We have expressed more than once the pleasure we felt on finding the
subject of education occupy so much more attention of late in other
periodicals, &c., and have given several extracts. We add another
striking article from the Albany Journal and Telegraph.
'Messrs. Editors,--Of the solemn character of the duties devolving upon
mothers, all writers agree to express the same sentiment. Where these
duties are neglected, where a mother's fondness controls all without
judgment and intelligence, the most unhappy consequences follow. I do
not know where these have been drawn out in a more vivid and awful
picture than in the late work, entitled Guy Rivers. It does not fall
within your line to have to do with such works, yet I trust you will
allow me to furnish an extract which does fall in with the practical
object of your paper. Guy is a highwayman--a murderer--a cold blooded
murderer--an outlaw--of most violent, headlong passions, which pause at
nothing where their gratification is concerned, and yet he is a man of
great shrewdness and of superior natural intellect. At the point where
the extract is made, this man's course is approaching its catastrophe.
In his den he sees its approach, and his mind is occupied with bitter
reflection. With his Lieutenant this is his conversation; and when I
think of what I have known of maternal weakness, I shudder to think how
near to the life the picture may be.
'"I do you wrong, Dillon--but on this subject I will have no one speak.
I cannot be the man you would have me; I have been schooled otherwise.
My mother has taught me a different lesson,--her teachings have doomed
me, and these enjoyments are now all beyond my hopes."
'"Your mother!" was the response of Dillon, in unaffected astonishment.
'"Ay, man--my mother. Is there any thing wonderful in that? She taught
me this lesson with her milk--she sung it in lullabies over my
cradle--she gave it me in the plaything of my boyhood--her schoolings
have made me the morbid, the fierce criminal, from whose association
all the gentler virtues must always desire to fly. If, in the doom,
which may finish my life of doom, I have any person to accuse of all,
that person is--my mother!"
'"Is this possible? Is it true? It is strange, very strange."
'"It is not strange--we see it every day--in almost every family. She
did not _tell_ me to lie--or to swindle, or to stab. No! Oh no! she
would have told me that all these things were bad--but she _taught_ me
to perform them all. She roused my _passions_ and not my _principles_
into activity. She provoked the one and suppressed the other. Did my
father reprove my improprieties, she petted me and denounced him. She
crossed his better purposes and defeated all his designs, until at
last, she made my passions too strong for my government, not less than
hers; and left me, knowing the true, yet the victim of the false. What
is more,--while my intellect, in its calmer hours, taught me that
virtue was the only source of true felicity, my ungovernable passions
set the otherwise sovereign reason at defiance, and trampled it under
foot. Yes--in that last hour of eternal retribution, if called upon to
denounce or to accuse, I can point but to one as the author of all--the
weakly, fond, misjudging, misguiding woman, who gave me birth. Within
the last hour, I have been thinking over all these things. I have been
thinking how I had been cursed in childhood, by one who surely loved me
beyond all other things beside. I can remember how sedulously she
encouraged and prompted my infant passions, uncontrolled by her reason,
and since utterly unrestrainable by my own. How she stimulated me to
artifices, and set me the example herself, by frequently deceiving my
father and teaching me to disobey and deceive him. She told me not to
lie, and she lied all day to him, on my account, and to screen me from
his anger. She taught me the catechism to say on Sunday, while during
the week, she schooled me in almost every possible form of ingenuity to
violate all its precepts.
'"She bribed me to do my duty, and hence my duty could only be done
under the stimulating promise of a reward. She taught me that God was
superior to all, and that he required obedience to certain laws, yet as
she hourly violated those laws herself in my behalf, I was taught to
regard myself as far superior to him. Had she not done all this, I had
not been here and thus: I had been what I now dare not think on. It is
all her work. The greatest enemy my life has ever known has been my own
mother."
'"This is a horrible thought, captain, yet I cannot but think it true."
'"It is true. I have analyzed my own history, and the causes of my
character and fortunes now, and I charge it all upon her. From one
influence I have traced another, until I have the sweeping amount of
twenty years of crime and sorrow and a life of hate, and probably a
death of ignominy, all owing to the first ten years of my infant
education, when the only teacher that I knew was the woman that gave me
birth."'
This is a fictitious tale indeed, but it is sadly true to nature. We
have seen the victim of indulgence trained by the mere neglect of
restraint to a violence of passion which reviled and abused the mother
that bore him. We have known the abandoned son turn with doubled fist
and furious gestures to his mother, and tell her,--"_You_ have trained
me to all this." We have known those who escaped this dreadful fate,
mourn through life, the mental suffering, or the bodily debility, which
the mistaken indulgence of a mother's love had entailed upon them. And
if the _man_ could always look back with the skill of Heinroth to his
early childhood, even when no gross neglect of discipline was to be
discovered, would he not accuse her early and excessive indulgence of
his dawning appetites and craving desires as the source of that
violence of passion--that obstinacy, which cost him so much painful
discipline in youth, and perhaps still poison the peace of his manhood?
Is there no argument, no appeal which can reach the heart of those
mothers, who are sacrificing the future peace and character and hopes
of their children, to the mere pleasure of gratifying them for the
moment?
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
AN ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT OF LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS TO PROMOTE
EDUCATION.
_Delivered before the Institute of Education of Hampden Sidney College,
at their last commencement, by_ JAMES M. GARNETT.
_Gentlemen Members
of the Institute of Education:_
In compliance with the invitation with which your committee honored me
some months ago, and for which I desire here publicly to make my
acknowledgments; I now present myself to address you on the subject of
"literary associations for the promotion of education."
