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296

Education on Right Principles.

tellects, as the necessary consequence of having feeble bodies, but in spite of these bodies. We believe, moreover, that these giant intellects, procured at the expense of health, and attended by ruined bodies, are diseased intellects. We believe in the sound mind in the sound body; and in that alone. All development which is not harmonious, we believe to be unhealthy development; and whether it be the mind or the heart-the intellect or the affections—that is carried in advance of the physical frame, the results are greatly disastrous. It cannot be otherwise than that the Creator has decreed to a being whose whole powers of body, head and heart are cultivated simultaneously and harmoniously, the best and happiest combination of health, knowledge and excellence; and that in proportion as either of these great departments of the being we call man, is over educated or under educated, the whole must suffer the consequenFor whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it,' is scarcely less the deduction of observation and experience, than the voice of revelation.

ces.

It is not a healthy, muscular development, however, at which Richerand and those who entertain the same sentiments, principally aim. It is a state of fulness rather; a state, which after all, is quite at variance with perfect health. There is a very general error in regard to this point, into which, as it seems, scientific men sometimes fall. They have associated the idea of perfect health, almost without exception, with individuals who have passed beyond the line of health, to a greater or less degree of plethora, which is disease. In this state, plump and rosy faced as men look, and active in body and mind as they sometimes may seem, for a time-for they are living at the expense of life, and seldom hold out very well-they are not remarkable for their intellectual strength. But it is in this diseased state, that men have been so often compared with those of the other extreme-men of emaciation and muscular debility, but of refined and speculative and often highly cultivated mindsand in which the former appear to so much disadvantage.

Could we see men educated on right principles, without either the inertia or the ambition of the schools; could we see the mind, heart and body cultivated in due proportion to each other, so as to form healthy and perfect men, instead of those monsters we now every where observe: and could this course be successfully pursued through a series of generations, we have not the remotest doubt-nay, we deem it an impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of Deity to think otherwise, -that the old notion of a natural incompatibility between strength of intellect and a reasonable muscular development

Fancied Moral Exaltation.

297

would pass away; and the doctrine which reason and phylosophy and revelation have always taught of the 'sound mind in the sound body,' and in that alone, would come to be as fashionable a truth, as the contrary is at present a fashionable error. These views are far from being the result of mere speculation; they are the legitimate deductions of observation and experience. Acquaint yourself with some of these great men, these giantsmonsters rather-in intellect; and you will find them perfect children in some things, not to say imbecile. You will, to your probable astonishment, find them in the most profound ignorance in regard to many of the more common, and some of the more important concerns of life. Though they will carry you, by their occasional eloquence or profoundness of philosophy, beyond the highest range of ordinary thought, leaving all things terrestrial beneath your feet, they will on some subjects, only involve you, perhaps themselves, in the mazes of darkness or skepticism. They can scan the Creator with eagle eye, while often they know not themselves, nor perceive their most obvious faults. They talk of the folly of bigotry and superstition and credulity, and of the godlike character of human reason, and yet, on some points are the completest victims of what they condemn-credulous and superstitious in the extreme. At one time they can tell us of the purity and divinity of our natures, and of the imperfection of human reason; at another, they can enthrone reason and put down instinct; and at another still, show most clearly, by their conduct and language, that come of the abstract perfection of reason or instinct what may, in them the development of the former, in any practical or useful direction, has been but feeble, and all true progress has been and still is, embarrassed and vacillating.

When this state of mind-this moral exaltation, as we are disposed to call it-is found in ministers, and it is in mistaken or pseudo divines that we have as often found it as any where, it produces a most unfortunate compound of character: almost beyond example without hope. They see because they are sure they see, and are pure because they are pure. They have, in the language of Locke, cantoned out to themselves a little Goshen, while all without is Egyptian darkness. We say again that the condition of such men-so self exalted-is all but without hope; and however the world may honor them, as possessing giant intellects, or bow down to them as the lights of their age, -the exalted of the earth-they are really, in the end, the stumbling blocks of society. They may talk of their own moral growth and progress, and of the tendency of their own sentiments to advance social and spiritual progress, and may take to themselves

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Manual Labor Schools.

the importance of the fly on the wheel, supposing they are the fortunate and sole movers of what only moves in spite of them; they may fit their little day, and be enshrined in marble at last, and yet the mass of the breathing, moving, practical world, will go on in nearly the same beaten track, and will be in nearly the same condition a thousand years hence, as if they had never been.

