may not be thought of at the time of performance. For
every act, by the principle of habit, modifies disposition--it sets up
a certain kind of inclination and desire. And it is impossible to tell
when the habit thus strengthened may have a direct and perceptible
influence on our association with others. Certain traits of character
have such an obvious connection with our social relationships that we
call them "moral" in an emphatic sense--truthfulness, honesty, chastity,
amiability, etc. But this only means that they are, as compared with
some other attitudes, central:--that they carry other attitudes with
them. They are moral in an emphatic sense not because they are isolated
and exclusive, but because they are so intimately connected with
thousands of other attitudes which we do not explicitly recognize--which
perhaps we have not even names for. To call them virtues in their
isolation is like taking the skeleton for the living body. The bones
are certainly important, but their importance lies in the fact that they
support other organs of the body in such a way as to make them capable
of integrated effective activity. And the same is true of the qualities
of character which we specifically designate virtues. Morals concern
nothing less than the whole character, and the whole character is
identical with the man in all his concrete make-up and manifestations.
To possess virtue does not signify to have cultivated a few namable
and exclusive traits; it means to be fully and adequately what one is
capable of becoming through association with others in all the offices
of life.

The moral and the social quality of conduct are, in the last analysis,
identical with each other. It is then but to restate explicitly
the import of our earlier chapters regarding the social function of
education to say that the measure of the worth of the administration,
curriculum, and methods of instruction of the school is the extent to
which they are animated by a social spirit. And the great danger which
threatens school work is the absence of conditions which make possible
a permeating social spirit; this is the great enemy of effective moral
training. For this spirit can be actively present only when certain
conditions are met.

(i) In the first place, the school must itself be a community life
in all which that implies. Social perceptions and interests can be
developed only in a genuinely social medium--one where there is give and
take in