America! America! May God thy gold refine, O beautiful for patriot dream God shed his grace on thee, From sea to shining sea! Learn this extract from Daniel Webster's "Bunker Hill Oration: "There remains to us a great duty of defence and preservation; and there is opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper business is improvement. Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. . . . Let our object be, OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY." EIGHTH YEAR ETHICAL CENTRE: CHOOSING A CALLING INTRODUCTION THE question: “What are you going to do when you' are grown up?" is discussed among children at an early age and has a perennial interest. In its largest outlook the question means: What is your life going to stand for; how are you going to take your part in a world that needs the help of every one? There is no question more important. Of course, the boys and girls themselves are not facing this fullest meaning, but their faces are turned toward that light of the rising sun, and the teacher can see the reflected glory in their eager eyes. Many children will leave school at the end of Grade VIII; we can help them to carry with them the great and guiding conceptions of the power of a living interest to reform character, of the sacredness of work, of the significance of time, of our dependence on one another, and of the need of finding and making our special contribution to our country. SEPTEMBER: THE VALUE OF Give an account of the life of Ulysses S. Grant. Bring out the fact that when his full interest and devotion were roused by the call of his country, he became a great man instead of an unsuccessful and restless one. Owen Wister's short life of Ulysses S. Grant gives with extraordinary vividness a flash-light picture of the change in his life due to his active interest in the campaigns of the Civil War. Read the story of the conversion of St. Paul (Acts, Chap. ix, verses 1 to 31). Bring out the wonderful and lasting change in the life of St. Paul, due to the revelation of God's mission for him. Discuss the change in the character of Prince Hal, when he became Henry the Fifth. SIR HUMPHRY DAVY BORN 1778, DIED 1829 Sir Humphry Davy became one of the greatest of English chemists, although as a boy in school, he was apt to be idle and got low marks. He had not yet found what school was for, and how he would need the help of education when he wanted to do any good work. He was very popular, both because he could tell remarkable stories, and because in his leisure time he experimented with gunpowder, making (to the delight of his comrades) what he called "thunder-crackers." When he was sixteen years old, his father died and his mother was left with five children to support, of whom Humphry was the eldest. Realizing her loss and her anxiety, he told her not to worry, for he would do all he could to help his brothers and sisters. So he set out to get work, and his first position was as an apprentice to an apothecary. But here he could not refrain from making chemical experiments on his own account, and the apothecary soon declared that he was a troublesome fellow and that he would be glad to get rid of him. The chemical experiments proved of real interest, however; they attracted attention to Humphry as a young man of unusual ability, and he was rapidly advanced. In a short time, he had a chance to publish the results of his experiments, and at twenty-four years of age he was made a professor of chemistry. He became a successful lecturer, and before long his important chemical discoveries had made him a famous man. He was knighted in 1812, and became a baronet in 1818. One of his most important inventions was a safetylamp to be used in the mines. Of course, miners had to carry lamps in order to find their way and work in the dark mines. Yet, with an ordinary lamp, there was danger at any time of an explosion from what is called fire-damp, generated in the mines. There had been a terrible explosion in one of the mines in England in 1812, and a hundred men had been killed. Davy felt called to find a way of making the work less dangerous by inventing a safety-lamp. After many experiments, he discovered that if a candle or lamp is wrapped in wire gauze with meshes only one twenty-secondth of an inch in diameter, the danger of an explosion is minimized. The fire-damp, which is a gas, can not pass through the wire net. The miners can have light without danger. When the lamp was ready, a friend of Davy's, who was a clergyman, offered to be the first to enter the mine with it. Down he went into the dark with the glowing lamp. Not a sound of explosion was heard, though the air was full of gas. A miner working at some distance from the rector saw the light coming and was terrified. "Put it out! Put it out!" he exclaimed. Then, to his amazement, he saw that there was no sign of danger. A safety-lamp was secured for all time. The lamp was improved and offered to the mineowners, who welcomed it eagerly. Humphry Davy refused to patent his invention, for he said: "My only object is to serve humanity, and if I have done that, it is a sufficient reward." When he was only an apprentice to the apothecary he had written: "I have neither riches nor birth to recommend me, but I trust I shall not be of less service to mankind and my friends than if I had been born with these advantages." In his will he remembered his old school-days, and left five hundred dollars to the Grammar School in which he was educated, on condition that the boys should have a holiday on his birthday. Questions: Is any one ever successful unless he has a strong interest? Why does being interested make a person likely to be successful? Is it better to have a great many slight interests, or one strong one? Why? If you work hard over your lessons, do you like them better? What faults are cured by a strong interest? OCTOBER: THE CHOICE OF It is convenient and clarifying to one's thought to divide all interests into five great types. A few examples only of each type are given. 1. Art. This includes interest in literature; music; oratory; acting; architecture; painting; photography; landscape gardening; dressmaking; millinery. 2. Science. This includes interest in agriculture; engineering; forestry; the work of explorers; of naturalists; 1 The teacher may find help on this subject by reading Chapters ix and x of the author's Every Day Ethics (Henry Holt & Co.). |