V rtrf^n^ 'eils ^^/ COLLEGE LIFE ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. BT REV. STEPHEN OLIN, D.D., LL.D., LATE PRESIDENT OF THE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1867. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sLxty-seven, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. The Baccalaureate Discourses in this volume were addressed by Dr. Olin to the young men under his charge during the last years, the Lectures during the last months, of his life. The writing of the Lectures was his closing li'terary labor, their delivery his final public utterance. A precious legacy to students, in whose welfare he was most deeply interested, their earnest words have in many in- stances given permanent impressions to character, decided direction to conduct. They embody his mature and com- prehensive views in relation to mental and moral culture, developed in the experience of nearly a quarter of a century spent in college halls ; and their suggestions and counsels deserve the careful consideration of the under- graduates of the colleges of our land. As there has been a special demand for the volume of Dr. Olin's Works containing these lessons to young men — lessons from their point and power entitled to take a permanent plac^tin college literature — it has been thought desirable to issue them in a form adapted to the library of a student. CONTENTS. QL{)c Sljcorn anb |3racticc of Gcljolastk £ife. (in seven lectures.) LECTURE I. IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. Introductory Remarks. — All serious Pursuits have a recognized The- ory. — Educated Intellect encroaches upon the Sphere of mere physi- cal Energy. — Illustration. — Education a Science as vi'ell as an Art. — An Acquaintance with the Theory essential to the Success of the Teacher. — Still more so to the Student. — Involuntary Inmates of a College. — Mental Aliment without mental Appetite. — Its Re- sults. — Revolt from an odious Bondage. — Few youthful Defects irretrievable. — Curative Discipline of a wise mental Regimen. — Manly Resolutions and Efforts. — The Law of Habit. — Its Efficacy. — It diminishes the Friction of Life, and is highly beneficent, but despotic. — The Boy is Law-giver to the Man; hence the supreme Importance of attending to the Formation of Habits. — No Antidote for Offenses against our intellectual Nature. — The Season for sow- ing no less important than the Soil. — Temptations of the young Student to embrace fallacious Theories of academic Life Pago 9 LECTURE II. MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION 01'' LIBERAL STUDIES. Nature and proper Function of Motives. — Treatment of first Princi- ples necessarily Metaphysical. — Arguments from no other Source so luminous and satisfactory. — False Theories adopted by some Students relative to their own Capabilities. — Causes of their adop- tion : Indolence ; imperfect mastery of elementary Principles. — The Remedy. — Various types of Mind. — Diflerence between Mo- lives which do and which ought to control. — The power of Motive not arbitrary. — Men have power to control the Motives that control them. — Selection of the Motive Forces. — They should be pure, per- CONTENTS. manent, elevating. — Difference between voluntary and involuntary Motives ; unworthy and inadequate Motives ; a desire to escape more laborious Occupations; dread of Disgrace ; the gratification of parental Pride ; Emulation ; Ambition : the two last, however, not to be discarded as purely mischievous. — Ambition distinguish- able from Emulation, but liable to the same Objection. — Character- istics of an ambitious College-Student Page 23 LECTURE III. PROPER INCENTIVES TO HIGH INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. Difficulties in the Student's Career not greater than they should be.— A Mind not Insane or Imbecile is competent to overcome them. — Analogy between tlie Cultivation of the Mental and the Moral Povi'- ers. — The Dictates of Conscience. — Proper Incentives to a thor- ough Education must fulfill two indispensable Conditions : Conge- niality to the Mind and Permanency in their Influence. — A Desire to develop and cultivate the Intellect. — The Connection of the Mo- tive with the End of Intellectual Pursuits. — On this Principle, the attempt to learn is of itself Success, and every Obstacle overcome is a Triumph. — The Student is preparing not only for Temporal Enjoyments, but for the Cycles of Eternal Being. — The Mental no less than tiie Moral Character receives ineffaceable Impressions in the present Life. — Curiosity as a Motive. — Its Function analogous to that of the Appetite. — Its Suggestions always to be heeded. — Difference in this Respect between a Wise Man and a Fool. — Cu- riosity as tending to produce an earnest love of Truth for its own Sake. — Mental Habitudes of Newton and of Washington. — Admon- itory Caution 36 LECTURE IV. DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF THE MENTAL FACULTIES. Retrospect of the preceding Suggestions. — Claims of Patriotism and of Religion. — What is Education 1 — Analogies from physical Train- ing, Labor, Rest, Recreation, Diet, Dress, general Symmetry. — Distortion and Malformation. — Some Faculties of the Mind invigo- rated at the expense of others. — Illustrations. — Course of Study should he comprehensive, well selected, and .well proportioned. — It is the mental Effort, and not the Knowledge attained, that dis- ciplines the Mind. — Illustrations. — Shallow but common Argument against the pursuit of literary Studies. — Grievous Mistakes into wiiich Students fall from not appreciating the true Idea of Educa- CONTENTS. tion. — The Mischief enlianced by the example of showy Accomplish- ments. — Tiie Course of Studies pursued in American Colleges. — The Result of protracted Experiments in Education, and the best System ever devised for the Development and Discipline of the Mind Page 50 LECTURE V. THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF MENTAL DISCIPLINE. Early intellectual Habits. — Power to modify and change them. — The Memory. — Concentration of Thought. — Improvement of the reason- ing Faculties. — The Study of general Principles. — Illustrations from Chemistry and Geology. — The Mathematics. — The Languages of Antiquity. — New Sources of Satisfaction thence arising to the dili- gent Student. — The attainment of a pure and elegant Style. — A Suggestion from personal Experience. — Efficacy of Method and or- derly Arrangement. — Objections answered. — Laws of Association. — Superficial Methods of Study. — Thoroughness of Investigation the only Method of making future Studies easy and pleasant. — Fa- cility of Acquisition not always a test of intellectual Capacity. — What are called hard Studies rather to be preferred. — From them the Mind derives Strength. — Discipline rather than brilliant Tal- ents produces great Men 64 LECTURE VI. OFFENSES AGAINST PEOPRIETy AND GOOD TASTE. A difficult Problem. — Essentials to the efficiency and completeness of Mental Discipline. — Attention to minor Matters. — Vices of Manner, when habitual, difficult to eradicate. — Vicious Pronunciation of common English Words. — The Remedy to be applied in Youth, if ever. — The correction of Faults does not require Talent and Ge- nius, but Humility and Resolution. — Awkwardness of Attitude and Gesture. — Slang Phrases. — Corrupt Language leads to corruption of Taste.— JGrossness cultivated by the Student clings to the Man in after Life. — Self-reforming Power the distinguishing Privilege of the Young. — Labor, Self-denial, Patience, Perseverance requi- site. — Analogy from the business of the Gardener. — Attention fixed on Things to be avoided rather than on Things to be acquired. — The removal of a Fault more important than the acquisition of an Accomplishment. — Simplicity of Action. — Unambitious Style. — Pu- rity of Language. — Use of strong Epithets. — Illustrations. — Effects. — False llhetoric .eads to false Lofjic 78 VI CONTENTS. LECTURE Vir. THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. Nature and power of Habit. — Character widely different from Repu- tation. — It is made up of a Man's real Qualities and Accomplish- ments. — Latent Agencies incessantly at work. — Peculiar Impressi- bility of the youthful Mind. — Far more so than that of Childhood or mature Manhood. — Germs of Good and Evil rapidly developed at College. — Practical importance of the prudential Regulations of Academic Life. — System and Regularity. — Punctuality. — Order. — A Defense against the Encroachments of Indolence. — Character modified by Associations. — Laws of Academic Institutions. — They are its Ideal, its Model.— IVhy they do not always produce the de- sired Result. — Young Men are Free Agents Page 94 BaccaliTurcatc HDisconrscs. I. INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOK SUCCESS IN LIFE. A Discourse to the Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 1844 103 II. RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. A Discourse to the'Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 1845 12.'j in. THE RELATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE TO MENTAL CULTURE. A Discourse to the Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 1 848 ^ 163 IV. EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF ELEVATED CHARACTER. A Discourse to the Graduating Class of the Wesleyan University. 1849 201 LECTURES, & QL\)c iEljcorji a\\b Practice of Scljolastic £ife. lecture' I. IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. Introductory Remarks. — All serious Pursuits have a recognized The- ory. — Educated Intellect encroaches upon the Sphere of mere physi- cal Energy. — Illustration. — Education a Science as well as an Art. — An Acquaintance with the Theory essential to the Success of the Teacher — Still more so to the Student. — Involuntary Inmates of a College. — Mental Aliment without mental Appetite. — Its Results. — Revolt from an odious Bondage. — Few youthful Defects irretrieva- ble. — Curative Discipline of a wise mental Regimen. — Manly Reso- lutions and Efforts. — The Law of Habit. — Its EfBcacy. — It diminish- es the Friction of Life, and is highly beneficent, but despotic. — The •Boy is Law-giver to the Man; hence the supreme Importance of at- tending to the Formation of Habits. — No Antidote for Offenses against our intellectual Nature. — The Season for sowing no less important than the Soil. — Temptations of the young Student to embrace falla- cious Theories of academic Life. I HAVE long desired to read a brief course of Lectures be- fore the students of the University on the theory and 2'>^'(^ctice of the Scholastic Life. Hitherto I have been prevented from entering on the execution of this design by the same cause which has thwarted so many of my plans for professional usefulness. That I am hereafter to be exempt from these interruptions, I know not that I have reasonable ground of expectation, and the brief discourse to which you are about to listen does not pledge or purpose any extended discussion A 2 10 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE of the subject which has been suggested. This essay is not offered as an introduction to such a discussion, nor as ex- pressive of a hope that I may be able to follow it up with such a course of instruction as seems to me very desirable Should circumstances permit, however, I shall gladly prose- cute the design suggested, in a few lectures, delivered occa- sionally, and at such intervals and at such times as may be most convenient. Such a plan, or, to speak more properly, this entire absence of a plan, will exclude the possibility of symmetry and fullness ; but the most brief, desultory treat ment of such a subject may not be unfruitful of suggestive hints, which the thoughtful student will be able to pursue and elaborate for himself Any exposition of the principles and maxims concerned in his daily occupations may be ex- pected to exert an influence valuable in proportion to the philosophical insight and practical wisdom with which it may be characterized. Every serious pursuit in which the various powers and faculties of men find employment has a theory — a code of fundamental principles, or, at least, of recognized rules of pro- cedure, in accordance with Avhich its labors are supposed to be conducted. This is true of the various branches of hairdi- craft and of mechanic arts, no less than of those higher de- partments of study and activity which give employment to the most distinguished professional attainments and the pro- foundest scientific knowledge. As society advances in civil- ization and refinement, the simple operations of the work-shop and the field grow into arts and sciences. The rude appli- ances of the peasant-mechanic give place to the elaborate machinery and dynamic combinations of an industrial estab- lishment. Every step in this career of improvement implies and necessitates a corresponding progress in the artisan and the operative. Formerly it was enough that he possessed vigor and dexterity. Precision of the eye was his guiding mtelligence, and the right hand's strength and cunning were TRUE THEORY OP SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 11 instead of mechanical forces and adjustments. Skillful man- ipulation was then all-sufficient for his purpose ; but he must now draw upon his mental resources, and rise up to the com- prehension of a principle at the peril of being thrown out of employment, or of being fixed in the position of an unthink- ing co-operative, with the wheels and hammers that whirl and clack around him. It is in obedience to the laws of our being that intellect and education incessantly encroach upon the sphere of unintelligent physical energy, and gradually extend their dominion over the entire field of human occupa- tions. Of the strength and universality of this tendency, a striking illustration is furnished by the present condition of the laboring classes in this country. These classes are com- posed partly of native-born citizens, who have enjoyed the benefits of a good common education, and partly of foreign immigrants, who liave never learned to read, or, what is about its equivalent, having learned to read, have been prevented by their rulers, their religious teachers, or their poverty, from reading books calculated to awaken thought and invigorate the intellect. As a result of this difi'erence in mental condi- tion, those who have been trained to think, do, as a general rule, engross all the occupations in which thought and intel- ligence are favorable to success, while the more rude exotic masses ar^ doomed to perform the drudgery and to fill the servile offices of a great nation. The uneducated Irishman excavates canals and rail-roads. He is a porter, a hod-carrier, a quarry-man, a stable-boy, but seldom an artisan, an architect, an engineer, or a master- builder. He can wield a spade or perforate a rock by the monotonous stroke of the drill, but he is generally found poorly quahfied for the more complex operations of agricul- ture ; and his daughters seldom make good operatives in a manufactory. It is instructive to observe with what uner- ring instincts these untaught sons of toil and misfortune, upon their first arrival upon our shores, subside into their natural 12 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE f place beneath the lowest stratum of our American society, and, lifting up the superincumbent mass upon their brawny shoulders, seize upon all the humbler occupations as the en- dowment held in trust for them by this great, free country. It is not national prejudice or national jealousy that imposes this inevitable burden upon the adopted citizen. It is not his natural inferiority in mental or physical endowments. We freely admit the refugees of all nations to share all the privi- leges and facilities of our fruitful domain, and the educated Irishman and the educated German are wont to prosper, even beyond the men of other races, in the various departments of business and enterprise. The comparative ignorance of the immigrant must be held responsible for all the unfavorable results of his unequal competition Avith the native American. The American is intelligent. He brings an awakened intel- lect to the pursuits of life. He grasps the theory — he com- prehends the principles of his occupation, and to that extent, at least, he is a philosopher whose hands are guided by his understanding. The blunter and the darker intellect plies his tools diligently enough, but never stirs his ideas. He is the very slave of routine, but is incapable of understanding or following out a theory. He is a prodigy of dexterity, which comes from a patient repetition of one or a series of corporeal movements, but is hopelessly deficient in skill, which supposes some comprehension of the science needful to the perfection of his art. To apply this palpable but highly instructive illustration to the subject in hand, the scholastic life involves theory as well as 'practice. Education is a science as well as an art. Educational institutions are organized and conducted on well- established philosophical principles, no less than in accord- ance with the lessons of experience and the exigencies of the current time. The pursuits of the student rest upon grounds, and are sustamed by reasons that lie back of all schools and colleges, and possess an authority quite independ- TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LITE. 13 eat of positive rules and institutions. It is admitted, on all hands, that the teacher who has not mastered these ilmda- mental principles, and who does not feel their power, and in- fuse their spirit into the performance of his duties, is emi- nently disqualified for his vocation. He degrades a liberal, intellectual function into irksome drudgery, which, when it no longer ministers in the presence of a guiding philosophy, no longer possesses power to move the springs of mental ac- tivity, or authority to direct the inquiries of awakened curi- osity. Witl^a good reason, then, is it demanded of every in- structor of youth that he should come to the discharge of his duties in the full comprehension of the principles that under- lie his art ; but the reason is good and sufficient only be- cause, to the fit discharge of such duties, it is indispensable that he be able to induct his pupils into a mastery of the same higher philosophy. This knowledge of first principles is even more important to the student who aspires to an education truly liberal than to the teacher himself, who often acquires the elements of science and language very perfectly by virtue of endless rep- etitions, while wholly unconscious of their subtile powers and manifold relations and affinities. By force of inveterate habit, he can walk in the dark, and without tripping, the wonted round of his narrow curriculum. He may be likened to the porter of a princely mansion, who never advances be- yond the vestibule of the palace, though forever employed in opening the door which admits hundreds into beautiful sa- loons blazing with light and magnificence. The great majority of those who enter our higher institu- tions of learning do not study science and literature as a pro- fession, but as a discipline — as the only approved method of acquiring high mental accomplishments, and as the richest source of refined, elevating pleasures. For the attainment of such ends, something more is manifestly demanded than an unsympathizing, half-forced compliance with the routine of 14 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE the study and the lecture-room. The most exemplary indus- try may easily forfeit some of the highest rewards of mental efibrt for want of taking into its theory of the scholastic life a few just, guidijig ideas, and the most honorable ambition, at the close of the most successful scholastic career, often finds it- self disappointed and chagrined just because, through its fault or its misfortune, it chose to yield the direction of irretrieva- ble years and opportunities to the control of ideas and motives which, however favorable to intensity of purpose and pursuit, are not found compatible with the freest and ^ost healthy intellectual growth, and with the fullest breadth and depth of intellectual life. These remarks do, as I will allow myself to believe, suffi- ciently develop the general object and intention of this lec- ture. It seeks to demonstrate, and to impress on those who hear me, the pressing elementary importance of comprehend- ing the theory of the scholastic life, and of prosecuting their studies under the guiding, sustaining impulses of an intelli- gent ever-conscious homage to the reasons that should inspire and control their pursuits. The aims of this discussion suppose in the student an in- genuous desire to make the most of his academic opportuni- ties — a willingness to endure the labor of mental efibrt — a manly purpose to bestow upon the capacities with which Na- ture has endowed him, a diligent and pains-taking culture — a laudable ambition to attain to whatever mental excellence may be conceded to a thoughtful, earnest use of his time and opportunities. It must be obvious to all that a system of ed- flcation conceived and carried out in a just, philosophical spirit, can adapt itself to those only who really desire to be educated, and who are prepared to co-operate heartily in the accomplishment of this object. The teacher will no doubt have to provide for a number of anomalous cases in which the voluntary concurrence will be too feeble for easy recogni- tion, but with these he must deal as exceptions to all natural TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 15 and reasonable laws, and by such expedients as observation, experience, or even despair may suggest. I am also aware that there is usually to be found in places of public education a class of young students who are en- gaged in scholastic pursuits in deference to wishes and ar- rangements in which their own preferences have not been consulted, and from which, if their tastes had been gratified, they would perhaps have chosen to refrain. We are accus- tomed, however, to find in this class a number of examples of fine, growing scholarship, and it is often a peculiar advant- age enjoyed by persons so young that they have not ac([uired that relish for the excitements, the gains, or the freedom of active life which diverts so many who come later to engage in scholastic pursuits, from their chosen career. If young men in this particular stage and condition of intellectual de- velopment will, as in duty and all consistency bound, hold themselves pledged to carry out the cherished design of the parent, under the favorable auspices of the large and manly philosophy which is here commended to their approbation, I know not who may cultivate the field now open before them with fairer hopes of reaping a plentiful harvest. Scholastic pursuits prosecuted in the absence of these ge- nial, attractive influences, must always lack the vitality of a conscious, joyous spontaneity, and incur the hazard of bring- ing upon the mind an irritating sense of being in bondage to arbitrary rules, which, having no felt affinities for the intel- lectual constitution, naturally become repulsive, and provoke opposition rather than incite to a cheerful, productive indus- try. Mental aliment taken thus, without any call from the mental appetite, is likely to be digested imperfectly or not at all, and consequently to minister little to constitutional beau- ty, vigor, or elasticity. It is bolted under a painful sense of necessity or duty, in a paroxysm of resolution or despair, like nauseous drugs, or like the unpalatable diet prescribed to dyspeptics by Dr Alcott or Mr. Graham, rather than re- 16 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE ceived with gusto and gladness like the delicious morsels of the confectioner or the ripe fruits of early autumn, which every organ concerned seizes with avidity and caresses lov- ingly, prolonging the satisfaction as far as pleasure so fleet- ing can be induced to remain. It is an inevitable result that intellectual objects thus prosecuted under external pressure, without inward excitement or vocation, will become not only insipid, but distasteful ; and whenever the disgust shall grow to be stronger than reverence for parental authority, and that sentiment of self-respect and shame which is commonly able for a time to exert a restraining iirfluence, may we expect to see the swelling impatience blaze up into a revolt, and emancipate itself from an odious bondage to study with that muigled feeling of triumph and resentment which a " fugi- tive from labor" may be supposed to have when he finds himself on the safe side of Mason and Dixon's line. It seems to me that study carried on in such a spirit as I have sup- posed, even though it should continue to be prosecuted with considerable diligence, must obviously and inevitably fail to produce any considerable results. The mind, doomed to work under a species of constraint at problems and for reasons which it will not be at the pains of fully comprehending, usually becomes unelastic, sullen, and skeptical, and no longer discerns or relishes the truths evolved by the processes with which it is employed. Imagination, finding no genial at- mosphere, and " out of its element," puts ofi;"its wings, and be- comes somnolent and sluggish, while the powers of invention remain unproductive and dormant, as if chilled with perpet- ual winter. I have described the actual condition of a number of young men by no means deficient in good mental powers, and even well endowed by nature with all the aptitudes requisite for high achievements in scholarship. In the strength of my faith that hardly any intellectual or moral default in young men is irretrievable, I express my conviction that there is no TRUE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 17 ground for despair, or even for serious discouragement in these cases, provided only we can persuade the subjects of our so- licitude to rise up manfully against the scandalous dictation of routine and accident under which they have hitherto pros- ecuted their scholastic labors, and resolutely subject their mental ailments to the curative discipline of a Avise ment;il regimen. It is quite within the competence of sober thought, fol- lowed up by manly resolves and efforts, to put the springs of intellectual life a-going once more vmder a tide of vital in- fluences powerful and permanent. Let the victim of unre- flecting apathy or irresolution awaken to self-control, and earnestly contemplate intellectual pursuits in their manifold relations and connections with humanity, and with the social and moral obligations and the destinies of human life, and he will soon be made conscious of new, noble impulses well- ing up from the depths of a free, aspiring soul, that shall henceforward rejoice in its newly-discovered resources, and assert a spontaneous, irrepressible claim to the high dignity of the fullest mental development, and of the most sedulous mental culture. No longer in bondage to unintelligent, ar- bitrary routine, and freed from the humiliating discipline in- flicted by self-reproach and mortified pride, the mind iTiay be expected to rebound, buoyant with long-suspended sponta- neity, conscious anew of appetencies for ingenuous pursuits, and of a liberal curiosity eager to be satisfied with those truths which constitute the sum of human knowledge, and which progress in its every step is ready to reveal. Before concluding this preliminary Lecture, allow me to call your attention to the deeply interesting relations of the subject under consideration to the laio of habit. Habit, I need not inform you, is the proclivity and aptitude for any action or method to which we become accustomed. It is the result of a frequent repetition, in the same direction, of any movement of body or mind, and it is of such efficacy that an 13 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING %'HE action, at first performed with difficulty, by the utmost exer- tion of our faculties, comes to he done spontaneously, and with as little effort or consciousness as attends respiration or the circulation of the blood. Children have, at their outset in life, no habits. The utterance of a single word or syllable costs them much effort, and supposes a multitude of pains- taking experiments in exercisin* the organs of speech, and in imitating the articulate utterances of others. A mature man, on the contrary, lives, and moves, and has his being under the daily and hourly dominion of habit. He is, to use one of the pithy aphorisms in which our vernacular tongue so much delights to announce comprehensive truths, " a bun- dle of habits," " a creature of habit." All the movements of body and mind become habitual, and, with the progress of years, become more and more intensely habitual, till what were at first the most difficult mental efforts and the most elaborate achievements of art, attain to the facility and well- nigh to the unconsciousness of mechanical operations. It can not be doubted that this tendency of our nature is highly be- neficent. It greatly diminishes the friction of life by gradual- ly dispensing with the painful outlay of attention and effort, which are indispensable in the incipient stages and endeavors of all progress in knowledge and art, and it offers the most sustaining encouragements to strenuous exertions, in provid- ing that good aspirations and persevering efforts shall grow into virtues and permanent forces under the conservative power of a great constitutional law. We are to remember, however, that habit, though often a beneficent master, is al- ways despotic when once it has established its sway. We are free to choose what habits shall reign over us, but not to reject a dominion eminently legitimate and natural, since it has grown up with us from childhood, and been deliberately invested with supreme authority by the consent and usage of our entire history. In laying the foundations of this powerful omnipresent domination, youth enacts statutes for age, and t4Iue theory of scholastic life. 19 the boy is law-giver to the man. If it were desirable, it is yet impossible to reverse this order of events, and transfer from the inexperience and the recklessness of mere boyhood to the discretion of riper years a trnst so precious and so deeply interesting to the individual and to the race in all their stages of progress. ISI^one, however, can resist or evade this fundamental law whiA Nature has impressed upon the race, and I am wholly unable to suggest for the consideration of young men, engaged from day to day in fashioning a life- long and even an eternal destiny, a more powerful or a more philosophical motive of conduct than is proposed in the poten- cy and the permanence of this irreversible decree of heaven. What inducements have they to scrutinize their position, and fully to comprehend its Habilities, as well as the great ad- vantages which this law of habit unquestionably afibrds for the attainment of high intellectual and moral excellence ? The middle-aged and the old have comparatively little in- terest in such an investigation. For them the omnipotent past has already fixed its impress upon the current and all coming time. The intellect has already received its press- ure and its hue from opportunities, well or ill improved, long since gone, but still working potently in the character and in the destiny which it was their mission to fashion and control. For the young, the present is all-powerful, and it offers its resources and plastic sldll to establish in their behalf, over all the expanse of the future, the dominion of intelligence and virtue. They now preside over the solemn council, in obedience to which intellect and character are to be mold- ed. They are incessantly employed in weaving the web of their own destiny, and every throw of the shuttle draws after it a thread, which may become a clew to guide them through life's labyrinths, or a boding symbol of the dismal catastrophe appointed for all who impiously leave to blind Chance and envious Fate the control of interests which Heaven intrusts to each human being for himself 20 IMTORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING #11 E Do we ask too much of young men occupying a position of such marvelous influence, where misdirected efibrt and ig- noble sloth alike entail upon the mental and moral character ineflaceable deformities and irretrievable disabilities, when we beseech them to ponder well the paths in which they shall elect to walk ; to examine with jealous scrutiny their reasons for pursuing the course of life inAvhich they find themselves engaged, and for the maxims or the accidents which really guide them to the exclusion of a juster, sounder philosophy ? Noiv, these moving forces and guiding lights may be modified and rearranged at pleasure. All the mind's powers and fac- ulties are now subject to the reason, and susceptible of new impressions — of taking new directions and a new inspiration. They are already beginning to part with this power of self- transformation and control. The sphere of this free action is gradually contracting by the growth of habit, and the mental constitution is constantly tendmg to a state of fixed- ness and pertinacious resistance to all ameliorating changes. "VVe do not borrow these lessons of admonition and warn- ing from divine revelation, but from mental laws universally recognized, and from experience which is verified in the his- tory of every individual of our race. Under the benignant religious economy which ofl^ers its remedies and its aids to reformatory efibrt§ in every stage' of life, the morals and de- linquencies of youth, however great or pernicious, are not ir- retrievable. For early oflenses against our intellectual na tare, however, heaven has provided no such antidote, noi has human sagacity ever been able to discover a substitute for those mental habits and aptitudes which a thoughtful, painstaking industry will secure for the young, but which are forfeited absolutely and iorcver by the indolence that will not toil, and the sottishness that will not think. We do not transcend the sobriety of a measured and cautious phraseol ogy in aflirming that the youthful student has proficred to him, in his actual opportunities, once for all, the key of knowl TlfuE THEORY OF SCHOLASTIC LIFE. 21 edge, and that liis position ncccssiiaies the making of a choice which will open before him a luminous way to the dignity and consolations of the true philosophy, and to the yet highci dignity and consolations of putting forth a beneficent influ- ence in behalf of the interests of humanity, or which shall consign him to a very diflerent career, where the faculties will, indeed, find a spontaneous development without the toil of diligent culture, but such a development as permanently dis- qualifies the human being for the purest, highest enjoyments and occupations — as degrades the higher and gives suprem- acy to the lower tastes and aspirations of the soul, and eflect- ually paralyzes the energies intrusted to us for accomplishing the good work which God has placed us upon this earth to perform. Whoever, then, has been smitten with a laudable ambi- tion to sow the seeds of intelligence in the human mind, to mold its divine capabihties into graceful forms and symmet- rical proportions, to nurture its crude energies and give them a salutary direction, does well to remember that the season for sowing is no less important than the soil. He should take his position at the threshold of academic life, and make haste to pour his redeeming, loving counsels into the willing ear of the youthful aspirant for literary culture before it is pre- occupied by other less competent advisers— ^-while the feelings are fresh and the heart buoyant. The larger portion of a scholastic community are, perhaps, likely to be moved by impulses of sufficient strength to over- come any antagonism which the youth of feebler purpose is too often called to encounter on less advantageous terms. Among the better influences which mingle with a literary atmosphere, the unsuspecting neophyte is likely to come under some temptations to embrace fallacious theories of col- lege life, which have descended from the past through no very trustworthy channels, along with other doubtful tradi- tions, and which usually find in each generation of students a 22 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING, ETC. few zealous cliampious and expounders. This very inconsid- erable sect is distinguished chiefly by a most vuiwarranta- ble faith in the efhcacy of external circumstances. It trust- fully confides mental culture and illumination to the genii of academic groves — a set of plastic agencies, latent, indeed, but presumed to be ever active, and to the lights reflected by the intellectual constellation upon which, whenever his eyes are open, the student is compelled to gaze. It deprecates as the student's chief danger the damage done to brilliant genius, and especially to the imagination, by too much devo- tion to study. Against the injustice of contemporary aca- demic opinion, which is seldom veiy favorable to their pre tensions, these poetical persons make a confident appeal to the future — the predestined theatre of achievements in states- manship and eloquence, such as in their day may, with some show of reason, lay claim to the honor of inspiration, since they must appear to be the result of an educational procesc utterly incomprehensible and transcendental. I do not pro- pose an encounter with the doctrines of this class of light- hearted aspirants for literary eminence, but it seems not in- appropriate to bestow upon them this passing notice. Even indolence and mental eccentricity acquire a measure of re- spectability by professing to have a reason for their follies, and the few representatives of the theory adverted to still to be found, I fear, in all literary institutions, contrive to make their proselytes and so to keep up the succession by present- ing their crudities to unwary and inexperienced youth in the dignified and pretentious guise of a logical theory. I propose on another occasion to exhibit some of the philo- sophical reasons why the student should aspire to the attaio ment of thorouofh liberal edacation. MOTIVES TO THE mOSECUTION, ETC. LECTURE II. MOTIVES TO THE PIIOSECUTION OF LIBERAL STUDIES. ■ Nature aud proper Function of Motives. — Treatment of first Principles necessarily Metaphysical. — Arguments from no other Source so lum- inous and satisfactory. — False Theories adopted by some Students relative to their own Capabilities. — Causes of their Adoption: Indo leuce; imperfect mastery of elementary Principles. — The Remedy. — Various types of Mind. — Difference between Motives which do and which ought to control. — The power of Motive not arbitrary. — Men have power to control the Motives that control them. — Selection of the Motive Forces. — They should be pure, permanent, elevating. — Difference between voluntary and involuntary Motives. — Unworthy and inadequate INIotives ; a desire to escape more laborious Occupa- tions; dread of Disgrace ; the gratification of parental Pride; Emula tion ; Ambition : the two last, however, not to be discarded as purely mischievous. — Ambition distinguishable from Emulation, but liable to the same Objection. — Characteristics of an ambitious College- student. In my introductory Lecture I announced, in terms more comprehensive, perhaps, than definite and inteUigible, as the intended subject of some further discussion, " the Theory and Practice of Scholastic Life." To illustrate the importance to the student of comprehending the philosophy of his daily occiipations, I referred to the pursuits of common laborious life, wliich, no less than the sciences and more liberal arts, are dependent on certain principles, a knowledge of which is indispensable to their successful prosecution. It is for want of the education and mental activity requisite for the at- tainment of such humble degrees of theoretical lore that foreigners prove so greatly inferior to our better-instructed native population in all but the lowest employments. Ac- quaintance with the "theory" of the student's life is no less necessary to the satisfaction than it is to the success of the as- 24 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF pirant for intellectual culture. Y/ithout such induction into first principles, the business of education becomes a drudge- ry, repulsive to the tastes of the young, who no longer make much proficiency in the acquisition of knowledge after the mind has lost the support and the alleviation of its own spon- taneous sympathies. I also adverted to the great practical importance of an early familiarity with first principles, in an- ticipation of adverse habits, which speedily interfere with the mind's freedom and ductility, and render impracticable, or, at least, exceedingly difficult and slow, the adoption of any improvement or activity in any new direction or method. I did not allow myself to doubt that my statements and argu- ments, here repeated in a very summary way, would be re- ceived by my intelligent audience as satisfactory and con- clusive, and yet I did not think it superfluous to admonish the inexperienced student of the existence in our colleges of an ancient theory, antagonistic to mine, which presses phi- losophy into the ignoble service of indolence, and ofiers dis- suasives from laborious methodical study, to a certain class of minds so plausible and soothing that they may be in some danger of suspecting repose, and not labor, to be the chief con- dition of success in college life. It is the assigned business of the present occasion to sug- gest for your consideration the motives which invite an in- genuous young man to devote himself to liberal studies, and which, in all the toil and solicitude incident to his chosen career, are ready to minister their unfailing impulses for his support and consolation. With the hope of enhancing the usefulness of this discussion of the true theory of scholastic life, I will venture to occupy a few moments with some pre- liminary remarks upon the nature and proper functions of motives. In the estimation of an auditory of thoughtful, in- quisitive young men, devoted to intellectual pursuits, it will be no disparagement to such remarks that they are essential- ly metaphysical in their character. LIBERAL STUDIES. 