ere destitute of
every vestige of beauty; today many of them are artistic and beautiful.

This statement of the case is rather over-optimistic if applied to our
whole school system, however. For there are still many schools in which
all forms of handicraft are unknown, and in which the only training in
artistic expression is that which comes from caricaturing the teacher.
Singing is still an unknown art to many teachers. The play instinct is
yet looked upon with suspicion and distrust in some quarters. A large
number of our schoolrooms are as barren and ugly today as ever, and
contain an atmosphere as stifling to all forms of natural expression. We
can only comfort ourselves with Holmes's maxim, that it matters not so
much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. And we certainly
are moving toward a larger development and greater efficiency in
expression on the part of those who pass through our schools.

EXPRESSION AND CHARACTER.--Finally, all that has been said in this
discussion has direct reference to what we call character--that
mysterious something which we so often hear eulogized and so seldom
analyzed. Character has two distinct phases, which may be called the
_subjective_ phase and the _social_ phase; or, stating it differently,
character is both what we _are_ and what we _do_. The first of these has
to do with the nature of the real, innermost self; and the last, with
the modes in which this self finds expression. And it is fair to say
that those about us are concerned with what we are chiefly from its
relation to what we do.

Character is not a thing, but a process; it is the succession of our
thoughts and acts from hour to hour. It is not something which we can
hoard and protect and polish unto a more perfect day, but it is the
everyday self in the process of living. And the only way in which it can
be made or marred is through the nature of this stream of thoughts and
acts which constitute the day's life--is through _being_ or _doing_ well
or ill.

TWO LINES OF DEVELOPMENT.--The cultivation of character must, then,
ignore neither of these two lines. To neglect the first is to forget
that it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks; that
a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit; that the act is the true
index of the soul. To omit the second is to leave the character half
formed, the will weak, and the life inefficient and barren of results.
The mind must be supplied with n