152

Importance of the Power of Expression.

[April,

amount consideration. Let the enormous sums lavished on modern facilities for the despatch of business, and the scanty pittance that has usually been doled out for the advancement of mind, or the melioration of character, bear testimony to the truth of the assertion. What, on the contrary, might be the state of man, were the physical improvements at which he has now arrived, but the 'lower works' of his creative energies the external means of facilitating the attainment of higher forms of character, by contracting the time, and abridging the labor hitherto devoted to the provision for real or imaginary wants!

The prevalent neglect of the liberal arts, in present systems and modes of education, leaves us destitute of one great counteracting force, by which the degenerating tendencies of mind might be resisted. Man inevitably sinks, when he neglects the culture of those arts which embody the workings of his whole nature, and impart life and unity to his aspirations after whatever is higher and better than the present. No degree of civilization, no pitch of artificial refinement, can compensate for the absence of those primary impulses of our constitution, which interpret its inner laws, and to which the fine arts, in general, so intelligently and faithfully respond. But none of these arts is so indispensable to human progress, as that of expression, whether oral or written, poetic or prosaic, in form. The essence, indeed, of all the fine arts, is expression the embodying of thought and feeling, by that wondrous, and as yet, ill-defined power, which traverses and connects the external and the internal sources of conception, and to which is assigned the office of evoking the image of every impression enstamped, whether from within or from without, upon the human soul.

Cultivating this art which, unlike the processes of mere intellect, embraces the unity of his constitution, and concentrates all its powers, man must necessarily ascend in the scale of character. The understanding, the memory, and all other recipient faculties. may be exercised in high perfection, while the vital powers of the soul remain inactive and inorbid. Not so with the forms of mental action, which create expression: these elicit feeling, incite imagination, and vivify the intellect. Expression, as an art, is, at its very lowest power, a step upward from the material, or rather, through the material to the spiritual. It tends to the beautiful and the sublime, in the moral, not less than the intellectual and the physical; and, in all its higher efforts, it is so manifestly impelled by a breath of inspiration, and reveals so clearly an internal power, that it necessarily sheds a spiritual light. This noble office it fulfills, when cultivated in modes analogous to its own nature, or rather, to that of man himself; and when such effects do not result from its

1834.]

Mistakes in its Cultivation.

153

cultivation, the blame is to be laid on defective modes of discipline, and not on the inadequacy of the art itself to produce these effects. But what relation is there between such an art, and the process of reciting from a formal and pedantic treatise on rhetoric; of being exercised on common places, or drilled on vocal inflections and prescribed lines of gesture and attitude? The young mind might, it is true, rise above the deadening influence of these soulless operations; or, if felicitous in imagination, might even succeed in wringing from them a grace of art, were the internal sources of expression supplied. But towards this effect, education contributes nothing. The student has his head well stored with knowledge, his memory replete with ideas of the understanding; but his heart has not been stirred, nor his imagination impressed; and he is commanded to give utterance to thought, without ever having been placed under the experience of those quickening pains and pleasures of feeling, which compel expression, and without having been indulged in the contemplation of those forms of nature and of art, which would elicit his unconscious yet eloquent admiration, and invest him with the full power of glowing expression, ere he was

aware.

The adequate cultivation of language, as of every other expressive art, demands that the whole nature of the human being be early and effectually trained to it. The discipline of intellect will, no doubt, contribute to the desired end; but it is utterly incompetent for the full effect to be produced. It is, indeed, of less importance in this than in any other branch of mental culture. To attain expressive power, the affections must be exposed to strong and deep yet salutary impressions; the heart must be impelled, the will quickened, the imagination enkindled, the emotions powerfully excited, the fancy enriched by all forms of exterior beauty. Fertility, life, and creative power, having been thus imparted, the pliant season of childhood and youth must be moulded by genial methods, to those ideal and impassioned forms of habit, which render true, rich, strong, and vivid expression the spontaneous function of the man. Education, if so directed, will cease to convey a dead letter, instead of infusing a quickening spirit.

It is in vain that we expect expressive power of individuals or of communities that have not been subjected to the discipline of empassioned emotion, and surrounded by grandeur in the features of nature, or perfection in the products of art. Nor is this discipline at all incompatible with the moral unity of man. There is a

salutary agitation of our nature implied in all the severer forms of human experience. There are provisions, alike in our constitution and our condition, for a profound and beautiful troubling of the

154

Superior Advantages of the Christian. [April,

waters; and the angel has express commission to descend, on his renovating office, at appointed intervals.

