Approaches to the Development of

Character Proceedings of a Workshop

1st Edition And Medicine Engineering
National Academies Of Sciences
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/approaches-to-the-development-of-character-proceed
ings-of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-engineering-national-academies-of-scie
nces/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Role of Nonpharmacological Approaches to Pain

Management: Proceedings of a Workshop 1st Edition And
Medicine Engineering National Academies Of Sciences

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-role-of-nonpharmacological-
approaches-to-pain-management-proceedings-of-a-workshop-1st-
edition-and-medicine-engineering-national-academies-of-sciences/

The Drug Development Paradigm in Oncology Proceedings

of a Workshop 1st Edition And Medicine Engineering
National Academies Of Sciences

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-drug-development-paradigm-in-
oncology-proceedings-of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-
engineering-national-academies-of-sciences/

Predictive Theoretical and Computational Approaches for

Additive Manufacturing Proceedings of a Workshop 1st
Edition And Medicine Engineering National Academies Of
Sciences
https://ebookmeta.com/product/predictive-theoretical-and-
computational-approaches-for-additive-manufacturing-proceedings-
of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-engineering-national-
academies-of-sciences/

Neuroscience Trials of the Future Proceedings of a

Workshop 1st Edition And Medicine Engineering National
Academies Of Sciences

https://ebookmeta.com/product/neuroscience-trials-of-the-future-
proceedings-of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-engineering-
national-academies-of-sciences/
Workforce Development and Intelligence Analysis for
National Security Purposes Proceedings of a Workshop
1st Edition And Medicine Engineering National Academies
Of Sciences
https://ebookmeta.com/product/workforce-development-and-
intelligence-analysis-for-national-security-purposes-proceedings-
of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-engineering-national-
academies-of-sciences/

Enabling Precision Medicine The Role of Genetics in

Clinical Drug Development Proceedings of a Workshop 1st
Edition And Medicine Engineering National Academies Of
Sciences
https://ebookmeta.com/product/enabling-precision-medicine-the-
role-of-genetics-in-clinical-drug-development-proceedings-of-a-
workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-engineering-national-academies-
of-sciences/

Communicating Clearly about Medicines Proceedings of a

Workshop 1st Edition And Medicine Engineering National
Academies Of Sciences

https://ebookmeta.com/product/communicating-clearly-about-
medicines-proceedings-of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-
engineering-national-academies-of-sciences/

Revisiting the Manufacturing USA Institutes:

Proceedings of a Workshop 1st Edition And Medicine
Engineering National Academies Of Sciences

https://ebookmeta.com/product/revisiting-the-manufacturing-usa-
institutes-proceedings-of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-
engineering-national-academies-of-sciences/

Improving the American Community Survey: Proceedings of

a Workshop 1st Edition And Medicine Engineering
National Academies Of Sciences

https://ebookmeta.com/product/improving-the-american-community-
survey-proceedings-of-a-workshop-1st-edition-and-medicine-
engineering-national-academies-of-sciences/
 APPROACHES TO THE

Development of Character

Proceedings of a Workshop

Alexandra Beatty, Rapporteur

Board on Testing and Assessment

Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and

Education
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

This activity was supported by Grant No. 7717 from the S.D. Bechtel,
Jr. Foundation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or
recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily
reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support
for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-45557-2

International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-45557-X
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/24684
Epub ISBN: 978-0-309-45560-2

Additional copies of this publication are available for sale from the
National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Keck 360,
Washington, DC 20001; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313; http://w
ww.nap.edu/.

Copyright 2017 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights

reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,

and Medicine. (2017). Approaches to the Development of Character:
Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press. https://doi: 10.17226/24684
The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by
an Act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private,
nongovernmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to
science and technology. Members are elected by their peers for
outstanding contributions to research. Dr. Marcia McNutt is
president.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964

under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to bring the
practices of engineering to advising the nation. Members are elected
by their peers for extraordinary contributions to engineering. Dr. C.
D. Mote, Jr., is president.

The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of

Medicine) was established in 1970 under the charter of the National
Academy of Sciences to advise the nation on medical and health
issues. Members are elected by their peers for distinguished
contributions to medicine and health. Dr. Victor J. Dzau is president.

The three Academies work together as the National Academies of

Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide independent,
objective analysis and advice to the nation and conduct other
activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy
decisions. The National Academies also encourage education and
research, recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and
increase public understanding in matters of science, engineering,
and medicine.

Learn more about the National Academies of Sciences,

Engineering, and Medicine at www.national-academies.org.
Reports document the evidence-based consensus of an authoring
committee of experts. Reports typically include findings, conclusions,
and recommendations based on information gathered by the
committee and committee deliberations. Reports are peer reviewed
and are approved by the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine.

Proceedings chronicle the presentations and discussions at a

workshop, symposium, or other convening event. The statements
and opinions contained in proceedings are those of the participants
and have not been endorsed by other participants, the planning
committee, or the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine.

For information about other products and activities of the National

Academies, please visit nationalacademies.org/whatwedo.
 COMMITTEE ON DEFINING AND MEASURING
CHARACTER AND CHARACTER EDUCATION: A
WORKSHOP

DEBORAH VANDELL (Chair), School of Education, University of

California, Irvine
CATHERINE BRADSHAW, Curry School of Education, University of
Virginia
LUCY FRIEDMAN, The After-School Corporation, New York
ELLEN GANNET, National Institute on Out-of-School Time,
Wellesley College
STEPHANIE JONES, Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University
RICHARD M. LERNER, Institute for Applied Research in Youth
Development, Tufts University
VELMA McBRIDE MURRY, Peabody College of Education and
Human Development, Vanderbilt University
JENNIFER BROWN URBAN, College of Education and Human
Services, Montclair State University

ALEXANDRA BEATTY, Study Director

PATRICIA MORISON, Acting Board Director, Board on Testing and
Assessment
KELLY ARRINGTON, Senior Program Assistant
 BOARD ON TESTING AND ASSESSMENT

DAVID J. FRANCIS (Chair), Texas Institute for Measurement,

Evaluation, and Statistics, University of Houston
MARK DYNARSKI, Pemberton Research, LLC, East Windsor, New
Jersey
JOAN HERMAN, National Center for Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student Testing, University of California, Los
Angeles
SHARON LEWIS, Council of Great City Schools, Washington, DC
BRIAN STECHER, Pardee RAND Graduate School, RAND
Corporation, Santa Monica, California
JOHN ROBERT WARREN, Department of Sociology, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis

PATRICIA MORISON, Acting Director

 Acknowledgments

This Proceedings of a Workshop has been reviewed in draft form by

individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical
expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide
candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making
its published Proceedings of a Workshop as sound as possible and to
ensure that the Proceedings of a Workshop meets institutional
standards for clarity, objectivity, and responsiveness to the charge.
The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to
protect the integrity of the process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this
Proceedings of a Workshop: Catherine Bradshaw, Research and
Faculty Development, Curry School of Education, University of
Virginia; Ellen S. Gannett, National Institute on Out-of-School Time,
Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College; and Patrick H.
Tolan, Youth-Nex, Center to Promote Effective Youth Development,
Curry School of Education, University of Virginia.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many
constructive comments and suggestions, they did not see the final
draft of the Proceedings of a Workshop before its release. The
review of this Proceedings of a Workshop was overseen by
Christopher Cross, Cross & Joftus, Danville, California.
 He was responsible for making certain that an independent
examination of this Proceedings of a Workshop was carried out in
accordance with institutional procedures and that all review
comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final
content of this Proceedings of a Workshop rests entirely with the
rapporteur and the institution.
 Contents

1 Introduction

2 What Is Character?: Moving Beyond Definitional

Differences
Character as a Multifaceted Developmental System
Perspectives on Psychology, Context, and Culture
Discussion

3 Views of What Works in Developing Character

Themes from Research
Perspectives on Key Ingredients

4 Investing in Implementation and Evaluation

Essentials of Program Implementation
Advancing Evaluation
Perspectives from Practice
Discussion

5 Developing a High-Quality Staff

The Out-of-School-Time Workforce
Culture, Context, and Supportive Relationships
Discussion
6 Measuring Character
Methodological Issues
Perspectives on Measurement Challenges

7 Workshop Themes
Participant Perspectives on Key Questions
Closing Thoughts

References

Appendixes

A Workshop Agenda
B Participant List
C Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and
Presenters
D Worksheet for Breakout Sessions
 1

Introduction

The development of character is a valued objective for many kinds of

educational programs that take place both in and outside of school.
Educators, parents, and others create and support structured
programs and lessons that engage students in academics, sports,
service, and other activities with the aim of developing or
strengthening positive behaviors, attitudes, values, and attributes.
Programs that pursue this kind of learning may describe what they
do as character education; positive youth development; or the
development of social and emotional learning, interpersonal and
intrapersonal competencies, or noncognitive skills. These terms are
not interchangeable, but there is overlap among them: They
encompass a range of skills and attributes that students need to
flourish in school, the workplace, and their personal lives, such as
the capacity to manage their emotions, set and achieve positive
goals, feel and show empathy, maintain positive relationships, and
make sound decisions. This loosely defined set of skills and
attributes is referred to in this document as “character.”
 Educators and administrators who develop and run programs that
seek to develop character recognize that the established approaches
for doing so have much in common, and they are eager to learn
about promising practices used in other settings, evidence of
effectiveness, and ways to measure the effectiveness of their own
approaches. The available research has been sparse and often
focused only on one kind of character or development, but recent
work has helped to identify commonalities in the literature that can
advance understanding of how character might be defined and
developed and how outcomes might be measured.
With the support of the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop
in July 2016 to review research and practice relevant to the
development of character, with a particular focus on ideas that can
support the adults who develop and run out-of-school programs. The
Committee on Defining and Measuring Character and Character
Education was appointed to plan the workshop. The charge to the
committee—whose members have expertise in research and practice
in character education, including research and program development
directly related to character education, program evaluation and
measurement, and cognitive and developmental psychology—is
shown in Box 1-1.

