Sense of Responsibility
Every one who has had to do with Harvey’s Grammar will readily recall the sentence, “Milo began to lift the ox when he was a calf.” Aside from the interest which this sentence aroused as to the antecedent of the pronoun, it also enunciated a bit of philosophy which caused the pupils to wonder about the possibility of such a feat. They were led to consider such examples of physical strength as Samson, Hercules, and the more modern Sandow and to wonder, perhaps, just what course of training brought these men to their attainment of physical power. It is comparatively easy for adults to realize that such feats as these men accomplished could only come through a long process of training. If a man can lift a given weight on one day, he may be able to lift a slightly heavier weight the next day, and so on until he has achieved distinction by reason of his ability to lift great weights. So it is in this matter of responsibility. It need hardly be said that responsibility is the heaviest burden that men and women are called upon to lift or carry. We need only think of the responsibilities pertaining to the office of the chief ruler of a country in time of war, or of the commanding general of armies, or of the president of large industrial concerns, and so on through the list. Such men bear burdens of responsibility that cannot be estimated in terms of weights or measures. We can easily think of the time when the manager of a great industrial concern was a child in school, but it is not so easy to think of the six-year-old boy performing the functions of this same manager. However, we do know that the future rulers, generals, managers, and superintendents are now sitting at desks in the schools and it behooves all teachers to inquire by what process these pupils may be so trained that in time they will be able to execute these functions.
In some such way we gain a right concept of responsibility. We cannot think of the six-year-old boy as a bank president but, in our thinking, we can watch his progress, in one-day intervals, from his initial experience in school to his assumption of the duties pertaining to the presidency of the bank. In thus tracing his progress there is no strain or stress in our thinking nor does the element of improbability obtrude itself. We think along a straight and level road where no hills arise to obstruct the view. Each succeeding day marks an inch or so of progress toward the goal. But should we set the responsibilities of the bank president over against the powers of the child, the disparity would overwhelm our thinking and our minds would be thrown into confusion. Our thinking is level and easy only when we conceive of strength and responsibility advancing side by side and at the same rate.
It would be an interesting experience to overhear the teacher inquiring of the superintendent how she should proceed in order to inculcate in her pupils a sense of responsibility. We should be acutely alert to catch every word of the superintendent’s reply. If he were dealing with such a concrete problem as Milo and the calf, his response would probably be satisfactory; but when such an abstract quality as responsibility is presented to him his reply might be vague and unsatisfactory. His thinking may have had to do with concrete problems so long that an abstract quality presents a real difficulty to his mental operations. Yet the question which the teacher propounds is altogether pertinent and reasonable and, if he fails to give a satisfactory reply, he will certainly decline in her esteem.
The normal child welcomes such a measure of responsibility as falls within the compass of his powers and acquits himself of it in a manner that is worthy of commendation. This open truth encourages the conviction that the superintendent who can give to the teacher a definite plan by which she will be able to develop a sense of responsibility, will commend himself to her favor, if not admiration. They both know full well that if the pupil emerges from the school period lacking this quality he will be a helpless weight upon society and a burden to himself and his family, no matter what his mental attainments. He will be but a child in his ability to cope with situations that confront him and cannot perform the functions of manhood. Though a man in physical stature he will shrink from the ordinary duties that fall to the lot of a man and, like a child, will cling to the hand of his mother for guidance. In all situations he will show himself a spiritual coward.
The problem is easy of statement but by no means so easy of solution. At the age of six the boy takes his place at a desk in the school. Twenty years hence, let us say, he will be a railway engineer. As such he must drive his engine at forty miles an hour through blinding storm, or in inky darkness, or through menacing and stifling tunnels, or over dizzy bridges, or around the curve on the edge of the precipice—and do this with no shadow of fear or hint of trepidation, but always with a keen eye, a cool head, and a steady hand. In his keeping are the lives of many persons, and any wavering or unsteadiness, on his part, may lead to speedy disaster. Somewhere along the way between the ages of six and twenty-six he must gain the ability to assume a heavy responsibility, and it would seem a travesty upon rational education to force him to acquire this ability wholly during the eight years succeeding his school experience. If, at the age of eighteen, he does not exhibit some ability in this respect, the school may justly be charged with dereliction.
Or, twenty years hence, this boy may be a physician. If so, he will find a weeping mother clinging to him and imploring him to save her baby. He will see a strong man broken with sobs and offering him a fortune to save his wife from being engulfed in the dark shadows. His ears will be assailed with delirious ravings that call to him for relief and life. He will be importuned by the grief-crushed child not to let her mother go. He will be called upon to grapple with plague, with pestilence, with death itself. Unless he can give succor, hope departs and darkness enshrouds and blights. He alone can hold disease and death at bay and bid darkness give place to light and cause sorrow to vanish before the smile of joy. He stands alone at the portal to do battle against the demons of devastation and desolation. And, if he fails, the plaints of grief will penetrate the innermost chambers of his soul. He must not fail. So he toils on through the long night watches, disdaining food and rest, that the breaking day may bring in gladness and crown the arts of healing. And the school that does not share in the glory of such achievement misses a noble opportunity.
