/
/
LECTURES
EDUCATION.
BY HORACE MANN,
SeCRlilTARY OF THE MASSAC^pSETTS BOARD OF EDDCATIOH.
'/
BOSTON:
IDE & DUTTON
1865.
l-^*
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1845
BY HORACE MANN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachuaett*.
EDUCATHON DEFT*
Stereotjn^ed by
GEORGE A. CURTIS;
BMOIiAMB TTPK AND 8TBRB0TTP* FOOWDRT.
TO
HIS EXCELLENCY
GEORGE N. BRIGGS,
GOVERNOR
OF THE COMMOirWEALTH OF M^SACHUSETTS,
AND ex officio
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION,
AND TO
THE OTHER MEMBERS OF SAID BOARD,
THIS VOLUME,
PREPARED AT THEIR REQUEST,
IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
BT
THE AUTHOR.
/
54!72S
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGB
Mbans and Objects of Common School Edu-
cation, 11
LECTURE IL
Special Peeparation, a Pre-requisite to Teach-
•iNG, 63
LECTURE in.
The Necessity of Education in a Republican
Government, 117
LECTURE IV. /
What God does, and what He leaves for Man
to do, in the work of education, • • 165
LECTURE V.
An Historical View of Education; showing
ITS Dignity and its Degradation, . . 216
LECTURE VI.
On District School Libraries, . . 269
LECTURE VIL
On School Punishments, . . 303
1*
PREFACE.
The Act creating the Massachusetts Board of
Education was passed April 20, 1837. In June
following the Board was organized, and its Secre-
tary chosen. The duties of the Secretary, as
expressed in the Act, are, to " collect information
of the actual condition and efficiency of the Com-
mon Schools, and other means of popular educa-
tion ; and to diffuse as widely as possible, through-
out every part of the Commonwealth, information
of the most approved and successful methods of
arranging the studies, and conducting the educa-
tion of the young, to the end, that all children in
this Commonwealth, who depend upon Common
Schools for instruction, may have the best edu-^
cation which those schools can be made to impart.
The Board, immediately after its organization,
issued an "Address to the Public," inviting the
friends of education to assemble in convention, in
their respective counties, in the ensuing autumn ;
and the Secretary was requested to be present at
those conventions, both for the purpose of obtain-
ing information in regard to the condition of the
schools, and of explaining to the public what were
supposed to be the leading motives and objects of
the Legislature in creating the Board.
The author of the following Lectures was a
member of the Legislature when the act establish-
ing the Board was passed ; and he was intimately
acquainted with the general views of its projectors
and advocates. At that time, however, the idea
VIU
never entered his mind that he should be even a
candidate for the Secretaryship; but when the
Board was organized, and the station was oiFered
him, he was induced to accept it ; — not so much
from any supposed fitness for the ofiice, as from
the congeniaHty of its duties with all his tastes
and predilections, and because he thought that
whatever of industry, or of capacity for useful-
ness., he might possess, could be exerted more ben-
eficially to his fellow-men in this situation than
in any other. On accepting the appointment,
therefore, it became his duty to meet the county
conventions, which were held throughout the
State, in the autumn of 1837 ; and the first of the
following lectures was prepared for those occasions.
Its object was to sketch a rapid outline of deficien-
cies to be supplied, and of objects to be pursued,
in relation to the Common School system of Mas-
sachusetts.
In the session of 1838, the Legislature pro-
vided that a Common School convention should
be held, each year, in each county of the Com-
monwealth, and that the Secretary should be
present at every convention. This law continued
in force until the year 1842, when it was repealed.
During the first five years, therefore, after the
establishment of the Board, a Common School
convention was annually held in each county in
the Commonwealth ; — and in some of the large
counties two or more such conventions were held.
The Secretary made his annual circuit through
the State, and was present at them all ; and the
first five of the following lectures were respect-
ively delivered before the annual conventions.
The lecture on "District School Libraries" was
prepared in view of the great deficiency of books
in our towns, suitable for the reading gf children ;
and was delivered before Teachers' Associations,
Lyceums, &c., in diflferent parts of the State. In
IX
tlie year 1839, a number of the friends of educa-
tion, in Boston, instituted a course of lectures for
tlie female teachers in the city, and the lecture
on "School Punishments" was delivered as one of
that course.
On almost all the occasions above referred to, a
copy of the lecture delivered was requested for the
press ; but the inadequacy of the views presented,
when compared with the magnitude and grandeur
of the subject discussed, always induced the au-
tlior, (except in regard to the first lecture, which
was printed in 1840, in order to make known,
more generally, the objects which the Board had
in view,) to decline a compliance with the re-
quest. In the month of May last, however, the
Board of Education, by a special and unanimous
vote, requested him to prepare a volume of his
Lectures on Education for the press, and to this
request he has now acceded.
In preparing this volume, the author was led
to doubt whether he should retain those portions
of the lectures which contained special and direct
allusions to the times and circumstances in whicFf^
they were delivered ; or whether, by omitting all
reference to temporary and passing events, ho
should pubhsh only those parts in which an at-
tempt was made to discuss broad and general
principles, or to enlist parental, patriotic,and relig-
ious motives in behalf of the cause. He has
been induced to adopt the first part of the alterna-
tive, both because it presents the lectures as they
were delivered, and because it gives an aspect of
practical reform rather than of theoretic specu-
lation to the work.
The author begs leave to add, that, as the lec-
tures were designed for popular and promiscuous
audiences, and pertained to a cause in which but
very little general interest was felt, he was con-
strained not only to confine himself to popular
topics, but also to treat them, as far as he was
able, in a popular manner. The more didactic
expositions of the merits of the great cause of
Education, and some of the relations which that
cause holds to the interests of civilization and hu-
man progress he has endeavored to set forth in
his Annual Reports ; while his more detailed and
specific views, in regard to modes and processes
of instruction and training, may be found in the
volumes of the Common School Journal. Each
one of these three channels of communication
with the public, he has endeavored to use for the
exposition of a particular class of the views and
motives, belonging to the comprehensive subject
of education.
Justice to himself compels the author to add
another remark, although of an unpleasant char-
acter. Some of the following lectures have been
delivered not only before different audiences in
Massachusetts, but in other States ; and, in sev-
eral instances, the author has seen, not only illus-
trations and clauses, but whole sentences taken
bodily from the lectures, and transferred to works
subsequently published. Should cases of this kind
be noticed by the reader, he is requested to
compare dates before deciding the question of
plagiarism.
BoBTON, March, 1845.
LECTURE I.
MEANS AND OBJECTS OF COMMON SCHOOL EDU-
CATION.
Gentlemen of the Convention :
In pursuance of notice, contained in a circular
letter, lately addressed to the school committees
and friends of Education, in this county, I now
appear before you, as the Secretary of the Massa-
chusetts Board of Education. That Board was
constituted by an Act of the Legislature, passed
April 20, 1837. It consists of the Governor and
Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth, for .
the time being, — who are members ex officiis, —
and of eight other gentlemen, appointed by the
Executive, with the advice and consent of the
Council. The object of the Board is, by exten-
sive correspondence, by personal interviews, by
the development and discussion of principles, to
collect such information, on the great subject of
Education, as now lies scattered, buried and dor-
mant ; and after digesting, and, as far as possible,
systematizing and perfecting it, to send it forth
again to the extremest borders of the State ; — so
that all improvements which are local, may be
enlarged into universal ; that what is now transi-
tory and evanescent, na^ be established in per-
manency; and that correct views, on this all-
important subject, may be multiplied by the
number of minds capable of understanding them.
To accomplish the object of their creation,
h »wever, the Board are clothed with no power,
either restraining or directory. If they know of
better modes of education, they have no authority
to enforce their adoption. Nor have they any
funds at their disposal. Even the services of the
members are gratuitously rendered. Without
authority, then, to command, and without money
to remunerate or reward, their only resources, the
only sinews of their strength, are, their power of
appealing to an enlightened community, to rally
for the promotion of its dearest interests.
Unless, therefore, the friends of Education, in
different parts of the State, shall proffer their cor-
dial and strenuous cooperation, it is obvious, that
the great purposes, for which the Board was con-
stituted, can never be accomplished. Some per-
sons, indeed, have suggested, that the Secretary
of the Board should visit the schools, individually,
and impart such counsel and encouragement as
he might be able to do ; — not reflecting that such
is their number and the shortness of the time
during which they are kept, that, if he were to
allow himself but one day for each school, to
make specific examinations and to give detailed
instructions, it would occupy something more
than sixteen years to complete the circuit ; —
while the period, between. the ages of four and
sixteen, during which our children usually attend
school, is but twelve years; so that, before the
Secretary could come round upon his track again,
one entire generation of scholars would have
passed away, and one third of another. At his
quickest speed, he would lose sight of one quar-
ter of all the children in the State. The Board,
therefore, have no voice-lhey have no organ, by
which they can make themselves heard, in the
distant villages and hamlets of this land, where
13
those juvenile habits are now forming, where
those processes of thought and feeling are, now,
to-day, maturing, which, some twenty or thirty
years hence, will find an arm, and become resist-
less might, and will uphold, or rend asunder, our
social fabric. The Board may, — I trust they will,
— be able to collect light and to radiate it; but
upon the people, upon the people^ will still rest the
great and inspiring duty of prescribing to the next
generation what their fortunes shall be, by deter-
mining in what manner they shall be educated.
For it is the ancestors of a people, who prepare
and predetermine all the great events in that peo-
ple's history; — their posterity only collect and
read them. No just judge will ever decide upon
the moral responsibility of an individual, without
first ascertaining what kind of parents he had ; —
nor will any just historian ever decide upon the
honor or the infamy of a people, without placing
the character of its ancestors in the judgment-bal-
ance. If the system of national instruction, de-
vised and commenced by Charlemagne, had been
continued, it would have changed the history ofy
the French people. Such an event as the French
Revolution never would have happened with free
schools; any more than the American Revolution
would have happened without them. The mobs,
the riots, the burnings, the lynchings, perpetrated
by the men of the present day, are perpetrated,
because of their vicious or defective education,
when children. We see, and feel, the havoc and
the ravage of their tiger-passions, now, when
they are full grown ; but it was years ago that
they were whelped and suckled. And so, too, if
we are derelict from our duty, in this matter, our
children, in their turn, will sufter. If we permit
the vulture's eggs to be incubated and hatched, it
will then be too late to take care of the lambs.
2
14
Some eulogize our system of Popular Educa-
tion, as though worthy to be universally admired
and imitated. Others pronounce it circumscribed
in its action, and feeble, even where it acts. Let
us waste no time in composing this strife. If
good, let us improve it ; if bad, let us reform it.
It is of human institutions, as of men, — ^not any
one is so good that it cannot be made better ; nor
so bad, that it may not become worse. Our sys-
tem of education is not to be compared with those
of other states or countries, merely to determine
whether it may be a little more or a little less per-
fect than they ; but it is to be contrasted with our
highest ideas of perfection itself, and then the
pain of the contrast to be assuaged, by improving
It, forthwith and continually. The love of excel-
lence looks ever upward towards a higher stand-
ard ; it is unimproving pride and arrogance only,
that are satisfied with being superior to a lower.
No community should rest contented with being
superior to other communities, while it is inferior
to its own capabilities. And such are the benefi-
cent ordinations of Providence, that the very
thought of improving is the germination of im-
provement.
The science and the art of Education, like
every thing human, depend upon culture, for ad-
vancement. And they would be more cultivated,
if the rewards for attention, and the penalties for
neglect, were better understood. When effects
follow causes, — quick as thunder, lightning, —
even infants and idiots learn to beware ; or they
act, to enjoy. They have a glimmer of reason,
sufficient, in such cases, for admonition, or im-
pulse. Now, in this world, the entire succession
of events, which fills time and makes up life,
is nothing but causes and effects. These causes
and effects are bound and linked together by an
adamantine law. And the Deity has given us
15
power over the effects, by giving us power over
the causes. This power consists in a knowledge
of the connection estabUshed between causes and
effects, — enabling us to foresee the future conse-
quences of present conduct. If you show to me a
handful of perfect seeds, I know^ that, with appro-
priate culture, those seeds will produce a growth
after their kind ; whether it be of pulse,^ which is
ripened for human use in a month, or of oaks, whose
lifetime is centuries. So, in some of the actions
of men, consequences follow conduct with a lock-
step ; in others, the effects of youthful actions first
burst forth as from a subterranean current, in ad-
vanced life. In those great relations which sub-
sist between different generations, — between an-
cestors and posterity, — effects are usually sepa-
rated from their causes, by long intervals of time.
The pulsations of a nation's heart are to be
counted, not by seconds, but by years. Now, it
is in this class of cases, where there are long
intervals lying between our conduct and its con-
sequences; where one generation sows, and an-
other generation reaps ; — it is in this class of cases, y
that the greatest and most sorrowful of human
errors originate. Yet, even for these, a benevolent
Creator has supplied us with an antidote. He
has given us the faculty of reason, whose especial
office and function it is, to discover the connection
between causes and effects ; and thereby to enable
us so to regulate the causes of to-day, as to predes-
tinate the effects of to-morrow. In the eye of rea-
son, causes and effects exist in proximity, — in
juxtaposition. They lie side by side, whatever
length of time, or distance of space, comes in be-
tween them. If I am guilty of an act or a neg-
lect, to-day, which will certainly cause the inflic-
tion of a wrong, it matters not whether that wrong
happens, on the other side of the globe, or in tlie
next century. Whenever or wherever it happens,
16
it is mine ; it belongs to me ; my conscience owns
it, and no sophistry can give me absolution. Who
would think of acquitting an incendiary, because
the train which he had laid and lighted, first cir-
cuited the globe before it reached and consumed
his neighbor's dwelling? From the nature of the
case, in education, the effects are widely separated
from the causes. They happen so long after-
wards, that the reason of the community loses
sight of the connection between them. It does
not bring the cause and the effect together, and
lay them, and look at them, side by side.
If, instead of twenty-one yearSj the course of
Nature allowed but twenty-one days^ to rear an
infant to the full stature of manhood, and to sow
in his bosom, the seeds of unbounded happiness
or of unspeakable misery, — 1 suppose, in that
case, the merchant would abandon his bargains,
and the farmer would leave the in-gathering of
his harvest, and even the drunkard would hie
homeward from the midst of his revel, and that
twenty-one days would be spent, without much
sleep, and with many prayers. And yet, it can-
not be denied, that the consequences of a vicious
education, inflicted upon a child, are now pre-
cisely the same as they would be, if, at the end
of twenty-one days after an infant's birth, his
tongue were already roughened with oaths and
blasphemy; or he were seen skulking through
society, obtaining credit upon false pretences, or
with rolls of counterfeit bills in his pocket; or
were already expiating his offences in the bond-
age and infamy of a prison. And the conse-
quences of a virtuous education, at the end of
twenty-one years, are now precisely the same as
they would be, if, at the end of twenty-one days
after his birth, the infant had risen from his cra-
dle into the majestic form of manhood, and were
possessed of all those qualities and attributes,
17
which a being created in the image of God ought
to have ; — with a power of fifty years of beneficent
labor compacted into his frame ; — with nerves of
sympathy, reaching out from his own heart and
twining around the heart of society, so that the
great social wants of men should be a part of his
consciousness ; — and with a mind able to perceive
what is right, prompt to defend it, or, if need be,
to die for it. It ought to be understood, that none
of these consequences become any the less certain,
because they are more remote. It ought to be
universally understood and intimately felt, that,
in regard to children, all precept and example;
all kindness and harshness ; all rebuke and com-
mendation ; all forms, indeed, of direct or indirect
education, afiect mental growth, just as dew, and
sun, and shower, or untimely frost, affect vegeta-
ble growth. Their influences are integrated and
made one with the soul. They enter into spirit-
ual combination with it, never afterwards to be
wholly decompounded. They are like the daily
food eaten by wild game, — so pungent and sapo-
rific in its nature, that it flavors every fibre of /
their flesh, and colors every bone in their body.
Indeed, so pervading and enduring is the effect
of education upon the youthful soul, that it may
well be compared to a certain species of writing-
ink, whose color, at first, is scarcely perceptible,
but which penetrates deeper and grows blacker
by age, until, if you consume the scroll over a
coal-fire, the character will still be legible in the
cinders. It ought to be understood and felt, that,
however it may be in a social or jurisprudential
sense, it is nevertheless true, in the most solemn
and dread-inspiring sense, that, by an irrepealable
law of Nature, the iniquities of the fathers are
still visited upon the children, unto the third and
fourth generation. Nor do the children suffer
for the iniquities only, of their parents ; they suf-
2*
18
fer for their neglect and even for their ignorance.
Hence, I have always admired that law of the
Icelanders, by which, when a minor child commits
an offence, the courts first make judicial inquiry,
whether his parents have given him a good edu-
cation ; and, if it be proved they have not, the
child is acquitted and the parents are punished.
In both the old Colonies of Plymouth, and of
Massachusetts Bay, if a child, over sixteen, and
under twenty-one years of age, committed a cer-
tain capital offence against father or mother, he
was allowed to arrest judgment of death upon
himself, by showing that his parents, in the lan-
guage of the law, "had been very unchristianly
negligent in his education."
How, then, are the purposes of education to be
accomplished 7 However other worlds may be,
this world of ours is evidently constructed on the
plan of producing ends by using means. Even
the Deity, with his Omniscience and his Omnipo-
tence, carries forward our system, by processes so
minute, and movements so subtile, as generally
to elude our keenest inspection. He might speak
all the harvests of the earth, and all the races of
animals and of men, into full-formed existence, at
a word ; and yet the tree is elaborated from the
kernel, and the wing from the chrysalis, by a
series of processes, which occupies years, and
sometimes centuries, for its completion. Educa-
tion, more than any thing else, demands not only
a scientific acquaintance with mental laws, but
the nicest art in the detail and the application of
means, for its successful prosecution ; because in-
fluences, imperceptible in childhood, work out
more and more broadly into beauty or deformity,
in after-life. No unskilful hand should ever play
upon a harp, where the tones are left, forever, in
the strings.
In the first place, the best methods should be
19
well ascertained; in the second, they should be
universally diffused. In this Commonwealth,
there are about three thousand Public Schools,
in all of which the rudiments of knowledge are
taught. These schools, at the present time, are
so many distinct, independent communities ; each
being governed by its own habits, traditions, and
local customs. There is no common, superin-
tending power over them; there is no bond of
brotherhood or family between them. They are
strangers and aliens to each other. The teachers
are, as it were, imbedded, each in his own school
district; and they are yet to be excavated and
brought together, and to be established, each as a
polished pillar of a holy temple. As the system
is now administered, if any improvement in prin-
ciples or modes of teaching is discovered by talent
or accident, in one school, — instead of being pub-
lished to the world, it dies with the discoverer.
No means exist for multiplying new truths, or
even for preserving old ones. A gentleman, fill-
ing one of the highest civil offices in this Com-
monwealth, — a resident in one of the oldest coun-^
ties and in one of the largest towns in the State, —
a sincere friend of the cause of education, — re-
cently put into my hands a printed report, drawn
up by a clergyman of high repute, which de-
scribed, as was supposed, an important improve-
ment in relation to our Common Schools, and
earnestly enjoined its general adoption ; when it
happened to be within my own knowledge, that
the supposed new discovery had been in success-
ful operation for sixteen years, in a town but little
more than sixteen miles distant. Now, in other
things, we act otherwise. If a manufacturer dis-
covers a new combination of wheels, or a new
mode of applying water or steam-power, by which
stock can be economized, or the value of fabrics
enhanced ten per cent., the information flies over
20
the country at once ; the old machinery is dis-
carded, the new is substituted. Nay, it is difficult
for an inventor to preserve the secret of his inven-
tion, until he can secure it by letters-patent. Our
mechanics seem to possess a sort of keen, grey-
hound faculty, by which they can scent an im-
provement afar off. They will sometimes go, in
disguise, to the inventor, and offer themselves as
workmen; and instances have been known of
their breaking into his workshop, by night, and
purloining the invention. And hence that pro-
gress in the mechanic arts, which has given a
name to the age in which we live, and made it a
common wonder. Improvements in useful, and
often in useless, arts, command solid prices, —
twenty, fifty, or even a hundred thousand dol-
lars, — while improvements in education, in the
means of obtaining new guaranties for the per-
manence of all we hold dear, and for making
our children and our children's children wiser
and happier, — these are scarcely topics of con-
versation or inquiry. Do we not need, then,
some new and living institution, some animate
organization, which shall at least embody and
diffuse all that is now known on this subject, and
thereby save, every year, hundreds of children
from being sacrificed to experiments which have
been a hundred times exploded ?
Before noticing some particulars, in which a
common channel for receiving and for disseminat-
ing information, may subserve the prosperity of our
Common Schools, allow me to premise, that there
is one rule, which, in all places, and in all forms of
education, should be held as primary, paramount,
and, as far as possible, exclusive. Acquirement
and pleasure should go hand in hand. They
should never part company. The pleasure of
acquiring should be the incitement to acquire. A
child is wholly incapable of appreciating the ulti-
21
mate value or uses of knowledge. In its early
beginnings, the motive of general, future utility
will be urged in vain. Tell an abecedarian, as
an inducement to learn his letters, of the sublim-
ities of poetry and eloquence, that may be wrought
out of the alphabet ; and to him it is not so good
as moonshine. Let me ask any man, whether
he ever had, when a child, any just conception of
the uses, to which he is now, as a man, daily
applying his knowledge. How vain is it, then,
to urge upon a child, as a motive to study, that
which he cannot possibly understand ! Nor is
the motive of fear preferable. Fear is one of the
most debasing and dementalizing of all the pas-
sions. The sentiment of fear was given us, that
it might be roused into action, by whatever should
be shunned, scorned, abhorred. The emotion
should never be associated with what is to be
desired, toiled for, and loved. If a child appe-
tizes his books, then, lesson-getting is free labor.
If he revolts at them, then, it is slave-labor. Less
is done, and the little is not so well done. Nature
has implanted a feeling of curiosity in the breast /
of every child, as if to make herself certain of
his activity and progress. The desire of learning
alternates with the desire of food ; — the mental
with the bodily appetite. The former is even
more craving and exigent, in its nature, than the
latter, and acts longer without satiety. Men sit
with folded arms, even while they are surrounded
by objects of which they know nothing. Who
ever saw that done by a child? But we cloy,
disgust, half-extirpate, this appetite for knowl-
edge, and then deny its existence. Mark a child,
when a clear, well-defined, vivid conception seizes
it. The whole nervous tissue vibrates. Every
muscle leaps. Every joint plays. The face
becomes auroral. The spirit flashes through the
body, like lightning through a cloud. Tell a
22
child the simplest story, which is adapted to his
present state of mental advancement, and there-
fore intelligible, — and he will forget sleep, leave
food untasted, nor would he be enticed from hear-
ing it, though you should give him for playthings,
shining fragments broken off from the sun. Ob-
serve the blind, and the deaf and dumb. So strong
is their inborn desire for knowledge, — such are the
amazing attractive forces of their minds for it, —
that, although those natural inlets, the eye and
the ear, are closed, yet they will draw it inward,
through the solid walls and encasements of the
body. If the eye be curtained with darkness, it
will enter through the ear. If the ear be closed
in silence, it will ascend along the nerves of touch.
Every new idea, that enters into the presence of
the sovereign mind, carries offerings of delight
with it, to make its coming welcome. Indeed,
Qi;ir^ Maker jcireated us ia^blank ignorance^ for the
•v^jqz^^piij:gose^of_giyirig3s_^i£_^bo^^ e ndles s
pl^a^ure_^MeaTriing^4i^w.^t^^ ; and the true
paiiiiOTTfiehuman intellect leads onward and
upward from ignorance towards omniscience, —
ascending by an infinity of steps, each novel and
delightful.
The voice of Nature, therefore, forbids the in-
fliction of annoyance, discomfort, pain, upon a
child, while engaged in study. If he actually
suffers from position, or heat, or cold, or fear, not
only is a portion of the energy of his mind with-
drawn from his lesson, — all of which should be
concentrated upon it ; but, at that undiscriniinat-
ing age, the pain blends itself with the study,
makes part of the remembrance of it, and thus
curiosity and the love of learning are deadened,
or turned away towards vicious objects. This is
the philosophy of children's hating study. We
insulate them by fear ; we touch them with non-
conductors; and then, because they emit no spark,
23
we gravdy aver that they are non-electric bodies.
If possible, pleasure should be made to flow like
a sweet atmosphere around the early learner, and
pain be kept beyond the association of ideas.
You cannot open blossoms with a northeast storm.
The buds of the hardiest plants will wait for the
genial influences of the sun, though they perish,
while waiting.
The first practical application of these truths,
in relation to our Common Schools, is to School-
house Architecture, — a subject so little regarded,
yet so vitally important. The construction of
schoolhouses involves, not the love of study and
proficiency, only, but health and length of life.
I have the testimony of many eminent physicians
to this fact. They assure me that it is within
their own personal knowledge, that there is, an-
nually, loss of life, destruction of health, and such
anatomical distortion as renders life hardly worth
possessing, growing out of the bad construction of
our schoolhouses. Nor is this evil confined to a
few of them, only- It is a very general calamity.
I have seen many schoolhouses, in central districts
of rich and populous towns, where each seat
connected with a desk, consisted only of an up-
right post or pedestal, jutting up out of the floor,
the upper end of which was only about eight or
ten inches square, without side-arms or back-
board ; and some of them so high that the feet of
the children in vain sought after the floor. They
were beyond soundings. Yet, on the hard top
of these stumps, the masters and misses of the
school must balance themselves, as well as they
can, for six hours in a day. All attempts to pre-
serve silence in such a house arc not only vain,
but cruel. Nothing but absolute empalement could
keep a live child still, on such a scat; and you
would hardly think him worth living, if it could.
The pupils will resort to every possible bodily
/
24
evolution for relief; and, after all, though they
may change the place^ they keep the pain. I have
good reasons for remembering one of another
class of schoolhouses, which the scientific would
probably call the sixth order of architecture, — the
wicker-work order, summer-houses for winter res-
idence, — where there never was a severely cold
day, without the ink's freezing in the pens of the
scholars while they were writing; and the teacher
was literally obliged to compromise between the
sufferings of those who were exposed to the cold
of the windows and those exposed to the heat of
the fire, by not raising the thermometer of the lat-
ter above ninety degrees, until that of the former
fell below thirty. A part of the children suffered
the Arctic cold of Captains Ross and Parry, and a
part, the torrid heat of the Landers, without, in
either case, winning the honors of a discoverer.
It was an excellent place for the teacher to illus-
trate one of the facts in geography ; for five steps
would have carried him through the five zones.
Just before my present circuit, I passed a school-
house, the roof of which, on one side, was trough-
like; and down towards the eaves there was a
large hole ; so that the whole operated like a tun-
nel to catch all the rain and pour it into the
schoolroom. At first, I did not know but it might
be some apparatus designed to explain the Deluge.
I called and inquired of the mistress, if she and
her little ones were not sometimes drowned out.
She said she should be, only that the floor leaked
as badly as the roof, and drained off the water.
And yet a healthful, comfortable schoolhouse
can be erected as cheaply as one, which, judging
from its construction, you would say, had been
dedicated to the evil genius of deformity and
suffering.
There is another evil in the construction of our
schoolhouses, whose immediate consequences are
25
not so bad, though their remote ones are indefi-
nitely worse. No fact is now better established,
than that a man cannot live, without a supply of
about a gallon of fresh air, every minute; nor
enjoy good health, indeed, without much more.
The common air, as is now well known, is mainly
composed of two ingredients, one only of which
can sustain life. The action of the lungs upon
the vital portion of the air, changes its very nature,
converting it from a life-sustaining to a life-de-
stroying element. As we inhale a portion of the
atmosphere, it is healthful ; — the same portion, as
we exhale it, is poisonous. Hence, ventilation in
rooms, especially where large numbers are col-
lected, is a condition of health and life. Privation
admits of no excuse. To deprive a child of com-
fortable clothes, or wholesome food, or fuel, may
sometimes, possibly, be palliated. These cost
money, and often draw hardly upon the scanty
resources of the poor. But what shall vi/^e say of
stinting and starving a child, in regard to this
prime necessary of life, fresh air ? — of holding his
mouth, as it were, lest he should obtain a sufR- y
ciency of that vital element, which God, in His
munificence, has poured out, a hundred miles
deep, all around the globe? Of productions,
reared or transported by human toil, there may
be a dearth. At any rate, frugality in such things
is commendable. But to put a child on short
allowances out of this sky-full of air, is enough
to make a miser weep. It is as absurd, as it
would have been for Noah, while the torrents of
rain were still descending, to have put his family
upon short allowances of water. This vast quan-
tity of air was given us to supersede the necessity
of ever using it at second-hand. Heaven has
ordained this matter with adorable wisdom. That
very portion of the air which we turn into poison,
by respiring it, becomes the aliment of vegetk-
3
25
lion. What is death to us, is life to all verdure
and flowerage. And again, vegetation reacts the
ingredient which is life to us. Thus the equili-
brium is forever restored; or rather, it is never
destroyed. In this perpetual circuit, the atmos-
phere is forever renovated^ and made the sus-
tainer of life, both for the animal and vegetable
worlds.
A simple contrivance for ventilating the school-
room, unattended with any perceptible expense,
would rescue children from this fatal, though un-
seen evil. It is an indisputable fact, that, for
years past, far more attention has been paid, in
this respect, to the construction of jails and pris-
ons, than to that of schoolhouses. Yet, why
should we treat our felons better than our chil-
dren? I have observed in all our cities and
populous towns, that, wherever stables have been
recently built, provision has been made for their
ventilation. This is encouraging, for I hope the
children's turn will come, when gentlemen shall
have taken care of their horses. I implore phy-
sicians to act upon this evil. Let it be removed,
extirpated, cut off, surgically.
I cannot here stop to give even an index of the
advantages of an agreeable site for a schoolhouse ;
of attractive, external appearance; of internal
finish, neatness, and adaptation ; nor of the still
more important subject of having two rooms for
all large schools, — both on the same floor, or one
over the other, — so as to allow a separation of the
large from the small scholars, for the purpose of
placing the latter, at least, under the care of a
female teacher. Each of these topics, and espe-
cially the last, is worthy of a separate essay.
Allow me, however, to remark, in passing, that I
regard it as one of the clearest ordinances of nat-
ure, that woman is the appointed guide and
guardian of children of a tender age. And she
27
does not forego, but, in the eye of prophetic vision,
she anticipates and makes her own, all the im-
mortal honors of the academy, the forum, and the
senate, when she lays their deep foundations, by
training up children in the way they should go.
A great mischief, — I use the word mischiefs
because it implies a certain degree of wickedness,
— a great mischief is suffered in the diversity
and multiplicity of our school books. Not more
than twenty or thirty different kinds of books,
exclusive of a school library, are needed in our
Common Schools ; and yet, though I should not
dare state the fact, if I had not personally sought
out the information from most authentic sources,
there are now, in actual use in the schools of this
State, more than three hundred different kinds of
books ; and, in the markets of this and the neigh-
boring States, seeking for our adoption, I know
not how many hundreds more. The standards,
in spelling, pronunciation, and writing; in rules
of grammar and in processes in arithmetic, are
as various as the books. Correct language, in
one place, is provincialism in another. While /
we agree in regarding the confusion of Babel as
a judgment, we unite in confounding it more, as
though it were a blessing. But is not uniformity
on these subjects desirable 1 Are there not some
of these books, to which all good judges, on com-
parison, would award the preference ? Could they
not be afforded much cheaper for the great mar-
ket which uniformity would open; thus furnishing
better books at lower prices ? And why not teach
children aright, the first time? It is much harder
to unlearn than to learn. Why go through three
processes instead of one, by first learning, then
unlearning, and then learning, again ? This mis-
chief grew out of tlie immense profits formerly
realized from the manufacture of school books.
There seems never to have been any difficulty in
SIS
procuring reams of recommendations, because
patrons have acted under no responsibility. An
edition once published must be sold ; for the date
has become almost as important in school booksy
as in almanacs. All manner of devices are daily
used to displace the old books, and to foist in new
ones. The compiler has a cousin in the town of
A, who will decry the old and recommend the
new ; or a literary gentleman in the city of B has
just published some book on a different subject,
and is willing to exchange recommendations, even;
or the author has a mechanical friend, in a neigh-
boring town, who has just patented some new
tool, and who will recommend the author's book,
if, the author will recommend his tool I Publish-
ers often employ agents to hawk their books about
the country ; and t have known several instances
where such a pedlar, — or picaroon, — has taken
all the old books of a whole class in school, in
exchange for his new ones, book for book, — look-
ing, of course, to his chance of making sales after
the book bad been established in the school, for
reimbursement and profits; so that at last, the
children have to pay for what they supposed was
given them. On this subject, too, cannot the ma-
ture views of competent and disinterested men,
residing, respectively, in all parts of the State, be
the means of effecting a much-needed reform 7
There is another point, where, as it seems to
me, a united effort among the friends of education
would, in certain branches of instruction, increase
tenfold the efficiency of our Common Schools. I
mean, the use of some simple apparatus, so as to
employ the eye, more than the ear, in the acqui-
sition of knowledge. After the earliest years of
childhood, the superiority of the eye over the
other senses, in quickness, in precision, in the
vastness of its field of operations, and in its power
of penetrating, like a flash, into any interstices,
29
where light can go and come, is almost infinite.
The senses of taste, and smell, and touch, seem
to be more the servants of the body than of the
soul ; and, amongst the infinite variety of objects
in the external world, hearing takes notice of
sounds only. Close your eyes, and then, with the
aid of the other senses, examine a watch, an arti-
san's workshop, a manufactory, a ship, a steam-
engine ; and how meagre and formless are all the
ideas they present to you. But the eye is the
great thoroughfare between the outward and ma-
terial infinite, and the inward and spiritual infi-
nite. The mind often acquires, by a glance of
the eye, what volumes of books and months of
study could not reveal so livingly through the
ear. Every thing that comes through the eye,
too, has a vividness, a clear outline, a just collo-
cation of parts, — each in its proper place, — which
the other senses can never communicate. Ideas
or impressions acquired through vision are long-
lived. Those acquired through the agency of the
other senses often die young. Hence, the immeas-
urable superiority of this organ is founded in /
Nature. There is a fund of truth in the old say-
ing, that ''seeing is believing." There never
will be any such maxim, in regard to the other
senses. To use the ear instead of the eye, in any
case where the latter is available, is as preposter-
ous, as it would be for our migratory birds, in
their overland passage, to walk rather than to fly.
We laugh at the Germans, because in using their
oxen, they attach the load to the horns, instead
of the neck ; but do we not commit a much greater
absurdity, in communicating knowledge through
the narrow fissure of the ear, which holds com-
munication only with a small circle of things,
and in that circle, only with things that utter a
sound, instead of conveying it through the broad
portals of the earth ana heaven surveying eye?
3*
30
Nine tenths,- — may I not say ninety-nine hun-
dredths, — of all our Common School instruction
are conveyed through the ear ; or, — which is the
same thing, — through the medium of written in-
stead of spoken words, where the eye has been
taught to do the work of the ear. In teaching
those parts of geography which comprise the
outlines and natural features of the earth, and in
astronomy, the use of the globe and the planetari-
um would reduce the labor of months to as many
hours. Ocular evidence, also, is often indispensa-
ble for correcting the imperfections of language, as
it is understood by a child. For instance, (and I
take this illustration from fact and not from imagi-
nation,) a child, born in the interior, and who has
never seen the ocean, is taught that the earth is
surrounded by an elastic medium, called the at-
mosphere. He thereby gets the idea of perfect cir-
cumfusion and envelopment. In the next lesson,
he is taught that an island is a small body of land
surrounded by water. If he has a quick mind,
he may get the idea that an island is land, envel-
oped in water, as the earth is in air. Mature
minds always modify the meaning of words and
sentences by numerous rules, of which a child
knows nothing. If, when speaking of the Deity
to a man of common intelligence, I use the word
''power," he understands omnipotence; and if I
use the same word when speaking of an ant, he
understands that I mean strength enough to lift a
grain ; — but a child would require explanations,
limiting the meaning of the word in the one case,
and extending it in the other.
Other things being equal, the pleasure which a
child enjoys, in studying or contemplating, is pro-
portioned to the liveliness of his perceptions and
ideas. A child who spurns books, will be attracted
and delighted by visible objects of well-defined
forms and striking colors. In the one case, he
31
sees things through a haze ; in the other, by sun-
hght. A contemplative child, whose mind gets
as vivid images from reading as from gazing,
always prefers reading. Although it is undoubt-
edly true, that taste and predilection, in regard to
any subject, will give brightness and distinctness
to ideas ; yet it is also true that bright and distinct
ideas will greatly modify tastes and predilections.
Now the eye may be employed much more exten-
sively than it ever has been, in giving what I
will venture to call the geography of ideas, that
is, a perception, where one idea bounds on another,
— where the province of one idea ends, and thait
of the adjacent ideas begins. Could children be
habituated to fixing these lines of demarcation, to
seeing and feeling ideas as distinctly as though
they were geometrical solids, they would then
experience an insupportable uneasiness, whenever
they were lost in fog-land and among the Isles of
the Mist; and this uneasiness would enforce in-
vestigation, survey, and perpetual outlook; and
in after-life, a power would exist of applying
luminous and exact thought to extensive combi- /
nations of facts and principles, and we should
have the materials of philosophers, statesmen and
chief-justices. The pleasure which children en-
joy in visiting our miserable toy-shop collections.
— the dreams of crazy brains, done into wood and
pewter, — comes mainly from the vividness, the
oneness, wholeness, completeness, of their percep-
tions. The gewgaws do not give delight, because
of their grotcsqueness, but in spite of it. Natu-
ral ideas derived through a microscope, or from
any mechanism which would stamp as deep an
imprint and glow with as quick a vitality, would
give them far greater delight. And how different^
as to attainments in useful knowledge, would
children be, at the end of eight or ten years,
32
accordingly as they had sought their gratifications
from one or the other of these sources.
And what higher dehght, what reward, at once
so innocent and so elevating, as to explain by
means of suitable apparatus, to the larger schol-
ars in a school, the cause and manner of an
eclipse of the sun or moon ! And when those
impressive phenomena occur, how beautiful to
witness the manifestations of wonder and of rev-
erence for God, which spring spontaneously from
the intelligent observation of such sublime spec-
tacles; instead of their being regarded with the
horrible imaginings of superstition, or with such
stupid amazement, as belongs only to the brutes
that perish ! If a model were given, every ingen-
ious boy, with a few broken window panes and a
pocket-knife, could make a prism. With this, the
rainbow, the changing colors of the dew-drop,
the gorgeous light of the sunset sky, could be ex-
plained ; and thus might the minds of children be
early imbued with a love of pure and beautiful
things, and led upward towards the angel, instead
of downward towards the brute, from this middle
ground of humanity. Imbue the young mind
with these sacred influences, and they will forever
constitute a part of its moral being; they will
abide with it and tend to uphold and purify it,
wherever it may be cast by fortune, in this tu-
nmltuous arena of life. A spirit so softened and
penetrated, will be
" Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled ;
You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."
At the last session of the Legislature, a law was
enacted, authorizing school districts to raise money
for the purchase of apparatus and Common School
libraries, for the use of the children, to be expended
in sums not exceeding thirty dollars, for the first
33
year, and ten dollars, for any succeeding year.
Trifling as this may appear, yet I regard the law
as hardly second in importance to any which has
been passed since the year 1647, when Common
Schools were estabhshed. Every district can find
some secure place for preserving them, until, in
repairing or rebuilding schoolhouses, a separate
apartment can be provided for their safe-keeping.
As soon as one half the benefits of these instru-
ments of learning shall be understood, I doubt
not that public-spirited individuals will be found,
in most towns, who will contribute something to
the library ; and artisans, too, who will feel an
honorable pleasure in adding something to the
apparatus, wrought by their own hands, — perhaps
devised by their own ingenuity. " Build dove-
holes," says the proverb, "and the doves will
come." And what purer satisfaction, what more
sacred object of ambition, can any man pro-
pose to himself, than to give the first impulse
to an improvement, which will go on increasing
in value, forever ! It may be said, that mischiev-
ous children will destroy or mutilate whatever is
obtained for this purpose. But children will not
destroy or injure what gives them pleasure. In-
deed, the love of malicious mischief, the proneness
to deface whatever is beautiful, — this vile ingre-
dient in the old Saxon blood, wherever it flows, —
originated, and it is aggravated, by the almost
total want, amongst us, of objects of beauty, taste,
and elegance, for our cliildren to grow up with, to
admire, and to protect.
The expediency of having District School Li-
braries is fast becoming a necessity. It is too late
to stop the art of printing, or to arrest the general
circulation of books. Reading of some kind, the
children will have ; and the question is, whether
it is best, that this reading should be supplied to
them by the choice of men, whose sole object is
/
34
gain ; or whether it shall be prepared by wise and
benevolent men, whose object is to do good. Prob-
ably, not one child in ten, in this State, has free
access to any library of useful and entertaining
knowledge. Where there are town, parish, or
social libraries, they either do not consist of suit-
able books, or they are burdened with restrictions
which exclude more than are admitted. A Dis-
trict School Library would be open to all the
children in the district. They would enter it
independently. Wherever there is genius, the
library would nourish it. Talents would not die
of inaction, for want of some sphere for exercise.
Habits of reading and reflection would be formed,
instead of habits of idleness and malicious mis-
chief The wealth and prosperity of Massachusetts
are not owing to natural position or resources.
They exist, in despite of a sterile soil and an
inhospitable clime. They do not come from the
earth, but from the ingenuity and frugality of the
people. Their origin is good thinking, carried out
into good action; and intelligent reading in a child
will result in good thinking in the man or woman.
But there is danger, it is said, of reading bad
books. So there is danger of eating bad food ; shall
we therefore have no harvests ? No ! It was the
kindling excitement of a few books, by which
those Massachusetts boys, John Adams and Ben-
jamin Franklin, first struck out an intellectual
spark, which broadened into magnitude and bright-
ened into splendor, until it became a mighty
luminary, which now stands, and shall forever
stand, among the greater lights in the firmament
of glory.
But in the selection of books for school libraries,
let every man stand upon his honor, and never ask
for the introduction of any book, because it favors
the distinctive views of his sect or party. A
wise man prizes only the free and intelligent as-
35
sent of unprejudiced minds ; he disdains a slavish
and non-compos echo, even to his best- loved opin-
ions. In striving together for a common end,
peculiar ends must neither be advocated nor as-
sailed. Strengthen the intellect of children, by
exercise upon the objects and laws of Nature;
train their feelings to habits of order, industry,
temperance, justice ; to the love of man, because
of his wants, and to the love of God, because of
his universally-acknowledged perfections ; and, so
far as public measures, applicable to all, can
reach, you have the highest human assurance,
that, when they grow up, they will adopt your
favorite opinions, if they are right, or discover
the true reasons for discarding them, if they are
wrong.
An advantage altogether invaluable, of supply-
ing a child, by means of a library and of apparatus,
with vivid ideas and illustrations, is, that he may
always be possessed, in his own mind, of correct
standards and types with which to compare what-
ever objects he may see in his excursions abroad ;
— and that he may also have useful subjects of
reflection, whenever his attention is not engrossed
by external things. A boy who is made clearly
to understand the philosophical principle on which
he flies his kite, and then to recognize the same
principle in a wind or a water-wheel, and in the
sailing of a ship ; — wherever business or pleasure
may afterwards lead him, if he sees that principle
in operation, he will mentally refer to it, and
think out its applications, when, otherwise, he
would be singing or whistling. Twenty years
would work out immense results from such daily
observation and reflection. Dr. Franklin attribu-
ted much of his practical turn of mind, — which
was the salient point of his immortality, — to the
fact, that his father, in his conversations before
the family, always discussed some useful subject,
/
36
or developed some just principle of individual or
social action, instead of talking forever about
trout-catching or grouse-shooting ; about dogs, din-
ners, dice, or trumps. In its moral bearings this
subject grows into immense importance. How
many months, — may I not say years, — in a child's
life, when, with spontaneous activity, his mind
hovers and floats wherever it listeth ! As he sits
at home, amid familiar objects, or walks frequent-
ed paths, or lies listlessly in his bed, if his mind
be not preoccupied with some substantial subjects
of thought, the best that you can hope is, that it
will wander through dream-land, and expend its
activity in chasing shadows. Far more probable
is it, especially if the child is exposed to the con-
tamination of profane or obscene minds, that in
these seasons of solitude and reverie, the cocka-
trice's eggs of impure thoughts and desires will
be hatched. And what boy^ at least, is there who
is not in daily peril of being corrupted by the
evil communications of his elders ? We all know,
that there are self-styled gentlemen amongst us, —
self-styled gentlemen^ — who daily, and hourly, lap
their tongues in the foulness of profanity; and
though, through a morally-insane perversion, they
may restrain themselves, in the presence of ladies
and of clergymen, yet it is only for the passing
hour, when they hesitate not to pour out the pent-
up flood, to deluge and defile the spotless purity
of childhood, — and this, too, at an age, when
these polluting stains sink, centre-deep, into their
young and tender hearts, so that no moral bleach-
ery can ever afterwards wholly cleanse and purify
them. No parent, no teacher, can ever feel any
rational security about the growth of the moral
nature of his child, unless he contrives in some
way to learn the tenor of his secret, silent medi-
tations, or prepares the means, beforehand, of
determining what those meditations shall be. A
37
child may soon find it no dij3icuU thing, to converse
and act by a set o{ approved rules, and then to
retire into the secret chambers of liis own soul,
and there to riot and gloat upon guilty pleasures,
whose act would be perdition, and would turn the
fondest home into a hell. But there is an antidote,
— I do not say for all, but for most, of this peril.
The mind of children can be supplied with vivid
illustrations of the works of Nature and of Art;
its chambers can be himg round with picture-
thoughts and images of truth, and charity, and
justice, and affection, which will be companions
to the soul, when no earthly friend can accom-
pany it.
It is only a further development of this topic,
to consider the inaptitude of many of our educa-
tional processes, for making accurately- thinking
minds. It has been said by some one, that the good
sense and sound judgment, which we find in the
community, are only what have escaf>ed the gen-
eral ravage of a bad edncation. School studies
ought to be so arranged, as to promote a harmo-
nious development o( the faculties. In despotic
Prussia, a special science is cultivated, under the
name of methodik^ the scope of which is to
arrange and adapt studies, so as to meet the wants
and exercise the powers of the opening mind. In
free America, we have not the name ; indeed, we
can scarcely be said to have the idea. Surely,
the farmer, the gardener, the florist, who have
established rules for cultivating every species of
grain, and fruit, and flower, cannot doubt, that,
in the unfolding and expanding of the young
mini, some processes will be congenial, others
fatal. Those whose business it is to compound
ingredients, in any art, weigh them with the nicest
exactness, and watch the precise moments of their
chemical combinations. The mechanic selects all
his materials with the nicest care, and measures
4
/
38
all their dimensions to a hair's breadth ; and he
knows that if he fails in aught, he will produce a
weak, loose, irregular fabric. Indeed, can yoii
name any business, avocation, profession, or em-
ployment, whatever, — even to the making of hob-
nails or wooden skewers, — where chance, igno-
rance, or accident, is ever rewarded with a perfect
product? But in no calling is there such a diver-
sity as in education, — diversity in principles,
diversity in the application of those principles.
Discussion, elucidation, the light of a thousand
minds brought to a focus, would result in discard-
ing the worst and in improving even the best
Under this head are included the great questions
respecting the order and succession of studies;
the periods of alternation between them ; the pro-
portion between the exact and the approximate sci-
ences ; and what is principal and what is sub-
sidiary, in pursuing them.
/There is a natural order and progression in the
development of the faculties : " First the blade,
then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear."
And in the mind, as in the grain, the blade may
be so treated that the full corn will never appear.
For instance, if any faculty is brooded upon and
warmed into life before the period of its natural
development, it will have a precocious growth,
to be followed by weakness, or by a want of sym-
metry and proportion in the whole character.
Consequences still worse will follow, where fac-
ulties are cultivated in the reverse order of their
natural development. Again, if collectiv^e ideas
are forced into a child's mind, without liis being
made to analyze them, and understand the indi-
vidual ideas of which they arc composed, the
probability is, that the collective idea will never
be comprehended./ Let me illustrate this position
by a case where it is least likely to happen, that
we may form some idea of its frequency in other
39
things. A child is taught to count ten. He is
taught to repeat the words, owe, two^ &c., as words,
merely ; and if care be not taken, he will attach
no more comprehensive idea to the word tetiy than
he did to the word one. He will not think of ten
ones, as he uses it. In the same way, he proceeds
to use the words, hundred, thousand, million, <fec.,
•^the idea in his mind, not keeping within hailing
distance of the signification of the words used.
Hence there is generated a habit of using words,
not as the representatives of ideas, but as sounds,
merely. How few children there are of the age
of sixteen years, — an age at which almost all of
them have ceased to attend upon our schools, —
who have any adequate conception of the power
of the signs they have been using. How few of
them know even so simple a truth as this, that, if
they were to count one, every second, for ten hours
in a day, without intermission, it would take about
twenty-eight days to count a million. Yet they
have been talking of millions, and hundreds of
millions, as though they were units. Now, sup-
pose you speak to such a person of millions of
children, growing up under a highly elaborated
system of vicious education, unbalanced by any
good influences ; or suppose you appeal to him, in
behalf of a million of people wailing beneath the
smitings of the oppressor's rod, — he gets no dis-
tinct idea of so many as fifty ; and therefore he
has no intellectual substratum, upon which to
found an appropriate feeling, or by which to grad-
uate its intensity.
Again ; in geography, we put a quarto-sized map,
or perhaps a globe no larger than a goose's egg,
into a child's hands, and we invite him to spread
out his mind over continents, oceans, and archi-
pelagoes, at once. This process does not expand
the mind of the child to the dimensions of the
objects, but it belittles the objects to the nutshell
/
40
capacity of the mind. Such a course of instruction
may make precocious, green-house children ; but
you will invariably find, that, when boys are pre-
maturely turned into little men, they remain lit-
tle men, always. Physical geography should be
commenced by making a child describe and plot a
room with its fixtures,, a hause with its apartments,
the adjoining yards, fields, roads or streets, hills,
waters, &c. Then embracing, if possible, the
occasion of a visit to a neighboring town, or county,
that should be included. Here, perpetual reference
must be had to the points of the compass. After
a just extension has been given to his ideas of a
county, or a state, then that county or state should
be shown to him on a globe ; and, cost what labor
or time it may, his mind must be expanded to a
comprehension of relative magnitudes, so that his
idea of the earth shall be as adequate to the size
of the earth, as his idea af the house or the field
was to the size of the house or the field. Thus
the pupil founds his knowledge of unseen things
upon the distinct notions of eyesight, in regard to
familiar objects. Yet I believe it is not very un-
common to give the mind of the young learner a
continent, for a single intellectual meal, and an
ocean to wash it down with. It recently happened,
in a school within my own knowledge, that a
class of small scholars in geography, on being
examined respecting the natural divisions of the
earth, — its continents, oceans, islands, gulfs, (fcc, —
answered all the questions with admirable precis-
ion and promptness. They were then asked, by
a visiter, some general questions respecting their
lesson, and, amongst others, whether they had
ever seen the earth about which they had been
reciting; and they unanimously declared, in good
faith, that they never had. Do we not find here
an explanation, why there are so many men whose
conceptions on all subjects are laid down on so
41
small a scale of miles, — so many thousand leagues
to a hair's breadth 7 By such absurd processes,
no vivid ideas can be gained, and therefore no
pleasure is enjoyed. A capacity of wonder is
destroyed in a day, sufficient to keep alive the
flame of curiosity for years. The subjects of
the lessons cease to be new, and yet are not un-
derstood. Curiosity, which is the hunger and
thirst of the mind, is forever cheated and balked ;
for nothing but a real idea can give real, true,
intellectual gratification. A habit, too, is inevi-
tably formed of reciting, without thinking. At
length, the most glib recitation becomes the best ;
and the less the scholars are delayed by thought,
the faster they can prate, as a mill clacks quicker
when there is no grist in the hopper. Thorough-
ness, therefore, — thoroughness, and again I say,
thoroughness^ for the sake of the knowledge, and
still more for the sake of the habit, — should, at
all events, be enforced ; and a pupil should never
be suffered to leave any subject, until he can reach
his arms quite around it, and clench his hands
upon the opposite side. Those persons, who /
know a little of every thing but nothing well,
have been aptly compared to a certain sort of
pocket-knife, which sorfie over-curious people car-
ry about with them, which, in addition to a com-
mon knife, contains a file, a chisel, a saw, a gimlet,
a screw-driver, and a pair of scissors, but all so
diminutive, that the moment they are needed for
use, they are found useless.
It seems to me that one of the greatest errors in
education, at the present time, is the desire and
ambition, at single lessons, to teach complex truths,
whole systems, doctrines, theorems, which years
of analysis arc scarcely sufficient to unfold ; instead
of commencing with simple elements, and then
rising, by gradations, to combined results. All is
administered in a mass. We strive to introduce
4*
42
knowledge into the child's mind, the great end
first. When lessons are given in this way, the
pupil, being unable to comprehend the ideas, tries
to remember the words, and thus, at best, is sent
away with a single fact, instead of a principle,
explanatory of whole classes of facts. The les-
sons are learned by rote ; and when a teacher
practises upon the rote system, he uses the minds
of the pupils, just as they use their own slates,
in working arithmetical questions; — whenever a
second question is to be wrought, the first is
sponged out, to make room for it. What would
be thought of a teacher of music, who should give
his pupils the most complicated exercises, before
they had learned to sound simple notes 7 It is
said of the athlete, Milo of Crotona, that he began
by lifting a calf, and, continuing to lift it daily,
he gained strength as fast as the animal gained
weight; so that he was able to lift it, when it
became an ox. Had he begun by straining to lift
an ox, he would probably have broken down, and
been afterwards unable to lift even a calf The
point to which I would invite the regards of the
whole community, is, whether greater attention
should not be paid to gradation, to progression in
a natural order, to adjustment, to the preparation
of a child's mind for receiving the higher forms
of truth, by first making it thoroughly acquainted
with their elements. The temptation to this error
is perhaps the most seductive, that ever beguiles
a teacher from his duty. He desires to make his
pupils appear well. He forgets that the great
objects of their education lie in the power, and dig-
nity, and virtue of life, and not in their recitations,
at the end of the quarter. Hence he strives to
prepare them for the hastening day of exhibition.
They must be able to state, in words, the great re-
sults, in science, which human reason has achieved,
after almost sixty centuries of labor. For this
43
purpose, — in which they also are tempted to con-
spire, — he loads their memories with burden after
burden of definitions and formulas ; which is about
as useful a process, — and is it not also about as
honest? — as it would be for the rearer of nursery-
trees to buy golden pippins in the market, and,
tying them upon the branches of his young trees,
to palm them off upon purchasers, as though the
delicious fruit had been elaborated from the suc-
culence of the stock he sells.
/ Another question of method, to which I most
earnestly solicit the attention of teachers and of
the whole public, is, whether there is not too much
teaching of words, instead of things. Never was
a severer satire uttered against human reason,
than that of Mirabeau, when he said, "words are
things." That single phrase explains the whole
French Revolution. Such a revolution never
could have occurred amongst a people who spoke
things, instead of words. Just so far as words
are things, just so far the infinite contexture of
realities pertaining to body and soul, to earth and
heaven, to time and eternity, is nothing. The
ashes, and shreds, and wrecks of every thing
else are of some value; but of words not freighted
with ideas, there is no salvage. It is not words,
but words Jitly spoken, that are like apples of gold
in pictures of silver. Words are but purses;
things, the shining coin within them. Why buy
seventy or eighty thousand purses, — for it is said
we have about that number of untechnical words
in the language, — without a copper for deposit?
I believe it is almost universally true, that young
students desire to be composers ; and as univer-
sally true, that they dread composition. When
they would compose, of what service, then, are
those columns of spelling-book words, which they
have committed to memory by the furlong? Where
then, too, are the rich mines of thought contained
44
m their Readers, their First-Class Books, and their
little libraries? These they have been accustomed
to consider merely as instruments, to practise pro-
nunciation, emphasis, and cadence, upon. They
have moved, for years, in the midst of ideas, like
blind men in picture-galleries. Hence they have
no knowledge of things^ and their relations ; and,
when called upon for composition, they have
nothing to compound. /But, as the outward and
visible sign of composition is a sheet-full of words,
a sheet is filled, though more from the dictionary
than from the head. This practice comes at last,
to make them a kind of sportsmen or warriors,
who think their whole business is to fire, not to hit.
Some, who have a strong verbal memory, become
dexterous in the use of language ; so that, if they
can have two ideas, on any subject, to set up
at the ends, as termini, they will fill up with
words any distance of space between them. Those
who have not this verbal memory, become the
wind-driven bubbles of those who have. When
the habit is confirmed, of relying on the verbal
faculty, the rest of the mind dies out. The dog-
ma taught by Aristotle, that Nature abhors a
vacuum, is experimentally refuted. I know of
but one compensation for these word-men ; I be-
lieve they never become insane. Insanity requires
some mind, for a basis.
The subject of penal discipline, I hardly dare
to mention ; especially discipline by corporal pun-
ishment. In this department, extremes both of
doctrine and of practice prevail. The public have
taken sides, and parties are arrayed against each
other. Some repudiate and condemn it, alto-
gether. With others, it is the great motive-power ;
and they consider it as, at least, the first and
second, if not the three estates in the realm of
school-keeping. Generally speaking, I fear that
but little judgment and forethought are brought to
46
the decision of its momentous questions. It cannot
be discussed, alone. It is closely connected with
intellectual progress; its influences pervade the
whole moral nature ; and it must be looked at, in
its relations to them. The justifiable occasions,
if any, for inflicting it; the mode, and emphati-
cally, the spirit, of its administration; its instru-
ments; its extent ; the conduct that should precede
and should follow it, — are questions worthy of
the deepest attention. That corporal punishment,
considered by itself, and without reference to its
ultimate object, is an evil, probably none will deny.
Yet, with almost three thousand public schools
in this State, composed of all kinds of children,
with more than five thousand teachers, of all
grades of qualification, to govern them, probably
the evils of corporal punishment must be endured,
or the greater ones of insubordination and mutiny
be incurred. I hesitate also to speak so fully of
the magnitude of these evils, as I would wish to
do ; because there are some excellent teachers, who
manage schools without resorting to it; while
others, ambitious for the same honor, but destitute
of skill and of the divine qualities of love, pa-
tience, sympathy, by which alone it can be wonj
have discarded what they call corporal punish-
ment, but have resorted to other modes of disci-
pline, which, though they may bear a milder
name, are, in reality, more severe. To imprison
timid children in a dark and solitary place; to
brace open the jaws with a piece of wood; to
torture the muscles and bones, by the strain of an
unnatural position, or of holding an enormous
weight; to inflict a wound upon the instinctive
feelings of modesty and delicacy, by making a
girl sit with the boys, or go out with them, at
recess; to bring a whole class around a fellow-
pupil, to ridicule and shame him ; to break down
the spirit of self-respect, by enforcing some igno-
46
minions compliance; to give a nick-name; — these,
and such as these, are the gentle appliances, by
which some teachers, who profess to discard cor-
poral punishment, maintain the empire of the
schoolroom; — as though the muscles and bones
were less corporeal than the skin ; as though a
wound of the spirit were of less moment than
one of the flesh ; and the body's blood more sa-
cred than the soul's purity. But of these solemn
topics, it is impossible here to speak. I cannot,
however, forbear to express the opinion, that pun-
ishment should never be inflicted, except in cases
of the extremest necessity ; while the experiment
of sympathy, confidence, persuasion, encourage-
ment, should be repeated, for ever and ever. The
fear of bodily pain is a degrading motive; but we
have authority for saying, that where there is
perfect love, every known law will be fulfilled.