BOX 1-1
Committee Statement of Task
The committee will plan a two-day workshop to review the
literature on character education, help define character
education, identify promising practices from the research on
character education, and explore the challenges of and
opportunities for measuring character and the efficacy of
character education programs. The workshop will emphasize
character education programs outside the regular school day,
 and will include a focus on enhancing adults’ capacity to
develop young people’s character.

The committee recognized that there are many definitions of

character and many ways of describing the objectives for programs
that aim to help young people develop positive attributes. The
committee members noted that while good character is in one sense
easy to recognize—in people who are responsible, honorable, and
emotionally healthy, for example—the words used to describe it may
seem to imply stances on complex questions. For example, some
people who study these issues use the tools of biology and
psychology to understand individual differences, whereas others
focus on questions of culture, gender, and power relationships to
explore the roles young people are asked to emulate.
A thorough exploration of these complex issues was beyond the
scope of the workshop. The committee focused on obtaining an
overview of the available academic research and structuring
discussions with presenters who reflected a variety of expertise and
perspectives. The committee members had the goal of meeting the
needs of practitioners, particularly those involved in out-of-school
programs, and of encouraging researchers and practitioners to learn
from one another.1 The committee designed the workshop to explore
four themes:

defining and understanding character,

identifying what works in developing character,
implementing development strategies and evaluating outcomes,
and
measuring character.

BOX 1-2

Papers Commissioned for the Workshop

 Marvin W. Berkowitz, Melinda C. Bier, and Brian McCauley,
Effective Features and Practices that Support Character
Development

Noel A. Card, Methodological Issues in Measuring the

Development of Character

Nancy Deutsch, Construct(ion) and Context: A Response to

Methodological Issues in Studying Character

Joseph Durlak, What You HAVE to Know About Program

Implementation

Clark McKown, Promises and Perils of Assessing Character and

Social and Emotional Learning

Deborah A. Moroney, The Readiness of the Out-of-School-Time

Workforce to Intentionally Support Participants’ Social and
Emotional Development: A Review of the Literature and Future
Directions

Larry Nucci, Character: A Multi-faceted Developmental System

William M. Trochim and Jennifer Brown Urban, Advancing

Evaluation of Character Building Programs

NOTE: The papers are available at http://sites.nationalacademie

s.org/DBASSE/BOTA/DBASSE_171735 [November 2016].

The committee commissioned eight papers (see Box 1-2) and

planned sessions that allowed participants ample time to engage
with the authors and one another, and to consider ways the material
presented could apply in their own work.2 Structured breakout
sessions allowed participants to reflect in detail on the ideas
presented. (Appendix D is a worksheet used in these sessions.)
This proceedings document, prepared by the workshop rapporteur,
summarizes the presentations and discussions that took place. The
planning committee’s role was limited to planning and convening the
workshop. The views contained in this document are those of
individual workshop participants and do not necessarily represent
the views of all workshop participants, the planning committee, or
the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
This document follows the structure of the workshop. Chapter 2 is
an overview of research on the nature of character and a discussion
of themes that transcend its varied definitions. Chapter 3
summarizes a range of ideas on what practices and approaches are
most effective in developing character, and Chapter 4 focuses on the
importance of implementing program goals effectively and
evaluating the results. Chapter 5 delves deeper into one key aspect
of effective program implementation, a high-quality staff. Chapter 6
is an exploration of the technical challenges of measuring character.
Chapter 7 summarizes individual participants’ perspectives on the
primary workshop themes.

__________________
1 Because the workshop focused on out-of-school programs, the emphasis fell
more on older children and adolescents than very young children.
2 The workshop agenda, a list of participants, and brief biographical sketches for
the committee members and presenters can be found in Appendixes A, B, and C.
The commissioned papers and an archived video of all sessions can be found at
the project website, http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/BOTA/DBASSE_17
1735 [September 2016].
 2

What Is Character? Moving Beyond

Definitional Differences

Although there are many definitions of character, adults can best help
young people develop it if they have a clear idea of what it is and what it
is not, moderator Richard Lerner commented in introducing a discussion
of the nature of character. While “character” is a word with wide
application in everyday language, he emphasized, efforts to develop it in
young people are focused on something that is “not a trait but a
developmental phenomenon.” A person’s character is “not fixed by genes,”
he added, but is one outcome of his or her context and experiences. The
session began with a synthesis of scholarship on moral reasoning and
character presented by Larry Nucci of the University of California,
Berkeley, who also proposed a model for understanding the nature of
character. Follow-up discussion was anchored by reflections from Robert
McGrath of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Kristina Schmid Callina of Tufts
University, and Carola Suárez-Orozco of the University of California, Los
Angeles.
 CHARACTER AS A MULTIFACETED
DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEM
Even skeptics of the idea of character have a sense of what Martin
Luther King, Jr., meant when he spoke of looking forward to the day when
his “children would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character,”1 Nucci observed. Though King identified
character as the central consideration in evaluating an individual, Nucci
added, social scientists and educators do not have a shared definition of
it, and indeed some have questioned whether the idea of character has
value as a subject of research. Nucci provided a review of past critiques
and analysis of the idea of character and proposed his own framework for
thinking about character, which synthesizes elements from this diverse
literature. In his view, character is best understood as a multifaceted
developmental system rather than a set of traits a person might have. He
suggested an approach for both studying and assessing character that
draws on multiple analytical methods.

Critiques of Traditional Views of Character

Traditional understandings of character have often consisted of a set of
qualities—such as honesty, fairness, and compassion—that are defined in
a particular cultural context as worth developing in young people, Nucci
noted. Lists of traditional virtues are often linked to religious or
philosophical traditions but generally lack coherence as definitions, and
primarily reflect social mores rather than any rigorous conceptual
framework, Nucci explained. Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg belittled this
approach to defining character as no more than identifying a “bag of
virtues,” he added (Kohlberg and Mayer, 1972). Moreover, there are many
candidates for a list of key virtues, and formal lists developed by
educators and others may have very little overlap (Lapsely, 1996).
Nucci observed that current lines of research could be described as
offering an updated bag of virtues, as the list of recent character-related
studies in Table 2-1 suggests. In the same vein, Nucci added, the John
Templeton Foundation, a leading funder of character-related work, looks
for projects that promote a set of qualities that include “awe, creativity,
curiosity, diligence, entrepreneurialism, forgiveness, future-mindedness,
generosity, gratitude, honesty, humility, joy, love, purpose, reliability, and
thrift.”2
Another critique of defining character in terms of virtues is that
individuals tend not to demonstrate them consistently, Nucci continued,
which undermines the idea that these virtues can be enduring elements of
an individual’s character. Studies conducted as early as the 1920s, he
noted, demonstrated that people may behave honestly in some contexts
and dishonestly in others (Hartshorne and May, 1928).
Kohlberg (1984) proposed a model for understanding character that
would be more coherent than the bag of virtues. He argued that,
regardless of cultural context, individuals move through stages in their
capacity for moral judgment toward an ideal state in which they base their
decisions on principles of justice and fairness. This idea has also been
criticized, Nucci noted, but the idea that human beings share a concern
for justice and the welfare of others is still widely accepted. Nucci agreed
that the concern is universal and commented that “any meaningful notion
of character has to place morality at the center.” Many of the character
attributes that have been highlighted in recent research, he explained,
such as grit or social and emotional intelligence, might be deployed for
either positive or negative goals: These traits contributed to the practical
success of the Nazis or members of ISIS, for example. Such traits may be
important in the pursuit of personal and social benefits, such as success in
school or career, but do not in themselves lead to moral or immoral
actions. Performance itself, he added, “is not a sufficient indicator of a
person’s character.”

TABLE 2-1 Elements of Character Targeted by Recent Research

Character Element Recent Research
Gratitude Emmons, 2009; Tudge, Frietas, and
O’Brien, 2015
Hope Snyder, 2002
Grit Duckworth, 2016
Compassionate love Fehr, Sprecher, and Underwood, 2009
Empathy Gordon, 2005
Mindfulness Roeser et al., 2014
Awe Keltner and Haidt, 2003
Character Element Recent Research
Purpose Damon, 2009
Happiness Seligman, 2004
SOURCE: Nucci (2016).

Some researchers who study moral education have moved away from
the term “character,” Nucci explained, and use the terms “moral self” or
“moral identity” instead. These terms refer not to a set of traits, he
explained, but a system that is a component of an individual’s overall
sense of self. This overall sense of self includes the individual’s sense of
agency, unique personal identity, gender and ethnic identity, and sense of
him or herself as a productive member of family and society. The
character system that operates within that larger system, he explained,
consists of the interactions among elements of the self, such as self-
regulation or executive control.
Many scholars of moral education have studied well-known individuals
who seem to exemplify moral behavior, on the theory that morality is
more central to their sense of self than it is for others. It turns out,
however, that a close examination of such individuals’ lives shows that
these individuals are not very different from other people, Nucci
explained. The behavior of Thomas Jefferson, who, despite being the
author of the Declaration of Independence, fathered several children with
his slave Sally Hemings and never granted her freedom, illustrates this
point. With the exception of the 1 to 3 percent of the population who are
psychopaths, Nucci said, “all people care about morality, and also care
about how they view themselves as moral people.” Differences in how
central morality is to an individual’s self-identity have not been found to
be helpful in explaining differences in behavior, he added.
The idea that people behave morally because it is important to them to
be able to “view themselves as moral beings,” Nucci explained, “reduces
morality to self-interest” and does not account for people’s judgment
about what is a moral choice in a given situation. Other factors play an
important part in people’s judgments, he explained, such as their readings
of social situations and their capacity to regulate their emotions and social
behavior. Indeed, he added, individuals who view their morality as central
to their self-identity may veer into moral zealotry.
 Character as a Dynamic System
The most useful focus for character development, in Nucci’s view, is
moral agency, the capacity to base one’s actions on goals and beliefs
about morality. The development of moral agency begins in childhood, he
explained, as children make sense of the consequences of their own and
others’ actions, and can be disrupted by trauma or violence. Moral agency
is not a fixed attribute, Nucci explained, but an element in a complex
system of the self that continuously interacts with the other elements, as
illustrated in Figure 2-1. Thus character, he noted, is “not a finished
product—it is continuously evolving.”
More specifically, Nucci went on, character consists in interactions
between an individual and the context: each influences the other.
Individuals do not have virtues that exist independent of their choices and
actions within particular contexts, and they demonstrate character by
behaving coherently across varied situations, rather than consistently
displaying a particular trait or set of traits.