Thus called upon for a purpose so philanthropic, a cause so truly
glorious, and one moreover of such vital importance to our whole
community, I could not hesitate to comply, however apprehensive I might
feel of not being able to do full justice to the subject. I came to
this determination the more readily, from the confident belief that the
invitation would never have been given, had not the gentlemen members
of your committee as well as those for whom they acted, been prepared
to extend towards my deficiencies every indulgence which they might
require. This brief explanation of the circumstances which brought me
here, and of my own feelings on this highly interesting occasion, seems
due not only to myself, but to the very respectable assembly in whose
presence I now appear. Let me endeavor now to fulfil the duty, which I
have undertaken to perform.
Literary associations for the promotion of education, unquestionably
transcend in importance all other voluntary combinations of human
beings that either _do_ or _can be imagined_ to exist for other
purposes than mental culture, as far as the intellectual and moral
powers of man surpass his mere animal appetites and passions: for it is
by education alone--education I mean _as it should be_, that the former
can be fully developed and perfected;--by education alone _as it should
be_, that the latter can be so restrained and regulated as to minister
to our comfort and happiness, instead of overwhelming us with
irreparable misery and ruin. Obvious as this most momentous truth
surely is, and deeply as we should imagine it would be felt by every
rational being, it is but too certain that the number of those who do
feel it in any such way, is most lamentably small in proportion to our
whole population. This would be altogether incredible, were we to judge
only from listening to our constant vauntings of the rapid progress of
society in all the arts and sciences; of the multiplication and vast
extent of modern discoveries; and the actual improvements in every
branch of worldly knowledge. But when we use our _eyes_, as well as our
_ears_; when we look immediately around us and view attentively our
condition in Virginia, the striking want of public spirit in regard to
the general instruction of the people, and the melancholy scarcity of
"literary associations for the promotion of education;" it inflicts a
pang of deep disappointment--of bitter mortification on the heart of
every true, intelligent lover of his country. Travel through our sister
states to the north and east, (as many of us would be much the better
for doing,--to remove our senseless prejudices,) and we behold such
associations, almost every where. No large city is without many of
them; while they are found diffusing their incalculable blessings
through nearly every little town and village, under some one or other
of the various forms and titles which they there assume: such for
example, as lyceums, conventions of teachers and other friends of the
cause, institutes of instruction, and education societies. Their
precious fruits manifest themselves in their numerous schools;--in
their neighborhood libraries; in their public book stores; but above
all in their multiplied places of public worship. These all combined in
one view, present to the mind's eye of the contemplative patriot and
philanthropist, a picture of social improvement and happiness, which it
is impossible to mistake, or to consider without the most heartfelt
emotions. The plain simple realities which we may there see, unaided by
any of the fashionable magniloquence about "the march of intellect;"
unvarnished by any false coloring or exaggeration whatever; force upon
our minds a most thorough conviction, that the people of these happy
states, owe the whole, either directly or indirectly, to their constant
and zealous encouragement of associations for the promotion of
education. These have been so ramified and extended among them, as now
to embrace nearly every member of their several communities. Why, my
friends, why let me most earnestly demand of you, should not we
Virginians, "go and do likewise?" Why should not we profit by their
meritorious example; and love them for it as we ought to do with a
truly fraternal regard, instead of entertaining against them (as far
too many of us do,) dislikes and animosities which are much more
disgraceful to ourselves than injurious to them? And here permit me to
remark, _en passant_, that were such regard cultivated and cherished,
as it should be among all the states of this great confederacy, we
should not only improve each other rapidly in every useful art and
science; but the bonds of our fraternity, would be so increased and
strengthened, that the whole world could not exhibit a government
wherein all the numerous blessings of civilized life would be so widely
diffused, so highly valued, so richly enjoyed.
But to return to our neglect of associations for the improvement of
education. Shall we plead utter ignorance of their numerous advantages,
their extensively beneficial effects, or shall we acknowledge what I
fear is the shameful truth, and what a very large majority of us may
utter--each man for himself--the Heathen's confession: "_Video meliora
proboque, deteriora sequor?_" Shall we not hope however, that the
glorious period of moral reform is not far distant; that the time is
fast approaching when this wretched, debasing--nay, wicked habit of
following the worse, where we both see and approve the better
course,--is about to be eradicated in a great measure; by a vigorous
enlightened prosecution of all the means necessary to effect a thorough
change among us? To you, gentlemen members of the Hampden Sidney
Institute, I believe Virginia is indebted for the first example of a
voluntary association on a large scale, to promote education--an
example which I most earnestly hope will be zealously followed in every
part of our widely extended territory,--until the great, the vital
object, which you so laudably aim to accomplish, shall be fully
realized to the utmost extent of your wishes. It will be a time of
heartfelt rejoicing, a day of glorious jubilee, to all who may live to
see it--a day which even _we_ of the present generation may highly
enjoy by anticipation, although we have little prospect of living to
participate in all its precious blessings. By the way, how do _we_
obtain this power of anticipation, this faculty of feeling
inexpressible delight in all the advantages, gratifications and
enjoyments of those who are to live after we are dead and gone? Are we
not indebted for it to _education_--to that moral and religious part of
it which teaches us that we have immortal souls which connect us
inseparably with future generations--which command us to provide as far
as we can for _their_ happiness--which convince us that this very
occupation, more than any other, will minister to our own felicity; and
which in fact constitutes one of our most sacred duties upon earth? Oh!
that we could all feel this momentous truth in the inmost recesses of
our hearts! Utterly superfluous then would be not only the effort of
the humble individual who now addresses you, but every other of a
similar nature; for there would not then be a single member of society,
possessed of the common capacities and feelings of humanity, who would
not anxiously unite with heart, hand, and all available means, in
promoting universal education, as the only practicable mode of insuring
universal happiness. _This_, so far as it is attainable in our present
state of existence, necessarily depends upon every human Being, of
sound mind, understanding thoroughly all the various duties which he
has to fulfil, as well as comprehending and feeling the utmost extent
of his obligations to fulfil them--and _this_ again depends both upon
_what_ and _how_ he has been taught; in other words, upon _education as
it should be_.
