16 MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



not the world's supreme leader taken from the bench of the 

 carpenter ? 



But we should make a great, though common, mistake if we 

 should conclude from these facts that the larger life is a soil in 

 which the masterful virtues cannot grow. This life also has 

 furnished to mankind its share of leaders. The noble families 

 of the nations have had their representatives in the fields where 

 great deeds have been wrought. "Noblesse oblige'' has been 

 not only a cry but a power. We look especially to this life for 

 certain qualities essential to the highest manhood, for what we 

 call the chivalrous qualities, courtesy, refinement, a delicate 

 sense of the respect due to others, toleration, frankness, charity. 

 But these are councils of perfection not fundamental principles, 

 flowers rather than roots of character. A man can have them 

 and not be a leader. The prime, essential, indispensable 

 virtues and qualities which make strong and prevailing man- 

 hood and womanhood are of another order. What are they ? 

 Why do we look for them; why does God himself seem to find 

 them more frequently in some callings than in others; and 

 how can we retain them as life becomes more complex and 

 artificial ? 



2. We shall very soon in this quest, I think, reach the con- 

 clusion that what we call character depends largely on the 

 existence and paramountcy of a few simple primordial virtues 

 which are within the reach of all, not dependent on special gifts 

 or opportunities. They are : 



a) The economic virtues, industry, thrift, sobriety, including 

 also an instinctive and persistent horror of waste, waste of 

 substance, of time, of opportunity, of life, of self. A teacher, 

 an employer of men, can usually pick out those who are fore- 

 ordained to promotion and success. They are those who are 

 toiling upward while their companions loiter and dawdle and 

 sleep. One great advantage which the shepherd lad and the 

 boy from the artisan's family have is that these are virtues of 