Did the force of feeling, or the vividness of imagination, or the intensely exciting influence of circumstances, to which the young Greek or Roman was early habituated, impair the vigor of his constitution, either physical or mental? What then might we not expect of the young Christian aspirant after immortality, for whose spiritual nature so magnificent provision has been expressly made, in a revelation addressed to the primal and commanding principles of conscience, faith and love? What are all the cherishing influences of nature or of art, in comparison with that emanating from the divine source of his spiritual life? What form of mental character ought to be so rich, so noble, so pure, so fraught with all the finest elements of expression, as his? What can more deeply penetrate humanity, than the motives of his daily life? What can more exalt it? What can transcend the glory of that future, which his imagination depicts, and his faith realizes? What an inexhaustible treasury of mental resource is implied in his spiritual vision! Yet how unjust is education to this favored being how it paralyzes and impoverishes him! Not one of these sources of inspiration is he early and habitually led up to, that he may imbibe its invigorating and purifying stream, to prepare him for efforts worthy of his nature and its opportunities. As if to quell his ingenuous aspirations, the guides of his youth coldly assure him that the era of primitive mental power is elapsed; and as for expression, he may account himself fortunate if, haply, as the reward of his utmost exertions in striving after the great models of the past, he succeed in catching something of a dim resemblance to their manner. It may be that effort is even discouraged, and ultimately abandoned, on the plea that the purer style of thought to which the genius of modern life inclines, needs not the laborious cultivation of expression, enjoined in ancient discipline; as if that the universal diffusion of intelligence renders the influence of emotion and imagination unnecessary for the production of mental effect

as if eloquence were not a purely moral effect; - as if questions of right and wrong, of truth and duty, of patriotism and selfdevotion, of justice and humanity, of the good and the beautiful, any light could be shed by a more general knowledge of chemistry, mechanics, or astronomy.

Enough has been said to call forth an inquiry into some of the defects of education as it regards this subject. We can only mention one of the most obvious, at present.

Those powers and faculties of man, which constitute him a social and communicative being, suffer, in common with all other parts of his nature, from the sedentary habits of modern life. The modes

1834.]

Effects of Sedentary Habits.

155

and character of expression are most intimately connected with the condition of the physical frame. The latter may be, and too generally is, kept, through the habitual neglect of invigorating measures, at too low an ebb for natural, energetic, or vivid expression. A feeble condition of the organic frame, and a consequent imperfection in its functions, have, in their degree, the same effect with actual sickness, in quelling activity and communication. They produce a suspension of sympathetic intercourse, by deadening the interest felt in external relations, and throwing the attention inward upon the morbid sensations arising from impaired vitality. The tendency of the modern student to habits of seclusion and reserve, to the deadness of sympathy, and consequent inefficiency in communication, is owing, in no slight degree, to the absence of enlivening, physical action, one of the main springs of energetic and impressive character. The formation of morbid habits commences even in infancy, and their confirmation is aided by that continual deterioration of health, which necessarily accompanies the perpetually extending requisitions of study, in the course of education. The individual who began his scholastic career with the comparative advantage of three or four hours' recreation a day, closes the critical period of adolesence with the allowance of exercise afforded by his walk, twice a day, to and from the lecture room. infatuation can exceed that of expecting from this lifeless mechanical being, the attributes of living, eloquent expression, or even of forcible conception or effective diction? Expression, like all other forms of communication, implies that the mind has passed from the negative and the passive, to the positive and the active states. Language, whether oral or written, is a mode of action; and whatever impairs or relaxes activity, quenches expression.

What

The claims of health on the attention of the studious have, of late years, been enforced with the impressiveness which their vast importance merits, by the sanction of professional authority. Improvements have been effected, also, in some particulars of great moment to the health of childhood and youth, during the progress of education. But nothing adequate to the demands of the human constitution, has yet been attempted ; and, certainly, nothing adequate to the cherishing and quickening of those powers which are peculiarly dependent on the condition of the vital functions. A pining and drooping organization affords no possibility of expressive force and life. Nor can the modes of communication ever rise above a barely tolerable mediocrity, or a mere artificial excellence, without the thrilling impulse of pure and vivid health. The stream of feeling must be full to overflowing, in order to impart to thought an effective force, or a wide diffusion.