To do justice as far as I possibly can to the cause which I am now
pledged to support, I feel myself here bound to assert that in almost
all our attempts to educate the youth of our country a most pernicious
error is committed, either in regard to the meaning of the term
_education itself_, or else in the methods pursued to accomplish our
object. Should I succeed in establishing this charge, it will certainly
result in the irresistible demonstration of that which I have been
invited to illustrate--the great utility of voluntary associations, in
some form or other, for the promotion of education. Admit the purpose
to be essentially desirable, the obstacles to its attainment such as I
believe they can be proved to be, and the necessity for such
associations in the absence of all effective legislation, follows as an
undeniable consequence. They naturally possess, in common with all
other combinations of human effort to attain a particular end, far
greater power of accomplishing _that end_, than the insulated and
separate exertions of all the individuals concerned,--even supposing
that every one would exert himself to the utmost, in his own particular
way. This truth has resolved itself into the well known adage--"united
we stand, divided we fall;" and I know of no more forcible
exemplification of it, than in the present state of education among us
Virginians. Individually consulted, we cry out nearly to a man, "let us
educate our people!" but if called on for combined action, very few or
none respond to the invitation. We have no common system--the result of
general concert; no uniform plan, either as to the objects, or modes,
or courses of instruction; no generally established class-books in the
various studies pursued in our schools and colleges; no particular
qualifications made indispensable for teachers; but each is left to the
vain imaginings and devices of his own heart, or to be governed by the
chance-medley, hap-hazard contrivances of individuals, very many of
whom have neither the capacity, knowledge, experience, nor inclination
to devise the best practicable methods for accomplishing the grand
purpose of education. Politics, law, physic, absorb nearly all the
talents of the State; while the vital business of instructing the
rising generation; a business which requires minds of the very highest
order and moral excellence to execute it properly, is generally left to
be pursued by any who list--pursued far too often most reluctantly, as
a mere stepping-stone to some other profession, and to be abandoned as
soon as possible for almost any thing else that may turn up. The
inevitable consequence is "confusion worse confounded;" driving parents
and guardians to frequent changes both of schools and teachers for
their children, where changes of books and modes of instruction follow,
almost as matters of course; for those who are to handle the new brooms
rarely believe they will be thought cleaner sweepers than their
predecessors, unless they display their superiority by pursuing some
entirely different method. This petty ambition would be too ridiculous
to deserve serious notice, were it not for the vast amount of evil
which it produces, by not only retarding the progress of all youths
under a course of instruction, but by constantly and powerfully tending
to bring the whole class of teachers into general contempt. Under these
circumstances, the existence of which none can deny, where shall we
seek an adequate remedy for evils of such magnitude; where turn our
eyes but to well organized voluntary associations for the promotion of
education? These would collect and combine the powers, the talents, the
knowledge of a very large portion of all the individuals in our society
best qualified to accomplish the object. They would create a general
taste, an anxious desire for intellectual pursuits; they would elevate
the profession of the teacher to that rank which its vast importance to
human happiness renders essential to its success; and would assuredly
extend their influence to the remotest limits of our community, far
more rapidly than could any scheme of legislative creation. It has been
so in every other State, so far as the experiment has been tried. Why
then should we doubt their success among ourselves? We who believe
ourselves possessed of the wisest, the freest, the happiest government
on earth, are incalculably more interested than any other nation (if
our belief is true), in the cause of universal education; for on _its_
success, the very existence of free government itself, nay of
individual and national happiness so far as government can affect
either, must ultimately depend.
To this conclusion my own mind has been irresistibly brought by the
whole course of my observations and experience for the last forty years
of my life. But as some of my auditors may possibly differ from me, I
will respectfully ask leave now to state more particularly my views of
the great objects of education and the errors into which we have fallen
in pursuit of them--errors which I verily believe will never be
corrected but by voluntary and numerous associations, similar at least
in design, to the one here established.
These objects are, _the perfecting of all our faculties, both of mind
and body_; but chiefly, the full developement of man's _moral nature_,
as the means of leading him thoroughly to understand, as well as
voluntarily, constantly, and anxiously to aim at accomplishing all the
glorious ends of his creation. Nothing deserves the name of education
which does not tend directly and intelligibly to these great objects.
Judge then, I pray you my friends, how little what is usually called
education is entitled to be so styled! But first hear that you may
judge. Is it not the sole aim in all our schools of the lower kinds to
enable pupils to enter those of a higher grade, not by the evidences
they can produce of advancement in the knowledge and practice of moral
and religious principles, but by their proficiency in the elements of
certain languages and abstract sciences? And what are the great, the
ultimate purposes to be achieved after reaching these higher
schools--the colleges and universities of the land? Are there any
other, generally speaking, than merely to obtain a college degree--a
diploma for a more extended proficiency in the same or other languages
and abstract sciences? Is moral and religious acquirement ever made a
pre-requisite? Is moral and religious conduct always rendered
indispensable? Yet man without these is either a drone or a nuisance in
society. Surely then, I may assert without fear of contradiction, that
education conducted on any of the plans most prevalent among us, is
really _not what it should be_,--for it continually places objects of
scholastic pursuit in the highest rank, which have no just claim to any
such elevation; but should ever be held subordinate to the far more
exalted and all essential acquisition of sound, moral and religious
principles. No more of these however, than will superinduce general
conformity to college rules, and decency of general conduct, are ever
required of candidates for collegiate honors; and all these may be and
frequently are obtained without other proof either of moral or
religious attainment, than what has just been stated.
