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.