Twain John Bright 



Sir Walter Scott Abraham Lincoln 



Thomas Babington Benjamin Franklin 



Macaulay Jefferson Davis 



William Penn Alexander Mackenzie 



George Washington 



Poems to Memorize: 



Speech of Polonius to Laertes Shakespeare's 



Hamlet 



The Lost Leader Robert Browning 

 A Short Sermon Alice Gary 

 Supplementary Reading : 

 Regulus Thomas Dale 

 Story of Damon and Pythias 

 The Pied Piper of Hamelin Browning 

 Quotations : 



A hundred years cannot repair a moment's loss 

 of honor. Proverb. 



A thread will tie an honest man better than a 

 rope will do a rogue. Scotch saying. 



Honor is like an island, rugged and without 

 shores ; we can never reenter it once we are on 

 the outside. BOILEAU. 



The air for the wing of the sparrow, 

 The nest for the robin and wren ; 

 But always the path .that is narrow 

 And straight for the children of men. 



ALICE GARY. 



A brave man hazards his life but not his con- 

 science. Proverb. 

 Not gold, but only men can make 



A people great and strong ; 

 Men who, for Truth and Honor's sake, 

 Stand fast and suffer wrong. 



EMERSON. 



Be true to your word, your work, and your 

 friend. 



Our friends see the best in us, and by that very 

 fact call forth the best from us. BLACK. 



To thine own self be true, 

 And it must follow as the night the day, 

 Thou canst not then be false to any man. 



SHAKESPEARE. 



A man dishonored is worse than dead. 



CERVANTES. 