Parents and teachers often create that disgust at
study, and that incorrigibleness and obstinacy of
disposition, which they deplore. It is a sad ex-
change, if the very blows, which beat arithmetic
and grammar into a boy, should beat confidence
and manliness out. So it is quite as important to
consider what feelings are excited, in the mind,
as what are subdued, by the punishment. Which
side gains, though the evil spirit of roguery or
wantonness be driven out, if seven other evil
spirits, worse than the first, — sullenness, irrever-
ence, fraud, lying, hatred, malice, revenge, — are
allowed to come in ? The motive from which the
offence emanated, and the motives with which the
culprit leaves the bar of his judge and executioner,
are every thing. If these are not regarded, the
offender may go away worse than he came, in
addition to a gratuitous flagellation. To say a
child knows better, is nothing; if he knows better,
why does he not do better ? The answer to this
question reveals the difficulty ; and whoever has
47
not patience and sagacity to solve that inquiry, is
as unworthy of the parental trust, as is the physi-
cian, of administering to the sick, who prescribes
a fatal nostrum, and says, in justification, that he
knew nothing of the disease. In fine, if any
thing, in the wide range of education, demands
patience, forethought, judgment, and the all-sub-
duing spirit of love, it is this ; and though it may
be too much to say, that corporal punishment can
be disused by all teachers, with regard to all
scholars, in all schools, yet it may be averred,
without exception, that it is never inflicted with
the right spirit, nor in the right measure, when it
is not more painful to him who imposes, than to
him who receives it.
Of emulation in school, as an incitement to
effort, I can here say but a word ; but I entreat
all intelligent men to give to this subject a most
careful consideration. And let those who use it,
as a quickener of the intellect, beware, lest it
prove a depraver of the social aflfections. There
is no necessary incompatibility between the up-
ward progress of one portion of our nature, and
the lower and lower debasement of another. The
intellect may grow wise, while the passions grow
wicked. No cruelty towards a child can be so
great as that which barters morals for attainment.
If, under the fiery stimulus of emulation, the
pupil comes to regard a successful rival with envy
or malevolence, or an unsuccessful one with arro-
gance or disdain; if, in aiming at the goal of
precedence, he loses sight of the goal of perfection;
if, to gain his prize, he becomes the hypocrite,
instead of the reverer of virtue: — then, though
his intellect should enter upon the stage of life
with all the honors of an early triumph ; yet the
noblest parts of his nature, — his moral and social
affections, — will be the victims, led captive in the
retinue. Suppose, in some Theological Seminary,
48
a prize were offered for the best exposition of the
commandment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thy self, ^^ and two known competitors were to task
their intellects, to win it; — and, on the day of
trial, one of these neighbor-loving rivals, with
dilated nostril and expanded frame, should clutch
the honor ; while the other neighbor-loving rival,
with quivering lip and livid countenance, stood
by, — the vulture of envy, all the while, forking
her talons into his heart ; — would it not be that
very mixture of the ludicrous and the horrible,
which demons would choose for the subject of an
epigram ! Paint, or chisel the whole group of
neighbor-loving rivals, and pious doctors sitting
around and mingling, — in one chalice, the helle-
bore of pride, and in another, the wormwood of
defeat, — to be administered to those who should
be brothers, and can aught be found more worthy
to fill a niche in the council-hall of Pandemoni-
um ! Who has not seen winter, with its deepest
congelations, come in between ingenuous-minded
and loving fellow-students, whose hearts would
otherwise have run together, like kindred drops
of water? Who has not witnessed a consump-
tion, — not of the lungs, but of the heart; nay,
both of lungs and heart, — wasting its victims
with the smothered frenzy of emulation? It
surely is within the equity of the prayer, "lead
us not into temptation," not to lead others into it.
And ought not the teacher, who, as a general and
prevalent, — I do not say a universal rule, — cannot
sustain order and insure proficiency, in a school,
without resorting to fear and emulation, to con-
sider, whether the fault be in human nature or in
himself? And will there ever be any more of
that secret, silent beneficence amongst us, where
the left hand knows not of the blessings scattered
by the right?— will there ever be any less of this
deadly strife for the ostensible signs of precedence,
49
in the social and political arena, while the germs
of emulation are so assiduously cultivated in the
schoolroom, the academy, and the college 7 The
pale ambition of men, ready to sacrifice country
and kind for self, is only the fire of youthful
emulation, heated to a white heat. Yet, there is
an inborn sentiment of emulation, in all minds,
and there are external related objects of that sen-
timent. The excellent, who may be present with
us, but who are advanced in life ; the great and
good, who are absent, but whose fame is every
v/here; the illustrious dead; — these are the objects
of emulation. A rivalry with these yields sacred
love, not consuming envy. On these, therefore,
let the emulous and aspiring gaze, until their eyes
overflow with tears, and every tear will be the
baptism of honor and of purity.
Such are some of the most obvious topics, be-
longing to that sacred work, — the education of
children. The science, or philosophical princi-
ples on which this work is to be conducted ; the
art, or manner in which those principles are to be
applied, must all be rightly settled and generally
understood, before any system of Public Instruc-
tion can operate with efficiency. Yet all this has
been mainly left to chance. Compared with its
deserts, how disproportionate, how little, the labor,
cost and talent, devoted to it. We have a Con-
gress, convening annually, at almost incredible
expense, to decide upon questions of tarifl[*, inter-
nal improvement, and currency. We have a
State Legislature, continuing in session more than
a fourth part of every year, to regulate our inter-
nal polity. We have Courts, making continual
circuits through the Commonwealth to adjudi-
cate upon doubtful rights of person or property,
however trivial. Every great department of lite-
rature and of business has its Periodical. Every
party, political, religious and social, has its Press.
5
50
Yet Education, that vast cause, of which all
other causes are only constituent parts ; that cause,
on which all other causes are dependent, for their
vitality and usefulness, — if I except the American
Institute of Instruction, and a few local, feeble,
unpatronized, though worthy associations, — Edu-
cation has literally nothing, in the way of com-
prehensive organization and of united effort, acting
for a common end and under the focal light of a
common intelligence. It is under these circum-
stances ; it is in view of these great public wants,
that the Board of Education has been established,
— not to legislate, not to enforce, — but to collect
facts, to educe principles, to diffuse a knowledge
of improvements ; — in fine, to submit the views
of men who have thought much upon this subject
to men who have thought but little.
To specify the labors which education has yet
to perform, would be only to pass in review the
varied interests of humanity. Its general pur-
poses are to preserve the good and to repudiate
the evil which now exist, and to give scope to
the subUme law of progression. It is its duty to
take the accumulations in knowledge, of almost
six thousand years, and to transfer the vast treas-
ure to posterity. Suspend its functions for but one
generation, and the experience and the achieve-
ments of the past are lost. The race must com-
mence its fortunes anew, and must again spend
six thousand years, before it can grope its way
upward from barbarism to the present point of
civiHzation. With the wisdom, education must
also teach something of the follies, of the past,
for admonition and warning ; for it has been well
said, that mankind have seldom arrived at truth,
on any subject, until they had first exhausted its
errors.
Education is to instruct the whole people in the
proper care of the body, in order to augment the
51
powers of that wonderful macliinej and to prevent
so much of disease, of suffering, and of premature
death. The body is the mind's instrument; and
the powers of the mind, hke the skill of an artisan,
may all be baffled, through the imperfection of
their utensils. The happiness and the usefulness
of thousands and tens of thousands of men and
women have been destroyed, from not knowing a
few of the simple laws of health, which they
might have learned in a few months ; — nay, which
might have been so impressed upon them, as habits,
in childhood, that they would never think there
was any other way. I do not speak of the ruin,
that comes from slavery to throned appetites,
where the bondage might continue in defiance of
knowledge ; but 1 speak of cases, where the pros-
tration of noble powers and the suffering of terrible
maladies result from sheer ignorance and false
views of the wise laws to which God has subjected
our physical nature. No doubt, Voltaire said
truly, that the fate of many a nation had depended
upon the good or bad digestion of its minister;
and how much more extensively true would the
remark be, if applied to individuals 7 How many
men perfectly understand the observances by
which their horses and cattle are made healthy
and strong; while their children are puny, distem-
pered, and have chronic diseases, at the very
earliest age, at which so highly-finished an article
as a chronic disease can be prepared. There is a
higher art than the art of the physician ; — the art,
not of restoring^ but of making health. Health
is a product. Health is a manufactured article,
— as much so as any fabric of the loom or the
workshop ; and, except in some few cases of he-
reditary taint or of organic lesion from accident or
violence, the how much, or the how little, health
any man shall enjoy, depends upon his treatment
of himself; or rather, upon the treatment of those
52
who manage his infancy and childhood, and cre-
ate his habits for him. Situated, as we are, in a
high latitude, with the Atlantic ocean on one side
and a range of mountains on the other, we cannot
escape frequent and great transitions, in the tem-
perature of our weather. Our region is the perpet-
ual battle-ground of the torrid and the arctic,
where they alternately prevail ; and it is only by
a sort of average that we call it temperate. Yet
to this natural position we must adapt ourselves,
or abandon it, or suffer. Hence the necessity of
making health, in order to endure natural inclem-
encies ; and hence also the necessity of including
the simple and benign laws on which it depends, in
all our plans of education. Certainly, our hearts
should glow with gratitude to Heaven, for all the
means of health ; but every expression indicating
that health is a Divine gift, in any other sense
than all our blessings are a Divine gift, should be
discarded from the language ; and it should be
incorporated into the forms of speech, that a man
prepares his own health, as he does his own house.
Education is to inspire the love of truth, as the
supremest good, and to clarify the vision of the
intellect to discern it. We want a generation of
men above deciding great and eternal principles,
upon narrow and selfish grounds. Our advanced
state of civilization has evolved many complicated
questions respecting social duties. We want a
generation of men capable of taking up these
complex questions, and of turning all sides of
them towards the sun, and of examining them by
the white light of reason, and not under the false
colors which sophistry may throw upon them.
We want no men who will change, like the vanes
of our steeples, with the course of the popular
wind; but we want men who, like mountains,
will change the course of the wind. We want
no more of those patriots who exhaust their pa-
53
triotism, in lauding the past ; but we want patriots
who will do for the future what the past has done
for us. We want men capable of deciding, not
merely what is right, in principle, — that is often
the smallest part of the case ; — but we want men
capable of deciding what is right in means, to ac-
complish what is right in principle. We want
men who will speak to this great people in counsel,
and not in flattery. We want godlike men who
can tame the madness of the times, and, speaking
divine words in a divine spirit, can say to the
raging of human passions, " Peace, be still ;" and
usher in the calm of enlightened reason and
conscience. Look at our community, divided into
so many parties and factions, and these again
subdivided, on all questions of social, national,
and international, duty ; — while, over all, stands,
ahnost unheeded, the sublime form of Truth,
eternally and indissolubly One ! Nay, further,
those do not agree in thought who agree in words.
Their unanimity is a delusion. It arises from the
imperfection of language. Could men, who sub-
scribe to the same forms of words, but look into
each other's minds, and see, there, what features
their own idolized doctrines wear, friends would
often start back from the friends they have loved,
with as much abhorrence as from the enemies
they have persecuted. Now, what can save us
from endless contention, but the love of truth'?
What can save us, and our children after us, from
eternal, implacable, universal war, but the great-
est of all human powers, — the power of impartial
thought? Many, — may I not say most, — of those
great questions, which make the present age boil
and seethe, like a cauldron, will never be settled,
until we have a generation of men who were
educated, from childhood, to seek for truth and to
revere justice. In the middle of the last century,
a great dispute arose among astronomers, respect-
5*
54
ing one of the planets. Some, in their folly,
commenced a war of words, and wrote hot books
against each other ; others, in their wisdom, im-
proved their telescopes, and soon settled the ques-
tion forever. Education should imitate the latter.
If there are momentous questions which, with
present lights, we cannot demonstrate and deter-
mine, let us rear up stronger, and purer, and more
impartial, minds, for the solemn arbitrament. Let
it be for ever and ever inculcated, that no bodily-
wounds or maim, no deformity of person, nor
disease of brain, or lungs, or heart, can be so
disabling or so painful, as error ; and that he who
heals us of our prejudices is a thousand fold more
our benefactor, than he who heals us of mortal
maladies. Teach children, if you will, to beware
of the bite of a mad dog ; but teach them still
more faithfully, that no horror of water is so fatal
as a horror of truth, because it does not come from
our leader or our party. Then shall we have
more men who will think, as it were, under oath ;
— not thousandth and ten thousandth transmitters
of falsity; — not copyists of copyists, and blind
followers of blind followers; but men who can
track the Deity in his ways of wisdom. A love
of truth, — a love of truth ; this is the pool of a
moral Bethesda, whose waters have miraculous
healing. And though we lament that we cannot
bequeath to posterity this precious boon, in its
perfectness, as the greatest of all patrimonies, yet
let us rejoice that we can inspire a love of it, a
reverence for it, a devotion to it ; and thus cir-
cumscribe and weaken whatever is wrong, and
enlarge and strengthen whatever is right, in that
mixed inheritance of good and evil, which, in the
order of Providence, one generation transmits to
another.
If we contemplate the subject with the eye of
a statesman, what resources are there, in the
55
whole domain of Nature, at all comparable to
that vast influx of power which comes into the
world with every incoming generation of children?
Each embryo life is more wonderful than the
globe it is sent to inhabit, and more glorious than
the sun upon which it first opens its eyes. Each
one of these millions, with a fitting education, is
capable of adding something to the sum of human
happiness, and of subtracting something from the
sum of human misery; and many great souls
amongst them there are, who may become instru-
ments for turning the course of nations, as the
rivers of water are turned. It is the duty of moral
and religious education to employ and administer
all these capacities of good, for lofty purposes of
human beneficence, — as a wise minister employs
the resources of a great empire. "Suffer little
children to come unto me," said the Savior,
*' and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom
of Heaven." And who shall dare say, that phi-
lanthropy and religion cannot make a better world
than the present, from beings like those in the
kingdom of Heaven^
Education must be universal. It is well, when
the wise and the learned discover new truths ; but
how much better to diffuse the truths already dis-
covered, amongst the multitude ! Every addition
to true knowledge is an addition to human power;
and while a philosopher is discovering one new
truth, millions may be propagated amongst the
people. Diffusion, then, rather than discovery,
is the duty of -our government. With us, the
qualification of voters is as important as the qual-
ification of governors, and even comes first, in the
natural order. Yet there is no Sabbath of rest,
in our contests about the latter, while so little is
done to qualify the former. /The theory of our
government is, — not that all men, however unfit,
shall be voters, — but that every man, by the power
56
of reason and the sense of duty, shall become fit
to be a voter. Education must bring the practice
as nearly as possible to the theory. As the chil-
dren now are, so will the sovereigns soon be. How
can we expect the fabric of the government to
stand, if vicious materials are daily wrought into
its frame- work? Education must prepare our
citizens to become municipal officers, intelligent
jurors, honest witnesses, legislators, or competent
judges of legislation, — in fine, to fill all the mani-
fold relations of life. For this end, it must be
universal/ The whole land must be watered with
the streams of knowledge. It is not enough to
have, here and there, a beautiful fountain playing
in palace-gardens; but let it come like the abun-
dant fatness of the clouds upon the thirsting earth.
Finally, education, alone^ can conduct us to
that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality
and infinite in quantity. God has revealed to us,
— not by ambiguous signs, but by His mighty
works ; — not in the disputable language of human
mvention, but by the soUd substance and reality of
things, — what He holds to be valuable, and what
He regards as of little account. The latter He
has created sparingly, as though it were nothing
worth ; while the former He has poured forth with
immeasurable munificence. I suppose all the
diamonds ever found, could be hid under a bushel.
Their quantity is little, because their value is
small. But iron ore, — without which mankind
would always have been barbarians; without
which they would now relapse into barbarism, —
he has strewed profusely all over the earth. Com-
pare the scantiness of pearl, with the extent of
forests and coal-fields. Of one, little has been
created, because it is worth little ; of the others,
much, because they are worth much. His foun-
tains of naphtha, how few, and myrrh and frank-
incense, how exiguous ; but who can fathom His
57
reservoirs of water, or measure the light and the
air ! This principle pervades every realm of Na-
ture. Creation seems to have been projected upon
the plan of increasing the quantity, in the ratio
of the intrinsic value. Emphatically is this plan
manifested, when we come to that part of crea-
tion we call ourselves. Enough of the materials
of worldly good has been created to answer this
great principle, — that, up to the point of com-
petence, up to the point of independence and
self-respect, few things are more valuable than
property; beyond that point, few things are of
less. And hence it is, that all acquisitions of
property, beyond that point, — considered and used
as mere property, — confer an inferior sort of pleas-
ure, in inferior quantities. However rich a man
may be, a certain number of thicknesses of wool-
lens or of silks is all he can comfortably wear.
Give him a dozen palaces, he can live in but one
at a time. Though the commander be worth the
whole regiment, or ship's company, he can have
the animal pleasure of eating only his own rations j
and any other animal eats, with as much relish
as he. Hence the wealthiest, with all their wealth,
are driven back to a cultivated mind, to benefi-
cent uses and appropriations ; and it is then, and
then only, that a glorious vista of hajJpiness opens
out into immensity and immortality.
Education, then, is to show to our youth, in
early life, this broad line of demarcation between
the value of those things which can be owned
and enjoyed by but one, and those which can be
owned and enjoyed by all. If I own a ship, a
house, a farm, or a mass of the metals called pre-
cious, my right to them is, in its nature, sole and
exclusive. No other man has a right to trade
with my ship, to occupy my house, to gather my
harvests, or to appropriate my treasures to his use.
They are mine, and are incapable, both of a sole
58
and of a joint possession. But not so of the
treasures of knowledge, which it is the duty of
education to diffuse. The same truth may enrich
and ennoble all intelligences at once. Infinite
diffusion subtracts nothing from depth. None are
made poor because others are made rich. In this
part of the Divine economy, the privilege of pri-
mogeniture attaches to all ; and every son and
daughter of Adam are heirs to an infinite patri-
mony. If I own an exquisite picture or statue,
it is mine, exclusively. Even though publicly
exhibited, but few could be charmed by its beau-
ties, at the same time. It is incapable of bestowing
a pleasure, simultaneous and universal. But not
so of the beauty of a moral sentiment ; not so of
the glow of sublime emotion ; not so of the feelings
of conscious purity and rectitude. These may
shed rapture upon all, without deprivation of any ;
be imparted, and still possessed; transferred to
millions, yet never surrendered ; carried out of the
world, and still left in it. These may imparadise
mankind, and, undiluted, unattenuated, be sent
round the whole orb of being. Let education,
then, teach children this great truth, written as it
is on the fore-front of the universe, that God has
so constituted this world, into which He has sent
them, that whatever is really and truly valuable
may be possessed by all, and possessed in exhaust-
less abundance.
And now, you, my friends ! who feel that you
are patriots and lovers of mankind, — what bul-
warks, what ramparts for freedom can you devise,
so enduring and impregnable, as intelligence and
virtue ! Parents ! among the happy groups of chil-
dren whom you have at home, — more dear to you
than the blood in the fountain of life, — you have-
not a son nor a daughter who, in this world of
temptation, is not destined to encounter perils more
dangerous than to walk a bridge of a single plank.
69
ov^ a dark and sweeping torrent, beneath. But
it is in your power and at your option, with the
means which Providence will graciously vouch-
safe, to give them that firmness of intellectual
movement and that keenness of moral vision, —
that light of knowledge and that omnipotence
of virtue, — by which, in the hour of trial, they
will be able to walk, with unfaltering step, over
the deep and yawning abyss, below, and to reach
the opposite shore, in safety, and honor, and hap-
piness.
LECTURE II.
1838.
LECTURE II
SPECIAL PREPARATION, A PRE-REQUISITE TO
TEACHING.
Gentlemen of the Convention :
After the lapse of another year, we are again
assembled to hold counsel together for the welfare
of our children. On this occasion, we have much
reason to meet each other with voices of congrat-
ulation and hearts of gladness. During the past
year, the cause of Popular Education, in this
Commonwealth, has gained some suffrages of
public opinion. On presenting its wants and its
claims to citizens in every part of the State, I
have found that there were many individuals who
appreciated its importance, and who only awaited
an opportunity to give utterance and action to
their feelings; — in almost every town, some, — in
many, a band.
Some of onr hopes, also, have become facts.
The last Legislature acted towards this cause,
the part of a wise and faithful guardian. In-
quiries having been sent into all parts of the
Commonwealth, to ascertain the deficiencies in
our Common School system, and the causes of
failure in its workings; and the results of those
inquiries having been communicated to the Legis-
lature, — together with suggestions for the applica-
tion of a few obvious and energetic remedies, —
that body forthwith enacted such laws as the
wants of the system most immediately and impe-
riously demanded. Probably, at no session since
the origin of our Common School system, have
64
laws more propitious to its welfare been made,
than during the last. True, the substantive parts
of the great system of Public Instruction, pre-
existed; but, in many respects, these parts were
like the wheels of some excellent machine, un-
skilfully put together; and hence, if not abso-
lutely refusing to go, for want of proper adjust-
ment, yet going, at best, only according to our
expressive word, bunglingly. The enactments of
the last session, have, to no inconsiderable extent,
adjusted the relative parts of this machinery, in
an admirable manner ; and it now only remains
for the people to do their part, by vigorously
applying the power that is to move it.
For instance, the law formerly compelled towns,
under a penalty, to choose school committees; and
it accumulated such an amount of duties upon
these officers, that the efficiency, nay, I might
almost say, the very existence, of the schools, for
any useful purpose, depended upon their intelli-
gence and fidelity; and yet, because this law
provided no compensation for their services, nor
even indemnity for their actual expenses, it left
the whole weight of private interest gravitating
against public duty. In the apprehension of
many persons, too, there seemed to be something
of officiousness and obtrusion, when the commit-
tees entered earnestly and faithfully upon the
discharge of the legal obligations they had as-
sumed. An office was lightly esteemed to which
public opinion attached no rank, and the law no
emolument. It was an office, too, in which fidel-
ity often gave offence, and one whose duties were
always deemed burdensome, and but rarely ac-
counted honorable. Hence, the punctilious dis-
charge of its various duties, required a higher
degree of public spirit, or ia greater enthusiasm in
the noble cause of education, than the present con-
dition of our society is likely to furnish. Besides,
many towns circumvented the law; for, though
65
the law had provided that the office of school com-
mittee man should not lie dormant, yet it could
make no such wakeful provision in regard to the
officer. Hence, school committees were not un fre-
quently chosen, by the towns, with a tacit, and
sometimes, even, with an express understanding,
that they were to sleep during the whole of the
school terms, and only to rouse themselves up in
sufficient season to make such an annual Return,
as would secure a share of the income of the school
fund to their respective towns. But this condition
of things is now changed. By the late law, school
committees are hereafter to receive a moderate
compensation for services rendered, — or, at least, a
sufficient sum to reimburse the expenses which
they actually incur. Is it too much, therefore, for
us now to say, in regard to these officers, that, not
only their own townsmen, but the friends of educa-
tion generally, have a right to expect, that they will
so fulfil the requisitions of the law, that a looker-
on may know what the law is, by seeing what the
committees do, as well as he could, by reading
its provisions in the pages of the statute book 7
Is this demand loo great, when we consider the
claims which the office has upon the effi^rts of all
wise and benevolent men 7 The committees are
to prescribe the books which are to be used in the
schools. They are to see that every child whose
parents are unable to supply it with books, is
supplied at the expense of the town. They are
to visit every district school soon after its opening,
and shortly before its close, and once a month
during its continuance ; — and this duty of visita-
tion, let me say, means something more than just
stopping, when engaged on some other errand oi
business, fastening a horse at the schoolhouse
door, and going in for a few rtiinutes to rest or (o
warm. Emphatically, — I would speak it with
ten fold emphasis, — they are to see that none but
6*
66
the very best persons who can possibly be pro-
cured, are put in as keepers of that inestimable,
unutterable treasure, the children of the district.
Another provision of the' late law requires the
committee of each town to keep a record, in a per-
manent form, of all their acts, votes, and proceed-
ings ; and, at the end of their official year, to de-
liver the record-book to their successors in office.
If the affairs of the pettiest manufacturing cor-
poration cannot be systematically nor economi-
cally conducted, without a sworn clerk, and the
registration of every corporate act, must not the
incomparably greater interests of the schools suf-
fer, if all the orders and regulations of the school
committees have no other depository, nor means
of verification in case of dispute, than the uncer-
tainty of human memory, and the faithlessness
of oral testimony?
A far more important duty imposed upon school
committees by the new law, — one which will
form an epoch in the history of education in Mas-
sachusetts, — is that of making to the towns, an-
nually, a "detailed" report of the condition of
the schools, "designating particular improvements
and defects in the methods or means of education,
and stating such facts and suggestions in relation
thereto, as, in their opinion, will best promote
the interests, and increase the usefulness of said
schools." The significance of this provision lies
in the word ''^detailedP The reports are to be
specific, not general. They are to expose errors
and abuses, and to be accompanied by plans for
their rectification. They are to particularize im-
provements, and to devise the means for their
attainment. The mere fact of knowing that a
report must be made at the end of the year, will
attract the attention of committee men to a vari-
ety of facts, and will suggest numerous consider-
ations, which would otherwise elude both their
67
observation and reflection. We are so constituted
that, the moment we have a fixed purpose in our
minds, there arises, at once, a sort of elective
affinity between that purpose and its related
ideas; and the latter will come, one after another,
and, as it were, crystallize around the former.
Besides, no man ever comprehends his own views
clearly and definitely, or ever avails himself of
all the resources of his own mind, until he reduces
his thoughts to writing, or embodies them in some
visible, objective form. To make a "detailed
report," which is based upon facts, which will be
useful to the town, and creditable to the commit-
tee, will doubtless require great attention and
forethought. But if school committees perform
this duty with half that far-reaching sagacity, that
almost incredible thoroughness, which is always
displayed by those town-agents who are chosen
to employ counsel, and hunt up evidence, in
pauper-cases, such reports will be most invalu-
able documents. And yet the manner in which
this duty is performed will settle the question
prospectively, for many a child, whether he shall
be a pauper or not, — not the question of the body's
pauperism only, but of the soul's pauperism.
These annual reports of the committees are by
law to be deposited with the town clerk. They
are to be transcribed, and the copy forwarded
to the office of the Secretary of State, for the use
of the Board of Education. Each succeeding
year, therefore, there will be placed in the hands
of the Board, three hundred reports, describing
the condition. of the schools, in every part of the
State, with more or less particularity and ability,
according to the intelligence and fidelity of the
respective committees. It seems to me that selec-
tions may then be made, — if the worjc is not too
great, — of the most instructive portions of the
whole body of these reports. Let a volume con-
68
sisting of these selections be transmitted to every
town in the State. Each town will then receive
back its own contribution, in a permanent form,
multiplied by the contributions of three hundred
other towns. Such a course, if adopted, will make
known to all, the views, the plans and experi-
ments of each. It will be a Multiplying-glass,
increasing each beam of light, three hundred
times. I venture to predict that, hereafter, no
document will be found to transcend these, in
value, and in the interest and gratitude they will
inspire. Posterity will here see what was done
for them by their fathers. Surely, the interest
inherent in these records, cannot be less than that
which has lately led the Commonwealth to pub-
lish those Colonial and Revolutionary papers,
which trace out the very paths in the wilderness,
through which, under the guidance of the pillar
and the cloud, our fathers came out of the land of
Egypt and out of the house of bondage. Com-
pared with the bondage of ignorance and vice,
Pharaoh was clement and his task-masters mer-
ciful.
Another provision of the law requires that
Registers, in such form as shall be prescribed by
the Board of Education, shall be kept in all the
schools. As a means of collecting accurate sta-
tistics, registers are indispensable. They will
also reveal a fact, to the existence of which the
public eye seems almost wholly closed. I mean
the amount or extent of non-attendance upon our
schools, and the enormous losses thereby occa-
sioned. In the hand of an adroit teacher, too,
the register may be made an efficient means of
remedying that irregularity of attendance which
it discloses. If the school is what it should be,
the remark will be literally true, that every mark
in the register indicating a vacancy in the child's
seat at school, will indicate a corresponding va-
cuum in his mind.
69
But, before I go on to speak of other provisions
of the law, perhaps there may be a class of per-
sons ready to ask, — " Why all this interference?
Why this obtrusion of the State into the concerns
of the individual? Are not our children," say
they, ''our own? Who can be presumed to care
more for them than we do? And whence your
authority," they demand, " to fetter our free-will,
and abridge our sovereignty in their manage-
ment?" The vagabond, the drunkard, the mon-
ster-parent who wishes to sell his children to
continuous labor, — who, for the pittance of money
ihey can earn, is willing they should grow up with-
out schooling, without instruction, and be used,
year after year, as parts of machinery, — these
may cry out to the Legislature, — " By what right
do you come between us and our offspring? By
what right do you appoint a Board of Education
and a Secretary to pry into our domestic arrange-
ments, and take from us our parental rights?
We wish to be our own Board of Education and
Secretary also." Such questions may, perhaps,
be honestly put, and therefore should be soberly
answered.
The children, whom parents have brought into
this world, are carried forwards by the ceaseless
flow of time, and the irresistible course of nature,
and will soon be men. They are daily gathering
forces and passions of fearful energy, soon to be
expended upon society. The powers of citizen-
ship, which reach every man's home and every
man's hearth, will soon be theirs. In a brief
space, these children will have the range of the
whole community, and will go forth to pollute or
to purify, to be bane or blessing to those who are
to live with them, and to come after them. On
the day when their minority ceases, their parents
will deliver them over, as it were, into the hands
of society, without any regard to soundness or
70
unsoundness in their condition. Forthwith, that
society has to assume the entire responsibiUty of
their conduct for life ; — for society, in its collective
capacity, is a real, not a nominal sponsor and
godfather for all its children. Society has no
option whether to accept or to reject them. Society
cannot say to any parent^ " Take back this felon-
brood of yours; we never ordered any such
recruits; we know not what to do with them^
we dread them, and therefore we will not receive
them;" — but society must equally accept them^
whether they are pieces of noblest workmanship^
inwrought with qualities of divinest beauty and
excellence, or whether they are mere trumpery
and gilded pasteboard, impossible to be thought
of for any useful purpose. Now, in those cases
from which the objectors draw their analogies,
the circumstances are totally different. If I make
a general contract with my neighbor for an article
of merchandize, the intendment of the law is,
that it shall be, at least, of a fair, merchantable
quality ; — and if it be valueless, or even materially
defective, in stock or workmanship, the law exon-
erates me from all obligation to receive it. I may
cast it back into the hands of the producer, and
make the loss wholly his, not mine. So if, for a
sound price, I contract with a dealer to furnish
me a horse for a specified journey or business, and
he, instead of providing for me an animal suitable
for the object stipulated, sends me an old hack,
whose only merit is that one might study all the
diseases of farriery upon him, — there is not a
court or jury in the country but would make the
fraudulent jockey take back the beast, and pay
smart-money, and all the costs of litigation. But
not so, when parents deliver over to the commu-
nity a son who carries the poison of asps beneath
his glistening tongue; or a daughter, who, from
her basilisk eye, streams guilt into whomsoever
71
she looks upon. Twenty-one years after a child's
birth, — and often mucli earlier than that, — ^be he
sot, brawler, libeller, poisoner, lyncher, — society
has, none the less, to take him into her bosom,
and bear his stings and stabs; — and this, as I
suppose, is the reason why all those good citizens
who care what they have in their bosoms, have
^n undoubted right to take these precautions
beforehand.
Another provision of law, which transfers the
power to select and employ teachers, from the
prudential to the town's committee, — unless the
town shall otherwise order, — is worthy of com-
mendation. While this arrangement allows a
continuance of the old system, in towns where it
is preferred, it proposes a course which is far better,
and which is sure to be adopted just as fast as
the interests of education and the best means of
promoting it, become better understood and more
appreciated by the community.
But not inferior in importance to any of the pre-
ceding, is another law, passed by the Legislature
at its last session. It is not a compulsory, but a
permissive enactment. You doubtless anticipate,
that I refer to the law which authorizes the union
of two or more existing school districts, so as to
form a Union or Central school, for teaching more
advanced studies to the older children.
Heretofore the practice, in most towns, has been,
to subdivide territory into smaller and smaller
districts; and this practice has drawn after it
the calamitous consequences of stinted means,
and of course, cheap schoolhouses, cheap teachers
and short schools. Under this weakening process,
many of our children have fared like southern
fruits in a northern clime, where, owing to the
coldness of the soil and the shortness of the sea-
son, they never more than half ripen. Immature
fruits, at the close of the year, are not only val-
72
ueless, but they sometimes breed physical diseases ,
but such diseases are a blessing compared to those
moral distempers which must be engendered,
when immature minds, fermenting with unsound
principles, are sent forth into the community.
The prevailing argument, in favor of the subdi-
vision of districts, has been the inconvenience of
sending small children, great distances, to school.
The new law remedies this difficulty. It allows
the continuation of existing districts for the small
scholars, while it invites the union of two or
more of them for the accommodation of the larger
ones. As the benefits of this arrangement are set
forth in my supplementary Report to the Board
of Education, on schoolhouses, (pp. 30, 31,) I
need not dwell upon them here. On reference to
that report, it will be seen that the advantages to
the older scholars, attending the union or central
school, will be more than doubled, at a diminished
expense. Nor will the benefits of this arrange-
ment, to the small children, be less, — particularly,
because it will secure to them the more congenial
influences of female teaching.
I believe there will soon be an entire unanimity
in public sentiment in regarding female as supe-
rior to male teaching for young children. As a
iplain man of excellent sense once said to me, " A
woman will find out where a child's mind is,
quickest." I may add, that she will not only find
where a child's mind is, more quickly than a man
would do, but she will follow its movements more
readily; and, if it has gone astray, she will lead it
back into the right path more gently and kindly.
Under our present system, the proportion of the
female to the male teachers, in our public schools,
is about as three to two. This disparity of num-
bers may be increased with advantage to all, both
as to quantity and quality of instruction. It is
also universally known that there is, in our
73
community, a vast amount of female talent, of
generous, philantlnopic purpose, now unappropri-
ated. It lies waste and dormant for want of
some genial sphere of exercise; and its possessors
are thereby half driven, from mere vacuity of
mind, and the irritation of unemployed faculties,
to the frivolities and despicableness of fashion,
to silly amusements, or to reading silly books,
merely to kill time, which, properly understood,
means killing one's self I trust there are many
noble-minded young women amongst us, whose
souls are impatient of a degradation to that idle-
ness and uselessness to which false notions of
rank and wealth would consign them ; and who
would rejoice, in some form, either as public
servants or as private benefactors, to enter this
sphere of useful, beneficent employment. As the
tone of society now is, the daughters of the poor
do not suffer more from a want of the comforts
and the refinements of life than the daughters of
the rich do, from never knowing or feeling what
the high destinies of woman are. But it is begin-
ning to be perceived that the elevation of the
character, the condition and the social rank of
tlie female sex, produced by Christianity and other
conspiring causes, has, by conferring new priv-
ileges, also imposed new duties upon them.
In reference to this topic, I wish it to be con-
sidered more deeply than it has ever yet been,
whether there be not, in truth, a divinely ap-
pointed ministry for the performance of the earlier
services in the sacred temple of education. Is
there not an obvious, constitutional difference of
temperament between the sexes, indicative of a
prearranged fitness and adaptation, and making
known to us, as by a heaven-imparted sign,
that woman, by her livelier sensibility and her
quicker sympathies, is the forechosen guide and
guardian of children of a tender age? After s
7
74
child's mind has acquired some toughness and
induration, by exposure for a few years to the
world's hardening processes, then let it be sub-
jected to the firmer grasp, to the more forcible,
subduing power of masculine hands. But when
the infant spirit, Avhich even too rude an embrace
would wound, is first ushered into this sharp and
thorny life, let whatever the gross earth contains
of gentleness, of ethereal delicacy, of loving tender-
ness, be its welcomer, and cherish it upon its hal-
cyon bosom, and lead it as by still waters. And
why should woman, lured by a false ambition to
shine in courts or to mingle in the clashing tumults
of men, ever disdain this sacred and peaceful
ministry ? Why, renouncing this serene and
blessed sphere of duty, should she ever lift up her
voice in the thronged market-places of society,
higgling and huckstering to barter away that
divine and acknowledged superiority iji sentiment
which belongs to her own sex, to extort confes-
sions from the other, of a mere equality in reason 7
Why, in self-debasement, should she ever strive
to put off the sublime affections and the ever-
beaming beauty of a seraph, that she may clothe
a coarser, though it should be a stronger spirit, in
the stalworth limbs and hugeness of a giant?
Nature declares that whatever has the robustness
of the oak, shall have its ruggedness also. To no
portion of her works has she at once given pre-
eminence both in strength and in grace. If the
intellect of woman, like that of man, has the
sharpness and the penetrancy of iron and of steel,
it must also be as cold and as hard. No ! but to
breathe pure and exalted sentiments into young
and tender hearts, — to take the censers which
Heaven gives, and kindle therein the incense
which Heaven loves, — this is her high and holy
mission. To be the former of wise and great
minds, is as much more noble than to be wise and
75
great, as the creative is higher than the created.
In camps or senates, she could shine but for a
day, and with a fitful light ; but if, with enduring
patience and fidelity, she fulfils her sacred duties
to childhood, then, from the sanctuary of her calm
and sequestered life, there will go forth a reful-
gent glory to irradiate all countries and all cen-
turies. The treasures of virtue are self-perpetu-
ating and self-increasing, and when she gathers
them into young hearts,' to grow with their growth
and strengthen with their strength, she makes
Time so rich an almoner, that though he goes
strowing and scattering his blessings over the
earth and over the ages, yet he will never be im-
poverished, but only so much the more abound.
The loftiest spirits, the finest geniuses of pagan
antiquity passed by the gods of the deep and full-
flowing river with moderated reverence, but, nicely
true to a moral and a religious instinct, they bore
their richest offerings and paid their deepest
homage to the goddess who presided at the foun-
tain.
But amongst all the auspicious events of the
past year, ought not the friends of popular edu-
cation to be most grateful, on account of the offer
made by a private gentleman^ to the Legislature,
of the sum of ten thousand dollars, upon the con-
ditions that the State should add thereto an equal
sum, and that the amount should be expended,
under the direction of the Board of Education, in
qualifying teachers for our Common Schools, and
of the promptness and unanimity with which the
Legislature acceded to the proposition? I say,
the unanimity, for the vote was entirely unani-
mous in the House of Representatives, and there
was but one nay in the Senate. Vast donations
have been made in this Commonwealth, both by
the government and by individuals, for the cause
* Hon. Edmund Dwij^ht, of Boston.
of learning in some of its higher, and, of course,
more limited departments ; but I believe this to
be the first instance where any considerable sum
has been given for the cause of education, gener-
ally, and irrespective of class, or sect, or party.
Munificent donations have frequently been made,
amongst ourselves, as well as in other States and
countries, to perpetuate some distinctive theory or
dogma of one's own, or to requite a peculiar few
who may have honored or flattered the giver. But
this was given to augment the common mass of
intelligence, and to promote universal culture ; it
was given with a high and enlightened disregard
of all local, party, personal or sectional views ;
it was given for the direct benefit of all the heart
and all the mind, extant^ or to he extant, m our
beloved Commonwealth ; and, in this respect, it
certainly stands out almost, if not absolutely
alone, both in the amount of the donation, and in
the elevation of the motive that prompted it. I
will not tarnish the brightness of this dieedi, by
attempting to gild it with praise. One of the
truest and most impressive sentiments ever uttered
by Sir Walter Scott is, hoAvever, so appropriate,
and forces itself so strongly upon my mind, that I
cannot repress its utterance. When that plain
and homely Scotch girl, Jeannie Deans, — the high-
est of all the characters ever conceived by that
gifted author, — is pleading her suit before the
British queen, — and showing herself therein to be
ten times a queen, — she utters the sentiment I
refer to : " But when," says she, " the hour of
trouble comes to the mind or to the body, and when
the hour of death comes, that comes to high and
low, then it isna what we hae dune for oursells,
but what we hae dune for others, that we think
on maist pleasantly."
There is, then, at last, on the part of the gov-
ernment of Massachusetts, a recognition of the
expediency of providing means for the special
qualification of teachers for our Common Schools ;
or, at least, of submitting that question to a fair ex-
periment. Let us not, however, deceive or flatter
ourselves with the belief, that such an opinion very
generally prevails, or is very deeply seated. A
few, and those, as we believe, best qualified to
judge, hold this opinion as an axiom. But this
cannot be said of great numbers ; and it requires
no prophetic vision to foresee that any plan for
carrying out this object, however wisely framed,
will have to encounter not only the prejudices of
the ignorant, but the hostility of the selfish.
The most momentous practical questions now
before our state and country are these : In order
to preserve our republican institutions, must not
our Common Schools be elevated in character and
increased in efficiency? and, in order to bring our
schools up to the point of excellence demanded by
the nature of our institutions, must there not be a
special course of study and training to qualify
teachers for their office? No other worldly inter-
est presents any question comparable to these in
importance. To the more special consideration of
the latter, — namely, whether the teachers of our
public schools require a special course of study
and training to qualify them for their vocation, —
I solicit your attention, during the residue of this
address.
I shall not here insist upon any particular mode
of preparation, or of preparation in any particular
class of institutions, — whether Normal Schools,
special departments in academies, colleges, or
elsewhere, — to the exclusion of all other institu-
tions. What I insist upon, is, not the form, but
the substance.
In treating this subject, duty will require me to
speak of errors and deficiencies; and of the inade-
quate conceptions now entertained of the true
7*
7S
office and mission of a teacher. This is a painfu
obligation, and in discharging it I am sure I shal
not be misunderstood by any candid and intelli-
gent mind. Towards the teachers of our schools,
— as a class, — I certainly possess none but the most
fraternal feelings. Their want of adequate qual-
ifications is th§ want of the times, rather than of
themselves. Teachers, heretofore, have only been
partakers in a general error, — an error in v/hich
you and I, my hearers, have been as profoundly
lost as they. Let this be their excuse hitherto,
and let the ignorance of the past be winked at;
but the best service we can now render them, is
to take this excuse away, by showing the inade-
quacy and the unsoundness of our former views.
Let all who shall henceforth strive to do better,
stand acquitted for past delinquencies ; but will not
those deserve a double measure of condemnation
who shall set themselves in array against meas-
ures, which so many wise and good men have
approved, — at least until those measures have been
fairly tested? When the tree shall have been
planted long enough to mature its fruit, then, let it
be known by its fruit.
No one has ever supposed that an individual
could build up a material temple, and give it
strength, and convenience, and fair proportions,
without first mastering the architectural art ; but
we have employed thousands of teachers for our
children, to build up the immortal Temple of the
Spirit, who have never given to this divine, edu-
cational art, a day nor an hour of preliminary
study or attention. How often have we sneered at
Dogberry in the play, because he holds that '• to
read and write comes by nature;" when we our-
selves have undertaken to teach, or have employed
teachers, whose only fitness for giving instruction,
not only in reading and writing, but in all other
things^ has come by nature, if it has come at all ;
79
— that is, in exact accordance with Dogberry's
philosophy.
In maintaining the affirmative of this question,
—namely, that all teachers do require a special
course of study and training, to qualify them for
their profession, — I will not higgle with my adver-
sary in adjusting preliminaries. He may be the
disciple of any school in metaphysics, and he
may hold what faith he pleases, respecting the
mind's nature and essence. Be he spiritualist or
materialist, it here matters not, — nay, though he
should deny that there is any such substance as
mind or spirit, at all, I will not stop to dispute
that point with him, — preferring rather to imitate
the example of those old knights of the tourna-
ment, who felt such confidence in the justness of
their cause, that they gave their adversaries the
advantage of sun and wind. For, whatever the
mind may be, in its inscrutable nature or essence,
or whether there be any such thing as mind or
spirit at all, properly so called, this we have
seen and do know, that there come beings into
this world, with every incoming generation of
children, who, although at first so ignorant,
helpless, speechless, — so incapable of all' motion,
upright or rotary, — that we can hardly persuade
ourselves they have not lost their way, and come,
by mistake, into the wrong world; yet, after a
few swift years have passed away, we see thou-
sands of these same ignorant and helpless beings,
expiating horrible offences in prison cells, or dash-
ing themselves to death against the bars of a
maniac's cage ; — others of them, we see, holding
" colloquy sublime," in halls where a nation's fate
is arbitrated, or solving some of the mightiest
problems that belong to this wonderful universe ;
— and others still, there are, who, by daily and
nightly contemplation of the laws of God, have
kindled that fire of divine truth within their
80
Dosoms, by which they become those moral lumi-
naries whose light shineth from one part of the
heavens unto the other. And this amazing change
in these feeble and helpless creatures, — this trans-
figuratfon of them for good or for evil, — is wrought
by laws of organization and of increase, as certain
in their operation, and as infallible in their results,
as those by which the skilful gardener substitutes
flowers, and delicious fruits, and healing herbs,
for briars and thorns and poisonous plants. And
as we hold the gardener responsible for the pro-
ductions of his garden, so is the community respon-
sible for the general character and conduct of its
children.
Some, indeed, maintain, — erroneously as we
believe, — that a difference in education is the sole
cause of all the differences existing among men.
They hold that all persons come into the world
just alike in disposition and capacity, though they
go through it and out of it, so amazingly diverse.
They hold, in short, that if any two men had
changed cradles, they would have changed char-
acters and epitaphs ; — that, not only does the same
quantity of substance or essence go to the consti-
tution of every human mind, but that all minds
are of the same quality also, — all having the same
powers, and bearing, originally, the same image
and superscription, like so many half-dollars struck
at the government mint.
But deeply as education goes into the core of
the heart and the marrow of the bones, we do not
claim for it any such prerogative. There are
certain substructures of temperament and dispp-
sition, which education finds, at the beginning of
its work, and which it can never wholly annul.
Nor does it comport with the endless variety and
beauty manifested in all other parts of the Cre-
ator's works, to suppose that he made all ears and
eyes to be delighted with the same tunes and
81
colors ; or provided so good an excuse for plagia-
rism, as that all minds were made to think the same
thoughts. This inherent and original diversity,
however, only increases the difficulty of educa-
tion, and gives additional force to the argument
for previous preparation ; for, were it true that all
children are born just alike, in disposition and
capacity, the only labor would be to discover the
right method for educating a single child, and
to stereotype it for all the rest.
This, however, we must concede to those who
affirm the original equality and exact similitude
of all minds; — namely, that all minds have the
same elementary or constituent faculties. This
is all that we mean when we say that human
nature is everywhere the same. This is, in part,
what the Scriptures mean when they say, "God
hath made of one blood all nations of men.''
The contrasts among men result, not from the
possession of a different number of original fac-
ulties, but from possessing the same faculties, in
different proportions, and in different degrees of
activity. The civilized men of the present day,
have neither more nor less faculties, in number^
than their barbarian ancestors had. If so, it
would be interesting to ascertain about vvhat year,
or century, a new good faculty was given to the
race, or an old bad one was taken away. An
assembly of civilized men, on this side of the
globe, convening to devise measures for diminish-
ing the number of capital crimes, and thus to
reduce the number of capital punishments, were
born with the same number and kind of faculties,
— though doubtless differing greatly m proportion
and in activity, — with a company of Battas island-
ers, on the opposite side of the globe, who, perhaps
at the same time, may be going to attend the
holiday rites of a public execution, and, as is their
wont, to dine on the criminal. As each human face
82
has the same number of features, each human
body the same number of Hmbs, muscles, organs,
&/C., so each human soul has the same capacities
of Reason, Conscience, Hope, Fear, Love, Self-
love, &c. The differences lie in the relative
strength and supremacy of these powers. The
human eye is composed of about twenty distinct
parts or pieces ; yet these constituent parts are so
differently arranged that one man is far-sighted,
another near-sighted. When an oculist has mas-
tered a knowledge of one eye, he knows the gen-
eral plan upon which all eyes have been formed ;
but he must still learn the peculiarities of each,
or, in his practice, he will ruin all he touches.*
When a surgeon, or an assassin, knows where one
man's heart is, he knows, substantially, where
the hearts of all other men may be found. And
so of the mind and its faculties. It is because of
this community of original endowments, that all
the great works of nature and art and science,
address a common susceptibility or capacity, exist-
ing in all minds. It is because of this kindred
nature that the same earth is given to us all, as a
common residence. The possession by each of
his complement of powers and' susceptibilities,
confers the common nature, while the different
portions or degrees in which they exist, and the
predominance of one or a few over the others,
break us up into moral and intellectual classes.
It is impossible to vindicate the propriety of
making or of carrying a Revelation to the whole
* I have heard that distinguished surgeon, Doct. John C. Warren,
of Boston, relate the following anecdote, which happened to him iu
London : — Being invited to witness a very difl&cult operation upon the
hunian eye, by a celebrated English oculist, he was so much struck
by the skill and science which were exhibited by the operator, that
he sought a private interview with him, to inquire by what means he
had become so accomplished a master of his art. " Sir," said the
oculist, " I spoiled a hat-full of eyes to learn it." Thus it is with
incompetent teachers ; they may spoil schoolrooms-full of children to
learn now to teaich, — and perhaps may not always learn even then.
83
human race, unless that race has common capaci-
ties and wants to which the revelation is adapted.
And hence we learn the appalling truth, — a truth
which should strike " loud on the heart as thunder
on the ear," — that every child born into this world
has tendencies and susceptibilities pointing to the
furthest extremes of good and evil. Each one
has the capacity of immeasurable virtue or vice.
As each body has an immensity of natural space
open all around it, so each spirit, when waked
into life, has an immensity of moral space open
all around it. Each soul has a pinion by which
it may soar to the highest empyrean, or swoop
downwards to the Tartarean abyss. In the fee-
blest voice of infancy, there is a tone which can
be made to pour a sweeter melody into the sym-
phonies of angels, or thunder a harsher discord
through the blasphemies of demons. To plume
these wings for an upper or a nether flight; to
lead these voices forth into harmony or dissonance;
to woo these beings to go where they should go,
and to be what they should be, — does it, or does
it not, my friends, require some knowledge, some
anxious forethought, some enlightening prepara-
tion?
You must pardon me, if on this subject I speak
to you with great plainness ; and you must allow
me to appeal directly to your own course of con-
duct in other things. You have property to be
preserved for the support of your children while
you live, or, when you die, for their patrimony;
you have health and life to be guarded and con-
tinued, that they may not be bereaved of their
natural protectors; — and you have the children
themselves, with their unbounded, unfathomable
capacities of happiness and misery. Now, in
respect to your property, what is it your wont to
do, when a young lawyer comes into the village,
erects his sign, and, (the most unexclusive of
84
men,) gives to the public a general invitation?
Though he has a diploma from a college, and
the solemn approval of bench and bar, yet how
warily do the public approach him. How much
he is reconnoitred before he is retained. How
many premeditated plans are laid to appear to
meet him accidentally, to talk over indifferent sub-
jects with him, — the weather, the crops, or Con-
gressional matters, — in order to measure him, and
probe him, and see if there be any hopefulness in
him. And should all things promise favorably, the
young attorney is intrusted, in the first instance,
only with some outlawed note, or some doubtful
account, before a justice of the peace. No man
ever thinks of trusting a case which involves the
old homestead, to his inexperienced hands. He
would as soon set fire to it.
So, too, of a young physician. No matter from
what medical college, home or foreign, he may
bring his credentials. From day to day the neigh-
bors watch him without seeming to look at him.
In good-wives' parties, the question is confiden-
tially discussed, whether, in a case of exigency,
it would be safe to send for him. And when, at
last, he is gladdened with a call, it is only to look
at some surface ailment, or to pother a little about
the extremities. Nobody allows him to lay his
unpractised hand upon the vitals. Now this com-
mon sentiment, — this common practice of man-
kind, — is only the instinctive dictate of prudence.
It is only a tacit recognition of a truth felt by all
sensible men, that there are a thousand ways to
do a thing wrong, but only one to do it right.
And if it be but reasonable to exercise such vigi-
lance and caution, in selecting a healer for our
bodies which perish, or a counsellor for our worldly
estates, who shall assign limits to the circumspec-
tion and fidelity with which the teachers of our
children should be chosen, who, in the space of a
85
few short years, or even months, will determine,
as by a sort of predestination, upon so much of
their future fortunes and destiny ]
Again ; it is the universal sense of mankind,
that skill and facility, in all other things, depend
upon study and practice. We always demand
more, where opportunities have been greater. We
stamp a man with inferiority, though he does ten
times better than another, if he has had twenty
times the advantages. We know that a skilful
navigator will carry a vessel through perilous
straits, in a gale of wind, and save cargo and
lives, while an ignorant one will wreck both, in
a broad channel. With what a song of delight
we have all witnessed, how easily and surely
that wise and good man, at the head of a great
institution in our own State, will tame the ferocity
of the insane ; and how, when each faculty of a
fiery spirit bursts away like an affrighted steed
from its path, this mighty tamer of madmen will
temper and quell their wild impetuosity and restore
them to the guidance of reason. Nay, the great
moral healer can do this, not to one only, but to
hundreds, at a time; while, even in a far shorter
period than he asks to accomplish such a wonder-
ful work, an ignorant and passionate teacher will
turn a hundred gentle, confiding spirits into rebels
and anarchists. And, my hearers, we recognize
the existence of these facts, we apply these obvi-
ous principles, to every thing but to the education
of our children.
Why cannot we derive instruction even from
the folly of those wandering show-men who spend
a life in teaching brute animals to perform won-
derful feats? We have all seen, or at least we
have all heard of, some learned horse, or learned
pig, or learned dog. Though the superiority over
their fellows, possessed by these brute prodigies,
may have been owing, in some degree, to the
8
86
possession of greater natural parts, yet it must be
mainly attributed to the higher competency of
their instructer. Their teacher had acquired a
deeper insight into their natures; his sagacious
practice had discovered the means by which their
talents could be unfolded and brought out. How-
ever unworthy and even contemptible, therefore,
the mere trainer of a dog may be, yet he illus-
trates a great principle. By showing us the supe-
riority of a well-trained dog, he shows what might
be the superiority of a well-trained child. He
shows us that higher acquisitions, — what may be
called academical attainments, — in a few favored
individuals of the canine race, are not so much
the results of a more brilliant genius on the part
of the dog-pupil, as they are the natural reward
and consequence of his enjoying the instructions
of a professor who has concentrated all his ener-
gies upon dog-teaching.
Surely it will not be denied that a workman
should understand two things in regard to the
subject-matter of his work ;— first, its natural prop-
erties, qualities and powers ; and secondly^ the
means of modifying and regulating them, with a
view to improvement. In relation to the mechanic
arts, this is admitted by all. Every body knows
that the strength of the blow must be adjusted to
the malleability of the metal. It will not do to
strike glass and flint, either with the same force or
with the same implements ; and the proper instru-
ment will never be selected by a person ignorant of
the purpose to be effected by its use. If a man
working on wood, mistakes it for iron, and attempts
to soften it in the fire, his product is — ashes. And
so if a teacher supposes a child to have but one
tendency and one adaptation when he has many ;
— if a teacher treats a child as though his nature
were wholly animal, or wholly intellectual, or
wholly moral and religious, he disfigures and
87
mutilates the nature of that child, and wrenches
his whole structure into deformity.
The being, Man. is more complex and diversi-
fied in constitution and more variously endowed
in faculties, than any other earthly work of the
Creator. It is in this assemblage of powers and
prerogatives that his strength and majesty reside.
They constitute his sovereignty and lordship over
the creation around him. By our bodily organ-
ization we are adapted to the material world in
which we are placed ; — our eye to the light, which
makes known to us every change in the form, mo-
tion, color, position, of all objects within visual
range; — our ear and tongue to the air, which
flows around us in silence, yet is forever ready to
be waked into voice and music; — our hand to
all the cunning works of art which subserve
utility or embellishment. Still more wonderfully
does the spiritual nature of man befit his spiritual
relations. Whatever there is of law, of order,
of duty, in the works of God, or in the progressive
conditions of the race, all have their spiritual
counterparts within him. By his perceptive and
intellectual faculties, he learns the properties of
created things, and discovers the laws by which
they are governed. By tracing the relation be-
tween causes and effects, he acquires a kind of
prophetic vision and power; for, by conforming
to the unchanging laws of Nature, he enlists her
in his service, and she works with him in fulfilling
his predictions. Regarded as an individual, and
as a member of a race which reproduces itself
and passes away, his lower propensities, — those
.which he holds in common with the brutes, — are
the instincts and means to preserve himself and
to perpetuate his kind ; while by his tastes, and
by the social, moral and religious sentiments of
which he is capable, he is attuned to all the beau-
ties and sublimities of creation, his heart is made
88
responsive to all the delights of friendship and
domestic affection, and he is invited to hold that
spiritual intercourse with his Maker, which at
once strengthens and enraptures.
Now the voice of God and of Nature declares
audibly which of these various powers within us
are to command, and which are to obey ; and with
which, in every questionable case, resides the
ultimate arbitrament. Even the lowest propensi-
ties are not to be wholly extirpated. Within the
bounds prescribed by the social and the divine
law, they have their rightful claims. But the
moral and the religious sentiments, — Benevolence,
Conscience, Reverence for the All-creating and
All-bestowing Power, — these have the prerogative
of supremacy and absolute dominion. These are
to walk the halls of the soul, like a god, nor suf-
fer rebellion to live under their eye. Yet how
easy for this many-gifted being to fall, — more
easy, indeed, because of his many gifts. Some
subject-faculty, some subordinate power, in this
spiritual realm, unfortimately inflamed, or, — what
is far more common, — unwisely stimulated by an
erroneous education, grows importunate, exorbi-
tant, aggrandizes itself, encroaches upon its fel-
low-faculties, until, at last, obtaining the mas-
tery, it subverts the moral order of the soul, and
wages its parricidal war against the sovereignty
of conscience within, and the laws of society and
of Heaven without. And how unspeakably dread-
ful are the retributions which come in the train
of these remorseless usurpers, when they obtain
dominion over the soul. Take, for instance, the
earliest-developed, the most purely selfish and
animal appetite that belongs to us, — that for nour-
ishing beverage. It is the first which demands
gratification after birth. Subjected to the laws of
temperance, it will retain its zest, fresh and genial,
for threescore years and ten, and it affords the
S3
last corporal solace upon earth to the parched lips
of the dying man. Yet, if the possessor of this
same pleasure-giving appetite shall be incited,
either by examples of inordinate indulgence, or
by festive songs in praise of the vine and the wine-
cup, to inflame it, and to feed its deceitful fires,
though but for the space of a few short years,
then the spell of the sorcerer will be upon him ;
and, day by day, he will go and cast himself into
the fiery furnace which he has kindled; — nor him-
self, the pitiable victim, alone, but he will seize
upon parents and wife and his group of innocent
children, and plunge with them all into the seeth-
ing hell of intemperance.
/ So there is, in human nature, an innate desire
of acquiring property, — of owning something, —
of using the possessives my and mine. Within
proper limits, this instinct is laudably indulged.
Its success affords a pleasure in which reason can
take a part. It stimulates and strengthens many
other faculties. It makes us thoughtful and fore-
thoughtful. It is the parent of industry and fru-
gality, — and industry and frugality, as we all
know, are blood-relations to the whole family of
the virtues. But to the eye and heart of one in
whom this love of acquisition has become absorb-
ing and insane, all the diversified substances in
creation are reduced to two classes, — that which
is gold, and that which is not ; — and all the works
of Nature are valued or despised, and the laws
and institutions of society uphold or assailed, as
they arc supposed to be favorable or unfavorable
to the acquisition of wealth./ Whether at home
or abroad, in the festive circle or in the funeral
train ; whether in hearing the fervid and thrilling
appeals of the sanctuary, or the pathos of civic
eloquence, one idea alone, — that of money, money,
money. — holds possession of the miser's soul ; its
voice rings forever in his ear ; and were he in the
8*
90
garden of Eden, — its beauty, and music, and per-
fume suffusing all his senses, — his only thought
would be, how much money it would bring !
Such mischief comes from giving supremacy to a
subordinate, though an essential and highly use-
ful faculty. This mischief, to a greater or less ex-
tent, parents and teachers produce, when, through
an ignorance of the natural and appropriate meth-
ods of inducing children to study, they hire them
to learn by the offer of pecuniary rewards.