This cannot be right. Man, in fact, _must be_ considered and treated
from infancy to the last moment of his life as a being formed by his
Maker for a state of existence far, very far different from the
present--a state for which his sole business on earth is,--constantly
to be preparing, by a diligent culture of _all_ his powers--by the
beneficent use of _all_ his means; and by the faithful performance of
_all_ his duties to himself, to his fellow creatures, and to his God.
_This_ and _this only is education_. The learning of languages, arts,
and sciences, which too often comprise the whole of education,
furnishes him only with the stepping-stones, the scaffolding, and the
tools to aid him in the erection of the grand edifice, which although
based on earth, should rear its Dome to the highest Heaven, and be
built for eternity as well as for time. But alas! these sciences, arts
and languages, are almost always mistaken for the edifice itself--an
edifice whose external decorations are much more valued and regarded
than the great purposes for which it should be constructed: in other
words, it is prepared more for show than use--more to attract the
admiration of others, than really to benefit for all time the vain
possessor who is to live in it, and to derive lasting security, comfort
and true enjoyment from the skilful adaptation of all its various parts
to the complete attainment of these inestimable blessings. To the
mistake here figuratively expressed, more than to any other cause, we
owe the countless failures, the innumerable, unsuccessful,
heart-sickening efforts to educate the rising generation: for
scholarship, by which I mean a thorough acquaintance with all that is
usually taught in our schools of the highest grade, is really and truly
_not thorough education_, but a very inconsiderable and quite inferior
part of the grand total. That which crowns the whole--that to which all
else should be merely subsidiary--that which alone can elevate man from
earth to Heaven,--is _moral and christian education_, producing
constantly, by divine grace, _moral and christian practice_. It is
_this_ and _this only_, which can enable us to meet as we should, all
the changes and chances of this mortal life--to carry along with us
into whatever calling or profession we may choose, all the requisite
knowledge, ability and will, to render it most conducive not only to
our own subsistence, comfort and happiness, so far as these are
dependant thereon, but to the general good of the whole community in
which we live. In other words, it is moral and christian education
alone, that will give us both the power and effectual desire to fulfil
every duty of the present life in such a manner as will best promote
our own interests, temporal and eternal, as well as the great interests
of society at large, in every way towards which we can possibly
contribute. This efficient devotion of our powers and our means to the
good of others, proceeding from a union of moral and religious
principle, should ever constitute man's highest honor here below, since
it is certainly the most important of all his earthly duties.
Literary institutions may bring to the utmost possible degree of
perfection the methods of acquiring all languages, arts and
sciences--they may invent matchless ways of making accomplished
scholars, in the ordinary acceptation of the term--they may
indoctrinate the youth of our country in every thing usually called
scholastic learning--all this they may do with a rapidity and certainty
heretofore inconceivable, yet they will fall immeasurably short of
attaining the grand, the paramount objects of all which deserves to be
called education, unless the fixing indelibly of moral and religious
principles in the minds of all who are to be educated, be made the
basis, the essence, and vital end of all instruction whatever. The idea
is utterly preposterous that human beings ever can be taught to form
adequate conceptions of the great purposes for which they were
created--of the indispensable necessity of fulfilling most faithfully
all their duties, in order to accomplish these purposes; and of the
ineffable happiness both here and hereafter, that will be secured to
all who do thus fulfil them, merely by teaching them all the languages,
arts and sciences in the world,--if _that_ be omitted, without which
all else is but mere dust in the balance,--I mean self-knowledge,
self-control, self-devotion to duty as the supreme objects of our
temporal existence. Do not, I beseech you, my friends, here
misunderstand me. Far indeed, very far am I from underrating the real
advantages, the true value of what is generally understood by the term
scholastic attainments. No one can estimate more highly than I do,
their power of extending our views, liberalizing our sentiments,
enlightening our minds, strengthening our intellectual faculties, and
exciting an ardent desire to increase our knowledge. Considered as the
_means_ and not the _ends_ of education, I would always award to them
the highest rank. But when we have said _this_, nothing more can justly
be affirmed in their favor--if disconnected, as they too often are,
from the ultimate and vital purposes of all perfect education. These
undeniably are, (and it cannot be too frequently repeated,) to expand,
to warm, to christianize the heart--to call into vigorous, untiring
action, all our best affections, our noblest attributes, and to fit us
thoroughly both for our present and future state of existence. Unless
that which is called education will do _this_, we may safely assert
that it is grossly _miscalled_, and that if it is never made to
comprehend any thing more than what is generally understood by the term
scholastic attainments, a mistake more fatal to the happiness of our
species can scarcely be committed. Of this I would ask no better proof
than would be afforded by an impartial examination of the actual
acquirements, the conduct and the characters of those who are honored
with the high sounding title of accomplished scholars. If they are
really _better educated_, ought they not certainly to be not only wiser
but _better men_, that is if education actually was what it most
assuredly should be? But what is the fact? Do we find them better men,
better citizens, better neighbors, friends and heads of families or
states, than those who, with less scholarship, have had much more
attention paid to their moral and religious education, than to those
scholastic acquirements of which nothing but the most thorough, moral
and religious instruction can teach us either the true value or the
proper use? Gladly, most gladly do I admit that very many amiable men
will be found among the former; for I am happy to say that I know many
such--but it is equally true, that those praiseworthy traits of
character and conduct which we frequently see apart from religious
belief in christianity, form exceptions to the general rule that
_un_belief in christianity tends certainly to produce both vice and
depravity. Whereas immoral character and practice among professors of
religion, form exceptions to the general rule that christian faith
tends surely to produce christian conduct. The first class of persons
are good in spite of their worldly creed--the latter are bad in direct
opposition to what they believe to be right.