25 The treatment of first principles, in order to be of any val- ue, and worthy the attention of a student, must always bo metaphysical ; and it is a reflection upon the real intelligence and manliness of a cultivated mind to anticipate that it may be found to lack the capacity or the taste to deal with those fundamental propositions which .are the sources of all just reasoning and all wise theories. I will add that, to a mind really intent on improvement, and wilhng to rouse itself to the exercise of its highest powers, no arguments are so lum- inous and satisfactoiy — none are so full of the germs of prac- tical wisdom and available results as those which, under the name of metaphysics, are often lost upon the multitude, not so much because they are found to be incomprehensible, as because they are decided, without examination, to be so mucli unmeaning, impertinent jargon, not worth the easy efibrt of attention which it would take to understand them. I would earnestly premonish those who hear me that they can not admit into- the mind a conclusion more essentially false than this, or more fatally pernicious in its influence upon their future career as students and scholars. T^ever, young gen- tlemen, never make to yourselves the cowardly concession that you are unequal to the tasks which scientific and philo- sophical investigations impose upon you. No slander upon your intellectual claims and dignity could be more gratuitous or unjust. Admitting that -Nature has bestowed her gifts upon you with only her ordinary liberality, she has yet fur- nished every sound mind with powers and faculties quite adequate to the solution of all the questions, metaphysical, moral, and scientific, which a course of collegiate study is likely to suggest. To affirm of a mind that it is incapable of understanding any proposition upon which it has opportunity to bestow a careful investigation, is to pronounce that mind imbecile or insane, or to declare that proposition illogical or false. To discover new truths, or to originate improved methods B 26 MOTIVES TO THE PE.OSECUTIONOF for the elucidation or application of truths already known, hy efibrts of high analysis or subtile combinations, is conceded to only a few rare intellects, which shine forth upon the world at the rate of hardly two or three in a generation. To compre- hend the truth already divulged, and the method elaborated and made luminous to our hand by others, is only to exercise a function common to all sane minds. Such minds do, in vir- tue of their constitution and "original gifts, possess aptitudes for ascertaining and understanding truth. Between them and all truth there are natural affinities, as really as such rela tions exist between the organs of digestion and wholesome food. As inability to receive nutritious edibles is to be tak en as evidence of bodily infirmity or of disease, so incapacity to learn and comprehend the truths concerned in scientific and philosophical studies demonstrates an abnormal condition of the intellect, which, whether it verges more toward fatu- ity or lunacy, must be treated as an exception to a general law. I trust I shall not be regarded as uttering^ a paradox in place of sober convictions which observation and experi- ence have wrovxght in my own mind, for there is really no fact connected with intellectual culture m regard to which I am more thoroughly satisfied. A number of students, I am quite aware, embrace a very different theory in regard to their own capabilities. They have had the voluntary hu- mility to conclude that Nature has denied them the intellect- ual attributes requisite to the successful prosecution of cer- tain branches of study embraced in every academic course, and, in a spirit of dutiful obedience to so high a behest, they give up the conflict with their invita Minerva with a yield- ing acquiescence so ready and even forward, that we are liable to mistake it sometimes for inordinflte complacency. Such cases, when they really involve any serious difficulty, are explicable in one of two ways. The inability is the pro- duct, not the cause of this humiliating conclusion, and only becomes incurable in alliance with tire indolence which dis- LIBERAL STUDIES. 27 couragement and irresolution very soon engender ; or it has resulted from the neglect or the imperfect mastery of ele- mentary principles, which hold to the unmanageable prob- lems that now overwhelm the. fainting spirit the relation oi mdispensable, producing antecedents. A patient, thorough revision of early studies never fails to relax the noose, and, at the expense of some manly exertion, gives a good deliver- ance from one of the most stifling suspicions that can obtain a place in the mind of an ingenuous young man — the sus- picion that Nature, in the paucity of her gifts, has predes- tined him to be, at least in some of the phases of his mental development, an irretrievable dunce. It is not intended, in what is here put forth, to call in question the well-established fact that there are great diversities in intellectual capability and tastes. In one type of mind, imagination ; in another, memory ; in a th?rd, taste is the most noticeable peculiarity ; and the predominance of either of these is favorable to suc- cess in the prosecution of its congenial branch of study, and may become the basis of a special predilection as well as of special distinction. In this admission, however, there is nothing inconsistent with the general principle here inculcated, that every sound mind, whatever be its predominant characterizing faculty, has that capacity which distinguishes man as man, and makes him a rational being, and not a brute — the faculty of perceiving and understanding truth — all truth, whether sci- entific, or moral, or historical. Let us now return from this digression, which has, at least, the merit of being eminently practical in its suggestions, and of harmonizing perfectly with our main object. You will have been better prepared, by this brief interruption, to re- ceive the few remarks in which I proposed to indulge upon the nature and proper function of motives, in so far as they are concerned iuvthe pursuits and the proficiency of the student All incentives to activity and industry, whether internal 28 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF or from without, are motives, but our concern lies rather with those which should direct an upright mind in the prosecution of a scholastic career, than with the impulses and accidents which may actually constitute its moving forces. It will oc- cur, on a slight degree of reflection, that here is a very suf- ficient ground for distinction, and that it suggests to the stu- dent a classification of motives not only very remarkable in itself, but very worthy of being heeded in his pursuits. On philosophical no less than on moral grounds, it is an instruct- ive as well as a deeply-interesting occupation to compare the motives which actually control us with those which have a natural claim to this supremacy. Such a habit of inquisi- tive introspection early established contains the germ of all improvements, and offers the surest pledge of excellence. It is the teaching of a shallow mental philosophy that the pow- er of motive is arbitrary, and that the mind spontaneously yields to the strongest. On all moral questions, at least, abundant experience de- monstrates the unsoundness of such a dogma. We are al- ways surrounded with human beings, who, for indulgences confessedly the lowest and the most wortj^ess, are content to sacrifice interests felt and acknowledged by themselves to possess the highest dignity and importance. These men are entirely competent to control the motives that control them, and to submit their lives to the governance of a better moral dynasty, or else they must stand acquitted of all dishonor, as well as guilt, in the eye of reason no less than of righteous- ness. The laws of our nature indulge us with an option in regard to the moving forces to which we intrust our moral destiny, and the complexion of that destiny will find its de- velopment in the wisdom or folly that presides over that mo- mentous choice. To affinn that the motives which preside over our scholastic career are equally controlling in impress^ ing a fixed character upon the intellect, might savor of ex- aggeration, but it is quite within the limits of moderation and LIBERAL STUDIES. 29 truth to assign to them a high predominating influence, not to be overlooked in a philosophical estimate of the conditions most favorable to intellectual improvement, nor to be prac- tically neglected without incurring consequences highly per- nicious, if not fatal to all reasonable hopes of success. The youthful votary of intellectual pursuits has this ad- vantage in the selection of moving forces to which his oc- cupations shall be subjected, that he has little occasion to provide against the disturbmg influence of the passions, which constitute elements of the greatest difficulty in the formation of moral character. There is, indeed, an ethical side to the scholastic question, but as I propose to treat the subject in its intellectual aspects only, I shall not dwell upon moral considerations except in the single point of view in which they assume the character of philosophical arguments, and so become available as motives or as means for the promo- tion of mental improvement. It is of the highest import to the student who aspires to the best mental developments and culture, that he puts him- self, at the outset, in communica^^ion with motives the most pure and elevating, and such as are, at the same time, per- manent in their operation. I have already vindicated his entire freedom of choice, and his unrestricted power to place himself under such motive influences as his own judgment shall approve. In default, however, of this voluntary exer- cise of his own discretion, he will find that surrounding cir- cumstances or sheer accident have supplied the deficiency, and that he is already in motion, though little suspecting, it may be, the agencies to which he is indebted for overcoming his tendencies to congenial repose. The characteristic difference between the motives which a thoughtful man voluntarily chooses to rule over him, and those which, in the absence of such a choice, volunteer to in- stall themselves as rulers, resides in the fact that the former operate chiefly by attraction, the latter mostly by iir pulsion ; 30 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF the first exciting and quickening, the other forcing and 6tun« ning the mind's energies. The first is a vitahzing process, which imparts to the mind new vigor and capabiUties anal- ogous to the power which the body derives from wholesome food and exercise. The other likewise produces motion, but its force is mostly exhausted in overcoming the vis inertice, and, acting wholly from without, has no power to correct 'any inherent tendencies to indolence and inactivity. Suppose a young man to enter college with no definite ob- ject or stirring ambition beyond the desire of efl'ecting an es- cape from more laborious occupations, or of postponing for some time longer his yet doubtful choice of the business oi profession which is to employ his riper years, and you are very likely to find in him a palpable illustration of the met aphysical doctrine we are just now discussing. To him the force of institutional laws, and the cogent demands of the recitation-room, will probably become chief incitements to ac- tivity. A laudable self-respect, which shrinks from the neg- lect or violation of laws and usages, which he has given a tacit pledge to observe — a not unmanly pride which rel- ishes discomfiture in the presence of classmates somewhat less than it does the labor of preparation, are, perhaps, the highest principles of action which can be expected in the cir- cumstances supposed. These, it will be observed, do not pro- pose excellence, but impunity, as the chief object of pursuit. They demand no forecast, no reference to remote or general interests, however urgent or weighty. To shun petty evils, that mingle a measure of discomfort with the satisfaction of the next dinner, or dash the evening's hilarity with a slight mortification, or disturb the night's repose with some faint whispers ,of self-reproach — this becomes the habitual and only incitement to mental activity, and it may suffice to keep the mind from absolute stagnation so long as the dread of shame is stronger than the dislike for study. As, however, the op- eration of unworthy motives always tends to enfeeble and LIBERAL STUDIES. 31 blunt the sensibility on which they act, the controlling in- fluence soon passes over from the less to the more humilia- ting of these conflicting alternatives, and the sentiment of self-respect declines to a point where the largest amount of shame which indolence can inflict is esteemed more tolera- ble than, the smallest amount of intellectual toil which will sa<«e the falling spirit from the pity or the ridicule of his com- panioiis. In this utter failure of the only motives which our supposition embraces, mental activity declines to its mini- mum, and the victim of our metaphysical experiment is left a mere caput mortuum, which can only be reanimated with intellectual life by the breath of a loftier inspiration. If, in place of the utter destitution of decided impulses to- ward liberal studies which characterizes the case we now dismiss from our consideration, the student comes from the lower schools, and from the bosom of an affectionate family, animated with a desire so to perform his newly-assumed du- ties as may satisfy parental pride and home expectations, it will be readily admitted that, in this tangible and positive principle of action, he asserts the dignity of an independent choice, and repels the tyraimy which, as we have seen, cir- cumstances never fail to exercise over those who lack the wisdom and manliness needful to self-government. Such a motive to intellectual eflbrts commands our respect from the amiable sentiments from which it springs, and it has a fair prospect of finding a good degree of permanence and strength in the strength and permanence of the affections in which it has its origin and support. It is to be observed, however, that the impulses which produce, and the satisfactions that attend mental efforts made on such grounds, have no natural or philosophical connection with science and literature — none whatever with the intellectual culture and discipline which, in every enlightened course of education, the study of these is designed to promote. The filial sentiment acting in this direction is rather a moral than an intellectual force, and it 32 MOTIVES TO THE PROSECUTION OF perhaps partakes yet more largely of tlie nature of an in- stinct. It is not adapted to awaken in the mind the love of knowledge, or to excite enthusiasm in the pursuits of science and letters. Aspiring solely to satisfy the demands of parent- al affection, its highest aims are achieved when that object is reach,ed. Now a little experience and observation will con- vince the most incredulous that it is no very high stan tellectual eflbrts, and I intimated the opinion that, in the best constituted minds, there is always a tendency to rise up into this higher sphere, where intellectual activities and acquisi- tions minister directly to the satisfaction of the mind's pro- foundest wants. Because the intense, perennial excitement which youth and inexperience always find in the fierce agi- tation of partisan, and especially of political questions, is usu- ally injurious to mental improvement, and often proves fatal to the sjTnmetrical development of the mind's powers, I urged the gveat practical importance of postponing any very active participation in these disturbing pursuits till the mind shall be prepared for such colhsions by greater mat^ity and more perfect discipUne. I have not dwelt upon some considerations, which operate with greater force, perhaps, than any other upon a considera- ble number of young men engaged in scholastic pursuits. It does not suit the more special design which guides our pres- ent inquiries to discuss a class of motives which, though con- fessedly the most venerable and authoritative, derive their efficiency rather from their moral than from their philosophi- cal character. On another occasion I should unquestionably insist upon the paramount claims of patriotism and religion, as most worthy to incite the young to put forth strenuous and incessant efforts for the acquisition of such knowledge and discipline as may qualify them to do good service in the cause of their country and of the human race. After all that has been done to elevate scholarship and to multiply well- educated men among us, our rapid advancement in popula- tion and wealth, and in the arts that minister to physical enjoyment, has far outrun the progress of liberal education, and this alarming disproportion of intellectual to material re- eources is constantly increasing. It requires no prophetic gift to foretell the inevitable result, in a degraded morality and civilization, of this unequal struggle of light with darkness, 52 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF if vigorous efibrts shall not be made to restore the conserva- tive element to its just ascendency ; and I must think that every young man who resists the temptations of business and speculation, and resolves at all hazards and sacrifices to give to his country a well-cultivated intellect and a pure charac- ter, does good service to the state, and fulfills the high func- tion of a patriot. If religion, the only principle of action more exalted than patriotism, shall be the motive for pre- i'erring to wealth or ease the more toilsome and self-denying intellectual career, a yet higher virtue is involved in the choice which, in consecrating the student to the best inter- ests of man, fully pledges him to the best interests of his country. We are now prepared to ask and to answer the very prac- tical question, "What is education?" What are the objects which should be sought by the intelligent student, who as- pires, on the highest moral or philosophical grovurds, to make the most of his scholastic course ? Authors and teachers have supplied us with many satis factory definitions of education, especially the later writers upon the subject, who have been actuated by a very lauda- ble desire to give to the floating maxims and usages of the teacher's vocation the form and dignity of a science. All the later definitions of education embrace physical as well as mental training, thus recognizing an ancient and nearly ob- solete idea, and restoring it to its just importance and position as a fundamental principle. Bearing in mind, as a truth now generally admitted, that education is the preparation of the intellectual and physical nature of a human being for the best performance of all his duties and functions, we may find in the culture bestowed upon the grosser element of our com- pound humanity, in every judicious system of training, some instructive analogies to guide us in the higher and more dif- ficult work of educating the mind. What aims and processes are involved in educating th« THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 5u physical constitution of man for the most efficient and satis- factory fulfiUment of its proper offices ? Without attempt- ing any logical analysis of this complicated subject, we may affirm, as the unquestionable judgment of all whose opinion is of any value, that every judicious system of physical train- ing must aim at the most perfect development of all the or- gans and sources of power that belong to man's bodily struc- ture. Nothing must be omitted which will conduce to the symmetry, the strength, the beauty, or the activity of the material frame. Its powers of endurance and of adaptation to all the changes and varieties of labor or of rest, to which it is likely to be exposed, will be sedulously cultivated. The utmost attention will be paid to general health, and such habits of labor, of recreation, of rest, of diet, of dress, will be cultivated as are believed to constitute the best guarantees of imiform and prolonged vigor, and the best safeguards against infirmity and disease in all their forms, degrees, and procuring causes. So far as watclifulness, and persevering, painstaking effi)rts are able to secure such objects, will every limb be trained to the most graceful form and movement, and each muscle and organ concerned in either voluntary or involuntary action be endowed with all possible solidity and strength of fibre. In whatever degree of perfection these ad- vantages shall be combined in an erect, weU-proportioned, manly form, free from all ungainliness of attitude and awk- wardness of motion, in the same degree should we be pre- pared to announce that the material specimen of humanity which should be the result of this manifold experiment unit- ed in liimself the best gifts of nature and of education. It would be an egregious blunder in this molding process if, in the narrowness of their theory, or through deficiency in care or skill, the parents or teachers should bestow all their formative labor upon a single hmb or set of muscle?, unmind- ful of the superior claims of general sym-metry. It would mar the entire undertaking should the physical training be con- 54 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF ducted on the baseless supposition that delicacy of complex- ion, or white, slender hngers, or graceful dancing are the highest attributes of manhood. Nothing could be more fa- tal to the general object of rearing up an effective, faultless specimen of material humanity than an attempt to give spe- cial prominence to some particular object or accomplishment held in most esteem by the operator. The utmost care must be used to check all such exaggerated developments which unavoidably disturb the general harmony and effect. It is the greatest misfortune of a child to be prematurely con signed to the occupation which is to employ his riper years — a fate which insures the inordinate development of organs and aptitudes concerned in the special pursuit at the expense of the system. The formation of habits belonging to any particular trade or vocation should, as far as possible, be postponed till the human frame has acquired a firmness of texture, which is able to resist encroachments from without, and to guard itself against distortions and malformations, which a too early contact with mechanical labor is apt to inflict. The well-developed, mature man has attained to a physical condition which has nothing to fear from such causes .and agencies — ^which successfully resists the material aggres- sion, and reacts against the external violence that would mar its symmetry and bow down its statcliness. I think it would strike every one as the height of absurd- ity, though it be precisely such an absurdity as we observe every day committed in the education of the intellect, should we see a parent endeavoring, by such arts as he might, to induce a large development of the right arm because his son is destined to wield a sledge-hammer, or sedulously cultivat- ing a curvature of the spme because he is likely to follow the plow. The analogies suggested by these remarks on physical ed- ucation, and their obvious applications to the mental train- ing with which we are at present chiefly concerned, will THE MENTAL FACULTIES. bb readily occur to every attentive student. I may take it for granted that the substantial correctness of these educational maxims is self-evident, and will not be called in question by any intelligent person. The general principles concerned in intellectual training are in. themselves equally plain, and would, with the same readiness, be acknowledged, but for the obscurity in wlaich they have been involved by over-much discussion and controversy. The ignorance and inexperi- ence of parents, the restless impatience of some students, and the stubborn indolence of others, raise a multitude of ques- tions in regard to the best methods of mental culture, when there is, in reality, no reasonable ground for doubt. Because .no such temptations to adopt an erroneous theory of physical education exist, this part of the subject is quite free from dif- ficulty, so far as principles are concerned. Poverty, or the want of intelligence or of caution, do, indeed, lead to a di- versity of practice. Children of tender years are consigned to labor in factories or mines, or to the drudgery of agricul- tural employments; but the results of these injudicious ex- periments are usually so obvious and mischievous as to re- buke the folly, and expose the unnatural theory, if theory it may be called, on which they are conducted. The mind is not less susceptible than the body to injuries inflicted by sim- ilar mismanagement, but because it wears its scars and its distortions out of sight, both the theoretical blunder and the irretrievable mischief escape the notice of careless observers. I return to the main subject, not without a measure of confidence that this preliminary discussion will be found to have shed some light upon it. Apt illustrations carry with them the force of arguments, and I am sure that, after what has been said of physical education, you are prepared to ad- mit that the education of the mind requires, and consists in, the symmetrical developme7it and adequate discipline of the mind's faculties. In the two words Development and Discipline are contained all the ideas — are expressed all the 66 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF conditions and efficiencies set forth in that very complex and very practical term, education. Both development and dis- ciphne seek to obtain their proper results by the same means — by the exercise of the mental faculties. Yet do they sug- gest to the mind ideas somewhat dillerent, and their ends are not identical. A com-se of training may be very strenuous and effective in its disciplinary agency — may invigorate special faculties of the mind, and inure them to toil, and, at the same time, be directed so unskillfully, and operate so par- tially, as not only to leave other faculties without improve- ment, but as actually to dwarf and stifle them by the over- laying, exhausting luxuriance of the pampered mental or- gan. A reteiitive memory, for instance, made prodigious by exorbitant, ill-assorted reading, is hardly ever found in union with good powers of reasoning or good taste. The imagin- ation, overgrown and stimulated by undue and nearly ex- clusive attention to fictitious literature, usually becomes the tyrant of the mind, while an exclusive and prolonged devo- tion to abstruse studies very commonly impairs the powers of fancy. The eager partisan, who early consecrates him- self to the care of one idea, infallibly acquires a habit of muid more favorable to subtle disputation than to the enter- tainment of comprehensive, manly views. These familiar, palpable examples illustrate the importance of a judicious selection of the exercises which are to become the instru- ments and tneclia of mental development and discipline. They suggest to the student and the parent that the choice of a course of academical study is a full task for great dis- cretion and experience, and deep insight into the nature and wants of the human mind. Whoever confides the direction of a work, at once so difficult and so momentous, to accident, to his own unformed, fitful tastes and tendencies, or to un- skillful advisers, is not only liable to great injury, but will certainly render impossible to himself the highest and best intellectual cultivation. It will be perceived, at a glance, THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 57 that any good method of mental development must be com- prehensive, not only hi the impartial regards bestowed on the several faculties, but also in the various, well-selected, well-proportioned exercises which are to be the media and instruments for the performance of functions so delicate and manifold. With these special remarks upon development, which are designed to be rather suggestive than to exhaust the subject, I pass on to some considerations connected with mental dis- cipline. It is the study, the mental eflbrts involved in scholastic exercises, and not at all or only in a very inferior degree, the knowledge gained and retained, that disciplines the mind. The porter grows strong from the frequent use of the mus- cles employed in bearing burdens, though he may not retain any of the precious merchandise that gives him such invig- orating exercise. Each of you is probably acquainted with individuals whose minds are stored, or rather crammed, with knowledge of one sort or other — politics, history, theology, gossip, dates, facts, anecdotes, the accumulation of much reading and hearing, hoarded up by an unrelenting mem- ory — all at the disposition of an intellect so wanting in vigor and judgment as to render this crude mass of acquisitions utterly worthless for all the purposes of reason or of action. We may obtain still further illustration by contrasting this class of minds with another equally common, nearly desti- tute of general infomiation, but so well disciplined by a thor- ough training in the sciences and the classics as to be fully prepared to leani and to digest all knowledge. Could you suppose a well-educated man to be suddenly deprived of all his acquisitions, but under such conditions as should leave his mental faculties unimpaired, you would, no doubt, have before you a case very deserving of sympathy for the grievous losses sustained. Much time, it may be, will be required to replenish the exhausted store-house, and C 2 58 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF the mind will feel deeply the pressing want of resources which constitute its natural aliment, and the precious ma- terial which reason and imagination are wont to mold into so many forms of truth and beauty. It will retain, however, under the considerations supposed, all the essential advant- ages which education confers. The knowledge which has been lost was m part the instrument employed in discipHn- ing the mind, and partly the fruit and acquisition gamed by such discipline. Now it is no longer wanted as an instru- ment, and the well-trained faculties are prepared to enter upon a fresh career of acquisition, vinder circumstances the most favorable to rapid and eminent success. Such a case as our argument supposes, seldom, perhaps never, occurs in the history of the human mind, since the obhvion of previous acquisitions can usually result only from the disease or entire decay of memory. Something very analogous, however, sometimes happens to educated men, who, after some years spent in professional or public life, are found to have nearly or wholly forgotten the processes and the lore that gave occupation to their scholastic years. A shallow and unphilosophical objection to classical and scien- tific education is often raised from this not unfrequent oblivion of early attainments. It is certainly a reproach to a man of liberal education to neglect and forget his academic studies, and no better method can be devised for maintaining a high, healthful intellectual condition than a familiarity with these best sources of mental discipline, continued amid all the scenes of active life. As an argument against the usual course of coUegiate training, however, no objection was ever more preposterous. The fact that so many educated men, in spite of the indolence or the bad taste that neglects the best sources of their early culture, maintain distinguished po- sitions in the world, and other things being equal, always outstrip their less classical competitors, demonstrates the superior excellence of their training, and clearly intimates THE MENTAL FACULTIES. t)J that the real efficiency of education resides in the mental dis- cipline, and not in the science which was but an incident or an instrument of culture and growth. I am endeavoring to remove all obscurity from what ap- pears to me a very manifest, if not a self-evident truth, that education consists wholly in unfolding and training the men- tal faculties. This is a fundamental proposition, the adop- tion or practical rejection of which will not fail of exerting a powerful influence upon the student's advancement and success. It is one of those fruitful theoretical principles that lie in immediate contact with the activities of the daily life, imparting to them their inspiration, their character, and their efficiency. It is most needful for the humblest aspirant after the benefits of education to recognize distinctly as the one object of all his scholastic exercises and efforts that culture of the intellect which invites into harmonious manifestation and movement, and inures to labor, and order, and good hab- itudes, all its manifold capabilities. Till this true and phil- osophical theory has eflected a lodgment, and won an intelli- gent recognition in the student's mind, his own efforts are likely to be unstable and ill directed, nor is he prepared to profit greatly by the instruction which profiers its aids only in co-operation with his own enlightened endeavors. Every sound scholastic maxim proceeds upon this idea of education, and in the few practical suggestions which I haA'-e still to propose, I can not hope to produce any useful impression ex- cept upon minds already preoccupied vs^th the settled con- viction that the objects of academic pursuits are attained only in so far as the mental powers have gained such enlargement, vigor, and skill as may best fit a human being for the whole career that is before him. I am not aware that the views of education here advanced ar3 often called in question, but all my experience and ob- Bervat:on have induced me to conclude that upon a very con- siderable proportion of students these views fail to exert their bO DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF full practical influence. My argument labors, for instance, to demonstrate that the unfolding and training of the mind's faculties is the important result to be aimed at by the scho- lastic procedure, that the result is to be sought as the fitting end of education, and that any deviation in quest of more special objects must involve a loss of general mental power, and so interfere even with the particular advantage which is sought at the sacrifice of interests so much more import- ant. In open defiance of this simple, wholesome maxim it is that a number of students in every college class are pros- ecuting their studies with a tacit, perhaps an unconscious, but always a misleading reference to professional or other objects to which their lives are to be devoted. One neglects Greek because he is not to be a teacher or a theologian. Another reads Plutarch and the Federahst when he should study Euclid, because jurists and statesmen are likely to need facts and precedents, and "Ciceronian eloquence rather than log- arithms. The embryo author, who devours magazines, and critical reviews, and newspapers, and treasures up memora- bilia from new novels and old poems and plays, often seems to congratulate himself under the occasional inconveniences which neglect of more significant occupation must sometimes incur, that, at least, he is guarding his imagination and genius against imminent dangers. I have known not a few earnest candidates for the Christian ministry fall into a similar error, and carry with them through college a very decided theory, which sometimes ■v»ent the length of pleading conscience for the neglect of certain branches of study eminently adapted to discipline the mind, in favor of others which were sup- posed to affiliate more nearly with their chosen profession, though incomparably less efficient for the proper business and fit ends of education. It would not be easy to over-estimate the grievous mischief that is done by the practical adoption joi these educational heresies. A number of students, I fear, labor habitually un- THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 6j der the paralyzing influence of an error so fundamental that it must disturb the harmonious development of the faculties with which education is concerned, and often, perhaps usu- ally, result either in the premature abandonment of the scho- lastic career, which speedily becomes impracticable under this intermeddling eclecticism, or only postpone the catas- trophe till the stern pursuits of active professional life put forth their demand for measures of intellectual efficiency de- nied to such partial, halting scholarship. The mischiefs of this preposterous theory are not a little enhanced, as well as diffused, when it happens to enjoy the countenance and the advocacy of one or two students whose quick parts and con- siderable general information enable them to become fluent debaters and popular writers. With the prestige of such. showy accomplishments, they sometimes become oracles in the midst of indolent admirers, who fully appreciate the ge- nius who can eloquently as well as practically demonstrate that the supposed connection between intellectual excellence and thorough mental discipline is an exploded fiction of darker ages, which, though well enough for hoodwinked monks, is quite too bald a theory to be palmed upon spirited young men who are destined to act a great part in the great- est of modern republics. Happy shall I be if those who hear me shall, on due re- flection, pronounce that the picture I have drawn is drawn wholly from fancy, and that it represents nothing of which the reality has existed witliin the memory of the existing scho- lastic generation. Such a verdict would announce a fact and a reform over which the friends of liberal education might well rejoice, and an example to provoke the wonder and the emulation of all the colleges in the land. It will, indeed, be a memorable epoch in the history of our institu- tions of learning, when the whole company of ingenuous yoimg men shall feel and obey the true inspiration of their position and their courted destiny — when no group of idlers 62 DEVELOPMENT AND DISCIPLINE OF or half-idlers shall hover about their threshold, at the com- ing of the new recruit, to seduce his feeble purposes and slen- der manliness with the ready proffer of fellowship and sym- pathy, and when not one can be found willing to lend to the support of so poor a theory the influence derived either from gifts or graces — from genius or from manners — from natural amiability or from social position — from writing well or speaking eloquently. I shall conclude this topic and this Lecture by a brief re- mark on the course of studies pursued in our American col- leges. It has become almost fashionable to say of our cur- riculum that it is substantially that of the Dark Ages. Now it is unquestionably true that monks and schoolmen learned Latin, which is the one sohtary element of truth in this reck- less statement. Latin was then the only language known to science, and it constituted, together with the false logic and philosophy of that day, the sum of scholastic requirements. The branches of study now prescribed have, in their kind, order, and proportions, a primary, and, I must think, a wise reference to mental discipline. The great prominence given to linguistic and scientific studies is a well-merited conces- sion, approved by all experience, to their pre-eminent adap- tation to the ends of development and training. They occu- py an early as well as a considerable part of the course, be- cause they best furnish the indispensable experience and habitudes which the mind wants in order to secure the best fruits of the discursive, and speculative studies that are to employ its subsequent labors. This course of study is the result of a comprehensive, protracted experiment in educa- tion. It may be regarded as the accumulated testimony of the teachers and scholars of many enlightened nations and centuries. We do well to observe that the malcontents un- der this system do not usually deny to it the highest merit to which it lays claim — the merit of being incomparably the best system which human genius and experience have ever THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 03 devised for the development and discipline of the mental fac- ulties. This, I repeat again and again, is the true philo- sophical idea of liberal education. Between those who em- brace this theory of education and those who so clamorously demand of our colleges, not intellectual culture, but only so many of the crude elements of knowledge as are immediate- ly applicable to the art or craft to which they hasten, there is really no just ground for controversy. Their ideas of edu- cation are, indeed, very diverse ; but not more so than their objects, which are unlike, by the entire difference that exists between a scholar and an artisan — between a philosopher and a superintendent of farm or factory operations. 