So, too, we all have an innate love for whatever
is beautiful ; — a sentiment that yearns for higher
and higher degrees of perfection in the arts, and
in the embellishments of life, — a feeling which
would prompt us to "gild refined gold, to paint the
lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, and add
another hue unto the rainbow." Portions of the
external world have been exquisitely adapted to
this inborn love of the beautiful, by Him who has
so clothed the lilies of the field that they outshine
Solomon in all his glory. This sentiment may
be too much or too little cultivated; — so little as
to make us disdain gratifications that are at once
innocent and pure ; or so much as to over-refine
us into a hateful fastidiousness. In the works of
nature, beauty is generally, if not always, subor-
dinated to utility. In cases of incompatibility,
gracefulness yields to strength, not strength to
gracefulness. How would the rising sun mock
us with his splendor, if he brought no life or warmth
in his beams. The expectation of autumnal har-
vests enhances the beauty of vernal bloom. These
manifestations of nature admonish us respecting
the rank which ornament or accomplishment
should hold in the character and in the works of
men; and, of course, in the education of children.
Christ referred occasionally to the beauties and
charms of nature, but dwelt perpetually upon the
obligations of duty and charity. But what oppo-
91
site and grievous offences are committed on this
subject by different portions of society. The
laboring classes, by reason of early parental neg-
lect in cultivating a love for the beautiful, often
forego pleasures which a bountiful Providence
scatters profusely and gratuitously around them,
and strows beneath their feet; while there is a
class of persons at the other extremity of the social
scale, who, from never comprehending the im-
measurable value of the objects for which they
were created, and the vast beneficence of which,
from their wealth and station, they are capable,
actually try every thing, however intrinsically
noble or sacred, by some conventional law of
fashion, by some arbitrary and capricious stand-
ard of elegance. In European society, this class
of " fashionables" is numerous. They have their
imitators here, — beings, who are not men and
women, but similitudes only, — who occupy the
vanishing point in the perspective of society,
where all that is true, or noble, or estimable in
human nature, fades away into nothing. With
this class it is no matter what a man does with
the '* Ten Commandments," provided he keeps
those of Lord Chestertield ; and, in their society.
Beau Brummel would take precedence of Dr.
Franklin.
In a Report lately made by the Agricultural
Commissioner for the survey of this Common-
wealth, I noticed a statement respecting some
farmers in the northern part of the county of
Essex, who attempted to raise sun-flowers for the
purpose of extracting oil from the seeds. Twenty
bushels to the acre was the largest crop raised by
any one. Six bushels of the seed yielded but one
gallon of oil, worth, in the market, one dollar and
seventeen cents only. It surely required no great
boldness to assert that the experiment did not suc-
ceed: — cultivation, one acre; product, three gal-
/
92
Ions of oil ; value, three dollars and fifty cents !—
which would, perhaps, about half repay the cost
of labor. Woe to the farmer who seeks for inde-
pendence by raising sun-flowers ! Ten times woe
to the parents who rear up sun-flower sons or sun-
flower daughters, — instead of sons whose hearts
glow and burn with an immortal zeal to run the
noble career of usefulness and virtue which a
happy fortune has laid open before them ; — in-
stead of daughters who cherish such high resolves
of duty as lift them even above an enthusiasm for
greatness, into those loftier and serene regions
where greatness comes not from excitement, but
is native, and ever-springing and ever-abiding.
Every son, whatever may be his expectations as
to fortune, ought to be so educated that he can
superintend some part of the complicated ma-
chinery of social life ; and every daughter ought
to be so educated that she can answer the claims
of humanity, whether those claims require the
labor of the head or the labor of the hand. Every
daughter ought to be so trained that she can bear,
with dignity and self-sustaining ability, those revo-
lutions in Fortune's wheel, which sometimes bring
the kitchen up and turn the parlor down.
/Again; we have a natural, spontaneous feeling
of self-respect, an innate sense that, simply in our
capacity as human beings, we are worth some-
thing, and entitled to some consideration. This
principle constitutes the interior frame-work of
some of the virtues, veiled, indeed, by their own
beautiful covering, but still necessary in order to
keep them in an erect posture, amidst all the over-
bearing currents and forces of the world. Where
this feeling of self-respect exists too weakly, the
whole character becomes limber, flaccid, impotent,
sinks under the menace of opposition, and can
be frightened out of anything or into anything.
On the other hand, when this propensity aggran-
93
dizes itself, and becomes swollen and deformed
with pride, and conceit, and intolerance, it is a
far more offensive nuisance than many of those
which the law authorizes us to abate, summarily,
by force and arms. Our political institutions are
a rich alluvium for the growth of self-esteem; for,
while every body knows that there are the greatest
differences between men in point of honesty, of
abihty, of will to do good and to promote right,
yet our fundamental laws, — and rightly too, —
ordain a political equality. But what is not right
is, that the political equality is the fact mainly
regarded, while there is a tendency to disregard
the intellectual and moral inequalities. And thus
a faculty, designed to subserve, and capable of
subserving the greatest good, engenders a low
ambition, and fills the land with the war-whoop
of party strife. /
These are specimens only of a long list of origi-
nal tendencies or attributes of the human mind,
from a more full enumeration and exposition of
which, I must, on this occasion, refrain. But have
not enough been referred to, to authorize us to as-
sert the general doctrine, that every teacher ought
to have some notions, clear, definite, and com-
prehensive, of the manifold powers, — the various
nature, — of the beings confided to his hands, so
that he may repress the redundancy of a too luxu-
riant growth, and nourish the feeble with his fos-
tering care ? No idea can be more erroneous than
that children go to school to learn the rudiments
of knowledge only, and not to form character.
The character of children is always forming. No
place, no companion is without an influence upon
it ; and at school it is formed more rapidly than
any where else. The mere fact of the presence of
so many children together, puts the social or dis-
social nature of each into fervid action. To be
sent to school, especially in the country, is often
94
as great an event in a child's life, as it is,.in his
father's, to be sent to the General Court ; and we
all know with what unwonted force all things
affect the mind, in new places and nnder new
circumstances. Every child, too, wli^n he first
goes to school, understands that he is put upon
his good behavior; and, with man or child, it is
a very decisive thing, and reaches deep into char-
acter and far into futurity, when put upon his
good behavior, to prove recreant. Now, teachers
take children under their care, as it were, during
the first warm days of the spring of life, when
more can be done towards directing their growth
and modifying their dispositions, than can be
done in years, at a later season of their exist-
ence.
Equally indispensable is it, that every teacher
should know, by what means, — by virtue of what
natural laws, — the human powers and faculties
are sirengthened or enfeebled. There is a prin-
ciple running through every mental operation, —
without a knowledge of which, without a knowl-
edge how to apply which, the life of the most
faithful teacher will be only a succession of well-
intentioned errors. The growth or decline of all
our powers depends upon a steadfast law. There
is no more chance in the processes of their growth
or decay than there is in the Multiplication Table.
They grow by exercise, and they lose tone and
vigor by inaction. All the faculties have their
related objects, and they grow by being excited
to action through the stimulus or instrumentahty
of those objects. Each faculty, too, has its own
set or class of related objects; and the classes
of related objects differ as much from each other,
as do the corresponding faculties which they
naturally excite. If any one power or faculty,
therefore, is to be strengthened, so as to perform
its office with facility, precision and despatch,
95
that identical faculty, — not any other one, — must
be exercised. It does not strengthen my left arm
to exercise my right ; and this is just as true of
the powers of the mind, as of the organs of the
body. The whole pith of that saying of Solomon,
"Train up a child in the way he should go,"
consists in this principle, because "to train " means
to drill, to repeat, to do the same thing over and
over again, — that is, to exercise. Solomon does
not say, " Tell a child the way he should go, and
when he is old, he will not depart from it." Had
he said this, we could refute him daily by ten
thousand facts. Unfortunately, education amongst
us, at present, consists too much in tellings not in
trainings on the part of parents and teachers;
and, of course, in hearings not in doing, on the
part of children and pupils. The blacksmith's
right arm, the philosopher's intellect, the philan-
thropist's benevolence, all grow and strengthen
according to this law of exercise. The farmer
works solid flesh upon his cattle; the pugilist
strikes vigor into his arms and breast; the foot
soldier marches strength into his limbs; the prac-
tical man thinks quickness and judgment into his
mind; and the true Christian lives his prayers
of love and his thoughts of mercy, until every man
becomes his brother. Our own experience and
observation furnish us with a life-full of evidence
attesting this principle. How did our feet learn to
walk, our fingers to write, our organs of speech to
utter an innumerable variety of sounds? Hy what
means does llie musician pass from coarse discords
to perfect music, — from hobbling and shambling
in his measure, to keeping time like a chronom-
eter, — from a slow and timid touch of keys or
chords, to such celerity of movement, that, though
his will sends out a thousand commands in a
minute, his nimble fingers obey them all? It is
this exercise, this repetition, which gives to jug-
96
glers their marvellous dexterity. By dint of
practice, their motions become quicker than our
eyesight, and thus elude inspection. A knowledge
of this principle solves many of the riddles of
life, by showing us whence comes the domineer-
ing strength of human appetites and passions. It
comes from exercise, — from a long indulgence of
them in thought and act, — until the offspring of
sinful desire turn back, and feast upon the vitals
of the wretch who nurtured them. It is this
which makes the miser pant and raven for gain,
more and more, just in proportion to the shortness
of the life during which he can enjoy it. It is
this which sends the drunkard to pay daily tribute
to his own executioner. It is this which scourges
back the gambler to the hell he dreads.
/ It is by this law of exercise that the perceptive
and reflective intellect, — I mean the powers of
observing and judging, — arc strengthened. If,
therefore, in the education of the child, the action
of these powers is early arrested; if his whole
time is engrossed and his whole energy drawn
away, by other things; or, if he is not supplied
with the proper objects or apparatus on which
these faculties can exert themselves, — then the
after-life of such a child will be crowded with
practical errors and misjudgments. As a man, his
impressions of things will be faint and fleeting;
he will never be able to describe an object as he
saw it, nor to tell a story as he heard it. No
handicrafts-man or mechanic ever becomes what
we call a first-rate workman, until after innumer-
able experiments and judgments, — that is, repe-
titions, or exercises. And the rule is the same
even with genius; — artisan or artist, he must
practise long and sedulously upon lines, propor-
tions, reliefs, before he can become the first sculp-
tor of the age, or the first boot-maker in the city.
The teacher, then, must continue to exercise the
97
powers of his pupils, until he secures accuracy
even in the minutest things he teaches./ Every
child can and should learn to judge, almost with
mathematical exactness, how long an inch is ; —
no matter if he does not guess within a foot of it
the first time. Whether the story of Casper Hau-
ser be true or not, it has verisimilitude, and is
therefore instructive. It warns us what the general
result must be, if, by a non-presentation of their
related objects, the faculties of a child are not
brought into exercise. We meet with persons,
every day, who, in regard to some one or more
of the faculties, are Casper Hausers. This hap-
pens, almost universally, not through any natural
defect, but because parents and teachers have
been ignorant, either of the powers to be exer-
cised, or of the related objects through whose
instrumentality they can be excited to action.
But here arises a demand for great skill, ap-
titude and resources, on the part of the teacher;
for, by continuing to exercise the same. faculty, I
do not mean a monotonous repetition of the same
action, nor a perpetual presentation of the same
object or idea. Such a course would soon cloy
and disgust, and thus terminate all effort in that
direction. Would a child ever learn to dance, if
there were but one figure; or to sing, if there were
but one tune 1 Nature, science, art, oflfer a bound-
less variety of objects and processes, adapted to
quicken and employ each of the faculties. These
resources the teacher should have at his command,
and should make use of them, in the order, and
for the period, that each particular case may
require. Look into the shops of our ingenious
artisans and mechanics, and see their shining
rows of tools, — hundreds in number, — but each
adapted to some particular process in their curi-
ous art. Look into the shop or hut of a savage,
an Indian mechanic, and you will find his chest
9
98
of tools composed of a single jack-knife! So
with our teachers. Some of them have appara-
tus, diagram, chart, model ; they have anecdote,
epigram, narrative, history, by which to illustrate
every branch of study, and to fit every variety
of disposition ; while the main resource of others,
for all studies, for all ages and for all dispositions,
is — the rod !
Again ; a child must not only be exercised into
correctness of observation, comparison and judg-
ment, but into accuracy in the narration or
description of what he has seen, heard, thought
or felt, so that, whatever thoughts, emotions, mem-
ories, are within him, he can present them all to
others in exact and luminous words. Dr. John-
son said, "accustom your children constantly to
this; if a thing happened at one window, and they,
when relating it, say that it happened at another,
do not let it pass, but instantly check them. You
do not know where deviation from the truth will
end." Every man who sees effects in causes, will
fully concur with the Doctor in regard to the value
of such a habit of accuracy as is here implied
If. in the narration of an event, or in the recita-
tion of a lesson, a child is permitted to begin at
the last end of it, and to scatter the middle about
promiscuously, depend upon it, if that child, after
growing up, is called into court as a witness,
somebody will suffer in fortune, in reputation, or
perhaps in life. When practising at the bar, I was
once engaged in an important case of slander,
where the whole question of the innocence or guilt
of the defendant, turned upon the point, whether,
at a certain time, he was seen out of one window, or
out of another; and the stupid witness first swore
that it was one window, then another window,
and at last, thought it might be a door; and
doubtless, he could have been made to swear that
he saw him through the sky-light. Would you
99
appreciate the importance of accuracy, in obser-
vation and statement, take one of those cases
which so frequently occur in our courts of law,
where a dozen witnesses, — all honest, — swear one
way, and another dozen, — equally honest, — coun-
ter-swear; and contrast it with a case, which so
rarely occurs, where a witness, whose mind, like
a copying machine, having taken an exact im-
pression of whatever it has seen or heard, attests
to complicated facts, in a manner so orderly,
luminous, natural, — giving to each, time, locality,
proportion, that when he has finished, every audi-
tor, — bench, bar, spectators, — all feel as though
they had been personally present and witnessed
the whole transaction. Now, although something
of this depends, unquestionably, upon soundness
in physical and mental organization ; yet a vast
portion of it is referable to the early observation
or neglect, on the part of teacher or parent, of
the law we are considering.
There is another point, too, which the teacher
should regard, especially where only a small por-
tion of non-age is appropriated to school attend-
ance. In exercising the faculties for the purpose
of strengthening them, the greatest amount of use-
ful knowledge should be communicated. The
faculties may be exercised and strengthened in
acquiring useful or useless knowledge. A farmer
or a stone-mason may exercise and strengthen the
muscles of his body, by pitching or rolling timbers
or stones, backwards and forwards ; but, by con-
verting the same materials into a house or a fence,
he may at once gain strength and do good. Every
teacher, at the same time that he exercises the
faculties of his pupils, ought to impart the greatest
amount of valuable knowledge; and he should
always be above the temptation of keeping a
pupil in a lower department of study, because he
nimself does not understand the higher ; or, on
100
the other hand, of prematurely carrying his pupil
into a higher department, because of his own
ignorance of the lower. Suppose a bright boy,
for instance, to be studying arithmetic and geog-
raphy, at school. Now, arithmetic cannot be
taught unless it is understood ; but, with the help
of an atlas, and a text-book whose margin is all
covered with questions, the business of teaching
geography may be set up on a very slender capital
of knowledge. And here a teacher who is obliged
to be very economical of his arithmetic, would be
tempted to keep his pupil upon all the small
towns, and tiny rivers, and dots of islands in the
geography, in order to delay him, and gain time,
— like the officers of those banks whose specie
runs low, who seek to pay off their creditors in
centSj because it takes so long to count the cop-
per. Every teacher ought to know vastly more
than he is required to teach, so that he may be
furnished, on every subject, with copious illustra-
tion and instructive anecdote; and so that the
pupils may be disabused of the notion, they are
so apt to acquire, that they carry all knowledge
in their satchels. Every teacher should be pos-
sessed of a facility at explanation, — a tact in dis-
cerning and solving difficulties, — not to be used
too often, for then it would supersede the effort
it should encourage, — but when it is used, to
be quick and sure as a telescope, bringing dis-
tant objects near, and making obscure ones dis-
tinct. In the important, but grossly neglected and
abused exercise of reading, for instance, every
new fact, every new idea, is news to the child;
and, did he fully understand it, he would be as
eager to learn it, as we are to learn what is news
to us. But how, think you, should we be vexed,
if our news-bringer spoke every third word in
a foreign language ; or gave us only a Pennsyl-
vania newspaper printed in German, when we
101
wanted to know how their votes stood in an elec-
tion for President. Whatever words a child does
not understand, in his reading lesson, are, to him,
words in a foreign language ; and they must be
translated into his own language before he can
take any interest in them. But if, instead of being
translated into his language, they are left unno-
ticed, or are translated into another foreign lan-
guage still, — that is, into other words or phrases of
which he is ignorant, — then, the child, instead of
delightful and instructive ideas, gets empty words,
mere sounds, atmospheric vibrations only. In Dr.
Johnson's Dictionary, the word, "-^ Neiwork^^'' is
defined to be "any thing reticulated or decussated,
with interstices between the intersections." Now
who, ignorant of the meaning of the word "net-
work," before, would understand it any better by
being told, that it is "any thing reticulated or
decussated, with interstices between the intersec-
tions?" Nor, would he be much enlightened, if,
on looking further, he found that the same author
had given the following definitions of the defining
words: — "reticulated," '•'^ formed with interstitial
vacuities ;^^ — "decussated," ^^intersected at acute
angles ;^^ — " interstice," " space betioeen one thing
arid another;'^ — " intersection," ^^ point xohere lines
cross each other. ^^ If this is not, as Milton says,
"dark with excess of bright," it is, at least, "dark-
ness visible." A few years since, a geography
was published in this State, — the preface of which
boasted of its adaptation to the capacities of chil-
dren ; — and, on the second page, there was this
definition of the words "zenith and nadir:" — "ze-
nith and nadir, two Arabic words importing their
own signification.^^ A few years since, an Eng-
lish traveller and book-maker, who called himself
Thomas Ashe, Esq., visited the Big Bone Licks,
in Kentucky, where he found the remains of the
mammoth, in great abundance, and whence he
9*
102
carried away several wagon-loads of bones. In
describing the size of one of the shoulder-blades
of that animal, he says, it " was about as large
as a breakfast table /" A child's mind may be dark
and ignorant before, but, under such explanations
as these, darkness will coagulate, and ignorance
be sealed in hermetically. Let a school be so
conducted but for one season, and all life will be
abstracted from it ; and it will become the pain-
ful duty of the school committee, at its close, to
attend a post mortem examination of the children,
— without even the melancholy satisfaction of
believing that science will be benefited by the
horrors of the dissection.
Every teacher should be competent to some care
of the health of his pupils, — not merely for the pur-
pose of regulating the temperature of the school-
room, and, of course, the transition which the
scholars must undergo, on entering or leaving it,
— though this is of no small importance,— but so
that, as occasion offers, he may inculcate a kn9wl-
edge of some of the leading conditions upon
which health and life depend. I saw, last year,
in the public town school of Northampton, — under
the care of Mr. R. M. Hubbard, — more than a
hundred boys, from ten or eleven to fifteen or
sixteen years of age, who pointed out the place
and gave the name of all the principal bones in
their bodies, as well as an anatomist would have
done; who explained the physiological processes
of the circulation of the blood and the alimenta-
tion of food, and described the putrefactive action
of ardent spirits upon the delicate tissues of the
stomach. Now such boys have a chance, nay, a
certainty, of far longer life and far better health,
than they would otherwise have ; and as they
grow up, they will be far less easily tempted to
emulate either of the three cockney graces, — Gin,
Swearing and Tobacco.
103
But I must pass by other considerations, respect-
ing the growth and invigoration of the intellectual
faculties, and the classes of subjects upon which
they should be employed. I hasten to the con-
sideration of another topic, incalculably more im-
portant.
The moral faculties increase or decline, strength-
en or languish, by the same law of exercise. In
legislating for men, actions are mainly regarded ;
but in the education of children, motives are every-
thi?lg, MOTIVES ARE EVERYTHING. All, this sidc of
the motive, is mere mechanism, and it matters not
whether it be done by the hand, or by a crank.
There was profound philosophy in the old theo-
logical notion, that whoever made a league with
the devil, in order to gratify a passion through
his help, became the devil's property afterwards.
And so, when a teacher stimulates a child to the
performance of actions, externally right, by ap-
pealing to motives intrinsically wrong, he sells
that child into bondage to the wrong motive.
Some parents, finding a desire of luxurious food
a stronger motive-power in their children than
any other, accomplish every thing through its
means. They hire them to go to school and
learn, to go to church and remember the text, and
to behave well before company, by a promise of
dainties. Every repetition of this enfeebles the
sentiment of duty, through its inaction, while it
increases the desire for delicacies, by its exercise ;
and as they successively come into competition
afterwards, the virtue will be found to have
become weaker, and the appetite stronger. Such
parents touch the wrong pair of nerves, — the
sensual instead of the moral, the bestial instead
of the divine. These springs of action lie at
the very extremes of human nature, — one class
down among the brutes, the other up among the
seraphim. When a child, so educated; becomes
104
a man, and circumstances make him the trnstee
or fiduciary of the friendless and unprotected,
and he robs the widow and orphan to obtain the
means of luxury or voluptuousness, we exclaim,
" Poor human nature," and are ready to appoint a
Fast ; when the truth is, he was educated to be a
knave under that very temptation. Were a sur-
geon to operate upon a human body, with as little
knowledge of his subject as this, and whip round
his double-edged knife where the vital parts lie
thickest, he would be tried for manslaughter at the
next court, and deserve conviction.
Take another example ; — and 1 instance one of
the motive-forces which, for the last fifty or a hun-
dred years, has been mainly relied on, in our
schools, academies and colleges, as the stimulus to
intellectual effort; and which has done more than
every thing else, to cause the madness and the
profligacy of those political and social rivalries
that now convulse the land. Let us take a child
who has only a moderate love of learning, but an
inordinate passion for praise and place ; and we
therefore allure him to study by the enticements
of precedence and applause. If he will surpass
all his fellows, we advance him to the post, and
signalize him with the badges of distinction, and
never suffer the siren of flattery to cease the en-
chantments of her song. If he ever has any com-
passionate misgivings in regard to the effect which
his own promotion may have upon his less bril-
liant, though not less meritorious fellow-pupils,
then we seek to withdraw his thoughts from this
virtuous channel, and to turn them to the selfish
contemplation of his own brilliant fortunes in
future years; — if waking conscience ever whis-
pers in his ear, that that pleasure is dishonorable
which gives pain to the innocent ; then we dazzle
him with the gorgeous vision of triumphal honors
and applauding multitudes ; — and when, in after-
105
life, this victim of false influences deserts a right-
eous cause because it is declining, and joins an
unrighteous one because it is prospering, and sets
his nanrie in history's pillory, to be scoffed and
jeered at for ages, then we pour out lamentations,
in prose and verse, over the moral suicide ! And
yet, by such a course of education, he was pre-
pared beforehand, like a skilfully organized ma-
chine, to prove a traitor and an apostate at that
very conjuncture. No doubt, a college-boy will
learn more Greek and Latin if it is generally un-
derstood that college-honors are to be mainly
awarded for proficiency in those languages ; but
what care we though a man can speak seven lan-
guages, or dreams in Hebrew or Sanscrit, because
of their familiarity, if he has never learned the
language of sympathy for human suffering, and
is deaf when the voice of truth and duty utters
their holy mandates'? We want men who feel
a sentiment, a consciousness , of brotherhood for
the whole human race. We want men who will
instruct the ignorant, — not delude them ; who will
succor the weak, — not prey upon them. We want
men who will fly to the moral breach when the
waters of desolation are pouring in, and who
will stand there, and, if need be, die there, —
applause or no applause. No doubt, every one is
bound to take watchful care of that portion of his
happiness which rightfully depends upon the good
opinion of others ; but before any teacher attempts
to secure the proficiency of his pupils by inflaming
their love of praise and place, ought he not to ap-
peal, with earnest and prolonged entreaty, to every
higher sentiment; and even then, should he fail
of arousing a desire for improvement, would it not
be better to abandon a pupil to mediocrity, or
even insignificance, than to ensure him the high-
est eminence by awakening an unholy ambition in
his bosom? It is infinitely better for any nation
106
to support a hospital for fools, than to have a par-
liament or a congress of knaves.
And thus it is with all moral developments.
Ignorance may appeal to a wrong motive, and
thus give inordinate strength to an inferior senti-
ment, while honestly in quest of a right action.
For a few times, perhaps even for a few years,
the appeal may be successful; but, by and by,
the inferior sentiment, or propensity, will gain pre-
dominance, and usurp the throne, and rule by-
virtue of its own might.
So, too, a train of circumstances may be pre-
pared, or a system of government adopted, de-
signed by their author for good, yet productive
of a venomous brood of feelings. Suppose a
teacher attempts to secure obedience by fear, in-
stead of love, but still lacks the energy or the
talent requisite for success. Forthwith, and from
the necessity of the case, there are two hostile par-
ties in that school, — the teacher with his govern-
ment to maintain, the pupils with their various
and ever-springing desires to gratify, in defiance
of that government. Not only will there be re-
volts and mutinies, revolutions and counter-revolu-
tions in such a school, but, what is infinitely worse
because of its meanness and baseness, there will
be generated a moral pestilence of deception and
trickery. The boldest spirits, — those already too
bold and fool-hardy, — will break out into open
rebellion, and thus begin to qualify themselves to
become, in after-life, violators and contemners of
the laws of society ; while those who are already
prone to concealment and perfidy, will sharpen
their wits for deception ; they will pretend to be
saying or doing one thing when saying or doing
another ; they will sever the connection between
tongue and heart; they will make the eyes, the
face, and all the organs that contribute to the
natural language, belie the thoughts ; and, in fine,
107
will turn the whole body into an instrument of
dissimulation. Such children, under such man-
agement, are every day preparing to become, —
not men of frankness, of ingenuousness, of a beau-
tiful transparency of disposition, — but sappers and
miners of character, — men accomplishing all their
ends by stratagem and ambush, and as full of
guile as the first serpent. Who of us has not
seen some individual so secretive and guileful as
to be impervious to second-sight, or even to the
boasted vision of animal magnetism 1 I cannot
but believe that most of those hateful specimens
of duplicity, — I might rather say, of triplicity, or
multiplicity, — which we sometimes encounter in
society, had their origin in the attempts made in
early life, to evade commands injudiciously given,
or not enforced when given. If any thing pertain-
ing to the education o( children demands discre-
tion, prudence, wisdom, it is the commands which
we impose upon them. In no case ought a com-
mand ever to be issued to a child without a moral
certainty either that it will*l)e voluntarily obeyed,
or, if resisted, that it can be enforced; because dis-
obedience to superiors, who stand at first in the
place of the child's conscience, prepares the way for
disobedience to conscience itself, when that faculty
is developed. Hence the necessity of discrimi-
nating, as a preliminary, between what a child
will do, or can be made to do, and the contrary.
Hence, when disobedience is apprehended, the
issue should be tried rather on a case of prohi-
bition than of injunction, because a child can be'
deterred when he cannot be compelled. Hence,
also, the necessity of discriminating between what
a child has the moral power to do, and what it is
in vain to expect from him. Take a child who has
been brought up luxuriously, indulgently, selfishly,
and command him, in the first instance, to incur
some great sacrifice for a mere stranger, or for
108
some object which he neither understands nor val-
ues, and disobedience is as certain as long days in
the middle of June ; — I mean the disobedience of
the spirit, for fear, perhaps, may secure the per-
formance of the outward act. Such a child knows
nothing of the impulsions of conscience, of the joy-
ful emotions that leap up in the heart after the
performance of a generous deed; and it is as
absurd to put such a weight of self-denial upon
his benevolence, the first time, as it would be to
put a camel's load upon his shoulders. Such a
child is deeply diseased. He is a moral paralytic.
In regard to all benevolent exertion a-nd sacrifice,
he is as weak as an infant ; and he can be recov-
ered and strengthened to virtuous resolutions only
by degrees. What should we think of a physi-
cian, who, the first time his patient emerged from
a sick chamber, — ^pallid, emaciated, tottering, —
should prescribe a match at wrestling, or the run-
ning of races 7 Yet this would be only a parallel
to the mode in which selfish or vicious children
are often treated; nay, some persons prepare or
select the most difiicult cases, — cases requiring
great generosity or moral intrepidity, — by which
to break new beginners into the work of benevo-
lence or duty. If, by a bad education, a child has
lost all generous affections, (for no child is born
without them;) if he never shares his books or
divides his luxuries with his playmates; if he
hides his playthings at the approach of his little
visiters; if his eye never kindles at the recital of a
magnanimous deed, — of course I mean one the
magnanimity of which he can comprehend, — then
he can be won back to kindness and justice only
by laborious processes, and in almost impercepti-
ble degrees. In every conversation before such
children, generosity and self-denial should be
spoken of with a fervor of admiration and a glow
of sympathy. Stories §liould be told or read
109
before them, in which the principal actors are sig-
naUzed by some of the qualities they dehght in,
(always provided that no element of evil mingles
with them,) and when their attachments are
firmly fastened upon hero or heroine, then the so-
cial, amiable and elevated sentiments which are
deficient in the children themselves, should be
developed in the actors or characters whom they
have been led to admire. A child may be led to
admire qualities on account of their relationships
and associations, when he would be indifferent to
them if presented separately. If a child is selfish,
the occasion for kind acts should be prepared,
where all the accompaniments are agreeable.
As the sentiment of benevolence gains tone and
strength, and begins to realize some of those ex-
quisite gratifications which God, by its very con-
stitution, has annexed to its exercise, then let the
collateral inducements be weakened, and the ex-
periments assume more of the positive character
of virtue. In this way, a child so selfish and envi-
ous as to be grieved even at the enjoyment of
others, may be won, at last, to seek for delight in
offices of humanity and self-sacrifice. There is
always an avenue through which a child's mind
can be reached; the failures come from our want
of perseverance and sagacity in seeking it. We
must treat moral more as we treat physical dis-
tempers. Week after week the mother sits by
the sick bed, and welcomes fasting and vigils; her
watchfulness surrounds her child, and with all the
means and appliances that wealth or life can com-
mand, she strives to bar up every avenue through
which death can approach him. Did mothers
care as much for the virtues and moral habits as
for the health and life of their offspring, would
they not be as patient, as hopeful, and as long-
suffering in administering antidote and remedy to
10
110
a child who is morally, as to one who is physi-
cally, diseased?
Is it not in the way above described, — after a
slowly brightening twilight of weeks, perhaps of
months, — that the oculist, at last, lets in the light
of the meridian sun upon the couched eye ? Is it
not in this way, that the convalescent of a fevered
bed advances, from a measured pittance of the
weakest nutrition, to that audacious health which
spurns at all restraints upon appetite, whether as
to quantity or quality? For these healings of the
diseased eye or body, we demand the professional
skill and science of men, educated and trained to
the work ; nay, if any impostor or empiric wan-
tonly tampers with eye or life, the injured party
accuses him, the officers of the law arrest him,
the jurors upon their oaths convict him, the judges
pass sentence, and the sheriff executes the man-
dates of the law ; — while parties, officers, jurors,
judges and sheriffs, with one consent, employ
teachers to direct and train the godlike faculties
of their children, who never had one hour of
special study, who never received one lesson of
special instruction, to fit them for their momentous
duties.
If, then, the business of education, in all its
departments, be so responsible; if there be such
liability to excite and strengthen any one faculty
of the opening mind, instead of its antagonist;
if there be such danger of promoting animal and
selfish propensities into command over social and
moral sentiments ; if it be so easy for an unskilful
hand to adjust opportunity to temptation in such
a way that the exposed are almost certain to fall ;
if it be a work of such delicacy and difficulty to
reclaim those who have wandered ; if, in fine, one,
not deeply conversant with the human soul, with
all its various faculties and propensities, and with
all the circumstances and objects which naturally
Ill
excite them to activity, is in incomparably greater
danger of touching the wrong spring of action,
than one unacquainted with music, is of touching
the wrong key or chord of the most compUcated
musical instrument, — then, ought not every one
of those who are installed into the sacred office
of teacher, to be " a workman who needeth not to
be ashamed 7" Surely, they should know, before-
hand, how to touch the right spring, with the
right pressure, at the right time.
There is a terrible disease that sometimes afflicts
individuals, by which all the muscles of the body
seem to be unfastened from the volitions of the
mind, and then, after being promiscuously trans-
posed, to be re-fastened ; so that a wrong pair of
muscles is attached to every volition. In such a
case, the afflicted patient never does the thing he
intends to do. If he would walk forwards, his
will starts the wrong pair of muscles, and he
walks backwards. When he would extend his
right arm to shake hands with you, in salutation,
he starts the wrong pair of muscles, thrusts out
his left, and slaps or punches you. Precisely so
is it with the teacher who knows not what facul-
ties of his pupils to exercise, and by what objects,
motives, or processes, they can be brought into
activity. He is the will of the school ; they are
the body which that will moves; and, through
ignorance, he is perpetually applying his will to
the wrong points. What wonder, then, if, spend-
ing day after day in pulling at the wrong pairs
of muscles, the teacher involves the school in
inextricable disorder and confusion, and, at last,
comes to the conviction that they were never
made to go right?
But, says an objector, can any man ever attain
to such knowledge that he can touch as he should
this "harp of thousand strings?" Perhaps not,
I reply ; but ask, in my turn, Cannot every man
112
know better than he now does? Cannot some-
thing be done to make good teachers better, and
incompetent ones less incompetent? Cannot some-
thing be done to promote the progress and to
diminish the dangers of all our schools 7 Cannot
something be done to increase the intelligence of
those female teachers, to whose hands our children
are committed, in the earliest and most impressible
periods of childhood; — and thus, in the end, to
increase the intelligence of mothers, — for every
mother is ex officio a member of the College of
Teachers ? Cannot something be done, by study,
by discussion, by practical observation, — and espe-
cially by the institution of Normal Schools, —
which shall diffuse both the art and the science of
teaching more widely through our community,
than they have ever yet been diffused ?
My friends, you cannot go for any considerable
distance in any direction, within the limits of our
beloved Commonwealth, without passing one of
those edifices professedly erected for the education
of our children. Though rarely an architectural
ornament, yet, always, they are a moral beauty, to
the land in which we dwell. Enter with me, for a
moment, into one of these important, though lowly
mansions. Survey those thickly seated benches.
Before us are clustered the children of to-day, the
men of to-morrow, the immortals of eternity !
What costly works of art ; what splendid galler-
ies of sculpture or of painting, won by a nation's
arms, or purchased by a nation's wealth, are com-
parable in value, to the treasures we have in these
children? How many living and palpitating
nerves come down from parents and friends, and
centre in their young hearts; and, as they shall
advance in life, other living and palpitating nerves,
which no man can number, shall go out from
their bosoms to twine round other hearts, and to
feel their throbs of pleasure or of pain, of rapture
113
or of agony ! How many fortunes of others shall
be linked with their fortunes, and shall share an
equal fate. As yet, to the hearts of these young
beings, crime has not brought in its retinue of
fears, nor disappointment its sorrows. Their joys
are joys^ and their hopes more real than our real-
ities; and, as visions of the future burst upon
their imaginations, their eye kindles, like the
young eagle's at the morning sunbeam. Group-
ing these children into separate circles, and looking
forward, for but a few short years, to the fortunes
that await them, shall we predict their destiny,
in the terrific language of the poet : —
" These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind.
" Ambition (his shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch trom high,
Td bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
- " The stings of Falsehood, those shall try,
And hard unkindness' alter'd eye
That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow ;
And keen Remorse, with blood defiled,
And moody Madness, laughing wild.
Amid severest woe , — "
or, concentrating our whole souls into one resolve,
— ^high and prophetically strong, — that our duty
to these children shall be done, shall we proclaim,
in the blessed language of the Savior; — "It is
NOT THE WILL OF YOUR FaTHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN.
HESE
10*
LECTURE III
1839.
LECTURE III.
THE NECESSITY OF EDUCATION IN A REFUBLICAN
GOVERNMENT.
Gentlemen of the Convention : —
The common arguments in favor of Education
have been so often repeated, that, in rising to
address you on this subject, 1 feel Hke appealing
to your own judgment and good sense to bear
testimony to its worth, rather than attempting to
make your convictions firmer, or your feehngs
stronger, by any attestations of mine.
y I hardly need to say, that by the word Education^
I mean much more than an abihty to read, write,
and keep common accounts. I comprehend, under
this noble word, such a training of the body as
shall build it up with robustness and vigor, — at
once protecting it from disease, and enabling it to
act, formatively, upon the crude substances of
nature, — to turn a wilderness into cultivated fields,
forests into ships, or quarries and clay-pits into
villages and cities. I mean, also, to include such
a cultivation of the intellect as' shall enable it to
discover those permanent and mighty laws which
pervade all parts of the created universe, whether
material or spiritual. This is necessary, because,
if we act in obedience to these laws, all the resist-
less forces of Nature become our auxiliaries and
cheer us on to certain prosperity and triumph ;
but, if we act in contravention or defiance of these
laws, then Nature resists, thwarts, baffles us ; and,
in the end, it is just as certain that she will over-
whelm us ^yith ruin, as it is that God is strong©
118
than man. And, finally, by the term Education,
I mean such a culture of our moral affections
and religious susceptibilities, as, in the course of
Nature and Providence, shall lead to a subjection
or conformity of all our appetites, propensities and
sentiments to the will of Heaven.
My friends, is it not manifest to us all, that no
individual, unless he has some acquaintance with
the lower forms of education, can superintend,
even the coarsest and most common interests of
life, without daily error and daily shame ? The
general utility of knowledge, also, and the higher
and more enduring satisfactions of the intellect,
resulting from the discovery and contemplation
of those truths with which the material and the
spiritual universe are alike filled, impart to this
subject a true dignity and a sublime elevation.
But, in its ofiice of attempering feelings which
otherwise would blast or consume us; — in its
authority to say to the clamorous propensities of
our nature, "Peace, be still!" — in its auxiliary
power to fit us for the endearments of domestic,
for the duties of social, and for the sanctity of
immortal life ; — in its two-fold office of enhancing
the enjoyment which each one of us may feel in
the virtue and happiness of all others, and of
increasing the virtue and happiness of all others,
to make a larger fund for common enjoyment ; —
in these high and sacred prerogatives, the cause
of education lays claim to our mind and heart
and strength, as one of the most efficient instru-
ments prepared by the Creator for the welfare of
His creatures and the honor of Himself
Take any individual you please, separate him
from the crowd of men, and look at him, apart
and alone, — like some Robinson Crusoe in a far-off
island of the ocean, without any human being
around him, with no prospect of leaving any
human being behind him, — and, even in such a
119
solitudcj how authoritative ovrer his actions, how
decisive of his contemplations and of his con-
dition, are the instructions he received and the
habits he formed in early life ! But now behold
him as one of the tumultuous throng of men;
observe the wide influences which he exerts upon
others, — in the marts of business, in the resorts of
pleasure, in the high places of official trust, — and
reflect how many of all these influences, whether
beneficent or malign, depend upon the education
he has received, and you will have another gauge
or standard whereby to estimate the importance
of our theme. Look at him again, not as a being,
coming, we know not whence, alighting for a
brief residence upon this earth, and then making
his exit through the door of the tomb, to be seen
and heard of no more, and leaving no more
impression upon society of liis ways or works,
than the sea-bird leaves upon the surface of the
deep, when she stoops from the upper air, dips
her breast for a moment in the wave, and then
rises again to a vifewless height ; but look at him
in his relations to posterity, as the father of a
family, as a member of a generation which sows
those seeds of virtue or vice, that, centuries hence,
shall bear fruit or poison ; — look at him as a citi-
zen in a free government, throwing his influence
and his vote into one or the other of the scales
where peace and war, glory and infamy are
weighed ; — look at him in these relations, and con-
sider how a virtuous or a vicious education tends
to fit or to unfit him for them all, and you will
catch one more glimpse of the importance of the
subject now presented to your consideration. But
if we ascend to a still higher point of vision, and, —
forgetting the earthly, personal career, and the wide
sphere of social influences, and those acts of life
which survive life, — fasten our eyes upon effects
which education may throw forward into immor-
120
tal destinies, it is then that we are awed, amazed,
overpowered, by the thought, that we have leen
created and placed in a system, where the soul's
eternal flight may be made higher or lower by
those who plume its tender wings and direct its
early course. Such is the magnitude, the tran-
scendence of this subject. In a philosophical view,
beginning at what point we will, and following
the most rigid connection and dependence of cause
and effect, of antecedent and consequence, we
shall find that education is intimately related to
every good, and to every evil, which, as mortal,
or as immortal beings, we can desire or dread.
Were a being of an understanding mind and a
benevolent heart, to see, for the first time, a peace-
ful babe reposing in its cradle, or on its mother's
breast, and were he to be told, that that infant
had been so constituted that every joint and organ
in its whole frame might become the rendezvous
of diseases and racking pains ; that such was its
internal structure, that every nerve and fibre
beneath its skin might be matlc to throb with a
peculiar torture ; that, in the endless catalogue of
human disasters, maladies, adversities or shame,
there was scarcely one to which it would not be
exposed; that, in the whole criminal law of society,
and in the more comprehensive and self-executing
law of God, there was not a crime which its heart
might not at some time will, and its hand perpe-
trate; that, in the ghastly host of tragic passions, — •
Fear, Envy, Jealousy, Hate, Remorse, Despair, —
there was not one which might not lacerate its soul,
and bring down upon it an appropriate catastro-
phe ; — were the benevolent spectator whom I have
supposed, to see this environment of ills under-
lying, surrounding, overhanging their feeble and
unconscious victim, and, as it were, watching to
dart forth and seize it, might he not be excused
for wishing the newly-created spirit well back
again into non-entity ?
121
But wc cannot return to non-entity. We have
no refuge in annihilation. Creative energy has
been exerted. Our first attribute, the vehicle of
all our other attributes, — is immortality. We are
of indestructible mould. Do what else Ave please
with our nature and our faculties, we cannot
annihilate them. Go where we please, self-deser-
tion is impossible. Banished, we may be, from
the enjoyment of God, but never from his domin-
ion. There is no right or power of expatriation.
There is no neighboring universe to fly to. If
we forswear allegiance, it is but an empty form,
for the laws by which we are bound, do not only
surround us, but are in us, and parts of us. What-
soever other things may be possible, yet to break
up or suspend this perpetuity of existence; to
elude this susceptibility to pains, at once indeli-
nite in number and indescribable in severity ; to
silence conscience, or say that it shall not hold
dominion over the soul ; to sink the past in obliv-
ion ; or to alter any of the conditions on which
Heaven has made our bliss and our woe to depend,
— these things are impossible. Personality has
been given us, by which we must refer all sensa-
tions, emotions, resolves, to our conscious selves.
Identity has been given us, by virtue of which;
through whatever ages Ave exist, our whole being
is made a unity. Now, whether curses or bless-
ings, by these conditions of our nature we must
stand; for they are appointed to us, by a law
higher than Fate, — by the law of God.
Were any one of this assembly to be ship-
wrecked upon a desert island, — ''out of Human-
ity's reach," — would it not be his first act to
ascend the nearest eminence and explore his posi-
tion ? Would he not at once strive to descry the
dangers and the resources by which he might be
surrounded? And, if reason, or even an enlight-
ened self-love, constitutes any attribute of our
11
122
nature, is it any the less our duty, — finding our-
selves to be J and to have entered upon an intermi-
nable career of existence, — finding ourselves in-
wrought and organized with certain faculties and
susceptibilities, so that we are necessitated to en-
joy pleasure or to suffer pain, and so that neu-
trahty between good and evil is impossible, — is
it, I say, any the less our duty and our interest
to look around us and within us, and to see what,
on the whole, we can best do with this nature and
with these faculties, of which we find ourselves
in possession? Ought we not to inquire what
mighty forces of Nature and of Providence are
sweeping us along, and whither their currents are
tending? what parts of the great system in which
we are placed, can be accommodated to us, and
to what parts we must accommodate ourselves?
Before such a theme I stand in awe. On which
side shall its vastness be approached? Shall I
speak of the principles on which an educational
system for a State should be organized; or of the
means and agencies by which it should be admin-
istered, in contrast with the absence of any fun-
damental plan? From the Capitol, where the
sovereign law is enacted, and whence it is promul-
gated, to the school district and the fireside, where
the grand results of that law are to appear, in a
more prosperous, more intelligent, more virtuous,
and, of course, more happy generation of men and
women, there is a vast intervening distance ; —
upon which one of the many links of the chain
that binds these two extremes together, shall I
expatiate ?
I venture, my friends, at this time, to solicit
your attention, while I attempt to lay before you
some of the relations which we bear to the cause
of Education, because we are the citizens of a Re-
public ; and thence to deduce some of the reasons,
which, under our political institutions, make the
123
proper training of the rising generation the highest
earthly duty of the risen.
It is a truism, that free institutions multiply
human energies. A chained body cannot do much
harm ; a chained mind can do as little. In a des-
potic government, the human faculties are be-
numbed and paralyzed ; in a Republic, they glow
with an intense life, and burst forth with uncon-
trollable impetuosity. In the former, they are cir-
cumscribed and straitened in their range of action;
in the latter, they have "ample room and verge
enough," and may rise to glory or plunge into
ruin. Amidst universal ignorance, there cannot
be such wrong notions about right, as there may
be in a community partially enlightened ; and
false conclusions which have been reasoned out,
are infinitely worse than blind impulses.
To demonstrate the necessity of education in
our government, I shall not attempt to derive my
proofs from the history of other Republics. Such
arguments are becoming stale. Besides, there are
so many points of difference between our own polit-
ical institutions, and those of any other government
calling itself free, which has ever existed, that the
objector perpetually eludes or denies the force of
our reasoning, by showing some want of analogy
between the cases presented.
I propose, therefore, on this occasion, not to
adduce, as proofs, what has been true only in past
times; but what is true, at the present time, and
must always continue to be true. I shall rely,
not on precedents, but on the nature of things ;
and draw my arguments less from history than
from humanity.
Now it is undeniable that, with the possession of
certain higher faculties, — common to all mankind,
— whose proper cultivation will bear us upward
to hitherto undiscovered regions of prosperity
nnd glory, we possess, also, certain lower facul-
124
ties or propensities, — equally common, — whose
improper indulgence leads, inevitably, to tribula-
tion, and anguish, and ruin. The propensities to
which I refer, seem indispensable to our temporal
existence, and, if restricted within proper limits,
they are promotive of our enjoyment ; but, beyond
those limits, they work dishonor and infatuation,
madness and despair. As servants, they are in-
dispensable ; as masters, they torture as well as
tyrannize. Now despotic and arbitrary govern-
ments have dwarfed and crippled the powers of
doing evil as much as the powers of doing good ;
but a republican government, from the very fact
of its freedom, un-reins their speed, and lets loose
their strength. It is justly alleged against despo-
tisms, that they fetter, mutilate, almost extinguish
the noblest powers of the human soul ; but there
is a 'per contra to this, for which we have not
given them credit ; — they circumscribe the ability
to do the greatest evil, as well as to do the great-
est good.
/ My proposition, therefore, is simply this : — If
republican institutions do wake up unexampled
energies in the whole mass of a people, and give
them implements of unexampled power where-
with to work out their will : then these same in-
stitutions ought also to confer upon that people
unexampled wisdom and rectitude. If these insti-
tutions give greater scope and impulse to the lower
order of faculties belonging to the human mind,
then, they must also give more authoritative con-
trol, and more skilful guidance to the higher ones.
If they multiply temptations, they must fortify
against them. If they quicken the activity and
enlarge the sphere of the appetites and passions,
they must, at least in an equal ratio, establish the
authority and extend the jurisdiction of reason
and conscience. In a word, we must not add to
126
the impulsive, without also adding to the regu-
lating forces. /
If we maintain institutions, which bring us
within the action of new and unheard-of powers,
without taking any corresponding measures for
the government of those powers, we shall perish
by the very instruments prepared for our happi-
ness.
The truth has been so often asserted, that there
is no security for a republic but in morality and
intelligence, that a repetition of it seems hardly
in good taste. But all permanent blessings being
founded on permanent truths, a continued observ-
ance of the truth is the condition of a continued
enjoyment of the blessing. I know we are often
admonished that, without intelligence and virtue,
as a chart and a compass, to direct us in our un-
tried political voyage, we shall perish in the first
storm; but I venture to add that, without these
qualities, we shall not wait for a storm, — we can-
not weather a calm. If the sea is as smooth as
glass we shall founder, for we are in a stone-boat.
Unless these qualities pervade the general head
and the general heart, not only will republican
institutions vanish from amongst us, but the words
prosperity and happiness will become obsolete.
And all this may be affirmed, not from historical
examples merely, but from the very constitution
of our nature. We are created and brought into
life with a set of innate, organic dispositions or
propensities, which a free government rouses and
invigorates, and which, if not bridled and tamed,
by our actually seeing the eternal laws of justice,
as plainly as we can see the sun in the heavens,
— and by our actually feeling the sovereign senti-
ment of duty, as plainly as we feel the earth be-
neath our feet, — will hurry us forward into regions
populous with every form of evil.
Divines, moralists, metaphysicians, — almost
11*
126
without exception, — regard the human being as
exceedingly complex in his mental or spiritual
constitution, as well as in his bodily organization ;
— they regard him as having a plurality of ten-
dencies and affections, though brought together
and embodied in one person. Hence, in all dis-
cussions or disquisitions respecting human nature,
they analyze or assort it into different classes of
powers and faculties.
First, there is a conscience in every one of us,
and a sense of responsibleness to God, which
establish a moral relation between us and our
Creator ; and which, — though we could call all
the grandeur and the splendors of the universe
our own, and were lulled and charmed by all its
music and its beauty, — will forever banish all true
repose from our bosom, unless our nature and our
lives are supposed to be in harmony with the
divine will. The object of these faculties is, their
Infinite Creator ; and they never can be supremely
happy unless they are tuned to perfect concord
with every note in the celestial anthems of love
and praise.
Then there is a set of faculties that we denomi-
nate social or sympathetic, among the most con-
spicuous of which is benevolence or philanthropy,
— a sentiment which mysteriously makes our pulse
throb, and our nerves shrink, at the pains or ad-
versity of others, even though, at the same time,
our own frame is whole, and our own forhmes
gladdening. How beautiful and marvellous a
thing it is, when embosomed in a happy family,
surrounded by friends and children, — which even
Paradise had not, — that the history of idolatry in
the far-off islands of the Pacific, or of the burning
of Hindoo widows on the other side of the globe,
amongst a people whom we never saw and never
shall see, should pierce our hearts like a knife !
How glorious a quality of our nature it is, that the
127
story of some old martyr or hero, who nobly up-
held truth with life, — though his dust has now been
blown about by^ the winds for twenty centuries,
— should transport us with such feelings of admi-
ration and ecstasy, that we long to have been he,
and to have borne all his sufferings ; and we find
ourselves involuntarily sublimed by so noble a
passion, that the most terrible form of death, if
hallowed by a righteous cause, looks lovely as a
bride to the bridegroom I
There are also the yearning, doting fondness of
parents for children, of natural kindred for each
other, and the passionate, yet pure affection of
the sexes, which fit us for the duties and the
endearments of domestic life. Even that vague
general attachment to our fellow-beings, which
binds men together in fraternal associations, is
so strong, and is universally recognized as so
natural, thai we look upon hermits and solitaries
as creatures half-mad or half-monstrous. The
sphere of these sentiments or affections is around
us and before us, — family, neighborhood, country,
kind, posterity.
And lastly, there is the strictly selfish part of
our nature, which consists of a gangof animal appe-
tites, — a horde of bandit propensities, — each one
of which, by its own nature, is deaf to the voice of
God, reckless of the welfare of men, blind, remorse-
less, atheistic ; — each one of the whole pack being
supremely bent upon its own indulgence, and
ready to barter earth and heaven to win it. We
all have some pretty definite idea of beasts of
prey and of birds of prey ; but not among the
whelps of the lion's lair, — not among the young
of the vulture's nest, are there any spoilers at all
comparable to those that may be trained from the
appetites and propensities which each human
being brings with him into the world. I am sorry
not to be able to speak of this part of our common
128
nature in a more complimentary manner ; but
to utter what facts will not warrant, would be
to exchange the records of truth for a song of
Delilah.
The first of these animal propensities is the
simple want of food or nourishment. This appe-
tite may be very gentlemanly and well-behaved.
There is nothing in it necessarily incompatible
with decorum and good-breeding, or with the con-
scientious fulfihnent of every private and every
public duty. When duly indulged, and duly
restrained, it furnishes the occasions, — around
the family and the hospitable board, — for much
of the pleasure of domestic, and the enjoyment
of social existence. But thousands go through
life, without ever having occasion to know or to
think of its awful strength. Behold, what this
appetite has actually and not unfrequently be-
come, when, taking the ghastly form of Hunger
in a besieged city, or amongst a famishing people,
it forces the living to feed upon flesh torn from
the limbs of the dead. Look at that open boat,
weltering in mid ocean; it holds the crew of a
foundered vessel who have escaped with life
only, but days and days have passed away, and
no morsel of food or drop of drink has assuaged
the tortures of hunger and thirst. At first, they
wept together as suffering friends, then they prayed
together as loving Christians ; but now friendship
is extinct and prayer is choked, for hunger has
grown to a cannibal, uttering horrible whispers,
and proposing the fatal lot, by which the blood of
one is to fill a bowl to be quaffed by the rest!
Look again at the ravages of this appetite, in its
other and more familiar, though not less appalling
forms; — look at its havoc of life in China, where
thousands annually perish by opium; in Turkey,
where the pipe kills more than the bowstring;
and at the Golgothas of Intemperance, in Ire-
129
land,* ill Old England, and in New England.
Now, the elements of this appetite are common
to us all ; and no untempted mortal can tell what
he would do, or would not do, if he were in the
besieged city, or in the ocean-tost, provisionless
boat. The sensations belonging to this appetite
reside in the ends of a few nerves, — called by the
anatomists, papillce, — which are situated about
the tongue and throat ; and yet, on the wants of
this narrow spot, are founded the cultivation of
myriads of orchards, vineyards and gardens, the
tilling of grain-fields, prairie-like in extent, the
scouring of forests for game, the dredging of seas,
and the rearing of cattle upon a thousand hills.
Granaries are heaped, cellars filled, vintages flow,
to gratify this instinct for food. And what toils
and perils, what European as well as African
slavery among the ignorant, and what epicurean
science among the learned, have their origin and
end in this one appetite ! Once, cooling draughts
from the fountain, and delicious fruits from the
earth, sufliced for its demands. Now, whenever
the banquet table is spread, there must be moun-
tains of viands and freshets of wine. What
absurdities as well as wickednesses, it tempts men,
otherwise rational and religious, to commit. Have
we not all seen instances of men, who will ask
the blessing of Heaven upon the bounties where-
with a paternal Providence has spread their daily
board, — who will pray that their bodies may be
nourished and strengthened for usefulness, by
partaking of its supplies; and will then sit down
and almost kill themselves by indulgence ! It is
as impossible to satisfy the refinements, as to
satiate the grossness of this appetite. The Ro-
man, Apicius, by his gold, provided a dish for
his table composed of thousands of nightingales^
* At the time this was written, the redemption of Ireland by Father
Mathew was only beginninjf.
130
tongues; a despot, by his power, distils the hap-
piness of a thousand slaves, to make one delicious
drop for his palate. This appetite, then, though
consisting of only a few sensations about the
mouth and throat, is a crucible in which the treas-
ures of the world may be dissolved. Behold the
epicure and the inebriate, — men who affect a lofty
indignation if you question that they are rational
beings; — see them bartering friends, family and
fame, body, soul and estate, — to gratify a space
not more than two inches square in the inside of
the mouth ! Do we not need some new form of
expression, some single word, where we can con-
dense, into one monosyllable, the meaning of ten
thousand fools !
Take another of these animal wants, — that of
clothing. How hisignificant it seems, and yet of
what excesses it is capable ! What sacrifices it
demands ; what follies and crimes it suborns us
to commit ! Compare the first fig-leaf suit with
the monthly publication of London and Parisian
fashions ! Our first parents began with a vege-
table, pea-green wardrobe, plucked from the near-
est tree, and were their own dress-makers. Now,
how many fields are tilled for linen and cotton and
silks; how many races of animals are domesti-
cated, or are hunted under the line, around the
poles, in ocean or in air, that their coverings may
supply the materials of ours ! How many ships
plough the ocean to fetch and carry ; what pon-
derous machinery rolls; how many Avarehouses
burst with an opulence of merchandise, — all hav-
ing ultimate reference to this demand for covering!
Nor is there any assignable limit to the refinements
and the expenditures, to the frauds and the cruel-
ties, which may grow on this stock. The demands
of this propensity, like those of the former, if
suffered to go onward unrestrained, increase to
infinity. The Austrian, Prince Esterhazy, lately
131
visited the different courts of Europe, dressed in
a coat which cost five hundred thousand dollars ;
and it cost him from five hundred to a thousand
dollars every time he put it on. Yet, undoubt-
edly, if he had not thought himself sadly stinted
in his means, he would have had a better coat,
and underclothes to match!
Nor is this all which is founded upon the sen-
sations of the skin, when the thermometer is much
below, or much above sixty-five degrees. Shelter
must be had ; and how much marble and granite
rises from the quarry; what masses of clay are
shaped and hardened into bricks; how many
majestic forests start from their stations, and move
afield, to be built up into villages and cities and
temples, for the habitations of men! And, not-
withstanding all that has been done under the
promptings of this appetite, who, if his wishes
could execute themselves, would remain satisfied
with the house he lives in, the temple he worships
in, or the tomb in which he expects to sleep?
Again ; there are seasons of the year when vege-
table life fails, when the corn and the vine cease
to luxuriate in the fields, and the orchards no
longer bend with fruitage. • There is also the sea-
son of infancy, when, though bountiful nature
should scatter her richest productions spontane-
ously around us, we could not reach out our
hands to gather them; and again, there is the
season of old age, with its attendant infirmities,
when our exhausted frame can no longer procure
the necessaries of existence. Now, that in sum-
mer we may provide for winter, — that during the
vigor of manhood we may lay up provisions for
the imbecility of our old age, and for the helpless-
ness of children, we have been endued by our
Maker, with an instinct of acquisition, of accumu-
lation ; — or, with a desire, as we familiarly express
it, to lay up something for a rainy day. Thus a dii-
132
position, or mental preadaptation, was given us, be«
fore birth, for these necessities which were to arise
after it, just as our eye was fitted for the hght to
shine through, before it was born into this heaven-
full of sunshine. Look at this blind instinct, —
the love of gain, — as it manifests itself even in
infancy. A child, at first, has no idea that there
is any other owner of the universe but himself.
Whatever pleases him, he forthwith appropriates.
His wants are his title deeds and bills of sale.
He does not ask, in whose garden the fruit grew,
or by whose diving the pearl was fished up.
Carry him through a museum or a market, and
he demands, in perfectly intelligible, though per-
haps in inarticulate language, whatever arrests
his fancy. His whole body of law, whether civil
or criminal, — omiie ejus corpus juris, — is in three
words, ''I want it." If the candle pleases him,
he demands the candle ; if the rainbow and the
stars please him, he demands the rainbow and
the stars.
And how does this blind instinct overleap the
objects for which it was given. Not content with
competency in means, and disdaining the gradual
accumulations of honest industry, it rises to insa-
tiate avarice and rapacity. From the accursed
thirst for gold have come the felon frauds of the
market-place, and the more wicked pious frauds of
the church, the robber's blow, the burglar's stealthy
step around the midnight couch, the pirate's mur-
ders, the rapine of cities, the plundering and
captivity of nations. Even now, in self-styled
Christian communities, are there not men who,
under the sharp goadings of this impulse, equip
vessels to cross the ocean, — not to carry the glad
tidings of the gospel to heathen lands, but to
descend upon defenceless villages in a whirlwind
of fire and ruin, to kidnap men, women and chil-
dren, and to transport them through all the horrors
133
of the middle passage, where their cries of agony
and despair outvoice the storm, that the wretched
victims may at last be sold into remorseless bond-
age, to wear chains, and to bequeath chains; —
and all this is perpetrated and suffered because a
little gold can be transmuted, by such fiery alche-
my, from human tears and blood ! Such is the
inexorable power of cupidity, in self-styled Chris-
tian lands, in sight of tiie spires of God's temples
pointing upward to heaven, which, if Truth had
its appropriate emblems, would be reversed and
point downward to hell.
Startle not, my friends, at these far-off enormi-
ties. Are there not monsters amongst ourselves,
who sell their own children into bondage for the
money they can earn 7 who coin not only the
health of their own offspring, but their immortal
capacities of intelligence and virtue, into pelf?