We shall never arrive at a clear, satisfactory conclusion in regard to
this all important subject, education, but by first solving the
questions, _what are_ the paramount duties of the present life--_what_
the only means of securing their fulfilment? Are these duties _solely_
or even _chiefly_, to speak, or to understand a great variety of
tongues--to measure the earth, the waters of the mighty ocean, nay the
heavens themselves, with instruments and means of human invention--to
wear away life itself in the vain attempt to discover the elementary
principles of all visible things--to scan thoroughly the vast powers
and possible expanse of human intellect--and to astonish the world by
the perfection to which all human science, arts and accomplishments may
be brought? Or, _are they_ that we should think wisely, act justly, and
practice truth, industry, self-denial, and universal benevolence,--from
the sincere, heartfelt, ever active love of our fellow creatures,--and
willing obedience to all the commands of our God? Are the means to
secure the fulfilment of all these most momentous duties, such as are
usually adopted in our schools?--or, shall we not find them in very
numerous instances nearly destitute of any but means rather of
counteraction than promotion? By what other term can we characterize
the usual school appliances, to the chief of which I beg leave to
invite your special attention? These are, the fear of human punishments
and disgrace, instead of the fear of offending our Maker--the stimuli
of emulation and ambition: the first, to surpass supposed rivals and
competitors for fame and fortune; the latter, to attain the worldly
distinctions of high rank and emolument in what are called the "learned
professions," or the celebrity of political power, and elevation above
our fellow men. But will any sober, reflecting person say, that such
appliances do not tend constantly, nay almost certainly, to make us
fear man more than God--to inspire more dread of public sentiment than
love of public and private duty--to poison our hearts with jealousy and
envy, and to intoxicate us with pride, vanity and ambition, rather than
to fix indelibly in our souls all those truly christian virtues, which
man must not only possess but exercise--not only acquire but ardently
cherish, to attain the great end of his being?
The answers to the foregoing questions involve matters of the deepest
possible interest not only to the present, but to all future
generations; for it depends entirely upon them, and the effects they
may have on those who regulate and direct our schools of all kinds,
whether the whole business of scholastic education shall be conducted
in reference merely to the things of time, or to the immeasurably
higher concerns of eternity. In judging of this matter, let us not
trust entirely to the customary forms of expression, in which all our
schools, from the highest to the lowest, publicly invite patronage.
These are rarely deficient in promises that the moral and religious
principles and conduct of the pupils shall be strictly attended to;
which proves at least the general belief in the class of instructers,
that the parents and friends of children attach great importance to
these matters. But no one who has the least knowledge of the manner in
which our schools are usually conducted, can be ignorant that such
promises are much more a matter of form than substance, however sincere
the individuals may have been in making them. "_Profession_," we all
know "_is not principle_;" neither is it very generally followed by
conformable practice. In nothing is this melancholy fact more
conspicuous, than in the neglect, throughout our schools of every kind,
of all such moral and religious instruction as would thoroughly
convince the pupils that _this_ is deemed of infinitely higher value
than every thing else which either _is_ or _can be_ taught at such
places. But instead of such instruction, if we examine with a view
solely to ascertain the truth, we shall find almost every where that
the real, the constant, the supreme object, is to make what are called
good scholars and learned men--men to make a figure in the world, and
to be celebrated in the various walks of well disguised pride, vanity
and ambition. To accomplish this object all efforts are strenuously
directed, all appliances industriously used; while moral and religious
principles, if inculcated at all, will be found to occupy rather a
nominal than a real and efficient rank. If any doubt it, let them
inquire as impartially as they can, what manner of men those are in
general who constitute the educated class? Are they in most instances
moral and religious persons, or _are they not?_ Do they seem better
qualified or more disposed to fulfil the various duties of life, than
those who have not been blessed with equal opportunities for
intellectual improvement? If they do not, we may be absolutely certain
that some radical errors have been committed in their education,--since
the great object of all that deserves the name, assuredly is to make
men, not merely more learned, but wiser and better--more intelligent
and more virtuous, than they could possibly be without it. That they
_would be so_ under a proper system of instruction--a system wherein
mere scholastic learning, in the common acceptation of the term, should
never be considered synonymous with education, none can possibly doubt
who have ever paid the least serious attention to the subject, or who
have any faith in the scripture declaration that, _if we train up a
child in the way he should go, he will never depart from it when he is
old_. Whenever, therefore, we witness any departure among such of our
young people as are said to be well educated, it amounts to a
demonstration that _they have not been thus trained_. If they had been,
such departures would be very rare, instead of being most fatally
common; nor should we find, even after making all due allowances for
the frailty and depravity of our nature, these educated youths, in so
many deplorable instances, despisers of religion, loose in their
morals, voluptuaries in practice as well as principle, ignorant or
regardless both of their public and private duties, and devoted
entirely to their own selfish, depraved gratifications. But the
lamentable truth is, that in a vast majority of our schools, whatever
promises may have been honestly promulgated to the contrary, the moral
and religious principles of the pupils are _not made_ paramount objects
of attention. On the contrary, it seems to be almost always presumed,
that the great work of forming these principles has been accomplished
under the parental roof, where alas! (to our shame be it spoken,) it is
in thousands of instances utterly neglected! Each pupil is consequently
left to form them for himself, after his last course of collegiate
instruction, during which these all essential guides to present and
future happiness are rarely put into requisition, farther than may be
deemed necessary to the peace and good order of the establishment, or
as a part of the mere compendious formulary of instruction. The fatal
and almost certain consequence is, that multitudes of college
graduates, after being emancipated from scholastic restraints, either
plunge at once into the destructive vortex of folly and vice, or devote
themselves so entirely to the pursuits of wealth, pride, vanity and
ambition, as effectually to exclude from their minds all thoughts of
another life. These minds, thus pre-occupied, have actually no place
left for such ideas and reflections as tend to produce a thorough
conviction of the necessity for making some preparation to quit our
present state of existence, with a reasonable hope of infinitely
greater happiness in the next we are destined to enter. That the one we
are now in cannot possibly last beyond a period most fearfully brief,
infidels as well as christians are compelled to observe; for none live
to be capable of observation whose experience has not perfectly assured
them, that all are doomed to die; none live to years of reflection, who
can well avoid sometimes looking forward, however sceptically, to that
awful doom, without many terrors and alarms as to what may follow so
fearful a change. For _this change_, so absolutely sure, so truly
appalling to man, christian education alone can effectually prepare
us--and ought therefore most assuredly to be made the basis, the
substantial part, the great end of all education whatever.