64 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OP LECTURE V. THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF MENTAL DIS- CIPLINE. Early intellectual Habits. — Power to modify and change them. — Th« Memory. — Concentration of Thought. — Improvement of the reason- ing Faculties. — The Study of general Principles. — Illustrations from Chemistry and Geology. — The Mathematics. — The Languages of An- tiquity. — New Sources of Satisfaction thence arising to the diligent Student. — The attainment of a pui-e and elegant Style. — A Sugges- tion from personal Experience. — Efficacy of Method and oi-derly Ar- rangement. — Objections answered. — Laws of Association. — Super- ficial Methods of Study. — Thoroughness of Investigation the only Method of making future Studies easy and pleasant. — Facility of Ac- quisition not always a test of intellectual Capacity. — What are called hard Studies rather to be prefen-ed. — From them the Mind deinves Strength. — Discipline x'ather than brilliant Talents produces great Men. I SHALL not detain you with a recapitulation of the topics dnd arguments of the last Lecture. Its pervading idea was substantially the same with that which I labored to establish and enforce in all of our previous discussions. The true the- ory of education, the motives that should incite, the objects that should guide the student, his liabilities, his blunders, his incipient habits, his temptations, his faults, in so far as these topics have come under our notice, have all been considered in the single aspect of their relation to the development and discipline which constitute education. The exhibition of this fundamental principle, in so many points of view, is fully justified by its philosophical importance in the business of education, as well as by the extreme difficulty usually expe- rienced in procuring its practical adoption by the student. Early as the scholastic career is usually commenced, the student brings with him to college intellectual habits, at MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 66 least partially formed, if not fixed, and among the most in- veterate of these is the habit of performing the work of men- tal culture as a matter of routine rather than in a spirit of thoughtful deference to the intellectual laws concerned in the process. An attempt, like the one in which I am now engaged, to aid in this work by inculcating the philosophical ideas according to which it may be most successfully con- ducted, presupposes in the pupil the abihty to sit in judg- ment upon these first principles, and to change or modify the habits which may have sprung up through neglect or acci- dent, or with the assent of a less enlightened theory. The full and frank recognition of this power of self-control — the manly assertion of this prerogative to mold and direct the mind's capabilities and meUorate its habitudes, must, as it seems to me, precede the practical adoption of any new, pro- founder views of the scholastic hfe, and must also precede any extraordinary improvements in the student's career, whether as the result of his own enlightened convictions or as the fruit of a wiser teaching. As a matter of fact and experience, it is unquestionably true that yoimg persons do actually pos- sess, though perhaps in different degrees, this plastic domin- ion over their own mental faculties. The actual course and practice of each individual is silently impressing upon his in- tellect a special individual character ; and as his competence to change, modify, or reverse his daily procedure is unques- tionable, so also is his ability to modify the depending result. The indolence, the apathy, the irregularity, the reckless in- attention under which the intellect runs to waste, and sinks into imbecihty, may, if the victim of such follies only wills it, be substituted by the purpose, the self command, and the earnest activity which insure vigor, perspicacity, and enlarge- ment. Students more distinguished for industry, persever- ance, and energy of character are proportionably more likely than the class just referred to to profit by the inculcation of a juster scholastic theory. Without adding to the amount 66 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF of intellectual exertion, it may become greatly more produc- tive under a more intelligent, precise direction. The poAvera of memory, for instance, may be stimulated to an extent that will even disturb the harmonious development of the other mental faculties, or it may grow oblivious and untrustworthy, very much in accordance with the kind of mismanagement to which it may be subjected even by a diligent student. Me')7ioriter recitations, long continued, are likely not only to divorce the memory from the higher faculties of the mind, but to give to it an exaggerated development inconsistent with their natural and proper movements. The opposite fault of reading or studying without positive systematic ef- fort to retain and recall the facts and thoughts which consti- tute the media of the mind's activities, entails incoherence and confusion upon the slender recollections that spontane- ously cling to the mind, and at the same time damage the neglected faculty by inducing upon it an habitual tendency to obliviousness. This great evil may be alleviated or cor- rected by the student who will be at the pains of habituating himself to efforts of recollection, who rigidly exacts from the treacherous faculty some good account of what the reading or the lesson has supplied. A bad memory becomes tolerably effective, and an indifferent one good, under such a training, continued till the proper mental habit is established. The vividness and permanence of impressions made upon the mind, as well as the facility and value of its acquisitions depend very much upon its powers of concentrated, fixed at- tention. This is a faculty on which even the working stu- dent often bestows but little thought, though no power of the mind is more susceptible of culture and improvement. Man- ly aspirations and determined purpose, admitted to an habit- ual sway over the duties of the study and the recitation-room, will not be long in providing a remedy for wandering thoughts, and in enforcing an intellectual regimen favorable to the ut- most efficiency and precision ; while the daily lesson, conned .MENTAL DISCIPLINK. 67 over in the midst of idlers and talkers or in somnolent recum- bency, in periods of time wrested from the more congenial claims of sport or gossip, and impatient of the intrusions of serious occupation, becomes a daily lesson in the act of per- verting and enfeebling the control which the will of right ex erts over the intellectual movement. The improvement of the reasoning faculties presents a problem more complex, and proportionably less subject to the apphcation of special methods of procedure. Their highest efficiency would be found in the best special culture of all the intellectual powers. It is quite possible, however, for students of equal capacity and equal industry to be conduct- ed to very unequal results in regard to this highest devel- opment of the human intellect. There is such a thing as filling up a scholastic career with a busy, strenuous activity, which satisfies several of the conditions of education, and grossly violates none of them, without, however, promoting in an equal degree the unfolding and the discipline of the complex faculties concerned in the processes of reasoning. The method of study most favorable to such a result, while it uses all dihgence in preparing for the requisitions of the recitation-room, aspires with no less earnestness to compre- hend the general principle under which all of the fragments of knowledge are combined and harmonized into a system and a science, that alone gives a fair expression of the val- ue and the import of the component parts. Chemistiy and geology afford palpable illustrations of this remark. Their study involves a multitude of particulars by no means des- titute of individual interest, of which, however, tne true meaning and philosophical dignity do not appear unless they are contemplated in their relations to a comprehensive sci- ence, which has revealed to the world some of the most deeply-interesting portions of its own primeval history. It is obvious that, in such studies, the inquirer who toils ever in. view of the philosophical theory in which each fact has ita 68 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OP explanation, and at the same time ministers to a yet higher significance, subjects his reasoning faculties to an admirable process of training, from which nothing less can be expected than vigorous growth and expanded capabilities. The same pursuits, prosecuted with equal diligence, but without a proper conception of their import and bearings, are likely to prove proportionably less efficient as means of intellectual discipline. Mathematical studies afford another illustration of the subject in hand not less obvious and instructive. I am dis- posed to concede to this science a high place in the scholas- tic curriculum as a disciplinary exercise. It begins in the midst of self-evident propositions, and its pathway is rendered luminous by successive revelations of immutable, universal truth. Every step in such investigations gives to the mind the most healthful, invigorating exercise, and familiarity with such labors is likely to leave an impression on the intellect deep and permanent, in proportion as the effort is intense and protracted. Beyond this immediate influence upon the mind, of which every diligent student will partake, other and high- er advantages will, I think, be secured by those who recog- nize in the details of each successive lesson the parts of a comprehensive science — who put forth a constructive inge- nuity to assign to individual results their place in the great system of truth — who keep their minds imbued with a sense of the efficacy and the dignity of pursuits in which each ad- vancing step arms the soul. with fresh power over the mate- rial universe — each problem becomes a link in the chain that binds the Pleiades and holds Saturn subject to the inquest and the measurements of science. It is precisely when the most exact and thorough comprehension of each step and result of the demonstration is accompanied and stimulated by this large, philosophizing spirit, that the intellect is hkely to become endowed with the richest fruits of scholastic cul- ture. MENTAL DISCIPLINE. " 69 There is also a liberal and philosophical method of study- ing the languages of antiquity, which imbues the youthful mind with a discipline very distinguishable in kind and de- gree from the more usual results of even a diligent and ear- nest devotion to such pursuits. It is, I think, no uncommon thing for the student to lose sight of the information, of whatever sort, profl'ered to him by the classic page which has become the subject of his critical analysis, so that, at the end of a term, he knows less of the contents of the book which has furnished his daily recitation, than an hour's at- tention to so much English would bestow upon him. The loss of knowledge is not the most serious objection to such a procedure, but rather the neglect of a source of interest well adapted to aid the mind in its struggle after fixedness and concentration, and to prevent disgust and lassitude by giv- ing invigorating and refreshing exercises to the faculties. The manifold allusions to the customs, institutions, arts, and ideas which prevailed among the most enlightened nations of antiquity, with which the classical writers abound, sug- gest an inexhaustible store of topics for reflection and com- parison, which, without abating any thing from the lore or the discipline which the merely critical student derives from the well-conned lesson, offer to the reasoning, philo- sophical student the additional advantage of a most salutary, liberalizing exercise for the highest intecllctual faculties. It is sufficiently obvious that whoever will be at the trouble of prosecuting this class of studies, second to none m their efficiency as media of intellectual training, with a watchful eye to their intimate instructive relations with history, phi- losophy, ethnology, and other interesting departments of hu- man knowledge, will speedily find the toil and the friction of dry analysis, and an endless appeal to the umpirage of grammar and lexicography alleviated and illummated by the unexpected discovery of so many new sources of satisfaction and intelligence, 70 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF I may not omit all notice of another very simple expedi- ent for enhancing the benefit, as well as the pleasure, of classical studies. It is within the competence of the stu- dent, in all the stages of his scholastic progress, to make the translation of the daily lesson the best of all exercises for the attainment of a pure, elegant stj'le in writing and speaking his mother tongue. I have long been persuaded that the early adoption and vigorous employment, throughout the scho- lastic career, of this easy method of improvement in style, would go far to insure a highly respectable proficiency in En- glish composition, independently of the more formal teach- ings and exercises of that department. Such attempts at improvement in one of the best accomplishments which lib- eral education bestows, made in closest contact and commun- ion with the most perfect models, and under the presiding auspices of the noblest minds that Greece and Rome could boast, offer all possible facilities for the culture and refine- ment of the taste, and the best corrective of the ambitious finery and exaggerated rhetoric to which youths of quick parts and fruitful imaginations are wont to betray strong tendencies. To the students who desire to avail themselves of all the sources of improvement within their reach, it will be a recommendation of the method just proposed that it will give additional interest to the recitation, and enable them, without any new exaction upon their industry, to learn from the performances of an hour too often felt to be unprof- itable and even burdensome, a daily rhetorical lesson of great and peraianent value. Before leaving the recitation I will make another sugges- tion well worthy of consideration, if I may trust the testi- mony of my own under-graduate experience. Much may be achieved toward making each lesson contribute its utmost to mental discipline, and to the formation of philosophical habits, by giving to the recitations of the class and the sug- gestions of the teacher such heedful attention as shall be MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 71 equivalent to a careful review, in which not only may the errors and deficiencies of private study he corrected, but all the parts and fragments of the entire scholastic exercise may be molded into a logical form, most fit to be received by the understanding, and preserved for future use in the memory. This habit, once thoroughly estabhshed and faithfully carried out in the daily history of four consecutive years, will, at the termination of such a career, be well able to account for what- ever difference may appear between an ordinary scholar and a good one. The efficacy of method in getting the lesson, regarded in its connection with the kind and degree of mental discipline to be derived from it, is a consideration of still greater im- portance than the manner of recitation. The preparation of the study should aim, as far as practicable, to furnish the mind with an intelligible resume, or synopsis of the subject or lesson, sufficiently comprehensive to embrace every signif- icant fact or thought, all arranged in such order as shall exhibit their mutual dependence and relations, and the con- clusion to which they tend. This method is especially ap- plicable to branches of study which usually occur in the later years of the academic course, when the mind is sup- posed- to be fitted for considerable efforts of understanding and reasoning. The recitation of a lesson thus thoroughly mastered approaches the highest excellence, in whatever de- grees it is able to make oral disclosure of the knowledge so acquired in clear, simple language, and logical order, inde- pendent of all prompting and interrogation beyond the teach- er's single suggestive question, which may be needful in order to put the thread of discourse in the pupil's hand. The same rule of study and acquisition is equally applicable to the con- tents of each branch of a general subject, and to the entire treatise. Half the knowledge acquired from books is usual ly lost, and the value of the rest impaired in yet higher de- grees, from the utter neglect of some orderly, judicious ar 72 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF rangement, adapted to its preservation in the memory and its utility to the understanding, whether as a good discipline of its powers, or as the instrument of future attainments and enjoyments. I think it may be regarded a sound, practical maxim, that any book worth reading by a student is worthy of being read with such a degree of care as will leave in the mind a connected, logical epitome of what it contains. To the method of acquisition which I have recommended, an objection is likely to occur, to the effect that it demands an amount of intellectual effort of which not many minds are capable, and to which fewer still are disposed. In reply, it will be sufficient to state, that we are inquiring after the best means and instruments of mental discipline, which, from the nature of the case, do not suppose any exaggerated ac- tion of the mind, but only that its ordinary efforts shall be put forth in such a direction, and with such aspirations, as will tend gradually to establish the best intellectual habits. Such a training, carried on to any tolerable degree of perfec- tion, must be the result of many endeavors, conducted under such enlightened views of education as shall at once secure to the mind a measure of the advantages proposed, and grad- ually prepare it for the full reahzation of all that is pledged by the theory. It is a great mistake, however, to conclude that industry must take upon itself additional burdens in order to fulfill these conditions. Study derives additional interest, and the mind borrows a clearer light from the large, liberal philos- ophy that it is proposed shall preside over the educational movement. To refer again to classical studies, the various sources of interest and illumination suggested as deserving the student's regard are each of them likely to be helpful to his progress. They shed mutual alleviations and lights upon each other, and upon the entire subject of inquiry and investigation. They all aid him in obtaining a comprehen- sive acquaintance with the ideas and the life of the age long MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 73 by-gone, in which all the doubtful questions that beset his inquiries are most likely to find a satisfactory solution. So, also, when the student shall have made some progress in the habit of thorough acquisition, and of the logical arrange- ment and recollection which I have recommended, he will find tlie labor, both of learning and of remembering, not aug- mented, but greatly diminished. Such a method is adapt- ed precisely to the constitution and wants of the mind, which is baffled by disorder, and swamped by a multitude of facts and thoughts thrown upon it without perception or notifica- tion of the relations that give them value and significance. Once reduce this incomprehensible chaos to a regular system, in which each subordinate part shall find its fit place in the harmonious whole, and the difficulty, whether of learning or of recollecting, will be no longer formidable. The mind, rejoicing to do its homage to " Heaven's first law," easily follows the " hccidus ordd^ through all the intricacies of the problem submitted to its sagacity, while the functions of mem- ory are almost superseded by the efficacious laws of associa- tion, under which each thought and each train of thought are attracted to their fitting place by natural affinities^ that will guard them against oblivion, and hold them forthcom- ing and available in time of need. It is, I think, demon- strable, that the student who holds himself obliged to learn every lesson critically and thoroughly, and to produce a clear, intelligible report of it in the recitation-room, will have less labor to perform on text-books, taking into account the entire college course, than others, who, without meaning to incur the shame or the guilt of disreputable indolence and neglect, never aspire to any high style of scholastic achieve- ments. A good mastery of the elementary principles of lan- guage or science, early attained, facilitates future acquisi- tions. The mind, too, acquires tone and efficiency of action by habituating itself to go with unquestioning energy to the bottom of every investigation, while superficial study and the D 74 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS OF habit of penetrating only so far into a subject as may serve to conceal the grosser degrees of ignorance, and secure guar- antees against egregious failure at examinatiqu, gradually brings upon the mind a measure of imbecility and self-dis- tnist incompatible with cfTective performance. This super ficial method never grapples manfully Vith dilliculties, Avhich, however slight at first and easily vincible, become fixed ob- s; ructions in the way of satisfactory progress, over which the mind comes at length to stunTble on with a sort of blind dex- terity, not uiimingled with aAve at the near proximity of mys- teries to it so profound and incomprehensible. This style of scholastic performance reminds us of the degraded agricul- ture which formerly prevailed much more than at present. The unskillful, plodding farmer went on from year to year, forcing a wretched tribute from his barren fields by a rude culture which barely stirred their surface. Without attempt- ing to penetrate the reluctant soil with a deeper furrow, and to clear away, at once and forever, all the obstacles to a fix- cile agriculture and an abundant harvest, he blunted hi.s plowshare and worried his cattle in a life-long struggle against the same fixed or rolling stones, which a little enter- prise and a vigorous outlay of vernal and autumnal leisure might long since have converted to useful purposes. The real, ultimate advantages of thoroughness in study, as the sure and only way of making study easy and satisfactory, must, I flatter myself, be apparent to all who hear me, with- out further argument or illustration. The importance of such a method, however, depends on yet higher considerations. The habit of treating any subject of investigation slightly, and of accepting the conclusion of a proposition with a hu- miliating consciousness that the steps and the force of the ar- gument are not understood, must, in the end, result in some degree of incapacity to think clearly and reason correctly, and the student has every motive to strive to the utmost against this incipient fatal blunder in education, which can inspire a MENTAL DISCIPLINi:. 75 wish to bear away from tlio arena of exercise and discipline some adequate preparation for the reahties of professional or public life. Whatever it may cost of toil, of watching, of reiteration and review, it must be a first principle with the student to understand every thing as he advances. To this one position he must hold with an unyielding, dogged perse verance, which no discouragement, no reluctance to toil, no self-indulgence may be able to relax. Each problem left un- solved, with a tacit admission that it is too hard a task for the mental faculties, besides becoming an embarrassment in the way of future progress, and impairing the bravery of self-reliance, tends to produce and establish the habit of su- perficial investigation. A standard of performance is imper- ceptibly fixed, degraded enough in all reason and manliness, bvit which becomes a measure of excellence, below which if the student does not frequently sink he is well satisfied, and above which he no longer aims. This fundamental omis- sion, wherever and by whomsoever made, it should be a pri- mary object with the student to supply. I expressed on a former occasion, and I here repeat the opinion, that every sound mind is fully competent to a mastery of all the studies of the academic course. The actual difficulty, however em- barrassing, has grown out of some previous omission or neg- lect, which diligence in the use of leisure hours or of a va- cation would soon remedy. It may be that only a single link is wanting to the continuity and completeness of the chain. The most complicated mathematical problem is hard and unmanageable only because a very simple arithmetical or algebraic procesis was lost sight of in the haste or the neg- ligence of the initiatory part of the course. Such a revision of the elements of science or of language as may be accom- plished in a week, will often illumine the whole subsequent scholastic career. Though every mind is competent, with good application, to understand th3 studies of our academic course, all do not 76 THE BEST MEANS AND INSTRUMENTS Of acquire tliem with the same degree of facihty, and, what is more material to my present purpose, facihty of acquisition is no accurate test of intellectual capacity, or of the advance- ment made in mental discipline, which is, according to our theor}', synonymous with education, hy any given amount of attainment. The best minds are often wont to move with the greatest deliberation, and to bestow both time and care- ful examination upon the proposition which is henceforward to remain deposited in its archives, as well-ascertamed, un- questionable truth. A quick memoiy, on the contrary, will sometimes seize upon the facts as well as the reasonings of the lesson, and treasure them up in its capacious store-house with a marvelous, unreasoning rapidity, incompatible with a thoughtful exercise of the higher mental faculties, and as lit- tle favorable to intellectual discipline. Discipline, which, in aU our contemplations of the scholastic life, must be kept in view as the principal thing, owes its existence and its chief improvements to what are denominated hard studies. To the bad facility of acquisition, which wins its easy way by sheer efforts of memory, it owes no acknowledgments. It is from fields of toilsome inquiry, abounding in nice distinc- tions and disquisitions and profound analyses — ■ from fre- quent sturdy conflicts with high, complex truth, when the faculties are tasked to the utmost, and there is a free de- mand for protracted, continuous, intense efforts of attention and thought, that the mind comes forth rejoicing in new, imperishable strength. Every student who aspires to intel- lectual power and distinction must be content to struggle for them in some arena which will give to his faculties full and strenuous employment. Hard rather than easy studies, profound treatises on significant subjects rather than taking, flippant literature, should be preferred by those who covet the best gifts. The thorough study of Butler's Analogy, or some kindred work, often gives the mind an impulse, and even a character, that it never loses. MENTAL DISCIPLINE. 77 Were we to take a hundred boys, of average capacity, from the common schools, I am persuaded they might all be well fitted, by liberal education, to act a useful and honorable part in professional life. Education is able to qualify any compe- tent mind for all the duties to which educated men are wont to be called. It is discipline, and not brilliant talent, that is wanted in those positions where good men do the good that is accomplished under the sun. An ordinary mind, well trained, is better fitted for all the exigencies of life than the greatest genius without mental discipline. Education pre- pares men to know and to do all that should be known and done ; and the thorough discipline in which it consists, and which every sound intellect may attain, is usually of much more value to the indiAridual and to society, than all the cov- eted natural endowments which none can command, which are sparingly bestowed by heaven, and which do not often achieve any thing at all proportionate to the delusive prom- ise which so often provokes the envy of those who are intrust- ed with only a share of that average capability on the right use of which the world's hope depeads. 78 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY LECTURE VI. OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY AND GOOD TASTE. A difBcult Problem. — Essentials to the efficiency and completeness of li.ental Discipline. — Attention to minor Matters. — Vices of Manner when habitual, difficult to eradicate. — Vicious Pronunciation of common English Words. — The Remedy to be applied in Youth, if ever. — The correction of Faults does not require Talent and Genius, but Humility and Resolution. — Avvkvvai-dness of Attitude and Ges- tui'e. — Slang Phrases. — Corrupt Language leads to conniption of Taste. — Grossness cultivated by the Student clings to the Man in after Life. — Self-reforming Power the distinguisliing Privilege of the Young. — Labor, Self-denial, Patience, Perseverance requisite. — Analogy from the business of the Gardener. — Attention fixed on Things to be avoided rather than on Things to be acquired. — The removal of a Fault more important than the acquisition of an Ac- complishment. — Simplicity of Action. — Unambitious Style. — Purity of Language. — Use of strong Epithets. — Illustrations. — Effects. — False Rhetoric leads to false Logic. Were it required of any one of us to make a full enumer- ation of all the qualifications, the results of education, which combine in furnishing an educated man with the efficiency and momentum requisite to usefulness and respectability in a professional career, it would be found, I tliink, on due re- flection, that a problem had been proposed, very comprehen- sive in its import, and by no means easy of solution. It will be agreed on all hands that a young man, in order to act his part well on such a theatre, must go forth to his work with all the advantages of a thorough intellectual training, with a vigorous, symmetrical development of his mental capabil- ities, a graceful, many-sided culture, his tastes refined, his imagination chastened, and all his aspirations made manly .•aid pure by their habitual subjection to the control of pure iLud elevatmg motives. All that in my previous Lectures I AND GOOD TASTE. 79 have insisted on as essential to the efficiency and complete- ness of mental discipline, should he his, to'gether with many more intellectual accomplishments which it has not fallen in •with my present design to consider, or which inadvertence and the brevity imposed by our circumstances have led me tx) omit. In addition to this rather formidable list of requirements, there are other conditions of success hardly less imperative, for which provision must also be made, if ever, during the ' forming years of academic life. It is, perhaps, because the world is a more competent judge of accomplishments which may be easily acquired than it is of higher and more difficult attainments, that it exacts them with greater rigor, and toler- ates deficiencies less indulgently. The world demands, and, I must think, not unreasonably, of those who aspire to be its teachers, and to be intrusted with the management of its most precious interests, a decent respect for its good taste, and it listens incredulously to high intellectual pretensions, set forth with clumsy diction and ungainly gesture. It is usually much more offended with false syntax than with false logic, and more readily pardons a blunder in argument than a trip in pronunciation. Many a one goes forth from academic shades not inadequately furnished with such qualifications as diligent study and faithful teaching are able to supply, and deficient only in those which would have cost him no addition- al toil to swell the triumph of competitors, his inferiors in ev- ery thing which he has been wont to regard as worthy of the attention of an intelligent, educated man. We may complain as we will of the injustice or the folly of the world's awards, but it must be made much wiser, and must grow much kinder than it is, before its wounded self-respect will consent to toler- ate, in educated men, such habitual ofienses against propriety S-xid good taste as every schoolboy is able to detect, and which it is the shame of schoolboys not to have corrected. Almost any degree of eccentricity and imperfection of utterance or 80 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY action is allowed to men of acknowledged genius and great reputation, but, in the great majority of aspirants for public favor and influence, such faults become frequent and efllcient causes of disheartening, disreputable failure. Most earnest- ly would I endeavor to impress upon those who now hear me my own convictions of the great practical importance of this subject. ^ It is with no slight mortification that, as the result of my 'observation and experience, I must entertain very moderate expectations of success in any attempt to reform those vices of manner which have become habitual, and ^vhich usually enjoy the privileges of asylum in the favor of a sort of impe- rial indifference, that, because these are confusedly only pet- ty defects, will insist upon regarding it |^very petty business to intermeddle with them. The student who makes a pas- time of learning Conic Sections, and calculates the sun's eclipses for a hundred years, baffles the efforts of aU his teachers to keep his hands away from his pockets, or the skirts and button-holes of his coat, in his oratorical essays. The youth who has gained a complete mastery over the dif- ficulties of Greek and Roman literature, and is above all reproach in the matter of dactyls and iambics, continues to maintain his own peculiar method of pronouncing and ac- centing a number of English words, wdth which it is his un- conscious purpose to afflict fastidious ears as long as he lives. He entered college, it may be, a stanch 2Ja,t-riot. He remains an unflinching pat-riot throughout his four years of trial, in spite of all winning arts and efforts to seduce him from his sturdy allegiance to the black-balled vulgarism, and into the wide world he goes forth at last -with, pdt-riotisiyi inscrihedi upon the banner which he throws to the breeze. One of the most difficult works which a teacher is called to perform is often that of eliminating, from the action or the utterance, faults which a small degree of attention and self-culture would at once correct, but which, having become habitual, AND GOOD TASTE. no external influence or skill, however faithful and prolonged their agency, can remedy. I have, in some instances, la- bored through a series of years to induce intelligent, excel- lent students to be sparing in their vocal performances of such questionable peculiarities as docs, and been or ben, sloth and nothing, but with so little success that my well-meant efibrts seemed to rouse up some degree of resentment, as if some design was entertained against a cherished birthright, or some indignity meditated against the family honor. So deeply and ineradicably do these depreciating peccadilloes become imbedded in minds of a certam texture, that it is not more difficult to cure the trolling brogue of a fresh Connaught immigrant than it is to correct the bald, vulgar provincial- ism, in phrase an4 utterance, of a liberally-educated man. I dwell upon this topic at greater length because I think myself enabled to hope that the discussion may be suggestive of practical applications, and even of beneficent refomtis. It seems to me to be one of the least excusable of the delinquen- cies chargeable upon intelligent, upright students, that they should mar the symmetry and impair the efficiency of their education by the toleration of petty faults, which a little painstaking and resolute dealing with themselves would eradicate at once and forever. Perfection in oratory, as well as in manners and conversa- tion, are dependent upon favorable natural endowments. The rarity of such gifts may very well repress an unreasonable am- bition, but it constitutes no ground for discouragement, since they are not indispensable to eminent usefulness. It may be freely admitted that the highest excellence, which always supposes an unusual combination of fortunate circumstances, is not, and can not be generally attainable. Gluite practi- cable it is, however, for the student to eradicate such faults as have just passed in review before us, and these are, in not a few instances, chief obstacles to success. Graceful action, a musical voice, a fine person, are not always to be had for D 2 82 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY M'ooing, but ungainly attitudes and gestures, vicious intona- tions, false accents and emphasis, are usually the gi'owth of carelessness and had training, and they are always vincible, at least so far as they constitute barriers to a useful outlay of educated talent. It is because I deem the sentiment not only unquestionably correct, but of great practical importance, that I repeat the opinion already expressed, that every young man who enters upon the work of education with an average outfit of the mental and ])hysical capabilities which belong to the species, may qualify himself by an intelligent and painstaking cul- ture for usefulness and respectability in the pursuits of pro- fessional and lettered life. He may become a good general scholar, and he may become a proficient in any branch of hu- man knowledge which interest, taste, or favoring circum- stances may induce him to pursue. This good endowment of natural faculties, and the good training which we have supposed, constitute the substratuin and the main elements of intellectual character and efficiency. "Without these qual ifications, no human being can exert any salutary, lasting in- fluence in the world, or achieve any thing worthy of being held in honorable remembrance. Possessed of these imj- sources, none but the victim of his own follies or of an unre- lenting destiny need fail of acting a good and manly part on any theatre where educated talent is the first condition of success. Here are the real sources of intellectual efficiency They may be augmented and emblazoned by the rarer gifts of creative genius and poetic imagination, but, independently of such brilliant accompaniments, they are fully competent to perform the tasks which human society is accustomed to impose upon intelligent, virtuous men. Failures, when they occiir under the favoring conditions here supposed, are always the result of indolence, or negligence, or recklessness, or of other causes implying still more grievous derelictions of manliness and virtue. AND GOOD TASTE. 83 I recur again to the case of the young, in whom these good natural endowments, improved by liberal study, are embar- rassed and rendered partially inetficient and unavailable, by petty defects or faults, which, being oflensive to the public taste, provoke prejudice and disgust, and so become serious obstacles to usefulness. It is certainly much to be deplored that so many elements of success, the gift of bounteous Na- ture, improved by so mucli painstaking culture, should be damaged and impeded in their action by petty faults and blemishes, which, however fixed in the habits, do not pene- trate below the surface of the character. For the encourage-* ment of those who regard even the slightest improvement of their means of usefulness a legitimate object of endeavor, I will suggest that the eradication of the faults to which our attention is now directed is a very diflerenl undertaking from that of acquiring new accomplishments. I think it has be- fallen all of us, at some time, or other, when prompted by some friendly monitor, or by our own sense of propriety, to adorn some corporeal or mental performance with additional ease and grace, to feel that a most indefinite, intangible ob- ject has been proposed, difficult to be realized even in con- ception, and grievously difficult to be embodied in action. We may be painfully conscious of the deficiency, and yet ut- terly unfurnished with the ideas and the taste which would enable us to supply it. Now the correction of faults is for- tunately a more positive and tangible business. The demand is not for the skill and the genius that can model and create, but for the humility that will be taught, and the resolution that will root up and ostracize. If our friends are so foolish as to ignore or conceal our faults, we shall probably find more frankness, and more real friendship, in rivals and ene- mies, in whom the critical organ is wont to be fully developed. Whoever is desirous of correcting such faults as are the subject of our present consideration, need be at no loss for the requisite illumination. If there is first a willing mind, there 84 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY will be no lack of either lights or helps. The chief obstacles to success in such an attempt are to be encountered in the be- ginning, and they will usually be found to exist in the very slight importance attached to such reforms, or in the false pride that thinks it a degradation to make an improvement which is deemed equivalent to confessing an imperfection. Let us suppose that an earnest experiment is to be made upon the written and spoken language, with the intention of rid- ding it of aU errors and inelegancies, and of cultivating a style both for conversation and for more formal occasions, which shall never offend a refined ear. The scholastic ex- ercises in speaking and composition always aflbrd many more suggestions on this subject than are usually heeded, and I must think that any student really anxious for improvement may so far profit by such exhibitions, and by the criticisms vhey are wont to call forth, as to cure eflectvially all the er- rors which most frequently occur. This remark applies both to action and to utterance, and it seems to me very obvious that nothing but indifference to the subject can perpetuate faults in attitude, gesture, and pronunciation, which are strik- ingly at variance with good taste and established princi- ples. It will prove a more arduous, though seldom a fruit- less undertaking, to extend this unsparing reform to other oc- casions, not comprehended in the teacher's domain, which, however, often become chief sources of a corrupting influence upon language and taste. Forms of expression are constant- ly working their way into currency in the thoughtless inter- course of young men, recognized at first as vulgar slang, and tolerated only for their grotesque, absurd extravagance, which, in the usurping spirit that belongs to such vices, gradually impress their complexion upon the colloquial style, of which they become the chief staple. Once habitual, this style en- croaches upon the properties of more serious occasions, and the hopeful imitator of Jack Downing and Davy Crockett, who is the envied centre of merriment in his own laugh AND GOOD TASTE. 85 ing circle, becomes its unconscious subject in the drawing- room. From corruption in language there is only a brief step to corruption of taste ; and I never listen to a sparkling genius of this particular type, fluent in the savory diction of Sam Blick and his compeers, without a painful conviction that he has put liimself under tutors whose vulgarizing influence it will require a great deal of classical training to counteract. From habitual intimacy with such a style of conversation, the mind contracts a certain infection, a proclivity to what is too low for an educated man — an appetite for a species of humor that is broad to grossness and vulgarity, for which, I fear, education and the mature judgments of manhood will never be able to find a perfect cure. It is for the student himself, or for no one, to apply both prevention and remedy. He may check the still pliant tendency before it ossifies into habit. He may, perhaps, expel the virus before the constitu- tion is tainted with incurable disease, but I am compelled to regard this as one of the most common sources of a deteriora- ting, vulgarizing influence, which so often thwarts and coun- teracts the natural tendency of hberal education to purify the taste and elevate the character. The natural soil for this fantastical diction, which has no recommendation except in its intrinsic obscurity, is found in the imeducated, or half-uneducated mind of a large and in- creasing class of young men, whose gregarious occupations create a demand for the talent and the material of conver- sation which their low standard of intelligence is not compe- tent to satisfy. By them this degraded currency is naturally welcomed as an easy substitute for the knowledge, taste, and wit ^vith which good cultivation, if not Nature, has refused to supply them. The most exorbitant forms of speech, in doing violence to all sense and reason, cHng to the memory with the greater tenacity. Their destitution of all specific, intelliofible meaning fits them all the better to be the medi' 86 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETY um of a social intercourse, into which thought and common sense enter only in their lowest and least appreciable forms, while in the enormous breadth of their gross humor they are well adapted to ears less delicate, if not more elongated, than usually fall to individuals belonging to the human spe- cies. To a careless observer, there is often something enter- taining in listening to this substitute for wisdom and wit, when, on the closing of the work-shops, it becomes vocal along the side-walks, and an unreflecting benevolence would as soon deprive these aspirants for the honors of a gentleman of their reeking cigars, as these aspirants for the honors of a wit of the only vocabulary in which they know how to as- sert their pretensions. This same benevolence, however, be- comes more thoughtful, and, having some mission of truth, or virtue, or religion to these young men of a strange language, will not be long in reaching a painful conviction that this egregious gibberish of which it had forborne to form any opin- ion more unfavorable than that it was foolish and absurd, has really penetrated into the character. From so often standing in the place of good sense, it has finally supplant- ed it. From being the dialect in which the mind is wont to put forth its most pretending essays in thought and elo- quence, it becomes the only vehicle on which it feels compe- tent to embark its conceptions. Low, ludicrous associations come at length to attach themselves to the most serious sub- jects, and the highest questions of morals and religion grad- ually lose all influence over a mind habituated to contem- plate them, as it does every thing else, in such lights only as may find the most ready expression in this debased and de- basing dialect. I have bestowed a paragraph upon a very palpable and undignified error, as it is developed in uneducated minds, because the illustration may be more striking and efliectivo. The vitiating tendencies in the student guilty of a similar folly will operate with equal force, but areiikely to be par- ANDGOODTASTE. 