Are there not others, who, at home, at the town
meeting, and at the school meeting, win all the
victories of ignorance by the cry of expense?
Are there not men amongst us, possessed of super-
fluous wealth, who will vote against a blackboard
for a schoolroom, because the scantling costs a
shilling and the paint sixpence !
Nay, do we not see men of lofty intellects, of
minds formed to go leaping and bounding on
from star to star in the firmament of knowledge,
absorbed, sunk, in the low pursuit of gain ; and
if, perchance, some of their superfluous coffers
are lost, they go mad, — the fools ! — and whine and
mope in the wards of a lunatic hospital, because,
forsooth, they must content themselves with a
little less equipage, or upholstery, or millinery !
Such follies, losses, crimes, prove to what infinite
rapacity the instinct of acquisition may grow.
Again; there is the natural sentiment of self-
respect, or self-appreciation ; — when existing in
excess, it is popularly called self-esteem. This
12
134
innate tendency imparts to every individual the
feeling that, in and of himself, he is of some mark
and consequence. This instinct was given us
that it might act outwards and embody itself in
all dignity and nobleness of conduct; that it
might preserve us, at all times, from whatever is
Beneath us or unworthy of us, though we were
assured that no other being in the imiverse knew
it, or ever would know it. For, when a man of
true honor, — one who has formed a just estimate
of the noble capacities with which God has en-
dowed him, and of his own duty in using them,
— when such a man is beset by a base temptation,
and the tempter whispyers, — "You may yield, for
in this solitude and impenetrable darkness, none
can ever know your momentary lapse," — liis in-
dignant reply is, "But I shall know it myself!"
Without this elevating and sustaining instinct,
existing in some degree, and acting Avith some
efficiency, no man could ever hold himself erect,
in the midst of so many millions of other men,
each by the law of nature equal to himself With-
out this, when surveying the sublimities of crea-
tion, — the cataract, the mountain, the ocean, the
awful magnificence of the midnight heavens; or
when contemplating the power and perfections
of Jehovah, — every one would lay his hand on
his mouth and his mouth in the dust, never to
rise again.
But this common propensity, like the others, is
capable of infinite excesses. There are no bounds
to its expansiveness and exorbitancy. When act-
ing with intensity, it seems to possess creative
power. It changes emptiness into fulness. It
not only reveals to its possessor a self-worthiness
wholly invisible to others, but it so overflows with
arrogance and pride as to confer an excellence
upon every thing connected with or pertaining to
itself. The tyrant Gessler mounted his cap upon
135
a pole, and commanded his subjects to pay hom-
age to it. It had imbibed a virtue from contact
with his head, which made it of greater value
than a nation of freemen. It is said of one of the
present British dukes, that he will give a thou-
sand pounds sterling, for a single worthless book,
or for some ancient marble or pebble, provided it
is known to be the only one of the kind in exis-
tence, — a unique^ — so that his pride can blow its
trumpet in the ears of all mankind, and say, " In
respect of this old book, or marble, or pebble, 1
have what no other man has, and am superior to
the rest oi the world." Constable was so inflated
with the supposed honor of being the publisher
oi Sir Walter Scott's novels, that, in one of his
paroxysms of pride, he exclaimed with an oath,
''I am all but the author of the Waverley novels! "
Yes, he came as near as type-setter ! It is this
feeling which makes the organ-blower appropri-
ate the plaudits bestowed upon the musician, and
the hero's valet mistake himself for his master.
It is this propensity that makes a man proud of
his ancestors, who were dead centuries before he
was born; — proud of garments which he never
had wit enough to make, while he despises the
tailor by whose superior skill they were prepared ;
— and proud of owning a horse that can trot a
mile in three minutes, though the credit of his
speed belongs to the farmer who reared, and the
jockey who trained, and even to the hostler who
grooms him, infinitely more than to the self-sup-
posed gentleman who sits behind him in a gig,
and just lets him go ! Other selfish propensities
play the strangest tricks, delusions, impostures,
upon us, and make us knaves and fools ; but it is
the inflation of pride, more than any thing else,
that swells us into an Infinite Sham.
I have time to mention but one more of this
lower order of the human faculties, — the Love of
13G
Approbation. As a proper self-respect makes us
discard and disdain all unworthy conduct, even
when alone ; so a rational desire to obtain the
good-will of others, stimulates us to generosity,
and magnanimity, and fortitude, in the perform-
ance of our social duties. It is a strong auxiliary
motive, — useful as an impulse, though fatal as a
guide, I think it is hy the common consent of
mankind, that the plaudits of the world rank as
the third, in the list of rewards for virtuous con-
duct, — coming next after the smiles of Heaven
and the approval of conscience. In this country,
the bestowment of offices is the current coin in
which the love of approbation pays and receives
its debts. Offices, in the United States, seem to
be a legal tender, for nobody refuses them. But
if this desire becomes rabid and inappeasable,
if it grows from a subordinate instinct into a
domineering and tyrannical passion, it reverses
the moral order, and places the applauses of men
before the rewards of conscience and the approval
of Heaven. The victim of this usurper-passion
will find the doctrines of revealed truth in the
prevalent opinions of the community where he
resides ; and the doctrines of political truth in the
majority of votes at the last election, — modified
by the chances of a change before the next. Under
its influence, the intellect will plot any fraud, and
the tongue will utter any falsehood, in order to
cajole and inveigle a majority of the people ; but
should that majority fail, it will compel its poor
slave to abandon the old party, and try its for-
tunes with a new one.
There are other original, innate propensities,
which cannot properly be discussed, on an occa-
sion like this. Their action, within certain limits,
is necessary to self-preservation, and to the pre-
servation of the race ; a description of their ex-
cesses would make every cheek pale and every
heart faint.
137
Now there are a few general truths appertain-
ing to this whole tribe of propensities. Though
existing with different degrees of strength, in dif-
ferent individuals, yet they are common to the
whole race. As they are necessary to self-preser-
vation, their bestowment is almost universal, and
we regard every man as so far unnatural, and
suffering privation, who has not the elements of
them all, mingled in his composition. As they
are necessary to the continuance of the race, we
must suppose, at least during the present constitu-
tion of human nature, that they will always exist;
and that all improvements in government, science,
morals, faith, and other constituents of civiliza-
tion, will produce their blessed effects, not by ex-
tirpating, but by controlling them, and by bring-
ing them into subjection to the social and the
divine law. As we have a moral nature to which
God speaks, commanding us to love and obey his
holy will ; as we have a social nature, which sends
a circulating current of sympathy from our hearts
around through the hearts of children, friends,
kindred and kind, mingling our pleasures and
pains and their pleasures and pains in one com-
mon stream; so by these propensities, we are
jointed into this earthly life, and this frame of
material things.
Again ; each one of these propensities is related
to the whole of its class of objects, and not to any
proportionate or definite quantity of them ; — just
as the appetite of a wolf or a vulture is adapted
or related to the blood of all lambs and all kids,
and not merely to the blood of some particular
number of lambs and kids. Each one of them,
also, is blind to every thing but its own grati-
fication ; it sallies forth, — if uncontrolled, — and
seizes and riots upon its objects, regardless of
all sacrifices, and defiant of all consequences.
Each one of them is capacious as an abyss, is
12*
138
insatiable by indulgence, would consume what-
ever has been created for all, and then task Om-
nipotence to invent new pleasures for its pam-
pering. Was any royal epicure ever satisfied,
while a luxury was known to exist which he had
not tasted? To rear an architectural pile, or a
mausoleum, vast as the unrestrained desires of
man, the cedars of Lebanon would be too few;
nor could the materials of his wardrobe be sup-
Elied, though Damascus were his merchant. There
ave been thousands of men, all whose coffers
were literally filled with gold ; but where the ava-
ricious man in whose heart there was not room
for more coffers ? The experiment was tried with
Alexander of Macedon, whether the love of power
could be satisfied by the conquest of all the na-
tions of the earth. He did not weep, at first, for
the conquest of the world ; it was only after con-
quering one world that he wept for the conquest
of more. The ambition of Napoleon never burned
with a fiercer flame than when he escaped from
his island-prison to remount the throne of France;
although it is said that the wars in which he had
then been engaged had cost Europe five millions
of human lives. But to slake his thirst for power
and fame, the blood of five millions or of five hun-
dred millions, the destruction of a continent or a
constellation, of zone or zodiac, would have been
nothing.
And thus it is with all the propensities. Their
object must be obtained, whether, like Richard,
they murder two male children, or, like Herod,
all under two years of age. Pride built the pyra-
mids and the Mexican mounds. Appetite led
down the Goths and Yandals into the delicious
south. Cupidity brought forth the slave trade.
And so of other enormities, — the Bastile, the In-
|uisition, the Harem, — they grew on the same
stock. And though our bodies seem so small, and
139
occupy so little space, yet, through these propen-
sities, they are capable of sending out earth-o'er-
spreading branches, all clustering with abomina-
tions.
Our propensities have no affinity with reason
or conscience. Did you ever hear two persons
conversing about a third, whose ruin and infamy
they agreed had come from the amount of his for-
tune, or from his facilities for indulgence, when,
in the very breath in which they spoke of the
resistless power of the temptation over him, they
did not add that, in their own persons, they should
be willing to run the same risk 7 This is the lan-
guage of all the propensities. They are willing
to run any risk, whether it be of health or of
character, of time or of eternity. This explains
how it is, that some men not wholly lost to vir-
tue, — men who acknowledge their responsibleness
to God, and their obhgations to conscience, — but
in whom the propensities predominate and tyran-
nize ; — I say this explains how it is that such
men, when stung and maddened by the goadings
of desire, wish themselves bereft of their better
attributes, that they might give full career to pas-
sion, without remorse of conscience or dread of
retribution. That human depravity, which, hith-
erto, has made the history of our race, like the
roll of the prophet, a record of lamentation and
mourning and woe, has worked out through these
propensities ; and, if the very substance and or-
ganization of human nature be not changed, by
the eradication of these instincts, that depravity
which is, to a greater or less degree, to make the
future resemble the past, will pour out its agonies
and its atrocities through the same channels !
Such, then, are our latent capabilities of evil,
— all ready to be evolved, should the restraints of
reason, conscience, religion, be removed. Here
are millions of men, each with appetites capacious
140
of infinity, and raging to be satisfied out of a
supply of means too scanty for any one of them.
Millions of coveting eyes are fastened on the same
object, — millions of hands thrust out to seize it.
What ravening, torturing, destroying, then, must
ensue, if these hounds cannot be lashed back into
their kennel. They must be governed; they can-
not be destroyed. Nature declares that the germs,
the embryos, of these incipient monsters, shall not
be annihilated. She reproduces them with every
human being that comes into the world. Nor,
indeed, is it desirable, even if it were practicable,
that they should be wholly expunged and razed
out of our constitution. He who made us, knew
our circumstances and necessities, and He has
implanted them in our nature too deep for eradi-
cation. Besides, within their proper sphere, they
confer an innocent, though a subordinate enjoy-
ment. Certainly, we would not make all men
hermits and anchorites. Let us be just, even to
the appetites. No man is the worse because he
keenly relishes and enjoys the bountiful provisions
which Heaven has made for his food, his raiment,
and his shelter. Indeed, why were these provi-
sions ever made, if they are not to be enjoyed?
Surely they are not superfluities and supernumer-
aries, cumbering a creation which would have been
more perfect without them. Let them then be
acquired and enjoyed, though always with mod-
eration and temperance. Let the lover of wealth
seek wealth by all honest means, and with earnest-
ness, if he will ; — let him surround himself with
the comforts and the embellishments of life, and
add the pleasures of beauty to the pleasures of
utility. Let every honorable man indulge a quick
and sustaining confidence in his own worthiness,
whenever disparaged or maligned ; and let him
count upon the aflections of his friends, and the
benedictions of his race, as a part of the solid
141
rewards of virtue. These, and kindred feelings,
are not to be crushed, extinguished. Let them
rouse themselves in presence of their objects, and
rush out to seize them, and neigh, like a war-
horse for the battle, — only let them know that
they have a rider, to whose eye no mist can dim
the severe line they are never to pass, and whose
arm can bend every neck of them, like the twig
of an osier.
But I must pass to the next topic for consider-
ation, — the stimulus which, in this country, is
appHed to the propensities; and the free, unbar-
red, unbounded career, which is here opened for
their activity. In every other nation that has
ever existed, — not even excepting Greece and
Rome, — the mind of the masses has been ob-
structed in its development. Amongst millions
of men, only some half dozen of individuals, —
often only a single individual, — have been able
to pour out the lava of their passions, with full,
volcanic force. These few men have made the
Pharaohs, the Neros, the Napoleons of the race.
The rest have usually been subjected to a syste-
matic course of blinding, deafening, crippling.
As an inevitable consequence of this, the minds
of men have never yet put forth one thousandth
part of their tremendous energies. Bad men
have swarmed upon the earth, it is true, but they
have been weak men. Another consequence is,
that we, by deriving our impressions from history,
have formed too low an estimate of the marvel-
lous powers and capacities of the human being
for evil as well as for good. The general esti-
mate is altogether inadequate to what the com-
mon mind will be able to effect, when apt instru-
ments are put into its hands, and the wide world
is opened for its sphere of operations. Amongst
savage nations, it is true, the will has been moro
M2
free ; but there it has had none of the instruments
of civilized life, wherewith to execute its purposes
— suchj for instance, as the mechanic arts ; a
highly cultivated language, with the general abil-
ity to read and write it; fire-arms; engineering;
steam ; the press, and the post-ofiice ; — and am6ng
civilized nations, though the means have been
far more ample, yet the will has been broken or
corrupted. Even the last generation in this
country, — the generation that moulded our insti-
tutions into their present form, — were born and
educated under other institutions, and they
brought into active life strong hereditary and tra-
ditional feelings of respect for established author-
ity, merely because it was established, — of vener-
ation for law, simply because it was law, — and
of deference both to secular and ecclesiastical
rank, because they had been accustomed to revere
rank. But scarcely any vestige of this reverence
for the past, now remains. The momentum of
hereditary opinion is spent. The generatiori of
men now entering upon the stage of life, — the
generation which is to occupy that stage for the
next forty years, — will act out their desires more
fully, more effectively, than any generation of
men that has ever existed. Already, the tramp
of this innumerable host is sounding in our ears.
They are the men who will take counsel of their
desires, and make it law. The condition of soci-
ety is to be only an embodiment of their mighty
will ; and if greater care be not taken than has
ever heretofore been taken, to inform and regulate
that will, it will inscribe its laws, all over the
face of society, in such broad and terrific charac-
ters, that, not only whoever runs may read, but
whoever reads will run. Should avarice and
pride obtain the mastery, then will the humble
and the poor be ground to dust beneath their
chariot wheels ; but, on the other hand, should
113
besotting vices and false knowledge bear sway,
then will every wealthy, and every educated, and
every refined individual and family, stand in the
same relation to society, in which game stands to
the sportsman !
In taking a survey of the race, we see that all
of human character and conduct may be referred
to two forces ;»«the innate force of the mind acting
outwards, and the force of outward things acting
upon the mind. First, there is an internal, sali-
ent, elancing vigor of the mind, which, according
to its state and condition, originates thoughts,
desires, impulses, and projects them outwards
into words and deeds ; and secondly, there is the
external force of circumstances, laws, traditions,
customs, which besieges the mind, environs it,
places a guard at all its outer gates, permits some
of its desires and thoughts to issue forth, and to
become words and actions, but forbids others to
escape, beats them back, seals the lips that would
utter them, smites off the arm that would perform
them, punishes the soul that would send them
forth by finding an avenue in every sense and in
every nerve, through which to send up tormentors
to destroy its hopes and lay waste its sanctuaries ;
and finally, if all these means fail to subdue and
silence the internal energy, then the external
power dismisses the soul itself from the earth, by
crushing the physical organization which it in-
habits. These two forces, — on the one hand,
the mind trajecting itself forth, and seeking to do
its will on whatever is external to itself, — and, on
the other hand, whatever is external to the mind,
modifying or resisting its movements, — these con-
stitute the main action of the human drama. As
a mathematician would express it, human con-
duct and character move in the diagonal of these
two forces. Sometimes, indeed, both forces are
coincident, sometimes antagonistic ; but it is use-
114
less to inquire which force has predominated, as
no universal rule can be laid down respecting
them. In despotisms, the external prevails ; in
revolutions, — such as the French, for instance, —
the internal. Why are the Chinese, for a hun-
dred successive generations, transcripts and fac-
similes of each other, as though the dead grand-
parent had come back again in the grandchild,
and so round and round? It is because, among
the Chinese, this external force overlays the grow-
ing faculties of the soul, and compels them, as
they grow, to assume a prescribed shape. In
that country the laws and customs are so inflexi-
ble, and the spirit of the people is so impotent,
that their minds grow, as it were, into the hollow
of a brazen envelope, whose walls are not remov-
able nor penetrable ; and hence, all growth must
conform to the shape and size of the concave sur-
face. By their education, laws, and penalties,
the minds of the people are made to grow into
certain social, political, and religious forms, just
as certainly, and on the same principle of -force,
as the feet of their beauties are made, by small,
inelastic shoes, to grow hoof-wise. In Russian
Poland, a subject is as much debarred from
touching certain topics, in the way of discussion,
as from seizing on the jewels of the crown. The
knout and the Siberian mines await the first out-
ward expression of the transgressor. Hence the
divinely-formed soul, created to admire, through
intelligence, this glorious universe ; to go forth,
through knowledge, into all lands and times ; to
be identified, through sympathy, with all human
fortunes ; to know its Maker, and its immortal
destiny, is driven back at every door of egress, is
darkened at every window where light could en-
ter, and is chained to the vassal spot which gave
it birth, — where the very earth, as well as its
inhabitant, is blasted by the common curse of
145«
oondage. In Oriental and African despotisms,
the mind of the millions grows, only as the trees
of a noble forest could grow in the rocky depths
of a cavern, without strength, or beauty, or heal-
ing balm,— in impurity and darkness, fed by
poisonous exhalations from stagnant pools, all
upward and outward expansion introverted by
solid barriers, and forced back into unsightly
forms. Thus has it always fared with the facul-
ties of the human soul when caverned in despo-
tism. They have dweli in intellectual, denser
than subterranean, darkness. Their most tender,
sweet, and hallowed emotions have been choked
and blighted. 'Hie pure and sacred effusions of the
heart have been converted into liatred of the good
and idolatiy of the base, for want of the light and
the air of true freedom and instruction. The
world can suffer no loss, equal to that spiritual
loss wliich is occasioned by attempting to destroy,
instead of regulating the energies of the mind*
Since the Christian epoch, great has been the
change in Christian countries Between the relative
strength of the mind, acting outwards, and the
strength of outward things, repulsing and stifling
the action of the mind. Christianity established
one conviction in the minds of thousands and
tens of thousands, which other religions had
established in the mind of here and there an
individual only. This conviction was, that the
future existence is infinitely more important than
the present ; — the difference between the two
being so great as to reduce all mere worldly dis-
thictions to insignificance and nothing. Hence it
might have been predicted from the beginning,
that the human mind, acting under the mighty
stimulus of Christianity, would eventually tri-
umph over despotism. The interests of despotism
lie in this life ; those of Christianity, not only in
this, but in the life to come. It was, therefore
13
1 16
mortality at one end of the lever, and immortality
at the other. When one party contends for the
blessings of life merely, while the other contends
for blessings higher than life, the latter, by a law
of the moral nature, must ultimately prevail.
Although many of the ancients had a belief in
a future state of existence, yet it was apprehended
by them so dimly, and its retributions were press-
ed home so feebly on their consciences, that the
belief appears to have had but little effect upon
the conduct of individuals, or the administration
and policy of states ; and, for all practical pur-
poses, it would hardly be too strong an expression
to say, that immortality was JiJ^st revealed by
Christ. During the first three centuries of our
era, the knowledge of this discovery, — so to call
it, — was widely diffused among men. Then, by
the union of Church and State, under Constan-
tino, the civil power came in, and attempted to
appropriate the benefits of the new discovery to
itself, so that it might use divine motives for self-
ish purposes. And^ had the throne and the priest-
hood sought to govern men by the motive of fear
alone, they might have retained their ascendency,
— we cannot tell for what period of time. But
they found a natural conscience in men, a sense
of responsibleness to duty, which they were so
short-sighted as to enlist in their service ; — I say,
short-sighted, for, when they aroused the senti-
ment of duty in the human soul, and used it as a
means of securing obedience to themselves, they
called up a power stronger than themselves. The
ally was mightier than the chief that invoked its
aid. Hence the uprisings, the rebellions of the
people against regal and ecclesiastical oppression.
Rulers attempted to subdue the people ty perse-
cutions, massacres, burnings, but in vain ; be-
causej though they could kill men, they could not
kill conscience. After a conflict of sixteen cen-
11"
turies, tbe victory has been achieved. Mind has
triumphed over the quellers of mind, — the inter-
nal force over the external. When mankind shall
be removed by time to such a distance that they
can see past events in their true proportions and
relative magnitude, this struggle, between oppres-
sion on the one side, striving to keep the human
mind in its prison-house, and to set an eternal
seal upon the door ; and, on the other hand, the
convulsive efforts of that mind to disinthrall itself,
and to utter its impatient thoughts; and to form,
and to abide by, its own convictions of truth, —
this conflict, I say, will be the grand, central, con-
spicuous object, in the history of our era. The
history of wars between rival dynasties, for the
conquest or dismemberment of empires, will fade
away, and be but dimly visible in the retrospect ;
while this struggle between the soul and its en-
slavers, will stand far out in the foreground, — the
towering, supereminent figure, on the historic
canvass.
It has not been in accustomed modes, nor with
weapons of earthly temper only, that this warfare
has been waged. A^ the energies of the soul,
acting under the mighty impulses of a sense of
duty and the prospect of an endless futurity,
waxed stronger and stronger, tyrants forged new
engines to subdue it. Their instruments have
been the dungeons of a thousand Bastiles; the
Inquisition, whose ministers were literally flames
of fire ; devastations of whole provinces ; hunt-
ings of entire communities of men into the moun-
tains, like timorous flocks; massacres, — in one
only of which, thirty thousand men and women
were slaughtered at the ringing of a signal-bell:
and, after exhausting all the agonies of earth and
time, they unvaulted the Bottomless Pit, and,
suspending their victims over the abyss, they
threatened to hurl them down into the arms of
148
beckoning demons, impatient to begin theif
pastime of eternal torture. But, impassive to
annihilation ; though smitten down, yet, with re-
cuperative energy, springing from its fall ; victo-
rious over the sufferings of this world and the
more formidable terrors of another, — the human
soul, immortal, invulnerable, invincible, has at
last unmanacled and emancipated itself. It has
triumphed ; and here, in our age and in our land,
it is now rising up before us, gigantic, majestical,
lofty as an archangel, and, like an archangel, to
be saved or lost by its obedience or its transgres-
sions. Amongst ourselves it is, that this spirit is
now walking forth, full of its new-found life, wan-
toning in freshly-discovered energies, surrounded
by all the objects which can inflame its boundless
appetites, and, as yet, too purblind, from the long
darkness of its prison-house, to discern clearly
between its blessing and its bane. That uncon-
querable force of the human soul, which all the
arts and power of despotism, — which all the en-
ginery borrowed from both worlds, — could not
subdue, is here, amongst oiirselves, to do its
sovereign will.
Let us now turn for a moment to see what
means and stimulants our institutions have
provided for the use of the mighty powers and
passions they have unloosed. — N# apparatus s«
skilful was ever before devised. —Instead tf the
slow and cumbrous machinery •( firmer times,
we have provided that which is quick-working
and far-reaching, and which may be used for the
destruction as easily as for the welfare of its pos-
sessors. Our institutions furnish as great facilities
for wicked men, in all departments of wickedness,
as phosphorus and lucifer matches furnish to the
incendiary. What chemistry has done, in these
preparations, over the old art of rubbing two sticks
149
together, for the wretch who would fire your
dwelling, our social partnerships have done for
flagitious and unprincipled men. ^Through the
right, — almost universal, — of suffrage, we have
established a community of power ; and no propo-
sition is more plain and self-evident, than that
nothing but mere popular inclination lies between
a community of power and a community in every
thing else. And though, in the long-run, and
when other things are equal, a righteous cause
always has a decisive advantage over an evil one,
yet, in the first onset betweei% right and wrong,
bad men possess one advantage over the good.
They have doubje resources, — two armories. The
arts of guilt are as welcome to them as the prac-
tices of justice. They can use poisoned wea-
pons as well as those approved by the usages of
war.
Again ; has it been sufficiently considered,
that all which has been said, — and truly said, —
of the excellence of our institutions, if adminis-
tered by an upright people, must be reversed and
read backwards, if administered by a corrupt one?
I am aware that some will be ready to say, '' we
have been unwise and infatuated to confide all
the constituents of our social and political wel-
fare, to such irresponsible keeping." But let me
ask of such, — of what avail is their lamentation?
The irresistible movement in the diffusion of
power is still progressive, not retrograde. Every
year puts more of social strength into the hands
of physical strength. The arithmetic of numbers
is more and more excluding all estimate of moral
forces, in the administration of government. And
this, whether for good or for evil, will continue to
be. Human beings cannot be remanded to the
dungeons of imbecility, if they are to those of
ignorance. The sun can as easily be turned back-
wards in its course, as one particle of that power,
13*
150
which has been conferred upon the millions, can
l?e again monopolized by the few. To discuss the
question, therefore, whether our institutions are
not too free, is, for all practical purposes, as vain
as it would be to discuss the question whether,
on the whole, it was a wise arrangement on the
part of Divine Providence, that the American con-
tinent should ever have been created, or that
Columbus should have discovered it. And let
me ask, further, have those who believe our insti-
tutions to be too free, and who, therefore, would go
back to less liberal ones, — have they settled the
question, how far back they will go 7 Will they
go back to the dark ages, and recall an eclipse
which lasted centuries long? or will they ascend
a little higher for their models, — to a time when
our ancestors wore undressed skins, and burrowed
in holes of the earth ? or will they strike at once
for the institutions of Egypt, where, though the
monkey was a god, there was still a sufficient
distance between him and his human worshipper 1
But all such discussions are vain. The oak will
as soon go back into the acorn, or the bird into its
shell, as we return to the monarchical or aristo-
cratic forms of by-gone ages.
Nor let it be forgotten, in contemplating our
condition, that the human passions, as unfolded
and invigorated by our institutions, are not only
possessed of all the prerogatives, and equipped
with all the implements of sovereignty ; but that
they are forever roused and spurred to the most
vehement efforts. It is a law of the passions, that
they exert strength in proportion to the causes
which excite them,— a law which holds true in
cases of sanity, as well as in the terrible strength
of insanity. And with what endless excitements
are the passions of men here plied ! With us,
the Press is such a clarion, that it proclaims all
the great movements of this great country, with
ISl
a voice that sweeps over its whole surface, and
comes back to us in echoes from its extremest
borders. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from
the Lakes to the Gulf, men cheer, inflame, exas-
perate each other, as though they were neighbors
in the same street. What the ear of Dionysius
was to him, making report of every word uttered
by friend or foe, our institutions have made this
land to every citizen. It is a vast sounding gal-
lery ; and, from horizon to horizon every shout of
triumph and every cry of alarm are gathered up
and rung in every man's dwelling. All objects
which stimulate the passions of men, are made to
pass before the eyes of all, as in a circling pano-
rama. In very truth we are all hung upon the
same electrical wire, and if the ignorant and vicious
get possession of the apparatus, the intelligent
and the virtuous must take such shocks as the
stupid or profligate experimenters may choose to
administer.
Mark how the excitements which our institu-
tions supply, have wrought upon the love of gain
and the love of place. Vast speculations, — such
as in other countries would require not only royal
sanctions and charters, but the equipment of fleets,
and princely outfits of gold and arms, — are here
rushed into, on flash paper, by clerks and appren-
tices, not out of their time. What party can
afiirm that it is exempt from members who prize
oflice, rather than the excellence that deserves it?
Where can I be, — not what can I be, — is the ques-
tion suggested to aspirants for fame. How many
have their eyes fixed upon posts of honor and
emolument which but one only can fill. While
few will be satisfied with occupying less than
their portion of space in the public eye, thousands
have marked out some great compartment of the
sky for the blazonry of their names. And hence
it is, that, wherever there is a signal of gain, or
152
of power, the vultures of cupidity and of ambition
darken the air. Young men launch into this tu-
multuous life, years earlier than has ever been wit-
nessed elsewhere. They seek to win those prizes
without delay, which, according to nature's ordi-
nances and appointments, are the rewards of a life
of labor. Hence they find no time for studying
the eternal principles of justice, veracity, equality,
benevolence, and for applying them to the com-
plicated affairs of men. What cares a young ad-
venturer for the immutable laws of trade, when
he has purchased a ticket in some lottery of specu-
lation, from which he expects to draw a fortune ?
Out of such an unbridled, unchastened love of
gain, whether it traffics in townships of land or
in twopenny toys, do we not know beforehand,
there will come infinite falsehoods, knavery and
bankruptcy? Let this state of things continue,
and he will be a happy man who dares to say of
any article of food or of apparel, which he eats or
wears, that it has not, at some period of its prep-
aration, or in some of its transfers, been contam-
inated by fraud. And what a state of society
would it argue, in other respects, if the people at
large should ever become indifferent to the ques-
tion, whether fraud be, or be not, inwoven into
the texture, and kneaded into the substance of
what they daily consume, — whether what they
eat or drink or wear be not an embodiment of the
spirit of lies .'
So the inordinate love of office will present the
spectacle of gladiatorial contests, — of men strug-
gling for station as for life, and using against each
other the poisonous weapons of calumny and
vituperation ; — while the abiding welfare, the true
greatness and prosperity of the people will be like
the soil of some neutral Flanders^ over which the
hostile bands of partisans will march and coun-
termarch, and convert it into battle-fields, — so that,
153
whichever side may triumph, the people will be
ruined. And even after one cause or one party-
has prevailed, the conquered land will not be wide
enough to settle a tithe of the conquerors upon.
Hence must come new rallyings; new banners
must be unfurled, and the repose of the land be
again broken by the convulsions of party strife.
Hence, too, the death-grapple between the defend-
ers of institutions which ought to be abolished,
and the assailants of institutions which ought to be
preserved. Laocoon cries, " My life and my
children are mine." The hissing and en wreath-
ing serpents respond, "They are ours." If each
party espouses and supports whatever is wrong
on its own side, because such a course is deemed
iffecessary to union and strength ; and denounces
whatever is right in the plans of its antagonists,
because such are the approved tactics of opposition;
if each party sounds the loudest alarms, when the
most trivial danger from its opponents is appre-
hended, and sings the gentlest lullabies over perils
of its own producing, can seer or prophet foretell
but one catastrophe 7
Again ; we hear good men, every day, bemoan-
ing the ignorance of certain portions of our coun-
try, and of individuals in all parts of it. The use
often made of the elective franchise, the crude,
unphilosophical notions, sometimes advanced
in our legislative halls on questions of political
economy, the erroneous views entertained by por-
tions of the people, respecting the relation between
representative and constituent, and the revolu-
tionary ideas of others in regard to the structure
of civil society, — these are cited as specimens and
proofs of the ignorance that abounds amongst us.
No greater delusion can blind us. This much-
lamented ignorance, in the cases supposed, is a
phantom, a spectre. The outcry against it is a
false alarm, diverting attention from a real to aq
imaginary danger. Ignorance is not the cause of
154
the evils referred to. With exceptions compara-
tively few, we have but two classes of ignorant
persons amongst us, and they are harmless. In-
fants and idiots are ignorant ; few others are so.
Those whom we are accustomed to call ignorant,
are full of false notions, as much worse than igno-
rance as wisdom is better. A merely ignorant man
has no skill in adapting means to ends, whereby
to jeopard the welfare of great interests or great
numbers. Ignorance is blankness ; or, at most, a
lifeless, inert mass, which can, indeed, be moved
and placed where you please, but will stay where
it is placed. In Europe, there are multitudes of
ignorant men, — men into whose minds no idea ever
entered respecting the duties of society or of gov^
ernment, or the conditions of human prosperity*
They, like their work-fellows, the cattle, are obe-
dient to their masters ; and the range of their ideas
on political or social questions, is hardly more
extensive than that of the brutes. But with our
institutions, this state of things, to any great ex-
tent, is impossible. The very atmosphere we
breathe is freighted with the ideas of property,
of acquisition and transmission ; of wages, labor
and capital ; of political and social rights ; of the
appointment to, and tenure of offices ; of the re-
ciprocal relations between the great departments
of government — executive, legislative, and judi-
cial. Every native-born child amongst us imbibes
notions, either false or true, on these subjects.
Let these notions be false ; let an individual grow
up, with false ideas of his own nature and des-
tiny as an immortal being, with false views re-
specting what government, laws, customs, should
be ; with no knowledge of the works, or the opin-
ions of those great men who framed our govern-
ment, and adjusted its various parts to each other;
— and when such an individual is invested with
the political rights of citizenship, with power to
165
give an authoritative voice and vote upon the
affairs of his country, he will look upon all exist-
ing things as rubbish which it is his duty to sweep
away, that he may have room for the erection of
other structures, planned after the model of his
own false ideas. No man that ever lived could,
by mere intuition or instinct, form just opinions
upon a thousand questions, pertaining to civil
society, to its jurisprudence, its local, national and
international duties. Many truths, vital to the
welfare of the people, differ in their reality, as
much from the appearances which they present to
uninstructed minds, as the apparent size of the
sun differs from its real size, which, in truth, is
so many thousand times larger than the earth,
while to the untaught eye it appears to be so
many thousand times smaller. And if the hu-
man propensities are here to manifest themselves
through the enlarged means of false knowledge
which our institutions, unaided by special instruc-
tion, will furnish ; if they are to possess all the
instruments and furtherances which our doctrine
of political equality confers ; then the result must
be, a power to do evil almost infinitely greater
than ever existed before, instigated by impulses
proportionately strong. Hence our dangers are to
be, not those of ignorance, which would be com-
paratively tolerable, but those of false knowledge,
which transcend the powers of mortal imagination
to portray. Would you appreciate the amazing
difference between ignorance and false knowledge,
look at France, before and during her great revolu-
tion. Before the revolution, her people were merely
ignorant; during the revolution, they acted under
the lights of false knowledge. An idiot is igno-
rant, and does little harm; a maniac has false
ideas, and destroys, burns and murders.
Looking again at the nature of our institutions,
we find that it is not the material or corporeal
166
interests of mah alone, that are here decided by
the common voice ; — such, for instance, as those
pertaining to finance, revenue, the adjustment of
the great economical interests of society, the rival
claims between agriculture, commerce and manu-
factures, the partition and distribution of legisla-
tive, judicial and executive powers, with a long
catalogue of others of a kindred nature ; but also
those more solemn questions which pervade the
innermost sanctuary of domestic life, and, for
worship or for sacrilege, enter the Holy of Holies
in the ark of society : — these also are submitted to
the general arbitrament. The haughty lordling,
whose heart never felt one throb for the welfare
of mankind, gives vote and verdict on the extent
of popular rights; the libertine and debauchee
give vote and verdict on the sanctity of the mar-
riage covenant; the atheist on the definition of
blasphemy. Nor is this great people invited,
merely to speculate, and frame abstract theories,,
on these momentous themes ; to make picture
models, on paper, in their closets ; they are n#t
invited to sketch Republics of Fancy •nly, but
they are commissioned to make Republics of Fact f
and in such Republics as they please to make,
others, perforce, must please to live. If I do not
like my minister, or my parish, I can sign offj
(as we term it,) and connect myself with another;
if I do not like my town, I can move out of it ;
but where shall a man sign to, or move to, out of
a bad world? Nor do our people hold these
powers, as an ornament merely, as some ostensi-
ble but useless badge of Freedom ; but they keep
them as instruments for use, and sometimes wield
them as weapons of revenge. So closely indeed
are we inwoven in the same web of fate, that a
vote given on the banks of the Missouri or Arkan-
sas, may shake every plantation and warehouse
on the Atlantic, and, reaching seaward, overtake
157
and baffle enterprise, into whatever oceans it may
have penetrated.
Such, then, is our condition. The minds that
are to regulate all things and govern all things, in
this country, are innately strong; they are in-
tensely stimulated; they are supplied with the
most formidable artillery of means ; and each one
is authorized to form its own working-plan, its
own ground-scheme, according to which, when
the social edifice has been taken to pieces, it is to be
reconstructed ; — some are for going back a thousand
or two thousand years for their model; others,
for introducing what they consider the millen-
nium, at once, by force of law, or by force with-
out law.
And now, my friends, I ask, with the deepest
anxiety, what institutions exist amongst us,
which at once possess the power and are ad-
ministered with the efficiency, requisite to save
ns from the dangers that spring up in our own
bosoms? That the propensities, which each
generation brings into the world, possess terrific
power, and are capable of inflicting the com-
pletest ruin, none can deny. Nor will it be ques-
tioned that amongst ns, they have an open career,
and a command of means, such as never before
coexisted. What antagonist power have we pro-
vided against them 7 By what exorcism can we
lay the spirits we have raised 7 Once, brute
force, directed by a few men, trampled upon the
many. Here, the many are tlie possessors of that
very force, and have almost abolished its use as
a means of government. The French gendar-
merie^ the British horse-guards, the dreadnil pun-
ishment of the Siberian mines, will never be copied
here. Should the government resort to a standing
army, that army would consist of the very forces
they dread, organized, equipped and officered.
14
158
Can laws save us 7 With ns, the very idea of
legislation is reversed. Once, the law prescribed
the actions and shaped the wills of the multitude ;
here, the wills of the multitude prescribe and
shape the law. With us, legislators study the
will of the multitude, just as natural philosophers
study a volcano, — not with any expectation of
doing aught to the volcano, but to see what the
volcano is about to do to them. While the law
was clothed with majesty and power, and the
mind of the multitude was weak, then, as in all
cases of a conflict between unequal forces, the
law prevailed. But now, when the law is weak,
and the passions of the multitude have gathered
irresistible strength, it is fallacious and insane to
look for security in the moral force of the law.
As well might the man who has erected his
dwelling upon the verge of a cliff* overhanging
the deep, when the equilibrium of the atmosphere
is destroyed, and the elements are on fire, and
every billow is excavating his foundations, ex-
pect to still the tempest by reading the Riot-act.
Government and law, which ought to be the allies
of justice and the everlasting foes of violence and
wrong, will here be moulded into the simiUtude
of the public mind, and will answer to it, as, in
water, face answereth to face.
But, if arms themselves would be beaten in
such a contest, if those who should propose the
renewal of ancient severities in punishment,
would themselves be punished, have we not some
other resource for the security of moderation and
self-denial, and for the supremacy of order and
law 7 Have not the scholars who adorn the halls
of learning, and woo almost a hallowed serenity
to dwell in their academic shades, — have they
not, amongst all the languages which they speak,
some tongue by which they can charm and pacify
the mighty spirits we have evoked into being?
159
Alas ! while scholars and academists are earnest-
ly debating such questions, as whether the name
of error, shall or shall not be spelled with the let-
ter M, the soul of error becomes incarnate, and
starts up, as from the earth, myriad-formed and
ubiquitous, and stands by the side of every man,
and whispers transgression into his ear, and, like
the first Tempter, entices him to pluck the beau-
tiful, but fatal fruit of some forbidden tree, •ur
ancestors seem to have had great faith that the
alumni of our colleges would diffuse a higher
order of intelligence through the whole mass of
the people, and would imbue them with a love of
sobriety and a reverence for justice. But either
the leaven has lost its virtue, or the lump has
become too large; for, surely, in our day, the
mass is not all leavened.
I speak with reverence of the labors of another
profession, in their sacred calling. No other
country in the world has ever been blessed with
a body of clergymen, so learned, so faithful, so
devout as ours. But by traditionary custom and
the ingrained habits of the people, the efforts of
the clergy are mainly expended upon those who
have passed the forming state; — upon adults,
whose characters, as we are accustomed to ex-
press it, have become fixed, which being inter-
preted, means, that they have passed from fluid
into flint. Look at the ablest pastor, in the midst
of an adult congregation whose early education
has been neglected. Though he be consumed of
zeal, and ready to die of toil, in their behalf, yet
I seem to see him, expending his strength and his
years amongst them, like one solitary arborist
working, single-handed and alone, in a wide for-
est, where there are hundreds of stooping and
contorted trees, and he, striving with tackle and
guy-ropes to undouble their convolutions, and to
straighten the flexures in trunks whose fibres
160
curled as they grew; and, with his naked hand,
to coax out gnarls and nodosities hard enough to
glance off lightning ; — when, could he have guid-
ed and trained them while yet they were tender
shoots and young saplings, he could have shaped
them into beauty, a hundred in a day.
But perhaps others may look for security to the
public Press, which has now taken its place
amongst the organized forces of modern civiliza-
tion. Probably its political department supplies
more than half the reading of the mass of our
people. But, bating the point, whether, in times
of public excitement, when the sobriety and
thoughtfulness of wisdom, when severe and exact
truth are, more than ever else, necessary, —
whether, at such times, the press is not itself lia-
ble to be inflamed by the heats it should allay,
and to be perverted by the obliquities it should
rectify ; — bating this point, it is still obvious that
its principal efforts are expended upon one de-
partment only of all our social duties. The very
existence of the newspaper press, for any useful
purpose, presupposes that the people are already
supplied with the elements of knowledge and in-
spired with the love of right ; and are therefore
prepared to decide, with intelligence and honesty,
those complicated and conflicting claims, which
the tide of events is constantly presenting, and
which, by the myriad messengers of the press,
are carried to every man's fireside for his adjudi-
cation. For, of what value is it, that we have
the most wisely-framed government on earth ; to
what end is it, that the wisest schemes which a
philanthropic statesmanship can devise, are pro-
pounded to the people, if this people has not the
intelligence to understand, or the integrity to
espouse them? Each of two things is equally
necessary to our political prosperity ; namely, just
prmciples of government and administration, on
one side, and a people able to understand and
161
resolute to uphold them, on the other. Of what
use IS the most exquisite music ever composed
by the greatest masters of the art, until you have
orchestra or choir that can perform the pieces?
Pupils must thoroughly master the vocal elements,
musical language must be learned, voices must
be long and severely trained, or the divinest com-
positions of Haydn or Mozart would only set the
teeth of an auditory on edge. And so must it be
with our government and laws ; — the best will be
useless, unless we have a people who will appre-
ciate and uphold them.
Again, then, I ask, with unmitigated anxiety,
what institutions we now possess, that can fur-
nish detence or barrier against the action of those
propensities, which each generation brings into
the world as a part of its being ; and which our
institutions foster and stimulate into unparalleled
activity and vigor? Can any Christian man
believe, that God has so constituted and so gov-
erns the human race, that it is always and neces-
sarily to be suicidal of its earthly welfare 7 No !
the thought is impious. The same Almighty
power which implants in our nature the germs
of the* terrible propensities, has endowed us
also, with reason and conscience and a sense of
responsibility to Him ; and, in his providence, he
has opened a way by which these nobler faculties
can be elevated into dominion and supremacy
over the appetites and passions. But if this is
ever done, it must be mainly done, during the
docile and teachable years of childhood. I repeat
it, my friends, if this is ever done, it must be
mainly done, during the docile and teachable years
of childhood. Wretched, incorrigible, demoniac,
as any human being may ever have become, there
was a time when he took the first step in error
and in crime ; when, for the first time, he just
nodded to his fall, on the brink of ruin. Then,
14*
162
ere be was irrecoverably lost, ere he plunged into
the abyss of infamy and guilt, he might have
been recalled, as it were by the waving of the
hand. Fathers, mothers, patriots. Christians ! it
is this very hour of peril through which our chil-
dren are now passing. They know it not, but
we know it ; and where the knowledge is, there
rests the responsibility. Society is responsible ; —
not society considered as an abstraction, but soci-
ety as it consists of living members, which mem-
bers we are. Clergymen are responsible ; — all
men who have enjoyed the opportunities of a
higher education in colleges and universities are
responsible, for they can convert their means,
whether of time or of talent, into instruments for
elevating the masses of the people. The con-
ductors of the public press are responsible, for
they have daily access to the public ear, and can
infuse just notions of this high duty into the pub-
lic mind. Legislators and rulers are responsible.
In our country, and in our times, no man is wor-
thy the honored name of a statesman, who does
not include the highest practicable education of
the people in all his plans of administration. He
may have eloquence, he may have a knowledge
of all history, diplomacy, jurisprudence; and by
these he might claim, in other countries, the
elevated rank of a statesman ; but, unless he
speaks, plans, labors, at all times and in all
places, for the culture and edification of the whole
people, he is not, he cannot be, an American
statesman.
If this dread responsibility for the fate of our
children be disregarded, how, when called upon,
in the great eventful day, to give an account of
the manner in which our earthly duties have been
discharged, can we expect to escape the condem-
nation : "Inasmuch as ye have not done it to one
of the least of these, ye have not done it unto me ^ "
LECTURE IV.
1S4.*.
LECTURE IV.
WHAT GOD DOES, AND WHAT HE LEAVES FOE
MAN TO DO. IN THE WORK OF EDUCATION.
Gentlemen of the Convention :
With the coming of another year, I come to
you again, asking and offering sympathy for the
welfare of our children.
When I last had the pleasure of meeting a con-
vention of the friends of Common Schools in this
county, I addressed them on the subject of the
Necessity of Education^ under a government and
with institutions like our ovrn. I endeavored to
demonstrate, that here, in our country and in our
age, the enlightenment of the intellect, and the cul-
tivation of the affections of the rising generation,
had not been left optional with us, but made indis-
petisable ; that the efficient and thorough educa-
tion of the young was not merely commended to
us, as a means of promoting private and public
welfare, but commAinded^ as the only safeguard
against such a variety and extent of calamities as
no nation on earth has ever suffered.
The argument, in brief, ran thus : — All men
are born into the world with many appetites and
propensities of a purely animal and selfish nature.
Some of these appetites and propensities are neces-
sary to the existence of the individual, and therefore
they adhere to him and remain a part of him as long
as he lives ; others are necessary to the continuance
of the race, and therefore we must expect that they
will be reproduced with every new-born generation,
to the end of time. Each individual, for instance,
166
brings into the world, and carries through it, an
appetite for food; and this appetite perpetually
tends to an excess ruinous to health and fatal to
life, — among the vulgar running into the coarse-
ness of gluttony, — among the refined to a no less
injurious epicurism. Each individual brings into
the world, and carries through it, an appetite for
beverage; and what multitudes has this desire
stretched upon the " burning marie" of Intem-
perance ! All are born with a love of wealth, or,
at least, of acquisition, which leads to wealth ; —
and we should be unfit to live in such a world as
this is, without such an innate tendency ; because,
in health, we must lay by something for sickness,
and in the strength of manhood, something for the
helplessness of children, and for the feebleness of
old age. Yet how easily does this propensity run
out into avarice and cupidity, leading on to fraud,
robbery, rapine, and all the enormities of the
slave-trade, the opium-trade, and the rum-trade.
So we all have a desire for the good- will of others,
— an instinct beautifully adapted to diffuse pleasure
over all the intercourse of life. But in this coun-
try, where the rule once was that the honors of office
should be awarded to merit, — detur dignior% —
the sign seems to have been mistaken for the thing
signified; and now, whenever there is an office
to be filled, a crowd of applicants throng around,
more than sufficient, in point of numbers^ to fill
the vacancy for the next thousand years. Again,
a certain feeling of self-estimation is absolutely
essential to us all ; because, without it, every man
would be awed into annihilation before the ma-
jesty of the multitude, or the glories of the visible
universe. But how readily does this feeling of
self-importance burst out into pride and a love
of domination, and that intolerance towards the
opinions of others, which does not seek to enlighten
ler
or persuade, but dogmatizes, denounces, and per-
secutes.
All history cries out, with all her testimonies
and her admonitions, proclaiming to what excesses
these innate and universal appetites may grow,
when supplied with opportunities and incitements
for indulgence. If men consult their propensities
alone, no sacrifice ever seems too great to pur-
chase indulgence for the lowest and meanest of
them all. Each one of them is not only capable
of unlimited growth, but each, also, is blind to all
ooiisequences, and demands gratification, though
the next hour brings perdition as the penalty.
We need not go back to patriarchal or primeval
times to find a man who, because he was hungry
or thirsty, would barter a glorious inheritance for
a mess of pottage ; or a woman who would forfeit
paradise through curiosity to taste an apple. When
the political destiny of his family and of all France
depended upon the speed which Louis XVI.
should make in his flight from Paris, he paused
by the way-side to drink a bottle of Burgundy, —
said coolly, that it was the best bottle he ever
drank, — and suflered the scale which held the
fortunes of twenty-five millions of people, to tiirn^
irrevocably^ while he prolonged his gustations. To
add a few more items to his inventory of conquered
nations, Napoleon snatched the scythe from the
hand of Death, and, forerunning the great De-
stroyer, he strowed the earth, from torrid sands
to Arctic snows, with the corses of human slain,
mowed down in the morning beauty and vigor of
life ; and, rather than not to be emperor at all,
he would have reigned the emperor of a European
solitude. He played the game of war, as he played
his favorite game of chess, — for the sake of tri-
umph, — making no more account of nations than
of pawns. Pope Innocent III, founded an Inqui-
sition, modelled after the plan of Pandemonium,
168
that he might compel mankind to acknowledge
the infallibility of his dogmas. Notwithstanding
the manifest intentions of nature in making the
sexes almost numerically equal, the Sultan culls
nations to fill his seraglio with beauty. Did not
Mark Anthony forget his hard-earned fame, per-
fidiously abandon his faithful troops, and shut
his eyes upon the vision of a kingdom, for a tran-
sient hour of voluptuousness in the arms of Cleo-
patra 7 Herod hears that a man-child is born in
Judea, who may one day endanger his throne ;
and forthwith, to avert that possible event, he
murders all the male children in the land under
two years of age ; and the moment power was
given, a woman, to avenge a private pique, brings
in the head of John the Baptist in a charger.
Even good men, — those for whose steadfastness
we would almost be willing to pledge our lives, —
exemplify the terrible strength of the propensities.
Moses rebels ; David murders : Peter, although
forewarned, yet denies his Master, and forswears
himself.
Now, the germs or elements of these propen-
sities belong to us all. We possess them at birth ;
they abide with us till death. Yast differences
exist in the power which they exert over men,
owing to differences in their innate vigor; still
greater differences, perhaps, result from early edu-
cation. In bad men they predominate, and break
out into the commission of as much iniquity as
finite beings, with limited means, can compass.
They exist also in good men ; but, in them, they
are either feebly developed, or they are bound
and leashed in by pure and holy affections. By
nature, there were boiling seas of passion in the
breasts of Socrates and of Washington ; but god-
like sentiments of justice and duty and benevo-
lence kept down their rage, as the deep granite
beneath New England's soil keeps down the cen-
169
tral fires of the globe, and forbids earthquake or
volcano to agitate her surface. When subordi-
nated to conscience and the will of God, these
propensities give ardor to our zeal and strength to
our exertions ; just as the genius of man converts
wind and tire from destroyers into servants.
From our very constitution, then, there is a
downward gravitation forever to be overcome.
The perpetual bias of our instincts is, from com-
petency and temperance to luxury and inebria-
tion; from frugality to avarice; from honest earn-
ings to fraudulent gains ; from a laudable desire of
reputation, and a reasonable self-estimate, to un-
hallowed ambition, and a determination to usurp
the prerogative of God by writing our creeds on
other men's souls. Hence these propensities re-
quire some mighty counterpoise to balance their
proclivity to wrong. They must be governed, —
either by the pressure of outward force, or by the
supremacy of inward principle. In other coun-
tries and ages, external force, — the civil exe-
cutioner, Pretorian cohorts. Janizaries, standing
armies, an established priesthood, — have kept
them down. The propensities and appetites of a
few men have overlaid and smothered those of
the rest. A few men, whom we call tyrants and
monsters, having got the mastery, have prevented
thousands of others from being tyrants and mon-
sters like themselves. And although it is with
entire justice that we charge the despotisms of
the old world with having dwarfed and crippled
whatever is great and noble in human nature ;
yet it is equally true that they have dwarfed and
crippled, in an equal degree, whatever is injurious
and base. The Neros and Napoleons have pre-
vented others from being Neros and Napoleons, as
well as from becoming Senecas and Howards.
But with the changed institutions of this coun-
try, all is changed. Here history may be said, in
15
familiar phrase, not merely to have turned over a
new leaf, but to have opened a new set of books.
With our Revolution, the current of human events
was turned quite round, and set upon a new course.
That external power which, theretofore, had pal-
sied the propensities of the mass, was abolished.
Instead of the old axiom, that the ruler is a lord,
— a vicegerent of God, — here, to a proverb, rulers
are servants. Lightly and fearfully the law lays
its hand upon men; and, should the wisest law
ever framed, chafe the passions or propensities of
the majority, or of men who can muster a major-
ity, they speak and the law perishes. The will
of the people must be our law, whether that will
reads the moral code forwards or backwards.
Now, for one moment, compare the collected
vastness of men's desires, with the sum of the
world's resources. Compare the demand with
the supply, where the propensities are the cus-
tomers. Suppose the wealth of this country were
divided into fifteen million equal parts, and each
man were allowed to subscribe for what number
of shares he might please ; how many, think you,
would have subscribed, before it would be an-
nounced that all the stock had been taken up?
Had each man permission to drop a folded ballot
into the urn of fate, designating the rank and the
office which he and his children should hold,
would not the nominal aristocracy be tremen-
dous ? Were each religious dogmatist and bigot
authorized to write out articles of faith for uni-
versal adoption, what a mad-house of creeds and
theological systems would there be ! But this
is endless. All know, if every holder of a lottery
ticket could name the amount of his prize, how
soon the office would be bankrupt.
Now the simple question for an American, is,
whether all this mighty accession of power, grow-
ing out of our free institutions, shall or shall not
171
be placed in the hands of these ravenous and
tyrannizing propensities.
From this view of the subject it is obvious, that
we may become just as much worse than any
other nation that ever existed, as the founders of
our institutions hoped we should be better. If
the propensities are to prevail, then speculation
will supersede industry ; violence will usurp the
prerogatives of the law ; the witness Avill be per-
jured upon the stand, and the guilty be rescued by
forsworn jurors ; the grand council-halls of the
nation will be converted from an Aireopagus of
wise and reverend men, into a gladiatorial ring;
the depositaries of public and of private trusts
will administer them for personal ends; not only
individuals but States will become reckless of
their obligations ; elections will be decided by
bribery and corruption ; and the newspaper press,
which scatters its sheets over the country, thick
as snow-flakes in a wintry storm, will justify
whatever is wrong, on one side, and vilify what-
ever is right on the other, until nothing that is
right will be left on either. Ay, my friends, if
you put your ear to the ground, can you not hear,
even now, the sappers and miners at their work 7
Even in the present state of society, and with
all our boastings of civilization and Christianity,
if all men were certain that they could, with en-
tire impunity, indulge their wishes for a single
night, what a world would be revealed to us in
the morning ! Should all selfish desires at once
burst their confines, and swell to the extent of
their capacity, it would be as though each drop
of the morning dew were suddenly enlarged into
an ocean.
Does any possessor of wealth, or leisure, or
learning, ask, *' What interest have I in the edu-
cation of the multitude?" I reply; you have at
least this interest, that, unless their minds are
172
enlightened by knowledge and controlled by vir-
tuous principle, there is not, between their appe-
tites and all you hold dear upon earth, so much
as the defence of a spider's web. Without a
sense of the inviolability of property, your deeds
are but waste-paper. Without a sense of the
sacredness of person and life, you are only a
watch-dog whose baying is to be silenced, that
your house may be more securely entered and
plundered. Even a guilty few can destroy the
peace of the virtuous many. One incendiary can
burn faster than a thousand industrious workmen
can build ; — and this is as true of social rights as
of material edifices.
Had God, then, provided no means by which
this part of our nature can be controlled, we
should indeed say, that we had been lifted up to
heaven in point of privileges, that we might, so
much the more certainly, be dashed in pieces by
our inevitable fall.
But we have not been inexorably subjected to
such a doom. If it befalls us, it befalls us with our
own consent. Means of escape are vouchsafed ;
and not of escape only, but of infinite peace and
joy-
The world is to be rescued through physical,
intellectual, moral and religious action upon the
young. I say, upon the young, for the number
of grown men who ever change character for the
better, is far too small to lay the foundation of
any hope of a general reform. After the age of
twenty-five, — or even after that of twenty-one
years, — few men commence a course of virtue or
abandon one of vice; — and even when this is
done, its cause almost invariably dates back to
some early impression, which for many years has
lain dormant in the mind. Let that period be
passed, and, ordinarily, you must wait for a
death-bed repentance ; and often, will your wait-
ing be in vain even for that. By the time the age
173
of manhood has been reached, the course of life
has usually acquired a momentum which propels
it onwards, substantially in the same direction, to
its close.
Now for the great end of ransoming the human
race from its brutish instincts and its demoniac
indulgences, let us see what the benevolence of
God does for us, in the common course of nature
and providence, and what His wisdom has left
for us to do ; — because it is obvious, that He may
go on doing his part of the work, for a hundred,
or for a thousand generations, and yet, unless we
also do our part, the work never will be done.
And it may be further remarked, that while He
does His part, and we neglect ours, the work, so
far from being half done, will be worse than un-
done. Our folly perverting His goodness will be
like an unskilful hand operating upon an exquis-
itely wrought machine. But His part of the
work, — that is, the general course of nature and
providence, — will go on, whether we cooperate or
oppose. It is not for us, therefore, to say with
the Psalmist, "Awake ! why sleepest Thou^ O
Lord ! " for it is not the Lord who sleeps, but it is
we ourselves.
The general truth here stated, may find its
illustrations and analogies in all the departments
of nature. I will give only a single example.
The husbandman is promised that seed-time
and harvest shall not fail ; and, in pursuance of
that promise, the fountains of the clouds are
opened to saturate the earth with fatness; the
sun shoots a genial warmth into the soil, and the
rich mould and the richer atmosphere are ready
for a magical transformation into verdure and
flowers and fruit; — but unless the husbandman
knows how to scatter the seed at the right time,
and to cultivate the tender plant in the right way,
in vain shall the fields be visited by the reapers.
15*
174
For all Africa and for all Asia, nature has don«
her part of the work, for thousands of years ; and
yet the miserable generations rise and suffer and
perish, like so many swarms of insects on the
banks of the Nile or the Ganges. Nor does na-
ture show any symptoms of impatience at their
delay ; — with awful tranquillity, she waits for
their part of the work to be done.
The first thing done for us, in the course of
nature and providence, is the creation of children
in a state of entire ignorance and receptiveness.
Were children born with characters full-formed,
— with minds inflexibly made up on all pos-
sible subjects, and armed at all points for their
defence ; — were babes, as soon as they can speak,
to start up into ferocious partisans and fanatics, —
then nature would have done the whole work,
and left nothing for us to do ; — nay, in that case,
she would have rendered it impossible for us to
interfere, to any practical purpose. But it depends
hardly less upon the language of the household,
which of all the tongues upon earth, the child
shall most readily speak, than it does upon the
opinions of the household, what opinions, on a
great variety of the most important subjects, he
shall adopt. Hence we find, almost without ex-
ception, the children of Pagans to be Pagans ; of
Mahommedans, Mahommedans; and of Catholics
and Protestants, to be respectively, Catholics and
Protestants. It depends upon residence in a par-
ticular latitude and longitude, what natural ob-
jects a child shall become acquainted with ; and
one who is born in the frigid zone will be as little
accustomed to the social habits as to the natural
productions of the torrid. And finally, it depends
upon the examples and the institutions, amidst
which a child is reared, what shall be his earliest,
and probably his most enduring impressions,
respecting the great realities of existence.
175
Here, then, is an ample sphere for the exertion
of our influence. We should transfuse our best
sentiments, transplant our best ideas and habits,
into the receptive soul of childhood. It is our
duty to separate the right from the wrong, in our
own minds and conduct, and to incorporate the
former only in the minds and conduct of children.
