man’s character is his fate,” wrote the Greek philosopher Heraclitus over 2,500 years ago. Since then the word character has come to represent our strengths, weaknesses, and ultimately our true nature. Recognizing the importance of character and virtue in a free society, the Foundation supports a broad spectrum of programs, publications, and studies that promote character education from childhood through young adulthood and beyond.
One goal is to encourage schools and colleges to reinforce such positive values as honestly, compassion, self-discipline, and respect, and to foster widespread conversations about character development and values.

The challenge is great. The examples of good character—and the religious traditions from which they often spring—are rarely included in most school curricula. For character education to make a difference in the formation of the next generation of citizens, the question of “What makes a good person?” cannot be an afterthought or a brief sidebar in school texts on history, civics or English. Instead, character education must have an inspiring vision, a call to dedicating oneself to a noble purpose. As William Damon, an education professor at Stanford, puts it, “In the long run, it is a sense of inspiration that will sustain the child’s good character, often making the learned prohibitions unnecessary.” The Foundations supports research that will discover and document the positive benefits of character education, and then convey those results to educators and other leaders.