Again, twenty years hence, the little girl who now sits at her desk, crowned with golden ringlets, will be a wife and mother, and the mistress of a well-conditioned home. She is a composite of Mary and Martha and in her kingdom reigns supreme and benign. In her home there is no hint of “raw haste, half-sister to delay,” for long since she acquired the habit of serene mastery. She meets her manifold responsibilities with a smile and sings her way through them all. If clouds arise, she banishes them with the magic of her poise and amiability. She can say with Napoleon, “I do not permit myself to become a victim of circumstances; I make circumstances.” Back in the school she learned order, system, method, and acquired the sense of responsibility. At first the teacher’s desk was her special care, and by easy gradations the scope of her activities was widened until she came to feel responsible for the appearance of the entire schoolroom. Now in her womanhood she is a delight to her husband, her children, her guests, and her neighbors. Emergencies neither daunt her nor render her timorous, but, serene and masterful, she meets the new situation as a welcome novelty, and, with supreme amiability, accepts it as a friendly challenge to her resourcefulness. She needs not to apologize or explain, for difficulties disappear at her approach because, in the school, responsibility was one of the major goals of her training.
Or, again, two decades hence this child may have attained to a position in the world of affairs where good taste, judgment, perseverance, self-control, graciousness, and tact are accounted assets of value. But these qualities, gained through experience, are as much a part of herself as her hands. A thousand times in the past has the responsibility been laid upon her of making selections touching shapes, colors, materials, or types, till now her judgment is regarded as final. Her self-control has become proverbial, but it is not the miracle that it seems, for it has become grooved into a habit by much experience. She met all these lions in her path at school and vanquished them all, with the aid of the teacher’s counsel and encouragement. She can perform heroisms now because she long since contracted the habit of heroisms. And responsibility is most becoming to her now because in the years past she learned how to wear it. She has multiplied her powers and usefulness a hundred-fold by reason of having learned to assume responsibility.
She has learned to lift her eyes and scan the far horizon and not be afraid. With gentle, kindly eyes she can look into the faces of men and women in all lands and not be abashed in their presence. She can soothe the child to rest and prove herself a scourge to evil-doers, all within the hour. She knows herself equal to the best, but not above the least. She does not need to pose, for she knows her own power without ever vaunting it. Her simplicity and sincerity are the fragrant bloom of her sense of responsibility both to herself and her kind. She gives of herself and her means as a gracious discharge of obligation to the less fortunate, but never as charity. She feels herself bound up in the interests of humanity and would do her full part in helping to make life more worth while. Her touch has the gift of healing and her tongue distills kindness. Her obligations to the human family are privileges to be esteemed and enjoyed and not bur-dens to be endured and reviled. And she thinks of her superintendent and teachers with gratitude for their part in the process of developing her into what she is, and what she may yet become.
Only such as the defiant, wicked, and rebellious Cain can ask the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The man who feels no responsibility for the character and good name of the community of which he is a member is a spiritual outcast and will become a social pariah if he persists in maintaining his attitude of indifference. For, after all, responsibility amounts to a spiritual attitude. If the man feels no responsibility to his community he will begrudge it the taxes he pays, the improvements he is required to make, and will be irked by every advance that makes for civic betterment. To him the church and school will seem excrescences and superfluities, nor would he grieve to see them obliterated. His exodus would prove a distinct boon to the community. He may have a noble physique, good mentality, much knowledge, and large wealth, and yet, with all these things in his favor, he is nevertheless a liability for the single reason that he lacks a sense of responsibility. Could his teachers have foreseen his present attitude no efforts, on their part, would have seemed too great if only they could have forestalled his misfortune. And it is for the teachers to determine whether the boy of today shall become a duplicate of the man here portrayed.
Every man who lives under a democratic form of government has the opportunity before him each day to raise or lower the level of democracy. When the night comes on, if he reflects upon the matter, he must become conscious that he has done either the one or the other. Either democracy is a better thing for humanity because of his day’s work and influence, or it is a worse thing. This is a responsibility that he can neither shift nor shirk. It is fastened upon him with or against his will. It rests with him to determine whether he would have every other man and every boy in the land select him as their model and follow his example to the last detail. He alone can decide whether he would have all men indulge in the practices that constitute his daily life, consort with his companions, hold his views on all subjects, read only the books that engage his interest, duplicate his thoughts, aspirations, impulses, and language, and become, each one, his other self. Every boy who now sits in the school must answer these questions for himself sooner or later, nor can he hope to evade them. Happy is that boy, therefore, whose teacher has the foresight and the wisdom to train him into such a sense of responsibility as will enable him to answer them in such a way that the future will bring to him no pang of remorse.
Thomas A. Edison is one of the benefactors of his time. He reached out into space and grasped a substance that is both invisible and intangible, harnessed it with trappings, pushed a button, and the world was illumined. There were years of unremitting toil behind this achievement, years of discouragement bordering on despair, but years in which the light of hope was kept burning. We accept his gift with the very acme of nonchalance and with little or no feeling of gratitude. Perhaps he would not have it otherwise. We do not know. But certain it is that his marvelous achievement has made life more agreeable to millions of people and he must be conscious of this fact. At some time in his life he must have achieved a sense of responsibility to his fellows and this worthy sentiment must have become the guiding principle in all his labors. If some teacher fostered in him this sense of responsibility, she did a piece of work for the world that can never be measured in terms of salary. She did not teach arithmetic, or grammar, or geography. She taught Edison. And one of the big results of her teaching was his attainment of this sense of responsibility which far overtops all the arithmetic and history that he ever learned. The man who carried the message to Garcia is another fitting illustration of this same principle. In executing his commission he overcame difficulties that would have seemed insurmountable to a less intrepid man. He kept his eye on the goal and endured almost unspeakable hardships in pressing forward toward this goal. Somehow and somewhere in his life he had learned the meaning of responsibility and so felt that he must not fail. The world came to know him as a hero because he was a hero at heart and his heroic achievement had its origin in the training that led him to feel a sense of responsibility.