Then the force of habit will aid them in doing
those duties, whose performance, in our own case,
habit may have opposed. It is an admirable
proverb which says, " Happy is the man whose
habits are his friends." * Could we ever know
that we are infallibly right. on all the great ques-
tions which pertain to our temporal and eternal
destiny, then it might be our duty to inculcate
our views authoritatively and dogmatically upon
children, and to insist upon their acquiescence
and conformity; but as we can never know in
this life, with absolute and positive certainty, that
we are right on such mighty themes, it becomes
our first and highest duty to awaken in their
hearts the sentiment of truth, to inculcate the
love and the pursuit of it, wherever it may be
found, and to teach them to abandon everything
else, even their own most cherished opinions for
its sake. That is the worst of sacrilege which
creates a belief in a child's soul that any opinion
is better than truth.
The entire helplessness of children, for a long
period after birth, is another circumstance not
within our control, and one deserving of great
moral consideration. In one respect, children
may be said to possess their greatest power, at
this, the feeblest period of their existence; — a
power which, — however paradoxical it may seem,
— originates in helplessness, and therefore dimin-
ishes just in proportion as they gain strength. It
was most beautifully said by Dr. Thomas
Brown, that after a child has grown to manhood,
176
"he cannot, even then, by the most impenons
orders, which he addresses to the most obsequious
slaves, exercise an authority more commanding
than that, which, in the very first hours of his
hfe, when a few indistinct cries and tears were
his only language, he exercised irresistibly over
hearts, of the very existence of which he was
ignorant." It may be added that, under no terror
of a despot's rage; under no bribe of honors or
of wealth; under no fear of torture or of death,
have greater struggles been made, or greater sacri-
fices endured, than for those helpless creatures,
who, for all purposes of immediate availability,
are so utterly worthless. All, unless it be the
lowest savages, fly to the succor, and melt at the
sufferings of infancy. God has so adapted their
unconscious pleadings to our uncontrollable im-
pulses, that they, in their weakness, have the
prerogative of command, and we, in our strength,
the instinct of obedience. It was the highest
wisdom, then, not to intrust the fate of infancy
to any volitions or notions of expediency, on our
part ; but, at once, by a sovereign law of the
constitution, to make our knowledge and power
submissive to their inarticulate commands.
In proportion as this power of helplessness
wanes, the child begins to excite our interest and
sympathy, by a thousand personal attractions and
forms of loveliness. The sweetness of lips that
never told a lie ; the smile that celebrates the first-
born emotions of love ; the intense gaze at bright
colors and striking forms, gathering together
the elements from whose full splendor and gor-
geousness, Raphael painted and Homer wrote ;
the plastic imagination, fusing the solid sub-
stances of the earth, to be re-cast into shapes of
beauty ; — what Rothschild, what Croesus has
wealth that can purchase these !
How cheap and how beautiful, too, are the joys
177
of childhood ! Paley, in speaking of the evi-
dences of the goodness of God, says, there is
always some '' bright spot in the prospect ;" —
some "single example,'' "by which each man
finds himself more convinced than* by all others
put together. I seem, for my own part," he adds,
" to see the benevolence of the Deity more clearly
in the pleasures of young children, than in any
thing in the world. The pleasures of grown
persons may be reckoned partly of their own pro-
curing, especially if there has been any industry,
or contrivance, or pursuit to come at them ; or, if
they are founded, like music, painting, &/C., upon
any qualifications of their own acquiring. But
the pleasures of a healthy infant, are so mani-
festly provided for it by another, and the benev-
olence of the provision is so unquestionable, that
every child I see at its sport, affords to my mind,
a kind of sensible evidence of the finger of God,
and of the disposition which directs it." At the
age of two or three years, before a child has ever
seen a jest-book, whence comes his glad and glad-
dening laughter, — at once costless and priceless?
Whence comes that flow of joy, that gurgles and
gushes up from his heart, like water flung from a
spouting-spring ? That bright-haired boy, how
came he as full of music and poetry as a singing-
book 1 Who imprisoned a dancing-school in each
of his toes, which sends him from the earth with
bounding and rebounding step 1 What an iEolian
harp the wind finds in him ! Nor music alone,
does it awaken in his bosom ; for, let but its
feathery touch play upon his locks, or fan his
cheek, and gravitation lets go of him, — he floats
and sails away, as though his body were a feather
and his soul the zephyr that played with it. In-
deed, half his discords come, because the winds,
the buds, the flowers, the light, — so many fingers
of the hand of nature, — are all striving to play
ITS
different tunes upon him, at the same time. Thes3
dehghts are born of the exquisite workmanship
of the Creator, before the ignorance and wicked-
ness of men have had time to mar it; — and they
flow out spontaneously and unconsciously, hke a
bird's song, or a flower's beauty.
Even to those who have no children of their
own, — unless they are, as the apostle expresses it,
"without natural affection," — even to those, the
wonderful growth of a child, in knowledge, in
power, in affection, makes all other wonders tame.
Who ever saw a wretch so heathenish, so dead,
that the merry song or shout of a group of gleeful
children, did not galvanize the misanthrope into
an exclamation of joy 7 What orator or poet has
eloquence that enters the soul with such quick
and subtle electricity, as a child's tear of pity for
suffering, or his frown of indignation at wrong?
A child is so much more than a miracle that its
growth and future blessedness are the only things
worth working miracles for. God did not make
the child for the sake of the earth, nor for the
sake of the sun ; but he made the earth and the
sun, as a footstool and a lamp, to sustain his steps
and to enlighten his path, during a few only of
the earliest years of his immortal existence.
You perceive, my friends, that in speaking of
the loveliness of children, and their power to cap-
tivate and subdue all hearts to a willing bondage,
I have used none but masculine pronouns, — re-
ferring only to the stronger and hardier sex ; — for,
by what glow and melody of speech, can I sketch
the vision of a young and beautiful daughter,
with all her bewildering enchantments? By
what cunning art can the coarse material of
words be refined and subtilized into color, and
motion, and music, till they shall paint her bloom
of health, "celestial, rosy red;" till they shall
trace those motions that have the grace and the
179
freedom of flame, and echo the sweet and affec-
tionate tones of a spirit, yet warm from the hand
that created it? What less than a divine power
could have strung the living chords of her voice
to pour out unbidden and exulting harmonies'?
What fount of sacred flame kindles and feeds the
light that gleams from the pure depths of her eye,
and flushes her cheek with the hues of a per-
petual morning, and shoots auroras from her
beaming foreliead 7 O! profane not this last
miracle of heavenly workmanship with sight or
sound of earthly impurity. Keep vestal vigils
around her inborn modesty ; and let the quickest
lightnings blast her tempter. She is Nature's
mosaic of charms. Looked upon as we look
upon an object in Natural History, — upon a
gazelle or a hyacinth, — she is a magnet to draw
pain out of a wounded breast. While we gaze
upon her, and press her in ecstasy to our bosom,
we almost tremble, lest suddenly she should un-
furl a wing and soar to some better world. But,
my friends, with what emotions ought we to
tremble, when our thoughts pass from the present
to the future, — when we ponder on the possi-
bilities of evil as well as of good, which now, all
unconsciously to herself, lie hidden in her spirit's
coming history, — now hidden, but to be revealed
soon as her tiny form shall have expanded to the
stature, and her spirit to the power of womanhood?
When we reflect, on the one hand, that this object,
almost of our idolatry, may go through life, solac-
ing distress, ministering to want, redeeming from
guilt, making vice mourn the blessedness it has
lost because it was not virtue ; and, as she walks,
holy and immaculate before God and before men,
some aerial anthem shall seem to be forever
hymning peaceful benedictions around her; or,
on the other hand, that, from the dark fountains
of a corrupted heart, she shall send forth a secret^
180
subtle poison, compared with which all earthly
venoms are healthful ; — when we reflect that, so
soon, she may become one or the other of all this^
the pen falls, the tongue falters and fails, while
the hopeful, fearful heart rushes from thanks-
giving to prayer, and from prayer to thanksgiv
ing.
But the most striking and wonderful provision
which is made, in the accustomed course of
nature and providence, for the welfare of children ^
remains to be mentioned. Reflect, for a moment,
my friends, how it has come to pass, that the
successive generations of children, from Adam to
ourselves, — each one of which was wholly inca-
pable of providing for itself for a single day, —
how has it come to pass, that these successive
generations have been regularly sustained and
continued to the present day, without intermission
or failure ? The Creator did not leave these ever-
returning exigencies without adequate provision ;
— for, how universal and how strong is the love
of offspring in the parental breast ! This love is
the grand resource, — the complement of all other
forces. We are accustomed to call the right of
self-preservation, the first law of nature; yet, how
this love of offspring overrules and spurns it.
To rescue her child, the mother breaks through a
wall of fire, or plunges into the fathomless flood ;
— or, if it must be consumed in the flames, or lie
down in the deep, she clasps it to her bosom and
perishes with it. This maternal impulse does not
so much subjugate self, as forget that there is any
such thing as self; and, were the mother pos-
sessed of a thousand lives, for the welfare of her
offspring she would squander them all. Mourn-
ing, disconsolate mothers, bewailing lost children!
Behold the vast procession, which reaches from
the earliest periods of the race to those who now
stand bending and weeping over the diminutive
131
graves which swallow up their hopes ; and what
a mighty attestation do they give to the strength
of that instinct which God has implanted in the
maternal breast. Nor is it in the human race only
that this love of offspring bears sway. All the
higher orders of animated nature are subjected to
its control. It inspires the most timid races of the
brnte creation with boldness, and melts the most
ferocious of them into love. To express its strength
and watchfulness, the hare is said to sleep with
ever-open eye on the form where her young re-
pose; and the pelican to tear open her breast with
iier own beak, and pour out her life-blood to feed
her nesthngs. The famishing eagle grasps her prey
in her talons and carries it to her lofty nest; and
though she screams with hunger, yet she will
not taste it until her young are satisfied ; and the
gaunt lioness bears the spoils of the forest to her
cavern, nor quenches the fire of her own parched
lips until her whelps have feasted. And thus,
from the parent stock, — from the Adam and Eve,
whether of animals or of men, who came into life
full-formed from the hands of their Creator, — down
through all successive generations, to the present
dwellers upon earth, has this invisible but mighty
instinct of the parents' heart, brooded, and held its
jealous watch over their young, nurturing their
weakness and instructing their ignorance, until
the day of their maturity, when it became their
turn to reaffirm this great law of nature towards
their ofl!*spring.
This, my friends, is not sentimentality. It is
the contemplation of one of the divinest features
in the Economy of Providence. It was for the
wisest ends that thB Creator ordained, that as
the offspring of each, "after its kind," vshould be
brought into life, — then, in that self-same hour,
without volition or forethought on their part, —
there should flame up in the breast of the parent,
16
1^
as from the innermost recesses of nature, a new
and overmastering impulse, — an impulse which
enters the soul like a strong invader, conquering,
revolutionizing, transforming old pains into pleas-
ures and old pleasures into pains, until its great
mission should be accomplished. On this link the
very existence of the races was suspended. Hence
Divine foreknowledge made it strong enough to
sustain them all ; — for, in vain would the fountain
of life have been opened in the maternal breast, if
a deeper fountain of love had not been opened in
her heart.
Would you more adequately conceive what an
insupportable wretchedness and torment the rear-
ing of children would be, if, instead of being ren-
dered delightful by these endearments of parental
love, it had been merely commanded by law, and
enforced by pains and penalties; — would you, I
say, more fully conceive this difference ; — contrast
the feelings of a slave-breeder, (a wretch abhorred
by God and man !) contrast, I say, the feelings of
a slave-breeder, who raises children for the market,
with the feelings of the slave-mother, in whose
person this sacred law of parental love is outraged.
If one of these doomed children, from what cause
soever, becomes puny and sickly, and gives good
promise of defeating the cupidity that called it
into life, with what bitter emotions does the mas-
ter behold it ! He thinks of investments sunk, of
unmerchantable stock on hand, of the profit and
loss account ; and perhaps he is secretly meditating
schemes for preventing further expenditures by
bringing the hopeless concern to a violent close.
But what an inexpressible joy does the abused
mother find in watching over and caressing it, and
cheating the hostile hours ; — and, (for such is the
impartiality of nature,) if she can beguile it of one
pain, or win one note of gladness from its sorrow-
stricken frame, her dusky bosom thrills with as
183
keen a rapture as ever dilated the breast of a royal
mother, when, beneath a canopy and within cur-
tains of silk and gold, she nursed the heir of a
hundred kings.
In civilized and christianized man, this natural
instinct is exalted into a holy sentiment. At first,
it is true, there springs up this blind passion of
parental love, yearning for the good of the child,
delighted by its pleasures, tortured by its pains.
But this vehement impulse, strong as it is, is not
left to do its work alone. It summons and sup-
plicates all the nobler faculties of the soul to be-
come its counsellors and allies. It invokes the aid
of conscience ; and consciepce urges to do all and
suffer all, for the child's welfare. For every de-
fault, conscience expostulates, rebukes, mourns,
threatens, chastises. That is selfishness, and not
conscience, in the parent, which says to the child,
'' You owe your being and your capacities to me."
Conscience makes the parent say, " I owe my
being and my capacities to you. It is I who have
struck out a spark which is to burn with celestial
effulgence, or glare with baleful fires. It is I, who
have evoked out of nothingness, unknown and
incalculable capacities of happiness and of misery;
and all that can be done by mortal means is mine
to do."
Nor does this love of offspring stop with con-
science. It enlists, in its behalf, the general feel-
ing of benevolence, — benevolence, that godlike
sentiment which rejoices in the joys and suffers in
the sufferings of others. The soul of the truly
benevolent man does not seem to reside much in
its own body. Its life, to a great extent, is the
mere reflex of the lives of others. It migrates into
their bodies, and, identifying its existence with
their existence, finds its own happiness in increas-
ing and prolonging their pleasures, in extinguish-
ing or solacing their pains. And of all places into
184
which the whole heart of benevolence ever mi-
grates, it is in the child, where it finds the readiest
welcome, and where it loves best to prolong its
residence.
So the voice of another sentiment, — a sentiment
whose commands are more authoritative than
those of any other which ever startles the slumber-
ing faculties from their guilty repose, — I mean the
religious sentiment, the sense of duty to God, —
this, too, comes in aid of the parental affection ;
and it appeals to the whole nature, in language
awful as that which made the camp of the Israel-
ites tremble, at the foot of Sinai. This sense of
duty to God compels the parent to contemplate the
child iu his moral and religious relations. It says,
" However different you may now be from your
child, — you strong, and he weak; you learned, and
he ignorant ; your mind capacious of the mighty
events of the past and the future, and he alike
ignorant of yesterday and to-morrow, — yet, in a
few short years, all this difference will be lost, and
one of the greatest remaining differences between
yourself and him, will be that which your own
conduct towards him shall have caused or per-
mitted. If, then, God is Truth, — if God is Love, —
teach the child above all things to seek for Truth,
and to abound in liOve."
So much, then, my friends, is done, in the com-
mon and established course of nature, for the wel-
fare of our children. Nature supplies a perennial
force, unexhausted, inexhaustible, reappearing
whenever and wherever the parental relation
exists. We, then, who are engaged in the sacred
cause of education, are entitled to look upon all
parents as having given hostages to our cause ;
and, just as soon as we can make them see the
true relation in which they and their children
stand to this cause, they will become advocates
for its advancement, more ardent and devoted than
185
ourselves. We hold every parent by a bond more
strong and faithful than promises or oaths, — by a
Heaven-established relationship, which no power
on earth can dissolve. Would parents furnish us
with a record of their secret consciousness, how
large a portion of those solemn thoughts and emo-
tions, which throng the mind in the solitude of
the night watches, and fill up their hours of anx-
ious contemplation, would be found to relate to
the welfare of their offspring. Doubtless the main
part of their most precious joys comes from the
present or prospective well-being of their children ;
— and oh ! how often would they account all gold
as dross, and fame as vanity, and life as nothing,
could they bring back the look of the cradle's
innocence upon the coffined reprobate !
With some parents, of course, these pleasures
and pains constitute a far greater share of the good
or ill of life than with others ; — and with mothers
generally far more than with fathers. We have
the evidence of this superior attachment of the
mother, in those supernatural energies which she
will put forth to rescue her child from danger; we
know it by the vigils and fasting she will endure
to save it from the pangs of sickness, or to ward
off the shafts of death ; — when, amid all the allure-
ments of the world, her eye is fastened, and her
heart dwells upon but one spot in it; we know
it by her agonies, when, at last, she consigns her
child to an early grave ; we know it by the tear
which fills her eye, when, after the lapse of years,
some stranger repeats, by chance, its beloved name;
and we know it by the crash and ruin of the in-
tellect sometimes produced by the blow of bereave-
ment; — all these are signatures written by the
finger of God upon human nature itself, by which
we know that parents are constituted and predes-
tined to be the friends of education. They will,
they must be its friends, as soon as increasing
16*
ISO
intelligence shall have demonstrated to them the
indissoluble relation which exists between Educa-
tion and Happiness.
I have now spoken, my friends, of what is done
for us, in the accustomed course of nature and
providence, as it regards the well-being of our
children. But here I come to the point of diver-
gence. Here I must speak of our part of the work ;
of those duties which the Creator has devolved
upon ourselves. Here, therefore, it becomes my
duty to expose the greatest of all mistakes, com-
mitted in regard to the greatest of all subjects,
and followed by proportionate calamities.
Two grand quaUfications are equally necessary
in the education of children, — Love and Knowl-
edge. Without love, every child would be re-
garded as a nuisance, and cast away as soon as
born. Without knowledge, love will ruin every
child. Nature supplies the love ; but she does
not supply the knowledge. The love is spon-
taneous ; the knowledge is to be acquired by
study and toil, by the most attentive observation
and the profoundest reflection. Here, then, lies
the fatal error: — parents rest contented with the
feeling of love; they do not devote themselves to
the acquisition of that knowledge which is neces-
sary to guide it. Year after year, thousands and
tens of thousands indulge the delightful senti-
ment, but never spend an hour in studying the
conditions which are indispensable to its gratifi-
cation.
In regard to the child's physical condition, — its
growth, and health, and length of life, — these de-
pend, in no inconsiderable degree, on the health
and self-treatment of the mother before its birth.
After birth, they depend not only on the vitality and
temperature of the air it breathes, on dress, and diet,
and exercise, but on certain proportions and rela-
tions which these objects bear to each other. Now
the tenderest parental love, — a love which burns,
like incense upon an altar, for an idolized child, for
a quarter of a century, or for half a century, — will
never teach the mother that there are different in-
gredients in the air we breathe, — that one of them
sustains life, that another of them destroys life,
— that every breath we draw changes the life-sus-
taining element into the life-destroying one ; and
therefore that the air which is to be respired must
be perpetually renewed. Love will never instruct
the mother what materials or textures of clothing
have the proper conducting or non-conducting
qualities for different climates, or for different sea-
sons of the year. Love is no chemist or physi-
ologist, and therefore will never impart to the
mother any knowledge of the chemical or vital
qualities of different kinds of food, of the nature
or functions of the digestive organs, of the suscep-
tibilities of the nervous system, nor, indeed, of any
other of the various functions on which health
and life depend. Hence, the most affectionate
but ignorant mother, during the cold nights of
winter, will visit the closet-like bed-chamber of
her darling, calk up every crevice and cranny,
smother him with as many integuments as encase
an Egyptian mummy, close the door of his apart-
ment, and thus inflict upon him a consumption,
— ^born of love. Or she will wrap nice comfort-
ers about his neck, until, in some glow of perspi-
ration, he flings them off, and dies of the croup.
Or she will consult the infinite desires of a child's
appetite, instead of the finite powers of his stom-
ach, and thus pamper him, until he languishes
into a life of suffering and imbecility, or becomes
stupefied and besotted by one of sensual indul-
gence.
A mother has a first-born child, whom she dotes
upon to distraction, but, through some fatal error
ISS
in its management J occasioned by her ignorance,
it dies in the first, beautiful, budding hour of
childhood, — nipped like the sweet blossoms of
spring by an untimely frost. Another is com-
mitted to her charge, and in her secret heart she
says, "I will love this better than the first." But
it is not better love that the child needs; it is
more knowledge.
It is the vast field of ignorance pertaining to
these subjects, in which quackery thrives and fat-
tens. No one who knows any thing of the organs
and functions of the human system, and of the
properties of those objects in nature to which
that system is related, can hear a quack descant
upon the miraculous virtues of his nostrums, or
can read his advertisements in the newspapers, —
wherein, fraudulently towards man, and impiously
towards God, he promises to sell an '' Elixir of
Life," or ''The Balm of Immortality," or '' Resur-
rection Pills," — without contempt for his ignorance,
or detestation of his guilt. Could the quack ad-
minister his nostrums to the great enemy. Death,
then, indeed, we might expect to live forever.
And what is the consequence of this excess of
love and lack of knowledge on the part of the pa-
rent 7 More than one fifth part, — almost a fourth
part, — of all the children who are born, die before
attaining the age of one year. A fifth part have
died before a seventieth part of the term of exist-
ence has been reached ! What would the farmer
or the shepherd say, if he should lose one fifth
part of his lambs or his kids, before a seventieth
part of their natural term of life had been reached !
And before the age of five years, more than a third
part of all who are born of our race, have returned
again to the earth, — the great majority of them
having died of that most fatal and wide-spread of
all epidemics, — unenlightened parental love. What
an inconceivable amount of anxiety for the health
189
and life of children might be prevented; how much
of the agony of bereavement might be saved ; how
much joy might be won from beholding child-
hood's rosy beauty and bounding health, if pa-
rents, especially mothers, would study such works
as those of Doctor Combe, on the Principles of
Physiology, as applied to Health and Education,
and on Digestion and Dietetics ; of Doctor Brig-
ham, on Mental Excitement ; or Miss Sedgwick's
Means and Ends ; and, (if they are to stand at all
in the way of mastering this knowledge,) throw
Cooper, and Bulwer, and Maryatt, and Boz, into
the grate, or under the fore-stick.
When we ascend from the management of the
body to the direction and culture of the intellectual
and moral nature, the calamitous consequences
of ignorance are as much greater, as spirit is
more valuable than matter, — because the mischief
wrought by unskilfulness is always in proportion
to the value of the material wrought upon. In
regard to the child's advancement in knowledge
and virtue, with what spontaneity and vigor do
the parental impulses spring up ! They seek,
they yearn, they pray for his welfare, for his
worldly renown, for his moral excellence, — that
he may grow, not only in stature, but in favor
with God and man. These parental affections
watch over him ; they stand like an angelic guard
around him ; they agonize for his growth in the
right, for his redemption from the wrong. But
all these affections are blind impulses. They do
not know, they cannot devise a single measure,
whereby to accomplish the object they would die
to attain. Love of children has no knowledge of
the four different temperaments, — the fibrous, the
sanguine, the nervous, the lymphatic, — or of the
different combinations of them, and how different
a course of treatment each one of them, or the
predominance of either, demands. Love of chil-
193
dreii does not know how to command, in order to
insure the habit of prompt and willing obedience,
— obedience, in the first place, to parental author-
ity, afterwards to the dictates of conscience when
that faculty is developed, and to the laws of God
when those laws are made known to them. Love
of children does not know in what manner, or in
what measure, to inflict punishment ; or how to
reconcile inflexibility of principle with changes
in circumstances. It does not understand the
favorable moments when the mind is fitted to
receive the seeds of generous, noble, devout sen-
timents; or when, on the other hand, not even
the holiest principles should be mentioned. All
this invaluable, indispensable knowledge comes
from reading, from study, from observation, from
reflection, from forethought ; — it never comes, it
never can come, from the blind instinct or feeling
of parental love. Hence, as we all know, those
parents do not train up their children best who
love them most. Nay, if the love be not accom-
panied with knowledge, it precipitates the ruin of
its object. This result can be explained in a sin-
gle word. The child has appetites and desires,
without knowledge. These, if unrestrained, all
tend to excess. They demand too much of food,
dress, liberty, authority, and so forth. The child
has a throng of selfish propensities, which, if
unbalanced by the higher sentiments, prompt to
acts of disrespect, pride, cruelty,' injustice. Now
the dictate of unintelligent love in the parent is,
to assist the child in realizing all its wants.
Hence the parent's power supplies the child's
weakness in procuring the means for gratifying
its excessive desires ; and thus, that love which
nature designed as its blessing, becomes its curse.
What intelligent observer has not seen many a
parent run, at the first call of a child, remove all
obstructions from his path, and hasten his slow
steps onward to ruin !
191
Solomon says, — explicitly and without qualifi-
cation, — '" Train up a child in the way he should
go, and when he is old, he will not depart from
IT." Now, if this be true, then it is a short and
a clear syllogism, that if men do depart from the
way in which they should go, they were not, as
children^ trained up in it. Or, take the saying
only as a general proposition, — one to be applied
to the great majority of cases, — and it equally
follows that if men, generally^ do depart from the
way in which they should go, then, generally^ they
were not trained up in it. LFnder the loosest con-
struction, Solomon must have meant, that there
are powers, faculties, instrumentalities, graciously
vouchsafed by Heaven to man, by which, if dis-
covered, and applied to the processes of education,
children, generally, when they become men, Avill
go and do, and love to go and do, as they ought
to go and do. No latitudinarianism of interpre-
tation can escape this inferente.
And yet, with this authority from the Scrip-
tures before us, as to what may be done, how
often does the misconduct of children bring down
the gray hairs of parents with sorrow to the grave.
With every generation, there reappear amongst
us, the arts of fraud, the hand of violence, and the
feet that are swift to shed blood. Nor are flagi-
tious deeds and abandoned lives confined to
families alone, where the treatment of children,
by their parents, is characterized by gross ig-
norance and heathenism. Such cases, it is true,
abound, and in such numbers, too, as almost to
laugh to scorn our claims, as a people, to civil-
ization and Christianity. But how often do we
see children issuing from the abodes of rational
and pious parents, where a burning love, a hal-
lowed zeal, a life-consuming toil, have been ex-
pended upon them, — of parents who have bedew-
ed the nightly pillow with tears, and, morning
192
and evening, have wrestled with the angel of
mercy to bring down blessings upon their heads,
— how often do we see these children bursting
madly forth, and rushing straight onward to some
precipice of destruction; and though parents and
kindred and friends pursue, and strive to inter-
cept them ere they reach the brink of ruin ; and
gather in long array and stand with outstretched
arms and imploring voice, to arrest their fatal
career, — yet, gathering strength and swiftness,
the victims rush by, and plunge into the abyss of
perdition. Yet, if there is any truth in the
declaration of Solomon^, these victims, — at least
most of them, — might have been saved, and would
have been saved, had the knowledge of the
parents been equal to their love. God grant that
in saying these things, I may not shoot an arrow
of pain through any parent's heart; — still more
fervently do I say, God grant that a timely con-
sideration of these truths may turn aside the
arrows of pain from every parental breast !
The instinctive love which parents feel for
their children is only one of a large class of natu-
ral desires, — all of which are subjected to the
same conditions. Nature, in each case, supplies
the desire, but she leaves it to us to acquire the
knowledge which is necessary to guide it. She
leaves it to us so to control and regulate the desire,
that, in the long-run, it may receive the highest
amount of gratification. This truth is susceptible
of most extensive illustration. Time, however,
will allow me to adduce only a few analogies.
All men are born with a desire for food, but
they are born without any knowledge of agricul-
ture, or of the arts or implements of the chase,
by means of which food can be procured. The
lowest grade of savages feel a natural hunger or
thirst as keen as that of the highest orders of civil-
ized man. But the savage has no knowledge
193
how to rear the kixuries of the garden, the or-
chard, the grain-field, the pasture, or the fold.
Hence he subsists upon such uncooked roots or
unsodden flesh, as can be found or caught in the
neighborhood of his cave or wigwam. But
knowledge, — an excited and cultivated intellect,
— has been at work for civilized man; and, in
obedience to its command, the earth teems with
delicious fruits, the valleys abound with fatness,
the ocean becomes tributary ; in fine, all the fields
of nature are converted into one great laboratory
to prepare sweets and fragrance and flavor for his
voluptuous table. We derive the appetite, per-
fect and full-grown, from our Maker ; but we are
left to discover for ourselves the means and proc-
esses by which this appetite can best be gratified.
The result of all our knowledge on this subject, is
expressed in the common proverb, that the tem-
perate man is the greatest epicure ; — that is, the
greatest possible amount of gratification from eat-
ing and drinking will be enjoyed by the temperate
man; — a conclusion, the very opposite of that
which the appetite itself suggests.
So in regard to a love of beauty. Nature con-
fers this sentiment, in a greater or less degree,
upon all the race. But the cultivation of it, the
preparation of objects to gratify it, — architecture,
painting, sculpture, — these come through art and
genius, by the application of a knowledge of our
own acquiring. The Indian bridegroom, stung
with love, and seeking to beautify the tawny
idol of his affections, besmears her face with red
or yellow ochre; he tattoos her skin, and for
jewels, suspends a string of bear's claws over
her sooty bosom. In consequence of possessing
a somewhat higher knowledge, our sense of beauty
is elevated perhaps two or three degrees above
that of the barbarian. Hence we seek to clothe
a beloved object with fine linen, and Tyrian pur-
17
194
pie, and silken stuffs of colors rich and costly ;
and instead of the claws of bears, we adorn her
with carcanets of pearl and diamonds. When
mankind shall be blessed with that purer and
higher knowledge which shall identify the types
of beauty with those of excellence, then will our
ideal, advancing with the advancing light, de-
mand, as the price of its admiration, richer orna-
ments than Ophir or Golconda can supply ; — it
will demand the bloom and elasticity of perfect
health, manners born of artlessness and enthu-
siasm, and a countenance so inscribed with the
records of pure thoughts and benevolent deeds, as
to be one beaming, holy hieroglyph of love and
duty. Then will our exalted sense of beauty
repel the aggression of foreign ornaments.
So the love of property, to which for another
purpose I have before referred, is common to all.
There is an inborn desire for the conveniences,
the comforts, the elegancies, the independence,
which property confers. But men are not born
with one particle of knowledge respecting the
means or instruments by which property can be
acquired. And we all know how certainly a
man, who acts from the blind desire, without any
knowledge of the appropriate means, brings ruin
upon himself and family. How much knowl-
edge is requisite, what long courses of previous
study and apprenticeship are demanded, to fit
men for the learned professions, for commerce,
manufactures and the mechanic arts. Who would
consign his goods to a merchant who knows
nothing of the laws of trade, of demand and sup-
ply, of eligible markets, seasons, and so forth 7
What a variety and extent of preliminary knowl-
edge respecting modes and processes must be
obtained, before the fabrics of the artisan or the
manufacturer can be produced. Suppose a young
man of twenty or twenty-five years of age, to
195
begin to rear a family of children. Suppose him,
at the same time, to inherit a hundred thousand
dollars in money. He seeks to gratify his paren-
tal instinct, by educating his children ; and he
seeks also to enlarge his estate, by purchasing and
carrying on a manufacturing establishment ; — but
neither on the subject of education nor of manu-
factures, has he ever thought, or read, or sought
instruction. How long, think you, my friends,
would it be, before the most perfect machinery
ever made by human skill would be wrenched,
or crushed, or torn in pieces, under his ignorant
management ; the best of cottons or woollens
spoiled, and his whole fortune dissipated 7 With-
out some knowledge of the art of manufacturing,
he would hardly know which way to turn the
wheels of his machinery ; he would not know in
what quantities to feed it, or in what order and
succession to carry the material from part to part.
Without knowledge, also, he will conduct the
education of his children quite as ruinously as his
pecuniary investments. If he is unacquainted
with the different temperaments which his chil-
dren may have, — the lymphatic, the sanguine,
the nervous, the fibrous, — he will make as great
mistakes in regard to diet and exercise, to intel-
lectual and moral training, to mental stimulus or
restraint, as though he should attempt to weave
hemp upon a silk-loom. If he does not know in
what order nature develops the faculties, one
after another, he will commit the same error, as
though he should put the raw material, in the
first instance, on the finishing machine, and carry
it, last of all, through the preliminary stages. If
you will allow me to carry on the comparison, I
will add, that, to feed machinery, in any stage of
the work, with such an over-quantity of stock as
clogs and chokes it, is only the parallel of that
common misjudgment which gives to children
196
longer lessons than they can learn. So, to ply
the minds of children with improper motives, in
order to accelerate their progress, is a far greater
mistake than it would be to drive machinery by
doubling the head of water or the power of steam,
until every shaft should be twisted, every band
stretched, and every pinion loosened, in it. Such
a silly adventurer would bring depravation and
ruin alike upon the mechanical and the educa-
tional departments of his enterprise.
Here lies the great and the only difference be-
tween the cases. When material fabrics or com-
modities are spoiled by a bungler, — when ore is
turned into dross in the smelting, when garments
are ruined in the making, when a house will not,
stand, or a ship will not sail, — we see what mis-
chief has been done, what materials have been
wasted. We understand enough of the subject to
know what should have been done, and to com-
pare it with what has been done. But no reflect-
ing man can doubt, for a moment, that the minds*
of our children, — those treasures of inestimable
value, — are corrupted and devastated by every
ignorant parent, in a degree at least equal to
what the most precious earthly materials would
be, in the hands of the rudest workman.
But it is not every child, nor even a majority
of children, who, with any propriety, can be com-
pared to mechanical structures, or to those pliant
and ductile materials that are wrought into beau-
tiful forms by the skill of the artisan. Children
formed in the prodigality of nature, gifted to exert
strong influences upon the race, are not passive ;
— they are endued with vital and efficient forces
of their own. Their capacious and fervid souls
were created to melt and re-cast opinions, codes,
communities, as crude ores are melted and puri-
fied in the furnace. To the sensitive and resilient
natures of such children, an ungentle touch is a
197
sting ; a hot word is a living coal. By mere
innate, spontaneous force, their vehement spirits
rise to such a pitch of exaltation, that, if all bland
and sedative arts do not assuage them, if all wis-
dom does not guide them, they become scourges
instead of blessings to mankind. Such natures
are among the richest gifts of Heaven to the race,
— created for great emergencies and enterprises,
always finding or making occasions for deeds of
immortality ; — like Moses, scorning the power of
kings and giving deliverance to a captive nation ;
or like Paul, speaking undaunted in the face of
courts, and making potentates tremble. Yet
how few parents know, or have ever sought to
know, how to manage these impetuous and fiery
souls ! How many parents regard physical
strength as the only antagonist and corrective of
spiritual strength, — ignorant of the truth that, to
a great extent, they are incommensurable quan-
tities. How few reflect that a child may be as
much stronger than the parents in his passions,
as the parents are stronger than the child, in their
limbs ; that wisdom in them, therefore, is the only
true correlative of will in him; and that prudence
and discretion in the arrangement of circum-
stances beforehand, are, in thousands of cases,
the effectual preventive of the necessity of pun-
ishment afterwards. If a man rashly undertakes
to use materials which are liable to spontaneous
combustion, without any knowledge of the con-
ditions which are sure to generate the flame,
ought he to complain of the laws of nature, or of
his own ignorance, when he suffers a conflagra-
tion ? We know that a man of intelligence and
circumspection will spend a life in the manufac-
ture or the transportation of gun-powder, without
an accident; while a stupid clodpoU will cele-
brate his first day's service by an explosion.
My friends, is it not incredible that any parent
17*
19$
should ever attempt to manage and direct that
mighty force, — a child's soul, — without having
first sought to acquire some knowledge of its va-
rious attributes, of its upward and its downward-
tending faculties, of the reciprocal relations existing
between it and the world into which it has been
brought, and of the manner in which its marvel-
lous capacities may be developed into harmony
and beauty, and sanctified into holiness? Look
at that every-day reality in life, — which, were it
not so familiar, we should pronounce the most
delightful sight in this sorrowing world, — that of
a young mother clasping her first-born infant to
her breast, while the light and shade that cross
her countenance reveal the infinite hopes and
fears that alternate within. What is there of ease,
pleasure, luxury, fortune, health, life, that she
would not barter, could she win a sign from hea-
ven, that her child should grow to manhood, and
as it should wax strong in body, should grow also
in favor with God and man ? Yet, was there
any thing in her own education, is there any thing
in her daily pursuits in life, or in the tone and
habits of society, which lead her to lay hold upon
the promise, that if she brings up her child in the
Avay he should go, when he is old, he will not
depart from it? If the hospitalities of her house
are to be tendered to a distinguished guest, — nay,
if she is only to prepare a refection of cakes for a
tea-party, she fails not to examine some cookery-
book, or some manuscript recipe, lest she should
convert her rich ingredients into unpalatable com-
pounds ; but without ever having read one book
on the subject of education, without ever having
reflected one hour upon this great theme, without
ever having sought one conversation with an in-
telligent person upon it, she undertakes so to
mingle the earthly and the celestial elements of
instruction for that child's soul, that he shall be
199
fitted to discharge all duties below, and to enjoy
all blessings above. When the young mother has
occasion to work the initials of her name upon her
household napery, does she not consult the sam-
pler, prepared in her juvenile days, that every
stitch may be set with regularity and in order?
Yet this same mother surrenders herself to blind
ignorance and chance when she is to engrave im-
mortal characters upon the eternal tablets of the
soul. To embroider an earthly garment, there
must be knowledge and skill ; but neither is re-
garded as necessary for the fit adornment of the
soul's imperishable vesture. The young mother
seems to think she has done her whole duty to
her child when she has christened it George Wash-
ington Lafayette, or Evelina Henrietta Augusta ;
but she consults neither book nor friend to know
by what hallowed words of counsel and of im-
j)ulse she can baptize it into a life of wisdom and
of holiness. What wonder then, what wonder
then, when children grow old, that they should
disperse in all ways, rather than walk in the way
in which they should go 7
If the vehement, but blind love of offspring,
which comes by nature, is not enlightened and
guided by knowledge, and study, and reflection,
it is sure to defeat its own desires. Hence, the
frequency and the significance of such expres-
sions as are used by plain, rustic people, of
strong common sense : — " There were too many
peacocks where that boy was brought up;" or.
*' The silly girl is not to blame, for she was dolled
up, from a doll in the cradle to a doll in the par-
lor." All children have foolish desires, freaks,
caprices, appetites, which they have no power or
skill to gratify; but the foolish parent supplies all
the needed skill, time, money, to gratify them;
and thus the greater talent and resources of the
parent foster the propensities of the child into
200
excess and predominance. The parental love
which was designed by Heaven to be the guar-
dian angel of the child, is thus transformed into a
cruel minister of^evil.
Think, my friends, for one moment, of the mar-
vellous nature with which we have been endowed,
— of its manifold and diverse capacities, and of
their attributes of infinite expansion and dura-
tion. Then cast a rapid glance over this mag-
nificent temple of the universe into which we
have been brought. The same Being created
both by His omnipotence ; and, by His wisdom,
He has adapted the dwelling-place to the dweller.
The exhaustless variety of natural objects by
which we are surrounded; the relations of the
family, of society, and of the race ; the adorable
perfections of the Divine mind, — these are means
lor the development, and spheres for the activity,
and objects for the aspiration of the immortal soul.
For the sustentation of our physical natures, God"
has created the teeming earth, and tenanted the
field and the forest, the ocean and the air, with
innumerable forms of life ; and He has said to us,
"have dominion" over them. For the education
of the perceptive intellect, there have been pro-
vided the countless multitude and diversity of
substances, forms, colors, motions, — from a drop
of water, to the ocean ; from the tiny crystal that
sparkles upon the shore, to the sun that blazes in
the heavens, and the sun-strown firmament. For
the education of the reflecting intellect we have the
infinite relations of discovered and undiscovered
sciences, — the encyclopsedias of matter and of
spirit, of which all the encyclopaedias of man, as
yet extant, are but the alphabet. We have domes-
tic sympathies looking backwards, around, and
forwards; and answering to these, are the ties of
filial, conjugal, and parental relations. Through
our inborn sense of melody and harmony, all joy-
201
ftil and plaintive emotions flow out into sponta-
neous music ; and, not friends and kindred only,
but even dead nature echoes back our sorrows
and our joys. To give a costless delight to our
sense of beauty, we have the variegated land-
scape, the rainbow, the ever-renewing beauty of
the moon, the glories of the rising and the setting
sun, and the ineffable purity and splendor of that
celestial vision when the northern and the southern
auroras shoot up from the horizon, and overspread
the vast concave with their many-colored flame,
as though it were a reflection caught from the
waving banner of angels, when the host of hea-
ven rejoices over some sinner that has repented.
And finally, for the amplest development, for
the eternal progress of those attributes that are
proper to man, — for conscience, for the love of
truth, for that highest of all emotions, the love and
adoration of our Creator, — God, in his unsearchable
riches, has made full provision. And here, on the
one hand, is the subject of education, — the child,
with its manifold and wonderful powers ; — and,
on the other hand, this height, and depth, and
boundlessness of natural and of spiritual instru-
mentalities, to build up the nature of that child,
into a capacity for the intellectual comprehension
of the universe, and into a spiritual similitude to
its Author. And who are they that lay their rash
hands upon this holy work? Where or when
have they learned, or sought to learn, to look at
the unfolding powers of the child's soul, and to
see what it requires, and then to run their eye
and hand over this universe of material and of
moral agencies, and to select and apply whatever
is needed, at the time needed, and in the measure
needed? Surely, in no other department of life
is knowledge so indispensable; surely, in no other
is it so little sought for. In no other navigation
is there such danger of wreck ; in no other is
there such bhnd pilotage.
202
But the parent has the child on hand, and he
must educate and control him. For this purpose,
he must apply such means and motives as he is
acquainted with ; and use them with such skill as
he may happen to possess. In regard to the in-
tellect, the parent has one general notion that the
child has faculties by which he can learn, and he
has another general notion that there are things to
be learned ; but, at the same time, he is utterly ig-
norant of the distinctive nature of the intellectual
faculties ; of the periods of their respective devel-
opment ; of the particular classes of objects in
the external world, and the particular subjects of
philosophical speculation, which are related to
particular faculties, and adapted to arouse and
strengthen them ; and he is also ignorant of all
the favoring circnmstances under which the facul-
ties and their related objects should be brought
into communion. In such a condition of things,
are not the chances as infinity to one against the
proper training of the child?
I say, the parent who has never read or reflected
on this subject, is necessarily ignorant of the favor-
ing circumstances under which knowledge should
be addressed to a child's mind. What but a pro-
found and widely prevalent ignorance on this
point, can account for the fact, that a parent
should send his child of four years of age to a
dreary and repulsive schoolroom, and plant him
there upon a seat, which, like the old instruments
of torture, seems to have been contrived in the
light of anatomical knowledge, and preadapted
to shoot aches and cramps into every joint and
muscle ? What but ignorance on this subject,
could ever permit a teacher to enforce stagnation
upon both the body and the mind of a little child,
for at least two hours and a half of the three hours
in each half day's session of a school? In our
old schoolhouses, and under our old system, were
203
not little cliildren d-enkd alike the repose of sleep
and the excitements of being awake ? Were not
llieir heads often siuTounded by air as hot and
dry as that of ^n African desert, Avhile Boreas
was allowed to seize them by the feet? Were
they not condemned to read what they did not
comprehend, and to commit to memory arbitrary
rnles in grammar and in arithmetic, which were
not explained 1 Did the parent visit the school,
or manifest interest and sympathy in the studies
of the child? And when, at last, alienation and
disgust succeeded, when the school was deserted,
the books thrown aside, and scenes of rude and
riotous pleasure were sought in their stead, did
not the parent justify himself, and throw the blame
of his own follj'-upon nature, by saying, Alas ! the
child never loved learning] But I ask whether
such a course of proceeding is a fair trial of the
question, whether God has created the human
intellect to hate knowledge? In all soberness I
ask, whether it would not be every whit as fair
an experiment, should an idiot seize a child in one
hand and a honey-pot in the other, and after
besmearing the soles of his feet and the palms of
liis hands, and the nape of his neck with the honey,
and producing only resistance and disgust, should
then deny that children like honey ?
Still more disastrous are the mistakes of igno-
rance, in moral training. All punishment, for in-
stance, holds the most intimate relation to morals ;
and yet, how reckless and absurd is its infliction,
when administered by ignorant or passionate pa-
rents. When a child is made to expiate a wrong, by
committing to memory two chapters in the Bible, —
as many a child has been compelled to do, — does it
make him love the right or — hate the Bible? When
a rich father threatens to disinherit a wayward
son, does the menace tend to make that son obey
the fifth commandment, or does it only make him
204
hope that his father will die in a fit, and too siid
denly to make a will 7 I once saw the mother of
a large family of children, — a woman who would
have been ashamed not to be able to discuss the
merits of the latest novel, — induce her little son
to take a nauseous dose of medicine, by telling
him that if he did not swallow it quickly, she
would call in his little sister and give it all to her;
and so strong had the selfish desire of getting
something from his sister become, that the little
imp shut his eyes, scowled terribly, and gulped
down the dose. When a child, to whom no
glimpse of the necessity and beauty of truth has
ever been revealed, sees a terrific storm of ven-
geance gathering over him, and just ready to
burst upon his head, it is not depravity, it is only
the instinct of self-preservation, that prompts him
to escape through falsehood. Bodily fear is one
of the lowest of all motives, whether we regard
the object or the actor. As it regards the object, it
is the brute, and the brutish part of man only, that
are amenable to it. As it regards the agent, no
one is so ignorant and barbarous as not to know
its power. The Hottentot, the Esquimaux, the
Feejee Islander, — all know that the power of in-
flicting corporal pain produces subjection ; — nay,
the more ignorant and barbarian any one may be,
the more sure is he to make the power of inflict-
ing pain his only resource. I do not mean to say,
that, in the present state of society, this motive
can be wholly dispensed with, in the government
of children ; or, that evils worse than itself might
not arise from its universal proscription. Still, its
true place is certainly at, or very near, the bottom
of the scale. It may be used to prevent wrong,
by the sudden arrest of the oflender ; but it never
can be used as an incentive to good. Other low
classes of motives consist in the gratification of
appetite, the acquisition of wealth, the love of
205
display, the desire of outshining others, and so
forth. A character of high and enduring excel-
lence can never be formed from any quantity or
any combination of these elements. If distinction
is the only thing for which my heart pants, and I
happen to belong to a community or a party that
reverences truth and virtue, then I shall be led to
simulate such motives and to perform such exter-
nal actions as resemble truth and virtue. Even
then, however, the semblance, and not the reality,
will be my aim. But if I am transferred to an-
other community or party, which carries its meas-
ures by persecution and senseless clamor, or by
persistence in falsehood and wrong ; then, spurred
on by the same love of distinction, I shall perse-
cute, and clamor senselessly, and persist to the
end in falsehood and wrong. It is because of a
prevalent ignorance how to use the motives of
filial affection, of justice, of benevolence, of duty
to God, of doing right for the internal delight
which doing right bestows; — it is because of this
prevalent ignorance, that bodily fear, the pleas-
ures of appetite, emulation and pride, constitute
so large a portion of the motive-forces that are
now employed in the education of children. And
parents are yet to be made to believe, with a
depth of conviction they have never experienced ;
they are to be made to feel as they have never yet
felt, that, from the same infant natures committed
to their care, they may rear up children who will
be an honor to their old age, and a statf for their
declining years, or those who will bring down
their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave; — and
that, in the vast majority of cases, these results
depend, more than upon all things else, upon the
knowledge or the ignorance, the wisdom or the
folly, that superintends their training.
In explaining that part of the work of educa-
tion which the Creator seems to have committed
18
206
to the hands of men, I have been led thus far to
speak of our duties as individuals, rather than
of those social and civil duties which devolve upon
us as neighbors, as citizens, and as constituent
parts of the government.
The first glance at our social position reveals
one of the most striking and significant facts in
the arrangements of Providence ; and, as a conse-
quence of this fact, one of the clearest of our social
duties. A parent, however vigilant and devoted
he may be, prepares only a part of the influences
which go to the education of his child. The com-
munity, and the State where he resides, prepare the
rest. The united force of all makes up the posi-
tive education which the child receives. No per-
son can now be situated as Adam and Eve were,
when rearing the two elder members of their
family. Without knowledge, and guided only by
chance, or by their own uninstructed sagacity, they
reared first a murderer, and then one who feared
God. The first was what we call a spoiled child,
— whether ruined by indulgence or by severity,
we know not, perhaps by both ; — the second had
the advantage of a little parental experience. But
since their day, all children are subject to influences
external to the parental household. No parent,
now, can bring up his child in an exhausted re-
ceiver. And hence the necessity that each parent
should look, not only to his own conduct, but to the
conduct of the community in which he resides.
That community must be moral and exemplary, in
order that he may be safe. Here, therefore, even
an enlightened selfishness coincides with benevo-
lence. In order to our own highest good, we are
bound to do good to others; for we cannot be
wholly safe while they are wrong. How glorious
the appointment of Providence, which thus re-
conciles self-love with the love of the race ; which,
indeed, makes the former defeat its own ends,
207
when it pursues them in contravention of the
latter. The love of our own children, then, when
duly enlightened, prompts us to regard the wel-
fare of our neighbors'.
Emphatically do some of the most important
of all duties devolve upon us, as members of a
State which is invested with the -authority to leg-
islate for itself. If we were governed by others,
on their heads would be the crime of our misgov-
ernment ; but when we govern ourselves, and
govern wrongly, we unite, in our own persons,
both the guilt and the calamities of misgovern-
ment. In the present state of society, an educa-
tion of a high character cannot be universally
diflfused, without a union of the forces of society,
and a concert iii its action. Cooperation and
unity of purpose will be found to increase the
power of citizens, in peace, as much as they do of
soldiers in war. And hence the duty of combined
action, on the part of the community, in reference
to this subject. But combined action can never
be effected, to any useful purpose, amongst a free
people, without agreement, without compact, that
is, — where the action of great numbers is con-
cerned, — without law. Upon the lawgivers then,
there fastens an obligation of inexpressible mag-
nitude and sacredness ; and utterly unworthy the
honorable station of a lawgiver is he, who would
elude this duty, or who unfaithfully discharges it,
or who perverts it to any sinister purpose. And
why should the legislator forever debase his char-
acter to that of a scourger, a prison-keeper, and
an executioner? Why, wearing a gorgon's head
and carrying stripes in his hand, should he pass
before the community, as an avenger of evil only,
and not as the promoter and rewarder of good 1
If terror and retribution are his highest attributes,
then his post is no more honorable than that of
the beadle who whips, or of the headsman who
SOB
decapitates. A legislator, worthy of the name,
should seek for honor and veneration, by moving
through society as a minister of beneficence, rather
than as a spectre of fear. He should reflect that
new and better results in the condition of man-
kind, are to be secured by new and wiser meas-
ures. We are not to ask Heaven for the annihi-
lation of the present race, and the creation of a
new one; but we are to ascertain and to use
those means, for the renovation, the redemption
of mankind, which have been given, or which
the veracity of Heaven stands pledged to give,
whenever, on our part, we perform the conditions
preliminary to receiving them.
You all recollect, my friends, that memorable
fire which befell the city of New York, in the
year 1835. It took place in the heart of that
great emporium, — a spot where merchants, whose
wealth was like princes', had gathered their treas-
ures. In but few places on the surface of the
globe, was there accumulated such a mass of
riches. From each continent and from all the
islands of the sea, ships had brought thither their
tributary offerings, until it seemed like a maga-
zine of the nations, — the coffer of the world's
wealth. In the midst of these hoards, the fire
broke out. It raged between two and three days.
Above, the dome of the sky was filled with ap-
palling blackness ; below, the flames were of an
unapproachable intensity of light and heat; and
such were the inclemency of the season and the
raging of the elements, that all human power and
human art seemed as vanity and nothing. Yet,
situated in the very midst of that conflagration,
there was one building, upon which the storm of
fire beat in vain. AH around, from elevated
points in the distance, from steeples and the roofs
of houses, thousands of the trembling inhabitants
gazed upon the awful scene; and thought, — as
209
well they might, — that it was one of universal and
undistinguishing havoc. But, as some swift
cross-wind furrowed athwart that sea of flame,
or a broad blast beat down its aspiring crests,
there, safe amidst ruin, erect amongst the falling,
was seen that single edifice. And when, at last,
the ravage ceased, and men again walked those
streets in sorrow, which so lately they had walked
in pride, there stood that solitary edifice, unharmed
amid surrounding desolation ; — from the founda-
tion to the cope-stone, unscathed ; — and over the
treasures which had been confided to its keeping,
the smell of fire had not passed. There it stood,
like an honest man in the streets of Sodom.
Now, why was this? It was constructed from
the same materials, of brick and mortar, of iron
and slate, with the thousands around it, whose
substance was now rubbish, and their contents
ashes. Now, why was this 7 It was built by a
workman. It was built by a workman. The
man who erected that surviving, victorious struc-
ture kneiD the nature of the materials he used;
he knew the element of fire ; he knew the power
of combustion. Fidelity seconded his knowledge.
He did not put in stucco for granite, nor touch-
wood for iron. He was not satisfied with outside
ornaments, with finical cornices and gingerbread
work ; but deep in all its hidden foundations, — in
the interior of its walls, and in all its secret joints,
— where no human eye should ever see the com-
pact masonry, — he consolidated, and cemented,
and closed it in, until it became impregnable to
fire, — insoluble in that volcano. And thus, my
hearers, must parents become workmen in the
education of their children. They must know
that, from the very nature and constitution of
things, a lofty and enduring character cannot be
formed by ignorance and chance. They must
know that no skill or power of man can ever lay
18*
210
the imperishable foundations of virtue, by using
the low motives of fear, and the pride of superi-
ority, and the love of Avorldly applause or of
worldly wealth, any more than they can rear a
material edifice, storm-proof and fire-proof, from
bamboo and cane-brake !
Until, then, this subject of education is far more
studied and far better understood than it has ever
yet been, there can be no security for the forma-
tion of pure and noble minds ; and though the
child that is born to-day may turn out an Abel, yet
we have no assurance that he will not be a Cain.
Until parents will learn to train up children in
the way they should go, — until they will learn
what that way is, — the paths that lead down to
the realms of destruction must continue to be
thronged ; — the doting father shall feel the pangs
of a disobedient and profligate son, and the
mother shall see the beautiful child whom she
folds to her bosom, turn to a coiling serpent and
sting the breast upon which it was cherished.
Until the thousandth and the ten thousandth gen-
eration shall have passed away, the Deity may
go on doing his part of the work, but unless we
do our part also, the work will never be done, —
and until it is done, the river of parental tears
must continue to flow. Unlike Rachel, /parents
shall weep for their children because they are, and
not because they are not; — nor shall they be
comforted, until they will learn, that God in His
infinite wisdom has pervaded the universe with
immutable laws, — laws which may be made pro-
ductive of the highest forms of goodness and
happiness; — and, in His infinite mercy, has pro-
vided the means by which those laws can be dis-
covered and obeyed ; but that He has left it to us
to learn and to apply them, or to suflfer the unut-
terable consequences of ignorance. But when
we shall learn and shall obey those laws, — when
211
the immortal nature of the child shall be brought
within the action of those influences, — each at its
appointed time, — which have been graciously
prepared for training it up in the way it should
go, then may we be sure, that God will clothe its
spirit in garments of amianthiis^ that it may not
be corrupted, and of asbestos^ that it may not be
consumed, and that it will be able to walk through
the pools of earthly pollution, and through the
furnace of earthly temptation, and come forth
white as linen that has been washed by the fuller,
and pure as the golden wedge of Ophir that has
been refined in the refiner's fire.
LECTURE V.
1841.
LECTURE V.
AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF EDUCATION; SHOWING
ITS DIGNITY AND ITS DEGRADATION.
Gentlemen of the Convention :
In treating any important and comprehensive
subject, it will inevitably happen that some por-
tions of it will be found less interesting than others;
— inferior in beauty, dignity, elevation. In every
book we read, some chapters will be less animat-
ing and instructive than the rest; in every land-
scape we survey, some features less impressive
and grand ; in every journey we take, some stages
more dreary and laborious. Yet we must accept
them together, as a whole, — the poor with the good.
This is my apology for presenting to you, at the
present time, a class of views, Avhich, — whether
they excite more or less interest, — will derive
none of it from flattering our self-complacency.
In attempting a series of lectures on the great sub-
ject of Education, I have arrived at a topic which
must be discussed, however far it may fall below
the average in interest and attractiveness. In
previous lectures, I have spoken of the general
state and condition of education amongst us ; and
have pointed out some of the more urgent and
immediate wants which it enjoins us to supply.
I have endeavored to unfold some of the more
vital principles of this great science ; I have
spoken of its objects ; of its importance in all coun-
tries and in all times ; and, more especially, of its
absolute and unconditional necessity under social
and political institutions like ours. Under this
216
last head, I have endeavored to demonstrate that,
in a land of liberty, — that is, in a land where the
people, in their collective capacity, are free to do
wrong as well as free to do right ; where there is no
sanguinary or surgical code of laws, to cut off
the offending members of society ; no thousand-
eyed police to detect transgression and crush it in
the germ ; — in fine, where there are few external
restraints which can be brought to bear upon the
appetites and passions of men, — that, in such a
land, there must be internal restraints; that rea-
son, conscience, benevolence, and a reverence for
all that is sacred, must supply the place of force
and fear ; and, for this purpose, the very instincts
of self-preservation admonish us to perfect our
system of education, and to carry it on far more
generally and more vigorously than we have ever
yet done. For this purpose we must study the
principles of education more profoundly ; we must
make ourselves acquainted with the art, or pro-
cesses, by which those principles can be applied
in practice ; and, by establishing proper agencies
and institutions, we must cause a knowledge both
of the science and the art to be diffused through-
out the entire mass of the people.
In this stage of the inquiry, it seems proper to
consider in what relative esteem or disesteem the
subject of education has heretofore been held, and
is now held, in the regards of men. liCt us seek
an answer to such questions as these : — Have men
assigned to the cause of education a high or a low
position? What things have they placed above
it; and what things, (if any,) have they placed
below it 7 How have its followers been honored
or rewarded? What means, instrumentalities,
accommodations, have been provided for carrying
on the work ? In fine, when its interests have
come in competition with other interests, which
h^ve been made to yield? It is related of a certain
217
king, that, when embarked on a voyage, attended
by some of his courtiers, and carrying with him
some of his treasures, a storm arose, which made
it necessary to hghten the ship ; — whereupon, he
commanded his courtiers to be thrown overboard,
but saved his money. How is it with parents,
who are embarked with fortune and family on
this voyage of hfe; — when they need a better
schoolhouse to save their children from ill health,
or a better teacher to rescue them from immorality
and ignorance; or even a slate or a shilling's
worth of paper to save them from idleness ; — have
we any parents amongst us, or have we not, who,
under such circumstances, will fling the child
overboard, and save the shilling?
A ten pound weight will not more certainly
weigh down a five poiuid weight, than a man will
act in obedience to that which, on the whole, is
his strongest motive. When, therefore, we would
ascertain the rank which education actually holds
in the regards of any community, we must not
merely listen to what that community says; we
must see what it dt)es. This is especially true, in
our country, where this cause has so many flat-
terers, but so few friends. Not by their words,
but by their works, shall ye know them, is a test
of universal application. Nor must wc stop with
inspecting the form of the system which may have
been anywhere established; we must see whether
it be a live system, or an automaton.
A practical unbelief as to the power of educa-
tion, — the power of physical, intellectual and
moral training, — exists amongst us. As a people,
wc do not believe that these fleshly tabernacles, —
which we call tabernacles of clay, — may, by a
proper course of training, become as it were taber-
nacles of iron ; or, by an improper course of train-
ing, may become tabernacles ot glass. We do not
believe, that if we would understand and obey
19
218
the Physical Laws of onr nature, our bodies might
be so compacted and toughened, that they would
outlast ten cast-iron bodies ; or, on the other hand,
that by ignorant and vicious management, they
may become so sleazy and puny, that a body of
glass, made by a glass-blower, would outlast ten
of them. We have no practical belief that the
human intellect, under a course of judicious cul-
ture, can be made to grow brighter and brighter,
like the rising sun, until it shall shed its light
over the dark problems of humanity, and put
ignorance and superstition to flight; — we do not
believe this, as we believe that corn will grow, or
that a stone will fall ; and yet the latter facts are
no more in accordance with the benign laws of
nature than the former. We manifest no liv-
ing, impulsive faith in the scriptural declaration,
" Train up a child in the way he should go, and
when he is old he will not depart from it." The
Scripture does not say that he 'probably will not
depart from it; or that in nine cases out of ten
he will not depart from it ; but it asserts, posi-
tively and unconditionally, that he will not de-
part from it; — the declaration being philosophi-
cally founded upon the fact, that God has made
provision for the moral welfare of all his creatures,
and that, when we do not attain to it, the failure
is caused by our own ignorance or neglect. It
is not more true that a well-built ship will float
in sea- water instead of diving to the bottom, than
it is that spiritually-cultivated affections will buoy
up their possessor above the low indulgences of
sensuality, and avarice, and profaneness, and in-
temperance, and irreverence towards things sacred.