87 tially counteracted by the nature of his pursuits. A culti- vated mind has acquired some power to resist the deteriora- ting agency, and it finds a measure of protection against the contagion in the vigor and the multitude of its own activi- ties. I should fail, however, of giving expression to my set- tled conviction, did I not ascribe to the fault in question a very considerable as well as baleful influence over the de- velopment of intellectual character. The tender plants of taste and genius are choked by these rank, overshadowing thorns. The delicate, susceptible mind gets a tinge ru.-l a bias ; the style of thought an insidious, contaminating infu- sion of ineradicable grossncss. I very much doubt whether any one who has for a series of years subjected his tastes to the deteriorating influences supposed, will ever after bcc^ me capable of that nice susceptibility to the finer proprieties and beauties of language, on which the highest excellence in com- position and oratory so much depend. So far as I may rely upon my own recollection and observation, I can confidently declare that I have always seen the grossness which was cultivated in the student cling with inexorable tenacity to the man in after life. No high public position, no familiar- ity with polished society, no after endeavors, were able fully to remove the blemish — to purge the infection which grew up with the years of academic life. They were wooed and welcomed when the mind was all plastic and susceptible. They are bound up in its destiny by inevitable habit. The correction of these petty faults and impertinences, which, together, often exert a very appreciable and deterio- rating influence upon the prospects and character of educa- ted men, must be efiected, if effected at all, by a vigilant self-inspection and control, instituted during the fonning pe- riod of education, before such habits have become confirmed, and conducted in the spirit of an indomitable purpose and an unsparing faithfulness. While nothing is to be regarded as trivial or unimportant which may detract from the highest 88 OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRIETr efficiency of the intellect, or interfere in the slightest degree with the harmonious, graceful, perfect mental development which it is the business of education to achieve, no obstacle should be deemed insuperable, no resistance invincible, before the indomitable ameliorating process to which every student resolved to be a man may triumphantly subjugate all his mental powers and habitudes. The possession of this self- forming and self-reforming poAver is the distinguishing attri- bute and privilege of young men. In the energy which bravely asserts this high prerogative, and the indolence that yields it up in the face of every difficulty, reside the true sources of the honor and the shame that are to give their complexion to the history of manhood. Unquestionably, the manly exertion of so high a function will involve labor, and self-denial, and patience, and perseverance ; but all these are virtues worth cultivating for their own sake. They are 'me- dia of the noblest disciphne, and it were the part of wisdom to multiply our relations to them, as the best auxiliaries in all the enterprises which are likely to yield, either to youth or to manhood, either dignity or enjoyment. It is not well to begin the work of education and self-cul- ture by an. over-careful study of labor-saving expedients. He who has conceived the purpose of making of himself so con- siderable a thmg as a inan, may, at the outset, lay his ac- count with no trivial expenditure of toil and painstaking. The raw material of such a fabric behooves to be passed through refining processes ; and this cunning age, so famous for easy methods and shortened routes, still blushes to con- fess, as the result of all its cherished theories and experi- ments, that the crowning improvement which is to divorce wisdom from work exists only in posse. Even the fabulous poets, who could transform flowers and butterflies into nymphs and goddesses, never ventured to place wisdom any where but upon the loftiest summits, inaccessible to mortals except by slow and toilsome steps. AND GOOD TASTE. 89 Presuming the stmlent to have gained his own cordial as- sent, in full view ofall the detail and duration of the work before him, to the reformatory eflbrts needful for thorough, comprehensive self-culture, I may repeat the suggestion that his main business will much resemble the gardener's, who trusts to the well-prepared soil for the growth of sweet flow- ers and delicious fruits, but labors dihgently for the eradica- tion of the noxious vegetation that conceals their beauty and listorts their proportions. A good mind, in the absence of disturbing influences, and under judicious training, has a spontaneous tendency to symmetrical, graceful development. Bountiful Nature has sown the good seed, which finds the most favorable conditions for germination and growth in the scholastic occupations usually embraced in the curriculum of hberal education. Under all ordinary circumstances, such studies provide, in the best way kiaown to modern science and experience, for the harmonious manifestation and im- provement of the mental faculties. Thus secure of the more tangible benefits, by an earnest co-operation with the general scholastic movement, the student is at liberty to direct his special solicitudes to the correction of faults and the removal of defects, usually the result of accidental causes. "Whether his attention shall be turned toward errors in language, or utterance, or action, or manners, it will be chiefly fixed upon things to be avoided rather than on things to be desired or to be done. In all the changes that shall be efiected, it is quite possible there will not be the positive addition of a single ac- complishment. In this removal, however, of the faults and the ungainliness which were most noticeable, a freer scope is given for the development and the spontaneous play of the better iimate tendencies, which are constantly invited into manifestation by the good general culture. "VYe may have a great deal less of gesticulation under the new regime that proscribes all improper gestures. The vo- cabulary, which was distended by much of all the vulgarism, yO OFFENSES AGAINST PROPRiETY provincialism, and slang which the "West and the East can supply, will certainly be reduced in its compass and copious- ness when nothing shall remain hut such a pure, simple dialect as befits the mouth of a scholar and a gentleman. Something may, at first, be lost to conscious dignity when the cigar no more illuminates the evening promenade — something to conscious ease in making the descent from a two to a four-legged chair. The rejection of so much that had become customary and spontaneous, will very likely leave, at least, some transient sense of a want. The good nature and the good culture, however, upon whose domain the os- tracized follies were manifest intruders, will be forthcoming, with their genial arts, to build up the waste places in forms of new grace and beauty. It may be added, that the removal of a fjxult is usually much more important than the acquisition of an accomplish- ment. The attitude and the movement, which are no longer chargeable with ungainliness or constraint, have become ap- propriate and even graceful. Language and style, purged of - the faults which due attention to the subject readily detects, are proper and pure,, and verge upon elegance, and now that these vicious and vitiating elements are removed out of the way of improvement, study and composition, and reading and society, all contribute to an ever-progressive refinement and excellence. It will be perceived that the methods of corrective reform here recommended all tend to simplicity of action and char- acter — to unambitious style of conversation and composition, and to repose of manners — to the rejection of all afiectation, artifice, and exaggeration, a condition of things precisely the most favorable to a free, full, truthful development of what- ever capabilities for good Nature has bestowed. I shall close this Lecture with the suggestion of a deeply philo- sophical argument in favor of cultivating simplicity of lan- guage. It has been charged, by a distinguished female wri- AND GOOD TASTE. 9] ter, upon the young of licr own sex, that they are specially addicted to the use oi" exaggerated phrases and epitliets in conversation, and the practice is very properly stigmatized by her as being excessively stupid and vulgarizing. I do not imagine that this fault is confined to either sex, though it, no doubt, prevails mostly among the young, and my objection to it goes somewhat deeper than a question of good taste. You will readily comprehend the special extravagance which I have in view, as I presume you all have, within the circle of your acquaintance, a number of exemplifications of it. Such persons are not content with expressing with reasona- ble precision the idea or quality under consideration, but would add to its impressiveness, and make what, it may be, is somewhat commonplace, startling by the use of strong epi- thets. With such persons slight imperfections are horrid, and slight inconveniences liorrible. They are wont to be filled with dreadful apprehensions, have dismal nights, and au-jul weather. Sights that awake little emotion in others, are perfectly beautiful, splendid, magnificent, or they are odious, frightful, detestable. Their promenades or visits are perfectly delightful, and their cherries 'perfectly delicious. One is on the point of congratulating these fortunate people on possessing several Iriends who are all excpuisitely beau- tiful and perfectly elegant — the best, the noblest — the most intelligent, the most remarkable in some virtue, accomplish- ment, or talent in the Avide world, but for the fact, soon dis- closed in oflsets, that they have as many enemies equally worthy of epithets most adapted to shadow forth the mar- velous in vice, stupidity, or bad breeding. Such practical youths do not disapprove merely — they hate, detest, abom- inate. They are not displeased or angry, but absolutely mad. What to others may appear not quite celestial, but, as the world goes, passable enough, is, in their vocabulary, at the very best, abominable, and very likely inferncd. We do not stop to note the gross violation of charity, and good 92 OFFENSES AGAINST PROIRIETY taste, and common sense involved in such extravagances, noi of good breeding, which is always offended by this poor am- bition for the striking and the unusual. "We mark only the far higher offense against the rights of the intellect. The proper function of language is the truthful expression of ideas, and the more exactly it accomplishes this end, the more per- fectly does it answer its fit and proper calling. The first, the second, and the third thing with the student of language should be always to use the precise term which exhibits, in its true form and dimensions, the intellectual prototype of which it professes to make conveyance to the eyes and ears of others. This habit of accuracy once established, the thought becomes associative with the most fit and expressive word, and they mutually suggest each other, even to the most rapid speaker or writer. This unspeakable advantage is forfeited by the senseless exaggeration now the subject of our criti- cism, and the victim of so bald a method of winning distinc- tion, if he chance to have an idea to communicate, will prob- ably have to choose out of a troop of extravagant epithets which press in upon him in his time of need — a promiscuous mob, subject to no mental law, and all, probably, unadapted to his purpose. The thought and the word have been forced out of their natural relations, and no longer suggest each other. Again ; the silent processes of thought are carried on in language which is really as much the medium of thinking as it is of expressing thought. In the words which we employ in conversation and writing, and in the sense attached to them in our daily intercourse, are our unuttered thoughts likely to enshrine themselves in the chambers of the mind, awaiting, in that precise combination with the words, fit oc- casions for outward expression. It is easy to perceive how the exaggerated speaking, which we have seen to be little better than habitual falsehood, must introduce the same spu- rious element into the thoughts and the reasoning. The false ANDGOODTASTE. y3 rhetoric becomes in. this way the source of false logic, and necessitates exaggeration and confusion in the working of the mental powers. It is worth while for the student to medi- tate thoughtfully upon these subtle relations, and to keep hiraself apprised of latent causes of miscliief, which operate all t'ic more effectually ftr being overlooked or contemned. 94 THE FORMATION OF LECTURE VII. THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. Nature and Power of Habit. — Character widely different from Reputa- tion. — It is made up of a Man's real Qualities and Accomplisbments. — Latent Agencies incessantly at work. — Peculiar Impressibility of the youthful Mind. — Far more so than that of Childhood or mature Manhood. — Germs of Good and Evil rapidly developed at College. — Pi'actical importance of the prudential Regulations of Academic Life. — System and Regularity. — Punctuality. — Order. — A Defense against the Encroachments of Indolence. — Character modified by Associa- tions. — Laws of Academic Institutions. — They are its Ideal, its Model. — Why they do not always produce the desired Result. — Young Men are Free Agents. Throughout the brief course of Lectures of which this, for the present, at least, will be the conclusion, you have not failed, young gentlemen, to recognize the presence of one per- vading, overruling idea. I adverted at the outset to the na- ture and power of habit, and to its manifold significant re- lations to the business of education. In discussing the mo- tives which exert an influence upon the student's progress so strong and characterizing, I called your attention, not to tran- sient impulses and vanishing results, but to such as are per- manent, and as impress upon the mind habitual tendencies and abiding aptitudes. Intellectual discipline, which is, per- haps, the best definition of education, is only another form of expression for the good mental habits with which the stu- dent should become endowed in the labors and conflicts of his scholastic career. Education seeks, throughout the long suc- cession of its experiments and exercises, to improve, to the full extent of their capabilities, the several faculties of the mind, and it gives its name to the group of conservative habits to which is intrusted the preservation of all the precious fruits CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 95 of SO much protracted, painstaking endeavor. It was under the guidance of the same pervading idea, and for the pur- pose of preventing or correcting injurious habits, that I ad- verted to improprieties and petty oiTenses againt good taste or good manners, which very intelligent and well-educated men sometimes allow, by becoming habitual, to impair the value and influence of literary accomplishments. Education, then, when spoken of as the result, and not the process of intellectual training, consists in a certain number of mental habits and aptitudes, the product of the scholastic culture. It furnishes most, but not all of the elements that are combined in the character of an educated man. Char- acter is more comprehensive than education, which it em- braces, together with a variety of ingredients derived from other sources. It is the amount of all the efficiencies with which an educated man is furnished for the discharge of his duties. It is an accurate expression of all his aptitudes for fulfilling the proper functions of an intelligent human being. Character, you wiU perceive, which is thus rnade up of a man's real qualities and accomplishments, is widely difl'erent from reputation, which is but the estimate, often false as well as changeful, that is placed upon him by the world. All that has been advanced in our previous discussions in regard to the theory and practice of the scholastic life, is strictly applicable to the subject of this concluding Lecture, the Formatio» of Character in College. In addition to the teacher's faithfulness, and the pupil's diligence, there are oth- er agencies, not contemplated or provided for in the scholastic institute, which are very powerful, as well as ever active in their operation upon the youthful community. The student, during the years of his academic residence, dw^ells in the midst of modifying, transforming influences, that, from many unsuspected, inevitable sources, flow out upon him, and, scarcely less than his own and his teacher's efforts, give form and complexion to his subsequent history. Let us do- 96 THE FORMATION OF vote the present occasion to some brief consideration of these latent, less tangible agencies, which have not fallen within the range of our pre\dous discussions. It would not, probably, be correct to affirm, in regard to the period of life usually spent in college, that it is more sus- ceptible than any other to modifying influences. The con- stitution of infancy and childhood is, no doubt, still more del- icate and impressible, and is wont to undergo greater and more rapid changes under the action of surrounding circum- stances. Indeed, it is the very rapidity of such changes, and the facility with which they are effected on a mental con- dition so tender and flexible, and withal so prone to imita- tion, that protect the young agamst the formatioia of fixed habits at a period when they must be destitute of the dis- cretion and experience that ought to. preside over a process so important. The swift advances of childhood outstrip the growth of habits, and keep the elements of mental character in a state of fusion and movement, incompatible with receiv- ing or retaining any very determinate or enduring impres- sions. In this incapacity to take on and preserve new and permanent iirtellectual lineaments, cliildhood resembles mid- dle life and old age, much more than either of these resembles the period usually occupied with academic pursuits. The in- cessant transitions of the one, and the stubborn immobility of the other, are alike unfavorable to the formation and estab- lishment of permanent mental habits. Bet\^^en these two points in the mind's progress and history lies the region of fertility, and sunshine, and showers, where culture is omnipo- tent, and where, in the absence of skillful culture, a luxuriant growth, however worthless or pernicious, springs up unbidden. It is no exaggeration to say of a college peopled with eager youth at this eminently forming age, that it is a very focus of intense and effective influences. Independent of all that is taught and all that is learned, causes are here vigorously at work that are sure to model the character and give it form CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 97 and pressure for all future time. It is, indeed, the appoint- ed time of change, when pliable, impressible boyhood gives place to the harder sinew and more rigid features of the man. In the family circle, amid the sympathies and safe- guards of home, where the inevitable transition may be made under conditions most favorable to benignant results, this period of human life is, above all others, trying and decisive of the destinies of the future. In college, the blessed domin- ion of domestic afiections is measurably suspended or super- seded, and the manifold ties, before so powerful to restrain the waywardness and inexperience of youth fi'om gross aber- rations, usually fall into the inefficiency of enfeebled, unsus- tained sentiments. In this new, unsheltered position, the un- conscious, unresisting youth is subjected to a multitude of powerful influences unknown to his previous history, and un- provided for by the maxims and habits in accordance with which his life has hitherto been conducted. Yieldmg, pene- trable, plastic, he breathes an atmosphere vital with trans- forming agencies. Himself the overflowing source of an ir- repressible, outgoing efficiency, forever busy in modifying and molding the character of his associates, he is, at the same time, the very attractive centre of a thousand confluent sti'eams, no less potent and eager to tinge his nature with their own various hues and properties. With natural tend- encies to transition and transformation so manifold and ur- gent, and under so many circumstances so adapted and effi- cacious, there must needs be a rapid formation of character. Each germ of good or evil is hurried forward into a rapid development by a highly-stimulating process. It is nothing that the agents and subjects of this transforming process are wholly unconscious of the revolution that is passing before their eyes and upon their own nature. This unconscious- ness can not retard the progress of change when the laws of our being render change inevitable, and leave notliing to hu- man freedom but the prerogative of determining whether it i: 98 THE FOUMATION OF will be the victim of these irresistible tendencies or whether it will be their guide. It is no part of my design, as you will please observe, to represent the powerful tide of influences which play inces- santly upon the student's exposed position, in which his en- tire academic life is immersed, as wholly vicious and corrupt- ing. Such a view of the subject would awaken solicitude, and even despair, but would not be suggestive of any lessons of practical worth. It would be unwise, and perhaps dan- gerous, to enter upon a voyage without some acquaintance with the force and situation of the various currents to which our bark must be exposed, but it by no means follows that the agitations of the sea may not be weathered without dis- aster, and even be made subservient both to safety and speed. The delicate susceptibilities of the youthful mind, and the genial hospitality with which it throws wide open all its por- tals, and proclaims broad welcome to whatever visitants may please to enter, are not to be contemplated chiefly as sources of danger, but rather as offering the most favorable condi- tions for liberal culture, and the production of fine, elevated character. This plastic, ductile, impressible nature, with its precious freight of aspirations, tendencies, capacities, and liabilities, is the great central fact to which all the arrangements and appliances of education, and all the efforts of self-culture , must be adapted and directed. Such a reference Jias been kept in view in our previous discussions of college studies, and of the motives, methods, and habits most favorable to improvemcirt. The minor arrangement and requisitions con- nected with the order and administration of a place of edu- cation are only Avise and salutary in proportion as they con- sult the class of wants here indicated. It is in view of this peculiar impressibility of the youthful mind, and its exuberant tendencies to receive new habitudes and modifications from the molding agency to which H is ^ CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 99 exposed, that the prudential regulations, and the accidental circumstances and adjuncts of academic life, assume a prac- tical importance very worthy to he taken into our account of the causes that are efficient in the formation of character. The system and regularity indispensahle in the scholastic community, where labor is co-operative, and occasions for concurrent action return with almost every hour, exert an important though indirect influence, which is likely to estab- lish habits of punctuality and order, of inestimable value in every department of either professional or active life. This methodical arrangement of duties — this precise apportion- ment and distribution of tasks and times, is, with a largo class of minds, quite indispensable as a condition oi efficien- cy and success. A few individuals, rich in the unfailing resources of constitutional vivacity and enthusiasm, and act- ing always in the presence of the highest motives, are some- times able to make respectable attainments in knowledge, and, what is yet more rare, to keep up, amid the distracting scenes of life, a good measure of intellectual activity, by such desultory efibrts as are possible in the absence of a judicious controlling plan. With the great majority, however, system, Mdiich implies at least punctuality, order, perseverance, is a prime necessary of intellectual life, all of whose movements become embarrassed, uncertain, and feeble when they lack the guidance, support, and facility always afforded by an in- telligible, judicious, and authoritative 2^>'0gra')nme. , Such U law to five and Avork by, when it has become deeply rooted in the habits, becomes a chief element of mental pov.'- er. It is a potent defense against the encroachments of pleas- ure and indolence, and provides a sanctuary for the perform- ance of intellectual rites in the midst of the world's bustle and distractions. It would not be easy to exaggerate the great practical im.portance of cordially accepting, and vigor- ously maintaining through life, the habits of order and punc- tuality, and of the judicious distribution of duties and time. 100 THE FORMATION OF into which it is a spontaneous tendency of the under-graduate career to induct the student by easy and scarcely perceptible degi'ees. Here, beyond all doubt, resides the great secret of success. Ordinary minds, working upon a _2>>/aw — working systematically — achieve wliat, without such helps, is utterly impossible to the greatest genius. In fact, great intellectual performances are not often the product of minds of the best natural gifts. Such minds are wont to be corrupted by fa- cility of acquisition, and to rely more upon special efforts than upon persevering industry. Science owes its triumphs chiefly to the race of patient, plodding workers, who are con- tent to pay the price of wisdom, and whose steady, hfe-long progress in knowledge usually leaves beliind the whole mul- titude of competitors, who so easily outstripped them at the beginning of the race. It is precisely this want of the order- ly arrangement and strict punctuality, and of the mental in- dustry and mental activity which they arc wont to conserve and sustain — virtues which a college residence tends, above any other discipline, to establish — it is precisely this want that cripples the energies of the majority of educated men, and leaves them aground midway in their career. It is be- cause the educated physician follows no plan, and consecrates no hour to study, that he sinks into a mere man of routine and precedents. It is because the Christian minister has no established order in his work that the duties of the parish and the duties of the study are forever in conflict, and that both classes of duty are in the end neglected. An illustration, equally instructive, might be derived from every department of activity in which educated men are wont to engage. Observe that this eflicient element of character, than which I know of none more indispensable to success in life, is mtre^- ly incidental — not announced as one of the ends of scholastic arfangements — not thought of by the pupil, nor, it may be, l)y tlie teacher himself. As the result, however, of this in- cident or accident — of this spontaneous growth, we liave in CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 101 good students one of the most enduring, certain guarantees of future well-doing, an cstahlislied habit of orderly, prompt, vigorous mental activity. I have dwelt upon this single ex- ample of the results of the scholastic life, not more because of its great practical importance, than as a striking illustra- tion of the general efiect of the system of public education. Whether for good or for evil, four years in college are to any young man a transforming period. Diligent, earnest stu- dents, impelled by lofty incentives in their quest of mental power and resources, receive the new impress unconsciously in the form of effective habits and manly sentiments, which are at once the fruit, the expression, and the conservatories of intellectual and moral progress and attainment. Others, less active in their co-operation with the institutional move- ment, but still not deficient in yielding conformity to scholas- tic obligations, are less profoundly, though not less really and permanently, penetrated by the dominant molding influence, while we can not say in regard to the still more passive and involuntary subjects of such efficient agencies, provided only that they keep clear of a positive distaste for their position and occupation, that they will not derive considerable advant- ages, as they certainly will great and lasting changes, from the literary atmosphere and fellowsliip of so many scholars. The susceptibility of youth, stimulated by new, exciting cir- cumstances and associations — the intensity of institutional life, acting directly, and daily, and hourly upon the intellect, and the moral and social feehngs, and for so long a period, tnu^t produce in all a most observable as well as an endu- ring modification of character. It should also be noticed that the college can not avoid this full impression of itself upon its company of plastic youth. If its mental or moral tone is debased, and its organization vicious, they must breathe its tainted atmosphere, and can not escape its infection. They come hither to be transformed, and the worst mstitutions, no less than the best, are ccmpe- 102 THE FORMATION OF tent to achieve the predestined metamorphosis. Indolence, relaxed disciplilie, superficial teaching, and more shallow learning, arc mighty instruments in working out this inevi- table, irreversible revolution in the student's character and destiny. There are, no doubt, essential diil'erences between the two classes of agencies to which we have referred, as well as in their results, but the choice lies always between the good and the bad agencies and results, and not between either of these and none at all. The fundamental statutes of a hterary institution are its creed. Its principles are announced in its practical demands upon the .student's industry and general conduct. Not to require habitual diligence and punctuality is practically to inculcate the opposite vices, and, in many instances, really to make them parts of the student's character. Not to^ex act attendance on morning and evening, and Sabbath wor- ship, is, in the working of a college upon the youthful mind, little better than the positive inculcation of the opposite and anti- Christian theory. The omission becomes, under the circumstances supposed, not only a negation, but a proscrip- tion of the omitted duty, and a virtual enfoa'cement of the most hateful impiety. This is not necessarily the case every where and always, but in the domestic and the academic community — every where where the young are to be taught and trained, it is true, eminently and without qualification. Here, the truth that is not inculcated and the virtue that is not required, make haste To become the falsehood that taints and the vice that stains the character. The laws of a col- lege are, in this view, its declaration of faith. They are its ideal — its model, which seeks for a realization in the student's life. The best-ordered and best-conducted institution does, .as a matter of fact and experience, often fail in securing the elevated aims contemplated in its theory, and the counteract- ing influences frequently prove an overmatch for the teach- er's vigilance and untiring efibrts. The college, however, CHARACTER IN COLLEGE. 103 can never, under the circumstances supposed, forfeit the hon- ors due to an uncompromising advocacy of the principles of truth and righteousness. Treachery to these would richly merit the reproaches of lieaveu and earth ; but the least suc- cessful attempts for their realization, made in an earnest, un- conquerable spirit, deserves, and will usually command, the approbation, not of good men only, but even of the vicious. The parent, with the aid of all the holy sentiments and powerful associations of home for his auxiliaries, is often baffled in his endeavors to plant the seeds of intelligence and virtue in his son. It is just because young men are free agents, and wield for themselves, in high independence of pa- rent and teacher, a controlling authority over the formation of their oami character, that so many grievous, shameful dis- comfitures — so many heart-rending catastrophes darken the history of our institutions of learning. And yet, where will you find a place of safety — where a greater exemption from the acknowledged dangers that beset this most exposed pe- riod of human existence ? The time has come when, by th^ unchangeable law of our being, and in the arrangements of God's provideijce, the inevitable transformation must l^ve place. The youth, hungering and thirsting after molding influences, must now be filled. Each individual has his OAvn capacity for taking on new forms and characteristics, and from some source or other the insatiate demand has, in these form- ing years, to be supplied. It is in such an exigency that the educational institute freely and lovingly proffers its protecting statutes and its sal- utary inculcations — all its paternal safeguards, and its more direct and plastic efficiencies — opens crystal fountains, and spreads out sumptuous viands most adapted to satisfy all mental and moral appetencies. If we must admit that this aflluent provision for the intellectual and moral necessities of the young — this concentration of beneficent influences — often prove ineffectual in thtir operation, just such an admission 104 THE FORMATION OF C II A E. A C TE Fv, ETC. is to be made in regard to the merciful provisions and ar- rangements of Heaven itself for the present and eternal well- being of our fallen race. God himself respects the freedom of the human agent, and submits to be baffled and thvi^arted in his efibrts to save, rather than do violence to the funda- mental lavv^ which He has impressed upon our being. The efficient moral ap'jiliances ordained by the Great Father for the restoration of the fallen race even become pernicious and destructive — "a savor of death unto death" — to as many as refuse a voluntary co-operation with means of recovery proffer- ed to them by the divine goodness. Much more may we ex- pect the most strenuous human efforts to fail in their objects when they corae into conflict with a fundamental law of hu- man naturf*. Bactaiauvcatc SDisconrsco. I. INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE A DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE \VESLEYAJ>J UNIVERSITY. 1844. Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded. — Titus, ii., G. The virtue w^hich this text inculcates is not temperance in animal indulgences and enjoyments, but discretion. The young are to be admonished to form their plans of life vi^ith thoughtful deliberation, and to subject their conduct to such laws as the common sense and experience of the human race have developed and prescribed. Young men need such ad- vice. Thpy are unavoidably exposed to misleading influences and to illusions. Hitherto they have had little or no part in affairs. Their business has been with preparation — with pro- lusion, and disciplinary exercises, and they often bring into the arena of real, earnest action and responsibility, arms and hearts strong and brave for the struggles before them, while they are mostly unfurnished with the maxims and the habits which alone can insure them against discomfiture, and win for them the victor's crown. Youth is confident and san- guine, inexperience is rash — errors for which God provides an antidote in the lessons of history and religion, if the im- petuous activity of youthful life will have the grace to listen to His voice. It is wortTi while for young men to give heed to these les- sons, for it is to them alone tliey are really valuable. The old may learn them, must learn them, but usually too late 106 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR for any high cud beyond that of repentance. Wisdom is, in- deed, a graceful ornament for hoary heads, but its utiUty, its fall power, its crowning glory, is only made manifest in its inion and co-operation with the generous impulses of youth and the ctrenuous labors of manhood. " Young men exhort to be sober-minded." Let them pause on the threshold of active life, and consider well its duties and demands, its lia- bilities, and its conditions of success. They owe it to society. Young men have a destiny to fulfill. Not one of them " liv- eth to himself." Education, virtue, civihzation, the common weal, lean upon them. They are to be chief actors in all the great enterprises of their generation, and it would be a folly and a crime to rush thoughtles.sly upon such a theatre. Let " young men be sober-minded," for they are to be the agents and co-workers with Divine Providence in all His gracious and benevolent operations, Avhich have time and this world for their sphere of action. " I have written to you, young men, because ye are strong." Ye are God's chosen, instruments for the promotion of His highest and most mer- ciful designs. " Be sober-minded." E,ise up to a due appre- ciation of your high calling. " Pond(|j' well the paths of your feet," for you are about to step on holy ground. It is obviously of the highest importance that young mca should begin their career of active life aright. An inconsid- erable divergency at the outset must lead them more and more astray from the path of safety and success. Such an error, however inconsiderable in appearance, is, in its nature, both fundamental and permanent, and must tend directly and perpetually to fetter and oppress, and, at least partially, to neutralize the intellectual and moral energies. Educated young men have learned many valuable lessons in ethics, in philosophy, and in history, and it will be admitted to be the most egregious folly to neglect these all in practice. "Why study to acquire knowledge — why labor so assiduously — why make sacrifices in pursuit of attainments which are to be SUCCESS IN LIFE. 107 coolly discarded and overlooked in the only conjuncture when they can be of any real use ? Science i7i posse is worthless, or nearly so. Education, as knowledge, is thus lost to all valuable ends — -as a mental discipline, it is wholly perverted. Let me, then, invite the attention of the young men before me to the exhortation of the text. Follow me, my dear friends, in a brief discussion of this subject, and in some ap- plications of it to your own condition and character. The misfortunes and miscarriages of life do not commonly arise from a deficiency in native talent or acquii'ements, or from the untowardness of circumstances. I do not hesitate to affirm that a liberally educated young man of ordinaiy capacity has, in this country at least, all the means neces- sary to insure usefulness, respectability, and happiness. So extensive and pressing is the demand for literary qualifica- tions — so maiay and broad are the fields open, outspread in every direction, and white for the harvest, that barely com- petent attainments, provided they are united with some de- gree of energy of character — that they are not marred by great vices, or neutralized by some special perverseness of intellect or temper, are morally certain of finding full scope for activity, and an abundant reward. So true is this, that our young men are frequently drawn away into the arena of busy life before they have completed their collegiate course, and our graduates are often pushed into stations of high re- sponsibility and influence at a period much earlier than pru- dence, or than their own reasonable wishes, would approve. So great are the facilities, that dull, commonplace minds oft- en succeed very well by mere dint of industry and persever- ance, while young men of better gifts almost never fail ex- cept through their own fault. It must be admitted, however, in the face of these decla- rations, which are as obviously as they are historically true, that failures, many grievous failures occur. Our educated young men, perhaps, commonly fall below their own stand- 108 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR ards of excellence and success, and often below the reasona- ble expectations of their friends, as well as of the demands of the world. The admission is certainly mortifying, but it need inflict no discouragement on ingenuous minds. Dis- comfitures that proceed from causes at once obvious and vin- cible are useful as warnings, and as incitements to caution, and diligence, and strenuous exertion. Let young men be sober-mmded. Let them thoughtfully ponder their ways, be mindful of their dangers and their duties, of their liabilities and their capabilities. Let them remember that success is an attribute neither of chance nor destiny, but the award of Divine Providence to discretion, to virtue, to labor. Educa- ted young men are commonly learned in the truths which, carried out into action, would guide them to success and honor, full of unheeded maxims that contain the essence of all practical wisdom. Let them but practice the lessons they have learned so well. Let them give earnest heed to the teachings of experience and history. Let Divine philosophy, so often studied as a task, now be wooed as a guide. Above all, let religion — hitherto unacknowledged and neglected, lauded or trampled on, or, it may be, embraced, yet never half obeyed — now be welcomed as a chief light of the mind and a main element of character — as at once the pledge and the instrument of intellectual as well as moral excellence and greatness. Let young men be sober-minded. Let them give reverent heed to the teachings of experience and history. These con- stitute the source from which are derived most of the valu- able maxims by which wise men form their characters and conduct their affairs. No portion of that most important department of human wisdom, usually denominated common sense, was derived originally from either instinct or reason. That industry, and perseverance, and order are indispensa- ble conditions of success in the pursuits of life, is by no means an innate truth, nor were there any logical formulae or pro- SUCCESS IN LIFE. 109 cesses by v/hich it could have been demonstrated anterior to individual experience. The untaught savage, ignorant alike of the past and the future, as he struggles blindly but might- ily Avith his unpitying destiny, luiconsciously develops the facts which, to his more fortunate successors, are to be the elements of progress and civilization. It is only in propor- tion as these results of individual efibrt are treasured up and reverenced as fundamental lav^^s, that the human race advances in knowledge and happiness. The discoveries of each generation thus become the inheritance of all that i'ul- loM', and each begins its career from the advanced position to which all the preceding had been able to bring up their improvements in the art of living well and wisely. Of this law of progress, it is material to my purpose to observe, tliat it is generally followed by commuiuties, and only very sel- dom and imperfectly by individuals, and hence it has occur- red that, while many modern nations are incalculably in ad- vance of Greece and Rome in all the elements of grandeur, and power, and material enjoyments, man, as an individual, has, apart from the moral influences of the Gospel, made comparatively little improvement ; and were we called on for the best specimens of humanity, so far as intellectual and physical powers are concerned, we might be driven back to make our selection from the compatriots of Plato or Fabius. Nations obey the lessons of experience fully and promptly , individuals are too indolent to heed, or too proud to follow them, and hence are engaged evermore in reproducing the mistakes, the follies, the vices, and the miseries of their pred- ecessors. Each man begins his career of experimenting for himself, not where his progenitor left ofl", but where he com- menced. History is, for the most part, lost upon us. "VYe will not be the wiser for the past. Every one must learn for him- self — must make his own mistakes — must learn wisdom from adversity — caution from imprudences — temperance from ex- cesses — industry from want or from avarice. The error is as 110 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR. if the chilli should disregard all the cautions of his parent and his nurse, and taste for himself of every noxious, bitter fruit, and every poisonous plant — as if he would plunge into the flood, or the storm, or the fire, till, m the end, he should have learned some of the laws of Nature and of hfe, when he had become so marred and enfeebled that the knowledge would be nearly useless to him. So it is, little as they think of it, so it is with many — with most young men. They are habitually and proverbially un- mindful of the teachings of experience and age. They are prone to judge by appearances. They yield to the seductions of the present. The counsels of parental affection arc lost upon deaf ears. The voice of the preacher and the teacher will not be heeded. The oracles of wisdom, which sages have reported as honored, are esteemed but as idle commonj)laccs, of no worth or adaptation. A smart repartee or a loud laugh shall often pass for a sufficient answer to the profoundest apo- thegm. There is often observed in young persons a perverse- ness or recklessness of folly that will not listen to counsel or reproof They ivill not fear that idleness, bad company, dis- orderly habits, incessant proffigacy, are real dangers, as the whole rational world pronounces them, and experience has uniformly shown them to be. Parents and friends interpose with remonstrances and entreaties. All is in vain, and pass- es for so much croaking ; and the youth — full, it may be, of talent and high aspirations, and not devoid of many amiable attributes — presses gayly and boldly on in a career which every book he reads, and every sane man he meets ten years older than himself, assure him must prove fatal to all his honorable purposes, and to all his chances of respectability or success. If young men would be sober-minded — if they would give heed to experience — to friends — to their own common sense, it were easy to guide them unharmed, through the tempta- tions and dangers that beset them. It is not ignorance— SUCCESS IN LIFE. Ill very often it is not depravity, nor vicious habitudes that lead them to ruin. Witli their eyes open to consequences — fully instructed in all the ways of duty and of safety — with the holy maxims of wisdom on their lips, they move onward in their folly with utter indifference and recklessness. Of all the cases of difficulty with which, in my professional duties, I have been called to deal, such as I have described are the most hopeless. It is usually found impossible to break the- spell or awake the sleeper ; and not a few of the most amia- ble and promising young men, who have held to me the en- dearing relation of pupils, have gone to ruin, not because their principles were unsound, or their passions strong, or their in- tentions bad, but only because they would not consider — would not follow advice which they knew to be good and felt to be kind — ^because, in the recklessness and excess of the unparalleled folly to which they fell victims, they would not resolve to do right. ♦ I will advert here to an unsound and pernicious doctrine, sanctioned but too often by good men and able writers, and adopted by many young men with an inconsiderate levity, which too frequently proves but the precursor of ruin. It is, that no knowledge of life and character is of any real value except that which is gained by our own experience. I will not stop to prove, for the simple announcement is demonstra- tion on this point, that this sentiment flatly contradicts the great first principle of moral education, as proclaimed by Di- vine "Wisdom : " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." It is no less at variance with all the teachings of right reason and common sense. Grant that the experience of our predeces- sors does not furnish safe maxims to guide us in the career of life, and there is, of necessity, an end to all progress. Man, at the end of a thousand years, will stand where he did a thousand years ago. Our ancestors have conferred nothing upon us — we shall bestow no boon upon our successors but 112 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR the doubtful privilege of having a part on the theatre of life, on which every one is doomed, in his turn, to play the savage or the novice. I fear there is little hope of making these general reasonings efiective for the admonition of those vi'ho most need it, yet it is plain enough that, if the young could be induced to yield a more willing homage to the wisdom of age and the maxims of experience, not only might they avoid the principal causes of the mortifications and disappointments of youth, but they would certainly insure earlier and am- pler success, and a vastly higher intellectual and moral char- acter. Now the fervor and vivacity of youth are often wearied and wasted in random, unguided eflbrts, more frequently in the wrong direction than in the right, and when, after some years of waywardness, disappointment and shame may have in- spired a better discretion, it is usually too late fully to re- trieve the error. The high impulses and buoyant hopes, so well adapted to insure eminent success and to triumph over great obstacles, are no more. They have been supplanted by caution, distrust, and, it maybe, discouragement. The motive powers of the soul are no longer adequate to the greatest achievements, and tame mediocrity, or something worse, is henceforth the limit of all that is possible to a noble mind, formed by the hand of God for the higher spheres of action and excellence. I lay this down as a law of our mental and moral nature, subject to neither more nor greater exceptions than other fundamental principles. Every youth, during the forming and most important period of his life, is shut up to this alternative : either he must be content to be guided by the experience and counsels of others, and so gain the liberty and the power of directing his fresh, full, unwasted energies in a career of early, valuable improvement ; or, if he will listen to no counsels but his own, and will work out every problem for himself, then he must expect to miss the right way altogether, or else to reach it with courage subdued by SUCCESS IN LIFE. 113 miscarriages, and his youthful vigor exhausted by beating the air, and, withal, too late for the attainment of any distin- guished excellence. Could we hut successfully inculcate upon the young this one lesson of humility — would they only ybZ- loiv the advice of judicious, teachers, the chief difficulty of tuition would be removed, and the most fruitful source of re- grets and miscarriages would fail. Education might then claim, both in its progress and its results, something like the precision of a science, and educated young men would be bet- ter prepared for life at five-and-twenty than they now are ten years later or ever. I have exposed a cardinal error, that common error of young men who are too proud or too giddy to take advice. This, perhaps, is the most usual cause of another offense against the sterling virtue inculcated in our text, to which I would now direct your thoughts. Young men do not sufficiently respect the laws of their own nature. I will illustrate my meaning by referring to the law of habit. Eveiy action and every course of action has a two-fold character and import- ance. It is virtuous or vicious according to its motive, use- ful or pernicious according to its eficcts. Beyond all this, an action, by frequent repetition, produces and leaves a perma- nent effect upon the mind, such as to modify and ultimately to control its future operations. Tliis is habit — a power never sufficiently heeded in education by teacher or pupil. Both, however, are accustomed to recognize this superinduced condition of the mind, in reference to its influence on proper- ly intellectual operations, and we have rules for the improve- ment of the memory, of the attention, of the reasoning facul- ties. The law of habit has a yet more important, though less obvious influence over the moral sentiments, and that in a way to promote or hinder very materially the chief ends of intellectual culture. The educated man can only attain these ends by exercismg influence over other minds. A good reputation is one indispensable condition of success in efforts. Ill INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOE. A good character, which implies upright principles and pure sentiments, is no less requisite. These are the sources from which all high thoughts and all mighty impulses proceed. A conscience void of offense toward God and man — a heart full of generous sympathies and lofty aspirations, is the great store-house of persuasion and eloquence. In order to any val- uable success in the inculcation of our sentiments on others, we must first reverence them as pure and lofty oul-selves. There must he in the inmost soul an idolatry for the true and the right, and no practical skill in logic — no creative imagination, can ofier a substitute there. Kow immorality and vice, of every kind and degree, not only impair, but, in the end, extinguish this inward spiritual power. The vices in which a young man indulges impart their hue and nature to his soul. These essential attributes become a part of his moral constitution. Low gratifications besot the mind. Vul- gar associations degrade it. The taste soon becomes as coarse and vile as the books and the people with whom we most commune. I am not to speak here of the guilt and the dishonor that belong to such ofienses, but of their more permanent effects. A stain is contracted by the soul — a disability is incurred — a noble power is lost, to be recovered and enjoyed no more. The sinner may repent, and God may pardon the transgres- sion, but the mind is maimed, and shall wear its scars through all time. There is no vis medicatrix of potency to heal this immortal wound. O ! if I could make appreciable and pal- pable the thoughts I am laboring to evolve — if I could trans- fer to the minds of my beloved hearers the deep convictions which much observation and experience have implanted deeply in my own, I should esteem myself most fortunate. Here, I am sure, is one of the most comnion hinderances tc eminent success in the career of young men. One may oft- en see a student of hopeful intellect, and good dispositions, and aspiring ambition, diligent enough in the work of Intel- SUCCESS IN LIFE. 115 Icctiial improvement, and, at the same time, addicted, to as- sociations and pleasures tliat must irretrievably debafee and enfeeble all the energies and capabilities of his nature. It is a painful and a humiliating spectacle. We can not afrirm that the labor of such a one is all lost, but much of it is neu- trahzed. Obstacles to success are needlessly multiplied. Fine powers are tasked to httle purpose so long as suicidal mdiflcrencc to the moral forces of our nature is indulged in. Vulgar companionship, coarse jests, ribald books and songs, sensuality and vice, will always prove an overmatch for merely intellectual safeguards. The hours of relaxation are no longer the relreshment, but the poison of the weary mind. I would afiectionately warn the aspiring youth against evils yet more latent, and I might, perhaps, say yet more dangerous. The soul derives its character and its tendencies still more from its cherished thoughts and feelings than from all external influences. That will become a great mind which is in the habit of revolving great thoughts ; and the young man who seeks to make the most of himself must be select in the musings of his solitary hours no less than in his asso- ciates and his books. Those sentiments which find welcome during these seasons of repose, not only mark, but make the real character of the mind. He who delights to commune with low, impure thoughts in his chamber, is, or soon will be, thoroughly debased ; nor can all liberal studies and able teaching supply an antidote for the malignant poison that works and spreads within. He, on the contrary, who nourish- es in secret an ardent love of truth, of justice, of mercy, and of purity — whose heart warms with the thought of doing good or of suffering in a good cause — whose indignation burns at the suggestion of a base action, or of a selfish, dishonorable motive — who would blush to plot, or perpetrate, or counte- nance, under the hope or promise of concealment, a deed which he would be unwilling to meet before the eyes of all men 116 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR and of God — such a young man is treasuring up in his noble bosom the resources of a moral and intellectual power, which, in some great day of crisis or duty, will come forth in the forms of an overbearing eloquence or influence, under which perse- cuted innocence, or the cause of truth or of patriotism, will delight to seek shelter. I purposely avoid, on this occasion, the usual arguments in favor of religion as the way of salvation. I confine myself to such considerations as appeal especially to young men who aspire to intellectual eminence and usefulness. Them I ex- hort to be sober-minded, and to consider the Gospel in its adaptations to their special wants. I suppose that they ful- ly acknowledge its claims as a Divine revelation. If they do this, they also virtually and implicitly acknowledge it as a system, so far as it goes, of unerring philosophy. As God, our Maker, is its author, it must correspond perfectly to that other work of His, the human mind. This needs no proof; for to all who admit that both human nature and religion are from God, the mutual adaptations of the two systems to each other must needs assume the authority of self-evident truths. It is in this character that I commend the Gospel to young men. Its maxims for the guidance of the conduct, and the formation of the principles and the culture of the heart, are, in the nature of the case, infallibly correct. Beyond all doubt they must prove the best, and whoever follows them implicitly must reach the best results. How valuable such a guide is likely to prove to young men in the forming period, before they have the benefit of experience, and when they are yet but slightly acquainted with the laws of their own nature, will be the more obvious if we recall the remarks made on these two points in the former part of this discourse. The pride and the rashness of young men often make advice unpalatable or useless ; but if they -will take God's word for their counselor, no such objections can be felt. The Divine teacher can not provoke jealousy or envy, and the proudest SUCCESS IN LIFE. 117 spirit does honor to its own nature when it hstens to the Almighty. Again ; the precepts of rehgion, since God is their author, must necessarily correspond with the results of right reason and experience, since these are so many conclusions reached in following the laws which God has ordained. In adopting religion for his guide, a young man anticipates the light of experience. In fulfilling the laws of Christianity, he is fol- lowing out the laws of his own intellectual nature, and this without liahility to mistake. For high practical purposes he has, even from his boyhood, the wisdom of gray hairs, and is thus placed in precisely the most favorable position for mak- ing the highest attaiiunents in mental and moral excellence. He brings to the work of self-culture all possible advantages, and an exemption from all avoidable impediments. He has the vivacity, the ardor, the energy, and the courage of youth, and, withal, its ready susceptibilities of intellect and heart, and, at the same time, he prosecutes his eflbrts in the clear light of a faultless Divine philosophy, which never gives ut- terance to a doubtful precept, nor leads its votaries to make one false step. The soundness of this theory may be shown by reference to facts. I have already pointed out the intimate connection between some of the better and higher objects of education and the moral sentiments, and have shown that there can be no eminent powers of persuasion, or eloquence, or influence in the absence of the higher virtues. If my hearers have fol- lowed me in these reasonings, many of them have probably felt that they suggested, without solving, a very difficult prob- lem in education. They sufficiently developed the import- ance of certain attributes without pointing out the means of their attaimnent. I have now reached the point for making that disclosure. What did I aver to be the true sources of all high eloquence and influence ? A heart full of pure, lofty pcntimcnts — a veneration for the pure, tlie merciful, the up- 118 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR right — a tender sympathy with man and with goodness. Something may doubtless he done toward the attainment of these essential conditions of success by a watchful and pains- taking mental culture, but religion ia their only sure and proper source. One of its precepts fulfilled in the heart and the life will do more to make an educated man truly eloquent than all the dogmas of Longinus or Cicero. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is the fundamental principle and the deep spring of all the melting sympathies of high el- oquence. The soul, which religion has purified from its gross alloy of selfishness, and sensuality, and sin, is just then pre- pared to enter into harmonies with whatever is ennobling to our nature. Spiritual culture induces that tender, simple, fervent habit of mind that is ever ready to feel and to suffer — to rejoice at the bidding of a good cause, and to impart to sound logic and graceful elocution that baptism of fire, with- out which there can not be eloquence, or persuasion, or mighty influence. I will not affirm that there are not gifted natures which may attain to some honorable distinction in this great department of usefulness without piety ; but I fear no contradiction from observing, philosophical men, when I affirm that religion is the best resource for eloquence. I will go farther, and say that it is hardly possible for a skeptic or an infidel to be a true orator. He has no part in the might- iest sympathies that pervade the world of man. He is iso- lated in the midst of his species. He may not touch the holy chord that vibrates through all hearts. We may announce it, then, as a philosophical truth, that religion is directly and greatly promotive of high intellectual excellence. It nurtures those virtues and sensibilities which are strictly indispensable to the higher efforts of a cultivated nind. It relieves the soul of all degrading passions, appe- tites, and tendencies, and calls it out to an habitual contem- plation of the loftiest themes, and even inspires the best and most sustaihing hopes. Finally, it supplies motives and prom- SUCCESS IN LIFE. 119 ises rewards for all right action of sufficient strength and im- portance to awaken our greatest energies and guard us against all despondency. In exact proportion as the religious char- acter is developed in a young man are his intellectual capa- bilities augmented, so that he who loves God with all the heart, and his neighbor as himself, has just attained a posi- tion where, ceteris 2'>aribus, he is best qualified for the higher walks of philosophy, eloquence, and poetry. Believing my argument to be conclusive, and trusting to the upright understanding of the ingenuous audience before me, I venture to put this question, not to their consciences, but to their common sense. Is it not the extreme of folly to reject from your course of intellectual training influences so benignant and so powerful ? Here is a teacher which prof- fers to the inexperienced youth all the light of experience and philosophy, at a season when he can have it from no other source, and when it will be most useful to him. What mind that is not insane will choose to grope in darkness ? Here is a discipline that strengthens, and elevates, and enriches- the soul, and arms it for all high enterprise. AVhat wise man will reject its proflered aid ? And here I must remark upon the efficiency of its purifying, disciplinary processes. No res- olutions are so often broken — no aspirations so often prove to be vain as those by which a young man essays to cleanse him- self Religion oilers for his cleansing more potent agencies. Its truths are mighty, its supports manifold, its rewards are infinite ; but I now refer to no indirect influences. I refer to the great doctrine of spiritual influences. The Holy Ghost is given, to those who will heed His voice, to be a light and a purifier. This is the great fact iw experimental religion. This IS the resource offered to young men who are struggling witii untoward dispositions and low tendencies. Here is Di- vine help. Here is a provision through M'W^h they may re- ceive God's immediate co-operation. Will you reject such an auxiliary, and prefer to struggle single-handed with cue- 120 INDISPENSABLE REQUISITES FOR mies which have been so often found an overmatch for you ? I beseech you, young men, to be sober-mmded. Act with some tolerable discretion ; give to high interests some meas- ure of that consideration which you habitually bestow upon the lowest. So far I have spoken of the Gospel as an agent and aux- iliary in intellectual culture, and on the views already pre- sented I mean chiefly to rest the subject. The special ob- ject and the special audience to which my discourse seeks to adapt itself, will justify this course in the sight of aU thoughtful hearers. Yet I must not part with an assembly, many of whom I shall never address again, without some words of a more strictly religious application. I must re- mind these young men, not of the incidental and more worldly uses of religion, but that it is God's only way of sav- ing sinners — that men who do not become Christians go to hell. And here I can not but feel that I touch upon what is practically the weakest point in my argument. How oft- en and how vainly have I besought those who hear me to-day "to be sober-minded" — to show themselves, at least, men of common sense — to give to their souls the benefit of those prudential maxims which it is held shameful in a man not to employ about all the most trivial and transient interests of life. Our argument here, though practically weak, is so only because of its overwhelming, in-esistible power. The minds of men become habituated to bow instinctively to it — to concede all that religion claims at the first mention of the subject, and then to act, and to be, precisely as they would if the Gospel were demonstrably false. The human mind IS content to dwell in the midst of these grievous inconsisten- cies. It will not reason — it will not act in regard to religion as about every-day affairs. In other things a man shall bf carried by the stronger argument. He can not stop at the attainment of a conviction. He is ashamed, and he ought to be ashamed, not to act in obedience to it. He might as SUCCESS IN LIFE. 15^1 well be a brute or a log as such a man. It is only in religion that we see men of mind in equilibrio under the pressure of a thousand denwnstrations — unmoved by motives of infinite strength. We are used to such spectacles ; our eyes have no longer any tears for them. We look for nothing better than to see respectable, sensible men offend against all the laws of their own nature, so they have a chance to offend against God in it. 01 it is this perverseness — this fatuity — this voluntary stultifying of good minds, that baffles the preacher, and drives him to his wit's end. What can we do, what can we say more, surrounded by an immortal com- pany of moral agents, who are ready to grant all that we claim for God's truth, and yet are wholly unmoved — oppos- ing very stoically to that word which is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, the resistance of a vis in- erti, hereditary rever- ence for imposing forms, and high, exclusive claims, may be compati- CimiSTIAN YOUNG MEN. 139 A question of far deeper import is this : What are the more strictly religious efiects of this defection from the pop- hie with humble, evangelical piety in pei'sons trained from their child- hood under such influences, there may, at lenst, bo some danger to tho unstable, giddy mind of tho novice, who, without any such safeguards, is suddenly brought in contact with ideas to him so new and so mag- nificent. I hope I shall not bo thought to bestow upon this topic a measure of atteutiou greater than its intrinsic importance. As a practical question, its importance is eveiy day increasing in this country, and the time may not be far away when it will force itself upou the consideration of all thoughtful uiinds. As a mere sectarian question, it may well enough be regarded as trivial ; for it is of little consequence to the enlightened Christian whether the losing party suffer more by mortification than the winning gains by the enjoyment of a petty triumph. There are considerations, however, of far deeper import both to the individual se- ceder and to the cause of our common Christianity. These easy tran- sitions from the Church in which we were reared, or into which we have been providentially led to enter, on our conversion, to another, however pure or orthodox, can hardly ever be effected without injury to the cause of Christ ; and I must think them almost never innocent, unless when they are prompted by strictly conscientious motives. It would generally be better to submit to great inconveniences, and even to tolerate slight errors in doctrine or discipline, rather than i-esort to a remedy so violent and dangerous. To the individual himself it is likely to prove a very hazardous experiment to forsake the hereditary, or the chosen communion for another. He deprives himself of ad- vantages not to be expected from new religious associations, however pure and elevating. Ties, which religion sanctifies and strengthens for itself, are weakened or broken asunder. The genial sympathies of domestic piety are chilled ; the unquestioned authority of hereditary faith is shaken, and all the nameless influences that guard and help a youth, seeking and serving God in the midst of his kindred, and under the approving and watchful eyes of the good men with whose faces and names are associated his hallowed recollections and impressiona of the Lord's house, are all utterly lost. I w^ill not affirm that such evils uniformly result from such defections, nor that they are, in all cases, of sufficient force to interfere fatally with the successful prosecu- tion of a religious life. It is no exaggeration, however, to say, that they are not of rare occurrence, and that they are wont to exert a very pernicious influence on personal piety. 14b RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF ular Christianity upon the persons most concerned ? How is it with the dainty scceders who loathe the manna that "cov- Evils, of a still graver chai'acter than any that befall the individual, are likely to follow such recreancy. In proportion to his position and influence does he inflict upon the Church and the general interests of religion the greatest calamity ; not chiefly by withdrawing his talents and resources from their appropriate sphere of usefulness, but by griev- ing pious souls — by awakening distrust of his own sincerity, and re- sentment for his recreancy, and by provoking uncharitableness, jeal- ousy, sectarianism, and evil speaking in multitudes of professing Chris- tians. I have usually beeu led to doubt whether an influential layman or a minister can ever reasonably expect to do as much good in any new Church relations, as he unavoidably does harm by violating the old. It should be kept in view, in estimating the probable effects of such changes, that a man never carries with him into his new field of action more than a small portion of the influence, and other means of usefulness, which he had acquired by faithful services and an upright walk. Of these he is destined to make, at least, a partial forfeiture by the transition, and years must probably elapse before he can regain the vantage ground which he has so lightly abandoned. Suspected or de- nounced by those whom he deserts, he must pass a long probation ere he wins the confidence of his new associates. Upon the iiTeligious world the effect of such instability is yet more observable and pernicious. It leads to a distrust of all pretensions to piety, and goes far to confirm the too prevalent suspicion, that when, educated or influential men become religious, they have commonly some selfish end to subserve. What gives additional force to such sus- picions is the notorious fact that the transition, frequently as it occurs of late, is almost never made where any personal sacrifice, present or prospective, is involved. I do not allow myself to doubt that, in sev- eral instances, at least, educated men and ministers have felt constrain- ed to give up old and contract new Church I'elations ; but I can scarce- ly recollect a case in which the change was made in the face of losses or sufferings. It is usually from low to higher salaries — from more to less labor or exposure — from less cultivated, or wealthy, or fashionable communities, to those deemed more so. I would not dare express or indulge distrust in regard to the motives which, in any particular in- stance, may have led to such changes ; but the facts to which I have adverted are incontrovertible as they are universally known. There are few observing or prominent Christians, I apprehend, who have not had some occasion to receive, in silence, the cutting rebukes which ir- CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 14l ers the face of the wilderness," of which "every man may- gather according to his eating," and deem it distasteful to receive with the multitude, seated on the ground, the bread which Jesus so liberally blesses and breaks ? Of all who lightly turn away from the lowlier faith of their early educa- tion and their fathers' house, to rear their showy altars upon the high places of the land, whether seduced by vanity, or ambition, or fastidiousness, it may well be doubted if many secure more than the shadow of true religion. If they have borne with them to this false, exposed position, some meas ure of spirituality, the growth of a more fruitful soil and ol' a more benignant clime, it speedily withers and decays for want of a participation in those popular sympathies, from which they start back with a disgust so profound. Their religious men are accustomed to visit on such transactions. I am free to confess that, in my opinion, no measure of blame or reproaches can possibly transcend the demerits of a man who, for any reasons lower or weaker than such as are strictly conscientious and constraining, puts in jeopardy so many of the precious interests of religion. He betrays a sacred trust. Up to the full measure of his influence, and talents, and position, he inflicts a grievous wrong upon the communion in whose bosom he has been nurtured, or into which he has obtained admission. He diminishes its ability to do good, and casts a doubt on its purity or orthodoxy. If a minister, set apart and ordained as a teacher of re- ligion and a dispenser of its holy saci-aments, his power to do evil is greatly augmented, and with it the guilt of such a defection. His new investiture of ecclesiastical authority and dignity is equivalent to a pub- lic declaration that others are but rash intruders into the sacred office. He thus wounds their reputation and weakens their influence. As far as in him lies, he shakes the confidence of the people in their pastors, and despoils their message of its power over the sinner's conscience. He denies the character and immunities of Christ's ministers, not to a few obscure individuals, but to nine tenths of all the consecrated men upon whom the population of this gi'eat country depend for religious instruction and consolation. I am ready to admit that conviction may be so clear and controlling as to make it a good man's duty to act in de- fiance of all these considerations ; but no sane mind can, for a moment, hesitate to believe, that to do so on lower grounds is one of the gi-avest offenses against religion of which a human being can be guilty. 142 KESOURCES AND DUTIES OF dwelling places are unquestionably on tlie Parnassus or the Olympus of the Clmstian world ; but these mountain tops have neither depth of earth, nor springs of water, and no plant of righteousness is likely to strike its roots into the hard rock that composes their shining but arid summits. Such aristocratic aspirants after a graceful piety (I call them aristocratic for want of a better term to mark this per- verse development of Christianity) naturally fall into twD classes, and exhibit two great corruptions of the Gospel. The more intellectual and philosophical part commonly wan- der into that cold region of unfruitful speculations, where Ra- tionalism or Transcendentalism, or whatever neology happens to be in fashion, claims empire. The merely fashionable, and ambitious, and fastidious portion more usually pay their courtly homage to graceful forms or venerable reminiscences, and find and exhibit, at least, some of the semblances of spir- itual piety in the religion of the imagination.* * The strong tendency iu our I'eligious operations to gather the rich and the poor into separate folds, and so to generate and establish iu the Church distinctions utterly at variance with the spirit of our political in- stitutions, is the very worst result of the multiplication of sects among us ; and I fear it must be admitted that the evil is gi-eatly aggravated by the otherwise benignant working of the voluutaiy system. With- out insisting further upon the probable or possible injuiy which may befall our free country from this conflict of agencies, ever the most powerful in the formation of national and individual character, no one, I am sure, can fail to recognize iu this development an influence utterly and irreconcilably hostile to the genius and chei-ished objects of Chris- tianity. It is the peculiar glory of the Gospel, that, even under the most arbiti'ary governments, it has usually been able to vindicate and practically exemplify the essential equality of man. It has had one doc- trine and one hope for all its children ; and the highest and the lowest have been constrained to acknowledge one holy law of brotherhood in the common faith of which they are made partakers. Nowhere else, I believe, but in the United States — certainly nowhere else to the same extent — does this anti-Christian separation of classes prevail iu the Christian Church. The beggar in his tattered vestments walks the splendid courts of St. Peter's, and kneels at its cosily altars by the sid« CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 143 I can not part with the topic under consideration without bestowing a passuig thought upon the God-dishonoring sen- of dukes and cardinals. The peasant in his wooden shoes is welcomed in the gorgeous churches of Notre Dame and the Madeleine; and even in England, where political and social distinctions are more rigorously enforced than in any other country on earth, the lord and the peasant, the richest and the poorest, are usually occupants of the same church, and partakers of the same communion. That the reverse of all this is true in many parts of this country, eveiy observing man knows full well ; and what is yet more deplorable, whilo the lines of demarcation between the different classes have already become suflicieutly distinct, the tendency is receiving new strength and development in a rapidly augmenting ratio. Even in country j)laces, where the population is sparse, and the artificial distinctions of society are little known, the working of this strange element is, in many instances, made manifest, and a petty coterie of village magnates may be found worshiping God apart from the body of the people. But the evil is much more appa- rent, as well as more deeply seated, in our populous towns, where the causes which produce it have been longer in operation, and have more fully enjoyed the favor of circumstances. In these gi'eat centres of wealth, intelligence, and influence, the separation between the classes is, in many instances, complete, and in many more the process is rap- idly progressive. There are crowded religious congi-egations composed so exclusively of the wealthy as scarcely to embrace an indigent fam- ily or individual ; and the number of such churches, where the Gospel is never preached to the poor, is constantly increasing. Rich men, in- stead of associating themselves with their more humble fellow-Chris- tians, where their money as well as their ixifluence and counsels are so much needed, usually combine to erect magnificent churches, in which sittings are too expensive for any but people of fortune, and from which their less-favored brethren are as effectually and peremptorily exclu- ded as if there were dishonor or contagion in their presence. A congre- gation is thus constituted, able, without the slightest inconvenience, to bear the pecuniary burdens of twenty churches, monopolizing and con- signing to comparative inactivity intellectual, moral, and material re- sources, for want of which so many other congregations are doomed to struggle with the most embaiTassing' difficulties. Can it for a moment be thought that such a state of things is desirable, or in harmony with the spirit and design of the Gospel ? A more diffi.cult question arises when we inquire after a remedy for evils too glaring to be overlooked, and too grave to be tolerated with- 144 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF timents in which this deplorable fallacy has its origin. This demand for a Christianity more refined and tasteful tlian out an effort to palliate, if not to remove them. The most obvious pal- liative, and one which has already been tried to some extent by wealthy chui-ches or individuals, is the erection of free places of worship for the poor. Such a provision for this class of persons would be more effect- ual in any other part of the world than in the United States. Wliether it arises from the operation of our political system, or from the easy at- tainment of at least the prime necessaries of life, the poorer classes here are characterized by a proud spirit, which will not submit to receive even the highest benefits in any form that imjjlies inferiority or de- pendence. This strong and prevalent feeling must continue to inter- pose serious obstacles in the way of these laudable attempts. If in a few instances churches for the poor have succeeded in our large cities, where the theory of social equality is so imperfectly reaUzed in the actual condition of the people, and where the presence of a multitude of indigent foreigners tends to lower the sentiment of independence so strong in native-born Americans, the system is yet manifestly incapable of general application to the religious wants of our population. The same difficulty usually occurs in all attempts to induce the humbler classes to worship with the rich in sumptuous churches by reserving for their benefit a portion of the sittings free, or at a nominal rent. A few only can be found who are willing to be recognized and provided for as beneficiaries and paupers, while the multitude will always pre- fer to make great sacrifices in order to provide for themselves in soma humbler fane. It must bo admitted that this subject is beset with practical difficulties, which are not likely to be removed speedily, or without some great and improbable revolution in our religious affairs. Yet if the resjjectable Christian denominations most concerned in the subject shall pursue a wise and liberal policy for the future, something may be done to chock the evil. They may retard its rapid growth, perhaps, though it will most likely bo found impossible to eradicate it altogether. It ought to be well understood, that the multiplication of magnificent churches is daily making the lino of demarcation between the rich and the poor more and more palpable and impassable. There are many good reasons for the erection of such edifices. Increasing wealth and civilization seem to call for a liberal and tasteful outlay in behalf of religion, yet is it the dictate of prudence no less than of duty to balance carefully the good and the evil of every enterprise. It shruld over be kept in mind, that such a church virtually writes above its sculptured portals an irrevocable prohibition to the poor, " Procu) O procul este profani." CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 115 that of Christ, proceeds upon the assumption that God is specially pleased and honored by the conversion of persons of I will not pretend to determine how far it might be wise, even if it were practicable, to check the liberal spirit now so active in multiply- ing sumptuous religious edifices. We have perhaps more encourage- ment to look in another direction for the melioration desired. There can be no doubt that a general increase of humble, spiritual religio:i would operate as a powerful check upon the pi'evailing disposition tD prefer communion with opulent congregations, rather than pursue tbo walks of a lowlier piety in company with the poor. The same good ends would be further jiromoted by the increasing prevalence of a lib- eral catholic spirit. A decided and simultaneous advance in piety and charity, though it should stop short of harmonizing conflicting sects and o^iinions, and bringing their votaries to worship in a common temple, might yet be sufficient to reach and considerably mitigate some of tho greatest hardships to which I have adverted. In such an improved state of Christian sentiment, a congregation or a sect, opulent iu intel- lectual or iiecuniary means, beyond the ratio of its numbers, might eas- ily confer the greatest benefits on the feeble and destitute. A wealthy denomination, with few of the poor under its ministry, and with lit- tle access to this class, would then be inclined to aid those who aro providentially called to preach the Gospel to the masses. How easi- ly might one of our great metropolitan churches relieve a dozen poor congregations from the burden of debts, or other embarrassments, un- der which they are left to straggle on from year to year ! What ines- timable benefits might a denomination, at once the smallest and richest, confer, by aiding the poorer sects iu extending the blessings of religion and education to the vast multitude placed by divine Providence under their influence and watchcare ! Now it can hardly be doubted, that with such an enlargement of charity as I have supposed, there would come more enlarged views of duty and privilege, and that sectarian lines might cease to be insuperable barriers in the way of a far more exuberant and diffusive liberality than now prevails. Under such bet- ter auspices it would, at least be no longer possible for opulent, enlight- ened Christian denominations to look with hostility or even indifference upon their fellow-laborers in the vineyard of a common Master. The sympathies as well as the resources of the whole Christian Church would look about in quest of its wants and substantial interests ; while there would inevitably arise bonds of brotherhood, so many and so strong, between all the members of the one Christian family, as would go far to exclude all the petty jealousies and heart-burnings which wealth and (i 146 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF literary taste and polished manners ; of men accustomed to good society, and well read in good authors. Disguise it as we will, that is the fundamental idea of this anti-Cloristian theory. Now, for aught that appears, these accompHshments do not figure very largely in Heaven's estimate of man. I can not help suspecting that John Bunyan, John Nelson, and worthies of this class, wore, in God's sight, the insignia of a truer and higher nobihty than the choicest spirits of the brill- iant eras of Elizabeth and Anne. What are the attributes most prized and most sought for in man by the crucified Savior ? Charity and purity. These are the cardinal virtues of the Gospel. Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. If we love one another, position are sure to provoke in the Church uo less than in the workl, when they forget their proper mission. One lesson more, we should imagine, would be ineffaceably impressed upon those Christian denominations which, through providential means, or their own special adaptations and exertions, monopolize a large por- tion of the influential classes, while they have signally failed of obtain- ing a corresponding development among the great body of the iieoi^le. It is a lesson of enlarged catholic liberality. They have, in their rela- tive position, a clear demonstration, at least, that others as well as they have a dispensation of the Gospel committed to them. That surely can not be the only apostolic and legitimate system of faith or polity, which, after an experiment carried through successive generations of men, has, in this country, shown itself essentially incapable of pene- trating the masses. They who evangelize the wealthy, the intellect- ual, and the refined, do unquestionably perform a good work ; and there may be those who have a special vocation to this inviting field. No liberal-minded Christian will undervalue their efforts, or desire to call in question the genuineness of their piety, or the validity of their ecclesiastical system; but it may be well for all parties to remember that there are signs of apostleship older and surer than this mission to the rich ; and they need not despair of making good their claim to a part in this ministry who can appeal, as their IVIaster did, to eminent success among the masses, and affirm, like Ilim, that through their in- strumentality " the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, thfc lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and thi POOR HAVE THE GoSPEL PKEACHED UNTO THEM." CHRISTIAN \OUNG MEN. 147 God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. God is love, and he that dvv^elleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. The entire law is fulfilled by him who loves God M'ith all the heart, and his neighbor as himself. This is glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to men. The Gospel is satisfied when this great end is achieved, and it labors, from age to age, to implant this law of universal affinity and brotherhood in all hearts, and thus to establish a vast system of order and Divine harmony, wor- thy of the wisdom and of the mercy of God. And this is its primar)^ proper object. High intellectual culture, advanced civilization, refinement of sentiments and of manners, do in- deed attend, or rather follow, its progress, but only as inci- dental results of the great moral changes which have their sphere in the moral nature and character of man. The mor- al transformation is all that the Gospel, as such, aims to ac- complish. This makes the sinner a child of God, fits him for heavenly society and pursuits, makes him a joint heir with Christ. These are no doubtful announcements, but first principles of the Gospel, which no sane Christian will for a moment call in question ; and they suggest the irresistible con- clusion that that is the most Christian church, and that the most apostolic ministrj', which most successfully accomplish these most Christian ends. No matter who they are that are converted, and sanctified, and brought to heaven. The ig- norant, the outcast, the Hottentot, the slave — these are Christ's well-beloved brethren, and with Him heirs of God. The princes of this world may be glad to go to heaven, if they may, m such company, and angels would exult to be co- workers with God in preaching the Gospel to the poor. What lesson of instruction do I find in this digression ? A stern re- buke of that wretched fastidiousness which refuses to be satis- fied with such a type of Christianity as satisfies Christ — de- monstrative proof that this reiterated demand for a more taste- ful and philosophical religion is unreasonable and vuiphilo- 148 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF sophical as well as unchristian — new force in the exhortation, " Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." Would you find for yourselves a religion adapted to the soul's pressing wants, and to the demands of a perishing world ? Drink deeply of the Christian sentiments and sympathies of the people. Would you act a heroic part in the holy war which God and good men are carrying on against error and sin ? Throw yourselves into the midst of the masses, where there are most hearts to be won, and most souls to he saved. Do not be forever gazing at the toy that glitters on the top of the steeple, but bend your regards upon the living stones that compose Christ's holy temple, upon the undying souls that throng its inner and outer courts. There the true altar and the authorized priest are sure to be found, and there God has work to do for all who, like His well-beloved Son, are con- tent to abase themselves that they may be exalted. I have not left time for the discussion of some other topics which I can not wholly overlook. Educated young men often find another stumbling-block in the presumed or dreaded in- terference of an honest consecration to Christ with their am- bitious, and, as they are prone to esteem them, their pure and honorable aspirations. My own observations on this subject , would lead me to regard this as one of the most common and fatal causes of backsliding, as well as procrastination. Many, who hear and recognize the voice of God, refuse to enter His vineyard, because they are not quite sure that the employ- ments and immunities to be assigned them there will be agreeable and satisfactory. Impiety never assumes a more daring attitude than this, however the rank offense may be disguised or concealed by circumstances, or by false reason- ings. What is implied by the postponement or abandonment of a religious course on such grounds ? Distrust in God is implied, and unbelief in its most odious, atrocious, insolent form, Has God, then, no right to interfere with our plans ? This mental discipline, and these accomplislmients, which CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 149 are too good to be subjected to His control — were they ac- quired — are they held, on terms altogether independent ot" Jehovah ? Is the inexperienced youth, fresh from the schools, and proverbially ignorant of the world and of the future, somewhat better qualified to choose his own way, and thread the labyrinth of life alone, than God is to guide him ? You will not be a Christian, because Christianity confessedly as- signs you a sphere of action where God and conscience must be consulted. You seek a freer range and a wider sphere Take them, and then inquire if you are beyond the domain of God. Are you really freer to choose or surer to win ? Is responsibility excluded, or danger of disappointment and dis- aster ? No ; for God reigns every where. All that is gained by this daring rcA'olt against His authority is the dire privi- lege of working out our destiny without any promise of guid- ance, or grace, or reward, yet always under the Divine su- pervision and control — always in conflict with His revealed will — always obnoxious to His displeasure, and certain of ul- timate ruin, whatever fortunes may be conceded to a career which is, at best, only a prolonged rebellion against God. After saying so much of the rehgious aspects of this case, I must not omit to expose the shallow views of life on which this great practical error is based. As a class, truly pious men are the most fortunate in the world. Estimate their successes by honors won, by their usefulness, by their attain- ments, or by their enjoyments, and these persons greatly out- strip their competitors. I will not stop to inquire why it is so, though I doubt not there is in the thing both a divine Prov- idence and a divine philosophy. Heaven guides and cheers on the man who is content to receive his com^^mission ftom above, while the virtues and safeguards of religion do natu- rally minister to his successes even in secular pursuits. The fact, however, is all I contend for here. Common experience is a demonstration that godliness is profitable for this life, as well as that to come. It is something more than impiety — 150 KESOUUCES AND DUTIES OF it is gross, blind folly for a young man, setting out in life, to guard against the disturbing influence of religion in the set- tlement of his plans. God is likely to be his wisest coun- selor and his most powerful auxiliary, and to exalt him in proportion to the humility of his submission to the divine au- thority. I must add another remark. It is vinquestionably true that piety often promotes, while it seldom retards, a man's progress in the world. It is no less so, and no less proper to mark the fact, that men who seek to make of religious pre- tensions and church relations instruments of ambition or gain, are almost sure of meeting with signal disappointment. Success in such attempts would ofler a dangerous temptation to human virtue, and fill the churches with hypocrites ; but success in such attempts, in such a country as this, where the government is neutral, and all sects have fair play, is nearly impossible. Aristocracy in religion meets with a po- tent antagonist in the legal and social democracy that uni- versally prevails. Proscription for religious opinions is near- ly impracticable in any form, where there is a multitude of sects, and the weak are prone to unite against any encroach- ment by the strong. In such a state of things there is an open field for industry and merit, in which no sectarian badge can win or lose the prize. There is no reward for the hypoc- risy which would profess, or the base cowardice or heartless prudence which would shun to profess any opinion, or bear any name, for selfish objects. The temptation to sin in this matter is really so weak that there is little need of provid- ing any safeguard against it beyond a statement such as has been made. Neither cupidity nor vanity has much to gain by " making provision for the flesh," when neither emolu- ment nor influence is to be won by recreancy to principle. The short-sighted ambition which covets higher and bright- er spheres of eftbrt and manifestation than comport with the claims of duty or the arrangements of Providence, is wont to CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 15- fall into another capital error. In paying' to circumstances their vain court lor facilities and rewards, seldom granted but as the fruit of patient labor and practical self-denial, these impatient aspirants after distinction are insensibly led away from the only theatre of action adapted to their character and attainments. Talent is ever best developed, and commonly best rewarded, where it is most wanted. It should therefore ivspect the great laws of demand and supply ; and while the wide earth and boundless sea are open to its enterprise, should never press too eagerly into petty, glutted marts. An educa- ted Christian young man, who, in all the attainable good be- fore hi«i, has eyes to see something better and nobler than mere pecuniary gain, can not fail to perceive a most hopeful field of usefulness in his connection with one of the great pop- ular Christian denominations of this country. It is unavoid- able', that among the vast multitudes, so rapidly gathered into these broad folds by primitive zeal and labors, many will lact culture, and intelligence, and refinement. Education and lit erature, polished eloquence, and profound learning, naturally ' follow, though they seldom precede the greatest successes of young and rising sects. When such wants are most pressing, precisely then is there likely to exist the most urgent demand for such qualifications to satisfy them. A religious community whose successes have outstripped all its anticipations, suddenly finds itself responsible for the intellectual, as well as nwral improvement of millions. It has reached a point in its history where a demand for cul- tivated talent is of the most urgent character. It must have educated men ; and literary attainment, when united with piety and good sense, is sure to be placed in positions the most favorable for the efficient exertion of extensive and salutary influence. It almost necessarily happens that learn- ing, and eloquence, and refinement, acquire a consideration and a power to do good, great in proportion to their scarcity, and to the multitude of demands upon such qualifications. 152 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF Just such a theatre as enhghtencd, sanctified ambition should most desire, is here opened to the Christian youth. It prof- fers useful, congenial, and honorable employment. It insures the earliest, fullest development of his mental and moral re- sources. It promises all reasonable and desirable exemption from the tedious probation and discouraging competitioii which he may be doomed to encounter elsewhere. It oilers him equal and honorable partnership in the holy work of training a host of immortal beings for usefulness, purity, hap- piness, and heaven. The folly of turning away from these outspread fields wav- ing with golden harvests, and*echoing all around with Ma- cedonian cries for more laborers, is only less than the guilt which is always superadded, when, in addition to this con- tempt for the suggestions of a sound discretion, some violence is also inflicted upon the conscience. And here I can not refrain from a passing remark on the benignant relations which religion ever sustains to the practical movements of business and of life. So nicely and so graciously is the great scheme of an overruling, watchful Providence adapted to our various circumstances, that the most inexperienced youth — the merest novice in aflairs — has little more to do than sim- ply to obey the dictates of an enlightened conscience, in or- der to secure all the advantages of the most comprehensive and well-digested plans, and of the deepest insight into the future. An unwavering trust in God and his word is the best guide, as well as the best safeguard. It is a great sim- plifier of life's complicated pursuits, and endows each single- hearted follower of Jesus Christ with a precocious, heavenly wisdom. In any thing I have said, I do not mean to intimate that both our actual piety and our Christian profession may not involve the most serious consequences. I know too well the genius of the Gospel to inculcate a doctrine so foreign from its avowals and its spirit. Great suflerings and great sacri- CIimSTIAN YOUNG MEN. 153 fices do, unquestionably, enter into God's entire scheme ibr dili'using and propagating the true religion, and for the moral discipline of individuals. Christ was made perfect by suiier- ing, and through much tribulation we arc called to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Afflictions work out for the saints an exceeding weight of glory. Not only arc Christians subject to the common lot of mortals, which is usually one of many pains and sorrows, but they are often called to suffer for Christ's sake. It is fundamental to the Christian system that men were redeemed by sufl'ering, and hardly less so, as far as history is our teacher, that the best achievements of the Gospel are to be carried in the midst of peril, and loss, and agony. In this great work of toil and sacrifice, it is, no doubt, the will of God that young men, and educated young men, shall have a principal share. God chooses them be- cause they are strong, and He intends to make them the chief of His instruments for the accomplishment of His great de- signs of mercy. Let them look their calling fairly in the face, and enter on the career of duty, well aware of the conditions upon which they serve a crucified Redeemer. None more need to stir up the gift that is within them, to gird about their loins, and -put on the armor of righteousness. I may safely say that no policy is so dangerous as caution and cowardice. I may confidently warn them of the folly and danger of " ma- king provision for the flesh," by refraining from such a dedi- cation as may exact from them the sternest conditions known to our Christian vocation. If great results can be attained by great eflbrts and great sufferings, what generous heart will refuse the sacrifice ? If our own holiness and the hap- piness of others may be promoted in proportion to the expend- iture of toil, or talent, or wealth, who will not feel that the outlay is reasonable and even politic ? But the argument likely to be most effectual with ingen- uous and truly pious minds is derived from the genius of our religion. The Gospel is a way of salvation by grace. It G 2 104 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF lays the Christian under obligations immeasurably strong, which he can never satisfy, while it awakens in him a sense of gratitude ever restless and studious of" methods by which it may testify its loyalty, and crown with honor the great Benefactor, who is too high to be repaid for all His mercies. This deep, undying sentiment of the pious soul finds utter- ance in thanksgiving and adoration — in prayer for the exten- sion of the kingdom of Christ, and in all the ways by which a sincere Christian makes manifestation of his piety. But the un wasted, struggling impulse gains strength by all its ac- tivities, and longs for new modes of exercise and develop- ment. Dissatisfied Avith the lutie it can do for the gloiy of the Savior, it would gladly give its testimony by sufiering. This feeling is natural ; and it is strong in every bosom in propor- tion as piety is profound and intense. It has led many mis- guided Christians to devote themselves to penances and vol- untary inflictions. It led the apostles to rejoice " that they were counted worthy to sufier for Christ." Paul avowed a desire to endure martyrdom for the satisfaction of this pro- found sentiment, and many early Christians joyfully* submit- ted to the severest tortures as a testimony of their devotion and gratitude to Christ. Not many in these days of peace and toleration are likely to be called to pass through such an ordeal ; but if the spirit to sufier the loss of all things for Christ's sake be not still with us, then has the true glory of the Church perished with her martyrs. Doubtless this spirit yet lives, and would be made manifest by fitting occasions. Doubtless there are multitudes who would encounter losses of all sorts — privations, labors, and even death itself — for the crucified Redeemer. They remember His words, that if any love father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or houses, or lands, more than Him, he can not be a disciple. They re- member that it is often more prudent to lose the life^than to save it. Many even feel that they have a baptism to be baptized with, and are straitened till they perform it. They CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 155 are eager to live", and, if needs be, to die for Christ. They have " put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and made no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." Their cry is, " Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth." They are not careful to make conditions. Wheresoever God's Spirit or Providence vi'ill lead, they stand ready to go ; neither do they call any thing their own which they possess, whether of talent, learning, position, wealth, or influence ; but regard themselves only as stewards of the manifold grace of God, and servants to the Church for Christ's sake. These are Christians such as Christ came down from heaven to raise up. They are the messengers of His mercy — ministers of grace. Their hearts throb in unison with Christ's — their ears are open to every Macedonian cry. The Church, this country, the age, and state of the world, want such Christians, and only want enough such speedily to cover the earth with righteousness. I have no higher wish on behalf of the young men whom I now address, than to see them thoroughly imbued with the spirit of such a religion as I have attempted to exhibit. Put on, my jfriends, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. I may claim to feel the profoundcst interest in your welfare, but I am not afraid to trust you to the gsidance of such auspices. Go forth clad in these robes of purity and beauty, protected by this impenetrable annor of righteousness, and none M^ho love you will have any thing to fear or to desire beyond. Christ will guide you aright. Precisely into such positions as are best suited to your talents, and most adapted to useful- ness, will He be sure to lead you. And this is the only waj' for attaining at once the highest happiness and the most per- fect development of the intellectual and moral powers. Here you are sure of having "grace sufficient for you," and that is the only sure pledge and hope for eminent success. Here alone you secure that harmony and co-operation of the moral with, the mental forces ; that concun'ence of the emotions 156 RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF with the intellect, indispensable to the fulkst development and the highest achievements of a human being. I shall close by making of the exhortation in the text a special application to those who hear me. I am too inti- mate with the liabilities and the actual history of young men not to be aware that many of them act in direct oppo- sition to the lessons inculcated in this discourse. They de- liberately "put off i\iQ Lord Jesus Christ," and that for the very purpose of making provision for satisfying the lusts of the flesh. They have found unexpected difficulties in the way of a rehgious life on their first entrance upon the scenes of public education. The buoyancy and the levity of youth, the confluence of a multitude of petty temptations, small but eager rivalries, new demands upon time, and a new arrange- ment of their hours, the espri^ du coiys which too often op- erates to an extent incompatible with an easy discharge of the highest moral duties ; these, and many more nameless evils, often combine to test whatever integrity and strength of religious principle and habit the inexperienced youth may have brought from more quiet scenes to the threshold of col- lege life. A brief season of trial, a manly bearing in the face of danger, an honest recurrence to first principles — more than all, humble reliance upon God, and a conscientious observ- ance of the duties of religion, would soon overcome difficul- ties which are only formidable from their novelty and their number. At this precise point, not a few, who come among us with the fairest promise, abandon their religion. Some do it with apparent deliberation, and at once ; others grad- ually, and, it may be, insensibly, but none the less efiectual- ly and fatally. A vague purpose is commonly cherished of resuming it again under more favorable auspices, when tempt- ations shall be fewer or weaker, and better helps available. But for the present they put off Christ, and get their educa- tion and form their character without Him, seeming to re gard themselves more free than before to indulge in doubtful CllItlSTIAN YOUNG MEN. - 157 pleasures and associations, and still more to omit the distinct- ive duties and manifestations of a Christian profession. If conscience at first interpose some obstacles in the way o'f such a defection, it soon accommodates itself with a vicious facil- ity to the cherished inclinations of the heart. I have often seen a hopefully pious youth thus throw away his armor in the day of battle, putting off Christ just when he most needs to put him on — entering on a career of many dangers without religion, just because he thinks it will be difficult or mipleasant to get along with religion. He thus fairly uncovers his bosom to the envenomed shaft. He in- vites, yea, compels God to forsake him, and then rushes blind and naked into the midst of his foes. I speak, young gentle- men, of an experience not unknown among you — not to re- proach, but to warn. Some may have gone so far in this downward career, and have drunken so deeply of the cup of cursing which they have chosen, that the voice of affection- ate admonition will be lost upon them. Not so, I trust, with others who hear me. The agony is not yet over with them. Shamefully have they slighted, deeply have they grieved the Savior ; but their hearts yet beat quickly and sorrow- fully when they look upon Him whom they have pierced. You who have made a trial of this style in religion, say, Is it satisfactoiy ? Does it shield you in the day of peril ? The enjoyments, the lusts of the flesh, for which you have pro- vided at such enomious expense, are they, upon the whole, better than the peace of God and the love of Christ which you have lost ? If you look back with desire and self-re- proach, then you have still a taste and a conscience for bet- ter things, and may, I trust will, rally and struggle to regain the position you have rashly abandoned. Those who are about to leave this arena of preparation to enter upon new scenes of life, and engage in fresh enterprises, I beseech to listen to the instruction? of this occasion. Do not venture to take a step into this dark, troublesome world, 158 • RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF now opening Ijefore you, without a divine guide. You I may exhort witli special emphasis, " Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." Fear to move in the grave matter of choos- ing your profession, and forming the more permanent plans and relations of life, before you assume your proper religious position, and are thus enabled to act under divine direction. You may not neglect this duty without incurring the entire forfeiture of God's promises and grace. Let me inquire of you, with an earnestness and solemnity befitting the import- ance of the interests involved, whether you have hitherto been true to your convictions of duty — whether your plans of life ha\T3 thus far been fomied prayerfully and conscientiously, in the best moods of your religious feelings, when you most fully appreciated Christ's supreme claims ? Are there not in your bosoms half-stifled convictions, slumbering recollec- tions of unpaid vows, made under circumstances of deepest so- lemnity ? Look over these archives of conscience with heed- ful deliberation. Resolutions, form.ed when your bosoms glow- ed with zeal and love for Christ, are most likely to be the wisest and the best. Bring yourselves back to the same mor- al attitude, and review these high, holy purposes, under the sarfie clear manifestations that led to their formation, or you are likely to sin against your own souls irretrievably. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ," and then choose your way un- der his divine auspices. See to it that you make no provision for the flesh in this deeply interesting crisis of your endless being. For God's sake do not blunder here. Remember you choose for eternity, and that an error at this point must give a wrong direction to all your future career. You de- termine Avhat you will do for Christ, and for men, and for your own souls. Choose honestly ; choose bravely ; fearing no labors, or crosses, or sufTerings. Better far than honors or crowns are the sacrifices which fidelity to Christ shall impose upon you. CHRISTIAN YOUNG MEN. 159 There is among our educated Christian young men a griev- ous oflense, so common as to have become a sign of the times, and so full of evil tendencies as to call loudly for exposure and denunciation. I refer to the levity with which so many treat their early vows of consecration to the Christian ministry. Under convictions of duty and of a heavenly calling, always deeply felt and gratefully recognized in seasons of high re- ligious enjoyment and spiritual devotion, they begin or pros- ecute their literary career as a preparatory training for the sacred office. With seasons of depression or declension coine doubts, and reluctance, and dissatisfaction with plans of life which really present few alluring aspects to the lukewarm, worldly-minded Christian. Such occasions are often chosen for testing the validity of the call to a work involving niiLuy sacrifices, and for which high spirituality and entire conse- cration to Christ are confessedly indispensable qualifications. It is then no difficult task to discover deficiencies which the least sensitive conscience must feel, and which there is even a strong temptation to magnify as the means of obtaining a release from obligations hitherto deemed sacred and inviola- ble. I have briefly indicated the process by which many of our Christian students, designated for the ministry by the most unequivocal marks of a divine vocation, contrive to stifle their own convictions, and elude the sacred claims of the Church and of the crucified Savior. I can truly affirm that no other instances of religious defection and recreancy to sa- cred duties are wont to fill me with a sorrow so profound and inconsolable. I habitually look upon pious students with the deepest interest, as in a peculiar sense the property of Christ, not only as the purchase of his blood and the trophies of grace, but as the probable and fit instruments to be chosen for the enlargement of his kingdom. It is to be expected that many so providentially prepared by literary training should be di- vinely called to the ministry of reconciliation ; and it is mat- ter of unfeigned thankfulness, but none of surprise, that so IGC RESOURCES AND DUTIES OF large a proportion of converted students become deeply im- pressed with the duty of devoting themselves to this great Avork. Few, I believe, wlio maintain a devotional, cross- bearing spirit, ever fall into serious or lasting doubts about the authenticity of their heavenly calling. They may bo permitted to pass through seasons of trial and self-examina tion for the establishment of their faith, and for the attain- ment of a higher moral preparation for the exigencies of their holy vocation ; but few sincere souls, I am persuaded, will ever be left to discard, as the result of fancy or of enthusiasm, these awful impressions of the highest duty. They who have bqgn seduced by ambition, or indolence, or unbelief, or self-indulgence, from the higher walks of piety, do, indeed, bring upon themselves a moral state to which dis- trust, and distaste, and absolute repugnance, in regard to their proper mission, are natural and unavoidable. They are no longer fit to be ministers of Christ ; but this does not annul their call nor its binding obligations. The burden rests upoii them none the less because the strength to bear it is gone. They have clearly fallen into the snare of the devil, and there is only one way of escape. They must revert to first principles, or be irretrievably ruined. They must return to their first love — must revisit the sunny regions of Divine grace and manifestation, where clear convictions and holy aspirations domineer over the soul — where love, and faith, and joy in the Holy Ghost impart strength to sustain and light to guide. There is really no other alternative besides such a spiritual revival, for any who lack the nerve to con- clude that they can get along, in life and in death, wdthout a Savior. To keep this an open question, with some latent floating piu-posc to take advantage of a day of feeble im- pulses and dim manifestation for sliding away into a secular profession, is to impose upon the mind and the heart an in tolerable burden, the ominous pledge of comfortless progress, and of ultimate shameful discomfiture. The interests of both CHRISTIAN YOUNG MKN. 161 worlds are equally concerned in such a choice of occupation as shall leave the conscience free to approve, and God free to patronize. To those who are rather timid than rebellious, and have still a stronger desire to win the crown than dread of bear- ing the cross, it may be right to point out the vast resources placed at their disposal, and of which they receive the invest- iture on assuming their true position ; but it must, after ail, be admitted to be the mark of a degraded moral tone for a Christian man to manifest much anxiety for any thing be- yond the doing of his duty. It has been well said that events belong to God ; and, it may be added, thai we are likely to be made happier, as well as better and abler men, by every en- counter with difficulties and every blast of adversity. These are God's chosen methods of discipline, and His appointed con- ditions of all eminent success. So true is this, even in ccm- mon life, that we do not hesitate to pronounce the most un- favorable auguries of an educated young man, who, in his plans of life, makes an over-careful provision for self-indul- gence, and an exemption from severe toils and trials. If he will not push from the shore till he has taken pledges for a smooth sea and a favorable breeze — if he must, at all events, have sumptuous fare, and fine linen, and houses of cedar, he insists on conditions which neither Heaven nor earth will grant, and which are wholly incompatible with the perform- ance of great actions, or the formation of great characters. In religion, this timid," selfish spirit, to whatever extent it may exist, is subversive of the best principles of the Gospel. It is utterly incompatible with faith, and in itself a mortal sin. "We may not inquire too anxiously what Christ will de- mand of VIS in return for the blood He has shed and the heav- en He has prepared for us ; but we know He will have noth- ing less than entire consecration, and that we are to be ever ready, " not only to be bound, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus." It is precisely at this point of en- 1G2 RESOURCES AND DUTIES, ETC. tire self-renunciation that the soul becomes endowed with the power of an endless life, and can do all things through Christ. If this is an excellent attainment, usually reserved for ad- vanced piety and matured graces, it may, nevertheless, be come the starting-point of every Christian young man. Let him put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, and he obtains the mastery over all resources, hu- man and divine, needful to the fulfillment of a glorious des- tiny CHRISTIJIN PRINCIPLE, ETC. 163 III. THE RELATIOxNS OF CHRISTIAN TRINCIPLE TO MENTAL CULTURE. A DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 1848. As he thiuketh in his heart, so is he. — Prov., xxiii., 7. It is a recognized principle of ethical philosophy, no less than of the Gospel, that the quality of actions, considered as virtuous or vicious, resides wholly in the intention. The ex- ternal bodily movement, which we term the action, and which is the apparent cause of the effect produced, has real- ly no moral character. It is neither good nor evil in itself; and in forming our judgment of human conduct, we might reject the external manifestation altogether, had we some other clew to the mental condition of which it is the expo- nent. But "the tree is known by its fruit." It is by atten- tively observing the actions of men that we are enabled to arrive at satisfactory conclusions concerning their intention?, which alone are deserving of either praise or blame. " As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." He may be a thorough- ly good man — "pure in heart," just in the sight of God ; and yet, through some fault of his position, or some negligence, or some untowardness in his methods of manifestation, he may impress the beholder unfavorably — may incur a most unde- sirable reputation. He may, on the contrary, studiously main- tain all the decencies and semblances of many virtues ; may, for sinister or selfish ends, perform good deeds, rivaling in their number and usefulness the highest achievements of the most approved and unquestionable piety, without making the It54 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN slightest approach toward the fulfillment of his duties as a moral being : " As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Out- ward performances are of no worth apart from the motives in which they originate. The same overt act is either a virtue or a crime, accoi-ding to the intention of the, agent. Several men bestow money upon a poor neighbor : the first gives it as the price of waylaying an enemy ; the second, to purchase a vote ; the third, to relieve pressing want ; the last, as the steward and dispenser of God's bounty intrusted to him. This one act of giving to the poor is so modified by motives as to be in the first instance an atrocious crime ; in the sec- ond, gross profligacy ; in the third, an act of charity ; in the fourth, a deed of Christian piety. So true is it of every man, in regard to every act of his life, that he is as his intentions are : motive, not performance, determines moral character. The same maxim is true when applied to intellectual char- acter : " As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." The human mind is as the thoughts with which it is chiefly conversant. It is very much the creature of its own ideas. The man who from early life has been familiar with toj)ics and inter- ests of great significance, is educated by them. His intellect takes its character and coloring from the ideas which habit- ually act upon it and dwell in it. Even the sights and sounds that engage his outward senses — the beautiful landscape, or the sublime mountain scenery upon which he has long been accustomed to gaze ; the roar of the cataract, \A'hich sends forth its thunder night and day near his dwelling-place — will by-and-by be found to have filled the imagination and the memory with images and recollections, and the heart with sentiments, which are likely to exert a strong and per- manent influence upon his mental capacity, upon his char- acter, and his destiny. Still more must every-day pursuits, and the profound interests that suggest the current topics of conversation and thought, and that impose upon the mind its most stirring, strenuous employments, leave upon it durable RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 1G5 impressions, and become chief and influential conditions of its development and growth. If two individuals, equal in capacity and education, spend their lives in a great indus- trial cstabhshment, the one as owner or superintendent, the other as a common laborer, the master is likely to become a man of decided ability, of comprehensive views, inventive genius, and somid judgment, while the operative makes no progress beyond the acquisition of some degree of skill in his own special department. The first has a variety of interests to consult, and responsibiUties to meet ; has questions to set- tle, and decisions to make every day or hour, upon which are suspended results of no inconsiderable moment. This gives variety, multiplicity, and activity to his ideas, and the mind expands and acquires new vigor by such processes. The work of the subaltern, on the contrary, is mere routine, and his mind stagnates and dwindles amid the incessant monot- onous whirling of spindles and water-wheels. It is no unusual thing for travelers in Turkey and other Ori- ental states to meet with high public functionaries totally ig- norant of all the arts and sciences, a knowledge of which, in our part of the world, constitutes education. Many of them, however, are men of decided ability, who discharge the duties of their high stations with the utmost propriety. The most sagacious and successful ruler in the East knows nothing of literature and science bej^ond the poorest skill in reading and writing, and tliis he acquired after his elevation to supreme power, at forty years of age. These men are educated by the important, responsible employments which give constant play to their intellectual faculties, and enlarge the mind by habitufil familiarity with significant ideas. That is likely to become the most powerful intellect which is most constantly and earnestly busied with great thoughts and great designs. Every religious congregation afibrds good illustration of this truth. We never fail to observe a higher tone of intelligence as well as piety among a people accustomed to contemplato 166 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN ^ and devise extensive schemes for doing good, not at home merely, but in distant lands and in the islands of the sea, than prevails, or can prevail, in the old stereotyped churches, which are well content if they can only take care of themselves. The inind wants an ample supply of worthy ideas to furnish it Avith interesting, productive occupation. With these it must make progress and attain development ; but without them, never. This truth is important, not to students only, but to all who desire mental growth and disciphne. It is especial- ly important for those who labor at occupations little friend- ly to intellectual improvement. Such persons should seek a remedy for the disadvantage of their position by reading good ' books, which are the great store-houses of ideas and thoughts, and which offer a ready and sufficient resource. I but draAV a legitimate inference from the preceding dis- cussion, and announce the obvious truth of the text in another foim, in affirming that the moral character of a man is as his principles — that it is not only colored and modified, but formed by his principles, or the theory according to which his life is conducted. As each separate action derives its quality from the motive in which it originates, so the series of actions which constitutes the history of an individual is as the succession of motives from which they proceed, or as the moral principles, which in every well-balanced mind con- stitute the great source and regulator of motives. By a similar train of reasoning, it will be made obvious that the mental character mixst, to a great extent, be the re- sult of the theory on which the individual resolves to conduct his life. If the mind at any given time receives its impulses, its elevation, and its tendencies from the particular ideas upon which it is employed, its general character must, to a great extent, be not only aflccted, but formed by that unbroken succession of ideas with which it is conversant, the most in- fluential and important of which are derived from those pro- found convictions and stable purposes usually denominated RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 167 the 2>}'i''>^ci]jlcs. Dismissing these too metaphysical forms of expression, into which I have been led in quest of clearness and precision, it may be stated in general terms, that a man's moral and intellectual character are as " he thinketh in his heart" — are as those deep and earnest thoughts which con- stitute the moving forces of the soul, and which regulate the life. I think we may now regard the doctrine of the text as sufficiently elucidated. It strikes me much hke a self-evi- dent proposition, the announcement of which brings with it the clearest conviction of its truth. It falls in with every man's experience and every man's observation — with the na- ture of things and the Word of God ; and we may now feel at liberty to proceed with some inferences and applications of a practical character, adapted to the special demands oi this occasion. I will subjoin but one more preliminaiy re- mark. If it shall seem to any that I lose sight of the differ- ences between moral and intellectual objects, and confound ideas logically and really distinct, I refer them to the fur- ther developments of this discourse, for the justification of a method deliberately adopted from a strong conviction that every just theory of intellectual training must recognize a dependence nearly absolute upon moral principles. I. It is a natural and obvious inference from the preced- ing discussion, that every man, and especially every educated young man, should furnish himself, as early as may be, with enlightened, stable principles of action. He should set out in the world with a Avell-considered and earnestly adopted theory of life, in obedience to whose controlling authority his ends shall be chosen and his efforts prosecuted. To engage in a career involving consequences profoundly interesting in themselves, and eternal in their duration and influence, with- out settled principles and aims, is like setting sail upon the broad ocean with no specific destination ; and, consequently, with no reason for choosing one direction rather than another. 