Components of the Character System

Based on this understanding, Nucci identified four components (shown

in Figure 2-1) of the character system, which in turn is part of the larger
self-system:

moral cognition,
emotional development or moral mental health,
performance, and
moral (critical) social engagement.
 FIGURE 2-1 The self system.
SOURCE: Nucci (2016).

The first three components, he noted, correspond to components

identified by others (Sokol, Hammond, and Berkowitz, 2010), but he
added the fourth in order to include the ways an individual interacts with
his or her social context.

Component 1: Moral Cognition

The essence of character is the willful decision to act morally, Nucci
observed. Some moral decisions may require little deliberation while
others require careful weighing of competing considerations, but they are
not accidental or instinctive. Researchers have distinguished moral
judgments, which concern issues such as the welfare of others, fairness,
or rights, from two other factors that affect decision making: social
conventions (norms established by consensus or authority in in a
particular social system) and factors related to personal choice and
privacy.
Nucci illustrated the distinction between acting according to moral
judgment and acting according to convention using an interview with a 4-
year-old girl conducted as part of his research; the transcripts are shown
in Boxes 2-1 and 2-2. The girl can clearly distinguish between a
convention and a moral judgment, he noted.
Nucci and his colleagues have also examined the role of organized
religion in moral judgments by interviewing young people and adults from
different faith traditions about their views of moral issues. For example,
they asked children from an Amish community in Indiana whether it
would be wrong or right to remove a rule prohibiting particular actions.
Nearly all the children interviewed reported that it would be wrong to
remove rules against actions with a clear moral component, such as
stealing or hitting, but significantly fewer reported that it would be wrong
to change rules regarding nonmoral issues, such as worshipping on a
particular day of the week.

BOX 2-1
Child’s Reasoning about a Moral Issue

Did you see what happened? Yes. They were playing and John hit
him too hard.

Is that something you are supposed to do or not supposed to do?

Not so hard to hurt.

Is there a rule about that? Yes.

What is the rule? You’re not to hit hard.

What if there were no rule about hitting hard, would it be all right to
do then? No.

Why not? Because he could get hurt and start to cry.

 SOURCE: Nucci (2016).

BOX 2-2
Child’s Reasoning about a Conventional Issue

Did you see what just happened? Yes. They were noisy.

Is that something you are supposed to do or not supposed to do?

Not do.

Is there a rule about that? Yes. We have to be quiet.

What if there were no rule, would it be all right to do then? Yes.

Why? Because there is no rule.

SOURCE: Nucci (2016).

When asked for their reasons, the children were most likely to cite
“God’s law,” Nucci explained, as the reason it would be wrong to change
rules about moral issues, but they also cited other reasons, such as the
welfare of others and fairness. The children were also asked to consider
whether their answers would be different if God had not given a rule for
either the moral or nonmoral issues. Virtually none of the children
responded that the nonmoral rules should be changed, but significant
proportions still argued that it would be wrong to change moral rules,
such as those against stealing or hitting, even if God had not said
anything about these actions. In those cases, the children’s judgments
were focused on the impacts of the actions on other people.
Judgments about right and wrong, Nucci concluded, reflect an
individual’s capacity to negotiate three domains: the moral, the
conventional, and the personal. Each domain puts varying demands on an
individual over time, just as an individual’s priorities shift over time. An
individual’s priorities are also affected by the facts and information he or
she has and the assumptions he or she makes about that information. For
example, a person who assumes a human egg is a person may
accordingly view abortion as an immoral act of murder, while a person
who does not view the egg as a person will disagree. Science, religious
belief, and cultural traditions all contribute to such assumptions, Nucci
added, and thus critical thinking also plays a part in morality.
Individuals develop in each of the attributes that contribute to moral
judgment, Nucci went on, but there are no defined stages of development
in people’s capacity to coordinate competing considerations in complex
social situations. Nor is there an end point, he added—a stage at which
people have the wisdom to apply moral principles in all contexts,
regardless of competing nonmoral considerations. In other words, Nucci
noted, “moral judgments are inexorably bound up in context, and this
makes the assessment of moral growth and the identification of character
more challenging.”

Component 2: Emotional Development or Moral Mental Health

Moral mental health, Nucci explained, consists of the capacity for
empathy, the ability to accurately read the emotions of others, and a
sense of moral agency. It is these capacities that allow humans to make
judgments about what might harm others—and these capacities can be
undermined by exposure to a variety of deficiencies or harm in childhood.
Educational programs designed to foster children’s capacity for social and
emotional learning and to regulate their own behavior, Nucci explained,
have often been aimed at overcoming such deficiencies, but these efforts
can also optimize moral mental health in all children. Nucci used the term
“moral wellness” to convey the idea that maintaining the character system
is an ongoing activity rather than a status or state that can be achieved.
Nucci noted that social and emotional learning fit in this component
because they are essential to moral functioning but do not in themselves
lead to moral behaviors.

Component 3: Performance
Character entails not only the capacity to recognize the right thing to do
but also “the propensity to act on that judgment,” Nucci explained. Doing
the right thing often comes at a cost, he went on, and in some cases the
cost may be so high that it is completely rational to “prioritize self-interest
over the morally right thing to do.” Nucci cited as an example cases in
which child soldiers are ordered to take immoral actions and face dire
consequences for refusing to obey. Acting on moral judgments is not
simply a matter of willpower or motivation, Nucci argued. Behaving in a
moral fashion even when doing so competes with other goals requires a
capacity for self-regulation and executive function (the processes that
allow people to control their own behavior). Recent work on grit, defined
as the capacity to both feel passion for a long-term goal and persevere in
pursuing it (Duckworth, 2016), suggests that it may be an important
element of the capacity to act morally. For example, grit might help to
explain individuals’ commitment to addressing injustices despite extreme
challenges, but does not in itself account for the moral thinking that led to
that commitment, he noted.

Component 4: Moral (Critical) Social Engagement

The first three components of character describe the development of an
individual who will “operate morally in everyday life,” Nucci commented.
They do not, however, account for the reality that a person of character
might function morally but nevertheless tolerate living within a culture or
society that is structurally unequal, or practices, such as slavery, that are
immoral. “This is no idle concern,” Nucci added. It would be difficult to
support an argument that people who lived during the time slavery was
legal in the United States were less moral than people today, he noted,
when one considers the injustices and inequality that are tolerated today.
At the same time, however, individuals, including children, have across
history and cultural context demonstrated the capacity to critically
evaluate moral situations and to resist and protest unfair social practices.
Nucci proposed as the fourth component of character the capacity to
take a critical moral stance: to recognize both that one’s own moral
perspective may be faulty and that societal norms may be at odds with
fairness and respect for human welfare. Most notions of character, Nucci
went on, have been focused on the development and functioning of the
individual, without explicit regard for the individual’s position within the
larger social network. This focus leaves out the impact of sociopolitical
factors on the individual’s development, and also the ways in which
individuals can bring about social change. Nucci suggested that the
capacity to contribute to “principled moral change in the social system” or
“civic virtue” is another element of character. This fourth component of
character, Nucci observed, may be linked to a sense of purpose, a set of
personal goals that give an individual’s life meaning and direction
(Damon, 2009), in that such goals often relate to the pursuit of social
justice.
Character is not a collection of virtues or traits, Nucci reminded
participants, but “a system that enables the person to engage the social
world as a moral agent.” Researchers may study particular components of
character, he added, but reducing character to any one of them would be
an error. The core of it is “morality defined in terms of fairness and human
welfare.” Efforts to assess character that center on measuring the degree
of a particular trait an individual has, for example, are not useful, he
argued. More useful, he suggested, would be to assess the components of
the character system—social and emotional learning, moral reasoning,
and moral mental health—in much the same way that a physician would
assess the various aspects of a child’s physical growth and development.
This might be done using questionnaires, interviews, and observations,
Nucci suggested, but he also noted that further developments in
understanding of moral development and moral functioning in a social
context would be needed for such approaches to be practical.
Nucci used a quotation from Theodore Roosevelt to emphasize the vital
importance of this work: “To educate a man [person] in mind and not in
morals is to educate a menace to society.”

PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGY, CONTEXT, AND

CULTURE
Three presenters who reflected different academic traditions were
asked to respond to Nucci’s paper.

A Positive Psychology Perspective

Robert McGrath said he was particularly struck by one point in Nucci’s
argument: that virtue, like the concepts of race and gender, is primarily a
social construction.3 He agrees, he commented, with the idea that all
psychosocial concepts are to some extent social constructions. Certainly
there is strong evidence, he added, that categories of race are entirely
social constructions. Regarding both gender and virtue, however, he
suggested, there are more questions. Ideas about gender have changed
dramatically in the past few decades, he observed, noting that the
Commission on Human Rights in New York City, which investigates claims
of gender discrimination, now recognizes more than 30 gender identities.
However, in his view, though the concepts of “man” and “woman” reflect
shifting cultural ideas and expectations, they seem also to reflect
something inherent and essential. Similarly, he believes it is important to
consider whether virtue is purely a construction or whether there is an
objective and universal truth that underlies its structure, even though it is
socially malleable.

TABLE 2-2 Alternative Lists of Key Virtues

SOURCE: McGrath (2016).

McGrath showed his own compilation of lists of virtues—see Table 2-2—

agreeing with Nucci that such lists have “been all over the place.” His list
—a sampling of virtues identified by philosophers from Plato and Aristotle
to writers who are alive today—is by no means complete, he added.
Philosopher David Hume, for example, listed more than 70 virtues and
said there could be thousands more. Another philosopher, Daniel Russell,
referred to the challenge of identifying key virtues as “the enumeration
problem.” The fact that people through history have made up their own
long lists, and that many virtues—such as courtesy or piety—clearly reflect
particular times and places, seem to be evidence for viewing character as
a social construction, McGrath commented.
 There are several reasons not to accept that position, in McGrath’s view.
First, if character is no more than a product of cultural context, then there
is no logical way to critique the “bag of virtues” construction—there would
be no conceptual framework to replace it. Second, if ideas of character
and virtue are entirely socially constructed, virtue education would be no
more than a method for convincing people to comply with whichever
social conventions have priority in a particular time and place. Third, a
purely convention-based list of virtues could be expanded indefinitely. “If
one purpose of a virtue list is to provide guidance for personal growth, the
longer the list, the less useful it is,” McGrath pointed out.
McGrath offered his perspective on the essential nature of character,
which he believes complements Nucci’s arguments well. Figure 2-2 shows
the VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues, developed by the VIA
Institute on Character, a nonprofit organization.4 The model, McGrath
explained, is based on research in positive psychology and is an effort to
develop a comprehensive picture of character.5 The model identifies six
universal virtues, shown in the left-hand column, and 24 strengths that
everyone has in some degree.
FIGURE 2-2 The VIA classification of strengths and virtues.
SOURCE: http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths/VIA-Classific
ation# {March 2017].
TABLE 2-3 Parallels Among Competencies

SOURCE: McGrath (2016).

McGrath has studied these 24 character strengths with the goal of

understanding the relationship between abstract principles of a well-lived
life and elements of character. He has used factor analysis and other
statistical techniques to try to identify a set of key strengths, or
constructs. He acknowledged that the set would not be definitive but
hoped to use these methods to better understand the underlying
principles that are essential in character. Questionnaires about the 24
strengths are available on the VIA website and have been completed by
millions of adults and adolescents located around the world. He and his
colleagues have examined samples of these responses. Three factors—
caring, inquisitiveness, and self-control—emerged as meaningful to people
across these samples. While other terms could have been used for these
three values, they correspond closely to strengths or competencies
identified in other contexts, as the examples in Table 2-3 illustrate.
McGrath believes there are strong reasons for viewing these three
strengths as essential or universal virtues, but he also acknowledged the
importance of social context, which continually redefines what is meant by
these essential virtues. For example, both the invention of the printing
press and the development of the Internet brought radically new contexts
for human inquisitiveness. McGrath suggested that these three strengths
are necessary elements of character but not sufficient. Virtues and
strengths interact, he said, noting that this idea goes back at least to
Aristotle, who argued that people who have the wisdom to develop one
virtue logically therefore possess other virtues (this is the thesis of
“reciprocity of virtue”). Character education that focuses on only one
virtue or strength, however important, is insufficient, in his view. In
teaching people about virtue, he concluded, “we need to recognize that
people have personal, interpersonal, and cultural values and that together
these three contribute to a life well lived.” In his view, effective character
development must include teaching young people to “be caring without
the expectation of benefit, to be questioning without a crisis, and to be
disciplined without structure.”

Studying the Interactions Between Character and

Context
Kristina Schmid Callina drew on her experience with research in
developmental psychology focused on positive youth development to offer
observations about how character can be developed. Her work has been
based in a relational developmental systems theoretical perspective, she
explained. The premise of this research perspective is that in order to
understand any developmental phenomenon, including character, it is
important to recognize the reciprocal influences that individuals and their
contexts have on one another.
The relational developmental systems perspective moves beyond the
idea of “nature versus nurture,” Schmid Callina explained. Instead of
weighing the respective influences of an individual’s inherent nature and
the experiences he or she has from birth, researchers posit that
development cannot be reduced to any one causal explanation—to
particular traits or socialization experiences. The relational developmental
systems perspective provides a holistic way to understand character
development as an element in a complex developmental system like that
represented in the bio-ecological model developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner
(1979), shown in Figure 2-3.
What does this mean for the study of character? Character is
contextually defined, Schmid Callina said. It is a function of the
continuous mutually reinforcing relationship between the individual and
his or her context. She agreed with the idea Nucci had expressed in his
paper, that a notion of character as a set of virtues that might “exist
independent of their enactment in a particular context [is] meaningless
(p. 9).” Any assessment of character must account in some way for the
interactions between the person and the context, she added.

FIGURE 2-3 An ecological model of human development developed by Urie

Bronfenbrenner.
SOURCE: Santrock (2007).

Across time and place, good character reflects the coherence of an

individual’s behavior—how reliably he or she displays “the right virtue, in
the right amount, at the right time,” in Aristotle’s words. The attributes
needed might vary according to circumstances, Schmid Callina noted, so
what is critical is coherence, not consistency. Focusing on the idea that
character traits are fixed, or on the importance of single traits, will likely
prevent one from seeing the coherence in an individual’s actions.
Schmid Callina described a study of character and leadership
development among cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point,
called Project Arete, to illustrate how ideas about the importance of
context and coherence can be used to evaluate character development.
The most common method of evaluating character development curricula,
she noted, has been to assess particular strengths in young people and
then compare their scores from before and after completing the program.
This approach often fails to integrate the idea of coherence.
Specifically, such evaluations examine average group differences on
particular character attributes, rather than the individual’s relationship
with the developmental system, Schmid Callina explained. They do not
examine the individual’s developmental pathways or interactions with his
or her context, which would provide insight about character development.
To explore character development among West Point cadets, she
explained, one might examine the attributes they bring that make them
more likely to develop as leaders of character, or what about the West
Point experience influences their character development. These are
important, she noted, but to focus just on individual attributes, or on
characteristics of the program, as components is to overlook their
interactions. More useful, she explained, is to examine which features of
the program promote which attributes among cadets at a particular time
and place.
One challenge in examining individual pathways to development, she
explained, is that standard approaches to statistical analysis in the social
sciences tend to focus on differences between people rather than changes
within individuals.6 Integration of multiple methods of qualitative and
quantitative research is needed, Schmid Callina noted, to effectively
analyze changes within individuals and then aggregate such findings to
yield broader conclusions about character development. “Person-centered
analysis is critical,” she argued for evaluating programs such as that at
West Point. There are as many different experiences at West Point as
there are cadets, she added, to highlight the importance of using new
approaches to understand them. This is a lively area of research, she
noted in closing, as many new tools are being developed. Such research is
expensive and time consuming, but in her view very promising.
The Influence of Culture and Context on Character
Development
Carola Suárez-Orozco brought the perspective of a cultural
developmental psychologist to the question of how cultural context
influences character development. She said she was struck by the
multitude of definitions of character, she noted, because defining culture
has posed a similar challenge. In the 1950s, anthropologists Alfred
Kroeber and Clyde Kluckoholn articulated the problem and identified 152
definitions of the term. They synthesized from these many definitions five
essentials: values, beliefs, rituals, symbols, and practices. Human values
are at the center, Suárez-Orozco explained, as Figure 2-4 illustrates, and
each of these elements is expressed through humans’ day-to-day
practices.
Anthropologists pay close attention to cultural practices—the routines,
activities, and other things that people do—Suárez-Orozco commented.
These include

language use;
kinship systems;
religious and ritual practices;
economic models;
power structures and hierarchies;
gender expectations;
cultural socialization (child rearing);
dress; and
food.
 FIGURE 2-4 Essential components of culture.
SOURCE: Suárez-Orozco (2016).

Anthropologists also focus on cultural models or belief systems people

develop. It is through such models that members of a culture generally
specify the critical knowledge that is essential in their cultural context, she
explained, and individuals who do not acquire this knowledge are “ruled
out” as competent members of the group. At the heart of cultural models,
as the bullseye in Figure 2-4 illustrates, are values, norms, and ideologies.
Cultures have what anthropologists call “distributed knowledge,” shared
ideas and information that is developed collectively and helps to define
the group. Distributed knowledge is often aligned with religious belief
systems, Suárez-Orozco noted, and is passed down across generations.
Describing a culture is complicated because each has multiple layers,
Suárez-Orozco explained, and as anthropologist Clifford Geertz said,
describing a culture requires “thick descriptions” of symbolic systems and
meanings. However, social scientists too often reduce these complexities
to simplistic categories, describing a society as either collectivist or
individualistic, for example, or speaking in broad terms about nationality
(e.g., American versus Chinese) or ethnicity (Latino versus black or
white). Even speaking of culture as language, ethnicity, and nationality
does not capture the complexity of culture, she observed. But, as John
Berry (1997, p. 27) wrote, “There is no contemporary society in which one
culture, one language, one religion, one single identity characterizes the
whole population.”
Suárez-Orozco used a simplified version of the Bronfenbrenner model
that Schmid Callina had used to show how the experiences of immigrant
children illustrate the intersection of culture, values, and character: see
Figure 2-5. She noted that the more distal elements—those farther
removed from the individual’s daily experience—are often overlooked but
are vitally important to character. For example, economic inequality in the
United States has grown sharply in the last 20 years, as Figure 2-6
illustrates. More children are living in extreme poverty, she noted, and
immigrant children are among those most affected. Moreover, one-quarter
of immigrant children are growing up “under the shadow of
undocumented status,” she added, and 400,000 people are deported
every year, increasing numbers of whom are the parents of children who
are U.S. citizens. Xenophobic stereotypes exacerbate the stress that
immigrant children face, Suárez-Orozco continued.
Suárez-Orozco offered data from research she has done on the civic
participation and social responsibility of young adults of Latino immigrant
origins to illustrate how distal factors may influence the development of
character (Suárez-Orozco, Hernandez, and Casanova, 2015). Latino youth
who are in the first or second generation of their families to live in the
United States are the fastest growing group of young adults in the nation,
she pointed out (Rumbaut and Komaie, 2010). The degree to which these
young adults engage civically will influence the way they develop as
individuals and also influence U.S. society, she added (Lerner, Dowling,
and Anderson, 2003; Stepick, Stepick, and Labissiere, 2008). Suárez-
Orozco and her colleagues explored the degree to which these young
people follow patterns of civic engagement typical in the broader
population, and also sought to understand the values and motivations
that drive them to engage civically.
FIGURE 2-5 Ecological framework.
SOURCE: Suárez-Orozco (2016).