But I repeat, that, as a people, we have no
living faith in these sublime and indestructible
truths ; — no faith that makes the mind think and
the hand work ; no faith that induces exertions
and sacrifices, as men exert themselves to acquire
219
fortunes or to obtain honors. Did we compre-
hend, in all their vastness and splendor, the rewards
of earthly honor and glory, and of a blissful im-
mortality, which an appropriate training of all
parts of their nature is fitted to procure for our
children, then we should hunger and thirst after
the requisite knowledge; we should make all ef-
forts and sacrifices to secure the outward means,
by which so great a prize could be won ; and we
should subordinate all other desires to this grand
desire. It would rise with us in the morning,
attend us through the day, retire with us to the
nightly couch, and mingle its aspirations, not only
with our prayers but with our dreams.
And, furthermore, as a people, we justify our
scepticism in regard to the power of education ;
we virtually charge it with impotency; we say
that, of two children, brought up in the same
family, in precisely the same manner, and under
the same influences, one shall be almost a saint,
and the other quite a sinner ; when the truth is,
that the natural temperament and dispositions of
children belonging to the same family, are often
so diflferent from each other, that their being
brought up in precisely the same manner, under
the same influences, and, of course, without any
of the necessary discriminations, is enough to
account for the result that, while one of them may
be almost a saint, the other should be the chief of
sinners.
We also appeal to the history of the past, and
aver that among the most enlightened nations of
the earth, education has done little or nothing
towards producing a state of individual and social
well-being, at once universal and permanent; —
and now, in this infancy of the world, we rashly
prescribe limits to what may be done, from what
has been done, — which is about as wise as it
would be to say of an infant, that because it
220
never has walked or talked, it never will walk
or talk.
My purpose and hope, on the present occasion,
are, to vindicate the cause of education from this
charge of imbecihty; and to show that it has
prospered less than other causes have prospered,
for the sole and simple, but sufficient reason, that
it has been cherisiied less than other causes have
been cherished, — ^not only in former times and in
other countries, but in our own time and country,
that is, always and every where.
I affirm generally, that, up to the present age
and hour, the main current of social desires and
energies, — the literature, the laws, the wealth, the
talent, the character-forming institutions of the
world, — have flowed in other channels, and left
this one void of fertilizing power. Philosophers,
morahsts, sages, who have illumined the world
with the splendor of their genius on other subjects,
have rarely shed the feeblest beam of light upon
this. Of all the literature of the ancients which
has come down to us, only a most meagre and
inconsiderable part has any reference to education.
Examine Homer and Virgil, among the poets;
Herodotus, Josephus or Livy, among the histo-
rians; or Plutarch among biographers; and you
would never infer that, according to their philos-
ophy, the conjmon mass of children did not grow
up noble or hateful, by a force of their own, like
a cedar of Lebanon, or a wild thorn-tree.
The most 'important and most general fact
which meets us, on approaching this subject, is,
that, until within less than two centuries of the
present time, no system of free schools for a whole
people was maintained anywhere upon earth ; and
then, only in one of the colonies of this country,
— that colony being the feeble and inconsiderable
one of Massachusetts, containing at that time
only a few thousand inhabitants.
221
Among several of the most powerful nations of
antiquity, where laws on the subject of education
existed, there were no Public Schools. Rome,
which so long swayed the destinies of the world,
and at last, sunk to so ignominious a close, had
no Public Schools. Its schools were what we call
Private^ — undertaken on speculation, and by any
person, however unsuitable or irresponsible.
Among the Jews, there seems to be no evidence
that there were schools even for boys. It is sup-
posed that even arithmetic was not taught to them,
and so universally was the education of females
neglected, that even the daughters of the priests
could not read and write. Girls, however, were
instructed in music and dancing.
The part of education most attended to by all
the ancient nations, was that which tended to
strengthen and harden the body. Even this,
however, was hardly worthy of being called phys-
ical education, because it was conducted without
any competent notions of anatomy or physiology.
As war was the grand object which nations pro-
posed to themselves, the education of male chil-
dren was conducted in reference to their becom-
ing soldiers. In modern times we have gone to
the other extreme, — educating the mind, or rather
parts of the mind, to the almost total neglect of
the body. A striking illustration of these facts is,
that the places appropriated to bodily exercises
among the Greeks, were called Gymnasia ; while
the Germans, who excel in the cultivation of
classical literature, call those schools wher« mind
is cultivated, to the almost entire neglect of the
body, by the same name. There can be no true
education without the union of both.
The subject-matter of education was, of course,
very limited amongst all ancient nations. Their
encyclopaedia of knowledge would have been but
a prim^r^ in size, compared with ours. The
19*
seven liberal arts taught in the celebrated schools
of Alexandria, in the* time of our Savior, were
grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, and music ; and these constituted the
complete circle of liberal knowledge. As elo-
quence conferred a celebrity inferior only to suc-
cess in arms, it was more assiduously cultivated
than any of the other studies. But rhetoric gives
only a power over men, while natural philosophy
gives a power over nature. In no one respect is
the contrast or disparity between ancient and
modern times more remarkable than in their
ignorance of, and our acquaintance with the natu-
ral sciences.
It would be unjust to pass unnoticed a few
illustrious educators among the ancients, who
existed, not in accordance with, but in defiance of
the spirit of the age in which they lived. One of
the earliest, and probably the most remarkable of
these, was Pythagoras, a Greek, born between
five and six hundred years before Christ. He
opened a school in the southern part of Italy ; and
proved the power of education by the results of
his labors. Under his instructions, his pupils
became men of the most exemplary and noble
character ; and going out from his school into the
different cities of Magna Grsecia, they effected
the most beneficent revolutions in the social rela-
tions of life, and the public institutions of society.
Music with him was a prominent means of cul-
ture. Each day began and ended with songs,
accompanied by the lyre or some other instrument.
Particular songs, with corresponding metres and
tunes, lively or plaintive, religious or mirthful, —
were prepared, as excitants or antidotes for par-
ticular passions or emotions.
Ftlltwing Pythag#ras, were Socrates, Plato
and Aristotle among the Greeks, and Quin-
tilian among the Romans, — great men, indeed,
223
but with not enough of great men around them
to correct their errors ; and hence it may be ques-
tioned whether the authority of their names has
not propagated, through succeeding times, more
of error than of truth. This is doubtless true of
Aristotle, if not of some of the rest.
Little was done by any of the ancient nations
for the honor or emolument even of the best of
teachers. We know that Socrates was put to
death for his excellences ; and, according to some
accounts, Pythagoras fell in a public commotion
which had been raised by factious hostility to his
teachings. Julius Caesar was the first who pro-
cured for Grecian scholars an honorable reception
at Rome, by conferring the right of citizenship
upon them.* Augustus encouraged men of learn-
ing by honorable distinctions and rewards, and
exempted teachers from holding certain public
offices; but, at one time, a hundred and seventy
years before Christ, Grecian philosophers and
rhetoricians were expelled from Rome by a decree
of the censors.
Quintilian, one of the most eminent and suc-
cessful of teachers, is supposed to have been the
first, and perhaps the only one, among the an-
cients, who disused and condemned whipping in
school ; but his power seems, for many centuries, to
have been among the lost arts. He taught in the
last half of the first century of the Christian era.
Scattered up and down, — but with vast inter-
vals, — among Grecian and Roman writings, we
now and then catch a glimpse of this multiform
subject; — as when Polybius speaks of the influ-
ence of music in refining the character of the
Arcadians; or when Horace says that the culti-
vation of the Fine Arts prevents men from degen-
* Perhaps it n not generally known that Julius Csesar wrote a
Latin Grammar.
224
erating into brutes; — but considering the vast
expanse, — ages of time and millions of minds, —
over which these few beams of light were thrown,
what right have we to say, that the power and
the beneficence of education had any opportunity
to make known their transforming and redeeming
prerogatives, in ancient times ?
It occurs to me here to make a single remark
in reference to the limited number of those who
enjoyed the Eidvantages of education, among the
ancients. I have elsewhere expounded that beau-
tiful law, in the Divine economy, by which the
improvement of the society around us is made
indispensable to our own security, — because no
man, living in the midst of a vicious community,
can be sure that all the virtuous influences which
he imparts to his own children, will not be neu-
tralized and lost, by the counter influences exerted
upon them by others. The sons of Themistocles,
Aristides, Pericles, Thucydides, and even of Soc-
rates himself, were contaminated by the corrup-
tions of the times, and thus defeated their paternal
hopes. The parent who wishes to bring up his
own children well, but refuses to do all in his
power to perfect the common, educational institu-
tions around him, should go with his family into
voluntary exile, — he should fly to some Juan
Fernandez, where no contagion of others' vices
can invade his solitude and defeat his care.
Shortly after the commencement of the Chris-
tian era, all idea of general popular education,
and almost all correct notions concerning educa-
tion itself, died out of the minds of men. A
gloomy and terrible period succeeded, which
lasted a thousand years, — a sixth part of the past
duration of the race of men ! Approaching this
period from the side of antiquity, or going back
to view it from our own age, we come, as it were,
to the borders of a great Gulf of Despair. Gazing
225
down from the brink of this remorseless abyss,
we behold a spectacle resembling rather the mad-
dest orgies of demons, than any deeds of men.
Oppression usurped the civil throne. Persecution
seized upon the holy altar. Rulers demanded
the unconditional submission of body and soul,
and sent forth ministers of fire and sword to
destroy what they could not enslave. Inno-
cence changed places with guilt, and bore all its
penalties. Even remorse seems to have died from
out the souls of men. As high as the halls of the
regal castle rose into the air, so deep beneath were
excavated the dungeons of the victim, into which
hope never came. By the side of the magnificent
Cathedral was built the Inquisition ; and all those
who would not enter the former, and bow the soul,
in homage to men, were doomed by the latter
to have the body broken or burned. All that
power, wealth, arts, civilization had conferred
upon the old world, — even new-born, divine Chris-
tianity itself, — were converted into instruments of
physical bondage and spiritual degradation. These
centuries have been falsely called the Dark Ages ;
they were not dark; they glare out more conspicu-
ously than any other ages of the world ; but, alas !
they glare with infernal fires !
What could education do in such an age ?
Nothing ! nothing ! Its voice was hushed ; its
animation was suspended. It must await the
revival of letters, the art of printing, and other
great revolutions in the affairs of the world,
before it could hope to obtain audience among
men.
In the Augustan age of English literature, — in
the days of Johnson, Goldsmith, Swift, Pope,
Addison, — in all the beautiful writings of these
great men, almost nothing is said on the subject
of education. Not any where is there a single
226
expression showing that they, or either of them,
had any just conception of its different depart-
ments, and of the various and distinct processes
by which the work of each is to be carried on.
Dr. Johnson has a few paragraphs, scattered up
and down over his voluminous writings ; but by
far the most labored passage he ever prepared on
the subject, was a forensic argument for Boswell,
defending the brutal infliction of corporal punish-
ment so common in those days. To show the
opinion of this great man respecting the propriety
of giving an education to the laboring and poor
classes, let me quote a sentence or two from his
^'Review of Free Inquiry."
" I know not whether there are not many states
of life, in which all knowledge less than the highest
wisdom loill 'produce discontent and danger. I
believe it may be sometimes found that a little
learning to a poor man is a dangerous thing. ^''
" Though it should be granted that those who
are born to poverty and drudgery should not be
deprived by an improper education of the opiate of
ignorance^ yet," &c.
One of these expressions of Dr. Johnson seems
to have been caught from a celebrated couplet of
Pope :
" A little learning is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring ;
There, shallow draughts intoxicate tne brain,
But drinking deeper sobers us again."
One would like to know what extent of acquired
knowledge would constitute '■^deep drinking^''^ in
the sense of this authority; or, in surveying the
vastness of the works of God, whether all that
Pope himself knew, though it were multiplied a
hundred fold, would not be " a dangerous thing."
The doctrine of this passage is as false in the eye
of reason, as the simile is in the creed of a tee-
totaller !
227
Pope has another oft-quoted passage, in the last
line of which, namely , —
" Just as the twig is bent, the tree 's inclined," —
he uses the word "twig" in a false sense, as it
properly means the end of a limb, and not the
stem or shoot which expands into a tree. In
this he was probably misled by the strength of
his associations, because the twigs, or ends of
limbs, performed so important a part in the work
of education in his day, that they had become to
him the type and symbol of the whole process.
At the most, Pope merely symbolizes the general
truth ; he nowhere proposes to tell us what modes
or processes of cultivation, will stimulate its
aspiring tendencies, or bow it downwards to the
earth ; — he never pretends to instruct us how the
tiny germ just breaking from the shell, or the
tender shoot just peering from the earth, may be
reared into the lofty tree, bearing a forest-like
crown of branches upon its' top, and having limbs
and trunk of such raassiveness and cohesive
strength, that they will toss off the storm and sur-
vive the thunderbolt.
In one of the numbers of the Spectator, Addison
compares the qualities of different dispositions to
different kinds of flowers in a garden ; but the
article is short, and was written for humor rather
than for instruction.
Shakspeare gives us a glimpse of the repulsive
aspects of educational means, in his time, when he
describes the child as "creeping, like snail, un-
willingly to school."
Shenstone makes himself merry with the toils
and privations, and homely manners of a school
dame.
Goldsmith describes a schoolmaster as an arbi-
trary, tyrannical, storm-faced brute.
Cowper, in his earnest appeals, preferred in
228
behalf of the private tutors of gentlemen^ s sons,
gives us the following glimpses of the indignities
to which they were customarily subjected in his
day:
" Doom hvm not then to solitary meals,
But recollect that he has sense and feels ; —
His post not mean, his talent not unknown,
He deems it hard to vegetate alone.
And if admitted at thy board to sit, ♦
) Account him no jvst mark for idle wit i
Offend not him, whom modesty restrains
From repartee, with jokes that he disdains ;
Much less transfix his feelings with an oath,
Nor frown, urdess he vanish with the doth."
Sir Walter Scott gathers all ungainliness of per-
son, and awkwardness of manner, and sloven-
liness of dress, into one person, makes him horrid
with superstition and pedantry, and names the
pedagogue Dominie Sampson. Even in his sober
moments, when expressing his own thoughts,
rather than bodying forth the common idea of the
times, he says of Dr. Adam, the learned author of
the " Roman Antiquities," that, " He was deeply
imbued with that fortunate vanity which alone
could induce a man, who has arms to pare and
burn a muir. to submit to the still more toilsom,e
task of cultivating youth.^^
In some admirable essays lately written in Eng-
land, for an educational prize, the condition of the
school teacher is represented as being below that
of menial servants, throughout the kingdom of
Great Britain.*
Milton, it is true, wrote a short tract on educa-
tion, beautiful to read, but wholly destitute of
* I find the following: pointed remark, in a lecture delivered before
the American Institute of Instruction, at Pittsfield, in 1843, by R. B.
Hubbard, Esq., the accomplished Principal of the High School at
Worcester, Mass. : — "The meed of praise has been very liberally and
justly awarded to Washington Irving for his valuable contributions
to our scanty stock of polite literature ; yet it may well be questioned,
whether the injury done to the cause of common education, in the
character of Ichabod Crane, has not more than cancelled the whole
debt."
229
practical instruction ; and it would be unpardon-
able to pass by that admirable treatise, Locke's
"Thoughts on Education;" — but while his sys-
tem of metaphysics, which is the poorest of all
his works, has been made a text-book both in the
imiversities of England and America, this excel-
lent treatise, which is by far better than any thing
which had ever then been written, has been almost
wholly neglected and forgotten.
Consider, too, my friends, another general but
decisive fact, showing in what subordinate esti-
mation this paramount subject has been held.
The human mind is so constituted that it can-
not embrace any great idea, but, forthwith, all
the faculties strive to aggrandize and adorn and
dignify it. Let any principle or sentiment be
elevated by the public voice, — whether rightfully
or wrongfully, — to a station of preeminence or
grandeur, in the eyes of men, and it is at once
personified, and, as it were, consecrated. The
arts go, as on a pilgrimage, to do it reverence.
Music celebrates it in national songs. Sculpture
embodies it in enduring substance, and clothes it
in impressive forms. Painting catches each flash-
ing beam of inspiration from its look, transfers it
to her canvass, and holds it fast for centuries, in
her magic coloring. Architecture rears temples
for its residence and shrines for its worship. Re-
ligion sanctifies it. In fine, whatever is accounted
high or holy in any age, all the sentiments of
taste, beauty, imagination, reverence, belonging to
that age, ennoble it with a priesthood, deify its
founders or lawgivers while living, and grant
them apotheosis and homage when dead. Such
proofs of veneration and love signalized the wor-
ship of the true God among the Jews, and the
worship of false gods among pagans. Such devo-
tion was paid to the sentiment of Beauty among
the Athenians; to the iron-hearted god of War
20
230
among the Romans ; to Love and knightly bear-
ing in the age of chivalry.
Without one word from the historian, and only
by studying a people's relics, and investigating
the figurative expressions in their literature and
law, one might see reflected, as from a mirror,
the moral scale on which they arranged their
ideas of good and great. Though history should
not record a single line in testimony of the fact,
yet who, a thousand years hence, could fail to
read, in their symbols, in their forms of speech,
and in the technical terms of their law, the
money-getting, money-worshipping tendencies of
all commercial nations, during the last and the
present centuries? The word "sovereign," we
know, means a potentate invested with lawful
dignity and authority ; and it implies subjects
who are bound to honor and obey. Hence, in
Great Britain, a gold coin, worth twenty shil-
lings, is called a ^^ sovereign;^' and happy is the
political sovereign who enjoys such plenitude of
power and majesty, and has so many loyal and
devoted subjects as this vicegerent of royalty.
An ancient English coin was called an angel. Its
value was only ten shillings, and yet it was named
after a messenger from heaven. In the Scriptures,
and in political law, a crown is the emblem and
personification of might and majesty, of glory and
blessedness. The synonyme of all these is a piece
of silver worth six shillings and seven pence. As
the king has his representative in a sovereign, so
a duke has his in a ducat, — the inferior value of
the latter corresponding with the inferior dignity
of its archetype. As Napoleon was considered
the mightiest ruler that France ever knew, so, for
many years, her highest com was called a Napo-
leon ; though now, in the French mint, they strike
double-Napoleons. God grant that the world may
never see a double-Napoleon of flesh and blood !
231
Our forefathers subjected themselves to every
worldly privation for the sake of liberty, — and
when they had heroically endured toil and sacri-
fice for eight long years, — and at last achieved
the blessing of independence, — they showed their
veneration for the Genius of Liberty by placing
its image and superscription — upon a cejit!
So, too, in our times, epithets the most distinc-
tively sacred, are tainted with cupidity. Mam-
mon is not satisfied with the heart-worship of his
devotees ; he has stolen the very language of the
Bible and the Liturgy ; and the cardinal words
of the sanctuary have become the business phrase-
ology of bankers, exchange-brokers, and lawyers.
The word "good," as applied to character, origi-
nally meant benevolent, virtuous, devout, pious ; —
now, in the universal dialect of traffic and credit,
a man is technically called good who pays his
notes at maturity ; and thus, this almost divine
epithet is transferred from those who laid up their
treasures in heaven, to such as lay up their treas-
ures on earth. The three days' respite which the
law allows for the payment of a promissory note
or bill of exchange, after the stipulated period has
expired, is called '-'' grace^^ in irreverent imitation
of the sinner's chance for pardon. On the per-
formance of a broken covenant, by which a mort-
gaged estate is saved from forfeiture, it is said, in
the technical language of the law, to be saVed
by " rcrfemp^iow." The document by which a
deceased man's estate is bequeathed to his survi-
vors, is called a testament; and were the glad
tidings of the New Testament looked for as anx-
iously as are the contents of a rich man's last will
and testament, there would be no further occasion
for the Bible Societies. Indeed, on opening some of
our law-books, and casting the eye along the run-
ning-titles at the top of the pages, or on the margi-
nal notes, and observing the frequent recurrence
232
of such words as " covenant-broken," " grace,"
"redemption," "testament," and so forth, one
might very naturally fall into the mistake of sup-
posing the book to be a work on theology, instead
of the law of real estate or bank stock.
I group together a few of these extraordinary
facts, my friends, to illustrate the irresistible
tendency of the human mind to dignify, honor,
elevate, aggrandize, and even sanctify, whatever it
truly respects and values. But education, — that
synonyme of mortal misery and happiness ; that
abbreviation for earth and heaven and hell, —
where are the conscious or unconscious testimo-
nials to its worth? What honorable, laudatory
epithets ; what titles of encomium or of dignity
have been bestowed upon its professors? What,
save such titles as pedagogue, (which, among the
Romans, from whom we derived it, meant a
slave,) and pedant, and knight of the birch and
ferule? What sincere or single offering has it
received from the hand or voice of genius ? Trav-
erse the long galleries of art, and you will dis-
cover no tribute to its worth. Listen to all the
great masters of music, and you will hear no swell-
ing notes or chorus in its praise. Search all the
volumes of all the poets, and you will rarely find
a respectful mention of its claims, or even a recog-
nition of its existence. In sacred and devotional
poetry, with which all its higher attributes so inti-
mately blend and harmonize, it has found no place.
As proof of this extraordinary fact, let me say that,
within the last five years, I have been invited to
lecture on the subject of education, in churches
of all the leading religious denominations of New
England ; and perhaps in the majority of instances
the lecture has been preceded or followed by the
devotional exercises of prayer and singing. On
these occasions, probably every church hymn-
book belonging to every religious sect amongst
233
us, has been searched, in order to find fitting and
appropriate words, wherein to utter fitting and
appropriate thoughts on this sacred theme. But,
in all cases, the search has been made in vain. I
think I hazard nothing in saying that there is not
a single psalm or hymn, in any devotional book
of psalms and hymns, to be found in our churches,
which presents the faintest outline of this great
subject, in its social, moral and religious depart-
ments, or in its bearing upon the future happiness
of its objects. On these occasions, the officiating
clergyman has looked through book and index,
again and again, to make a suitable selection ; he
has then handed the book to me, and I have done
the same, — the audience all the while waiting, and
wondering at the delay, — and at last, as our only
resource, we have been obliged to select some
piece that had the word "child" or the word
"young" in it, and make it do.
In contrast with this fact, think of the size of a
complete collection of Bacchanal songs, or of
martial music ; — these would make libraries ; but
the Muse of education is yet to be born.
In regard to all other subjects, histories have
been written. The facts pertaining to their origin
and progress have been collected ; their principles
elucidated ; their modes and processes detailed.
As early as the time of Cato, there was the his-
tory of agriculture. In modern times we have
the history of the silk- worm, the history of cotton,
the history of rice and of tobacco, and the history
of the mechanic arts; but, in the English lan-
guage, we have no history of education. Indeed,
even now, we can scarcely be said to have any
treatise, showing at what favoring hours the sen-
timents of virtue should be instilled into young
hearts; or by what processes of care and nurture,
or by what neglect, the chrysales of human spirits
are evolved into angels or demons.
20*
234
And while almost nothing has been written or
taught, on this subject, by the great guides and
dictators of the human mind; how has it been
with the lawgivers of the race, and the founders
of its social and political institutions? Hitherto
there has existed but very little freedom of thought
and action among mankind. Laws and institu-
tions have been moulds, wherein the minds of
men have been cast, — almost with mechanical
precision. The reciprocal action between the in-
stitutions of society, on the one side, and the suc-
cessive generations of men, on the other, has been
this : The generations of men have been born into
institutions already prepared and consolidated.
During their years of minority, the institutions
shaped their minds; and when they arrived at
majority, they upheld the institutions to which
they had been conformed, and, in their turn, be-
queathed them. Sometimes, indeed, a mighty
spirit has arisen, too large to be compressed within
the mould of existing institutions, or too unmal-
leable and infusible to be beaten or molten into
their shape. Then came a death-struggle. If
the institutions prevailed over the individual, he
was crushed, annihilated. If the individual tri-
umphed in the unequal contest, he dashed the
mould of the institutions in pieces, prepared another
in his own likeness, and left it behind him to
shape the minds of coming generations. Such
men were Aristotle, in regard to metaphysics ;
Alfred, in regard to law; Bacon, in regard to
philosophy ; Luther and Calvin, in regard to
religious faith.
Both in Europe and in this country, scientific
institutions have been founded, and illustrious
men, during successive ages, have poured the
collected light of their effulgent minds upon other
departments of science and of art, — upon lan-
guage, astronomy, light, heat, electricity, tides,
235
meteors, and so forth, and so forth. Such were the
Royal Academy of Sciences, in Paris, founded in
1660 ; the Royal Society of England, founded in
1663 ; and the American Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences, founded in 1780 ; — and what ponderous vol-
umes of reports, essays, and transactions, they have
published ! But when or where have a nation's
sages met in council, to investigate ihe principles
and to discuss the modes, by which that most
difficult and delicate work upon earth, — the edu-
cation of a human soul, — should be conducted?
Yet what is there in philology, or the principles
of universal grammar ; what is there in the ebb
and flow of tides, in the shooting of meteors, or
in the motions of the planetary bodies ; — what is
there, in fine, in the corporeal and insensate ele-
ments of the earth beneath, or of the firmament
above, at all comparable in importance to those
laws of growth and that course of training,
by which the destiny of mortal and immortal
spirits is at least foretokened, if not foredoomed?
So, too, in regard to those ancient and renowned
literary institutions, which have been established
and upheld by the foremost nations of Christen-
dom; — the Sorbonne in France; the universities
of Oxford and Cambridge and Edinburgh, in
Great Britain ; and the universities and colleges
of this country; — the grand object of all these
institutions has been, — not to educate the general,
the common mass of mind, — but to rear up men
for the three learned professions, (as they are
called,) Physic, Law, and Divinity. For this
comparatively narrow and special purpose, vast
legislative endowments and munificent private
donations have been made, and the highest talents
have been culled from the community, for presi-
dentships and professorships.
The three learned professions, it is true, repre-
sent the three great departments of human inter-
236
ests ; — the Medical representing the body, or cor-
poreal part, through whose instrumentality alone
can the spirit make itself manifest ; — the Legal
profession being designed to establish social rights
and to redress social wrongs, in regard to prop-
erty, person and character ; — and the Theological
to guide and counsel us, in regard to our moral
and religious concernments both for time and for
eternity. But all the learning of all the profes-
sions can never be an adequate substitute for
common knowledge, or remedy for common igno-
rance. These professions are necessary for our
general enlightenment, for guidance in difficult
cases, and for counsel at all times ; but they
never should aim to supercede, they never can
supersede our own individual care, forethought,
judgment, responsibility. Yet, how little is this
truth regarded ! How imperfectly do we live up
to its requirements ! In respect to the medical
profession, we are this year, this day, and every
day, sending young men to college, and from col-
lege to the medical school, that they may acquire
some knowledge of human diseases and their
remedies ; but, at the same time, we are neglect-
ing to educate and train our children in accord-
ance with the few and simple laws upon which
health depends, and which every child might be
easily led to know and to observe ; — and the con-
sequence is, that we are this year, this day and
every day, sowing, in the constitutions of our
children, the seeds of innumerable diseases; so
that the diseases will be ready for the doctors
quite as soon as the doctors are ready for the dis-
eases. Indeed, before the doctor confronts the
disease, or while he is pondering over it, how
often does death step in and snatch the victim
away.
At what vast expense, both of time and money,
is the legal profession trained, and the judicial
237
tribunals of the land supported. Two or three,
or half a dozen years, spent in preparing for col-
lege, four years at college, and two or three years
2t a law school, or elsewhere, as a qualification
to practise in the courts; then, the maintenance
of the courts themselves ; the salaries of judges,
and of prosecuting officers ; the expense of jurors,
grand-jurors and witnesses ; the amount of costs
and counsel fees ; the vast outlay for prisons, jails,
and houses of correction ; — and all this enormous
expenditure, in order to adjust disputes, rectify
mistakes, and punish offences, nine tenths of
which would have been prevented, by a degree
of common knowledge easily taught, and of com-
mon honesty, to which all children, with scarcely
an exception, might be trained.
When the law of hereditary distempers shall be
as profoundly investigated as the law which regu-
lates the hereditary transmission of property, then
may we expect some improvement in the health
and robustness and beauty of the race. Compare
all the books written on the transmission from
parents to children of physical or moral qualities,
with the law-books and treatises on the descent
of estates. When will the current of public opin^*
ion, or the stimulus of professional emolument
create a desire to understand the irreversible ordi-
nances and statutes of Nature, on this class of
subjects, as strong as that which now carries »
student at law through Fearne on Contingent Re-
mainders ? — a book which requires the same fac-
ulty for divining ideas, that Champollion had foi
deciphering Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
And how is it with the clerical pr.-^fession 1
They enter upon the work of reforming the hu-
man character, — not at the earlier stages of its
development, — but when it has arrived at, or is
approaching to, its maturity ; — a period, when, by
universal consent, it has become almost unchange-
238
able by secondary causes. They are reformers,
I admit, but in regard to any thing that grows,
one right former will accompUsh more than a
thousand re-formers. It is their sacred mission to
prepare a vineyard for the Lord, to dress it, and
make it fruitful ; but I think no one will say that
an army of laborers, sent into a vineyard at mid-
summer, when brambles and thorns have already
choked the vines, and the hedges have been broken
down, and the unclean beasts of the forest have
made their lair therein ; — I think no one will say
that an army of laborers, entering the vineyard at
such a time, will be able to make it yield so abun-
dant a harvest as one faithful, skilful servant
would do, who should commence his labors in the
spring-time of the year.
The Constitution of the United States makes no
provision for the education of the people ; and in
the Convention that framed it, I believe the sub-
ject was not even mentioned. A motion to insert
a clause providing for the establishment of a
national university, was voted down. I believe
it is also the fact, that the Constitutions of only
three of the thirteen original States made the obli-
gation to maintain a system of Free Schools a
part of their fundamental law.
On what grounds of reason or of hope, it may
well be asked, did the framers of our National and
State Constitutions expect, that the future citizens
of this Republic would be able to sustain the in-
stitutions, or to enjoy the blessings, provided for
them? And has not all our subsequent history
shown the calamitous consequences of their fail-
ing to make provision for the educational wants
of the nation? Suppose it had been provided,
that no person should be a voter who could not
read and write, and also that no State should
be admitted into the Union which had not estab-
lished a system of Free Schools for all its people j
239
would not our National history and legisla-
tion, our State administrations and policy, have
felt the change through all their annals? Great
and good men, though they were, yet this truth,
now so plain and conspicuous, eluded their sagac-
ity. They did not reflect that, in the common
course of nature, all the learned and the wise and
the virtuous are swept from the stage of action,
almost as soon as they become learned and wise
and virtuous ; and that they are succeeded by a
generation who come into the world wholly
devoid of learning and wisdom and virtue. The
parents may have sought out the sublimest truths,
but these truths are nothing to the children, until
their minds also shall have been raised to the
power of grasping and of understanding them.
The truths, indeed, are immortal, but the beings
who may embrace them are mortal, and pass
away, to be followed by new minds, ignorant,
weak, erring, tossed hither and thither on the
waves of passion. Hence, each new generation
must learn all truth anew, and for itself Each
generation must be able to comprehend the prin-
ciples, and must rise to the practice of the virtues,
requisite to sustain the position of their ancestors;
and the first generation which fails to do this,
loses all, and comes to ruin not only for itself but
for its successors.
At what time, then, by virtue of what means,
is the new generation to become competent to
take upon itself the duties of the old and retiring
one? At which of Shakspeare's "Seven Ages,'^
is the new generation expected to possess the abil-
ity to stand in the places of the departed 7 Allow
that the vast concerns of our society must be sub-
mitted to a democracy, — still, shall they be sub-
mitted to the democracy of babyhood, — to those
whose country, as yet, is the cradle, and whose
universe, the nursery? Can you call in children
240
from trundling hoops and catching butterflies,
organize them into "Young Men's Conventions,"
and propound for their decision the great ques-
tions of judicature and legislation, of civil, domes-
tic, and foreign policy ? Or, will you take the
youth of the land, from sixteen to twenty-one
years of age, in the heyday of their blood, with
passions unappeasable in their cry for indulgence,
and unquenchable by it; without experience,
without sobriety of judgment; whose only notions
of the complex structure of our government and
of its various and delicate relations, have been
derived from hearing a Fourth of July Oration ;
with no knowledge of this multiform world into
which they have been brought, or of their dan-
gers, duties and destiny, as men, — in one word,
with no education, — and is it to such as these
that the vast concernments of a nation's well-
being can be safely intrusted 7 Safer, far safer,
would it be to decide the great problems of legis-
lation and jurisprudence, by a throw of dice; or,
like the old Roman soothsayers, by the flight of
birds. And even after one has passed the age of
twenty-one, how is he any better fitted than before
to perform the duties of a citizen, if no addition
has been made to his knowledge, and if his pas-
sions have not been subjected to the control of
reason and duty?
I adduce these extraordinary facts, in relation
to the founders of our Republic, not in any spirit
of disparagement or reprehension, but only as
another proof in the chain of demonstration, to
show in what relative esteem, — how low down in
the social scale, this highest of all earthly subjects
has been held, — and held in a Republic too, where
we talk so much about foundations of knowledge
and virtue.
And what was the first school established by
Congress, after the formation of the general gov-
241
erament ? It was the Military Academy at West
Point. This school is sustained at an annual
expense of more than a hundred thousand dollars.
It is the Normal School of War. As the object
of the common Normal School is to teach teachers
how to teach ; so the object of this Academy is
to teach killers how to kill. At this school, those
delightful sciences are pursued which direct at
what precise angle a cannon or a mortar shall be
elevated, and what quantity and quality of gun-
powder shall be used, in order to throw red-hot
balls or bomb-shells a given distance, so as, by
the one, to set a city on fire, and, by the other, to
tear in pieces a platoon of men, — husbands,
brothers, fathers. And while it is thought of suf-
ficient importance to nominate the most learned
men in the whole land, and to assemble them
from the remotest quarters of the Union, to make
an annual visit to this School of War, and to
spend days and days in the minutest, severest
examination of the pupils, to see if they have
fully mastered their death-dealing sciences ; it is
not uncommon to meet with the opinion that our
Common Schools need no committees and no
examination.
Great efforts have been made in Congress to
establish a Naval School, having in view the
same benign and philanthropic purposes, for the
ocean, which the Military School has for the
land.
At Old Point Comfort, in Virginia, there now
is, and for a long time has been, under the direc-
tion of the general government, what is called a
"School for Practice," where daily experiments
are tried to test the strength of ordnance, the
explosive force of gunpowder, and the distance at
which a Christian may fire at his brother Chris-
tian and be sure to kill him, and not waste his
ammunition !
21
242
At selected points, throughout our whole coun-
try, the thousand wheels of mechanism are now
playing; chemistry is at work in all her labora-
tories ; the smelter, the forger, the founder in
brass and iron, the prover of arms, — all are plying
their daily tasks to prepare implements for the
conflagration of cities and the destruction of
human life. Occasionally, indeed, a Peace Society
is organized; a few benevolent men assemble
together to hear a discourse on the universal
brotherhood of the race, the horrors of war and
the blessings of peace ; but their accents are lost
in an hour, amid the never-ceasing din and roar
of this martial enginery. And so the order and
course of things will persist to be, — the ministers
of the Gospel of Peace may continue to preach
peace for eighteen centuries more, and still find
themselves in the midst of war', or of all those
passions by which war is engendered, unless the
rising generation shall be educated to that strength
and sobriety of intellect which shall dispel the
insane illusions of martial glory ; and unless they
shall be trained to the habitual exercise of those
sentiments of universal brotherhood for the race,
which shall change the common heroism of battle
into a horror and an abomination.
A deputation of some of the most talented and
learned men of this country, has lately been sent
to Europe, by the order and at the expense of the
general government, to visit and examine per-
sonally, all the founderies, armories and noted
fortifications, from Gibraltar to the Baltic; — to
collect all knowledge about the forging of iron
cannon and brass cannon, the tempering of swords,
the management of steam-batteries, and so forth,
and so forth, — to bring this knowledge home, that
our government may be instructed and enlight-
ened in the art — to kill. I have not heard that
Congress proposes to establish any Normal School,
243
the immediate or the remote object of which shall
be to teach "peace on earth and good will to
men." " Go ye out into every nation and preach
the gospel to every creature," has hitherto been
practically translated, " Go ye out into every
nation and kill or rob every creature." We are
told that a celestial choir once winged its way
from heaven to earth, on an errand of mercy and
love ; but for the communication of that message
which burned in their hearts and melted from
their tongues, they sought out no lengthened epic
or long resounding paean; — they chanted only
that brief and simple strain, " Peace on earth and
good will to men," as if to assure us that these
were the selectest words in the dialect of heaven,
and the choicest beat in all its music. But long
since have these notes died away. O, when shall
that song be renewed, and every tongue and na-
tion upon earth unite their voices with those of
angels in uplifting the heavenly strain !
Again I say, my friends, that the arraignment
and denunciation of men is no part of my present
purpose. 1 advert to these world-known facts,
for the sole and simple object of showing how the
subject of education stands, and has stood, in
prosaic and poetic literature, in the refining arts,
in history, and in the laws, institutions and opin-
ions of men. I wish hereby to show its relative
degradation, the inferiority of the rank assigned
to it, as compared with all other interests, or with
any other interest; and thus to exhibit the true
reasons why, as yet, it has done so little for the
renovation of the world. I have spoken only of
the general current of events, of opinions and of
practices common to mankind. In our own times,
in such low estimation is this highest of all causes
held, that in these days of conventions for all
other objects of public interest, — when men go
hundreds of miles to attend rail-road conventions.
244
and cotton conventions, and tobacco conventions ;
and when the delegates of political conventions^
are sometimes counted, as Xerxes counted his
army, by acres and square miles, — yet such has
often been the dispersive effect upon the public of
announcing a Common School Convention, and a
Lecture on Education, that I have queried in my
own mind whether, in regard to two or three
counties, at least, in our own State, it would not
be advisable to alter the law for quelling riots and
mobs; and, instead of summoning sheriffs and
armed magistrates and the posse comitatus for
their dispersion, to put them to flight by making
proclamation of a Discourse on Common Schools.
When we reflect upon all this, what surprises
and grieves us most is, that so few men are sur-
prised or grieved.
It has been my fortune, within the last few
years, to visit schools in many of our sister States ;
and I have spared no efforts to make myself
acquainted with the general system, — so far as any
system exists, — adopted in them all. Although
in one or two States the general plan of Public
Instruction, owing to its more recent establish-
ment, may have a few advantages over our own,
yet there is not a single State in the Union whose
whole system is at all comparable to that of Mas-
sachusetts, whether we consider its extent, its effi-
ciency, or the general intelligence with which it
is administered by the local authorities.f Dis-
* It was said that at the Young Men's Whig Convention, held at
Baltimore, in May, 1844, there vreve forty thousand delegates in attend-
ance.
1 1 believe this statement to have been strictly true at the time
when it was written, (1841.) But, in some respects, it is no longer
so. As it regards efficiency, and the means of rapid improvement, to
say no more, the system of the Slate of New York now takes prece-
dence of any in the Union. In addition to a State Superintendent of
Common Schools, whose jurisdiction extends over them all, there are
one or more Deputy Superintendents in each county, whose time is
devoted to a visitation of the schools, to lecturing and ditFusing infor-
mation among the people, and so forth ; and who make a report, once
246
proportionately, however, as we value this cause,
it would be impossible to convict Massachusetts
of such dereliction from duty as has been mani-
fested by some of her sister States.
I think, for instance, that it would be impossi-
ble for our people to imitate the example of our
neighbors, the inhabitants of Maine, — so long and
so lately a part of ourselves, — where, in the year
1839, there was a general uprising of the whole
population, and an appropriation, by an almost
unanimous vote of the Legislature, of the sum of
eight hundred thousand dollars^ for the forcible
rescue of certain outlands, or outwastes, claimed
by Great Britain ; while, for three successive ses-
sions, some of the wisest and best men in that
State have been striving, in vain, to obtain from
that same Legislature the passage of a law author-
izing school districts to purchase a school library,
by levying a tax upon themselves for the purpose.
In the memoirs of the Pickwick Club, it is related
that they passed a unanimous vote, that any mem-
ber of said club should be allowed to travel in any
part of England, Scotland or Wales, and also to
send whatever packages he might please, always
provided that said member shoidd pay his own
a year, or oftener. to the State Superintendent, respecting the condi-
tion o\ the schools within their respective counties. These Deputy
Superintendents, generally swakinj^, arc men of superior intelligence,
practically acquainted with trie business of school keeping and enthu-
siastically devoted to the duties of their office. We can imagine how
efficient such a system must be, by supposing the existence of one or
more intelligent school agents or officers, in each county of the State
of Massachusetts, whose whole time should be devoted to visiting the
schools, and to creating, in the minds of the people, a more adequate
conception of their value.
There is a school library in every school district in the State of
New York.
At the session of the legislature, in 1844, by a unanimous vote ol
both branches, the sum of 810,000 a year, for nve years, was appro-
priated for the support of a Normal School. This was the crowning
work. The school was opened at Albany, in December, 1844.
The State of New York now possesses every means and facility for
the improvement of its Common Schools, which are possessed by any
other State in the Union, and some which no other State enjoys.
21*
UNie
expenses. But the Legislature of Maine would
not allow their school districts to buy libraries,
even at their own cost! What latent capacities
for enjoyment and for usefulness, which will now
lie dormant forever, might not that sum of eight
hundred thousand dollars have opened for the
people of that State, for their children and their
children's children, had it been devoted by enlight-
ened minds to worthy objects !
So, too, to give one more example, you will all
recollect that outbreak of South Carolina against
the general government, in 1832, when a few of
the demi-gods of that State stamped upon the
earth, and instantly it was covered with armed
men; a State convention was held, laws were
enacted, extending the jurisdiction of the courts
and investing the Executive almost with a Dicta-
tor's power, — all under the pretext of defending
State rights, — while, for the last thirty years, her
whole appropriation for public schools has been
less than forty thousand dollars per annum ; and
out of a white population, of all ages^ of less than
270,000, there are more than 20,000, above the
age of twenty years, who cannot read and write :
— as though it could long be possible, without
more efficient means for the general diffusion of
intelligence and virtue, to have any State rights
worth defending.
But, after a thorough and impartial inquisition,
what verdict can we render, with a clear con-
science, in regard to our own much-lauded Com-
monwealth ? The Fathers of New England, it is
true, soon after the settlement of the colony, estab-
lished Common Schools, — for which let their
names be honored above the names of all other
men, while the world stands, — but one of their
two avowed objects was, to enable the people to
read the Scriptures in their native tongue. They
seem to have forgotten that the extent of intel-
247
ligence, and the teachable and conscientious and
reverential spirit with which one comes to that
reading, is of paramount importance. The insane
followers of Matthews, and of Joe Smith, can read
the Scriptures. Years, too, before Common Schools
were established for the many, a college was en-
dowed to give a full and elaborate education to
the few, who, according to the prevalent views of
those times, were to be designated and set apart,
even in youth, to fill the offices of church and
state, in subsequent life. This, however, should
be remembered in their praise, that the teachers
selected for the schools, in the early years of the
colony, wBre uniformly men of age, experience,
learning and moral worth ; and, according to the
accustomed rates of compensation, in those days,
they were fairly remunerated. In that age, no
prudential committee man, or other officer, — by
whatever name he might have been called, — was
seen groping about through all the colonies, after
bats and moles to teach young eagles how to fly,
because they would do it cheap. But is it our
general practice to select, as teachers, only those
who have arrived at mature age, who are known
and respected, far and wide, for their experience,
weight of character, dignity of deportment, and
extent of intelligence? The rate of compensation,
too, had fallen, before the year 1837 when the
Board of Education was established, far below
that of skilful artisans and mechanics, or even of
the better class of operatives in manufacturing
establishments. The common laborers on our
farms, the journeymen in our shops, and the
workpeople in our mills, — all have some fixed
residence, some place enjoying the seclusion and
invested with the sacred associations of home.
Even the old-fashioned cobbler, who used to travel
from house to house, carrying on his back his box
of tools and his scraps of leather, has at last found
248
an abiding place ; — nobody but the schoolmaster is
obliged to board round. Nobody but the school-
master is put up at auction, and knocked off to
the lowest bidder ! I think this use of the word
" loivesV^ must oftentimes vivify a teacher's gram-
matical notions of the superlative degree. Think
youj my friends, there would be so many young
men pressing forward into the profession of the
law, if lawyers were put up at auction, and then
had to board round among their clients ?
Compare the salaries given to engineers, to
superintendents of rail-roads, to agents and over-
seers of manufacturing establishments, to cashiers
of banks, and so forth, with the customary rates
of remuneration given to teachers. Yet, does it
deserve a more liberal requital, does it require
greater natural talents, or greater attainments, to
run cotton or woollen machinery, or to keep a
locomotive from running off the track, than it
does to preserve this wonderfully-constructed and
complicated machine of the human body in health
and vigor ; or to prevent the spiritual nature. —
that vehicle which carries all our hopes, — from
whirling deviously to its ruin, or from dashing
madly forward to some fatal collision 7 Custom-
house collectors and postmasters sometimes realize
four, five or six thousand dollars a year from
their offices, while as many hundreds are grudg-
ingly paid to a school teacher.
The compensation which we give with the
hand, is a true representation of the value which
we affix in the mind ; and how much more liber-
ally and cordially do we requite those who prepare
outward and perishable garments for the persons
of our children, than those whose office it is to
endue their spirits with the immortal vestments of
virtue? Universally, the price-current of accom-
plishments ranges far above that of solid and
enduring attainments. Is not the dancing-master,
249
who teaches our children to take the steps, better
requited than he who teaches their feet not to go
down to the chambers of death 1 Were the music-
master as wretchedly rewarded and as severely-
criticised as the schoolmaster, would not his strains
involuntarily run into the doleful and lugubrious?
Strolling minstrels, catching the eye with gro-
tesque dresses, and chanting unintelligible words,
are feasted, feted and garlanded; and when a
European dancer, nurtured at the foul breast of
theatrical corruption, visits our land, the days of
idolatry seem to have returned ; — wealth flows,
the incense of praise rises, enthusiasm rages like
the mad Bacchantes, It is said that Celeste
received Jifty thousand dollars, in this country,
in one year, for the combined exhibition of skill
and person; and that devotee to Venus, Fanny
Ellsler, was paid the enormous sum of sii;(y
thousand dollars^ in three months, for the same
meritorious consideration, or value received. In
both these cases, a fair proportion was contrib-
uted in the metropolis of our own State. At the
rate of compensation, at which a majority of the
female teachers in Massachusetts have been re-
warded for their exhausting toils, it would require
more than twenty years' continued labor to equal
the receipts of Fanny Ellsler for a single night !
Thus, in our most populous places, and amongst
people who profess to lead society, stands the
relative supremacy of sense and soul, of heels
and head. And I blush while I reflect, that
amongst all the daughters of New England who
witnessed the unreserved displays of these Cyprian
women, there was not one to be found, in whose
veins flowed the chaste blood of the Puritan
mothers, prompting her to approach these female
sans culottes^ backwards, and perform for them
the same friendly service, which, on a like neces-
sity, the sons or Noah performed for him. And
250
although I would not silence one note in the burst
of admiration with which our young men, whe
assume to be the leaders of fashion, respond to the
charms of female beauty, agility, or grace ; yet I
do desire that, in paying their homage, they should
distinguish between the Venus Celestial and the
Venus Infernal ! ^
As I have before intimated, the relics, the
symbols, the monuments, of whatever kind they
may be, which a people has prepared to sustain
or enshrine the objects of its interest or affections,
furnish undesigned, and therefore demonstrative
evidence of the relative estimation in which these
objects were held. The dull and heavy Egyp-
tians have left us the visible impress and emblem
* In discussing the propriety or impropriety of exhibiting live
specimens of female nudity, before mixed assemblies of ladies and
gentlemen, — especially when the spectacles are of the ad libitum sort,
and where the actress is expected to acknowledge every round of
applause by enlarging the field of vision, — I have sometimes been
answered in the language of King Edward's celebrated saying, "Honi
soil qui mal 7/ pense," "Evil to him who thinks evil." One thing
has tended to disgust me with this retort. I have never known it
used, for this purpose, except by persons more or less deeply tainted
with libertinism, during some part of their lives. I never knew it
given by a man wholly free from reproach, in conduct and reputation,
on the score of licentiousness.
One of the most striking things in the " Letters from Abroad," by
Miss C. M. Sedgwick, is the uniform and energetic condemnation
which that true American lady bestows upon opera-dancers, and
the whole corps de ballet, for the public and shameless exhibition of
their jiersons upon the stage. Have the young ladies of our cities
a nicer sense of propriety, of modesty, and of all the elements
of female loveliness, than this excellent author, who has written so
much for their improvement, and who is herself so admirable an
example of all feminine purity and delicacy ? And have the young
men of America a higher ideal of what belongs to a true gentleman, —
to a man of lofty and noble nature, than a writer, who is so justly
celebrated, in both hemispheres, for her pure and elevated conceptions
of human character?
It is not with any harshness of feeling that I make another remark,
but only in view of the natural consequences or tendencies of conduct ;
but it seems to me that, for a husband to accompany his wife, or a
father his daughter, to such an exhibition, ought to be held a good plea
in bar in all our courts of law, should the same husband or father
afterwards appear as a prosecutor claiming damages, as the legal
phraseology runs, "./or loss of service and pain of mind," on account
of the wife or daughter whom they had accompanied to such an
exhibition.
251
of their minds, in their indistinct hieroglyphics,
their ponderous architecture, and in their pyra-
mids, which exhibit magnificence without taste,
costhness without elegance, and power without
genius. But the splendid temples, statues and
arches of the Greeks; the massive aqueducts and
horizon-seeking roads of tlie Romans, were only
the outward and visible representations of their
conceptions of ideal beauty, of grandeur and
power. Amongst a people strongly drawn to-
wards commerce, as the source of their supremacy
and opulence, like the ancient Phenicians, or like
the people of Great Britain or of the United States,
at the present day, the art of ship-building is sure
to be cultivated, and the finest specimens of naval
architecture to be produced. So, if great reliance
is placed upon an extensive inland traffic, then
innavigable rivers will be made navigable, moun-
tains of solid rock will be channelled, valleys filled,
and what we have before called the everlasting
hills will be removed to create facilities for internal
transportation. In fine, our ivorks are the visible
embodiment and representation of our feelings.
Thus, the Psalmist, referring to the unspeakably
magnificent heavens, says: — they "declare the
glory of God, and the firmament showeth his
handy-work.'
Tried by this unerring standard in human na-
ture, our Schoolhouses are a fair index or exponent
of our interest in Public Education. Suppose, at
this moment, some potent enchanter, by the wav-
ing of his inagic wand, should take up all the
twenty-eight hundred schoolhouses of Massachu-
setts, with all the little triangular and non-descript
spots of earth whereon and wherein they have
been squeezed, — whether sand bank, morass,
bleak knoll, or torrid plain, — and, whirling them
through the affrighted air, should set them all
down, visibly, round about us, in this place ; and
252
then should take us up into some watch-tower or
observatory, where, at one view, we could behold
the whole as they were encamped round about, — '
each one true to the point of compass which
marked its nativity, each one retaining its own
color or no-color, each one standing on its own
heath, hillock or fen; — 1 ask, my friends, if, in
this new spectacle under the sun, with its motley
hues of red, gray and doubtful, with its windows
sprinkled with patterns taken from Joseph's
many-colored coat, with its broken chimneys,
with its shingles and clapboards flapping and
clattering in the wind, as if giving public notice
that they were about to depart, — I ask, if, in this
indescribable and unnameable group of architec-
ture, we should not see the true image, reflection
and embodiment of our own love, attachment and
regard for Public Schools and Public Education,
as, in a mirror, face answereth to face? But, how-
ever neglected, forgotten, forlorn, these edifices
may be, yet within their walls is contained the
young and blooming creation of God. In them
are our hope, the hopes of the earth. There are
gathered together what posterity shall look back
upon, as we now look back upon heroes and sages
and martyrs and apostles ; or as we look back
upon bandits and inquisitors and sybarites. Our
dearest treasures do not consist in lands and tene-
ments, in rail-roads and banks, in warehouses or
in ships upon every sea ; they are within those
doors, beneath those humble roofs ; and is it not
our solemn duty to hold every other earthly inter-
est subordinate to their welfare 7
My friends, these points of contrast between
our devotion to objects of inferior interest, and
our comparative neglect of this transcendent
cause, are as painful to me as they can be to any
one. Among all that remain, I will mention but
one class more. I ask you to look at the pecun-
253
iary appropriations, which, within a few years
past, the State has made for the encouragement
of outward and material irtterests, compared with
what it has done, or rather refused to do, for the
enhghtenment and moral renovation of society,
through a universal education of the people.
Within the last three years, the treasury of the
Commonwealth has dispensed a bounty of about
twenty-five thousand dollars to encourage the
growth of wheat, — and within the last two years,
of about five thousand dollars for the culture of
silk, — for those goods which perish with the
using ; while it has not contributed one cent to-
wards satisfying the pressing demand for appa-
ratus and libraries for our schools, by which the
imperishable treasures of knowledge and virtue
would be increased a hundred fold. The State
has provided for the gratuitous distribution of a
manual, descriptive of the art and processes of silk-
culture, but made no provision for the distribution
of any manual on that most difficult of all arts, —
the art of Education, — as though silk-culture
were more important and more difficult than soul-
culture.
During the very last year, the State paid a
Militia Bounty of thirty thousand dollars, to sol-
diers, for three or four trainings. Where are those
trainings now 7 Where now, the net proceeds,
the value received, the available, visible result, as
exhibited in the advancement of society, or the
promotion of human welfare 1 Could thirty thou-
sand dollars have been distributed to sustain the
sinking hearts of those females who keep school
for a dollar a week, or for nine pence a day, should
we not now be able to show some of its tangible
fruits, and would not a transfer of the fund to
such an object have illustrated quite as well the
gallantry of the citizen soldier?
To the American Institute of Instruction, whose
22
254
noble object it is to improve the race of children,
the State, after much importunity, has given the
sum of three hundred dollars a year for five
years, (fifteen hundred dollars,) while to Agricul-
tural Societies formed for the purpose of improv-
ing the breed of cattle and a few other kindred
objects, it has given from four thousand dollars to
six thousand dollars a year, for about twenty
years !
In the year 1834, the Legislature made provi-
sion for the prospective creation of a School Fund,
to be formed from half the proceeds of wild lands
in the State of Maine, and from the Massachusetts
claim on the general government for militia
services rendered during the last war. Through
unexpected good fortune, about four hundred
thousand dollars have been realized from these
sources. Compare this bestowment, however, of
a contingent sum, — a part of which was not
regarded, at the time, as much better than a gift
of half the proceeds of a lottery ticket, provided
it should draw a prize, — with its prompt and
magnificent encouragement of rail-roads. No
sooner were the eyes of the State opened to the
commercial importance of an internal communi-
cation with the West, than it forthwith bound
itself to the amount of five millions of dollars, in
aid of this merely corporeal and worldly enter-
prise.
One word more, and I will forbear any further
to depict these painful contrasts ;:— I will forbear,
not from lack of materials, but from faintness of
spirit. Almost from year to year, through the
whole period of our history, wealthy and benevo-
lent individuals have risen up amongst us, who
have made noble gifts for literary, charitable and
religious purposes, — for public libraries, for found-
ing professorships in colleges, for establishing
scientific and theological institutions, for sending
255
abroad missionaries to convert the heathen, — some
to one form of faith, some to another. For most
of these objects the State has cooperated with in-
dividuals ; often, it has given on its own account.
It has bestowed immense sums upon the Univer-
sity at Cambridge, and Wiliiams College, especially
the former. It gave thirty thousand dollars to the
Massachusetts General Hospital. It put ten thou-
sand dollars into the Bunker Hill Monument,
there to stand forever in mindless, insentient, in-
animate granite. But while with such a bounte-
ous heart and open hand, the State had bestowed
its treasures for special, or local objects, — for
objects circumscribed to a party or a class ; — it
had not, for two hundred years, in its parental
and sovereigii capacity, given any thing for uni-
versal education ; — it had given nothing, as God
gives the rain and the sunshine, to all who enter
upon the great theatre of life.
It was under these circumstances, that a private
gentleman, to his enduring honor, offered the sum
of ten thousand dollars, on condition that the
State would add an equal amount, to aid Teach-
ers of our Common Schools in obtaining those
qualifications which would enable them the more
successfully to cultivate the divinely wrought and
infinitely valuable capacities of the human soul.
The hope and expectation were, that these teachers
would go abroad over the State, and by the im-
proved modes and motives which they would intro-
duce into the schools, would be the means of con-
ferring new, manifold and unspeakable blessings
upon the rising generation, without any distinc-
tion of party or of denomination, of mental, or of
physical complexion. This hope and expectation
were founded upon the reasonableness of the thing,
upon the universal experience of mankind in
regard to all other subjects, and upon the weU
attested experience of several nations in regard to
256
this particular measure. The proposition was
acceded to. This sum of twenty thousand dollars
was placed at the disposal of the Board of Edu-
cation, to carry the purposes of the donor and of
the Legislature into effect. Institutions called
Normal Schools were established. That their
influence might be wholly concentrated upon the
preparation of teachers for our Common Schools,
the almost doubtful provision, that the learned lan-
guages should not be included in the list of studies
taught therein, was inserted in the regulations
for their government ; — not because there was any
hostility or indifference towards those languages,
but because it was desirable to prepare teachers
for our Common Schools, rather than to furnish
facilities for those who are striving to become
teachers of Select Schools, High Schools, and
Academies.
The call was responded to by the very class of
persons to whom it was addressed. Not the chil-
dren of the rich, not the idle and luxurious, not
those in pursuit of gaudy accomplishments, came;
but the children of the poor, — the daughter of the
lone widow whose straitened circumstances for-
bade her to send to costly and renowned semina-
ries, — the young man came from his obscure
cottage home, where for years his soul had been
on fire with the love of knowledge and the sup-
pressed hope of usefulness ; — some accounted the
common necessaries of life as superfluities, and
sold them, that they might participate in these
means of instruction ; — some borrowed money
and subsidized futurity for the same purpose,
Avhile others submitted to the lot, still harder to a
noble soul, of accepting charity from a stranger's
hand. They came, they entered upon their work
with fervid zeal, with glowing delight, with that
buoyancy and inspiration of hope which none
but the young and the poor can ever feel.
267
But alas! while this noble enterprise was still
in its bud and blossom, and before it was possi-
ble that any fruits should be matured from it, it
was assailed. In the Legislature of the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts, an attempt was made to
abolish the Normal Schools, to disperse the young
aspirants who had resorted to them for instruc-
tion, and crush their hopes ; and to throw back
into the hands of the donor, the money which he
had given, and which the State had pledged its
faith to appropriate, — the first and only gift which
had ever been made for elevating and extending
the education of all the children in the Common-
wealth.
In the document which purports to set forth the
reasons for this measure, the doctrine that '' the
art of teaching is a peculiar art," is gainsaid. It
is boldly maintained "that every person who has
himself undergone a process of instruction, must
acquire by that very process the art of instruct-
ing others." And in this country, where, with-
out a higher standard of qualification for teach-
ers, without more universal and more eflicient
means of education than have ever elsewhere
existed, all our laws and constitutions are weaker
barriers against the assaults of human passion
than is a bulrush against the ocean's tide ; — in this
country, that document aflirmed that "perhaps it
is not desirable that the business of keeping these
schools, [the Common Schools,] should become a
distinct and separate profession."
Conceding to the originators and advocates of
this scheme for abolishing the Normal Schools,
that they were sincerely friendly to the cause of
Common Schools, how strikingly does it ex-
hibit the low state of public sentiment in regard
to these schools. Those claiming to be their friends,
— men, too, who had been honored by their fellow-
citizens witl) a scat in the Legislature, — thought
22*
258
it unnecessary, even in this country, to elevate the
teacher's office into a profession !
