so glaring, that any attempt to point them out will escape, I hope,
all imputation of presumption. No extraordinary sagacity is necessary
to detect, nor any great power of language to expose, what all who
have had any thing to do with the business of Education must long have
experienced, and deeply deplored. In fact, the undertaking to educate
the youth of our country as they should be educated, will be almost a
hopeless task, until most of these impediments are removed; and the
fortunate individual who could discover the effectual means to
eradicate them, would much better deserve a public triumph for so
glorious a victory over human prejudices and passions, than any
warrior ever gained by the most splendid of his conquests. The more
free our government and institutions generally, the more necessary
will good Education continually become to preserve them, since neither
sound morals, nor wise and salutary laws, nor social and political
happiness can exist without its general diffusion. But before such
Education can possibly be imparted to any great extent, the minds of
all the parties concerned must be entirely disenthralled from every
opposing obstacle. In regard to bodily maladies, to know the cause and
nature of the disease is said to be half the cure. Why then, may it
not be equally true in relation to the mind? Experience tells us that
so much depends upon this previous knowledge, as to render the course
both of the mental and bodily physician exceedingly dangerous without
it. Neither must make a quackery affair of his business. No guess-work
nor chance-medley will do in either case; for the death both of soul
and body often follows the administration of improper medicine. Many
constitutions of excellent original stamina have been utterly
destroyed by physic, when all that was really wanting was healthful
diet, and proper exercise; and numerous minds of the fairest promise
have been blasted forever, by the equally injudicious--equally fatal
application of unsuitable intellectual regimen. This surely ought to
happen much less frequently than in bygone times, since schools of
every grade, especially for females, have greatly multiplied of late
years--and consequently, many more mothers than formerly, ought to be
qualified so far as schools can effect it, for the arduous task of
imparting to children at least the elementary branches of knowledge.
Yet I believe it is unquestionably true that private, domestic
Education, is less common than it used to be. But two rational
explanations can be given of this fact. Either mothers and fathers
must be so naturally averse to teaching their own children as very
rarely to do it when avoidable, and therefore less often attempt it,
since it has become easier to transfer the duty to others--or the
prevalent systems of Education itself have had the effect of
preventing parental affection from exerting itself in this way. To the
last cause I hope it must be ascribed; for it would be shocking to
believe that parents generally were so barbarous, as voluntarily to
surrender the care and instruction of their helpless, innocent
offspring, to others, when they themselves were equally well qualified
for this most tender and all-important office; at the same time that
nature herself seems evidently to have destined them to fulfil,
whenever practicable, these paramount duties. _Home_ is,
unquestionably, the best place suited in all respects, at least for
_female_ education; nor should it ever be relinquished for any other,
but in cases of the strongest, most obvious necessity--such as a
thorough conviction of incompetency on the part of the parents, and of
very superior qualifications in those to whom the sacred trust is to
be confided. It is under the parental roof, and immediately under the
parental supervision and guidance, that young girls can most easily be
protected from the corrupting influence of bad companions and bad
examples. It is there, if _any where_, that all the best affections of
the heart can be most readily excited and cultivated; and it is _there
alone_ that they can best acquire all those admirable domestic virtues
and habits, to the exercise of which much the greater part of their
lives, after they leave school, should be devoted, as the sure means
of imparting to private life its greatest charm and highest
embellishment. If this be admitted, as I think it must, then the
nearer the management of any public school, whether large or small,
especially for girls, can be made to resemble that of a well regulated
private family, the better it will be calculated to attain the true,
legitimate purposes of all seminaries of Education. The more easy will
it be also to prove, when this point is conceded, that there are very
many radical defects in a large portion of such establishments in our
country. For example, in what well regulated private family will you
ever find numerous restraints enforced, which obviously have nothing
else in view but the more ease and convenience of the heads of the
establishment, entirely apart from all moral influence to be produced
on the individuals upon whom these restraints are imposed? In what