168 CHRISTIAN rRINCIPLE IN but such as capricious gales or more capricious fancies may from time to time happen to supply. Kotliiiig less than dis- comfiture and disaster can be expected from such a begin- ning. It is, indeed, among things possible, that propitious breezes may waft the unpiloted bark into some desirable haven ; and even that the fury of the storm may drive the floating wreck upon some green or some golden shore, where reckless adventure may gather rewards never due, and sel- dom granted to any thing but prudent foresight, and well- directed, persevering effort. He is little better than a mad- man, however, who voluntarily consents to expose the most . precious interests of his being to a conflict of chances in which the highest perils are always imminent, and absolute ruin nearly -ynavoidable ; while success, if it come aS the result of fortuitous causes and combinations, is likely to be nearly valueless, because not foreseen and provided for. That course of life which is entered upon without principle, and conduct- ed without a plan, can not but be unproductive of either vir- tue, happiness, or honor. That it is not wholly filled up with misfortunes and disgraces, and rendered to the victim of his own follies one unvaried scene of wretchedness, results from the benignant arrangements of divine Providence, winch always protect the imprudent and the vicious against many of the consequences of their misconduct, and secure to all such a measure of enjoyment as shall make life tolerable, even to the most unfortunate, and awaken gratitude in the midst of disappointment and shame. For those who will not be at the trouble of subjecting them- selves to the control of principle and duty, it is fortunate to be left in the walks of common, laborious life, where, in the absence of the higher motives which reason and religion sup- ply, domestic instincts and urgent wants are ever at hand to mii^ster their stern impulses to energetic, persevering activ- ity. The great law of necessity, which prescribes to the multitude their toilsome course of life, is faithful to exact RELATION TO MENTAL CULTUE.E. 16'J the fulfiUmeut of its duties ; but for those whom fortune or parental indulgence, or their own honorable aspirations, al- low to choose a higher career, no such safeguard is provided. They must find incentives to action, and guarantees of suc- cess, in their own enlightened reason and virtuous resolution. For them to engage in the elevating pursuits which invite their pi'esence, without the moral and mental prerequisites to success, is to incur necessary, unavoidable disasters. In the "absence of established principles of action, their efforts will be feeble and fitful. The long labor of preparation will be but a heartless, profitless task, from which feeble tempta- tions and worthless pleasures will ever be sufficient to draw away the wavering, irresolute disciple. Every folly which holds out the promise of stimulating excitement or vulgar merriment — every vice which has a gilded bait to ofier, has its eye upon him as a predestined victim. Destitute of any sound principle of action, and therefore without purpose or earnestness, he floats a waif upon, a sea of accidents — he stands idle in the market-place, a laborer out of work, la- beled and advertised as a candidate for any and every adven- ture. I do not hesitate to announce it as my deliberate opin- ion, that most of the miscari'iages of scholastic life are the result of the causes here discussed. Not a few young men enter upon this career without settled principles or purposes. They are conscious of no aims. They know not why they are in a college rather than in a factory or a corn-field. It is no manly, vigorous purpose ; no lofty aspiration ; no burn- ing zeal for God's glory, or human well-being, that has brought them here. Such motives dignify and consecrate the student's vocationj they hallow all his hours and oppor- tunities ; they exalt industry and sobriety, and punctuality and order, into cardinal virtues ; they fortify the soul with sturdy resolution, and stir it with sleepless impulses ; they set it all a-blaze with scholarly enthusiasm, and lead on even ordinary men, by no means highly gifted, to the attainment H 170 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN of an intellectual and moral efficiency very like genius Tlie pursuit of knowledge under such Lenignant auspices can nev- er be an irksome task. It rather becomes a mission in ful- fillment of which the student works on consciously and ge- nially, growing every day more and more a man, fit to bear God's image in the world, and to act the part of a brother and a benefactor in the great suflering family of which he is one. Students of the other class, and I must admit that it does not every v. here lack the respectability of numbers, find col- lege work, so far as they do it, mere drudgery. They taste none of the pleasures of science, and they reap none of the |iigher advantages of education, for these are gained by vol- untary, earnest co-operation with the sources of information and the appliances which literary institutions profess to sv;p- p]y. Something, no doubt, may be gainetl to taste and gen- eral intelligence by breathing a literary atmosphere, and by a half involuntary subjection to the processes of the study and the lecture-room ; and if it shall turn out that the literary idler inhales somewhat more of the vital principle than he gives out of noxious effluvia for the lungs of others, then there may be advantage in the experiment. But against these benefits, however highly they may be rated, there is to be taken into our account the offset of many fearful evils lia- ble to be suflered and inflicted. The mind, without a guid- ing principle or recognized vocation, if it be not neutralized and wasted by its own feeble, misdirected, conflicting tend- encies, will hardly escape a corrupting thraldom from the accidental or malicious influences to which it is exposed. E-efusing its homage to the right and the true, and so spurn- ing the protection of practical virtue, it'becomes an easy prey to unsuspected enemies. Other minds, as empty and listless as itself, or the w'eakest combination of accidents, impose law uj)on him who will not choose to be his own master. The poor jests that fall from the idler or wag who sits by his side DELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 171 at the dinner-table or in the lecture-room, or the current non- sense of the clique whom chance, or some more formal bond of union, has made his chosen associates, fashion his senti- ments, and become chief agents in the formation of his mental and moral habits.* These appoint his aims, and pronounce ex * The literary fiateniitics, of late so greatly multiplied in our col- leges, exert a very important influence upon the formation of both men- tal and moral character. They have gradually introduced into these uistitutions a new element, very worthy of attention, whether consid- ered in connection with the maintenance of sound discipline and good order, or with literary improvement. Twenty years ago the students of a college usually formed two associations, for the purpose of mutual improvement in composition and oratory. Two hom's in some after- noon or evening of each week were set apart by the authority, or with the consent of the faculty, for these exercises, which were conducted sometimes secretly, but more commonly with some degree of publicity, under such rules and regulations as were agreed upon for the orderly transaction of business. These societies, though liable to abuses, often contributed in a considerable degi'ee to the improvement of the student. Some skill and llxcility in extemporaneous speaking were acquired, for which the ordinary routine of college life affords less favorable oppor- liniities. A sj^irit of inquiry and emulation was awakened ; informa- tion was elicited ; the timid were encouraged to take part in exercises I)rescribed with their consent, and presided over by their associates ; and the general freedom and wide scof)e, as well as the method of the discussion, vs'ere calculated to introduce into the scholastic arena some- thing of the earnestness and reality of the actual business of life, for which it constituted, to some extent, a useful preparation. The draw- backs upon these benefits were often party sf)irit, rivalries, jealousies, and suspicions ; a loose and vapid style of s^Jealiing and writing, con- tracted in the absence of proper instruction and judicious criticism ; and sometimes an undervaluing of the prescribed studies and duties which constitute the student's proper business. In addition to the two or three associations, which usually embraced the whole body of students, we now have from five or six to a dozen secre'; societies, aiming at similar objects with the old fraternities, and securing them in various degrees. Some special benefits are {probably gained by Uiis rfinute subdivision, in the closer intimacies and by the freer jilay of confidence and sympathy which it allows. 01 the disadvantages which may grow out of this :«ii;ovution I only 172 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN cathedra judgments more authoritative than university stat- utes, or the counsel of the most judicious instructors. In speak theoretically, as the excellent tone of moral sentiment which has usually prevailed in the Wesleyan University is calculated to counter- act any unfavorable tendencies in the casual associations of the students. The additional expenditure of money and time is a-practical and obvi- ous objection of considerable weight, though slight in comparison with any injurious influences on mental and moral culture which may pos- sibly result from the cause under consideration. The inconsiderable numbers of which these societies, now so greatly multiplied, must con- sist, would seem to be less favorable to improvement than larger asso- ciations, from lack of stimulus, and the want of an audience ; from the narrow sphere of comparison ; and from the little variety of talent and attainment presented, whether to awaken emulation or to supply mod- els. It is an easy achievement to shine and win applause in a circle of half a dozen students, drawn together, it may be, by the common bond of mediocrity in mind and scholarship, while intellectual exhibi- tions in the presence of fifty or a hundred intelligent young men have another sort of ordeal to pass. In the larger association we should al- ways expect some examples of fine taste, sound reasoning, and good speaking, well calculated to awaken and guide a manly ambition to excel. The closer intimacy and stronger ties of the smaller fraterni- ties must also tend to impair the strength, or prevent the existence of the esprit du corps of the class and the institution, which constitutes one of the most delightful, enduring, and valuable satisfactions and rem- iniscences of college life. It will be found, I think, except under the most fav^orable circumstances, that the multiplication of these fraterni- ties tends to excite groundless suspicions, to alienate friends, and pre- vent the formation of friendsliips between congenial minds. Even re- ligious ties and sympathies are not always able to resist an influence which may sometimes degrade literary associations into the bigotry, selfishness, and pettiness of a clique. In a state of morals and senti- ments less favorable than that with which I have the good fortune to be most conversant, the unreasonable and eager strife of small associa- tions might produce great difficulties in the government of a literary institution. I am, however, bound in justice to add, that no such evils have fallen under my notice ; and that instances have come to my knowledge in which the right feeling and self-respect of the fraternity have rendered valuable aid to the cause of good order, and done much to restrain an erring member from indolence, vice, and dishonor. Not to make any further use of the foregoing suggestions, they should RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 173 obedience to such oracles it is that green, unfurnished youths resolve that the real hinderances to mental improvement and to the development of genius are hard study and solid science ; and that some light reading and vapid declamation — above all, the edifying discourses and flashy criticisms of the coterie, are able to form them great orators, and, if they hke, great authors and statesmen. Let it not be imagined that these are mere idle fancies, which disappear with the hour that gives them birth. If they take the guise of very palpable inspire the student with great caution in his selection among the vari- ous societies whicli invite him to their fellowship on his entrance upon college life. lie shoukl, at least, take time to consider, and become acquainted. He should be cautious that he does not commit the keep- ing of his comfort, his scholarship, his principles, his manners and mor- als, to associates whose bond of union may be their community of idle habits, vulgar tastes, and conversation; of low scholarship, and loose or irreligious principles; and a common aversion to certain laborious studies and duties prescribed in the college course. The societies them- selves ought to be ever on their guard against the dangers and abuses to which, however outweighed by advantages, they are unavoidably exposed ; to maintain a spirit of generous, honorable, not of petty, sus- picious rivalry, toward their confraternities. They should watch over the conduct of their members with brotherly kindness and solicitude, and seek to promote in them scholarly, gentlemanly, and manly habits and aspirations. It should ever be a first principle with them to pros- ecute their laudable objects in strict subordination to their higher du- ties as members of a public institution, and in a frank and ingenuous, and honorable spirit toward its administration and government. Even those slight infractions of law and order which may be deemed venial in an inexperienced individual, ought to be esteemed disgraceful in a society of intelligent young gentlemen, which is presumed to be ani- mated and guided by the combined discretion, and honor, and con science of all its members. Associations of students, judiciously con ducted in accordance with the principles here suggested — devoting themselves, not to trivial, but to significant, earnest, manly discussions and inquiries ; always kept in harmony with the higher duties and ob- jects of college life ; and, I will add, never allowed to interfere with due attention to the public societies, or to introduce into them any of the petty rivalries of the minor fraternities — may become very useCul aids to intellectual culture. 171 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN absurdities when exposed in tlieir true point of view, they very often present themselves upon the theatre of practical education as real, insuperable obstacles in the way of all im- provement. They often render attendance on college terms and college exercises nearly useless to the pupil, and the teacher's office a laborious, vexatious nullity. All good in- fluences are lost upon such purposeless, wayward, obstinate minds. The accidents to which they surrender the conduct of their intellect and their lives, may, indeed, by rare good fortune, impress upon them some form of intelligence and virtue. Some higher, purer current of the fickle winds to which they commit their course, may chance to harden into habits not wholly detestable, some of the transient phases exhibited in the ever-varying phenomena of their mental progress. Still it would be idle to expect satisfactory results from causes so inadequate, and methods so utterly unsound. Success will be the rare exception — failure the rule. I re- peat the opinion already expressed, that here is to be found the source of the manifold grievous disappointments which so often fall to the lot of so-called educated men. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why one third of college- bred young men should prove unfit for the professions for which hberal education is designed to prepare them, while nineteen in twenty of all who are apprenticed to mechanics and artisans turn out complete workmen. We do not demand that all educated men shall prove to be geniuses, or shall at- tain to the highest professional distinction. All, however, not essentially deficient in ordinary mental endowments, are capable of gaining the mental discipline which it is the busi- ness of schools and colleges to impart, and which is requisite in the functions to the fulfillment of which society calls its educated men. The thing most requisite to success in these vocations is not brilliant talent, but the due preparation and use of those average capacities which God bestows impar- tially upon tlio race. These can only be secured by diligent, RELATION TO MENTAL, CULTURE. 17<3 persevering study, pursued upon a plan and upon principle.; and it is because so large a class of students, so-called, have neither principle nor plan, that so many of them fall out by the way, and so many others, vi^ho manage to pass through college, are destined to a life of mortification and disappoint- ment. II. I pass on to another remark. Since established prin- ciples of action are so essential to success, loc ought to use great ca2itio/i in the adoption of our 'priiiciiilcs., for ail are not equally good. It must be admitted that any efTective principle of action, not absolutely vicious, is better than none. Action upon low and adulterated motives is preferable to the intellectual stagnation which results from a want of strong impulses, and earnest, stable purpose. It is better to be driven furiously over rocks and shoals by Borean gales, than to reel and fiwelter, and take the plague in the calms of the torrid zone. Still, it is a matter of great moment to commence and prose- cute our plans of life on an elevating and genial theory, for in it both moral and mental character are deeply involved. Many young men choose a literary and professional career in preference to more active and laborious pursuits, from a deliberate comparison of the advantages which each is sup- posed to ofl'er. They resolve to escape from the plow and the work-shop, because they are disgusted with mere manual labor, and fancy that they feel wdthin them the presence of mental aptitudes, which, with due culture, may raise them to ease or affluence. It can not be denied that such persons have chosen for themselves a principle of action of great po- tency, which may stimulate to persevering industry, and even high enterprise. It is a motive of sufficient efficiency to in- sure stability of pui'pose and of action, and may, with great probability, lead on to thorough scholarship and professional eminence. It even offers guarantees for correct morals, as well as for mental improvement ; for they who are earnest- \ 176 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN ly engaged in serious occupations, have seldom leisure or in- clination for vice and dissipation. Self-interest, however, though a highly efficient, and, in the absence of better, a very useful motive, can not be regarded a worthy principle of action for an intelligent moral being. It is not good, in the long run, either for the intellect or the heart. In its higher developments it is philosophically incompatible with the act- ive existence of several of the most valuable sentiments and virtues that enrich and adorn the human character. It can not, for instance, coexist with magnanimity, or benevolence, or generosity, or public spirit. "\Yhen fairly enthroned as the rule of life, it gradually, but inevitably, loses- all kind consid- eration for the welfare of others, or for any interest that can not be made subservient to individual aggrandizement ; and then it is that we clearly perceive its malignant character. Now this is the point to which it perpetually tends ; and that must be pronnunced a vicious principle of action which, however useful in special circumstances, becomes intolerable the moment it obtams a full development. Our motives of action, in order to achieve the utmost for character, should be such as gain new force and momentum with our progress in wisdom and virtue ; but the motive in question just then grows into a manifest, monstrous evil, fatal alike to virtue, and piety, and happiness. Its influence upon the intellectual charactei' is scarcely less disastrous than upon the moral. The mind which was well disciplined under the impulses of a principle of so much en- ergy, and so sagacious, soon finds itself shut in from all en- largement by a system, of which self, and not man, nor the universe, nor God, is the centre. The heart becomes hard, and the conscience seared, in their perpetual conflicts with the claims of sympathy and charity ; and this is equivalent to affirming that all the fountains of genial sentiment are congealed into ice, or indurated into stone. Insensibility to the interests of others is confessedly fatal to all true, per- RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 177 suasive eloquence. As the selfish man, sooner or later, be- comes an object of indiflerence or detestation to the world, he can never secure the reputation and the influence needful to move or control other minds. He can no more be a poet than an orator, for he docs not love or reverence nature, or man, or God. Nor do I see how he can possibly be a philos- opher ; how he can attain to the love of truth, except for the gain it may bring him ; how he can have a heart to appre- ciate great discoveries in the earth or the heavens, in any higher spirit than that which rejoices in the acquisition of the precious gem accidentally brought to light in geological researches, or in the glitter and costliness of the instruments with which science prosecutes its inquiries. It would, perhaps, be unjust to liberally educated men, and yet more to the youthful student, to intimate that selfish mo- tives operate upon them with peculiar force. He has prob- ably surrendered himself to the dominion of more honorable sentiments : he has chosen ambition as his guiding star, and spends the midnight oil amid visions of future renown. I believe that ambition does operate much more frequently and powerfully upon intelligent young men than self-inter- est ; and I gladly admit that it is a far more elevated and honorable principle of action. It emancipates the aspiring mind from a degrading bondage to those material interests which turn away its vision from all things genial and enno- bling, and concentrate upon self the expansive sympathies that were meant for mankind. By presenting reputation and influence as the most desirable objects of pursuit, it prescribes the cultivation of such virtues and accomplishments as ren- der a man agreeable to his fellows, and so far provides for •the interest and happiness of the species. Scope is thus given for some exercise of the charities of our nature, and for some degree of the virtues of patriotism and public spirit ; an ad- vantage which raises ambition immeasurably above mere gross selfishness as a motive for mental culture. That rule H 2 178 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN of life, however, is essentially defective and faulty which pro- poses public I'avor and applause as a motive for the acqui- sition of knowledge or the cultivation of virtue. They who follow it seldom become either wise or virtuous ; for they will soon discover that superficial attainments, and the sem- blances of virtue, are more easy, and not less sure passports to popularity, than the realities of which they are the cheap substitutes and gaudy counterfeits. Knowledge and virtue come to be regarded only as means, less valuable and less desirable than the ends they are used to promote ; and they will be abandoned without scruple for other expedients found to be of equal or greater efficacy. Thus degraded to the level of mere instruments, they lose their moral character, and, with it, their reflex power over the mind and the heart. It is thus that ambition, which, at the outset, frequently exerts a powerful and conservative influence upon the student, be- comes, after no great length of time, a thoroughly misleading element, hostile alike to intellectual and moral advancement. This is its inherent vice, which must operate with greater or less force, even in the study, and throughout the forming period of life. In the turmoil of riper years, and amid the temptations of a public career, its sway often becomes abso- lute, and not many are found able to resist its deteriorating influences. Indeed, ambition finds little indulgence, even in the judgment of the world. We too incautiously, perhaps, laud an ambitious student ; but to apply this epithet to a man of mature years, to a statesman, or an aspirant for of- fice, is equivalent to pronouncing him unworthy of public confidence. Ambition is like self-interest in this, that it iTfiinisters useful impulses in the preparatory stages of life, and in the absence of strong temptations ; but it eventually imdermines the character, and seduces both the intellect and the heart. "When once the ambitious scholar has become an ambitious politician, there is commonly an end to all men- tal and moral improvement. Tact and demagogism answer RELATION TO MENTAL CULTUR.E. 179 his new aims far better than divine philosophy ; and he has entered a region of temptation too strong for ordinary virtue. Party arrangements and ohhgations are not long in weaving their meshes for the conscience, which soon learns submis- sion to the code of morality that prefers the popular and the politic to the true and the right. A thousand sad histories, fulfilled and fulfilling among us, will tell, without more ar- gument, by what sure, though it may be slow, gradations the ingenuous, studious youth of twenty-one is led on by this ig- nis fat mcs to be, at forty, an unprincipled, time-serving dem- agogue, without principle, reputation, or honorable aspirations. Let every young man beware of surrendering himself to the leading of unchasteued ambition. Let him shun, as the gates of death, the arena of partisan strife and preferment. Let him patiently seek, in some honest calling, independence of all parties and offices. It may be that intelligence and vir- tue will be wanted some day on the pohtical stage, and he may then ascend it with clean hands and a good conscience, and with the full advantage of all the wisdom and reputa- tion with which he has fortified his character in the inno- cence of private life. There is still another motive to literary activity, liable to none of the objections here referred to, which deserves more attention than it has yet received in our places of education. Could we hope to find a considerable number of youths so happily constituted that the love of learning would prove a sufficient stimulus to diligent, perseverfng application, we should have discovered an incentive to action which the most scrupulous morality could not hesitate to approve. It is a delightful thought, that of an ingenuous young man led on through the schools, and through a studious life, by the strong attractions of science, irrespective of any interested objects or of any reward, but such as reveal themselves to the under- standing and the heart, in the discovery of those great laws which the inscrutable wisdom of God has impressed upon ISU CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN His creation. It is not conceivable that such a principle should interfere with the highest moral development, or that it should fail in leading to the most desirable mental culture. Indeed, it approaches both in purity and efficiency the Chris- tian motive ; and but for the too narrow field of its opera- tions, we might be content to leave under its sole guidance all who will not be induced to learn the true philosophy of education from the great Teacher. III. In attempting to show that the religio?i of Christ furnishes the student with the only safe and adequate motive to intellectual effort, I shall take it for granted that, so far as moral character is concerned, the truth of this proposition is conceded by all who hear me. Enlightened infidels do not hesitate to acknowledge the claims of the Gospel as the highest, purest source of morals ; and none but rank, bitter enemies nowadays call this claim in question. In address- ing myself to Christian young men, who cheerfully recognize the excellence of Christianity, even while they may live in neglect of many of its precepts and privileges, I may safely presume that they acknowledge the Bible as the only sufli- cient standard of moral virtue, and, therefore, the only safe guide in the formation of moral character. That the Gospel also furnishes the only safe and sufficient motive and guide to intellectual culture, I shall now proceed to demonstrate. And here I shall claim nothing for religion on strictly relig- ious and theological grounds. I shall only refer to it as a system of truth and duty, exerting, and entitled to exert, a strong and permanent influence upon human conduct and character, from its natural and philosophicijl, no less than from its moral relations to men. How, then, does Christian- ity bear upon the question of intellectual education, and min- ister incentives and aids to high mental improvement ? 1 . Its great laio of responsibility furnishes a inotive of great and ever-living efjicacy. Were it possible to lift up the vail which conceals from RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 181 observation the secret springs of human action, it would be discovered that a deep conviction of accountability to God is the most pervading and povv^erful of these occult agencies. In the irreligious, this principle chiefly operates in the re- straints which it imposes upon their bad dispositions ; and to it we must chiefly refer the wide diflcrence between the actual conduct and character of men, and that profounder depravity and overflowing profligacy which would prevail in the absence of all sense of moral and religious obligation. It is, however, upon pious minds that this principle operates with its fullest force. In them every act and enterprise is subordinated to this universal law. " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" is the burden of every prayer. They " la- bor to be approved unto God ;" and they are only satisfied with their own performances in proportion as all things have been done with a "single eye." They must "eat and drink to the glory of God." His claims to homage extend to every " word" and " act ;" and they charge themselves to remem- ber that they are to give account for all "the deeds done in the body." Such a conviction of responsibility, in proportion as it is honestly entertained and obeyed, becomes the great law of life, and impresses with its potency, and tinges with its hues, every spring of action and every phase of character. It will be admitted, I am sure, that this great Christian motive presses upon none with more urgency, or with an au- thority more imperative and sacred, than upon the young man led by his own inclinations, and allowed by providen- tial circumstances, to devote his early years to mental cul- ture. He is engaged in elevating and purifying that part of his nature which constitutes him a man and a child of eter- nity — for which God manifests his care in all the arrange- ments of his grace, and for which Christ died on the cross. He is engaged in fitting for high uses the instrument by which alone he can honor God or enjoy Him, or promote the happi- ness of his fellow-creatures. If there is done on this earth a 182 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN work of some importance and dignity, the culture of the im- mortal mind is such a work. To perform this work well, to make the most of these priceless opportunities, is obviously a sacred duty. The student occupies a high and holy trust. By diligence and fidelity in his work, he augments forever his own powers of happiness and usefulness. He augments the means of happiness intrusted to him for human society. He augments his own capacity for knowing, eifjoying, and honoring God. Shall it be thought a slight ofiense to prove false to such obligations ? Shall the man who perverts in- fluence, or squanders wealth, or violates a public trust, be deemed culpable, and is he innocent who robs himself, and society, and God, of talents put in his hands, not to be buried or wasted, but to be improved to the utmost? Surely, if God will judge the world in righteousness, and, with a rigorous impartiality, demand his own, with usury, from every delin- quent, the inquisition will press hard upon those who are ac- cused of wasting the most precious of their Lord's goods — the immortal mind, made to appreciate his character and promote his glory. Upon every student rests this fearful re- sponsibility ; and every Christian student will recognize and respect it with a degree of solemn earnestness proportioned to his intelligence and piety. He will feel that "he is not his own" — that his talents and opportunities are only his to improve and employ conscientiously, and to account for in the last day. Under such convictions, he can neither idle nor trifle. He will find in them a sleepless, faithful monitor, to rebuke away indolence and apathy ; to whisper hope and he- roism into his fainting spirit ; to prescribe tejiiperance in all things ; to endow his hours with such a sanctity that it were sacrilege to waste them ; to give law to his resting, his ris- ing, and his recreation ; to invoke his profounder respect for statutes and usages established for the maintenance of need- ful order, and for the protection against all intrusion of time consecrated to study. Such is the natural influence, and the RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 183 actual, so far as conscience has fair play, which religion ex- erts over intellectual improvement. I grieve to admit tliat not a few^ nonii)ialhj Christian students are neither industri- ous nor law-ahiding, though idle and disorderly are epithets as incongruous to their holy profession as profane and intem- perate. It is also saddening to the heart to observe the course of too many Christian young men, after they have passed the earlier stages of literary preparation. They cease to be stu- dents as soon as they are fairly launched upon the voyage of life. They are at the zenith of their intellectual greatness at thirty or thirty-five. A modicum of professional lore, a poor pittance of theology, a petty curriculum of pulpit prep- aration, is all they ever add to the measure of attainment with which they enter upon active life. Progress from hence- forth there is none, except in the wrong direction. The starved intellect dwindles for want of fresh supplies of its natural aliment ; imagination falters and grows dim, disgust- ed with its own worn-out imagery ; discourse becomes flat and unprofitable, without freshness or point ; and at fifty you have a man physically strong, but intellectually exhausted, inca- pable of doing any thing pleasant or profitable to God or man. Every such sad example implies gross recreancy to Christian obligations. Those who keep the commandment, " add to their virtue knowledge ;" they " grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ ;" and their intellectual pathway shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.