I will never cease to protest that I am not
bringing forward these facts for the purpose of
criminating the motives, or of invoking retribution
upon the conduct of any one. My sole and exclu-
sive object is to show to what menial rank the
majesty of this cause has been degraded ; — to
show that the affections of this community are not
clustered around it ; that it is not the treasure
which their hearts love and their hands guard ; —
in fine, that the sublime idea of a generous and
universal education, as the appointed means, in the
hands of Providence, for restoring mankind to a
greater similitude to their Divine Original, is but
just dawning upon the public mind.
But I have done. Let this rapid survey of our
condition, by showing us how little has been
done, convince us how much remains to be ac-
complished. Instead of repining at the inadequate
conceptions of our predecessors, let us rejoice and
shout aloud for joy, that we have been brought to
a point, where the vista of a more glorious future
opens upon our view. Let us dilate our spirits to
a capacity for embracing the magnitude and gran-
deur of the work we have undertaken. Let us
strengthen our resolutions, till difficulty and ob-
struction shall be annihilated before them. If the
ascent before us is high, all the more glorious will
be the prospect from the summit; if it is toilsome,
our sinews shall grow mightier by every struggle
to overcome it. If it is grateful to recognize
blessings which have been won for us by our
ancestors, it is more noble in us to win blessings
for posterity, — for God has so constituted the soul,
that the generous feelings of self-sacrifice are in-
finitely sweeter and more enduring than the self-
ish pleasures of indulgence. Although, as friends
of this cause, we are few and scattered, and sur-
259
rounded by an unsympathizing world, yet, let ns
toil on, each in his own sphere, whatever that
sphere may be, nor " bate one jot of heart or hope."
Although we now labor, like the coral insects at
the bottom of the ocean, uncheered, unheard, un-
seen, with the tumultuous waters of interest and
of passion raging high above us, yet let us con-
tinue to labor on, — for, at length, like them, we
will bring a rock-built continent to the surface,
and upon that surface God will plant his Paradise
anew, and people it with men and women of
nobler forms and of diviner beauty than any who
now live, — with beings whose minds shall be
illumined by the light of knowledge, and whose
hearts shall be hallowed by the sanctity of religion.
For the fulfilment, then, of these holy pur-
poses, what labors shall we undertake, and in
what resolutions shall we persevere unto the end?
— for labor and perseverance are indispensable
means for the production of any good by human
hands.
In the first place, the education of the whole
people, in a republican government, can never be
attained without the consent of the whole people.
Compulsion, even though it were a desirable, is
not an available instrument. Enlightenment, not
coercion, is our resource. The nature of educa-
tion must be explained. The whole mass of mind
must be instructed in regard to its comprehensive
and enduring interests. We cannot drive our
people up a dark avenue, even though it be the
right one ; but we must hang the starry lights of
knowledge about it, and show them not only the
directness of its course to the goal of prosperity
and honor, but the beauty of the way that leads
to it. In some districts, there will be but a single
man or woman, in some towns, scarcely half-a-
dozen men or women, who have espoused this
noble enterprise. But whether there be half-a-
260
dozen or but one, they must be like the little leaven
which a woman took and hid in three measures
of meal. Let the intelligent visit the ignorant,
day by day, as the oculist visits the blind man,
and detaches the scales from his eyes, until the
living sense leaps to the living light. Let the
zealous seek contact and communion with those
who are frozen up in indifference, and thaw off the
icebergs wherein they lie imbedded. Let the love
of beautiful childhood, the love of country, the
dictates of reason, the admonitions of conscience,
the sense of religious responsibility, be plied, in
mingled tenderness and earnestness, until the
obdurate and dark mass of avarice and ignorance
and prejudice shall be dissipated by their blended
light and heat
But a duty more noble, as well as more difficult
and delicate than that of restoring the suspended
animation of society, will devolve upon the phy-
sician and friend of this cause. In its largest sense,
no subject is so comprehensive as that of educa-
tion. Its circumference reaches around and out-
side of, and therefore embraces all other interests,
human and divine. Hence, there is danger that
whenever any thing practical, — any real change,
— is proposed, all classes of men will start up and
inquire, how the proposed change will affect some
private interest, or some idolized theory or opinion
of theirs. Suppose a short-sighted, selfish man to
be interested as manufacturer, author, compiler,
copyright owner, vender, pedlar, or puffer, of any
of the hundreds of school-books, — from the read-
ing book that costs a dollar, to the primer that costs
four pence, — whose number and inconsistencies
infest our schools, and whose expense burdens
our community, — then he will inquire which one
of all these books will be likely to meet with coun-
tenance or disfavor, in an adjudication upon their
merits ; and he will strive to turn the scales which
261
confessedly hold the great interests of humanity,
one way or the other, as their inclination will
promote or oppose the success of his reading book
or his primer. So one, who has entered the polit-
ical arena, not as a patriot, but as a partisan, will
deride upon any new measure by its supposed
bearing upon the success of his faction or cabal,
and not by its tendency to advance the welfare
of the body politic. In relation, too, to a more
solemn subject, — how many individuals there are
belonging to the hundred conflicting forms of
religious faith, which now stain and mottle the
holy whiteness of Christianity, who will array
themselves against all plans for the reform or ren-
ovation of society, unless its agents and instru-
ments are of their selection. And so of all the
varied interests in the community, — industrial,
literary, political, spiritual. Whatever class this
great cause may touch, or be supposed likely to
touch, there will come forth from that class, active
opponents ; or, what may not be lessdisastrous, self-
ish and indiscreet friends. I have known the car-
penter and the mason belonging to the same school
district, change sides and votes on the expediency
of erecting a new schoolhouse, after it had been
determined, contrary to expectation, to construct
it of brick instead of wood. I have known a book-
maker seek anxiously to learn the opinions of the
Board of Education respecting his book, in order
to qualify himself to decide upon the expediency
of its having been established.
How then, I ask, is this great interest to sus-
tain itself, amid these disturbing forces of party
and sect and faction and clan ? how is it to navi-
gate with whirlwinds above and whirlpools below,
and rocks on every side?
In the first place, in regard to mere secular and
business interests, we are to do no man wrong ;
we are to show by our deeds, rather than by our
words, that we are seeking no private, personal
aims, but public ends by equitable means. We
are to show that our object is to diffuse light and
knowledge, and to leave those who can best bear
these tests, to profit most by their diffusion. Let
us here teach the lessons of justice and impar-
tiality on what, in schools, is called the exhibitory
method; that is, by an actual exhibition of the
principle we would inculcate ; and as, for the
untaught schoolboy, we bring out specimens,
and models and objects, and give practical illus-
trations by apparatus and diagram to make him
acquainted with the various branches of study ;
so, in the great school of the world, let us illus-
trate the virtues of generosity, magnanimity,
equity and self-sacrifice, by the shining example
of our acts and lives.
And again ; in regard to those higher interests
which the politician and the theologian feel called
upon to guard and superintend, let us show them
that, in supporting a system of Public Instruction,
adapted to common wants and to be upheld by com-
mon means, we will not encroach one hair's breadth
upon the peculiar province of any party or any
denomination. But let us never cease to reiter-
ate, and urge home upon the consideration of all
political parties and religious denominations, that,
in order to gain any useful ally to their cause, or
worthy convert to their faith, they must first find
a MAN, — not a statue, not an automaton, not a
puppet, but a free, a thinking, an intelligent soul ;
— a being possessed of the attributes as well as the
form of humanity. For, what can the enlightened
advocate of any doctrine do, if he is compelled to
address brutish souls, through adders' ears ? How
much can the senator or the ambassador of Christ
accomplish, in convincing or in reforming mankind,
if they are first obliged to fish up their subjects
from the fetid slough of sensualism, or to excavate
263
them from beneath thick layers of prejudice,
where, if I may express myself in geological
language, they lie buried below the granite for-
mation. In expounding the great problems of
civil polity, or the momentous questions pertain-
ing to our immortal destinies, how much can
they effect, while obliged to labor upon men
whose intellects are so halting and snail-paced,
that they can no more traverse the logical dis-
tance between premises and conclusion, in any
argument, than their bodies could leap the spaces
between the fixed stars ? As educators, as friends
and sustainers of the Common School system,
our great duty is to prepare these living and intel-
ligent souls ; to awaken the faculty of thought in
all the children of the Commonwealth ; to give
them an inquiring, outlooking, forthgoing mind;
to impart to them the greatest practicable amount
of useful knowledge ; to cultivate in them a sacred
regard to truth ; to keep them unspotted from the
world, that is, uncontaminated by its vices; to
train them up to the love of God and the love of
man ; to make the perfect example of Jesus Christ
lovely in their eyes ; and to give to all so much
religious instruction as is compatible with the
rights of others and with the genius of our govern-
ment, — leaving to parents and guardians the di-
rection, during their school-going days, of all
special and peculiar instruction respecting politics
and theology ; and at last, when the children arrive
at years of maturity, to commend them to that
inviolable prerogative of private judgment and of
self-direction, which, in a Protestant and a Re-
publican country, is the acknowledged birth-right
of every human being.
But sterner trials than any I have yet men-
tioned await the disciples of this sacred apostle-
ship. The strong abuses that have invaded us
will not be complimented into retirement; they
264
will not be bowed out of society ; but as soon as
they are touched, they will bristle all over with
armor, and assail us with implacable hostility.
While doing good, therefore, we must consent to
suffer wrong. Such is human nature, that the
introduction of every good cause adds another
chapter to the Book of Martyrs. Though wise as
serpents, yet there are adders who will not hear
us ; and though harmless as doves, yet for that
very harmlessness will the vultures more readily
stoop upon us. We shall not, indeed, be literally
carried to the stake, or burned with material fires ;
but pangs keener than these, and more enduring,
will be made to pierce our breasts. Our motives
will be maligned, our words belied, our actions
falsified. A reputation, for whose spotlessness
and purity, we may, through life, have resisted
every temptation and made every sacrifice, will
be blackened ; and a character, — perhaps our only
precious possession wherewith to requite the love
of family and friends, — will be traduced, calum-
niated, vilified; and, if deemed sufficiently con-
spicuous to attract public attention, held up, in the
public press, perhaps in legislative halls, to com-
mon scorn and derision. What then ! Shall we
desert this glorious cause 7 Shall we ignobly sacri-
fice immortal good to mortal ease 7 No ; never !
But let us meet opposition in the spirit of him who
prophetically said, "If they have persecuted me,
they will also persecute you." For those who
oppose and malign us, our revenge shall be, to
make their children wiser, better, and happier
than themselves. If we ever feel the earthly
motives contending with the heavenly, in our
bosoms, — selfishness against duty, sloth against
enduring and ennobling toil, a vicious content-
ment against aspirings after higher and attain-
able good, — let us not suffer the earth-born to
265
vanquish the immortal. What, though it camiot
be said,
" A cloud of witnesses around,
Hold us in full survey,"
yet the voiceless approval of conscience outweighs
the applauses of the world, and will outlast the
very air and light, through which the eulogiums
of mankind or the memorials of their homage, can
be manifested to us.
What, too, though we cannot complete or per-
fect the work in our own age. For the consum-
mation of such a cause, a thousand years are to
be regarded only as a day. We know that the
Creator has established an indissoluble connection
between our conduct and its consequences. We
know that the sublime order of his Providence is
sustained, by evolving effects from causes. We
know that, within certain limits, he has intrusted
the preparation of causes to our hands ; and, there-
fore, we know, that just so far as he has com-
mitted this preparation or adjustment of causes to
us, he has given us power over effects ; — he has
given us power to modify or turn the flow of
events for coming ages. As the apostles and
martyrs and heroes, who lived centuries ago, have
modified the events which happen to us, so have
we the power to modify the events which shall
happen to our posterity. We are not laboring,
then, for three score and ten years only, but, for
aught we know, for three score and ten centuries,
or myriads of centuries. Through these immu-
table relations of cause and effect, — of evolution,
transmission and reproduction, — our conduct will
project its consequences through all the eras of
coming time. Though our life, therefore, is but
as a vapor which passeth away, yet we have
power to strike the deepest chords of human
welfare, and to give them vibrations which shall
23
266
sound onward forever. Corresponding with this
stupendous order of events, we are endowed with a
faculty of mind, by which we can recognize and
appreciate our power over the fortunes and des-
tinies of distant times. By the aid of this faculty,
we can see that whatever we undertake and
prosecute, with right motives and on sound prin-
ciples, will not return to us void, but will produce
its legitimate fruits of beneficence. On this faculty,
then, as on eagles' wings, let us soar beyond the
visible horizon of time ; let us survey the pros-
pect of redoubling magnificence, which, from
age to age, will open and stretch onward, before
those whose blessed ministry it is to improve the
condition of the young ; let our thoughts wander
up and down among the coming centuries, and
partake, by anticipation, of the enjoyments which
others shall realize. If we ever seem to be labor-
ing in vain, — if our spirits are ever ready to
faint, amid present obstruction and hostility, —
then, through this faculty of discerning what
mighty results Nature and Providence will mature
from humble efforts, let us look forward, in faith,
and we shall behold this mighty cause emerging
from its present gloom and obscurity, expanding
and blossoming out into beauty, and ripening into
the immortal fruits of wisdom and holiness ; and
as we gaze upon the glorious scene, every faculty
within us shall be vivified, and endued with new
and unwonted energy.
What, then, though our words and deeds seem
now to be almost powerless and hopeless ; what
though bands of noble followers should rise up in
our places, to be succeeded again and again by
others, whose labors and sacrifices shall seem to
fall and perish like the autumnal leaves of the
forest; — yet, like the annual shedding of that
foliage, which, for uncounted centuries, has been
gradually deepening the alluvium, throughout
267
the vast solitudes of the Mississippi valley, in-
creasing its depth and its richness, so shall the
product of our labors accumulate in value and in
amount, until, at last, beneath the hand of some
more fortunate cultivator, it shall yield more
abundant harvests of excellence, and righteous-
ness and happiness, than had ever before lux-
uriated in the *'seed-field of Time."
LECTURE VI.
ON DISTRICT SCHOOL LIBRARIES
I PROPOSE, in the following lecture, to consider
the expediency of establishing a School Library
in the several School Districts of the State.
The idea of a Common School Library is a mod-
ern one. It originated in the State of New York.
In the year 1835, a law was passed by the Legisla-
ture of that State, authorizing its respective school
districts to raise, by tax, the sum of twenty dol-
lars the first year, and ten dollars in any subse-
quent year, for the purchase of a Common School
Library. No inducement was held out to the
districts to make the purchase, but only a mere
power granted; and the consequence was, that
for three years this law remained almost a dead
letter upon the pages of the statute book. But in
the year 1838, Governor Marcy, in his inaugural
address to the Legislature, recommended the ap-
propriation of a part of the income of the United
States deposit fund, or surplus revenue, (so called,)
to this object. The recommendation was adopted,
and the sum of $55,000 for three years, was set
apart to be applied by the districts to the purchase
of a District School Library. The towns were also
required to raise an equal sum, to be united with
the former, and to be applied in the same way.*
* By a law of 1839. this prorision for three, was extended to Jive
years: and by a law oi 1843. it was made perpetual, with the following
niudifications : Whenever tne number of cliilclnn in a district, betweeu
23*
270
How much more does such an act of permanent
usefulness redound to the honor of a Governor or
a Legislature, than those party contests which
occupy so much of public attention for a few days
or months, but are then forgotten, or are only
remembered to be lamented or condemned !
By the law of April 12, 1837, the Legislature of
Massachusetts authorized each school district in
the State to raise, by tax, a sum not exceeding
thirty dollars for the |irst year, and ten dollars for
any subsequent year, for the purchase of a library
and apparatus for the schools. Few districts,
however, availed themselves of this power; and,
up to the close of the year 1839, there were but
about fifty libraries in all the Common Schools of
Massachusetts.
Being convinced of the necessity, and foresee-
ing the benefits, of libraries in our schools, I sub-
mitted to the Board of Education, on the 27th
day of March, 1838, a written proposition on that
subject. In that communication it was proposed
that the Board itself should take measures for the
preparation of such a Common School Library, as
should be adapted to the wants of the schools,
and should at the same time be free from objection
on account of partisan opinions in politics, or sec-
tarian views in religion. I had been led to sup-
pose that one of the principal reasons why so few
libraries had been purchased, under the law of
1837, was the jealousy entertained against each
other, by members of different political parties
and of different religious denominations. Though
the ages of five and sixteen years, exceeds fifty, and the number of
vohimes in the library shall exceed one hundred and twenty -five ;
or when the number of children in a district, between the same ages,
is fifty, or less, and the number of volumes belonging to the library
shall exceed one hundred, then the district may appropriate the whole,
or any part of its distributive sliare of the '* library money " " to the
Eirchase of maps, globes, blackboards, or other scientific apparatus,
r the use of the school."
271
sensible men, and friends of education, almost
without exception, were earnest in their desires
for a library, yet they either had fears of their
own, or encountered apprehension in others, that
the pubHc money devoted to this purpose of
general utility, might be perverted, in the hands
of partisans, to the furtherance of sinister ends.
The proposition submitted to the Board, as above
stated, was accompanied by guards designed to
obviate these difficulties. It was favorably re-
ceived, and immediately acted upon.
Being convinced, however, that nothing could
be effected towards the accomplishment of so
grand an object, except by going before the people
with indubitable facts and irresistible arguments,
I set myself to the work of making extensive and
minute inquiries throughout the State, respecting
the number of public libraries, the number of vol-
umes which each contained, their estimated value,
the general character of the books, and also the
number of persons who had a right of access to
them. I obtained returns from all but sixteen
towns, which, being small, had an aggregate pop-
ulation of only 20,966. The result exceeded my
worst apprehensions. I found that there were but
299 social libraries in the State. The number
of volumes they contained was 180,028. Their
estimated value $191,538. The number of propri-
etors, or persons having access to them, in their
own right, was only 25,705.
In addition to the above, there were, in the
Slate, from ten to fifteen tow7i libraries, — that
is, libraries to which all the citizens of the town
had a right of access. These contained, in the
aggregate, from three to four thousand volumes,
and their estimated value was about $1400. There
were also about fifty school district libraries, con-
taining about ten thousand volumes, and worth,
by estimation, about $3200 or $3300. Fifteen of
272
these were in Boston. The number of Pubhc
Schools in the State, at that time, was 3,014.
A few of the incorporated academies had small
libraries.
There were also a few circulating libraries in
different parts of the State, — out of the city of
Boston, perhaps twenty, — but it would be chari-
table to suppose that, on the whole, this class of
libraries does as much good as harm.
Of all the social libraries in the State, thirty-
six, containing 81,881 volumes, valued at $130,-
055, and owned by 8,885 proprietors, or share-
holders, belonged to the city of Boston.
It appeared, then, that the books belonging to
the public social libraries, in the city of Boston,
constituted almost one half, in number, of all the
books in the social libraries of the State, and more
than two thirds of all in value ; and yet only
about one tenth part of the population of the city
had any right of access to them.
I have said above that the whole number of
proprietors, or share-holders, in all the social
libraries in the State was 25,705. Now, suppos-
ing that each proprietor or share-holder, in these
social libraries, represents, on an average, four
persons, (and this, considering the number of
share-holders who are not heads of families, is
probably a full allowance,) tile population repre-
sented by them, as enjoying the benefits of these
libraries, would be only a small fraction over one
hundred thousand; and this, strange and alarm-
ing as it may seem, would leave a population, in
the State, of more than six hundred thousand, who
have no right of participation in those benefits.
I omit here, as not having an immediate con-
nection with my present purpose, to give an ac-
count of the libraries belonging to the colleges and
other literary and scientific institutions in the
State. A detailed account of these may be found
273
in my Third Annual Report to the Board of Edu-
cation.
Do not the above facts show a most extraor-
dinary and wide-spread deficiency of books in
our Commonwealth?
But even where books exist, another question
arises, hardly less important than the preceding,
as to the suitableness or adaptation of the books to
the youthful mind. One general remark applies
to the existing libraries almost without exception :
— the books were written for men, and not for
children. The libraries, too, have been collected
by men for their own amusement or edification.
There is no hazard, therefore, in saying, that they
contain very few books, appropriate for the read-
mg of the young, either in the subjects treated of,
the intellectual manner in which those subjects
are discussed, or the moral tone that pervades the
works.*
* As descnptiveof the general character of the public libraries now
existing in the State, I give the following extract from my Third
Annual Report : —
The next question respects the character of the books, composing
the libraries, and their adaptation to the capacities and mental con-
dition of children and youth. In regard to this point, there is, as
might be expected, but little diversity of statement. Almost all the
answera concur in the opinion, that the contents of the libraries are
not adapted to the intellectual and moral wants of the young, — an
opinion, which a reference to the titles, in the catalogues, will fully
sustain. With very few exceptions, the books were written for
adults, for persons of some maturity of mind, and possessed, already,
of a considerable fund of information ; and, therefore, they could not
be adapted to children, except through mistake. Of course, in the
whole, collcotively considered, there is every kind of books ; but
probably no other kind, which can be deemed of a useful character,
occupies so much space upon the shelves of the libraries, as the his-
torical class. Some of the various histories of Greece and Rome ; the
History of Modem Europe, by Russell ; of England, by Hume and
his successors ; Robertson's Cnarles V. ; Mavor's Universal History ;
the numerous Histories of Napoleon, and similar works, constitute
the staple of many libraries. And how little do these books contain,
which IS suitable for children ! How little do they record, but the
destruction of human life, and the activity of those misguided ener-
gies of men, which have hitherto almost baffled the beneticent inten-
tions of Nature for human happiness 1 Descriptions of battles, sack-
ings of cities, and the captivity of nations, follow each other, with the
274
Now the object of a Common School Library
is to supply these great deficiencies. Existing
quickest movement, and in an endless succession. Almost the only
glimpses which we catch, of the education of youth, present them, as
engaged in martial sports, and in mimic feats of arms, preparatory to
the gralid tragedies of battle ; — exercises and exhibitions, which, both
in the performer and the spectator, cultivate all the dissocial emotions,
and turn the whole current of the mental forces into the channel of
destructiveness. The reader sees inventive genius, not employed in
perfecting the useful arts, but exhausting itseff in the manufacture of
implements of war. He sees rulers and legislators, not engaged in
devising comprehensive plans for universal welfare, but in levying and
equipping armies and navies, and extorting taxes to maintam them,
thus dividing the whole mass of the people into the two classes of
slaves and soldiers ; enforcing the degradation and servility of tame
animals, upon the former, and cultivating the ferocity and blood-
thirstiness of wild animals, in the latter. The highest honors are
conferred upon men, in whose rolls of slaughter the most thousands
of victims are numbered ; and seldom does woman emerge from her
obscurity — indeed, hardly should we know that she existed — but for
her appearance, to grace the triumphs of the conqueror. What a
series of facts would be indicated, by an examination of all the treaties
of peace, which history records ! they would appear like a grand in-
dex to universal plunder. The inference which children would legiti-
mately draw, from reading like this, would be, that the tribes and
nations of men had been created, only for mutual slaughter, and that
they deserved the homage of posterity, for the terrible fidelity with
which their mission had been fulfilled. Rarely do these records
administer any antidote against the inhumanity of the spirit they
instil. In the immature minds of children, unaccustomed to consider
events, under the relation of cause and effect, they excite the concep-
tion of magnificent palaces or temples, for bloody conquerors to dwell
in, or in which to offer profane worship for inhuman triumphs, with-
out a suggestion of the bondage and debasement of the myriads of
slaves, who, through lives of privation and torture, were compelled to
erect them ; they present an exciting picture of long trains of plun-
dered wealth, going to enrich some city or hero, without an intima-
tion, that, by industry and the arts of peace, the same wealth could
have been earned, more cheaply than it was plundered ; they exhibit
the triumphal return of warriors, to be crowned with honors worthv of
a god, while they take the mind wholly away from the carnage of^the
battle-field, from desolated provinces, and a mourning people. In all
this, it is true, there are many examples of the partial and limited
virtue of patriotism ; but few, only, ot the complete virtue of philan-
thropy. The courage, held up for admiration, is generally of that
animal nature, which rushes into danger, to inflict injury upon an-
other; but not of that Divine quality, which braves peril, tor the sake
of bestowing good — attributes, than which there are scarcely any two
in the souls of men, more different, though the baseness of the former
is so often mistaken for the nobleness of the latter. Indeed, if the
past history of our race is to be much read by children, it should be
re-written ; and^ while it records those events, which have contra-
vened all the prmciples of social policy, and violated all the laws of
morality and religion, there should, at least, be some recognition of
the great truth, that, among nations, as among individuals, the high-
275
libraries are owned by the rich, or by those who
are in comfortable circumstances. The Common
School Library will reach the poor. The former
were prepared for adult and educated minds ; the
latter is to be adapted to instruct young and un-
enlightened ones. By the former, books are col-
lected in great numbers, at a few places, having
broad deserts between ; by the latter, a few good
books are to be sent into every school district in
the State, so that not a child shall be born in our
beloved Commonwealth, who shall not have a
collection of good books accessible to him at all
times, and free of expense, within half an hour's
walk of his home, wherever he may reside.
My friends, I look upon this as one of the
grandest moral enterprises of the age. The honor
of first embodying this idea, in practice, belongs
est welfare of all can only be effected, by securing the individual wel-
fare of each. There should be some parallel drawn, between the
historical and the natural relations of the race, so that the tender and
immature mind of the youthful reader may have some opportunity of
comparing the right with the wrong, and some option of admiring and
emulating the former, instead of the latter. As much of history now
stands, the examples of right and wrong, whose nativity and residence
are on opposite sides of tne moral universe, are not merely brought
and shuffled together, so as to make it difficult to distinguish between
them ; but the latter are made to occupy almost the whole field of
vision, while the existence of the former is scarcely noticed. It is,
as thongh children should be taken to behold, from afar, the light of
a city on fire, and directed to admire the splendor of the conflagra-
tion, without a thought of the tumult, and terror, and death, reigning
beneath it.
Another very considerable portion of these libraries, especially
where they have been recently formed or replenished, consists of
novels, ana all that class of booKs, which is comprehended under the
familiar designations of" fictions," " light reading," " trashy works,"
" ephemeral," or " bubble literature," otc. This kind of books has
increa.sed, immeasurably, within the last twenty years. It has in-
sinuated itself into public libraries, and found the readiest welcome
with people, who are not dependent upon libraries for the books they
peruse. Aside from newspapers, I am satisfied, that the major part
of the unprofesainnal readmg of the community is of the class of
books above designated. Amusement is the object, — mere amuse-
ment, as contradistinffiiished fr«)m instruction, in the practical con-
cerns of life ; as contrrirlistinguislied from those intellectual and moral
impulses, which turn the mind, both while reading and after the book
is closed, to observation, and comparison, and reflection, upon the
great realities of existence.
276
to the State of New York ; and how much more
glorious is it than the honors of battle ! The exe-
cution of this project will carry the elements of
thought where they never penetrated before. It
will scatter, free and abundant, the seeds of wis-
dom and virtue in the desert places of the land.
It will prove as powerful an agent in the world
of mind, as the use of steam has done in the
world of matter.
I propose now to notice a few particulars, in
which the usefulness of our schools will be so
much enlarged in extent, and increased in effi-
ciency, by means of a library, that they will
become almost new institutions.
The idea which came down to us from our
ancestors, and which has generally prevailed until
within a few years, was, that Common District
Schools are places where the mass of the chil-
dren may learn to read, to write, and to cipher.
In regard to the first of these studies, — Read-
ing, — how imperfect was the instruction given !
Good reading may be considered under three
heads, — the mechanical^ or the ability to speak
the names of words on seeing them ; the intellect-
ual, or a comprehension of an author's ideas ;
and the rhetorical, or the power of giving, by the
tones and inflexions of the voice and other nat-
ural language, an appropriate expression to feeling.
Now most men, whose Common School education
closed twenty or twenty-five years ago, will bear
me out in saying, that the mechanical part of
reading was the only branch of this accomplish-
ment which, in the great majority of our schools,
was then attended to. The intellectual part, which
consists in seeing, with the mind's eye, the whole
subject, broad, ample, unshadowed, just as the
author saw it, was mainly neglected. Consider
what a wonderful, — what an almost magical
boon, a writer of great genius confers upon us,
277
when we read him intelligently. As he proceeds
from point to point in his argument or narrative,
we seem to be taken up by him, and carried from
hill-top to hill-top, where, through an atmosphere
of light, we survey a glorious region of thought,
looking freely, far and wide, above and below,
and gazing in admiration upon all the beauty and
grandeur of the scene. But if we read the same
author, unintelligently, not one of the splendors
he would reveal to us, is pictured upon the eye.
All is blank. The black and white pages of the
book are, to our vision, the outside of the uni-
verse in that direction. I never attended any but
a Common School until I was sixteen years of
age, and up to that time, I had never heard a
question asked, either by teacher or scholar, re-
specting the meaning of a word or sentence in a
reading lesson. In spelling, when words were
addressed singly to the eye or ear, we uttered a
single mechanical sound ; and in reading, when
the words came in a row, the sounds followed in
a row ; but it was the work of the organs of
speech only, — the reflecting and imaginative
powers being all the while as stagnant as th^
Dead Sea. It was the noise of machinery thrown
out of gear ; and, of course, performing no work,
though it should run on forever. The exercises
had no more significancy than the chattering of
magpies or the cawing of ravens; for it was no
part of the school instruction of those days to
illustrate and exemplify the power and copious-
ness of the English language, and, out of its
flexible and bright-colored words, to make wings,
on which the mind could go abroad through
height and depth and distance, exploring and cir-
cumnavigating worlds.
Nor was our instruction any better in regard to
the rhetorical part of reading, which consists in
such a compass of voice and inflection of tone,
24
&78
as tend to reproduce the feelings of the speaker in
the minds of the hearers. There is this difference
between the intellectual and the rhetorical part
of reading; — the intellectual refers to our own
ability to perceive and understand ideas, argu-
ments, conclusions ; — the rhetorical refers to the
power of exciting in others, by our own enun-
ciation and manner of delivery, the sentiments
and emotions which we feel, or which were felt
by the author in whose place we stand.
Some men have possessed this power, and some
men now possess it, in such perfection, that when
they rise to address a concourse of people, — the
more numerous the concourse, the better for their
purpose, — they forthwith migrate, as it were, into
the bodies of the whole multitude before them ;
they dwell, like a spirit, within the spirits of their
hearers, controlling every emotion and resolve,
conjuring up before their eyes whatever visions
they please, making all imaginations seem sub-
stance and reality, — rousing, inflaming, subduing,
so that, if they cry War ! every hearer becomes
valiant and hot as Mars ; but if they cry Peace !
the fiercest grow gentle and merciful as a loving
child. This is a great art ; and when the orator
is wise and good, and the audience intelligent,
there is no danger, but a delicious illusion and
luxury in its enjoyment. Who has not gone
beyond the delight, and speculated upon the phe-
nomenon itself, when he has seen a master of
the art of music place himself before a musical
instrument, and, soon as with nimble fingers he
touches the strings, which, but a moment before,
lay voiceless and dead, they pour out living
and ecstatic harmonies, — as though some celestial
spirit had fallen asleep amid the chords, but, sud-
denly awakening, was celebrating its return to
life, by a song of its native elysium. When
such music ceases, it seems hardly a figure of
279
speech to say, '* the angel has flown." But what
is this, compared with that more potent and
exquisite instrument, the well-trained voiced
When Demosthenes or Patrick Henry pealed
such a war-cry, that all people, wherever its
echoes rang, sprung to their arms, and every
peaceful citizen, as he listened, felt the warrior
growing hig within him, and taking command of
all his faculties, what instrument or medium was
there, by which the soul of the orator was trans-
fused into the souls of his hearers, but the voice ?
Yet while their bodies stood around, as silent and
moveless as marble statuary, there raged within
their bosoms a turbulence and whirlwind and
boiling, fiercer than if ocean and iEtna had em-
braced. And so, to a great extent, it is even
now, when what they uttered is fittingly read.
We call this magic, enchantment, sorcery, and
so forth ; but there is no more magic in it, than
in balancing an egg on the smaller end, — each
being equally easy when we have learned how
to do it.
None, however, of the beauties of rhetorical
reading can be attained, unless the intellectual
part is mastered. The mechanical reader is a
mere grinder of words. If he reads without any
attempt at expression, it is mere see-saw and mill-
clackery ; if he attempts expression, he is sure to
mistake its place, and his flourishes become ri-
diculous rant and extravagance.*
Now no one thing will contribute more to
intelligent reading in our schools, than a well
selected library; and, through intelligence, the
library will also contribute to rhetorical ease,
grace, and expressiveness. Wake up a child to
a consciousness of power and beauty, and you
might as easily confine Hercules to a distaff*, or
bind Apollo to a tread-mill, as to confine his spirit
within the mechanical round of a schoolroom,
280
where such mechanism still exists. Let a child
read and understand such stories as the friend-
ship of Damon and Pythias, the integrity of
Aristides, the fidelity of Regains, the purity of
Washington, the invincible perseverance of Frank-
lin, and he will think differently and act' differ-
ently all the days of his remaining life. Let boys
or girls of sixteen years of age, read an intelligible
and popular treatise on astronomy and geology,
and from that day, new heavens will bend over
their head, and a new earth will spread out
beneath their feet. A mind accustomed to go
rejoicing over the splendid regions of the material
universe, or to luxuriate in the richer worlds of
thought, can never afterwards read like a wooden
machine,^a thing of cranks and pipes, — to say
nothing of the pleasures and the utility it will
realize.
Indeed, when a scholar, at the age of sixteen
or eighteen years, leaves any one of our Public
Schools, I cannot see with what propriety we can
say he has learned the art of reading, in that
school, if he cannot promptly understand, either
by reading himself, or by hearing another read,
any common English book of history, biography,
morals, or poetry; or if he cannot readily com-
prehend all the words commonly spoken, in the
lecture-room, the court-room, or the pulpit. It is
not enough to understand the customary words
used at meal-time, or in a dram-shop, or in con-
gressional brawling. I know it is the cry of
many a hearer to the speaker, — " Come doion to
my comprehension ;" but I cannot see why any
speaker, who speaks good English words, —
whether derived originally from the Saxon or
the Latin, or any other lawful source, — has not
quite as good a right to say to the hearer, " Come
up to my language." When a clergyman, or
public speaker of any kind, for every hour that he
281
spends in thinking out his discourse, must spend
two hours in diluting it with watery expressions,
in order to have it run so thin that every body may
see to the bottom, he loses not only the greater
part of his time, but he loses immensely in the
value and impressiveness of his teachings. If, in
the heat of composition, and with the light of all
his faculties brought to a focus, he kindles with a
thought which glows like the orient sun, must he
stop and cut it up into farthing candles, lest the
weak eyes of some bat or mole should be dazzled
by its brightness? But, in all such cases, the
hearers lose still more than the speaker. By the
half-hour or hour together, they must receive
small coins, — cents and four-penny bits, — instead
of guineas and doubloons. They are like those
ignorant, foreign depositors in one of our city
Savings Banks, during a late panic in the money
market, who rushed to the counter, demanding
immediate payment; but when pieces of gold
were offered to them, of whose value they had no
test, and with whose image and superscription
they were not acquainted, they besought the offi-
cers, although, as they supposed, at the imminent
risk of losing their whole deposit, to pay them in
small change, where they felt at home. Just so
it is with those who are forever calling upon the
speaker to come down to their comprehension, in
regard to his language and style ; for, if he obeys
the call and goes very far down, in order to meet
them, he necessarily leaves m\ich of the grandeur
and beauty and sublimity of his subject behind
him. When a speaker is to discourse upon any
great theme, — one belonging to any department
of a universe which Onmisciencehas planned and
Omnipotence has builded, ought he not to be
allowed a generous liberty in the use of language 1
Ought he not to be allowed a scope and amplitude
of expression, by which he can display, as on a
24*
282
sky-broad panorama, the infinite relations that
belong to the minutest thing; or, on the other
hand, should he not be allowed that condensa-
tion of speech, by which the vastest systems of
nature can be consolidated into a single word, to
be hurled, like a bolt, at its mark ? Is it not as
absurd to restrict the speaker, on such occasions,
to mere nursery or cradle-talk, as it would be to
deny sea-room to an admiral, and require him,
for our amusement, to mancBuvre navies in a mill-
pond 7
Suppose a company of Americans should go to
France or Germany, and after picking up a few
words in hotels and diligences, should attend the
public lecture, the play, or the services of the
cathedral, and should there demand of the speak-
ers to keep within the narrow limits of their
vocabulary, — I ask, whether it would not be most
unreasonable, on the one side, to make such a
demand, and impossible on the other, to comply
with it? And how would the case be altered,
though the company should reside there for twen-
ty-one years, if they still remained ignorant of
the language of the country ? Now this is just
our case. Children, of course, come into the
world with just as little knowledge of English as
of French and German ; and if they remain here
for twenty-one years, without learning English
words, how can they expect to understand Eng-
lish speakers'?
I do not mean, by these remarks, to counte-
nance or palliate the folly of those speakers or
writers, who are always straining after new
words, or swelling forms of expression ; and
whose breadth and flow of style do not resemble
a river, but only a tiny stream whipped into bub-
bles. It is occasionally our lot to encounter men
who seem to have imbibed some mathematical
notion, that the power of a word is as the square
283
of its length, and hence they suppose, that what
Horace calls seven-foot words *" must have at
least forty-nine times the pith of monosyllables.
Such diction and style are as offensive to men of
good taste, as they are unintelligible to the illit-
erate. But I do mean, by these remarks, to give
a definition of what should be understood by the
phrase, — learning to read. Unless pupils, there-
fore, on going out from our schools, can read
intelligently any good English book, and under-
stand any speech or discourse expressed in good
English words, they cannot, with any propriety,
be said to have learned to read. And as no set
of reading books, in our schools, contains any
thing like the whole circle of words which are in
common and reputable use, in the pulpit, at
the bar, in the senate, or in works of standard
literature, it is obvious that a school library is
needed to supply the great deficiency, which
otherwise would necessarily exist in the language
of the present children ; and, of course, in the
language of the future men and women.
Justice, in reference to this subject, has never
been done to the clerical profession. They habit-
ually address audiences, the most promiscuous in
point of attainment, — and, so far as it regards
the various qualities of language, — its scope, its
majesty, its beauty, its melody, its simplicity, —
if they prepare an entertainment of milk for intel-
lectual babes, the full-grown men die of thin
blood and inanition ; — if, on the other hand, they
bring forward strong meat for men, it cannot be
assimilated by the weak organs of the sucklings.
Hence multitudes abandon the sanctuary alto-
gether; and the ignorant, who need its teachings
most, are most likely to desert it. How impor-
tant then, it is, for all the divine purposes of this
profession, to teach children the art of reading, in
* Sesquipedalia verba.
284
the true, legitimate and full sense of that phrase ;
and. for this end, a good school library is indis-
pensable.
I proceed to notice another grand distinction
between a Common School with a library, and a
Common School without one ; and a still more im-
portant distinction, between a State, all of whose
Common Schools have libraries, and a State in
which there are none. This distinction consists
in the power of libraries to enlarge the amount of
useful knowledge possessed by a community.
The State which teaches one new truth to one of
its citizens does something ; but how much more,
when by teaching that truth to all, it multiplies
its utilities and its pleasures by the number of all
the citizens. The saying of Adam Smith has
been quoted thousands of times, that he who
makes two blades of grass grow where but one
grew before, is a public benefactor. But he who
doubles the amount of knowledge belonging to a
community, is a public benefactor as much greater
than he who doubles the blades of grass on its
soil, as immortal, life-giving truth is better than
the perishing flowers of the field. Could we
examine all the nations which are called civilized
or Christian, we should not find one individual
in a thousand worthy to be called intelligent^ in
regard to many kinds of knowledge, which might
be possessed, and, for their own safety and hap-
piness, should be possessed by all. We should
not find one individual in a thousand who knows
any thing instructive or pleasurable, respecting
the wonderful structure of his own body, and the
still more wonderful constitution and functions
of his own mind ; and respecting the laws, — the
certain and infallible laws, — of bodily health and
mental growth. There is not one individual in a
thousand who has any knowledge, so definite as
to be beneficial, of the history of our race ; or
285
who knows any thing of the sublimer parts of
astronomy, or of the magnificent and romantic
science of geology, — a science which leads the mind
backwards into time as far as astronomy leads it
outwards into space; — or of chemistry with its
applications to the arts of life ; or of the principal
laws of natural and mechanical philosophy ; or
of the origin, history, and processes of those use-
ful arts, by which the common and every-day
comforts of life are prepared. Now respecting
most, if not all these subjects, every man and
woman might possess a liberal fund of informa-
tion, which would be to them an ever-springing
fountain of delight and usefulness. But the uni-
form policy of governments has been to create a
few men of great learning rather than to diffuse
knowledge among the many. Literary institu-
tions have been founded, and a nation's treasury
almost emptied for their endowment ; and when
a rare and mighty genius has appeared in any
part of the kingdom, he has been summoned to
embellish and dignify the court or university ;
and rarely have such men ever sent back a ray
to illumine the dark places of their nativity.
The policy of governments has absorbed all light
into the centre, instead of radiating it to the cir-
cumference. And when, by the combined labor
of learned and studious men, — amid mountains
of books, amid museums and apparatus and all
the appliances of human art, — some new law of
nature has been detected, another planet discov-
ered in the heavens, or another curiosity upon
the earth, — the rulers of mankind, the depositaries
and trustees of a people's welfare, have celebrated
the event with jubilee and Te Deiim, and written
themselves down the Solomons of the race. Be-
tween England and France, — two kingdoms
which now stand and have long stood in the van
of science and art, — a strong national jealousy
286
exists as to the relative superiority of their great
men. England boasts that it was her Newton
whose mighty hand drew aside the veil from the
face of the heavens, and revealed the stupendous
movements of the solar system. France retorts,
that it was left to her La Place to perfect the
Newtonian discovery, and to make every part
of the celestial mechanism as intelligible as a
watch to a watchmaker. England displays her
achievements in the natural sciences. France
flaunts her trophies in the exact ones. England
points to her useful arts ; France to those which
are born of an elegant imagination. Now all
these inventions and discoveries, so far as they
go, are well. I rejoice in the existence of learn-
ing, any where. I contemplate with delight those
imperial structures, where, for centuries, a sin-
cere, though often an unintelligent homage has
been offered to the divinities of knowledge. I
gaze with gladdened eye, through the long vista
of those galleries, where the lore of all former
times has been gathered. It charms and exalts
me to look upon cabinets which are enriched with
all the wonders of land and sea ; and upon labo-
ratories, where Nature comes and submits herself
to our rude and awkward experiments, teaching
us, as lovingly as a mother teaches her infant
child, and striving to make us understand some
of the words of her omnipotent language. I
look upon all these witii delight, for they are
treasuries and storehouses for the instruction and
exaltation of mankind. Above all, I hail with
inexpressible joy, whatever discovery may be
made in any department of the immense and in-
finitely-varied fields of Nature ; for I know that
all truth is of God and from God, and was sent
out to us as a messenger and guide, to lead our
faltering steps upwards to virtue and happiness.
But still I mourn. I mourn that this splendid
2sr
apparatus of means should be restricted to so
narrow a circle in the diffusiveness of its blessings.
1 mourn that numbers so few should be admitted
to dwell in the light, while multitudes so vast
should remain in outer darkness. I mourn that
governments and rulers should have been blind
to their greatest glory, — tlie physical and mental
well-being of the mictions whose destiny has been
placed in their hands. God has given to all man-
kind capacities for enjoying the delights and prof-
iting by the utilities of knowledge. Why should
so many pine and parch, in sight of fountains
whose sw^et waters are sufficiently copious to
slake the thirst of all 7 The scientific or literary
well-being of a community is to be estimated not
so much by its possessing a few men of great
knowledge, as by its having many men of com-
petent knowledge ; and especially is this so, if the
many have been stinted in order to aggrandize
the few. Was it any honor to Rome that Lucul-
lus had jive thousand changes of raiment in his
wardrobe, while an equal number of her people
went naked to furnish his superfluity ? How
does the farmer estimate the value of his timber-
lands? — surely not by here and there a stately
tree,' though its columnar shaft should shoot up
to the clouds, while, all around, there is nothing
but dwarfish and scraggy shrubs. One or a few
noble trees are not enough, though they rise as
high and spread as wide as the sycamore of the
Mississippi, but he wants the whole area covered,
as with a forest of banians. And thus should be
the growth of these immortal and longing natures
which God has given to all mankind. Eiacli mind
in the community should be cultivated, so that
the intellectual surveyor of a people, — the mental
statistician, or he who takes the valuation of a
nation's spiritual resources, — should not merely
count a few individuals, scattered here and there j
288
bnt should be obliged to multiply the mental
stature of one by the number of aM^ in order to
get his product. The mensuration of a people's
knowledge should no longer consist in calculating
the possessions of a few, but in obtaining the sum
total, or solid contents, in the possession of alL
And for this end, the dimensions of knowledge,
so to speak, must be enlarged in each geometrical
direction ; it must not only be extended on the
surface, but deepened, until the whole superficies
is cubed.
I say I rejoice that, in former times, facilities
and incitements for the acquisition of knowledge
have been enjoyed even by a few ; but if this is to
be all, and mankind are to stop where they now
are ; if, while light gladdens a few eyes, tens of
thousands are still to grope on amid the horrors of
mental blindness ; if, while a few dwell serenely
in the upper regions of day, the masses of man-
kind are to be plunged in Egyptian night, haunted
by all the spectres of superstition, and bowing down
to the foul idols of appetite and sense ; — if such
were the prospective destiny of the race, I would
pray Heaven for another universal deluge, —
" To make one sop of all this solid globe," —
to sweep all existing institutions away, and give a
clear space for trying the experiment of humanity
anew. The atrocities and abominations of men
have proceeded from their ignorance as much as
from their depravity ; and rather than that war
should continue to devour its nations ; that slav-
ery should always curse, as it now does, both
enslaved and enslaver ; that fraud and perfidy
between man and man should abound, as they
now abound, and that intemperance should re-
kindle its dying fires ; — rather than all this, I
would rejoice to see this solid globe hurled off
into illimitable space, and made a tenantless
289
Now, who does
not see that to gem the whole surface of the State
with good schools, and to supply each school
with a good library, will be the most effective
means ever yet devised by human wisdom, for
spreading light among the masses of mankind?
There is another respect in which the establish-
ment of a library in every school district will add
a new and grand feature to our Common School
system. The whole object in the foundation and
maintenance of our scliools, hitherto, has been
the education of children, — of minors. Ordinarily,
and with very few exceptions, when our children
have reached the age of sixteen, eighteen, or at
furthest, of twenty-one years, they have been
weaned from the schoolhouse ; and, in a vast
proportion of cases, so thoroughly weaned, too,
\hat the very idea of the milk of this mother has
oeen bitterness to their palates ever afterwards.
How many, or rather, how few adults ever revisit
the schoolhouse, as the spot of early and endear-
ing associations ! How few have been drawn td
it by the tie of tender and delightful recollections,
as a far wanderer is drawn homeward to visit,
with tearful eyes, the almost holy spot where his
infancy was cradled, where he slept upon his
mother's breast, and listened to the councils of
his father ! No ! Vast numbers of our children,
when they have served out their regular term in
the old, cheerless schoolroom, and are leaving it
for the last time, have shaken the dust from off
their feet, as a testimony against it. Were the
schoolroom an attractive place, why should it be
considered as so extraordinary an exploit in a
teacher, to get the fathers and mothers of the
district to visit their own children in it? Even
the school committee, — those whose official duty
it was to visit, and watch over the schools, — did
not, until recently, make one-fourth part of the
25
290
visitations required by law. With very few ex-
ceptions, too, it was ascertained by the commit-
tees, that, although the law had prescribed the
number of visitations which they should make,
yet it had not prescribed their length ; and the
consequence was, that the longitude of their visits
was inversely as the latitude of their construction.
But by a good school library, the faculty of the
school will be enlarged. It will be made to extend
its enlightening influences to the old as well as to
the young ; because every inhabitant of the dis-
trict, under such conditions as may be deemed
advisable, should be allowed to participate in the
benefits of the library. Hence the schoolhouse
will be not only a nursery for children, but a
place of intelligent resort for men. The school
will no longer be an institution for diffusing the
mere rudiments or instrumentalities of knowledge,
but for the bountiful diffusion of knowledge itself.
The man will keep up his relation with the school,
after he ceases to attend it as a scholar. Though
he has mastered all the text books in the school-
room, yet he will not have outgrown the school,
until he has mastered all the books in the library.
And here I would dispel an apprehension, some-
times felt, that children, although supplied with
suitable books, will contract no fondness for them.
Since submitting the plan to the Board of Educa-
tion, for the establishment of school libraries, I
have sent out not less than a thousand letters
soliciting information respecting the existence,
magnitude and quality of public libraries of all
kinds; and I have also availed myself of all
opportunities furnished by personal intercourse,
to ascertain the habits and means of our people,
in regard to reading. After all these oppoitu-
nities for information, I am able to say, that I
have never heard of a single instance where a
well selected library for children has run down
291
or run out, through abandonment or indifference
on their part. I have heard of many instances
where grown people, during some transient spasm
of Hlerature or vanity, have collected a library
for themselves, whose books, after a short time,
were read, as bills are so often read in our legis-
lative bodies, — by their titles only ; and, at last,
the office of librarian has been merged in that of
auctioneer. But I have never known one such
case in regard to children's libraries.
But suppose an unfortunate case of neglect or
abuse of the library privileges should sometimes,
or even frequently occur, would it furnish a valid
argument against the measure? Does the gar-
dener refuse to plant his garden, or the husband-
man his fields, because every seed that he casts
into the earth does not spring up and yield its
thirty, its sixty, or its hundred fold 7 Nay, if,
through accident or misfortune, the whole ex-
pected growth fails, does he not, with undimin-
ished faith and alacrity, commit new seed to the
soil, confiding in the veracity of the Promiser and
the fulfilment of the promise, that, if ye sow boun-
tifully, ye shall reap also bountifully.
There is another advantage of a good school
library, — not so obvious, perhaps, as those already
mentioned, — but one which I deem of no small
importance. A library will produce one effect
upon school children, and upon the neighborhood
generally, before they have read one of the books,
and even if they should never read one of them.
It is in this way : — The most ignorant are the
most conceited. Unless a man knows that there
is something more to be known, his inference is,
of course, that he knows every thing. Such a
man always usurps the throne of universal knowl-
edge, and assumes the right of deciding all pos-
sible questions. We all know that a conceited
dunce will decide questions extemporanecoiRl* .
292
which would puzzle a college of philosophers, ot
a bench of judges. Ignorant and shallow-minded
men do not see far enough to see the difficulty.
But let a man know that there are things to be
known, of which he is ignorant, and it is so much
carved out of his domain of universal knowledge.
And for all purposes of individual character, as
well as of social usefulness, it is quite as impor-
tant for a man to know the extent of his own igno-
rance as it is to know any thing else. To know
how much there is that we do not know, is one
of the most valuable parts of our attainments ;
for such knowledge becomes both a lesson of
humility and a stimulus to exertion. Let it be
laid down as a universal direction to teachers,
when students are becoming proud of their knowl-
edge, to spread open before them some pages of
the tremendous volume of their ignorance.
Now those children who are reared without any
advantages of intelligent company, or of travel,
or of books, — which are both company and travel,
— ^naturally fall into the error of supposing that
they live in the centre of the world, that all soci-
ety is like their society, or, if different from theirs,
that it must be wrong ; and they come, at length,
to regard any part of this vast system of the works
of man, and of the wisdom of God, which conflicts
with their home-bred notions, as baneful, or con-
temptible, or non-existent. They have caught
no glimpse of the various and sublime sciences
which have been discovered by human talent and
assiduity; nor of those infinitely wise and beau-
tiful laws and properties of the visible creation,
in which the Godhead has materialized his good-
ness and his power, in order to make them per-
ceptible to our senses ; — and hence they naturally
infer that they know all knowable things, and
have " learnt out" ; — that they have exhausted the
fuhiess of Deity, and into th^ir nutshell capacities
293
have drained dry the fountains of Omniscience.
Now, when this class of persons go out into the
world and mingle with their fellow-men, they are
found to be alike useless, on account of their
ignorance, and odious for their presumption. And
if a' new idea can be projected with sufficient
force to break through the incrustations of folly
and prejudice which envelop their soul, and with
sufficient accuracy of aim to hit so small a globule,
they appear as ridiculous, under its influence, as
did the mouse, which was born in the till of a
chest, and, happening one day to rear itself upon
its hind-legs and to look over into the body of the
chest, exclaimed, in amazement, that he did not
think the universe so large ! A library, even
before it is read, will teach people that there is
something more to be knowil.
An incidental advantage will often accrue from
this library enterprise, which I cannot pass by in
silence. Suppose the most intelligent and respect-
able portion of the State to be deeply convinced
of the expediency of a school library, and, there-
fore, to send up an earnest appeal to the Legis-
lature, for some assistance or bounty to enable the
districts to procure one. Suppose that the Legis-
lature should offer to contribute a certain sum, on
condition that the districts would raise an equal
sum, for the purpose. Doubtless, on the part of
a large number of districts, there would be great
alacrity in complying with the conditions pre-
scribed. But still, the number of districts and
even of towns will not be inconsiderable, where
Ignorance and Mammon bear such sway, that the
majority of voters will refuse to grant even this
pittance for the welfare of their children. It is in
this class of cases that the incidental advantages
to which I refer, will be realized. In most of
such districts or towns, there will be some indi-
Tidual or individuals, — of narrow means, but of a
25*
294
boundless soul, — who will at once give the requi-
site sum, and thus secure the object. Now these
occasional or special opportunities to do a good
deed, are of inestimable value. They stir up the
generous emotions of our nature from a depth,
where they might otherwise have lain stagnant
forever. They awaken within us a delightful
surprise at our own capabilities of usefulness and
happiness. Our sordid habit is, to call every
unexpected occurrence of good fortune happening
to ourselves, a god-send; but there is no such
god-send as the divine prompting to do good to
others. Let an unforeseen occasion of beneficence
be presented to a benevolent man, and let the
merits of the case be made visible to him by their
own beautiful light; — a resolve to act, at once
flashes upon his misd, and the generous deed is
'^one; — not done from ostentation, or the love of
praise, or from any low or sordid aim ; but done
because it is right and lovely and in harmony
with his better nature; and lo ! in the bosom of
that man the fountains of immortal joy burst
open, and such peace and gladness and exaltation
pervade and dilate his soul, that he would not bar-
ter one moment of their fruition for an eternity of
selfish pleasures. When a majority of the district
belong to the firm of Hunks, Shirk & Co., then
Mr. Goodman must supply the library, and the
next generation will rise up and bless him.
The effects of a habit of reading, in furnishing
home and fireside attractions for children, and
thus keeping them from vicious companions, and
from places of vicious resort, are so obvious, that
I shall not here dwell upon them; but content
myself with referring to one more of the unenu-
merated and innumerable advantages of a well
chosen library for our schools ; — I mean the efli-
cacy of good books in expelling bad ones. A true
friend of our country and our race is not satisfied
295
with knowing that we are a reading people; — he
asks impatiently, what it is that we read. That
there is an alarming amount of vain and per-
nicious reading in our community, no observing
person will deny. For unchastened imaginations
and perverted morals, there is a fascination in
accounts of battles, shipwrecks, murders and
piracies ; and many people gloat over those de-
moralizing police reports in the newspapers, in
which the foul scenes of darkness and depravity
are brought to light, and made themes for jest and
merriment. But have we taught children to read,
for the sake of enlarging their acquaintance with
impurity and immorality ? Fiction, too, from the
plump novel of two volumes to the lean news-
paper story of two columns, together with the
contents of light and fanciful periodicals, consti-
tutes the staple reading of a vast number of our
people. Now I believe it to be no exaggeration to
say, that ninety-nine parts in every hundred of
all the novels and romances extant, are as false
to truth and nature, to all verisimilitude to his-
tory and to the affairs of men, as though they had
been written, not by lunarians, but by lunatics
themselves. I mean, that, if we, as men and
women, were to act as novel-writers make their
men and women act, the results upon our fortunes
and lives would bear no resemblance to the for-
tunes and lives of the fictitious personages they
describe. The novelist makes godlike heroes and
benefactors of the race, of those who never studied
and toiled and sacrificed for the welfare of man-
kind; and, just so far as he does this, he is con-
tradicted by the testimony of universal history
and experience. His works are often bloated with
a maudlin sentiment, wholly unkindred and alien
to that healthy humanity, which, by the combined
action of intellect and benevolence, not only per-
ceives, but fulfils the law of love. Often, too, he
296
robes impurity in the garments of light, and thus
sets at defiance all the laws of the moral universe ;
or, he deems it poetic justice to reward the holy
sacrifices of virtue by the base coin of worldly
honors or wealth. The mind, when fed on mere
fantasies and etherialities, has no vigor for the
stern duties of life ; it is borne away by every
illusion, like a bulrush upon the tide.
The prevalence of novel-reading creates a host
of novel-writers ; and the readers and writers, by
action and reaction, increase the numbers of each
other. Hence great capacities for usefulness are
lost to the world, and the most important of human
duties remain unperformed. For many of the sons
and daughters of Adam, this is a world of perplex-
ity and suflTering and inexpressible anguish ; it is
a world where innocent nerves are laid bare to all
the aggressions of want and disease, and where
men sink into pitfalls of ruin, which the light of
a little knowledge would have revealed, and from
which kindly counsels would have saved them.
What is worst of all, — it is a world where guiltless
children are led, as by the hand, into dangers and
temptations ; or rather, they are propelled into dan-
gers and temptations, by forces of which they are
unconscious, and over which they have no control;
and in these perils they struggle for a moment,
and then sink into horrible depths of crime and
wretchedness^ which, by an unholy influence,
harden our hearts against them as much as they
harden their hearts against virtue. Society is
spotted all over with moral leprosy ; and hot tears,
more bitter than the waters of Marah, are furrow-
ing innocent cheeks ; and while this actual sin
and suffering abound, we cannot spare the finest
geniuses of the race to spend their lives in creating
Worlds of Shadows ; nor can we allow the most
educated of our people to escape from the great
work of solacing and redeeming mankind, to
297
revel in the brilliant but bodiless realms of fancy.
Every hand and every hour should be devoted to
rescue the world from its insanity of guilt, and to
assuage the pangs of human hearts with balm
and anodyne. To pity distress is but human ; to
relieve it is godlike. But I have never found that
those who weep most freely over fictitious pain,
have keener susceptibilities than others for real
woe. What an absolute inversion of the whole
moral nature does it suppose, to find delight in
tracing the fortunes of imaginary beings, while
living in the midst of such actual sufferings as
ought to dissolve the soul into a healing balm for
their relief, without recognizing their existence.
It is said, 'indeed, that Dickens, — the last king
\^hom the world of novel-readers have seated
upon their precarious throne, — has attributes of
humanity which distinguish him from his prede-
cessors. It is said that he looks over and beyond
the splendid circles of opulence and fashion, and
selects his objects of interest and sympathy from
among the hitherto outcast and forsaken of the
world. But I must say again, that I have not
seen any fresh outflowing of compassion, any
sweUing of the scanty rills of benevolence towards
the poor, the ignorant, the helpless, the misguided,
among the gay and affluent circles who vindicate
their homage to this new sovereign, because he
illumines his pages with the glow of a kindlier
humanity. To those who, — while surrounded
with luxuries and superfluities, and defended by
golden guards against cold and hunger, and all
the privations and temptations of poverty, — read,
breathless and tearful, the story ot " Little Nell,"
let me say, there is a '' Little Nell" in the next
street, or at the next door, of you all, — some
hapless child, cast, desolate and forlorn, upon the
bleak shores of Time, having no friend in the
abandoned mother that bore her, and wandering,
298
through all the years of infancy and childhood
as in one perpetual and tempestuous night of fear
and suffering ; while the opulent and the educated,
reclining on silken couches, in splendid saloons,
expend a barren sympathy over woes that never
were felt. Throughout our land, in city and in
sountry, groups and companies of innocent chil-
dren, — the offspring of intemperance or profligacy,
— are tossed for an hour upon the weltering tide of
life ; but hearing no voice of sympathy, seeing no
hand outstretched for their deliverance, they sink
to rise no more.
As when the young of land-birds, in the spring,
Q,uit the warm nest, and spread the untaught wing.
Some whirlwind blast, descending from the north.
Wheels them on high, and drives them furious forth
Far out to sea. Alas, the fated brood ! •
The empty sky 's above ; below, the yawning flood
Backward they turn to win their native vale.