family of the kind do you see the children often _exhibited for show_,
as at public examinations--always encouraged and goaded to strive with
might and main for victory over each other in all their scholastic
exercises, and continually stimulated to toil and struggle for public
applause, as the highest earthly felicity; and all this too without
the least regard for the sufferings and mortifications of the
unsuccessful competitors? So far is this from ever being done in any
private family under proper management, that every imaginable cause of
jealousy, ill-will, heart-burning and envy, is most carefully
avoided--every symptom of distrust and animosity anxiously
removed--and brotherly love of the most tender, affectionate kind,
sedulously cultivated, as the best possible preparation of the
intellectual soil for the reception, growth and maturity of the seeds
of knowledge and virtue. Here then, at once, in the very threshold of
our temples of public instruction, do we meet with an obstacle of such
magnitude, as effectually to bar, if it be not removed, all attempts
to decorate and embellish the interior of the building with any
ornaments, such as good taste, sound judgment, and just principles
would deem most appropriate. In the moral code of far too many of
these temples, the admirable virtue of true Christian humility--that
virtue which so pre-eminently adorned the character of the blessed
Saviour himself, has no abiding place whatever; but numerous
expedients and artifices are adopted to prevent the possibility of its
entrance. The pupils are not even taught what it means, unless they
find it out while turning their dictionaries for other words; and so
far are they from ever being required to act on the principle of not
letting one hand know what the other doeth, that every effort, both of
hands and head, is most studiously directed towards giving the
greatest possible publicity to all their proceedings: first, and above
all, that the fame of their school and its teachers may be widely
diffused; and secondly, that they themselves may be talked about every
where. To accomplish this, weeks and months are spent by the students
in preparing for public examinations, during which no advances are
made in the general course of their studies, but the whole time is
sacrificed to the feeding their vanity and ambition at the expense of
real utility, common sense, and intellectual progress in useful
knowledge. A great portion of this period of strenuous uselessness is
consumed, by all the aspirants after collegiate honors, in composing,
writing, committing to memory and reciting again and again something
which is to be called an oration. This too, is often in a language
utterly unintelligible to nine-tenths of the auditors, or rather
spectators, commonly assembled upon such occasions, who are drawn
together more by idle curiosity than by any other motive. I will
readily admit that occasional revisions of past studies may be useful
to fix them in the memory; I will also admit, that to be examined in
them by or before good judges, convened especially for the purpose,
_but without any notice to the scholars of the precise time when such
examination would take place_, would also be beneficial, particularly
in schools for boys. But _any thing_ beyond this, whether it be called
examination, commencement, or what you please--especially if exhibited
(after many weeks preparation) before hundreds and thousands of
spectators who know little or nothing of what is going on--is, to
speak the plain, unvarnished truth, sheer waste of time, if nothing
worse. It is to treat young men as if they were always to be children,
incapable of being interested in any thing much above the toys and
playthings of childhood. Such _shows_, for they deserve no better
name, should never be suffered in female schools; for their only use
_there_ is to discourage the timid, the bashful, the modest--and to
render the bold, the forward, and the presumptuous still more
conspicuous for these disgusting, unfeminine qualities. Already too
anxious, like rival milliners, always to be displaying their finery at
their shop-windows, to the public gaze, the more opportunities you
give them for making this exhibition, the more eager they become to
attract visiters, admirers, and purchasers. Flattery is the chief
thing they covet; base as it really is, it is the treasure upon which
this kind of scholastic training learns them to set their hearts, and
seldom are they paid with any thing better. Whatever they do is to be
done because it will be popular, becoming, and will make a great
noise--not because it is recommended and enjoined by the precepts of
our holy religion. Moreover, to insure that the former shall be the
ruling, all-efficient motive of action, the ever restless,
soul-corroding spirit of emulation is infused into them in every
possible way that ingenuity can devise. That this is utterly
incompatible with the pure spirit of Christian humility, it needs no
argument to prove; in fact, oil and water could just as soon coalesce,
or enter into complete chemical union. Does it not, then, most deeply
concern us all to inquire whether this principle of emulation, which