FIGURE 2-6 Income inequality in the United States, 1910 to 2010.

SOURCE: Suárez-Orozco (2016).
 They recruited a sample of 58 young adults of Dominican, Mexican,
Guatemalan, and Salvadoran origin who are first- or second-generation
immigrants living in cities in the Northeast. The participants were asked to
complete questionnaires and to participate in a Q-sort exercise, in which
they ranked their views and values. Figure 2-7 summarizes the
participants’ responses to the task of picking four values (from among 20)
they saw as most associated with the United States, their or their parents’
country of origin, and themselves.
Independence was given a high priority across all three groups, she
noted, but some other values were specifically associated with only one or
two. For example, pursuit of wealth, freedom, and opportunity were
associated with the people of the United States generally, but not the
participants’ countries of origin or themselves. The young adults
associated religion only with their countries of origin, and highlighted
family obligations, helping and serving others, and respect, along with
independence, as important to themselves.

FIGURE 2-7 Q-sort task.

SOURCE: Suárez-Orozco (2016).

Suárez-Orozco and her colleagues also examined the ways in which the
young people choose to be civically engaged. Many are not especially
involved politically, she commented, but many do volunteer, for example,
serving as mentors or translators or taking leadership roles in civic efforts
such as support for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien
Minors (DREAM) Act.7 The young adults studied also showed a propensity
to select civic-minded professions, Suárez-Orozco noted, such as
education, medicine, and the law, and cited the specific goal of giving
back to their communities or those in need. Looking across the study
participants, she added, two-thirds demonstrated “active levels of civic
engagement,” and their primary reasons were a sense of social
responsibility and the desire to rectify a social injustice.
“Culture matters,” Suárez-Orozco concluded. The values that are at the
core of culture, in her view, are key “drivers of character.” However,
understanding the complex relationship between culture and character
requires a deep understanding of a particular population developed using
multimethod approaches. Context also matters, she added, and it is
especially important not to neglect the distal influences.

DISCUSSION
Discussion focused on the “tension between the degree of emphasis
placed on the individual versus the cultural context” that was evident in
the presentations, as one participant put it. The participant pointed out
that, although people are clearly influenced by their cultural environment,
“there is a biological substratum and a genetic influence.” People do have
an unchangeable core of traits that would persist even if they were
transplanted to an entirely new cultural context, he argued.
Nucci responded by acknowledging that each individual does have a
unique identity that is stable, but that reducing character to a set of
immutable traits is “misguided.” Martin Luther King, Jr., he reminded the
group, was both an esteemed moral leader and a “philanderer,” who
presumably was dishonest to family members and others to hide his
infidelity. Thinking about character in terms of coherence—to attempt to
understand how an individual’s internal motivation and reasoning interact
with the circumstances and external influences—is more useful for making
sense of this type of paradox than looking for consistent traits in the
individual, Nucci suggested. “If consistency is the standard, we all fail,” he
pointed out.
 Others turned the discussion to practical implications for character
education. One suggested that focusing on the commitment to be a better
person is a way around the debate over the respective influences of
individual attributes and cultural influences. Programs that help young
people develop character could usefully be viewed as opportunities for
young people to practice acting as people of character, making judgments
about what is right and wrong, and making decisions about how to pursue
concrete goals, this person suggested.

__________________
1 Quoted from his speech delivered August 28, 1963; available at https://kinginstitute.
stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington
-jobs-and-freedom [November, 2016].
2 See https://www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/core-funding-areas/character-virtue-d
evelopment [November 2016].
3 Nucci had included this point in an earlier draft of his paper, which McGrath used in
planning his remarks, but did not include it in his presentation.
4 The model is based on the book Character Strengths and Virtues (Peterson and
Seligman, 2004). See also http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths/VIA-Cl
assification# [December 2016].
5 Positive psychology refers to “the study of the strengths and virtues that enable
individuals, communities, and organizations to thrive” (see http://www.positivepsycholog
yinstitute.com.au/what_is_positive_psychology.html [December 2016]).
6 Schmid Callina recommended The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That
Values Sameness by Todd Rose (2015) for a detailed discussion of these issues.
7 This legislation was first proposed in the United States Senate in 2001 but has not
yet passed.
 3

Views of What Works in Developing

Character

The discussion turned next to the practical challenges of developing

character in young people. Marvin Berkowitz of the University of Missouri,
St. Louis, drew from research on school-based character education to
identify evidence regarding current strategies and principles to guide
educators and program developers. Reed Larson of the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Camille Farrington of the University of
Chicago, and Karen Pittman of the Forum for Youth Investment provided
additional perspectives.

THEMES FROM RESEARCH

Developmental psychology research, Berkowitz noted, suggests that
accepted ideas about effective parenting map directly onto ideas about
educating for character—and that every teacher is in a sense a surrogate
parent. Yet, he suggested, few parents use the sorts of character
development strategies, such as reading or posting inspirational
quotations, hanging posters bearing a single word such as “respect,” or
handing out reward tickets to children “caught” doing something
praiseworthy, that are often found in schools and other settings. “If these
practices are so effective,” he wondered, “why don’t educators use them
with their own children?”
Another way to think about what might be effective in developing
character in young people, Berkowitz added, is to consider how one’s own
positive character traits actually developed. In contrast to Nucci’s view, he
suggested that individuals do have traits such as honesty or being caring
that they display consistently, though not perfectly. Most often, he said,
people asked about how their traits developed report that they worked to
emulate a parent or other role model, or had determined that they would
not have negative traits they saw in their own parents, such as racism or
dishonesty. He has never encountered a person who reported that his or
her character “came from a curriculum or a set of lessons,” he
commented.
Berkowitz defined character as “the complex constellation of
psychological characteristics that motivate and enable individuals to
function as competent moral agents,” noting that his definition is
essentially the same as the one Nucci had used. Character education, in
turn, he defines as “a way of being” through which adult educators and
role models foster the development of character. People are complex
organisms, he noted, and the idea that they can be “taught” to have
character does not fit with the models of human psychological and moral
functioning that developmental psychologists and other researchers use.
The goal of character development programs should not be to teach, but
to promote healthy adult cultures and actively foster young people’s
development, he said.
Berkowitz and his colleagues identified character development
strategies for which there is evidence of effectiveness (Berkowitz at al.,
2016). They reviewed research from the past 16 years that has been
collected through the What Works in Character Education Project,1 meta-
analyses and other recent syntheses of the research, and literature on
parenting with respect to character. The researchers looked for reviews of
scientific studies focused on the outcomes of character education, defined
in terms of moral reasoning, positive psychology, and other frameworks—
they did not include effects on academic achievement or other outcomes.
They did not analyze implementation strategies, but focused on program
design and pedagogical approaches that make a difference.2
 Berkowitz developed a structure for thinking about best practices for
character education, which he calls PRIME, for prioritizing character
education, relationships, intrinsic motivation, modeling, and
empowerment. He used PRIME to organize the primary points he drew
from the literature review conducted for the workshop.

Prioritization—Character education will not work, in Berkowitz’s view, if it

is not an “authentic” priority in the school or setting. He and his
colleagues found that several practices were consistently found in
programs and settings that do make character a genuine priority. One is
rhetorical emphasis: The adults talk regularly about shared goals and
values. Another is allocation of resources, such as investment in
professional development. School and classroom climate, particularly a
sense that teachers are trusted, is a key element. Treating character
education as a school-wide value—rather than confining it to particular
lessons or making it the responsibility of a particular teacher—is another
way schools and programs demonstrate commitment, as is effective
leadership from the principal, he noted.

Relationships—Healthy relationships within and beyond the school are

also characteristic of settings where character education is effective,
Berkowitz said. Positive relationships flourish when they are “strategically
promoted,” he added. In the classroom, this means teachers use
interactive pedagogical strategies such as cooperative learning, for
example, and teach interpersonal skills. School settings in which
relationships among all staff members, families, and community members
are respectful and engaged foster character learning. Schools can
promote such relationships through structured activities that invite people
who do not normally go into classrooms to interact with students, for
example.

Intrinsic Motivation—“Children can be partners in the journey of their own

character development,” Berkowitz commented, and he said he does not
favor behavior-modification strategies for fostering certain behaviors. “We
want kids to internalize values and virtues,” he suggested, and that is best
done using strategies that engage students’ own motivations. One
effective practice is to focus on students’ self-growth, guiding them in
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
which, although very forbidding of aspect, was almost peaceful. The
houses in it, tall and stately and austere, had a row of steep stone
steps furnished with iron railings. It was one of these rows he
ascended; and his father knocked with a boldness that seemed
superhuman at a very stern-looking front door.
After a brief period of waiting in which it seemed to the boy that he
must be choked by the violent beatings of his heart, the door was
opened by an old woman, equally stern of aspect, who asked their
business in a gruff voice. The boy’s father said something to her
which the boy was too excited to comprehend, whereupon she
conducted them into a dark passage filled with bad air, and left them
there while she went to inquire if they would be received by him they
sought. Presently she returned to lead them to his presence.
In a room at the end of the long passage, which seemed to grow
darker and darker at every step they took, they found a very aged
man. In appearance he was not unlike a faun. His eyes were sunken
far in his cheeks, and they seemed to be faded like those of the
blind. His features were so lean that they looked almost spectral; his
tall frame and long limbs were warped with feebleness; and the boy
noticed that his hands had red mittens to keep them warm. His head,
which was of great nobility, was bald at the top, yet the lower part
was covered by hair that was even whiter than that of the boy’s
father, and so long that it came down upon his shoulders.
This venerable figure sat at a table before a fire in a dark and
sombre room, which faced the north and smelt of ink. Maps were on
the walls; here and there were scattered books; there was a globe
on a tripod; while blackboards, charts and desks abounded in all the
panoply of education. The old school-master was ruling lines in a
ciphering-book with the gravest nicety; while at his back the fire was
shedding its glow on a coat which use had rendered green, ragged
and threadbare.
When the boy and his father came into his presence, the aged man,
although stricken with painful infirmity, rose to his feet and welcomed
them with a beautiful courtesy.
“I cannot expect you to remember me, sir,” said the boy’s father, with
a simplicity that was a little timorous.
The aged school-master approached quite close to the boy’s father;
in his faded eyes was a peering intentness.
“You must give me a minute to think, if you please,” he quavered in a
low voice, which in the ears of the boy had the effect of music. “Now
that I am old, my memory, of which I have always been vain, is the
first to desert me. If you are one of my scholars I shall recall you, for
it is my boast that each of my scholars has graven a line in the
tablets of my mind.”
Of a sudden the aged school-master gave a cry of joy.
“Why—why!” he exclaimed, “it must be William Jordan.”
He held out both his hands to the boy’s father with an eagerness that
was like a child’s, and the boy saw that his eyes, which a moment
since were destitute of meaning, had now the pregnant beauty of an
ancient masterpiece.
“O that the hour should be at hand,” said the old man, “when I should
cease to recall William Jordan!”
The old man seemed to avert his face from that of the boy’s father in
a kind of dismay; and his voice pierced the boy with an emotion that
he had never felt before.
“It is thirty years since you saw me last,” said the boy’s father.
“In the flesh as an eager-faced young man,” said the school-master.
“But every night as I sit by the fire, I summon William Jordan to lead
the pageant of my experience. When my spirit is like clay you stand
before it, the first among the valiant, so subtle yet so brave. When
this generation, which is so restless, so brilliant, so full of vitality,
seems to tell me that I am but a survival of a phase which now is
nought, I say to it, ‘So be it, my children, but where is the William
Jordan among you? I would have you show me his peer before I
yield.’”
The boy, whose nature was like the strings of some miraculous
instrument which are not only susceptible to the slightest human
touch, but are also responsive to the delicate waves in the air, knew
that some strange emotion was overwhelming his father, although
none could have perceived it but himself.
“My dear old master,” said the boy’s father, with an indescribable
melancholy, “it is the old voice—the old voice that we loved to hear.
And it is the old courage—the old incomparable suit of mail.”
“A school-master’s courage should increase as he grows old, I
think,” said the old man, whose voice was like a harp. “It is true his
age is menaced by all the noble energies he has failed to mould; by
all the expenditure of spirit, by all the devout patience he has
lavished upon them, which have come to no harvest; but is it not by
giving our all without hope of a requital that in the end teaches us to
accept our destiny?”
The boy’s father stood like a statue before his old preceptor.
“Master, your voice overcomes me,” he said. “But it is just, it is
perfectly just that I should live to hear it sound reproachful in my
ears.”
“I do not reproach you, dear Isocrates,” said the old man, with the
exquisite humility that is only begotten by wisdom. “Or if my words
have chidden you it is that there is an echo in yourself. Isocrates was
ever your name among us. We cannot order our destiny; we can
only fulfil it.”
“I was one of great projects,” said the boy’s father.
“Him whom I recall had ambition burning in his veins like a
chemical,” said the old man.
“Yes, master,” said the boy’s father, with a curious simplicity, “but on
a day he tasted the poppy that perished the red blood in his veins.
From that hour he could never be what he promised. The strength
was taken from his right hand.”
An expression of pain escaped the lips of the aged school-master.
“I foresaw that peril,” he said. “I prayed for you continually, Isocrates;
and I would have forewarned you had I not feared the catastrophe so
much. It is the cardinal weakness of such as myself that we fear
even to gaze upon the vulnerable heel whereby the poisoned arrow
enters the powerful. False preceptor hast thou been, O Socrates, to
the young Plato!”
The aged man seemed all broken by the sudden anguish that shook
his feebleness. The boy’s father, in whose eyes the suffering of his
former preceptor was reflected, raised the senile fingers to his lips
with strange humility.
“All the devices of the pharmacopeia,” said the boy’s father, “could
not have kept the poison out of these weak veins, dear master. It is
one more act of wantonness that we must lay to the door of Nature.
For the poison was first compounded by the fermentation of those
many diverse and potent essences with which the blood was
charged. It is the curse of the age, master. It is the deadly gas
exuded by the putrefaction of what we have agreed to call ‘progress,’
which fuses the nerves and the tissues into the incandescent fervour
by which they destroy themselves.”
“But only, Apollo, that there may be a nobler renascence.”
“We shall not heed it, master, when we lie with the worms.”
“Ah, no! Yet as we crouch by the fire on these cold winter evenings,
is it not well to wrap ourselves in the vision of all the undeveloped
glories in our midst? Is it not well for our minds to behold a William
Jordan brooding in his garret among all these millions of people who
will never learn his name? For thirty years have I been seeking that
treatise by which he is to establish Reason on its only possible
basis.”
“Ah, dear master, philosophy is an anodyne for subtle minds,” said
the boy’s father.
“Were these your words, Isocrates, when you expounded to me that
wonderful synopsis on your twentieth birthday?”
“Philosophy is a narcotic which in the end destroys the cells of the
brain.”
“And poetry, my dear friend, what is poetry?”
“I have not the courage to define it, master.”
“Is this the language of despair, Isocrates?”
“It is the curse of the time, dear master,” said the boy’s father, with
wan eyes. “This terrible electrical machinery of the age which
grandiloquently we call Science, has ground our wits to a point so
fine that they pierce through the brave old faiths that once made us
happy. This William Jordan of whom you speak spent twenty years in
his little room seeking to establish Reason on its only possible basis.
He planned his ethic in I know not how many tomes. Each was to be
a masterpiece of courage, truth, and vitality; each was to be wrought
of the life-blood and fine flower of his manhood. He began his labour
a powerful and imperious young man; he passed the all-too-rapid
years in his profound speculations; and then he found himself inept
and white-haired.”
“So then, after all, Isocrates, your ethic is embodied?” said the aged
man with the eager devoutness of the disciple.
The joy in the face of the old man was that of one who has long
dreamed of a treasure which at last is to be revealed to his gaze. His
eyes were about to feast on its peerless splendour, yet of a sudden
his hopes seemed to render him afraid. There might not be a
sufficient heat left in his veins to yield those intolerable pangs of
rapture which fuse with ecstasy the worship of the devotee.
“Let me see it,” he said. “The desires of my youth are returning upon
me. I must look upon it; I must press it to my bosom. I yearn to see
how my own strength in the heyday of its promise, in the passion of
its development, yet condemned to walk in chains, has yet been able
to vindicate the nobility of its inheritance. Show me your Ethic,
beloved Isocrates. I yearn to feast my eyes upon this latest blow for
freedom with the same intensity with which I fingered the yellow
pages in which I first found wisdom hiding her maiden chastity.”
The boy’s father met this entreaty with a gesture that seemed to
pierce the old man like a sword.
“Where is it?” he cried. “You will not deny one who is old the last of
his hopes!”
The boy’s father had the mien of a corpse.
“It is unwritten, master,” he said, in a voice that seemed to be no
louder than the croak of a frog. “When after twenty years of devout
preparation I took up the pen, I found that Nature had denied the
strength to my right hand.”
The old man recoiled from the gaze of the boy’s father with a cry of
dismay.
“I should have known it,” he said; and then, with strange humility, “let
us not reproach her, Isocrates; she, too, must obey the decree.”
“By which human sacrifice is offered on her altars,” said the boy’s
father, with a gaunt gaze. “What new abortion shall she fashion with
our blood and tears?”
“The issue of our loins,” said the aged man, with a kind of gentle
passion.
“In order that our humiliation may re-enact itself,” said the boy’s
father; “in order, dear master, that we may mock ourselves again.”
“Nay, Isocrates,” said the old man, “is it not written that if by our
fortitude we sustain the Dynasty to its appointed hour, Nature will
grant it a means to affirm itself?”
Speaking out of a simple faith the old man turned for the first time to
the boy, who, throughout this interview, had stood timidly at his
father’s side. The old faded eyes seemed to devour the delicate and
shrinking face of the child with their surmise. Suddenly he took the
boy by the hand.
“It is by this that the Dynasty will affirm itself,” said the old man,
enfolding the frail form in a kind of prophetic exaltation.
The boy’s father seemed to cower at these words of his old
preceptor.
“My prophetic soul!” he cried. Horror appeared to scarify the wasted
features of the boy’s father.
The proud gladness of the well-remembered voice had seemed to
break the boy’s father; for those ears it was charged with mockery.
The old school-master, still smiling in the expression of his simple
faith, received his former pupil in his arms and took him to his bosom
with the ineffable tenderness by which a matron consoles a young
girl.
The boy could not understand this painful scene which had been
enacted before him. He could form no conception of the manner in
which two natures had been wrung by their first meeting after thirty
years. He could only discern, and that very dimly, that this aged man
bore a similar relation to his father that his father bore to himself. The
voice, the look, the bearing of this old man, were precisely those with