And strive, with desperate wing, to stem the gale.
In vain ! They fall, by fear and toil opprest,
Till the rude wave assaults their throbbmg breast.
Once more ! for life ! they mount with piteous cry,
Then, one by one, they fall, they shriek, they die !
Even thus, by tens and by hundreds, perish in-
nocent children, at our own doors, — lost to all the
delights of life, lost in the deeper perdition of the
soul, — through lack of human sympathy in self-
styled Christians. Such children are the victims
of temptations and exposures, which, to all moral
intents, they are as incapable of resisting, as is
the half-fledged young of the land-bird, to defy
the mingled might of ocean and storm. Is it as
noble, is it as like the Divine Exemplar, to dote
over imaginary creations of loveliness and purity,
as to create and foster that loveliness and purity
ourselves, in hearts otherwise perverted and lost?
To describe possible happiness, or linger over
its enchanting delineations, is it, or can it be,
like rescuing children from the very throat of
the whirlpool which is carrying them down
299
to destruction; is it like bestowing happiness,
by our own efforts, upon our sorrowing fellow-
mortals? Look, my friends, for one moment,
around you, and see what things God ac-
complishes without our assistance ; then look
again, and see for the accomplishment of what
things God honors us by demanding our aid.
To combine msensate elements into a flower ; to
spread the rainbow across the dark folds of the
retreating storm ; to emblaze the deep recesses of
the firmament with new constellations; — these
works God has left to blind mechanical and or-
ganic laws. But to rear the amaranth of virtue
for a celestial soil ; to pale the diamond's glow by
the intenser efl'ulgence of genius ; to pencil, as with
living flame, a rainbow of holy promise and peace
upon the blackness and despair of a guilty life ;
to fit the spirits of weak and erring mortals to shine
forever, as stars, amid the Host of Heaven; —
for these diviner and more glorious works, God
asks our aid ; and He points to the children who
have been evoked into life, as the objects of our
labor and care. One drop of baptismal water
poured upon the infant's head, from the holy font
of wisdom and love, will quench more of the fires
of guilt, than an ocean of consecrated waters can
afterwards extinguish. And is it not time for the
self-styled disciples of Christ to repel the bitter
irony of their name 7 Is it not time for them to
imitate the Divine Master on whose name they
call, and, like him, surrender the pleasures of
luxury and sense, that they may go about doing
good? Is it not time for them to seek out the
children of wretchedness, — and so much the more
as they are the more wretched, — and fold them
in their arms, and bless them by instruction and
example ? The garden of an earthly paradise for
mankind can never be entered but through the
garden of Gethsemane. Yet where are they who
300
sweat drops of blood in their agony for the Welfare
of the race ; where are they who spurn the honors
and distinctions of an earthly ambition, and say,
of the proffered empire of the world, that it is an
offence ; where are they, whose striving soul sleep
does not visit at the coming on of night, whose
head is pillowless, though surrounded by cham-
bers of oriental magnificence, and who enter the
path of duty, with unfaltering step, although in
the vista's distant perspective there stands the
fatal cross 7 If Peter were one of us, and should
stand unconcerned in the midst of the rising gen-
eration, and put forth no helping hand to succor
them, he would need no oath to seal his perfidy
to his Master, — forsworn by apathy alone!
O! how forever beautiful and divine in the
sight of man ; how holy in the eye of Heaven ;
how gladdening in the retrospect of all coming
ages ; if, instead of surrendering their cultivated
powers to the dreams and fantasies of romance,
the daughters of opulence and leisure would
awaken to the realities of the only true and
worthy existence, and would seek an enduring
happiness, — where they would be sure to find it,
— in carrying knowledge and virtue and joy to the
children of poverty and wretchedness. Let them
lead these darkling wanderers to the joyful light
of knowledge. Let them shake free the wings of
immortal spirits, now so clogged with the mire of
earth, that they cannot soar upward to heaven.
Beneath the feet of such angel ministers, as they
go on their errands of mercy and love, the very
earth is hallowed ; and the air is made fragrant
and luminous by their tones and smiles of affec-
tion. Surely, no thanksgiving offered to God can
be so grateful as deeds of charity done to suffer-
ing childhood.
But how, I ask, can that pernicious reading,
which has done at least as much as any thing
301
else, to separate feeling from action, to sever the
natural connection between benevolent impulses
and benevolent deeds, to dissociate emotions of
pity for distress from a desire to succor and
relieve it, — how can the flood of this reading be
stayed ? I answer, that much can be done by the
substitution of books and studies which expound
human life and human duty, as God has made
them to be. Neither by the force of public opinion,
nor by any enactment of the Sovereign Legisla-
ture, can the noxious works which now infest the
community be gathered into one Alexandrian
pile, and by the application of one torch, the
earth be purified from their contaminations. No !
It must be done, if done at all, — in the expressive
language of Dr. Chalmers, — "by the expulsive
power of a new affection." A purer current of
thought at the fountain can alone wash the chan-
nels clean. For this purpose, I know of no plan,
as yet conceived by philanthropy, which prom-
ises to be so comprehensive and efficacious, as
the establishment of good libraries in all our
school districts, open respectively to all the chil-
dren in the State, and within half an hour's walk
of any spot upon its surface.
Note, On the 3d day of March, 1 842, the Le^slaturc passed a Re-
solve offering a lK)unty of tiS, to each school dislnct in the State, which
would appropriate $15, — both suras to be expended for the purchase
of a school library. By subscouent Resolves, enlarging the provisions
of the former, it is now provided that where a district contains more
than twice sixty children, three times sixty, &c., it may draw as
many times tl5 from the State Treasury, as tne number sixty is con-
tained in the number of its children, on condition of raising an equal
sum. Towns not districted may draw in the same proportion. A
ifreat majority of the districts in the State have already availed them-
•elrea of the privileges of these Resolves.
26
LECTURE VII.
ON SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS.
My subject is, Punishment^ and, more es-
pecially, Corporal Punishment, in our schools.
Important questions are agitated, respecting its
rightfulness and expediency, under any circum-
stances ; and, if rightful and expedient, at all,
then respecting its mode, its extent, and the cir-
cumstances under which it should be inflicted. I
despair of reconciling the conflicting opinions
which are entertained on these topics ; but may I
not hope to elucidate some points, pertaining to
them, and perhaps to lessen the distance between
the extremes of doctrine now existing amongst
us?
All punishment, considered by itself, is an evil.
In other words, all pain, considered by itself, is an
evil ; and the immediate object of punishment is
the infliction of pain. I think that no one who
does not altogether deny the existence of evil,
will deny that pain, abstracted from all ante-
cedents and consequences, is evil ; and, if any one
denies that evil exists, I answer him in the lan-
guage of Soame Jenyns, •' let him have the tooth-
ache, or get into a law-suit." The ultimate object
of punishment is to avert an evil greater than
itself We justify ourselves for inflicting it, — not
because it is a pleasure to us to do so, — for that
would be diabolical; nor wholly because the
culprit deserves it ; for if we could arrest him and
304
reform him, as well without the infliction of pain
as with it, no benevolent man would prescribe the
pain ; and, amongst all civilized nations, when a
malefactor, who has been condemned to death,
becomes insane, he is respited until reason is re-
stored ; although it is clear that the loss of reason
cannot expiate the past offence, and, therefore,
that the deserts of the transgressor remain the same
as before. We do not then inflict punishment
wholly because it is deserved ; but we inflict it
that we may ward off" a greater evil by a less
one, — a permanent evil by a temporary one. We
administer it, only as a physician sometimes ad-
ministers poison to a sick man, — not because
poison is congenial to the healthy system, nor,
indeed, because poison is congenial to the diseased
system ; but because it promises to arrest a fatal
malady until appropriate remedial measures can
be taken. Would any person be upheld or ap-
proved, by a sane community, for inflicting the
pain of punishment upon a child, when he could
have produced the desired object as well without
it? Punishment, then, taken hy itself^ is always
to be considered as an evil. The practical deduc-
tion from this principle, is, that the evil of pun-
ishment should always be compared with the
evil proposed to be removed by it ; and, in those
cases only, where the evil removed preponderates
over the evil caused, is punishment to be tolerated.
The opposite course would purchase exemption
from a less evil, by voluntarily incurring a greater
one.
These principles seem clear, and for their sup-
port I believe we have the concurrent opinion
of all writers of any note, on jurisprudence or
ethics, and of all sensible men. In following out
these principles to their appHcation, I fear I may
fall into error ; and I proceed, with unfeigned
diflidence, to a further development of my views.
305
Should I differ from others, I only ask, — what I
am most ready, on my own part, to give, — a candid
reconsideration of the points of disagreement.
Let me premise, that there are two or three pe-
culiar difficulties attending the discussion of this
subject. If the truth lies, as I believe it does, in
the mean and not in either of the extremes, then
those ultraists who believe in the doctrine either
of no-punishment, or of all-punishment, will be
prone to seize upon arguments or concessions, on
their own side, to reject those on the other side,
and thus confirm themselves in their respective
ultraisms ; and perhaps, at the same time, bring
forward a charge of inconsistency. Probably there
is no subject, which it is more difficult for a
speaker to balance well in his own mind, and to
leave well-balanced in the minds of his hearers.
Again; it is undoubtedly true that most men
have formed their opinions on the subject of pun-
ishment, more from feeling and less from reflec-
tion, than perhaps on any other subject what-
ever. In conversing upon this topic, I have
almost uniformly observed, that my collocutor has
advanced positive, decided general opinions, and
then adverted to some particular fact, in his own
experience or observation, on which the general
opinions had been founded. But sound opinions
are usually the result of an extended survey of
facts. Here, however, the intensity with which
a single fact has been felt is a substitute for num-
bers. The judgment of many a man has been de-
cided, — if not enlightened, — respecting the whole
subject of punishment, by one vivid impression
made, while a schoolboy, on his back or hand.
Two boys fight. One of them gets seriously
injured. The schoolmaster punishes the victor.
The vanquished boy and his parents approve the
avenging dispensation, and become strenuous ad-
vocates for high-toned discipline. The victorious,
26*
306
but punished boy, with his parents, question the
policy, perhaps deny altogether the right of chas-
tisement. And thus, the same fact gives rise to
opposite opinions, according to the relation sus-
tained towards it by the parties.
Probably on no other subject, pertaining to
Education, is there so marked a diversity or rather
hostility of opinion, as on this ; nor on any other,
such perseverance, not to say obstinacy, in adher-
ing to opinions once formed. Where feeling pre-
dominates, there is a strong tendency to ultraism ;
and questions respecting punishment are more
often decided by sensation than by reflection.
Hence the extremes to which opinions run, and
the positiveness and dogmatism with which they
are advocated by the partisans of each side. In
the public station which it is my lot to fill, I have
been present at many discussions on this subject,
and have held conversation and correspondence
respecting it with a great number of individuals,
in all parts of the Commonwealth ; and I find one
party strenuously maintaining, that improvement
in our schools can advance only so far and so fast
as bodily chastisement recedes, while the other
party regard a teacher or a parent, divested of his
instruments of pain, as a discrowned monarch.
It is no exaggeration to say, judging from their
tone of earnestness and confidence, that there are
men who would destroy all trees and shrubbery
in order to abolish the means of flagellation, while
others seem devoutly to believe that a good supply
of the materials for whipping is the final cause for
trees' growing; and they would always locate a
schoolhouse in convenient vicinity to a hickory or
birchen grove, — not for the shade, but for the sub-
stance.
The first point which I shall consider, is,
whether corporal punishment is ever necessary in
our schools. As preliminary to a decision of this
307
question, let us take a brief survey of facts. We
have, in this Commonwealth, about one hundred
and eighty thousand^^ children between the ages
of four and sixteen years. All these children are
not only legally entitled to attend our public
schools, but it is our great desire to increase that
attendance, and he who increases it is regarded
as a reformer. All that portion of these children
who attend school, enter it from that vast variety
of homes which exist in the State. From different
households, where the widest diversity of paren-
tal and domestic influences prevails, the children
enter the schoolroom, where there must be compar-
ative uniformity. At home, some of these children
have been indulged in every wish, flattered and
smiled upon, for the energy of their low propen-
sities, and even their freaks and whims enacted
into household laws. Some have been so rigor-
ously debarred from every innocent amusement
and indulgence, that they have opened for them-
selves a way to gratification, through artifice and
treachery and falsehood. Others, from vicious
parental example, and the corrupting influences
of vile associates, have been trained to bad habits
and contaminated with vicious principles, ever
since they were born; — some being taught that
honor consists in whipping a boy larger than
themselves ; others that the chief end of man is
to own a box that cannot be opened, and to get
money enough to fill it; and others again have
been taught, upon their father's knees, to shape
their young lips to the utterance of oaths and
blasphemy. Now, all these dispositions, which do
not conflict with right more than they do with
each other, as soon as they cross the threshold
of the schoolroom, from the diflerent worlds, as it
were, of homes, must be made to obey the same
♦ Now, (1846,) above 192,000.
308
general regulations, to pursue the same studies,
and to aim at the same results. In addition to
these artificial varieties, there are the natural dif-
ferences of temperament and disposition.
Again; there are about three thousand public
schools in the State, in which are employed, in
the course of the year, about five thousand differ-
ent persons, as teachers, including both males and
females. Excepting a very few cases, these five
thousand persons have had no special preparation
or training for their employment, and many of them
are young and without experience. These five
thousand teachers, then, so many of whom are
unprepared, are to be placed in authority over the
one hundred and eighty thousand children, so
many of whom have been perverted. Without
passing through any transition state, for improve-
ment, these parties meet each other in the school-
room, where mutiny and insubordination and
disobedience are to be repressed, order main-
tained, knowledge acquired. He, therefore, who
denies the necessity of resorting to punishment,
in our schools, — and to corporal punishment, too,
— virtually affirms two things : — first, that this
great number of children, scooped up from all
places, taken at all ages and in all conditions,
can be deterred from the wrong and attracted to
the right, without punishment ; and secondly, he
asserts that the five thousand persons whom the
towns and districts employ to keep their respec-
tive schools, are now, and in the present condition
of things, able to accomplish so glorious a work.
Neither of these prv,positions am I, at present, pre-
pared to admit. If there are extraordinary indi-
viduals, — and we know there are such, — so sin-
gularly gifted with talent and resources, and with
the divine quality of love, that they can win the
affection, and, by controlling the heart, can con-
trol the conduct of children, who, for years, have
309
been addicted to lie, to cheat, to swear, to steal,
to fight, still I do not believe there are now five
thousand such individuals in the State, whose
heavenly services can be obtained for this trans-
forming work. And it is useless, or worse than
useless, to say, that such or such a thing can be
done, and done immediately, without pointing
out the agents by whom it can be done. One
who affirms that a thing can be done, withour
any reference to the persons who can do it, must
be thinking of miracles. If the position were, that
children may be so educated from their birth, and
teachers may be so trained for their calling, as to
supersede the necessity of corporal punishment,
except in cases decidedly monstrous, then I should
have no doubt of its truth ; but such a position
must have reference to some future period, which
we should strive to hasten, but ought not to an-
ticipate.
Coinciding, then, with those who assert the
necessity of occasional punishment, and even of
occasional corporal punishment, in our schools, it
seems to me that the more strenuous of its advo-
cates are disposed to give too latitudinarian a
construction to one argument in its favor. They
quote and apply, as though there were no quali-
fication or limit to their applicability, such pas-
sages as these from the Proverbs of Solomon : —
^' He that spareth the rod, hateth his son, but he
that loveth him chastiseth him betimes." " Fool-
ishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the
rod of correction shall drive it far from him.'*
" Withhold not correction from the child, for if
thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die."
" Thou shalt beat him with a rod and shalt deliver
his soul from hell." "The rod and reproof give
wisdom," &c., &c. Now if these passages, and
such as these, are applicable, in their unqualified
and literal sense, to our times, then, indeed, we
310
must admit that the rod is the embkan of all the
Christian graces. But, by the Mosaic law, he
that smote his father or his mother, was to be put
to death ; and why is there not as much reason
to suppose that the latter of these commands
remains unabrogated and unqualified, as well as
the former ; and, therefore, that the true remedy
for those who now make forcible resistance to
parental control, is, not the House of Reformation
for juvenile offenders, but the gallows 7 But can
any one suppose that the passages above cited,
and others of a kindred nature, were to be taken
without any qualification, even in the age in
which they were written 7 Can any one suppose
that they were designed for all children alike, and
to be exclusive of all other practicable means to
deter from wrong doing 7 And yet, there is no
express limitation. If alike applicable to all chil-
dren, at that time, and if they remain unmodified,
then, they are applicable to all children, and alike,
at the present time. But again, I say, can any
one suppose that the domestic discipline of a peo-
ple, like the stiff-necked Jews, so accustomed to
spectacles and histories of blood and carnage ; by
whose code so many offences were capital ; who
massacred men, women and children, — whole
cities at a time, — and sawed asunder their prison-
ers, and tore them to pieces under harrows of
iron ; — can any one suppose that modes of paren-
tal discipline, in a land rife and red with such
spectacles, are to be literally copied in a state of
civilization so different as ours, without the most
positive and unambiguous injunctions 7 One fact
is worthy of remark in passing. If the doctrines
of Solomon are to be taken literally, then he must
have departed from them most egregiously, in
regard to his own household ; or those doctrines
must have failed of their intended effect, for his
son and his grandson proved to be two of the
311
most atrocious and heaven-contemning sinners,
.that ever sat upon the throne at Jerusalem.
There is one school, however, where I would
give to these declarations of Solomon, the freest
interpretation, applying them to all its pupils, and
shivering rods by the bundle, — that is, the School
for Scandal. There, let the motto be, '' Lay on,
Macduff."
But a conclusion in favor of the rightfulness
or admissibility of punishment, in school, does
nothing towards sanctioning an indefinite amount
of it. Its rightfulness is limited by its object ;
and its only justifiable object is to restrain from
the commission of offences, until remedial means
can be brought to bear upon the offender. Be-
yond this limit, punishment becomes punishable
itself The object of punishment is, prevention
from evil ; it never can be made impulsive to
good. Its ofiice is to seize upon the contemner of
laws, and stop him in his career of wrong, and
hold him still, until by earnest expostulation, by
kind advice, by affectionate persuasion, by a clear
display of the nature of the offence committed,
and the duty and the benefits of an opposite
course, the offender can be led to inward repent-
ance, and to resolutions of amendment. To pro-
duce such repentance and resolutions, is a work
of time, of skill, of wisdom, of sympathy. It is a
work which cannot be done in a minute, and it is
because it cannot be done in a minute, that pun-
ishment becomes justifiable, as a means of pre-
venting a continuance or repetition of the wrong,
until a reformation can be effected in the culprit's
mind. In all cases, therefore, the very fact of
punishment supposes that a great deal else is to
be done. By punishment, the offender is inter-
cepted in the commission or the pursuit of wrong;
but it is a wholly different task, and accomplished
by wholly different means, to bring him back to
312
the right, and to make him see it and love it.
Whoever, then, inflicts punishment, and stops
there, omits the weightiest part of his duty ; and
such omission goes far to take away all justifica-
tion for the punishment itself
I have said that punishment, in itself, and
abstracted from its hoped-for consequences, is
always an evil. I wish to add a few considera-
tions showing that it is a very great evil.
Punishment excites fear ; it is, indeed, the pri-
mary object of punishment to excite fear ; and
fear is a most debasing, dementalizing passion.
It may be proper to say, that I use the word fear,
in this connection, as implying an intense activ-
ity of cautiousness, or apprehension for personal
safety ; and not as partaking at all of the idea of
reverence or awe, in which sense it is sometimes
used, in reference to the Supreme Being, — as when
it is said, " The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom." It is the former species of fear only
that is appealed to by the infliction of pain, and
not one of the virtues ever grows under the influ-
ence of that kind of fear. Such fear may check
the growth of vices, it is true; and this is the
strongest remark that can be made in its defence ;
but it has, at the same time, a direct tendency to
check the growth of every virtue, because fear of
pain is not an atmosphere in which the virtues
flourish ; so that even the negative good which it
produces, in deterring from wrong, is accompanied
by the infliction of some positive harm. Let any
person revert to his own experience, and then
answer the question, whether he was as compe-
tent to think clearly, or to act wisely, when under
the influence of fear, as when calm and self-pos-
sessed. Fear may make a man run faster, but it
is always from, not ioicards the post of duty.
Look at a man in an agony of fear ; he is power-
less, paralyzed, bereft of his senses, and almost
313
reduced to idiocy, so that, for the time being, he
might as well be without limbs and without facul-
ties as to have them. It is said that even the hair
of the head will turn gray, in five minutes, under
the boiling bleachery of a paroxysm of fear. There
have been many cases where adults, — men whose
minds had acquired some constancy and firm-
ness, — have been made fools for life by sudden
fright, — annulled at once, their brains turned
into ashes by its consuming fires. And if such
are the consequences of intense fear in grown
men, what must be the effect upon the delicate
texture of a child's brain, when, with weapon in
hand, a brawny, whiskered madman flies at the
object of his wrath, as a fierce kite pounces upon
a timorous dove? Yet who of us that has reached
middle age has not seen these atrocities committed
against children, again and again 7
Another consideration, showing punishment to
be a very great evil, is, that the fear of bodily
pain, which it proposes, makes the character pusil-
lanimous and ignoble. Children should be trained
to a disregard, and even a contempt of bodily pain,
so that they may not be unnerved and unmanned
at the very exigencies, when, in after-life, forti-
tude and intrepidity become indispensable to the
performance of duty. Some foolishly-tender par-
ents commit a great mistake when they fuss and
flurry, and gather the whole household around,
at every little rub or scratch received by a child ;
and bring out their apparatus of lint and lini-
ment, — enough for the surgeon of a man-of-war,
in a naval engagement. Sensitiveness to bodily
pain should be discountenanced, because it impairs
manliness and steadfastness of character. Chil-
dren should be taught that corporal suffering, and
imprisonment, and death itself; arc nothing, com-
{)ared with loyalty to truth and the godlike excel-
ence of well doing, so that when they become
27
314
men they will be able to march, with unfaltering
step, to the post of duty, though their path is
enfiladed by a hundred batteries. But keeping
the idea of bodily pain forever present to a child's
mind counterworks this result. Indeed, a child
who is whipped much will inevitably be driven into
one or the other of two ruinous extremes. Which
of the extremes it shall be, will depend upon the
feebleness or the vigor of his natural disposition.
If constitutionally of a timid and irresolute char-
acter, then frequent correction will excite his cau-
tiousness to such a morbid activity that his cheek
will blanch and his heart quail at the slightest
menace of real dangers, or the imagination of
unreal ones; and he will go through life trem-
bling with causeless apprehensions, and incapa-
ble of recovering from one shudder of fear before
he will be seized by another; — incapable of all
manly resolution and heroism. If, on the other
hand, the child has an energetic will, the very
vehemence of which prompts to disobedience
and waywardness, then frequency of chastise-
ment will exasperate his nature, and make him
recklessly bold and fool-hardy. It will make him
despise the gentleness that belongs to a noble
spirit, and mistake ferocity for courage. Now,
what requital can any teacher make, which shall
be an adequate compensation to a child for caus-
ing his dispositions to grow into a deformity
which shall be a torment and a disgrace to him
while life lasts 7 Have you never seen an aged
tree whose trunk still bore the mark where some
heedless man had struck his axe while it was yet
young, and have you not observed that, on the
wounded side of the tree, the foliage was sickly
and the branches scraggy and misshapen, while a
superabundance of nutriment sent up on the other
side had made the limbs shoot out into huge dis-
proportions 7 Such wounds are inflicted by un-
315
necessary punishment, upon the whole moral
nature of a child.
But there is another consideration, of still more
serious import. A teacher's duty is by no means
restricted to the mere communication of knowl-
edge. He is to superintend the growth of his pupils'
minds. These minds consist of various powers
and faculties, by which they are adapted to the
various necessities, relations and duties of life.
Some of them were given us for self-preservation.
The object of these is, ourselves, — our own exist-
ence, our own sustenance, our own exemption
from pain, and protection against danger and loss;
— in fine, our personal well-being. Other powers
are domestic and social in their nature, — such as
the reciprocal love of parents and children ; the
celestial zone of affection that binds brothers and
sisters into one; and our attachment to friends,
which, under proper cultivation, enlarges into fra-
ternal affection for the race. We also have moral
and religious sentiments, which may be exalted
into a solemn feeUng of duty towards man aad
towards God. Now, it is a most responsible part
of the teacher's duty to superintend the growth of
these manifold powers, and to develop them sym-
metrically and harmoniously ; to repress some, to
cherish others, and to fashion the whole into beau-
ty and loveliness as they grow. A child should
be saved from being so selfish as to disregard the
rights of others, or, on the other hand, from being
a spendthrift of his own. He should be saved
from being so proud as to disdain the world, or so
vain as to go through the world beseeching every
body to praise and flatter him. He should be
guarded alike against being so devoted to his own
family as to be deaf and dead to all social claims ;
and against being so quixotically social as to run
to the ends of the earth, to bestow the bounty, for
which his own family and neighborhood are suf-
316
fering. In fine, the teacher, as far as possible, is
so to educate the child, that when he becomes a
man, all his various faculties shall have a relative
and proportionate activity and vigor, instead of
his being nervously excitable on one side of his
nature, and palsy-stricken on the other. This
task is most difficult, and it requires that all the
lights possible should shine upon the work. It is
very easy to point out deformities of character, as
they exhibit themselves glaringly and hideously in
manhood ; but it requires great perspicacity to
detect the early tendencies to deformity, and the
utmost delicacy and felicity of touch to correct
them. If a full-grown tree is ugly or misshapen,
any body can see it, but it is only the skilful cul-
tivator who can foretell and forestall its irregu-
lar tendencies while it is yet young. It is this
duty which makes the office of a teacher a sacred
office. The teaching of A, B, C, and the multiplica-
tion table has no quality of sacredness in it ; but if
there is a sacred service, a holy ministry upon earth,
it is that of setting a just bound to the animal ap-
petites and sensual propensities of our nature, and
quickening into life, and fostering into strength all
benevolent and devout affections; for it is by the
relative proportions between these parts of its na-
ture, that the child becomes angel-like or fiend-like.
Now, that the teacher may cherish what grows
too slow, and check what grows too fast, it is
indispensable that he should become acquainted
with the inmost character and tendencies of his
pupil. The pupil's whole mind and heart should
be spread out, like a map, before the teacher for
his inspection. The teacher should be able to
examine this map, to survey it on all sides and at
any time, — as you see a connoisseur walk round
a beautiful statue or edifice, that he may commit
all its proportions to memory. And here comes
the evil I refer to. The moment a child's mind is
317
strongly affected by fear, it flies instinctively away
and hides itself in the deepest recesses it can find,
— often in the recesses of disingenuousness and per-
fidy and falsehood. Instead of exhibiting to you
his whole consciousness, he conceals from you as
much of it as he can ; or he deceptively presents to
you some counterfeit of it, instead of the genuine.
No frighted water-fowl, whose plumage the bul-
let of the sportsman has just grazed, dives quicker
beneath the surface, than a child's spirit darts
from your eye when you have filled it with the
sentiment of fear. And your communication with
that child's heart is at an end ; — on whatever side
you approach him, he watches you and flies, and
keeps an impassable distance between you and
himself, until friendly relations are reestablished
between you. His body may be before you, but
not his soul ; or, if his soul ventures to peep from
its hiding-place, it is only in some masquerade
dress of deception, which he supposes may avert
your anger. So long as this relation continues,
whatever you do to him, you do in the dark. As
he has ceased to show you what he is, you can-
not know what he needs, and what will best befit
his condition. When was there ever painter or
sculptor so skilful, that lie could paint or chisel
without seeing the canvass or the marble on
which he wrought? And when was ever a
teacher so omniscient, that he could cultivate
habits and character aright, unless he was ad-
mitted from day to day to see those thoughts and
emotions of the child, whose long indulgence will
result in the habits and character of the man ?
A child should always be encouraged to make
known all his doubts and difllculties, both of an
intellectual and of a moral character ; and, if won
to you by confidence instead of being banished
from you by fear, he will generally do so. If a
learner does not state his doubt or difficulty, at
27*
318
the time he feels it, the season will pass by, per-
haps never to return. And certainly no other
time can be so favorable for acquiring correct
information, or for solving a doubt, as the time
when the desire or the doubt arises in the mind.
Yet, if a pupil fears even a rebuke or a frown, he
will allow the proper occasions to pass by, at the
hazard of remaining ignorant forever.
Are not these considerations sufficient to show
that punishment, — I mean more particularly, cor-
poral punishment, — and the fear which punish-
ment proposes, constitute a great evil ? Yet great
as the evil is, I admit that it is less than the evil
of insubordination or disobedience. It is better,
therefore, to tolerate punishment, in cases where
the teacher has no other resource, than to suffer
insubordination or disobedience in our schools.
Yet how infinitely better, to secure order and
proficiency, by the power of conscience and the
love of knowledge ; — to supersede the necessity
of violence by moral means. This is already
done in a considerable number of schools ; I trust
it is done, with regard to some scholars, in every
school ; — that is, I trust there are at least some
scholars, in every school in the Commonwealth,
who never know the degradation of the lash. I
trust there is no teacher, with such a vacuum of
good qualities and such a pleuum of bad ones, as
to create the necessity for indiscriminate and uni-
versal flogging. What, then, ought teachers to do?
I answer, they should aim to reach those higher
and higher points of qualification, which shall
enable them to dispense more and more with the
necessity of punishment. If there is any teacher
so low in the scale of fitness or competency as to
feel obliged to punish every day, he should strive
to prolong the interval to once a week. If any
teacher punishes but once a quarter, he should
strive to punish but once a year. If any one dis-
319
graces himself and human nature, by punishing
fifty per cent, of his pupils, he should either leave
the school, or make a most liberal discount from
such an intolerable per centage. If any one pun-
ishes ten per cent, of his pupils, he should strive
to reduce the number to five, to three, to one per
cent.,— and then, if possible, to none at all. If
there are five per cent, of our teachers who now
keep school without punishment, this number
should be increased, as fast as possible, to ten per
cent., to thirty, to sixty, to ninety per cent.* That
the necessity of punishment, so vehemently urged
by some teachers, — and which is urged most
vehemently by those who punish most, — is found,
when analyzed, to be a necessity that arises from
a want of competency, or fitness, in the teacher
himself, rather than from any perversity or un-
governableness in the scholars, is demonstrable
from this fact ; — that certain teachers find it
necessary to punish their pupils abundantly, but,
on leaving the schools, and being succeeded by
competent persons, the necessity of punishment
vanishes, — the same schools being governed with-
out it. Instances have occurred where a teacher
who could not govern without punishment, has
been followed, through successive schools, by one
who could, — thus proving that the alleged neces-
sity of punishment belonged to the teacher and
not to the schools. Many a teacher has been
turned out of school, because he could not govern
without punishment, nor even with it; and has
been succeeded, the next week, by one who found
no occasion to use it, — thus affording demonstra-
* There are now, (1845,) at least ten to one of our teachers, as com-
pared with the ntimber in 1830, (when this lecture was written,) who
Keep .sctuiol without corporal punishment. And in uincty-ninc towns
in every hundred, in the Slate, the flogging of girls, even where it
exists at all, is an exceedingly rare event. Since 1837, the number
of schools in the State, annually broken up through the iucompeteacy
of the teachers, or the insubordination of the scholars, has been re-.
duc«d from bclweeo three ttiil four huudred, to about fifty.
320
tive evidence, that the necessity of punishment,
in those cases, was not in human nature, but only
in the nature of Mr. A. B. Such is the result to
be aimed at, longed for, toiled for, by all. In the
mean t'.me, I blame no teacher for occasional
punishmen'., nor even for occasional corporal pun-
ishment. But what seems to me utterly unjusti-
fiable, is, the defence of punishment, as though
it were a good ; or the palliation of it, as though
it were not a great evil. What seems to me wor-
thy of condemnation, is, a resort to punishment,
because it may seem to be a more summary and
convenient method of securing obedience and dil-
igence than such a preparation for lessons on the
part of the teacher, as would make them attrac-
tive to the pupil ; and such exhibitions of kindness
and interest, as would win the affection of a child,
and make him a grateful cooperator, instead of
a toiling slave. An hour spent daily, by the
ieacher, in the preparation of lessons, an anecdote,
'\ narrative, an illustrative picture, would be a far
more powerful awakener of dormant or sluggish
minds, than the rod. A private interview with a
neglectful or disorderly pupil, a visit to his family,
some little attention or gratuity bestowed upon
him, — any mode, in fine, evincing a genuine inter-
est in his welfare, — would oftentimes accomplish
what it is not in the power of blows to do, " By
mercy and truth, iniquity is purged," says Sol-
omon; "and by the fear of the Lord," — not by
the fear of man, — " men depart from evil."
As the profession of teaching rises in the esti-
mation of the public, and as teachers improve in
their capacities and disposition to fulfil the sacred
duties of their office, may we not hope for a grad-
ual change in our schools, in this respect, equally
auspicious to them and to society ? And may we
not expect that those teachers who enjoy the most
of social consideration and of emolum^^n^ will
321
take the lead in diffusing a higher spirit and in
setting a nobler example ?
Allow me here to say a word respecting a
notion which I sometimes hear advocated, but
which seems to me untenable. As an argument
against corporal punishment, it is sometimes urged,
that it makes the body a vicarious and involuntary
sufferer for the offences of the mind. It is the
mind, say these metaphysicians, which wills,
which offends; and to punish the body for the
offences of the mind, is as unjust as to punish
John for the sins of Peter. But, if it is the mind
which offends, in the guilty act, is it not also the
mind which suffers, in the consequent penalty?
Take away the mind, — that is, leave the body a
corpse, and would its dead members then suffer?
I confess, I cannot fathom the philosophy of this
objection. There is, however, one way in which
it can be answered, even on the principles which
it assumes. If body and mind are to be consid-
ered as two, so as to exempt the former from suf-
fering for the offences of the latter ; — even then,
though the mind may be the original offender, yet
the body becomes a particeps criminis, — a par-
taker in the crime, — by consenting to carry the
criminal purpose of the mind into execution ; and
it may therefore be lawfully punished as an acces-
sort/ after the fad.
As to modes of punishment, not much needs be
said, for the savageness of torture formerly prac-
tised in our schools, is now nearly discontinued,
though it is still retained to a frightful extent in
many families. When I was at the bar, I knew
a father, who was a blacksmith by trade, and
who used to punish his son by confining him in
the cellar and carrying down heated nail-rods
with which to punch and goad him. Before the
boy was fifteen years old, he was tried for a cap-
ital offence. I was assigned by the court as hw
322
vonnsel. He was convicted and sentenced to
death, though the penalty was commuted to im-
prisonment, in the state-prison, for life. Such a
fate was the natural result of such an education.
If one or the other must have gone to the gallows,
who can doubt that it should have been the father,
and not the son 7 When an angry man chastises
a child, it is not punishment; it is downright fight-
ing, and so much the more criminal and disgrace-
ful, as the person assailed is a child and not a man.
Blows should never be inflicted on the head . We
observe, every day, bow thin the skull of an infant
is. We can see the pulse beat, on the top of its
head. The cranium does not ordinarily become
fixed in its shape, until the age of twenty-five years,
— sometimes, not until a much later period of life.
Dr. Griscom, in his excellent work, entitled
"Animal Mechanism," says, "a vibration of the
skull, by communicating a corresponding motion
to the brain, is more dangerous ofttimes than an
instrument forced through the bones and piercing
the substance of the brain." And again ,* " Con-
cussion of the brain is generally more productive
of immediately serious results, than a puncture
of its substance. It is well known, in fact, that a
considerable portion of it, [the brain,] may be
removed or destroyed, without proving fatal, or
even injuring the mental faculties ; but a sudden
jar of its whole substance will almost certainly
deprive the individual of all sense and conscious-
ness, and, if not speedily recovered from, must
terminate in death." This form of punishment,
too, is as foolish as it is dangerous. To thwack a
child over the head because he does not get his
lesson, is about as wise as it would be to rap a
watch with a hammer because it does not keep
good time. No one, could he but see the delicate
texture of the brain, — that organ where the Deity
has brought the material and the immaterial, the
323
earthly and the immortal snhstances together,
making each atom of the former so nice, so ethe-
rial, so divinely-fashioned, and suspending all,
as it were, particle by particle, in the " Dome of
Thought," so that they might leap, with lightning
quickness, at the command of the all-pervading
yet invisible soul ; — no one, I say, who has ever
seen this, if he be not a madman or a fool, will
ever again strike a child upon the head. I have
no doubt that the intellects of thousands of children
liave been impaired for life, by the bloN^'^ which
some angry parent or teacher has inflicted upon
the head. Nature, foreseeing that the brain would
be exposed to accidents, secured it, on all sides, by
the hard lK)nes of the cranium ; and, to conceal
any ruggedness in the soHd masonry, she caused
a silky vegetation to spring up from and adorn
it. Had she foreseen how brutally it would be
assaulted by men, would she not rather have en-
circled it with a spherical iron-fender, or made it
bristle, all over, with porcupine's quills, to give it
a defence instead of an ornament l Even in the
British army and navy, where whipping has been,
for frequency, like their daily bread, certain parts
of the frame, such as the head and loins, have
been held sacred from the instruments of torture.
Neither should a child ever be subjected to any
violent motion or concussion, such as seizing him
by the arm, holding him out at arm's length, and
shaking him, — the whole weight of the body
being suspended by a single ligament, and the
strain upon that being greatly increased by the
jerking. Most of us have experienced the shock
which even a slight fall may give to the system.
When, in descending a flight of steps, we mistak-
ingly suppose we have reached the bottom, and
so step forward upon the air, instead of the floor,
the jar to the whole body is always uncomfortable
and sometimes serious ; but how much more
324
severe must be the effect upon the feebly-knitted
frame of a child, when a strong man seizes him,
and jerks him forwards and backwards, as a
coachman cracks a whip ; then dashes him upon
the floor feet foremost, shortening his dimensions,
as one shuts up a telescope ; and coils him and
uncoils him, and crimps him and stretches him
smooth again I I have seen a man seize two
boys, at a time, in school, for some joint mis-
demeanor, and, holding them by the back of the
coat-collar, make them "cAassee" right and left,
then ^^ forward and buck two^^ and, at last, bring
them together with a terrific '■'•dos-a-dos^^'' until
his own strength, or the tailor's stitching gave
way ; and do it all with as much zest as though
it were an exercise in gymnastics.
Corporal punishment should be with a rod,
rather than with a ferule, and below the loins
or upon the legs, rather than upon the body or
hand.
In regard to the extent or severity of punish-
ment, it is obvious that it must be a reality, and
not a sham. If the lightning never struck,
nobody would be afraid of the thunder. Yet the
opposite extreme is to be sedulously guarded
against. In all schools that are rightly governed,
it is the mortification of being punished, quite as
much as the bodily smart or tingling, which
causes it to be deprecated, and gives it efiicacy.
If the common standard or average of punishment
is fixed low, whatever exceeds that amount, will
be equally as formidable as though the average
were higher. Besides, if the penalty for moderate
offences be very severe, what shall be done in ag-
gravated cases? Where stealing a shilling is
punishable with death, and murder with nothing
more, it is, virtually, ofiering a premium on
murder. The most disorderly school I ever saw,
was one where the teacher carried a ratan in his
325
hand, all the time ; and even while the company
was present, there was scarcely any thing done,
except giving a practical synopsis of the verb to-
whip. A universality of whipping defeats itself.
Where all share the same odious fortune, dis-
grace attaches to none. Like the inhabitants of
Botany Bay, all being rogues, nobody loses caste.
Shame never belongs to multitudes. It is the
separation of one or a few from all others, and
affixing a stigma upon them, that begets shame.
In graduating the amount of punishment, we
should regard the motive from wfiich the offence
proceeded, and not the consequences which may
have been produced by it. In the government of
children, people are prone to look at the outward,
external consequences of the wrongful act, and
to apportion the punishment according to the
mischief done ; — for a small mischief punishing
lightly, for a serious one, severely. This is a
false criterion. An act merely careless may set
a house on fire; and again, an attempt to burn a
house may fail, through the merest accident, and
do no injury. The true rule, in meting out
punishment, is, to disregard the external conse-
quences, to look to the intention and motive from
which the offence emanated, and to apportion the
penalty to the wickedness of the intent, whether
it took effect or failed. It is the condition of the
mind that is to be regarded. If that is wrong, all
is wrong ; if that is right, it is of comparatively
little consequence what outward effects may
have followed. Teach children, that to die is but
a small calamity ; to be depraved, a great one.
One word more an to the extent or amount of
punishment. Severe punishments are usually
incurred by the violent outbreak of some passion
or propensity. A child has a quarrelsome dispo-
sition, and beats a schoolmate ; or he has been
accustomed to place all pleasure in the indulgence
28
326
of appetite, and steals fruit or cakes ; or he wishes
to conceal a fault, and lies. In these cases, he
acts under the impulse of an appetite or pro-
pensity, and these impulses are all blind. They
act instinctively. Remove the temptation, in
these cases, — that is, let the desired object be at-
tainable without the commission of the offence, —
and the offence would not be committed. The
offence is not committed for its own sake, but for
the sake of the gratification or immunity to be
purchased by it. Now, I have no doubt, that
when the temptation is not present, the reason
and conscience of most children tell them plainly
enough that the indulgence is wrong. When the
passions are asleep, reason and conscience affirm
their own authority, declare their own rights, and
place themselves in an attitude of defence. But,
by and by, the insurgent passion returns and
demands its gratification ; and when reason and
conscience place themselves in its path, it rides
them down, as, heavy-armed cavalry ride over
unarmed peasantry. In these cases, reason and
conscience are the antagonists of passion; but
they are not a match for it, and are trodden down
by it. Here, if all other means fail, punishment,
that is, the fear of punishment, may be lawfully
called in, as an ally to duty, so that the child's
first thought shall be this : — However much I
desire such or such a pleasure, I must incur so
much pain by obtaining it, that, on the whole, it
is not worth what it will cost. Such is the case
in ten thousand minds, whether of children or of
men, — Fear fighting Desire ; — and here the fear,
— that is, the amount of punishment exciting the
fear, — should be strong enough, with such aid as
reason and conscience may contribute, to vanquish
the desire. This affords a rule for the measure
of punishment. All beyond this, is wantonness
or vindictiveness, and not to be tolerated. To
327
illustrate what I mean, by an anecdote : Just as
a certain school was closing, one afternoon, a boy
named John, who had become almost crazy with
impatience, and in whom the steam of discontent
had risen almost to the exploding point, whistled
outright. "John," said the teacher, "was it you
who whistled?" " No, sir," says John. " Henry,"
says the teacher, " didn't John whistle ?" " Yes,
sir," says Henry. "John," says the teacher,
" how dare you say you did not whistle?" " I
didn't," says John, " it whistled itself.^ ^ Now, in
this case, if John were to be punished at all, he
should only be punished so much that it would
not whistle itself, the next time.
As to the question, under what circumstances
punishment should be inflicted, I think, in the first
place, it should, in ordinary cases, be private, — at
recess, or in another apartment, or after the close
of the school. Punishment is often braved by
audacious natures, and its effect lost upon them
by its publicity. They wish to sustain, or to win
a reputation for hardiness and indomitableness of
spirit, and hence they will bear any punishment, if
publicly inflicted, without shrinking or flinching;
— just as an Indian sings when he is tortured, or
as some steel-fibred malefactors walk unconcern-
edly up the gallows' ladder, as though they were
going up stairs to bed. So far as the effect upon
other pupils is concerned, it is obvious that their
imaginations will be likely to exaggerate an un-
known punishment beyond the reality, unless,
indeed, it be terribly severe. Under actual in-
spection, punishment would have its limits of
suffering; but imagination has no limits.
Punishment should never be inflicted without
deep solemnity of manner. The teacher should
exhibit every indication that he suffers more pain
in giving, than its object does in receiving it.
Because grown persons are out of the way of
328
punishment, they are prone to think of it lightly,
to speak of it lightly, and to inflict it lightly. Bnt
it is a solemn dispensation, and should be treated
with corresponding solemnity. I believe a finely-
tempered child suffers as much, by being kept
from his playmates after school, to be punished,
as a high-spirited man would suffer, in being
taken to prison from family and friends. How
obvious then it is, that punishment should never
be inflicted in a passion, — unless, indeed, it be a
passion of tears. Angry feelings in a teacher
beget angry feelings in a pupil, and if these are
repeated, day after day, they will at last rise to
obstinacy, to obduracy and incorrigibleness. No
man can conceive the difference which must be
produced in the future character and happiness
of children, and eventually, upon the future char-
acter and happiness of the whole community, if,
on the one hand, the early years of life are filled
with dissocial, morose and revengeful feelings, or,
on the other, with sentiments of tenderness and
affection. I will not cite the case of barbarous
tribes, because they are an extreme ; but whence
did the old Romans derive their inexorableness
and impenetrability of heart ? They rose to the
highest state of ancient civilization, and yet their
national employment was war ; their national re-
sources were plunder, and their national glory
consisted in unrighteous victories, won over un-
offending nations. Under such influences, their
hearts became more impenetrable than the iron
mail that covered ihem. In their religion. Mars
received ten times more homage than Jupiter.
They prayed and sacrificed to the latter, just
enough to retain his good will, but the former
was the god of their affections. This intense
destructiveness in the national character, was
cultivated by their exhibitions of fighting wild
beasts, and their gladiatorial contests. One of
329
these spectacles lasted more than four months;
eleven thousand animals of dilFerent kinds were
killed, and ten thousand gladiators fought. Think
of a people who could give the appellation of
*' Games^^ to these blood-reeking abominations.
Every person who manifests cruelty or anger
before the young, does all he can to fashion their
unformed tempers into this revolting and unchris-
tian shape.
Is not the British nation celebrated, the world
over, for the aggressive spirit of its policy, and,
with many beautiful exceptions, for the unamiable
character of its people ; and is it not in the schools
of Great Britain that punishments are more fre-
quent and more severe than in any other part of
Christendom ? I know it is said that this severity
in the discipline of children is accompanied by
great hardihood of spirit and by distinguished
martial bravery in men. Look into British facto-
ries and British mines, and see by what else it is
accompanied !
Punishment should not be inflicted in haste, nor
summarily. It should bear every mark of consid-
eration, and of being administered from the moral
compulsion of duty. Its effects pervade the whole
moral nature of a child. By its application, the
disease may not be cured, but only driven in, to
break out with increased violence at another
time, or in another place. The times when a
punished child is dismissed or sent back to his
seat, are among the most decisive epochs in his
moral history. Often, they are turning points in
the journey of life, where, for good or tor evil, he
leaves one path and enters upon another; and
though, at first, their divergency may be slight,
yet their terminations may be as far asunder as the
upper from the nether world. Hence the neces-
sity of learning the condition of his feelings at
those times, in order to rectify whatever may be
28*
330
wrong in them. I confess that I have been
amazed and overwhelmed, to see a teacher spend
an hour at the black-board, explaining arith-
metical questions, and another hour on the read-
ing or grammar lessons ; and, in the mean time,
as though it were only some interlude, seize a
boy by the collar, drag him to the floor, casti-
gate him, and remand him to his seat, — the whole
process not occupying two minutes. Such labo-
rious processes for the intellect, such summary
dealings with the heart; — with that part of us,
where all motives reside, whence all actions pro-
ceed, and which shall grow in loftiness, until we
become in moral stature, taller than archangels, or
arch-fiends ! But, says the teacher, in defence of
his extempore inflictions, I have no time for your
homilies and moralizings. I should come short
of my daily round of tasks ; I must skip or clip my
recitations, did I spend time to inquire whether the
child thought himself wronged or justly dealt
by ; whether he would look backward upon the
occasion with repentance, or forward with re-
venge ; whether conscience were alive or dead in
his breast. But, for man's sake and for Heaven's
sake, let me ask, what was time made for, if not
for these moral uses 7 — To what holier purpose
can time be appropriated, than, when a child gets
lost in errorj to set his face towards the right
point of the moral compass before he is started off"
again. The glass of time contains no sands more
sacred than those which run during these precious
moments. When I look back to the playmates
of my childhood ; when I remember the acquaint-
ance which I formed with nine college classes;
when I cast my eye over the circles of men with
whom professional and public duties made me
conversant; I find amongst all these examples,
that, for one man who has been ruined for want of
intellect or attainment, hundreds have perished
331
for want of morals. And yet, with this dispro-
portion between the causes of human ruin, we
go on, bestowing at least a hundred times more
care and pains and cost in the education of the
intellect, than in the cultivation of the moral
sentiments, and in the establishment of moral
principles. From year to year, we pursue the
same course of navigation, with all these treasure-
laden vessels going down to destruction around
us and before us, when, if the ocean in which
they are sunk, were not fathomless and bottom-
less, the wrecks, ere this, would have filled it
solid to the surface.
Let me adjure teachers to reconsider this whole
subject ; to apportion anew the appeals to the
physical and to the moral nature of children ;
and, if the practice anywhere still exists of punish-
ing by sections or platoons, without inquiry and
without counsel, to abolish it, instantaneously and
forever.
A child may surrender to fear, without sur-
rendering to principle. But it is the surrender to
principle only which has any permanent value.
The surrender of a child to fear, is like a sur-
render of our purse to a highwayman, whom, that
very instant, we would shoot if we could. Hence,
after the outward demonstrations of the inward
evil have been repressed, let not teacher or
parent think that his labor is done. It is only
begun. In a moral sense, the child is still a vale-
tudinarian. Often, the very process which quells
the rage of the disease, weakens the constitution
of the patient, and special pains become so much
the more necessary to reestablish health. Let the
cordial of love and consolation be administered
to the wounded spirit. This is often the most
delicate, always the most important part of the
process. I had almost said, better die of the dis-
ease than to expel it by remedies, which, proving
332
fatal to the constitution, entail a daily torture
upon all subsequent life. The external manifest-
ation, — the overt acts, — of a passion, may be
stifled, while the passion itself lives on, and
broods over its viper-offspring in the silent breast.
Instead of a solemn resolve against further in-
dulgence, it may be nursing its strength in secrecy
for a postponed gratification. It may have with-
drawn from outward view, but be lying in ambush,
and watching the hour when it can securely leap
upon its victim. Now, no fury of external out-
break is so much to be dreaded and deprecated,
as these silent machinations, or foretastes of re-
venge. It is, therefore, no paradox to say, that
order and silence and regularity may be main-
tained, in a school, by a course of discipline,
which, while it seems to make a good school,
shall, in reality, be a skilfully arranged process
for making bad men. The feelings, with which
the child leaves the bar and the tribunal, — the
course which is given to his future feelings by
the execution of the sentence ; — this, as it regards
the moral welfare of the child, is the whole ; — all
else is as nothing, compared with it. His moral
nature has been fused in the fires of shame and
pain, and the question is, in what shapes, of good
or of evil, it shall harden as it cools. Every body
is familiar with the story of Dr. Bowditch, who
came near to being inhumanly punished for an
alleged falsehood, because he said he had solved
an arithmetical question, whose solution required
more talent than his tyrannical master supposed
him to possess. Late in life, that great man spoke
of the event in a manner which showed that,
after the lapse of half a century, the feeling of
righteous indignation towards the teacher, was
still vivid in his breast. How often do we meet
men, Avho never speak of some former teacher of
theirs, without a contraction of the whole mus-
333
cular system ; — without such involuntary motions
as would indicate that they were crushing a viper
in their hands, and had the head of a serpent
under their heel ! Punishment inflicted by such
teachers, may have prevented whispering in
school, but at the expense of a thousand muttered
curses afterwards. Those whose art it is to color
cloths, have a time and a process for what they
call setting the color. The hour of punishment is
the time, when, perhaps more than at any other
time, the complexion of the moral character is set ;
— and oh ! how often it is dyed to that hue of
immitigable blackness, which can neither be
purged nor washed away by the refiner's fire or
the fuller's soap !
If angry feelings survive punishment, they can
rarely be concealed from a discerning eye. They
will be betrayed by the looks, and, especially, by
the tones of the voice. The child will not have
the same freedom, or ease of manner, as before,
nor the same zest for accustomed pleasures. His
eye will droop, or turn away, when it meets that
of the teacher, or else it will be fixed upon him,
with a look of defiance. Perhaps he will be even
more punctilious in the discharge of duties, as one
of the concealments for the revenge he is nourish-
ing within. But that subtlest organ, the voice,
will be the great index. Any of these indications
should admonish the teacher that the realm within
is not yet wholly at peace, and that it needs an-
other visitation from the spirit of duty to calm its
troubled elements. And well may the teacher
afford to spend time and strength for such an ob-
ject ; for, if he can effect a thorough reformation,
by a change of view or by the inspiration of a
new purpose, it will probably be a reformation,
once tor all, — a repentance not to be repented of.
In the management of children, we often ag-
gravate the obstinacy and incorrigiblcness we
334
lament, by perpetually rebuking and punishing
a bad tendency, instead of expending the same
amount of time and means for inspiring the proper
countervailing motives. The relative strength of
any one faculty is as certainly reduced by increas-
ing the strength of its antagonist faculties, as by
reducing its own. Remove by introducing. Nour-
ish the good plant, until it overshadows the bad
one, and intercepts its sunshine and absorbs its
nutriment. One of the most efficient means of
that revolution which has lately taken place, in
the cure of the insane, consists in the substitution
of new trains of thoughts and feelings, until the
former ones die out. While the old physicians
strove to expel the currents of insane thought
and emotion, by scourgings, and drownings, and
confinements in dungeons, they tried and tortured
in vain. They only aggravated the maladies they
were appointed to heal. But from the day that
they began to open new sources of thought and
feeling in the minds of their patients, — from that
day, a power to cast out the evil spirits of insan-
ity was given them. So, in the training of a
child, it is possible to supplant vicious images and
vicious desires, by substituting virtuous images
and virtuous desires ; but it is not possible to cre-
ate a void by merely removing the vicious ones.
Another rule is to be observed in administer-
ing all rebukes and all punishments. Always
connect the rebuke or the punishment with the
wrong that incurs it, and not with the correlative
right. Keep the idea of the offence before the
child's mind, as the cause of his suffering. If
you correct a boy for not coming to school half an
hour earlier, he wishes the school was in the Red
Sea, because, by the law of mental association, the
punishment is involuntarily connected with the
school. But correct him for truancy, in stopping
to play at marbles, and the next time he is tempted
335
to stop and play, the very sight of the marbles, by
the law of association, will make his skin itch
and tingle. If a boy is convicted of falsehood,
and the teacher, as he lays on the smart, says,
" I '11 teach you how to speak the truth," the boy
will hate the very idea of truth, for the bad com-
pany it comes in. But if the teacher, in adminis-
tering the penalty, explains that falsehood and
punishment are Siamese twins, and must go to-
gether, then, when falsehood comes smiling and
blandishing along to tempt its victim again, he
will see the terrific form of pain standing by its
side. Thus the association of pain should always
be connected with the wrong done, and never
with the duty omitted. It thus becomes uncon-
sciously an auxiliary for the right. So, on the other
hand, the rewards of virtue should be always
associated with the virtuous conduct, as though
the former grew naturally from the latter. Every
person, at all conversant with the forum or the
senate, knows that one of the great secrets of an
orator's power consists in his skilful management
of the involuntary associations. If this is an effi-
cient instrument in swaying the minds of men,
how much more so in controlling children !
I cannot close these remarks, without saying a
word upon the general duty of parents, whose chil-
dren are punished at school. That duty is to espouse
the side of the teacher, to vindicate his conduct,
and, especially, to abstain from all complaint
against him in any place where it may come to
the child's ear. They should have an interview
with the child himself on the subject ; they should
explain the nature of the misconduct that incurred
the punishment, and they should show him that
they, the parents, suffer shame and mortification,
on his account, sharper than any pain of chas-
tisement can be. They should strive to close any
breach of alienation between pupil and teacher,
336
which the punishment may have caused. If the
parent has reason to suppose that the punishment
was too severe, or that the mode or spirit of in-
flicting it was improper, let him seek a private
interview with the teacher, frankly state his ap-
prehensions, and then, like an honest and impar-
tial man, hearken to the defence that may be
made. The punishment of children at school
furnishes the very occasions when that love of
offspring, which Heaven, for the wisest purposes,
has planted in every parental breast, is liable to
become injurious and excessive ; and when, there-
fore, it most needs the tiontrol of reason. Only in
cases made flagrant by their excess, or their fre-
quency, should the conduct of the teacher receive
public animadversion.
I knew a family, in which there were five
children, who received almost all the education
they ever had, in the district school of an obscure
country town. It was the father's custom, during
the first week of the winter's school, to invite the
master to dine with him; and when the whole
family were gathered around the table, to make
the importance of the school, the necessity of
good order and obedience in it, with other kindred
topics, the subject of conversation ; and then, in
the presence of the children, to say, as it were
incidentally, that he trusted they would all behave
well ; thart they knew no desire was so near his
heart as their welfare; but that, if they justly
incurred any punishment at school, he should
repeat it at home, because he should consider an
offence committed in school as an offence against
himsel]^ as well as against the teacher. One of
the sons, — a boy of such high, sanguineous tem-
perament that his feelings were subject to a sort
of spontaneous combustion, — one day drew down
punishment upon himself for a practical joke, —
which, if the wit of it had been an atonement,
337
instead of an aggravation, would have been
expiated in the commission ;— and the fact being
known at home, by the very solemnity of the
children's looks, the father inquired into the cir-
cumstances, and, finding the punishment to have
been well merited, that very night, he laid upon
the boy's back, what the learned would call a/oc
simile, or dupliccUe original of the stripes; and
there ended the chapter of school punishments, in
that family, forever. Not another child, ever after-
wards, got sting or tingle, at school; and this,
happening in the old-fashioned times, when the
mischievous system of emulation bore sway, the
children of that family, year after year, swept
away all the prizes, and nobody ever thought of
asking who were at the heads of the classes.
I would conclude with this summary of what
has been said : — that, in the present state of so-
ciety, and with our present inexperienced and
untrained corps of teachers, punishment, and even
corporal punishment, cannot be dispensed with,
by all teachers, in all schools, and with regard to
all scholars; that, where a school is well con-
ducted, the minimum of punishment shows the
maximum of qualifications; that the office of
punishment is solely to restrain transgressors,
until other and higher motives can be brought
to bear upon them, and, therefore, that the great
and paramount duty of the teacher, in all cases,
is to regard, as all-essential, the state of mind into
which a child is brought by the punishment, and
in which he is left after it, — the current of
thought and feeling introduced being in every
respect as important as that which is turned
away ; that, as the object of school is to prepare
for the duties of after-life, it follows that the
school is made for the world, and not the world
for the school; and hence, however much any
course may seem to promote the present good
29
338
appearance or intellectual advancement of ihe
school, yet, if it tends to defeat the welfare of the
future men and women, now composing the school,
its adoption is shortsighted and suicidal; and
finally, that punishment of no kind is ever inflicted
in the right spirit, or is likely to be inflicted in the
right measure, or with the right results, unless it
is as painful to him who imposes as to him who
receives it. Let these truths be regarded, and
Christian teachers and parents, in the few cases in
which they will be called upon to administer
pain, will do it with the noble feelings that
animated the pagan executioner, who gave, as
he was commanded, the cup of poison to Socrates,
but wept as he gave it.
" Oh, woe to those who trample on the mind,
That deathless thing ! They know not what they do.
Nor what they deal with. Man, perchance, may bind
The flower his step hath bruised ; or light anew
The torch he quenches ; or to music wind
Again the lyre-string from his touch that flew ; —
But for the soul, oh, tremble, and beware
To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there ! **
RETURN
TO— ^ eptir.
JKM^
'< ■ I vU i-J-si
LOAN PERIOD 1 2
"* NO TCLEPHONE RENEWi\iS
QUARTER K AN
ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS
DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
irr
\ ?
liwatK Lu
I'ini w
1900
DECTTIS^^
SEMESTER .PAN
SUBJtCl lU
t jj-
DEC 16 '987
AN n 8 REcn
^-w
SI IRIFfTTO t f^ft'i
JUN261983
R&
BVED
"VQP^]g,j/ . 6P^
REC'D .liiN 1 3 '83
-11 ftM goud^Pifef
uBMjir
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKEL
FORM NO. DDO, 5m, 12/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720
YB 34864
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES
C0Mb7b^3ba
54f7?6
( UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY