Excerpt from Education and National Character

The Religious Education Association was born out of a profound conviction, on the part of many, of the national need of a deeper and steadily deepening moral and religious life, if the nation was to be either great or permanent. Lowell's words, spoken at the 250th Anniversary of Harvard University, might have been taken as the Association's motto: "The measure of a nation's true success is the amount it has contributed to the thought, the moral energy, the intellectual happiness, the spiritual hope and consolation of mankind. There is no other, let our candidates flatter us as they may." To this ideal of the national greatness, this Association is committed.

Moved, thus, by the abiding spiritual convictions of the race, and seeking the cooperation of all the moral and spiritual forces of the nation, the Association faces our national need.

For we need a nation great enough to rise above its own lesser achievements, great enough to conquer its own inner dangers, great enough, therefore, to face its unavoidable national and world duties in the strength of a great faith, a great hope, and great ideals.

In a degree true of no other nation, all the world has come to us. It is not only that all foreign doors are open to us, but that all foreign nations are at our own doors. We cannot escape our problem, it is forced upon us. The question, then, is not merely whether

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.