American business executive Jeb Bush has proposed some old-fashioned remedies for the moral dilemmas of our age. He is chairman of a nonprofit organization, Foundation for Florida's Future, and was speaking in Oklahoma City at one of Hillsdale College's seminars, "Educating for Virtue: The New Values Revolution." Here are excerpts from his speech:

ROLE OF VIRTUE

Only a virtuous people can secure and maintain their freedom. . . . Virtue is indeed the oxygen of a free society. As it fills our lungs, we become a people of strength capable of vigorously exercising the kind of self-governance that our Founding Fathers expected of us. Without virtue, however, there can be no self-governance. We become strangled and weak, incapable of handling our own day-to-day affairs. . . .

Without virtue, we turn to nationalized health care, V-chips for every television set, metal detectors in all public schools, volunteers paid by the government to volunteer. . . .

Without virtue, we are buried alive under mountains of tedious rules, mandates, and regulations at all levels of government. Yet many of us have little or no appreciation of the vital role virtue plays in our lives. We don't understand, for example, how the lack of virtue leads to social problems like out-of-wedlock births, crime,. . . and drug abuse. We don't even appreciate the direct connection between virtue and good citizenship anymore.

TEACHING VIRTUE

How do we restore virtue as a national priority?. . . Honesty, responsibility, self-discipline, compassion, and courage need to be cultivated by little daily lessons in character. They also need to be reinforced by the people around us in order that they may become habits.

As parents, we have an even tougher job: passing on what we have learned about virtue to our children. We teach them by our own example and by sharing the examples of others. That means surrounding them with good role models and getting them actively involved in voluntary associations that not only practice practical forms of virtue but bind communities and citizens together, from churches and synagogues to local businesses and charities. We also have to make sure that our schools are reinforcing what we have taught our children. . . .

The trouble is, however, that the modern public school establishment has decided that virtue and absolute standards of "right" and "wrong" aren't its business. It has forced teachers to abandon the kind of old-fashioned moral instruction that once served so well. Parents, teachers, and students who complain are treated as troublemakers.

But the good news is that there is a nationwide movement to restore genuine character education (not such impostors as "values clarification," "self-esteem development," and "sensitivity training") in the public schools.

Just as education has a meaningful role to play in enhancing virtue, so too does the reverse hold true: virtue has a meaningful role in enhancing education. . . . A student who excels in virtue will also excel in academics. Strong character actually makes it easier for children to learn. . . [In hundreds of private and parochial schools, and among home-schoolers] greater academic achievement is credited to a greater appreciation of responsibility, hard work, self-discipline, and integrity. Students also gain a better sense of the intrinsic value of education. . . .

ACTING VIRTUOUSLY

There can be no doubt that Americans possess brave, caring hearts. But when it comes time for us to act virtuously and to insist that others do the same, we find our cowardly legs running away with our brave, caring hearts. So, we end up looking at the ills of society and making blanket accusations like "big business creates social injustice" or "the rich get rich off the backs of the poor" or "Hollywood causes all the violence and cruelty in the world."

By blaming others, we fail to find the real solutions to our problems and we do not carry out our own responsibilities. Sometimes we attend charity dinners and donate money to worthy causes, but when we look in the mirror each morning can we honestly say that we are shining examples of virtue? Do we make the effort to spend more time with our children, who so desperately need to learn from our examples? Do we take to the streets to spread virtue in our own neighborhoods and communities?

Early in the twentieth century, playwright and social critic George Bernard Shaw wrote: "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." As the twenty-first century and the next millennium loom before us, it falls upon us as Americans—the heirs to the greatest experiment in self-governance ever known—to prove that we do not dread responsibility, that freedom is not an ebbing tide, and that virtue is the wellspring of all that is good in us and our nation.

Reprinted with the permission of IMPRIMIS, the monthly journal of Hillsdale College, Michigan.