and necessitate the fullest exercise of his powers and thus allow him to achieve and experience the growing pride of
self-esteem.
Above all, as he grows and develops, such a child is the originator of his own goals. He does not look to others to
tell him what will give him enjoyment; he does not expect and does not wish to be told what to do with his time,
what to admire, what to pursue—and, years later, what career to select. He desires and needs the help of his elders
in providing him with rational guidance and education, but not in providing him with ready-made goals and values.
In the selection of values, he is a self-generator—and he welcomes, he is not frightened by, the responsibility.
It is this policy, this attitude toward life and toward oneself, that results in the formation of a strong, positive sense
of personal identity.
A strong sense of personal identity is the product of two things: a policy of independent thinking—and the
possession of an integrated set of values. Since it is his values that determine a man's emotions and goals, and give
direction and meaning to his life, a man experiences his values as an extension of himself, as an integral part of his
identity, as crucial to that which makes him himself.
The process of healthy growth to psychological maturity rests on a person's acceptance of intellectual responsibility
for his own existence. As a human being grows to adulthood, reality confronts him with increasingly more complex
challenges at each succeeding stage of his development: the range of thought, knowledge, judgment, and decision-
making required of him at the age of twelve is greater than that required at the age of five; the range required at
twenty is greater than that required at twelve. At each stage, the responsibility demanded of him involves both
cognition and evaluation; he has to acquire a knowledge of facts and he has to pass value-judgments and choose
goals. The acceptance of full responsibility for this task is not automatic; the decision to function as an
intellectually independent, self-responsible entity is not "wired in" to his brain by nature. It is a challenge to which
he responds—positively or negatively, with acceptance or rejection—volitionally, i.e., by choice.
The consequence of responding positively is the self-confident state of a sovereign consciousness. The consequence
of responding negatively is a state of psycho-epistemological dependency.