36 Education through Nature 



exists in which the weary soul may rest. Herein is 

 the foundation of the religious sentiment. Then, too, 

 the realization of better conditions, such as partial or 

 total relief from the strain and stress of the struggle 

 for existence, which man, in virtue of social effort, is 

 able to bring about, leads to the hope for still better 

 things in the future. It is doubtless from this sense 

 of fatigue and from the sense of relief being brought 

 about by well-directed effort that the hope of a future 

 life of happiness and our ethical and social ideals 

 arise. Whatever tends to ameliorate our condition 

 in this strenuous life, whether the result of modified 

 external conditions or the result of our augmented 

 strength to meet obligations or to overcome difficulties, 

 tends to elevate our ideals and spurs us on in pursuit 

 of better things. These better things are our ideals. 

 It must be self-evident, therefore, that whatever tends 

 to weaken or degrade us whether mentally or physically 

 tends also to lower our ideals and vice versa. Indi- 

 vidual and social decay have their concomitant low 

 ideals. 



Therefore, whatever promotes the normal devel- 

 opment of the individual, body, mind, and soul, in such 

 a way as to enable him to meet successfully that strain 

 and stress which his relation to his fellow beings and 

 to the physical universe brings, tends also to elevate 

 his ideals. Ideals arc not things floating in the air 

 like butterflies to be caught and identified by a name 

 or a symbol, but the promise within us of better things 

 because of our growth towards that which is ideally 

 good. Humanism in its strength had high ideals, 

 but those ideals vanished with the decline and fall. 



High ideals can be used, therefore, as a standard 

 by which to measure the quality and character of 

 development; and it is self-evident that educational 

 influences, whatever they may be, which have the 

 effect of lowering our ideals must be guarded against. 