* * The limits of a single discourse would only allow a passing allu- sion to the subject of this paragraph, though its intrinsic importance might well claim a far more extended consideration. The evil refer- red to is the besetting sin of educated men in tlie United States, which, so far as I have enjoyed opportunities of observation, gives them a bad distinction in comparison with those of other countries. With regard to the great body of our graduates, it may be affirmed, without qualifi- cation, that they make no advancement in classical and scientific knowl- edge after leaving college. The two or three years usually devoted to professional studies, carry forward the work of mental discipline with 184 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN 2. Responsibility to God is the most powerful of all mo- tives to intellectual exertion, and it operates upon every con- soine good effect ; bat, upon their entrance into active life, three fourths of our scholars bid a final adieu to both literature and science, as if these were only fit for schoolboys, and of no further use for mental culture, for graceful accomplishment, or elegant recreation. We have an in- creasing, though still a veiy small class of professionally litcrai-y men — authors, editors, philosophers, &c. — who make letters an^science their business. We may add to these the professors and teachers in our leading educational establishments, and uovir and then a clergyman or physician, chiefly of tlie younger class: the residue of our liberally ed- ucated men not only make no advancement in scholastic attainments, but are actually retrograding to a point where a page of Tacitus, or a proposition in Euclid, becomes to them the profoundest of mysteries. Even in professional learning, little progress is usually made beyond the demand of an imperative necessity ; and it is only iu the hands of a few that medicine, law, or theology becomes a really liberal profes- sion. It seems doubtful whether any decided improvement will very soon be achieved. Growth in civilization, and the keener competition and more minute and better-defined division of labor, which must result from a dense population, and the prevalence of a higher general intel- ligence, will gradually create and enforce a demand for better literary qualifications. Meantime the strong inducements to active biisiuess life — the temptations of trade, or speculation, and other methods of money-making — will continue to seduce our educated men to desert or neglect their proper sphere. Above all, the bottomless pit of politics will still swallow up its hecatombs of noble victims. For all this there is really no remedy in our present state of society ; and it only remains for our literary institutions to use all diligence in repairing the waste. More thai! ever is it incumbent upon them to elevate the standard of education, and fui'nish our rising scholars with the greatest practicable amount of good cultivation, since it is quite certain, with regard to the most of them, that they will cease from all literary improvement as soon as they become their own teachers. So far as these strictures are applicable to Christian scholars, the evil ought to find its cure in their conscientiousness, and their zeal to obtain the highest qualifications for usefulness. To these moral influences are we indebted for a majority of the examples of literaiy industry and ex cellence that still exist among us. A considerable number of clergy men, especially, retain their habits of careful study and mental activity to advanced age. It must be confessed, however, that, as a class, they RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 185 scicntious student with a force proportioned to liis intelligence and piety. Religion supplies other iuflueuces auxiliary to are far from guiltless of the shortcomings ou which we have ventured to comment. There is one form of this grievous error to which an interesting class of our graduates are especially exposed, and which merits, on that ac- count, a passing notice. I refer to preacliers and candidates for the ministry, of whom our graduating classes annually furnish the Church with an increasing number. A large majority of these become itiner- ant ministers, a peculiarity in their mode of life which is liable to exert a special iuduence upon intellectual character. The frequent changes involved in this system of ministerial labor, though by no means incom- patible with the highest intellectual attainments, and confessedly very favorable to a zealous and effective discharge of the most important ministerial duties, offer to those who are willing to fall into such a snare some peculiar temptations to intellectual sloth. The custom of writing sermons, or skeletons of sermons, has become much more com- mon than it was among the fathers of the denomination ; and all, or nearly all of our ministers presen'e in manuscript such ample minutes of the plan, topics, and arguments of their pulpit exhibitions, as may serve for future use. The propriety of such a course is unquestionable ; and our objections are only directed against the grievous, ruinous abuses to which it is perverted. After some time spent in the ministry, a stu- dious man finds himself in possession of a good supply of prepared dis- courses, sufficient, in all probability, to meet the demands of a circuit or station for the one or two years which our plan allows him to spend ■with the same congregation. By a judicious intermingling of these old sermons with others prepared from week to week, and adapted to the special exigencies of the work, a conscientious, industrious man secures invaluable time, not only for pastoral duties, but for such mental culture and new acquisitions as shall insure a constant growth in w^isdom, in- fluence, and usefulness, from youth to old age. To those who know how to improve it, oin* itinerant ministry offers in this respect a special advantage over a more permaTieut settlement ; and some of our preach- ers eagerly avail themselves of its facility. Upon not a few promising young men, however, this peculiarity of our system operates not only disadvantageously, but fatally. When their stock of sermons, or plans, has accumulated, so far as to answer cun-ent demands upon it, they make no more, and cease to be students. There is an end to all im- provement, and they stagger on to premature mental decrepitude un- der the burden of these some four or five hundred stale, antiquated 166 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN tliis, which act upon and through some of the strongest prin- ciples of our mental and moral constitution. It is an incur- scrmons. In not a few instiinces, the victims of this stafienclous of- fense against the human understanding, and the claims of God upon his ministers, reach their climacteric at thirty years of age, after which they neither study nor think, unless "we are to dignify as intellectual efforts the half hour devoted, from week to week, to conning over the well-remembered, venerable manuscript. Every one in the least ac- quainted with the powers and laws of the mind is able to comprehend the stupendous folly of these men. The human intellect gains expan- sion, and vigor, and acuteness by activity. It must work, or dwindle and starve. It must think — think habitually, earnestly, consecutively — or it will, ere long, lose its power of thinking. The perusal and re- perusal of yellow manuscripts is not study. The recollection and rep- etition of old sermons is not thinking. The mind must do something — must invent something fresh — must work and wrestle with new problems and deep propositions, in oi'der to give hardness and vigor to its own sinews. The hand that wields the hammer, or plies the grav- ing tool, constantly gains strength and skill; but, suspended in a sling, it will not be long in forgetting its cunning. The Hindoo devotee, who has been stationary ever since he learned to stand on one foot, has also lost the power of locomotion. Our objection is not to the quality of the old sermons. They may be very good, and theoretically very well adapted to the existing wants of the hearer. It is possible they are even better than the preacher may now be able to produce. All this may veiy likely be true, and yet they may be useless^to the people and discreditable to the preach er; while very inferior discourses, fresh from the mint of the soul, and blazing with the fervors of an excited, laboring mind, will awaken pro- found emotioji in the hearer's as well as the jn-eacher's heart. Old sermons are preached with good effect by men who are still in tho habit of making new ones, and who keep their intellects thoroughly awake by study and invention. They then receive a new endowment of life and power, a new assimilation to the pious spirit, by passing through such an intense resuscitating medium. Without this fresh, vivifying baptism, those repetitions are, irrespective of their intrinsic quality, the stalest and most unsavory of Imman performances. They remind us of the desiccated preparations of the botanist, which are quite bereft of all their fragrance, and grace, and charming colors, though one might not be prepared to deny that they still retain a mea.sure of latent medicinal virtue. It may be laid down as a first RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 187 able fault of lower motives that they operate unsteadily, and cease, for the most part, to exert any salutary, sufficient au- 2)rinciplej tliiit he can not long continue a useful, nor even a popular preacher, who has ceased to be a student. He must himself gradually lose all relish for the dry, irksome work of memory and repetition, to which he dooms himself However habit or temperament may enable him to preach with apparent warmth and vivacity, his announcements of truth do in fact no longer bear the sanction and endorsement of his own deep, living convictions; for neither reason, nor conscience, nor faith is nmcli concerned in the reproduction. If this sort of work is distasteful to the preacher, it soon becomes loathsome to the hearer, with whom all such exhibitions pass for mere routine or declamation. A clerical brother lately said to me, " I know several preachers in the Conference who have not sUidled in ten or twenty years." Such ministers are only less guilty than those who have not prayed in ten or twenty years ; for it is quite as practicable to be a good preacher of the Gospel without praying as without studying. No minister can main- tain a respectable position, and satisfy the wants of an intelligent con- gregation, who is not a diligent student. No matter if he has a cart- load of prepared sermons, and they as good as ever Paul preached, he must bring out " things new" as well as old, if he would make his min- istrations either profitable or acceptable to the people. At least half of the sermons called for by the exigences of ministerial labor should be produced by current efforts. To say nothing of doing good to others, the study aiid preparation of one sermon a week is no more than is requisite for the best nurture of mental and moral life. The greatest boon that could befall many preachers would be the conflagration of their old store of manuscripts. Any thing that should induce or com- pel them to return to studious habits, were better than the mental in- activity which dooms so many good men to actual inefficiency and su- perannuation, at a time of life when experience and hoarded wisdom should qualify them for the most extended usefulness, and the most salutaiy, effective pojiularity. Self-educated men are not less — it may be they are even more — exposed to this deadly sin than the graduates of our colleges. If the latter often mortify their friends, and bring re- proach upon the cause of education by their indolence, and consequent miserable, petty mediocrity, the former, with no less frequency, disaji- point the favorable hopes awakened by their early proficiency, and fall back, from a position won by manly efforts, and full alike of honor and of promise, to a grade of performances and aspirations false to all the traditions and anticipations to which such auspicious beginnings had given rise in the Church. 188 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN thorily, at periods of life when the mind is yet vigorous, and susceptible of large and rapid progress. Self-interest, as we No subject coiinecfed with our itinerant ministry, and witb the great interests providentially intrusted to it, is more worthy of deep, solemn consideration tliau that so imperfectly discussed in this note. That the evil referred to is not rare among us, every observing man knows full well. That it must, to whatever extent it prevails, impair the efBcien- cy, the respectability, and the moral integrity of our ministry, is too painfully obvious to require proof or argument. The Church has need to watch vigilantly against this great delinquency. Our ministers, both iu open Conference and in their private intercourse, are wont to exer- cise over each other a supervision, comj)rehensive and searching, be- yond any thing known among other denominations. Something might possibly be done in this way to mitigate a great, if not a growing evil. But the remedy chiefly to be relied on rests with individual conscience with our young ministers especially, whose mental habits are not yet formed, or, if formed, not yet perverted. It is for them to determine whether, with the increasing advantages of education, of many and cheap books, 3nd of more leisure for study, our ministry shall groio in grace and knowledge — whether our revered itinerancy shall continue to show itself adapted to the increasing intelligence and refinement of the nge. That this, and much more, is practicable, we do most devoutly believe ; but the full success of the great experiment demands a great increase of knowledge and intellectual accomplishments among our clergy. Nothing less will do. Nothing less can sustain us whei'e we are, or prevent decline and deterioration. Ardent, self-sacrificing pie- ty is a qualification always presupposed in a minister of Christ, about which there is no need that any thing should be said in this connection further than to insist npon that particular manifestation of it which leads to thorough, systematic, various, protracted study. For this nothing can be taken as a substitute. True, " it is better to save souls than to study." The effect is more excellent than the cause ; but it can not exist inde- pendent of its cause; and nothing is more idle than the common plea of much preaching, or much pastoral visiting, as an apology for little study, and poor, stale sermons. Preaching, effectual, good preaching, is what the Gospel relies on for success, and this without diligent study is an impossibility. Whoever attempts to divorce what God has joined together, will be sufficiently rebuked by an unblessed, uncomfortable, unwelcome ministry. He may l)e popular, and even useful, iu the hey- day of youth, when personal advantages — sv.-eet tones, glossy ringlets, flowing sympathies — and still more, good hopes generously cherished RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 189 have seen, soon contracts the intellect and hardens the heart — fatal checks upon progi-ess, deadly foes to all excellence. Amhition puts its votaries upon other expedients than liter- ary eflbrts for the attainment of success. Disappointment, too, and disgust, with "svhich ambition musf generally lay its account, impair and often destroy its efficiency, as a motive to intellectual activity, v/lien the career of honorable enter- prise has only commenced. Many a gallant spirit, urged on its course by these unchastened impulses, have we seen stranded and motionless amid the sad wreck of high hopes, long ere his sun had reached its meridian. Now it is the special advantage of the Christian motive that it acts with a steady, and even increasing force, to the end of life. No disappointment can chill its energy, for that flows forth upon the soul from inexhaustible perennial sources. It is also a consideration full of the mightiest impulses, that intellectual growth and amelioration, like moral, are achieved for eternal duration. The labor requisite for acquisition and discipline is lightened and sweetened by the reflection that it is to qualify an immortal spirit the better to perform its functions ; more perfectly to understand, and more keenly to enjoy all that God shall reveal or enjoin through the long annals of an endless hfe. The mind does not die, and he who sends it onward upon its sublime career, enlarged and trained by wholesome discipline, and richly furnished with the knowledge of imperishable truths, "lays up treasure where neither moth nor rust coiTupt." Nothing in religion or enlightened philosophy will justify the fear that the high intellectual attributes with which the redeemed soul enters by the Church, and not yet blasted, plead in his favor; but some higher demands await his maturer years. Gray hairs must come crowned with superior wisdom and piety, if they will conciliate reverence and affec- tion ; and he alone who does not despair of remaining always young, is excusable for omitting to provide betimes for the exigencies of a pe- riod which will sternly require the fulfillment of all early promises. 190 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN . tf heaven, may not find M'ortliy and significant employment there. The pious student, then, may cxtfllingly write doAvn for his motto, "I study for eternity ;" and in so sublime a sentiment will he find unfailing encouragement to patient industry and persevering labor. 3. In nothing, perhaps, is the great superiority of the Chris tian, over all other motives, more manifest than in the uni- Ibrm and powerful co-operation which it secures of the emo- tional with the intellectual forces of the mind. All work is briskly done when the heart is in it. Eminently true is this of intellectual labor ; and from the schoolboy rmder the ush- er's rod, to the grave philosopher, those mental tasks which awaken a lively interest, and are performed with satisfaction, are easily and rapidly achieved. Whatever is attempted un- der the high sanctions of Christian obligation, possesses this advantage in an eminent degree. It is done to please God, and to glorify his name. It aflbrds, therefore, to the pious spirit, an opportunity, ever eagerly embraced, for discharging a debt of gratitude, and ofiering testimonials of duty and loy- alty. The heart at once warms to such an enterprise, and all the powers of the soul gladly co-operate in a work of an import so high. The Christian scholar is thus enabled to be always in earnest. His love and fidelity to God, and his gratitude to Christ, are concerned in the most efiective dis- charge of this important class of duties, and his prayers and sacraments are not felt to be more obligatory upon him than the claims of the study and the lecture-room. He learns to prosecute every science, and fulfill every scholastic engage- ment, under the supervision of an all-seeing and never-sleep- ing Eye. How feeble and inconstant are all the motives which selfishness and ambition can furnish, in comparison with those which the love of God, and conscious amenability to Him, are able to aAvaken in the pious heart I Let no one hastily conclude that this is a merely theoretical view of the Bubjcct, of no application to the matter in hand. On the RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 191 contrary, it is a view applicable to every Christian scholar, and constitutes the actual motive of his conduct, in so far as he has any claim to the name of Christian. He studies as he would toil in any other sphere — as, called with a higher vocation, he would preach the Gospel, or go upon a missiou to the heathen — that he may glorify God in the performanco of the duties providentially assigned him. They know little of the deep sentiments and holy aspirations of pious young men in our colleges, who doubt whether they pursue their self-denying career, and struggle with narrow means, and often with feeble health, under the lofty impulses which re- ligion inspires. With very many of them, these, I am sure, constitute the motive and the solace of their toils ; and I will not hesitate to avow that the example of such young men, toiling on for a series of years, amid discouragements of many kinds, that they may by-and-by be qualified for use- fulness in the Master's vineyard, has often proved most in- structive and sustaining to me, and has admonished me to stand patiently and bravely in my lot, albeit ready to faint under the pressure of burdens disproportioned to my strength. 4. A similar augmentation of spiritual forces comes in upon the pious student from another quarter. Benevolence, and an ardent desire to do good to mankind, take the place of the narrow selfishness which, under less favorable conditions, con- stitutes the chief incentive to exertion. We know to what heights of self-sacrificing eflbrt and virtue, philanthropy has been able to elevate the great benefactors of mankind ; through what dangers, and over what obstacles it has borne them on- ward to their angelic achievements. This ambition to miti- gate the woes, and^augment the happiness of others, pours all its generous, powerful impulses into the bosom of many a pious student, and becomes, the sleepless monitor of his wak- ing, Avorking hours. As the love of God enhsts all the ener- gies and stabilities of Christian principle on the side of earn- est, persevering industry, love to man awakens and presses 192 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN into the same service all the strong sympathies of our hu- manity. These are confessedly the most powerful of all the agencies that go to influence the conduct or modify the char- acter of men. They minister amazing energy to the mind. They rouse every dormant power into action. They arm the soul with preternatural efficiency. They make the mind in- ventive, vigilant, and daring. Faith, hope, and charity have each their functions to fulfill in every department of Chris- tian action, and nowhere else more than in the student's ca- reer ; but the greatest of these is charity — the most anima- ting, the most powerful, the most enduring of all the motives that minister earnestness and encouragement to the Chris- tian student. 5. It will hardly be deemed a diversion from this strain of argument to remark upon the elevating, plastic influence of prosecuting a protracted literaiy course at the forming pe- riod of life, under these lofty, pure, and disinterested motives. You can not imagine any other course so well calculated to form large-minded, generous, upright men. Whoever makes the will of God the rule, and the glory of God, and the wel- fare of men, the chief objects of his intellectual eflbrts, through a series of years, subjects his mind, as well as his heart, to a meliorating process of unparalleled efficacy. Nothing base, or degrading, or selfish should be expected to survive such a course of discipline, and it would be difficult to conceive of any virtue fitted to adorn or strengthen the charadler which should not find in it precisely the conditions most favorable to vigorous, ample develojjmcnt. It is also material to remark, that such a scholastic career tends powerfully to supply the great desi* ratum in educated men — the harmony of the mind and the heart, the joint working of strong intellect and strong feeling — upon which all great mental efficiency and all true eloquence depend, 'and without which the scholar can never hope to wield a great and permanent influence over the most precious inter- RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 191 ests of man and society. The arts of the rhetorician, however dihgently phed, are all at fault here. Rules for managing the voice, or the eye, or the hands, and other physical aux- iliaries to persuasion and oratory, can but kindle a cold, lus- treless fire, vv^hich shall be as the crackling of thorns ; while a well-endowed nature, diligently trained by education, and put in harmony with God and itself by religion, shall be able to pour forth, spontaneously, a tide of persuasive eloquence, whenever invoked by a worthy occasion. This, as is well known, is the perfect ideal held up by the rhetoricians to as- pirants after forensic reputation ; but it mostly escapes them that it is one of those priceless gifts which can not be won by unsanctified labor, but which, in a very important sense, cometh down from the Father of lights. 6. I will add, that education, prosecuted under the au- spices of religion, enjoys a great facility in the freedom of its subjects from the low tastes, bad passions, and vicious h?ib- its, which constitute chief obstacles to proficiency in learning. These are utterly incompatible with sincere piety, and can not coexist with it; while any Christian profession, not whol- ly reckless of reputation and consistency, must avoid the grosser and more degrading forms of immorality. Every de- gree of religious principle and restraint, therefore, contributes a liighly important influence toward the success of educa- tional efibrts ; while deep and ardent piety, welcomed as the guide in literary pursuits, conducts to degrees of excellence and success unattainable on lower principles. My inferences from this protracted discussion must be few and brief. 1. Let every young man, especially let every educated young man, pause at the com»iencement of his career, till he thoroughly comprehends the importance of setting out with a proper theory of life. Let him " arise and shake him- self." Let him spurn away from him, for one holy hour, tho I 194 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN ^ blandishments of ease and pleasure. Let him burst from the bondage of all unmanly, unscholarly habits, like a brave, high-toned spirit, resolved to be his own master, and to rule himself well. He should ascend to some lofty mount of vi- sion, some Pisgah, from whose summit the whole land " that remaineth to be possessed" shall be clearly visible to his earn- est, honest gaze. Scorning to be hcodwinlvcd and cheated by mere illusions, let him penetrate into the heart and real- ity of his whole destiny, doing impartial justice to the claims and dignity of the mind as well as the body — of the distant and the future na less than of the near and the present. With eternity and God before his eyes, and some reasonable, decent regard for his own well-being, let him come up to the gieat choice that, once for all, he must make for himself : " If the Lord be God, follow Him ; if Baal, then follow him." Let him remember that the principle Avhich he adopts be- comes henceforward a living, molding influence. It will enter and dwell in the depths of his nature — a well of water springing up and overflowing the soul, imparting to it, through the long ages of the future, Its own properties and hues. He- member, young man, you are selecting a companion for the voyage of your entire existence, whose manners, habits, and sentiments so close and long an intimacy wiU make your own. You are determining what meat your soul shall be nurtured upon — what shall be the complexion of your future being. In forming a library, you would have good, and not bad, silly, corrupting books. In choosing a teacher or a place of education, you would avoid a driveler, and require the pro- tection of discipline and good order. Your physician must not be a quack nor a pretender. You are ambitious to give your adhesion to true and approved, not to antiquated and exploded systems of philosophy. In choosing your principles of action, and subjecting your mind to influences which must form its character and control its destiny, you consent to re- ceive into your bosom an agency more potent than books, or RELATIO^ TO MENTAL CULTURE. 195 teachers, or schools ; more efficient than the physician's most heroic remedies ; more authoritative than all the sects of philosophers. You are thus called upon to assert the high- est privilege, and perform the highest function, of a free, re- deemed, heaven-born spirit. Show that you are M^orthy of the sacred trust which God, in His providence, confers upon you — the office of taking care of yourself. 2. Having deliberately adopted a right principle of action, reverence and obey it. Make it the law of your life, from which no temptation, or interest, or accident shall ever se- duce you to swerve. It is an emanation from the Divine Wisdon> fallen vxpon you, as a lamp for your feet. It is the sum and highest expression of all genial philosophies. Come what will — ruat cerium, "though heaven and earth pass away" — resolve that no jot or tittle of this law shall be mar- red, or dishonored, or shorn of its authority. It shall be your charmed talisman, before which evil spirits will cry ouf in despair, or be smitten dumb with terror. It shall be your passport to excellence, and reputation, and power, and honest fame, at the presentation of which barred gates will open be- fore you to all choice and precious things. A conscientious, early, and absolute surrender of the life to the guidance of duty, brings into the mind a power far more valuable than would be the acquisition of new faculties ; it quadruples the efficiency of the old. It is better than genius or eloquence, and is often a good substitute for them. It simplifies all the movements of life. It cuts short a thousand struggles with temptation and passion. It is a thread of gold in the hands of inexperienced youth and care-worn manhood, to conduct the willing and obedient through the dark, pathless labyrinth of this world. Ordinary capacity trained and op- erating under this influence, in the end, outshines and out- strips the best parts without it. Not a class graduates in this, or any other college, which can not furnish living illus- trations of this triith. So profound is my conviction on thir 196 CHRISTIAN TRINCIP^ point, that I do not hesitate to proclaim it as the true, in- falhble way to success. Granted a subject for our experi- ment, not mentally halt, or maimed, or blind, in the posses- sion of merely common faculties, and a liberal education, pros- ecuted under the auspices of pure, high principles, shall make him every whit a man, fit for any profession or vocation to which society calls her intelligent, cultivated sons. I must subjoin the additional remark, that nothing begets such utter despair of success in teaching, no matter what the mental capacity, as indiflcrence to moral and conscientious obhgations. There is really no hope for a young man who will not listen to the voice of duty. He has fallen a prey to a mortal disease, for which no human skill can provide a remedy. The voice of duty is the voice of God — an inborn, heaven-sent guide. Not to obey it is to revolt against our own constitution ; it is as if one should refuse to give heed to the intimations of his senses — his eyes, his ears, or his touch — and will as certainly, and by as dire a philosophical necessity, bring upon him hopeless, irretrievable misfortune. "When this mental disease is once established, I could wish never to see its victim enter the doors of a college, or armed with education, to be no ordinary scourge to himself and so- ciety. Let such a one be consigned to some narroAv sphere of laborious life, where there is least room to encounter tempt- ation' or exert influence, and where an urgent demand for strenuous, incessant toil may counteract and subdue more harmful tendencies. 3. I shall conclude with a very simple practical direction. Always be ready to avow your principles of action. Scorn concealment. Put out your true colors to the gaze of men and angels. There is a false prudence, a mock modesty, which inculcates the opposite method. It discourages con- fession, as savoring of ostentation, and would have us leave the world to infer the existence of virtuous principle from our conduct. In most instances this is but a poltroon's ex- RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 197 pedieut to avoid responsibility, and save a convenient posi- tion for treachery or evasion. It is well and safe to stand committed to the right, that the world may know in advance where you will be found in any day of trial ; and it is a re- flection upon a good man's intelligence or integrity to have his opinions and principles forever unsettled or in doubt So- ciety has a right to know what it may expect from him, and justly suspects liim of interested and dishonest aims Avheu he chooses to remain undecided and uncommitted till popu- lar suffrage has announced the safe way. Educated men are the natural sources and guides of popular opinion, and they are bound to stand forth boldly to battle with prejudice and breast the inundation of passion, though at some risk of being swept away by its fury. The principles of the edu- cated, active, influential men, of every community, generally become its public sentiment. This living embodiment and expression of reason, truth, and righteousness, acts upon the multitude with vastly more directness and efficiency than books of morals and religion ; and as it constitutes the most eflbctual method for the formation and vigorous maintenance of a sound public sentiment, so it is chiefly relied upon for that function. On this account it was that the laws of Ath- ens held that citizen an enemy to the state who remained a neutral in any important crisis or question of general inter- est. The Redeemer of the world has given to this equita- ble principle the sanction of religion, and it is only they who confess him before men whom he will confess before the an- gels in heaven. Let every one who would not become a mere puppet and time-server beware of feeling more solicitude for promotion than he does for his principles. If they are to be put down, it is a misfortune and a snare to rise ; and he should blash, and suspect himself a knave, who is conscious of grudging the sacrifice which it may cost him to be an honest man. No valuable ends, besides those of selfish or profligate ambition 198 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN can ever be secured by such dishonorable successes ; and any but a weak or unscrupulous man will prefer to bide liis time, and wait for more auspicious days, when God, whose attri- butes ever side Avith the right, will pluck its drowned honors from the deep, and make the conscientious and the brave sharers in its triumph. Whoever covets promotion while his principles arc under the ban, must fall back upon the expe- dients and resources of party, which is always framed and held together by compromises in which principle is sacrificed to policy. Into this turbid Maelstrom, from which virtue and conscience never come forth without a stain, good but ambi- tious men, of facile morality and feeble purposes, are ever ready to plunge. As a good man is ever bound to manifest his principles in full view of the world, so should he, with a yet intenser so- licitude, strive to keep them boldly and vividly exposed to his own mind. He should accustom himself to gaze upon them with profound, and even awful respect. His soul should be pervaded by a deep, abiding sense of their importance, their sanctity, and their authority. Both the understanding and the heart need maintain the most intimate and conscious connection with the pure, sacred springs from which they de- rive their light and inspiration. In the great questions of /lumanity, morals, and religion, with which these latter days are rife, the Christian scholar should even hesitate t(f yield himself to the guidance of his most virtuous habits, or to the most deliberate and unsuspected of his by-gone conclusions, or to the conservative traditions which he may have imbibed from his converse with good books and wise men. In mat- ters of slight import and perpetual recurrence, these are suffi- cient safeguards against erroneous opinion or vicious action, but not in the great struggle for moral and social meliorations in whi(;h the educated men of this age are called to engage. He who would command the best resources for this- high en- terprise, must penetrate deeper than habit, or opinion, or au* RELATION TO MENTAL CULTURE. 190 tliority. He must live iu hourly contact, and conscious, lov- ing communion with the principles of truth, righteousness, and mercy, that are within him. He must draw from the deep sources of all moral and intellectual power, and require of every cause which asks sympathy and co-operation, that it obtain afresh the approval of his reason and his conscience. His heart must beat, lii^bosom heave, and his eye flash only at the bidding of the great, deep. Holy principles which his own strenuous efforts and the grace of God have imbedded in his nature, to minister light to his soul, and vigor to his arm, and fire to his eloquence. In the dogmas of such a philosophy must the philanthropist and the Christian seek for strength. Here is the inexhaustible source of the only species of power of which a good man may be innocently ambitious. Your thoughts, young gentlemen, have all along outrun my speculations. From the first you anticipated my conclu- sions. Remote as was our starting-point, abstract and spec- ulative as is our argument, we find ourselves conducted to the true source of wisdom and virtue. Behold in the cross of Christ the only sure guaranty for intellectual excellence and success ! Does the student need a loftjs omnipotent, un- dying motive to sustain him in his long struggle with labor, disappointment, and temptation — with the world's unfriend- liness;- and his own manifold infirmities? Such a motive he finds in the Gospel, and nowhere else. Are noble senti- ments, strong, deep sympathies, and pure, powerful feelings, indispensable agents in the highest intellectual performan- ces? They are supplied in the principles and experiences of that religion which inculcates, as the sura of all righte- ousness, perfect^evotion and perfect benevolence — that "we love the Lord our God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves." Are the tastes to be elevated, the appetites subdued, and the passions controlled, in order to secure to the mind's operations freedom from all impediments and dis- 200 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE, ETC. trading influences ? This miracle, too, the Gospel can ao complish. It is profitable for all things. " Love, joy, peace, long-suflbring, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- ance," are its legitimate fruits. " They that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." They are endowed with " whatsoever things are honest, and lovely, and of good report." • I have brought you to the cross, my friends, and I leave you there. be content to receive your illumination from this, the great central light of the universe I Hence — if you will cultivate the loftiest ambition, and secure the best at- tainments — hence draw your inspiration. Hither come for power and for joy ; hither bring all your honors and suc- cesses, and consecrate them " to Him who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in liis own blood." Write the name of Christ upon your banner ; exalt the cross high above all idols : " In hoc s/g?io vmces." Be " Siloa's brook, that flow'd Fast by tlie oracles of God," your Castalia. To such good auspices it is my privilege once more affec- tionately to commend you ; and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you, new and ever. Amen. EARLY PIETY THE BASIS, ETC. 201 IV. EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF ELEVATED CHARACTER. A DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 1849. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. — 1 John, ii., 14. The Gospel demands of every human being an unreserved consecration of body and soul, with all their energies and ca- pabilities, throughout the entire period of his probation. In thus claiming for God all the services w^hich a mortal man, aided by Divine grace, can render, it puts forth a claim upon any peculiar powers, endowments, or faculties with which he may be providentially endowed or intrusted. In asserting its rightful dominion over our entire earthly career, it pro- claims the Divine right to reign with an undivided and un- rivaled authority over each period of life. Every talent is confided to us under the tacit condition that it shall be used and improved in accordance with the will and design of the great Giver. Days, and months, and years are added to our existence here below, because they supply us with more op- portunities and advantages for working out our own salva- tion, and promoting the well-being of others ; for building up the kingdom of Christ, and making manifest the glory of God. For the attainment of these high ends, much reliance is placed upon human exertion, and the physical and intel- lectual resources of every age and station are tasked to the uttermost. Even the morning of existence, and the child- hood of religious life, are pressed into this great enterprise. 202 EARLY PIETY THE BASIS OF " I write unto you, little children, because your sins are for- given you for His name's sake." The glow, and out-burst- ing, joyous gratitude of the new-born soul — the fervors of his " first love" — the fresh lustre of his " beautiful garments," become potent agencies for good, and no more pleasant in- cense than his ever rises up to Heaven. The mature piety and deep acquaintance with Divine things, which are the result of long experience and habitual communion with God, also have their special vocation under the Gospel economy. " I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning." These " old disciples" constitute the link of connection between the existing Christian Church and the Church of history, as well as between the Church militant and the Church triumphant. They are the channels through w^iich the tide of spiritual life has flowed down upon us from the ages of the past. They are the depositaries of reverend traditions, and the con- servators and models of orthodoxy in opinion and purity of life. Without being conscious of exercising so high a func- tion, they have made the Church what it is. Our Chris- tianity, with all its excellences a» well as its imperfections, has been derived from theirs. It has, no doubt, undergone some modifications. It has, in some respects, deteriorated in our hands. In others, it has grown better ; but, as a whole, it is a natural and fair derivation from the waning Christian age, to which a new and vigorous religious generation are rapidly succeeding. We sometimes unconsciously look upon the company of venerable disciples who move in the van of our heavenward march, as having really, and to all import- ant ends, accomplished their warfare and won the victory. Should all others forsake the Savior, they, we feel quite sure, will never participate in the crime ; for they have lived unto God till religion has, through grace, become a sort of second nature, in which all their habits, and sentiments, aTrd aspira- tions, and joys have their source and support. To turn them ELEVATED CHARACTER. 203 away from God and the heavenly inheritance must require some great moral couviilsion. It would be like the annul ment of the law of gravitation — like thrusting a rolling plan- et from its appointed orb. We do not subscribe to the ina- missibility of grace, and the inevitable salvation of all souls once regenerated, and yet we firmly believe that these fa- thers and mothers in Israel will never fall. They will abide in the old paths, whoever turns back. They remember the days of old. They " know Him that is from the beginning." So long, at least, as they live, there will be true witnesses. Their trumpet shall give a certain sound. They are living epistles of Christ, which shall continue to be read of all men. So long as they constitute a part of the life of the Church, the Church can not lose its vitality. While their presence and prayers among us will, certainly conciliate the Divine fa- vor, and perpetuate a holy seed, they reprove our backslid- kigs, and warn us of dangers, and recall to us the landmarks if truth, and experience, and duty. Let us thank God for so bright, a manifestation of His ^race in the fathers, who still bless and guide us by their counsels, and in the yet larger company of mature, establish-