The law of obedience is the only fundamental formal law of character
building we know. Without yielding to some will other than our own we
can not become greater than our immature selves. Disobedience is the
pupil’s most serious offense against himself.
Perhaps it rarely needs to be said that until a pupil has learned at
home or at school the art of submitting his conduct to the direction of
another, he has no sure proof that he, himself, can guide his own
career. Every person needs, at some point, to learn the lesson of
self-direction. As a rule, this lesson is never learned except by social
contact. Only he who has found out how to work as a member of a group of
people has discovered the art of self-control.
As a matter of fact, every one is unsocial until by training he becomes
a social being. The school has for one of its essential duties, this
task of reorganizing the individual life so that the unsocial person
attains adequate adjustment in association with his fellows. The core of
this problem, therefore, is how to accept gracefully and heartily the
course of action laid down by another person.
The community has a will on a large number of points. Unless the
individual discovers and heeds this will, he must oftentimes run
contrary to established customs and laws.
Furthermore, if an immature person hopes to profit from the experience
of the past, he must show “docility.” That is to say, he must be willing
actually to change his way of acting because he finds that certain forms
of conduct do not turn out well. He must obey the “commands” that arise
from human experience. In the process of yielding up his own will to the
will of society, the child acquires the power to compel himself to obey
his own commands. The ideals of conduct which he develops at home or
school or elsewhere, will attain the force of commands and enable him to
subject his impulses, aspirations and hopes to the domination of his
noblest ideals.
We may point out, therefore, with certainty, that obedience is the law
of life. Everyone may well be concerned that little children and older
ones as well discover this fact.