That we can never hope to see so desirable and highly important a
reform accomplished without some other means, some other agencies than
such as we have heretofore had, seems to me demonstrably true. It
appears equally clear that they must be voluntary associations, in some
form or other, for the promotion and improvement of education,
consisting of true, sincere, persevering, efficient friends to the
cause--no "sleeping partners," (as mercantile men say,) but all, both
active and zealous to the utmost of their power. To expect such reform
from legislation is a vain hope, unless we already had such law-makers
in sufficient numbers for the purpose, as _that_ reform in our parental
instruction, schools and colleges alone could produce. When such
consummation can take place, all essential as it seems to our national
welfare, and devoutly as every one may wish it, none but he who knoweth
all things can possibly tell. But each of us may venture so far as to
predict, that voluntary institutions and societies, similar, gentlemen,
to that which you have established, hold out far more cheering promises
of success than can be hoped for from any other source. They will serve
as appropriate nuclei, (if I may thus apply the term) for attracting
around them the scattered talent, the learning and active benevolence
of society. When thus concentrated, they will perform for our
intellectual world what the sun does for that magnificent world of
effulgent stars and constellations with which _he_ is surrounded--by
diffusing in every direction that genial light and heat, so essential
to adorn, to sustain, and to invigorate both. What a glorious prospect!
what a delightful anticipation! Shall we not then cherish it, my
friends, as a _possible_ event--nay, as one which nothing is wanting to
accomplish, but a general combination of the intelligence, the zeal,
and active perseverance of the numerous and sincere, but too
desponding, too supine friends to the cause of universal education?
You, gentlemen members of this institution, have commenced the noble
work. Let your exertions then to sustain and carry it on never know a
moment's intermission, and my life on the issue, but a few years will
elapse before the happy effects of such efforts will be felt and seen
to the remotest limits of our community. Your patriotic example will
soon be followed in other parts of our beloved state; similar
associations will be formed elsewhere; a similar spirit of benevolence
will be awakened and exerted, until poor old Virginia will once more
hold up her long drooping head among such of her sister states as have
most advanced in all those useful arts and sciences, best calculated
not only to adorn and embellish private life, but to secure both
individual and national happiness.
Before I conclude, permit me to address a few remarks to _you_, young
gentlemen, the cherished alumni of this college. Although not directly
applicable to our main purpose, I hope they may be found to have an
important bearing on it,--since I shall adduce a few practical
illustrations of the fatal errors you may commit in regard both to
professional and domestic duties, unless you adopt forthwith and
forever, as constant guides, those good principles of education which
voluntary and numerous associations for its improvement, seem alone
capable of introducing into all our schools. You will be the first to
enjoy the precious fruits of all such as the members of this institute
will probably recommend. Suffer me then to add my humble efforts to
theirs for your benefit; and deem me not obtrusive, if they should
partake somewhat of the admonitory character: for, be assured that my
remarks shall all be such as a friend and father would make to those in
whose happiness he felt the deepest solicitude.
If I have succeeded in my most anxious desire to impress upon your
minds the thorough conviction that the principles of morality and
religion, indissolubly united, _must_ form the beginning, the middle
and the end of all that deserves the name of education, your first,
your constant and supreme effort will be _to acquire them_. Then
indeed, you may pursue the usual course of your scholastic studies, not
only without danger of mistaking the means for the end, but with
incalculable advantages both present and prospective; for all will be
made conducive to the great, the eternal purposes for which you were
created. Your knowledge of foreign languages and histories will
contribute to convince you that there have been and still are nations,
kindred and people like yourselves,--with similar wants, passions and
capabilities, deserving your sympathy, your regard, your brotherly
love,--that national antipathies should have no place in a human
bosom--that national wars, except for defence, are national crimes; and
that man should consider man his brother, in whatever condition or on
whatever spot of the habitable globe he may be found.
