They are cold, hard, sometimes
disconcerting but they carry weight. "It is a fact, it has been proven,"
hushes many a query and silences many an argument. And yet it is not in
the array of facts which can be given at any moment that young people
find their incentives and inspirations. They may have all the facts at
their tongue's end but lack the fire which shall transfuse those facts
into power to act in accordance with their teachings. Julius Caesar is a
fact. A girl may have no doubt of his existence, she may not question
the great events of his life, but he does not stir her to action. The
fact of George Washington does not awaken the patriotism of a girl and
in schools where merely the facts regarding his life are given his
influence is practically negative. But whenever the facts have been
breathed upon by a sympathetic spirit and the fact George Washington
transformed into the personality that lives in the girl's presence then
his influence begins to count.
It is not the facts about Abraham Lincoln that engender heroism. The
facts may be presented in such a way as to hold but passing interest. I
have heard the life and times of Abraham Lincoln taught that way. But I
have seen Abraham Lincoln presented to a class of foreign girls by one
to whom he had become a friend as real and genuine as if he stood by her
side.
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