may truly be called the present master-spirit of nearly all our
literary institutions, should still be suffered to prompt and to
govern all their operations? Can any societies--but especially such as
have been avowedly established for the great, the Godlike purpose of
making men wiser and better, be rationally expected to thrive, if they
run counter to the plainest dictates of wisdom and virtue, which
command us to do nothing that the gospel of Christ either expressly
forbids, or impliedly, but plainly discountenances? Does not this code
most explicitly enjoin us to "be kindly affectioned one to another
with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another." "That nothing
be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let
each esteem others better than themselves." And does it not class
emulations with "idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envyings," &c.? Are these nothing more
than mere abstract texts for ministers of the gospel to preach on; or
are they practical, imperative rules of conduct to govern us both for
time and eternity? If they are the latter, as all true believers in
the gospel of Christ pronounce them to be, how can they possibly be
obeyed, when every effort of our bodies and our minds, while at
school, is made to induce the world to prefer, to honor, and to esteem
_us_ far above all our companions and associates, at whatever expense
of mental suffering and anguish it may be done to them? Shall we be
told that such feelings should not be indulged by those whom we
conquer or surpass in the scholastic struggle for pre-eminence, and
therefore, that their mortification, however deep and distressing,
should not disturb us? But how can they help it, when _they_ also have
been taught that _their_ greatest honor, _their_ highest pleasure, was
to consist _in conquering and surpassing us_, and that _we had
disappointed them_? Yet this principle of emulation is a cardinal
article in the creed and practice of almost every public school of
which I have any knowledge; indeed, I might add, of a great majority
of private families. To this article might be added several others,
all going to prove that the whole course of proceeding in these
schools, whatever may be the religious principles of their managers,
partakes much more of the compromising spirit of worldly wisdom and
worldly ethics, than of the unbending, self-denying morality of the
gospel of Christ. It can never be a question among true Christians,
which should govern not only all schools, but all mankind; yet it
would be well worth the attention of all who are _not Christians_, to
inquire which would be best, _even for the present life only_. I would
send them no farther on this search for proof than to the past history
of the government--the monied institutions, and trading associations
of our own country. In this history they would most assuredly find,
that for every cent which these bodies had lost by any acknowledged
member of any Christian society, they had been defrauded and robbed of
thousands upon thousands by the open scoffers at, and known despisers
of religion. This fact alone speaks volumes of most salutary
instruction to the present generation, if they would only read them
right. It proclaims as intelligibly as if it were written on the vault
of heaven by the finger of God himself, in letters visible as the
cloudless sun, that the much lauded code of your mere worldly
morality, (admitting every thing that can be said in its favor,) is
utterly insufficient even for this poor world; although it is admitted
that thousands have lived, and do live under it alone, with very fair,
amiable characters. It is, however, like living in the midst of
contagious, pestilential and deadly diseases, without any sure charm
or antidote to protect us from destruction. I say not this to wound
unnecessarily the feelings of any one--no, God forbid! but because I
consider it a most momentous truth, which should be placed before the
public in as strong relief as language can exhibit it--since it
involves the safety, welfare and happiness, not only of thousands yet
living, but of millions yet unborn. If this highly boasted code,
founded merely on human opinion, subject to all its fluctuations, and
which tolerates drunkenness on the pretext of conviviality, while it
makes murder a duty under the term _duelling_, will not, with any
thing like certainty, restrain its professors from the meanest, most
degrading vices, from the most shocking and atrocious crimes, what can
it possibly avail in withholding them from committing acts of far more
dubious character, but often little less injurious to the peace,
order, and happiness of society? Could this code bear any sort of
comparison with that which we have ventured to contrast with it, as
furnishing the best possible rules for human conduct, even considering
the present life as the _only one_, would it not be able to support
its claim to our preference, by producing a greater number of persons
reclaimed from the paths of vice by _its superior power_, than have
ever been recovered by the influence of _the Christian code_? But how
