What does this quote mean?

“The education of character is very much a question of models.”

People absorb conduct from examples around them, so lived models can teach more powerfully than rules that are contradicted by behavior.

Source note: Self-Help, Chapter XII, “Example—Models,” Project Gutenberg #935. Smiles argues that character education depends heavily on models because people unconsciously mould themselves after the characters, manners, habits and opinions around them.

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”

Knowledge needs ethical direction, while good intentions need understanding; either quality becomes inadequate when separated from the other.

Source note: Chapter 41; the Astronomer explains why both competence and moral character are needed for trust.

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”

Facts can be acquired quickly, while judgment develops more slowly through reflection and experience.

Source note: Poem “Locksley Hall”; the contrast distinguishes readily acquired knowledge from the slower development of judgment and wisdom.

“And pause awhile from Learning to be wise;”

Johnson distinguishes accumulating learning from exercising judgment, asking the scholar to interrupt pursuit of knowledge long enough to examine what wisdom requires.

Source note: The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Johnson’s imitation of Juvenal’s Tenth Satire; the line introduces a section on the hazards and disappointments surrounding learned ambition.

“They teach us quite as much as we teach them.”

Education is reciprocal: adults may guide children, but close attention to children also teaches adults patience, perspective, honesty, and better ways of understanding growth.

Source note: Little Men; the observation describes the mutual education taking place in the Plumfield household and school rather than a one-way transfer of knowledge.

“Example is always more efficacious than precept.”

Observed practice can teach more effectively than instruction alone because it shows principles operating in concrete action.

Source note: Rasselas, Chapter XXX; spoken by Imlac during a discussion of history, art and the practical use of studying what earlier people accomplished.