School has started, so my house has become the proverbial beehive of activity and learning. (At least, I hope the latter is true.) And that means homework. And homework means, well, skirmishes here and there. You see, most children - if left to their own devices - will take the path of least resistance and gravitate toward activities that are "fun." It takes a parent to direct them to what matters.

I was no different as a child. Come to think of it, I'm not really that different as an adult. I'd still prefer to do the fun thing as opposed to the necessary thing. (Ask my wife; she'll tell you.) The difference is one of learning and maturity. (Okay, another difference is that I have a loving wife who is willing to remind me of the "necessary thing.")

Anyway, last night was one of those skirmishes over homework. One of my sons - a good kid with a kind heart - was being a kid. He didn't want to do his homework once he hit a tough spot. And in the midst of our skirmish, I was reminded that my objective was not just to get my son to get his homework done, it was to help him understand something about perseverance, stick-to-it-iveness.

And I was reminded that the very foundation of education is character. Education should not just be about learning facts, figures, people, places, processes and proofs. It should be about having the character to handle the power that comes with knowledge and skill. This is something that I run the risk of forgetting and something that our society may already have forgotten.

Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way:

"Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society…We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character - that is the true goal of education."

King knew that knowledge constituted power and that good or evil resided in the possessor of the knowledge, not in the knowledge itself.

The scalpel is a helpful illustration. A scalpel in the hands of a skilled surgeon is quite different from a scalpel in the hands of a thief. In the case of the former, it's a tool for healing, in the case of the latter it's a weapon of destruction. The one who wields the tool determines its usefulness, not the tool itself.

So it is with knowledge.

It's ironic that we often decry the moral failings of our youth. Yet we fill them with facts and know-how while failing to train them in the character that will enable them to wield the facts and know-how we give them.

C.S. Lewis expressed a similar conviction and concern decades ago. Lewis, the highly esteemed Oxford scholar, Christian apologist and popular writer - he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia among other great works - said that a society that ignores transcendent values ignores them at its own peril. He asserted that if we fail to pass on specific standards of right and wrong, of what is worthwhile or worthless, admirable or ignoble then we must share the blame for the consequences in our communities.

"And all the time," Lewis wrote, "…we continue to clamour [sic] for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive,' or dynamism, or self-reliance, or 'creativity.'"

"In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour [sic] and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the gelding be fruitful."

I think Lewis is dead on.

If character is that which instructs our kids to make good decisions and consider the good of others, then we should not be surprised at the consequences of de-valuing character instruction.

When we mock or fail to teach values, we should not be shocked to discover that the majority of college students cheat on tests, that a ridiculously high number of employees cheat their employers - and vice versa.

Why should we be surprised to hear of computer hackers - highly skilled and knowledgeable - stealing identities, shutting down businesses and pilfering accounts? Why should we be surprised at Bernard Madoff, Enron, Global Crossings or WorldCom? Or by people cheating on their taxes?

This is what King was talking about. "Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society." It often results in knowledge and skill being misused to the detriment of others.

As parents (and educators) we must see character education as being more important than - and intricately tied to - every other element of education. Most importantly, parents must be purposeful in imparting character to their children. That begins by modeling character and allowing one's actions to speak louder than one's words.

Georgia Family Council is a non-profit research and education organization committed to fostering conditions in which individuals, families and communities thrive. For more information, visit www.georgiafamily.org, call (770) 242-0001, or email stephen.daniels@georgiafamily.org.