stands the fact? Examine it, I beseech you, as impartially as
possible. I may answer, I believe, without fear of contradiction, that
while the Christian code can show its thousands, rescued by its agency
from the lowest depths of profligacy and crime, not one solitary case
can be found, nor indeed has ever been heard of, wherein the code of
worldly morality has alone effected any such restoration. The utmost
scope of _its_ power has never extended beyond carrying a small
minority of its votaries through the world, with fair characters, who
have never been strongly tempted to give them up for something which
they more passionately desired. Its influence, at best, is merely of
the _preventive_, not the _reclaiming_ kind, and therefore never
brings back, under the power of its own laws, any who have once broken
through the feeble barriers which they interpose. The worldly code,
besides sanctioning many practices which the Christian code pronounces
criminal, looks not beyond the outward seeming of our actions, because
when man, who is made the sole judge of its fulfilment, attempts to
penetrate to their source, he is incapable of doing more than making
mere approximations to the truth. On the other hand, the Christian
code, having an all-wise, infallible God for _its_ judge, allows no
actions to be _right_, but such as proceed from _right motives_. These
being the only certain test--the test by which every Christian
assuredly believes that we shall all be finally tried, make the latter
code, from this circumstance alone, as far superior to the former, as
absolute certainty is, at all times and under all circumstances, much
better than uncertainty. All who faithfully obey the requisitions of
the last, must really _be_ what they _seem to be_, or they are _not
moral_ in the Christian sense. Whereas the professors of the last, who
look only to the present life for their rewards, can obtain them all,
simply by feigning well the character they wish to possess.
No sweeping denunciation is here intended against those who have the
unspeakable misfortune to be destitute of religion; for I know many,
and doubt not that many more are to be found in every class of
society, who fulfil the duties of the present life in such an
exemplary manner, as to be well worthy of our esteem and love. What I
mean to assert, and deem it all important for the cause of Education
to establish, is, that the above fact furnishes no adequate proof of
the sufficiency of the worldly code of morals, either to preserve or
to reclaim mankind from vice and crime. If their propensities happen
to be vicious, their desires criminal, no obstacle whatever exists to
their indulgence, but the ever variable opinions of the particular
society in which they live, and the fear of detection by mere human,
frail, and fallible witnesses. Their code may well be called a system
of compromise between sensual appetites and regard for appearances--a
calculation of chances and probabilities--a rule for conduct whose
standard has no well defined, certain marks, by which right and wrong
can always be accurately distinguished--no omnipotent sanction to
sustain all its requirements; and consequently, that, as the governing
principle of our whole lives, it will bear no just comparison whatever
with the Christian code of morality, where every thing is not only
sure, but forever unchangeable--full not only of the happiest
assurances in regard to the present life, but of the most
soul-cheering hopes as to that which is to come.
I have expressed the belief, justified, as I think, by my own
observation, that the prevalent system of Education, has had the
effect of diminishing the number of instances wherein mothers teach
their own children. Yet it is unquestionably true, that the progress
and improvement which girls or boys either make at public schools,
depend much more upon this domestic, elementary Education, than upon
any subsequent course of scholastic discipline under which they may be
elsewhere placed. First impressions, and above all, _those made by a
mother_, are always more permanent than almost any that can be made at
a later period of life, after parental instruction is changed for that
of strangers. In confirmation of my own observations, teachers of
great experience have assured me, that where natural talent has been
equal, they have invariably found those pupils the most docile, most
intelligent, most correct in their conduct, and best informed, who
have longest received the benefit of a parent's tuition, although they
may not actually have gone to school longer than others who have been
taught only in public seminaries. It is therefore of the highest
imaginable importance that the lessons given to children at home,
previously to going abroad to school, should all be such as are
calculated to give them good tempers, amiable dispositions, and sound
moral principles; for unless this all essential work be performed
under the parental care, it is rarely, if ever accomplished
afterwards. The power indeed, of _feigning them_, may be acquired by
the constant suggestion of worldly and prudential considerations; but
the actual possession is scarcely ever gained under any other
