work of the school which is derived
from no other view. The school is not a place where we get this little
bit of information, or the other. It is the place where we are molded,
formed, and shaped into the beings we are to be. The school has not
risen to see the real importance of its work. Its aims have been low and
its achievements much lower than its aims. Teachers should rise to the
importance of their calling. Their work is that of gods. They are
creators. They do not make the child. They do not give it memory or
attention or imagination. But they are creators of tendencies,
prejudices, religions, politics, and other habits unnumbered. So that in
a very real sense, the school, with all the other educational
influences, makes the man. We do not give a child the capacity to learn,
but we can determine what he shall learn. We do not give him memory, but
we can select what he shall remember. We do not make the child as he is
at the beginning, but we can, in large measure, determine the world of
influences which complete the task of _making_.

In the early part of life every day and every hour of the day
establishes and strengthens tendencies. Every year these tendencies
become stronger. Every year after maturity, we resist change. By
twenty-five or thirty, "character has set like plaster." The general
attitude and view of the world which we have at maturity, we are to hold
throughout life. Very few men fundamentally change after this. It takes
a tremendous influence and an unusual situation to break one up and make
him an essentially different man after maturity. Every year a "crank"
becomes "crankier."

It is well that this is so. Everything in the world costs its price.
Rigidity is the price we pay for efficiency. In order to be efficient,
we must make habitual the necessary movements. After they are
habituated, they resist change. But habit makes for regularity and
order. We could not live in society unless there were regularity,
order, fixity. Habit makes for conservatism. But conservatism is
necessary for order. In a sense, habit works against progress. But
permanent improvement without habit would be impossible, for permanent
progress depends upon holding what we gain. It is well for society that
we are conservative. We could not live in the chaos that would exist
without habit. Public opinion resists change. People refuse to accept a
view that is different from the one they have held. We could get nowhere
if