Your mathematics will lead you to the conviction, strong and
irresistible as the demonstrative principles and reasonings upon which
the whole of this noble science depends, that nothing but a God of all
perfect wisdom and love could have endowed you with faculties and
powers capable of deriving not only the highest mental gratifications
from such a source, but of applying the discoveries which produce these
gratifications to an infinite series of the most beneficial purposes.
Your chemistry will aid in teaching you that none but a Being
infinitely wise and of boundless power and goodness, could possibly
have contrived and arranged such a vast multitude of substances, in all
their endless variety of combinations and affinities, such an immense
world of multiform matter--all as it would seem conducive in some way
or other to human comfort, gratification, or high enjoyment.
Your philosophy and metaphysics, will draw you irresistibly to a great
first cause--the supreme, beneficent, ever bounteous Author of all the
objects of our senses, of all the powers and conceptions of our
understandings; and will indelibly stamp upon your hearts the
sentiments of adoration, love and obedience, as the only proper tribute
you could pay to a Being, who, so far as we can comprehend his works,
hath made them all subservient, either directly or indirectly, to our
own happiness, both in time and eternity. These sciences will bring
home to your bosoms and business the vital truth that you have minds of
vast powers of comprehension--faculties capable of undefinable
expansion; and souls of such godlike energies, aspirations and
capacities of enjoyment, as nothing less than a God of all power,
wisdom and love, could either have created or bestowed. In a word,
whatever path you may pursue within the whole circle of scientific and
literary research, it will lead you, if under the constant guidance of
moral and religious principles, to the possession of the chief good
here on earth, and to "that house above, not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens."
There are indeed no circumstances nor situations in which you can
anticipate even the possibility of being placed, unless bereft of all
consciousness or sanity of mind, that can exempt you from the
obligation of making these principles the chart and compass as it were,
by which you are to steer your earthly course. Let us imagine a few of
such as most commonly occur in our progress through life--such as are
matters of choice rather than necessity--and we shall then more clearly
see the indispensable use of such a chart and compass to direct us
safely and happily in our unavoidable passage to realms of eternal
duration.
Almost every man, for example, at some period of his existence, desires
to become a husband--to unite himself for life to some individual of
the other sex, as a means of enjoying far greater happiness than he
possibly could in any single state. It is a situation in which millions
voluntarily place themselves--a situation of vast and complicated
responsibilities--involving numerous relationships and duties of the
highest imaginable importance, upon which depend not only the domestic
and social happiness of individuals, but the moral condition of whole
communities and nations. Yet, how few of these millions, even among the
most deeply versed in scholastic lore, unless they are men of the
soundest moral and religious principles, are ever guided in their
choice by any thing but fancy, whim, caprice, or some other far less
excusable motive? Their scholastic acquirements alone, never avail them
in the slightest degree. The eye is usually the sole guide--the
appellate court of reason and judgment not being so much as even
consulted. When married, they generally become parents, and thereby
incur duties the moat sacred and of the most awful responsibilities;
for they are _then_ answerable for the souls of _others_ as well as for
_their own_--for souls, with whose happiness they are intrusted even by
the God of the universe himself! Yet how, let me ask, are these
momentous duties generally fulfilled, even by the best scholars, unless
they are also moral and religious men? Instead of fulfilment, we too
often behold total neglect, nay frequently the grossest, most shameful,
most criminal violation; and all this too by individuals who have
obtained the highest collegiate honors. What is the fair inference from
such facts? Why, that no education which has not the united principles
that I am endeavoring to recommend for its basis, its means of
completion, and its great end, can fit man even for the two most common
and by far the most important conditions of life.
Let me call your attention now to a few of the chief professions in
which the young men of our country are most apt to engage; and let us
endeavor to ascertain how far mere scholastic acquirements, even of the
highest grade, will enable you to pursue these professions with profit
and honor to yourselves, and with benefit to the community of which you
are members.
If you become physicians, without something more than the mere nominal
worldy belief in the general utility of moral and religious principles,
you will have nothing but the very feeble, seldom regarded check of
worldy prudence, to restrain you from hurrying into the practice of the
profession, before the proper preparation can possibly be made. Your
own pecuniary emolument will become your chief object,--this you will
be apt to pursue with no farther regard than your popularity requires,
to the numerous risks you will incur of destroying both the health and
life of others. You will hasten on in this course with a brevity of
preparation far shorter than is deemed necessary to make even a good
cook or washer-woman--although the thing to be practised upon, in the
first case, is _human life itself_; while, in the latter cases, they
are only the human appetite for food and some of the habiliments of the
human body! Yet, it is upon the skill and humanity of the members of
the medical profession, that society must depend for the alleviation or
cure of all those indescribable miseries, under which, in the countless
forms of sickness and disease, mankind are doomed to suffer to the end
of the world--doomed alas! in a great measure, by their own vices and
profligacy, superinduced by false education much more than by any
naturally inherent defect either in their bodily or mental
constitutions.
Should the profession of law be your choice, here also you will find
that mere scholarship, mere literary and scientific acquirement,
unsustained by deeply fixed, continually active, moral and religious
principles, will avail you quite as little as in the practice of
medicine. Instead of becoming "compounders of strife," as these
principles enjoin us all to be, you will be much more apt to turn out
encouragers of litigation. You will often without scruple aid the
rapacious and vindictive in the gratification of their criminal
passions, by defending them from the legal consequences of their
indulgence. You will frequently vindicate the oppressor in his wrongs,
assist guilt in seeking safety, and enable crime to escape its just and
lawful punishment. Calumniators, thieves, robbers, and destroyers of
life as well as of innocence, will be indebted to you for renewed
opportunities of preying upon the peace, the property, the happiness of
society. You will thus, as far as depends upon your professional
labors, actually cherish crime, pervert justice, and defeat the ends of
all those conservative laws which it should be _your_ peculiar province
to expound, _your_ inviolable duty to sustain in all their purity and
force, by never for a moment countenancing or aiding their violators.