instructer than the parent. Nay, _how can it be_, when the proportion
of pupils under public teachers, compared with the children of one
mother, is often ten, fifteen, twenty to one; when the indispensable
attention of the instructers to the usual scholastic exercises of
their scholars, engages nearly their whole time; and when the forming
the heart to virtue, the regulation of the passions, the strengthening
the understanding and judgment, which are the only really valuable
ends of all Education, cannot possibly be attained in the very short
time commonly allowed for the public instruction, (at least of our
daughters,) and under all the circumstances in which they must
necessarily be placed at all large public schools. Hence, in a great
measure, the numerous failures of the best public teachers to do what
is too often expected of them; that is, in a few months, or even in a
year or two, to reform the dispositions and characters of their
pupils, at the same time that their minds are required to be stored
with all imaginable learning; although the conviction alone of the
vicious propensities and bad habits which they may have contracted at
home, would require a much longer period than the whole time usually
allotted for all scholastic acquirements put together. Public schools
may well be called _moral hospitals_, which, like some others of a
different kind, contain not only many patients the removal of whose
diseases requires a very long course of most skilful and judicious
treatment, but others who may well be designated
"_incurables_"--rendered so too, by moral distempers contracted under
the parental roof, but for which these hospitals and their doctors
have very often to bear all the blame.
Well aware that the charges which I have brought against our prevalent
systems of Education, both private and public, (greatly improved as I
admit them to be in many important respects) are of a very serious
nature, I feel myself bound to endeavor to establish them. But in
these introductory remarks, I shall do no more, in addition to what
has already been said, than give the general heads of my
accusation--reserving "the counts in the indictment" (as the lawyers
would say) for another time. These heads are--that mere external
observances are much too often substituted for internal
principles--that a puerile smattering in many comparatively trivial
things, has been made to pass for thorough knowledge in
essentials--that _emotions_ of the body and limbs in attitudinizing
(if I may so express myself,) at the harp, at the piano, and in the
dance, have been much more cultivated than the _emotions_ of the heart
and soul; and that the mere mechanical operations of the fingers and
feet have been preferred to that heavenly operation of the spirit of
God on the mind, which alone can give any real value to actions, or
intrinsic worth to character. The sciences and arts for acquiring
wealth, fame, and aggrandizement--for securing bodily comforts,
luxuries, and amusements are taught every where, with quite as much
assiduity and zeal as any can believe they deserve. But the great art
of extracting from all the events, circumstances, and conditions of
life, whatever true substantial good and happiness they are capable of
affording, and using the whole as a preparation for entering into
_another_ state of existence, where we must account for all we have
done in _this_, is no where systematically taught, unless from the
pulpit. Even there it is far too often pretermitted, for the sake of
indulging in vague speculations which lead to no profitable result,
and the useless discussion of those deeply mysterious doctrines which
all believe it passeth man's understanding to comprehend, except those
rash theological sciolists who vainly imagine that it is given to them
alone to penetrate them.
The great majority of mankind who judge solely from appearances, are
deceived by this external Education, into a pernicious belief that all
must be right _within_, because all which they behold _without_, is
fair to the eye and agreeable to contemplate; and so superficial is
their examination generally, that if they find all the pupils
presented for their inspection, have pleasing exteriors, and voluble
tongues in their public exercises, every thing else is taken for
granted. It is never even suspected, that like the trees of the
forest, many may be hollow-hearted and worthless, although all their
branches and leaves appear in the full vigor of perfect health. Boys
who go passably well through certain evolutions, for which they have
been regularly drilled for weeks and months together, doing little if
any thing else the whole time, are held forth in all public journals
as rapid and successful travellers in the high road to the greatest
attainable mental improvement--while a large portion of the
individuals engaged in this pernicious puffing, know little or nothing
of the real progress of the pupils thus lauded, who may, for aught
their eulogists can tell, have only the parrot's knowledge of nearly
all they have been heard to repeat. Many instances I have known of
this in our colleges, and still more in schools of inferior grade.