which he himself was succoured when he awoke shuddering and
bathed in terror, and implored his father to strike a match to dispel
the phantasies which peopled the darkness of the night.
 III
Sunk in bewilderment that one so wise and powerful as his father
should be so distressed, the boy seemed to lose the sense of what
was taking place around him. But he was recalled to it with a start of
dismay; his father was about to leave the room. Involuntarily he
turned to the door also, and placed his hand on his father’s arm.
“Do you forget that you are now at school, Achilles?” said his father
in a low voice.
The boy could not repress a little quiver of fear.
“You—you are not going to forsake me, my father!” he said.
“What of the resolve you took last night?” said his father. “By whose
act is it, beloved one, that you have come to school?”
A vague sense of darkness seemed to close about the boy.
“But our little room,” he said, shivering. “Am I never to return to it, my
father? Am I never to behold it again?”
“I make you my promise, beloved one,” said his father softly. “At
dusk I will return to take you there.”
Furtively, mournfully the boy relaxed his grip of his father’s hand.
In the next instant he realized that his father was gone, and that he
was alone with the dumb immensity of his despair. All about him was
black and vague. Yet in the midst of the close-pressing stillness sat
the school-master, a venerable and silent form, slowly ruling lines in
a ciphering-book. How old, noble, and patient he looked!
Presently the aged master ceased from his labours. He gathered a
pile of books, rose and placed them under his arm. He turned to the
boy, who was weeping secretly, and said, “Dry your eyes and come
with me.”
Filled with nameless misgivings, the boy followed the school-master
out through the door, along a passage, and down a flight of stone
stairs. At the bottom of these was another door. It opened into a
large room, which was full of youthful street-persons, and a great
clamour.
The master took his seat at a table apart. It was somewhat higher
than the desks at which the youthful street-persons were seated. He
told the boy, who followed very close upon his heels, to sit at his
side.
The entrance of the aged master appeared to have an effect upon
the behaviour of his scholars, or perhaps the appearance in his wake
of a new companion had engaged their curiosity. But the boy,
trembling in every limb, was far from returning their bold glances. He
sat close by the master, mutely craving protection from the fierce
horde that was all about him. Had he been led into a den of wild
beasts, his fear could not have been more extreme.
The tasks of the day were begun by each of the boys reading aloud
in his turn a brief portion of Holy Writ. To him, who heard their voices
for the first time, they sounded harsh, strange, and uncouth. Most of
them faltered and grew confused at the easiest words, in none were
sincerity and coherence; and when the master, to sustain one who
was baffled, recited a few verses, his tones, in their sweetness and
dignity, sounded like music. Sometimes the master would remark
upon the beauty and truth of that which was read, or he would pause
to furnish a parallel out of common experience, in order to elucidate
an incident as it was narrated.
The presence of this gentle and learned man, the continual sense
that he was near, began to soothe the boy’s tremors. And the
beautiful language seemed to gird him with the sense of a new and
enkindling security. But his terror returned upon him with
overmastering power when the moment came in which he was
asked personally to continue the theme. The whole of it had long
been so familiar to him that he carried every word in his heart, yet
when the call was made upon him to recite that for which he required
no book, he was so much oppressed with the nameless dread of his
surroundings that he could only gasp and burst into tears.
After all the boys had done their tasks after their own private fashion,
the master read to them a fable, which the boy recognized gratefully
as an old friend out of the ancient authors; also a wonderful tale from
similar sources, and a few passages from the life of a great national
hero.
The boy was enchanted. The simplicity of the reading made him
strangely happy; the themes addressed him with a ravishment he
had never felt before. And the horde of fierce creatures all about him,
indulging in grimaces and covert horseplay, seemed also to become
amenable to this delight. At least their uneasy roughness grew less
as the beautiful voice proceeded; and by the time these stories of
wonder, wisdom and endeavour were at an end, even the rudest
among them had wide eyes and open mouths.
Upon the conclusion of these tales the old school-master wrote a few
cabalistic figures on a board, and then said to the boy, “Can you do
sums?”
“I—I—I—I d-don’t t-think I—I k-know, sir,” said the boy, stammering
timorously.
“Perhaps we will test your knowledge,” said the old man, and added
as he smiled in a secret and beautiful manner, “there is one simple
question in arithmetic that it is the custom to put to a new scholar on
his first appearance among us. Can you tell us what two and two
make?”
Now, although the boy was advanced in book-knowledge far beyond
his years, he had hardly the rudiments of the practical sciences.
Therefore at first he was unable to answer the most primitive of all
questions therein, and his confusion was great. And the other boys
who had heard this question, which was so simple as to seem
ridiculous, observed his distress with a scorn that was far too lofty to
conceal.
“What would you say that two and two make?” the school-master
asked.
“I—I—I think, sir, they m-make five,” stammered the boy at last.
A shout of laughter arose from the other boys at this grotesque
answer.
“He thinks two and two make five!” boy after boy could be heard
repeating to his companions; “he thinks two and two make five!”
The aged school-master, however, derived neither amusement nor
scorn from this answer. His look was one of high yet grave
happiness as he said, “We give a special name to each of our boys,
and I have been wondering what name to bestow upon you. The
name of your father was Isocrates—one of great gifts, but timorous
of disposition; but I think you must be known by the name of a
universal hero. We will call you by the name of Achilles, who was the
bravest among all the Greeks.”
At these words of the master looks of consternation clouded the
faces of all the boys.
“Why, sir, he is a dunce,” expostulated a thoughtful and shrewd boy
with piercing black eyes.
The aged master looked at this boy with a mild indulgence in his
smile.
“Adamantus,” said the master, “that is a condition necessary to a
universal hero in his youth.”
Adamantus, who was one of the first boys in the school, was far from
a comprehension of this dark saying; yet he felt himself to be
rebuked, without knowing to what extent or why he should be. But
shortly afterwards, when the play-hour came, and they ran out to
indulge in their games in the small London garden, some of the older
and graver boys, of whom Adamantus was one of the chief, stood
apart to discuss what they were bound to consider an act of
notorious partiality on the part of the master. That a mere small boy,
a weak and foolish boy should be decorated with a much-coveted
name for returning a ridiculous answer was one of those frank
injustices that they felt obliged to resent.
“Adamantus only means that I am a bit of a sticker at my books,
which I don’t think I am really,” said the bearer of that name; “and
who ever heard of Polycrates and Polydames?”
“Yes, it is not fair,” said the bearer of the last of these names; “but
then, he is an old fool. He is just an old dodderer.”
When the boys had gone forth to the garden, the master said to his
new pupil, “Will you not go out and make their acquaintance,
Achilles?”
For answer the boy clasped his fingers about the master’s sleeve.
He had grown dumb with terror.
“So be it,” said the old man, regarding him with pity and concealed
tenderness.
A little while afterwards the boy rose suddenly of his own motion
from the master’s table.
“Where are you going, Achilles?” said the master.
“I—I am g-going, s-sir, to the garden to the boys,” he stammered.
As he walked out through the door his gaunt cheeks were like death.
He crept into the garden with the greatest caution and secrecy. He
hardly dared to breathe lest he should be heard, he feared to move
lest he should be seen. Crouching against the wall, moving neither
foot nor hand, he longed to stop the motions of his heart. They were
so loud that he felt they were bound to be noticed.
His fears proved to be well founded. A tall, heavy, puffy boy with vivid
red hair came near. He was trying to kick the cap of another boy,
who was much smaller than himself, over the wall. By an odd
misadventure one of these attempts landed it full in the face of the
trembling intruder.
“Hullo, New Boy!” said the boy with red hair.
He gave the cap a final kick, which lifted it among the branches of
the only tree the garden contained. He then turned his attention to
his important discovery. He moistened his lips with his tongue, and
gave an anticipatory leer to the figure that shrank away from him.
“New Boy,” he said, “what is your name?”
“I—I d-don’t t-think I know, sir,” the boy stammered.
“D-don’t t-think you know your name, New Boy,” said the boy with
red hair, with polite deprecation. “How odd!”
Almost as quick as thought the boy with red hair took the boy’s arm
in what seemed to be the grip of a giant and twisted it ferociously.
The boy gave a little yelp of agony and stupefaction.
“D-doesn’t t-that help you to remember your name, New Boy?” said
the boy with red hair persuasively. As he spoke he pressed his face
so close to that of the quivering thing in his grasp that he almost
rubbed the gaunt cheek with his blunt and freckled nose.
The boy hung mute and limp with terror.
“L-lost y-your tongue, New Boy?” said the boy with red hair. “Or
perhaps you haven’t lost it really?”
The arm that was still in the grip of the giant received another such
twist that a wild shriek was heard all over the garden.
The cry brought other boys crowding to the scene. They were of
diverse ages and sizes, they were of various tempers and
complexions, but one and all were animated by the same critical
curiosity. Among them was a boy, who, although far more robust of
physique, was slightly less in inches than he who cowered away
from their eyes. He measured him carefully with his eye, and,
seeming to derive an ampler power from such gross terror, turned to
his companions with a swelling air, as if to enforce the fact that in
stature he was somewhat the less of the two, and said, “I think I
ought to be able to hit him.”
With chin borne loftily, with each step taken firmly yet delicately, and
with an air of dauntlessness which affected not to be in the least
conscious of the approval such a deed was bound to excite in the
minds of the intelligent, this boy approached, and at his leisure
struck the new boy in the face with his clenched fist as hard as he
could.
A little afterwards the ringing of a bell summoned all the boys indoors
to their books. The new boy crept back to his place at the master’s
table in a kind of swoon. For the remainder of that day any command
of the common faculties which, under happy conditions, he
sometimes enjoyed, was destroyed. He could hardly see, he could
affix no meaning to that which he heard; the functions of speech and
memory were denied to him altogether. Whenever the school-master
left the room he followed upon his heels from one place to another
with the ridiculous docility of a dumb animal.
At noon the mid-day meal was taken. Many of the scholars then
adjourned to a long table in another room, but as the master followed
them the boy kept ever by his side. An old woman who cut the food,
and who seemed to wield great authority, said to him in a harsh
voice, which made him tremble, “You have no right to sit there. Down
there at the bottom is the place for new boys.”
“No,” said the master, “let him sit with me.”
During the meal the boy ate no food. When, having declined to touch
a robust helping of meat, he also rejected an even more liberal
serving of pudding, the old woman said to him roughly, “You must
have a proud stomach if it refuses good food.”
After the meal he followed in the steps of the master wherever he
went, until the hour came to re-enter the school-room to renew the
tasks of the day. Many were the fierce and scornful eyes that were
directed upon him as again he took his seat at the master’s table; yet
of these he was not conscious, for he had no knowledge of what was
happening about him.
About the hour the shadows of the dismal November afternoon grew
so oppressive that it became necessary to light the gas, he saw the
form of his father in the door. He gave a little convulsed cry, threw his
arms round his father’s neck, and buried his face in his coat. His
father and the aged master looked at one another without saying
anything.
The boy and his father journeyed home on the top of an omnibus.
On another occasion such a proceeding would have filled him with a
high sense of adventure, but now all the life seemed to have passed
out of him. The horses and carts, their drivers, the shouting
newsboys, the seething crowds on the pavements, the flaring lights
of the shops had nothing to communicate. Yet, when he found
himself again in the little room, which he had left only a few brief
hours, the sudden joy in recovering that which he had felt to be lost
for ever amounted almost to delirium. It soon passed. It was followed
by deep dejection, and a sense of strange despair.
The hours of the long evening went very slowly. The ticking of the
clock had never seemed so loud and so deliberate. A feeling of
lassitude at last began to creep upon him, so that he leant his arms
on the table, and pressed his closed eyes upon them. Yet he was not
in the least weary, and felt no desire for sleep. His father asked no
questions in regard to the doings of the day.
At eight o’clock his father put up the shutters of the shop. It was his
habit to sit all day amid the books waiting for customers who seldom
came. That day not one had crossed the threshold.
When the hour arrived at which it was usual for the boy to go to bed,
he lighted his candle in a dull and mechanical way.
“I suppose, my father,” he said, “heroes do not crave for death?”
“Yes, Achilles,” said his father, “death is a guerdon they do not seek.”
His father accompanied him up the stairs as was his invariable
custom during the winter evenings, for he had not the courage to
enter a dark room alone. When the boy had sought sanctuary in his
cold bed, his father left him with the light burning at its fullest.
It was in the small hours of the morning when his father entered the
chamber again. The boy lay wide-eyed, with his head pillowed upon
his hands. He was gazing through the curtainless window at the
bright stars. Thus did he lie all night very cold and still, but at six
o’clock, when his father left his side to light the fire in the little room
and to clean out the shop, he had fallen into a light and troubled rest.
Later, when his father returned to bid him rise, he found that sheer
fatigue had at last overcome him, and that his broken sleep had
changed to a slumber that was deep and dreamless. It was only by
shaking that the boy could be induced to open his eyes.
“You will be late at the school, Achilles,” said his father.
The boy gave a little faint shiver, and for an instant he cowered
among the warm blankets in terror and dismay. In the next, however,
he had left his too-pleasant refuge. He clothed his tottering limbs, yet
they were so weak that he could hardly walk down the stairs. He
took a deep draught of milk, of the inferior London kind, and again
accompanied his father through the press of traffic to the house in
the gloomy square. Throughout the journey neither spoke.
The incidents of the day were much like those of the previous one,
except that his father and the aged master did not re-enact their
former interview. As on the day before, the boy sat at the master’s
table, and followed him wherever he went. The aged man continued
to show him much consideration, while his voice, as it became
familiar to the boy’s ears, seemed to grow even gentler and more
melodious. Yet the eyes of the boys who sat opposite seemed to
grow increasingly scornful and fierce.
The days passed with little change from this order. The boy’s pallor
deepened, and his cheeks grew more gaunt than when he entered
the school. Sometimes when he returned to the little room in the
evening, still in his father’s care, he would be so overcome with
weariness that he would lay his head on the table and fall asleep. He
ate little; and the previous brightness of his childhood, his frank and
insatiable curiosity, gave place to a settled air of lassitude, weariness
and dejection.
Once or twice upon returning to the little room he would appear to
have been invigorated by some incident of the day, which yet he did
not mention. On these infrequent occasions he would seem to have
a little appetite for his food, and he would read in some of the less
familiar of the ancient authors under his father’s guidance.
Sometimes when his father went to rest in the midnight hours he
found the boy kneeling at the side of the bed in his white gown. On
one occasion, when the boy was too overborne to take off his own
clothes, his father helped him to do so. In removing them his father
observed the right arm to be much swollen, and to be greatly bruised
and lacerated. His father affected not to notice its condition.
The boy was unfailing in his attendance at the school. Every morning
at the same hour he went forth in his father’s care; at the same hour
every evening he returned in the same vigilant custody. Days grew
into weeks, weeks grew into months, months into years, but the
intimacy of time, and increase in stature and understanding opened
up no intercourse with the other boys in the school. He still remained
one apart at the master’s table. The contemptuous disfavour with
which he was viewed upon his first entrance into their midst grew
into a tradition which all respected, so that even those who came
after him, who were his inferiors in years and stature and knowledge
of books, were only too eager to accept the verdict which had been
passed upon him. By this pious conformity they gained the freedom
of their own republic.
As the boy grew older his reading in the ancient authors became
more prolonged, more profound, and more various. The longer he
spent at his books, the more authors with whom he entered into an
acquaintance, the more was his curiosity inspired. The questions he
put to his father in the little room increased greatly in number and
magnitude. Some were so delicate that his father, although familiar
with many authors in many tongues, was fain to hesitate in his
replies; yet, whenever he was able, he would give an answer that
was tempered, not to his own experience, but to that of his
questioner.
One evening, when the boy had been nearly two years at the school,
he asked his father, who observed that his eyes were much swollen
with tears recently shed, “When pain hurts us bitterly, my father,
must we still continue to praise the Most High?”
“Pain is a monitor whose zeal is sometimes a little excessive,
beloved one,” said his father.
“Is it our own incontinence, my father, that makes our fear so great?
There seems to be two opinions among these authors.”
“When nature is affronted,” said his father, “she utters protests that
all must heed. The wise do not shun her indignation, neither do they
court it; but, when they come to suffer it, they seek first for the cause,
and then for that which may remove it.”
“And having found the cause, my father, and also that which may
remove it, must they ever shrink from the task?”
“Never, Achilles,” said his father.
The boy rose from his chair at the table. His face was like death.
“Do you mind kneeling with me here, my father?” he said. “I seem to
do better when you are at my side.”
The boy and his father knelt together in the little room.
All that long night the boy never closed his eyes. He lay on his pillow
looking at the brightness of the stars. After a while he tossed
restlessly from side to side. His lips were parched; his cheeks
burned; his mind had an intolerable vivacity.
At the first faint streaks of dawn he staggered from his bed, dressed
his faint limbs, and crept down the stairs. Presently, when his father
rose, he found him sharpening upon a stone a large knife, which was
used for cutting bread. Observing the boy’s deadly white cheeks and
burning eyes, his father placed his hand on his shoulder, saying, “I
trust, Achilles, you are aware that there are remedies from which
there is no appeal.”
The face of the boy showed that no appeal was desired. He partook
neither of food nor drink at the frugal breakfast; and when his father,
as was his custom, made ready to accompany him to the school, he
said, “I think, my father, I must walk alone to-day. I am twelve years
old to-day.”
“As you will, Achilles,” said his father, as he replaced his hat on the
peg.
It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy reached the school. He
had a perfect acquaintance with every step of the way. The name of
every street was engraved in his memory in its proper sequence; he
knew by heart almost every tradesman’s sign; yet it was only by the
aid of others that he ever reached the school. When he came to the
wide crossings, where the traffic was endless, his courage deserted
him, and do what he would he had not the physical power to leave
the kerb. He remained upon the verge of the crossing for more than
half-an-hour, reduced to tears of dismay at his own futility, until an
old woman happened to observe him and led him across the street.
No sooner had he come to the other side, than, without venturing to
thank her, he started to run as fast as he could, pursued by an agony
of shame.
Upon his arrival at the school he provided delight and astonishment
for his fellows by breaking down in those tasks in which his
proficiency had long been remarkable. At each fresh attempt he
failed the more miserably. From the first his skill in the classic
authors had been so great that it was thought by the others to be
discreditable; yet this morning they rejoiced to find that it had passed
from him altogether. When at last, in his humiliation, he burst into
tears, they raised a shout of laughter.
“The power will return to you, my dear Achilles,” said the aged
school-master softly. “It will be the greater for having been denied
you altogether.”
In the play-hour the others gathered round him with their taunts. The
heavy boy with red hair, who from the first day had shown the
greatest assiduity in beating him, said, as he winked at his laughing
companions, “Watch me tickle up the biggest dunce in the school.”
However, almost so soon as he advanced, with his ruthless hands
outspread, he recoiled with a cry of fear. His victim had suddenly
produced a large knife from his coat.
“If you make me cry out again,” said the boy, in a slow and quiet
voice, “it is my intention to kill you.”
All stood gaping with amazement and horror, and the boy’s face was
so strange that at first none ventured to come near him. At last the
oldest boy in the school, who was also the boldest, crept round
behind him cautiously, swooped upon him and pinioned his arms.
There and then, with the knife still in his hand, they dragged him into
the presence of the master.
The old man, very infirm and half blind as he was, could not
understand their clamour at first. But when that which had occurred
was rendered clear to him, he ordered every boy to his place. Then
addressing the heavy boy with red hair, he said, “Come to me,
Enceladus.”
A deep silence, the fruit of curiosity, was maintained while this boy
lurched up to the master’s table. He wore a smirk of satisfaction
upon his face, as one who, unaccustomed to notoriety, has come to
taste it suddenly.
“Enceladus,” said the aged master, in so sorrowful a voice that it
sank into the hearts even of those who were accustomed to heed it
least, “you are rude and unmannerly. Take up your books and leave
us. Never, upon any pretext, must you come among us again.”
The boy with red hair, insensitive and slow-witted as he was, was as
if stunned by this public and totally unexpected humiliation.
“Why, sir,” he whimpered, “why, sir, it was not I who drew the knife.”
A burning sense of injustice caused the head boy of the school to
rise in his place. He it was who had pinioned the arms of him who
had dared to hold such a weapon.
“No, sir,” he cried, “it was not Enceladus who drew the knife; it was
Achilles.”
“Mnestheus,” said the aged master, addressing the head boy with a
stern melancholy that none had heard on his lips before, “you are
declared unworthy of that office to which you have been called. You
also, here and now, must go from among us, and never, Mnestheus,
must you come among us again.”
Silence and consternation fell upon all as their two companions, thus
excommunicated, passed for ever out of their midst.
From that hour the many wanton acts which had been practised
upon the boy were practised no more. In lieu of the fierce contempt
with which he had been previously regarded, they began to pay him