The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American Character

A set of reflective lectures calls for renewed cultivation of the moral qualities essential to effective public and private life, arguing that national renewal depends on individual character. The speaker emphasizes discipline and austerity—self-control, prompt obedience to duty, and willing endurance of hardship—and urges conserving and releasing latent moral resources through deliberate practice. He advocates an unfrightened hope and the steady joy of those who persevere in minority, and he turns attention to the invisible inner life as the source of sustained moral power and social responsibility.