Then the appropriate punishment for every outrage against penal law
would always follow every perpetration of unlawful deeds; for each fee
offered by such enemies of mankind as commit atrocious crimes, would be
considered and rejected either as the price of property wickedly
gained--of innocence utterly ruined--of character irretrievably
blasted, or of life criminally taken away. I do not speak of those
doubtful cases wherein lawyers may be deceived by the _ex parte_
statements of their clients; but of such as carry deep and damning
guilt in their very face--of those in which the applicants for counsel
prove themselves, _by their own shewing_, to be _steeped_ as it were in
infamy, iniquity and deadly crime--of those who practice injustice as a
lucrative trade, ruin character by way of recreation, and destroy
innocence as a pleasurable pursuit--of those who, as long as their
money lasts, rely upon lawyers to defend them in making the property,
the character, the happiness of others subservient to their own
diabolical appetites and passions. Would all lawyers make it a point of
conscience never to appear for such wretches, unless the courts
assigned them as counsel, the criminals themselves would never be
unjustly condemned; neither would they ever escape punishment, as they
now often do, by the ingenious but highly pernicious sophistry of their
hired defenders. Laws would then attain the great ends for which they
were enacted, and our whole community would enjoy a far greater degree
of safety from the perpetrators of crime than it has ever done
heretofore.
Should political life be your choice, after finishing a scholastic
course wherein both morals and religion have been so little regarded as
not to be made paramount objects of pursuit, instead of becoming pure
patriots, solely devoted to your country's good, you will be much more
apt to turn constant calculators of the chances for personal
aggrandizement--careful measurers and weighers of your own private
interests against your public duties, and deep casuists in the means of
evading or violating the last to promote the first, wherever your real
purpose and only anxious desire may admit of probable concealment. You
will become, with few exceptions, if possessed of sufficient talents
and cunning, members of that most pernicious class of politicians
called demagogues, who in fact have always proved the curse of every
country wherein they have acquired political power. These have
patriotism, patriotism, continually on their lips, but never in their
hearts and actions--deeming it much easier to feign love of country
than really to possess and exert it--much more thrifty to wheedle and
cajole the people for their own base selfish purposes,--than manfully
and like true friends combat their prejudices and inform their
understandings. You will reach the lowest, most despicable grade of
political prostitution, by turning _man-worshippers_; and soon learn to
offer up your incense in exact proportion to the vanity of your idols
and their power to gratify your wants; until at last you will neither
see, hear, nor understand any thing but as they wish you; and will call
black white, or white black--just as they bid you do. To this wretched
state of degradation and self-abasement do most politicians sink
themselves, whose educations have not been firmly based on sound, moral
and religious principles.
Let us suppose, lastly, that you should prefer the mercantile
profession to any other, after acquiring all the learning to be gained
in the customary course of education. What will probably be your
practice as merchants, if the principles which I am recommending as the
essentials of all education, have not been made so of yours? Will this
practice be guided by the social or the selfish principle? Will it be,
"_live and let live_," or "_live for self alone_?" But very little
observation and experience will compel you to admit that the latter
maxim will in most cases be the ruling one. Nay, it will not only rule
you, but blind you also to the great truth which should always govern
the whole mercantile class, that all fair commerce is nothing more than
an interchange of equivalents--a supplying of each other's wants--by
which both sellers and buyers are mutually benefitted--a bond of peace
and union, instead of a war of cunning for the accumulation of pelf. In
fact every thing called commerce or barter, wherein this effect of
mutual benefit does not take place, so far as depends upon the
intention of the parties, is neither more nor less than _fraud in
disguise_--fraud concealed under the specious title of skill in
trade--in other words, it is an unjust attempt on both sides to get
some undue advantage in the traffic. Such attempts you never would
make--indeed you could not possibly make them, were your hearts
constantly and deeply influenced, during the whole of your scholastic
course, by the pure, the genuine principles of morality and religion,
while your conduct was regulated by them as the guardians of your
honor, the preservers of your reputation, the unerring guides that
point the way from time to eternity.
_These principles and these alone_ form our only safeguards against
vice and crime--our only security for using whatever other education we
may acquire, as rational and accountable beings should use all the
powers of their minds and bodies. Once acquired and ardently cherished,
they will prove to you "a refuge in every storm--a present help in
every trouble"--the sweetest solace in all adversity--the ever faithful
monitors and guides in prosperous fortune. Armed with such a panoply
you may safely march through all the most perilous paths of life,
without fear of serious injury; and proceed, rejoicing on your way,
that you have neither lived nor labored in vain. _Yours_ will be the
only true glory of the present life,--that of contributing to human
happiness--_yours_ the sole victory worthy of beings endowed with such
godlike faculties,--the victory over your own passions--and _yours_ the
indescribable rewards after death, of those "who have done the will of
their Father on earth as it is in heaven."
Look always to these principles as to the polar star of your earthly
course--act up to them faithfully, under all the trying circumstances
in which you may be placed; and each of you may then, in the confident
hope of being graciously heard, begin and close every day of your lives
with the comprehensive prayer of the pious Thomson:--
"Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme!
Oh! teach me what is good! teach me thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity and vice,
From ev'ry low pursuit! and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred,--substantial,--never-fading bliss!"
For the Southern Literary Messenger.