THE PRINCIPLES

OF

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

CHAP. I.

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS-DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT-OBJECTS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION-OBJECTS OF MORAL EDUCA

TION.

Of all the duties which man is enjoined to perform, during the period of his probationary existence, none is more important than the education of his offspring; comprehending, under this term, what indeed should never be disunited:-all which concerns the development and perfection of his animal powers, as well as of those functions which relate to his high destiny, as a rational and immortal being. Yet, perhaps, there is no one pursuit, in which a greater number of mistakes are daily and hourly committed ;-none over which prejudice exerts a more baneful influence, or which is more frequently rendered unsuccessful from a misapprehension of its proper objects, and of the

means by which they are to be realized. This unfortunate result commonly arises from a forgetfulness of those first principles, by a steady and uniform adherence to which, success can alone be attained: and by the omission of which education is lowered to a series of disconnected impulses, and leaves its subject to become the sport of principles without an object :-of feelings, emotions, and passions, uncorrected, and without design.

Man is a complex being; possessed, in common with the superior animals, of a nicely contrived body, whose several organs are most exquisitely adapted to their variety of function; and endowed, like them, in a greater or less degree, with instincts, appetites, and passions; but distinguished from all around him, by the faculty of speech, the gift of reason, the possession of that high intelligence, which teaches him that he is destined to live for ever; and that he has an immortal spirit which will survive the wreck of nature, and will retain its present capacities of suffering and enjoyment.

This spirit is incorporeal and immaterial :it is indestructible and unchangeable. Its boundaries admit not of being defined, and we can form no conception of its essence. The only mode of acquaintance with its nature is from the manifestation of its attributes. These manifestations are made known to us,

through the medium of the brain; and can be alone carried to their highest degree of present perfection, by raising the tone of that important organ, and inducing the greatest possible aptitude for the performance of its infinitely diversified operations.

Yet the brain is not mind, but only the material organ through which the agency of the spiritual and immaterial principle is rendered cognizable, and available for the daily purposes of life.

This is an important principle, and deserves a moment's longer consideration; since there are those who may be startled on the very threshold of our undertaking, by what they may be induced to call a physiological subtlety, and which prejudice may denounce as bordering on materialism. The charge of materialism will, however, rest on those who represent the mind as susceptible of growth in infancy; of development during adolescence; of attaining its full energies in the period of manhood; as liable to decay in common with the failure of the animal powers towards the decline of life; as obscured and enfeebled by disease; as having its functions destroyed by a variety of accidents; and may we not add, as annihilated by death?-for if the spiritual principle be thus exposed to the same natural and morbid changes which act upon the body, what ground

have we for supposing that the last is not a final change; or that the mental manifestations have had any higher origin, than that which results from the principle of life, and the influence of its harmony upon the healthy play of the several organs of the body?

Its

But no! the spiritual principle of man,-the divinity that stirs within him, continues always the same, and suffers no change from the varying circumstances of organization. manifestations may, indeed, be fettered by the material medium through which they are conveyed; and thus we can understand, at once, why those manifestations should be feeble in early infancy; why they should become defined as the brain is developed; should be energetic as it approaches its highest state of perfection; and should be obtuse in the decrepitude of advancing age: we can understand how those manifestations are entirely precluded in the idiot; how they remain suspended during sleep; are rendered uncertain and vague by disease; are distorted in insanity; and altogether cease at the period of dissolution. This principle, then, is immaterial; its apparent changes are only indicative of the several alterations which take place in its organ, the brain: from all these, it rises identically the same; and when it has escaped, at death, from its prison-house, the body, it returns to God who gave it.