Here many of the examiners (as they are called,) are not unfrequently
persons destitute of literature and science themselves, who still
boldly certify to the quantum of each possessed by those whom they are
supposed to examine; and their awards go forth to the world, as
satisfactory proofs of the excellence of particular schools, and the
proficiency of the scholars in them, when in fact, such testimonials
are proofs of nothing but the inexcusable vanity or thoughtlessness of
the certifiers. The case of girls, at _their_ public examinations, is
far worse. Much less being expected from them, fewer qualified judges
assemble to witness _their_ performances; and if they manage to appear
with clean faces and frocks, in regular marchings to and fro, with
nicely measured steps, with prim and demure looks in the presence of
their unknown viewers, a rapid volubility in their often repeated
recitations, and all this finished off with a little music, dancing,
and drawing, they pass with their surface-skimming spectators for
marvellously accomplished girls. But woful indeed is often the
mistake, and pregnant with evil consequences. The constant tendency of
such exhibitions, although not always producing their full effect, is
to make the pupils of such schools greatly undervalue that species of
acquirement, which, although it can hardly become the subject of
newspaper notice, should always be considered of transcendent
importance in every school for either sex; I mean moral and religious
knowledge--moral and religious habits. It is true, that there is
almost always a kind of general promise promulgated of great and
unremitted attention to these matters. But every body's experience,
who has taken much notice of the manner in which schools are generally
conducted, is sufficient to convince them that such promises are more
matters of profession than practice; or, that they are complied with
in such a way, as unavoidably to impress the pupils with a belief that
it is rather an affair of form than substance. Does any one doubt this
fact? let him only take the trouble to ask the majority of the
scholars of any school the following questions, and his skepticism
will soon vanish. "What has been the course of your moral and
religious instruction? What books have you read, or have been read to
you on these subjects? What do you know of the principles of Ethics
and Christianity? How many times a week or month have you received
lessons on them? If nothing has been read specially on these
all-important topics, what has been the manner in which they have been
recommended to your attention? Has it been both by precept and
example, or by the first only; and what rank have your teachers
assigned to such studies, in the scale of importance?" Need I add,
that unless such questions can be answered to the entire satisfaction
of all such persons as really believe that the eternal welfare of the
rising generation is a matter of infinitely deeper interest than any
thing which can possibly happen to them in the present life, the
conclusion is inevitable, that _in all such cases_, by far the most
important part of Education has been either shamefully neglected, or
miserably and wickedly perverted. Let such tests be applied to _all_
schools, from the highest to the lowest, and we shall soon remove much
the most powerful of the many causes which prevent them from answering
so fully as they ought to do, the great purposes for which they have
been established and should be sustained, until the heads of every
family become capable of educating their own children--the girls
_entirely_, and the boys until the few last years of their pupilage.
The neglect of moral and religious instruction in schools generally,
may arise, in a great measure, from a belief in the teachers, that
this all essential work has been properly attended to at home. But it
should never be forgotten, that the injunction "to train up a child in
the way he should go," should be deemed obligatory during the whole
period of pupilage, on all concerned in his Education, lest if it be
intermitted at any time, the effects of the whole previous training
should be lost. It should always be remembered too, by those who have
the care of youth of either sex, that the oftener the young coursers
are permitted to run out of this track of moral and religious
training, the more apt they will be "to fly the way," not only while
the training is managed by others, but after it becomes their own
exclusive duty. It _must therefore_, be made a primary and vital
object, throughout the entire course of Education--not only at home,
but abroad--not only in the private, domestic circle, but in every
public school to which young people may be sent, or the great moral
ends and purposes of instruction will inevitably be defeated. The
_hearts_ of the pupils must first be educated, and all their motives
and dispositions brought, as nearly as practicable, to what they ought
to be, or it will be utterly vain to expect that _their actions_ can
be either generally or permanently right. It is true, that a right
action--that is, one so called--because beneficial to others, may
sometimes be performed from a wrong motive. But this can do no
possible good to the agent, whose condemnation in the eyes of God is
only the greater, when he plays the hypocrite to gain his ends.