Against a ministerial education which tends to this, we most earnestly protest, as we have no doubt Mr C. would. And yet will he say this is not the legitimate tendency of an education purely intellectual? Is it not also the tendency of an education purely intellectual and moral? Is it not the tendency of any education which leaves out of view, in its practical results, man's physical development and physical nature? And are not the fashionable speculative theological errors of our day, and of all days and times, the results, directly or indirectly, of this unnatural, this one-sided sort of education?

We think it not improbable, that those who, in spite of what has been said within the last ten or twelve years, of the importance of physical education, for moral ends, still remain skeptical, have been confirmed in their skepticism, by a short sighted view of the results of manual labor schools. They do not perceive so much good produced by these schools, as many suppose; nay, they even fancy they see great reason for deciding on their inefficiency.

But the truth is, that like the fashionable 'exalted,' we have spoken of above, they do not see correctly. They see either with jaundiced eyes, or through bad glasses.

In the first place, we have not had time in this country, to trace the effects of physical exercise at these schools, on those who have employed it. We act not wisely when we sow the seeds of physical and moral character, especially the former, in the expectation of reaping a crop the same day. The intelligent husbandman hath 'long patience.' No young man bred in any of our United States' manual labor schools, has yet lived long enough to exhibit, in his own person, the practical results.

But in the second place, the United States have had, as yet, so far as we know, no manual labor schools conducted on right principles. There certainly have been none such for the benefit of young men destined to enter the ministry. Where manual labor has been connected with our institutions, its legitimate objects have seldom been rightly understood, even by teachers themselves; much less so by their pupils or students. Manual labor schools must fail to answer the ends at which they ought always to aim, when they are not conducted and understood to

Signs of the Times.

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be conducted as a means, primarily, of promoting the health and morals and usefulness of those who attend them.

Manual labor schools always fail of accomplishing their legitimate purposes, when labor is not made respectable, (and this can only be done, when the teachers, as a general rule, labor with the pupils ;) when it is used as a means of defraying expenses, rather than of promoting health, morals and happiness; and when it is not persevered in. We have no objection to the custom of allowing the avails of each pupil's labor, at a reasonable rate, to be applied to diminish his expenses; it should be So. But to labor with the view, principally, of defraying expenses, and thus make labor and its avails a primary concern, and study only a secondary matter, is destructive to the whole system of manual labor in schools; and though it could be proved that even on this principle, more intellectual progress were made at some particular school, the final consequences must be deplorable.

We do not believe one boy or young man in ten, can be taken from the farm-and this is the place whence it is desirable he should be taken-and carried through the course of study to which the young minister is usually subjected, and hurried into the ministry under the age of twenty five years, without ultimately losing his health, unless his studies are accompanied by several hours' active exercise daily, in the open air. And of all kinds of active exercise, that of the farm and garden is decidedly the best, and must forever be found so. We are ready to grant that the necessity of out of door exercise is less imperative where the student has led a sedentary life from the first. In other words, a certain smaller measure of health can be maintained in the studies and duties of the ministry, with the aid of a smaller measure of active exercise afterwards, when one has never been trained to it. But it must also be remembered, that such men, trained in band boxes, as it were, seldom, if ever, make firm, efficient, successful pastors, until they change their whole habits. They never make men of Galilee; still less does any of them ever become a Boanerges. The men of Galileethe man, too, of Tarsus, we venture to say it had muscle as well as brain and nerves. The doctrine of an incompatibility between a healthy muscular development and strength of intellect, would never have been drawn from the observation of such men. It must have had its origin in a state of society where ministers were too often the pale faced, inefficient individuals they sometimes are, in our own days, and in our own country.

There are, however, cheering indications in the signs of the times on this subject. There is a growing belief-we rejoice

300

Mistakes of a Correspondent.

that it is so that all our ministers ought to use from two to four hours of agricultural or horticultural exercise, every day, during the summer, and some sort of exercise in the open air, at all times and seasons. The Christian Watchman and Zion's Herald, both of this city, have contained, from time to time, articles which had this bearing; and we have seen essays on the subject from various quarters. We do hope, most ardently, as well as believe most sincerely, that the day is not distant when no professor in our literary institutions will be found making the narrow, meagre statement, that 'a proper education for a minister of Christ,'' should be such as will, at the same time give him the most perfect command of his mental powers, and furnish him with the largest amount of useful knowledge.'

BOSTON PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

[We are under much obligation to the individual who has furnished us with the following article for our pages; and who has labored so zealously to set us right, in regard to supposed errors. We have-as we trust the writer of that article has-but one object; which is to make known the truth. We have no prejudices--how can we have?-against the Boston Primary Schools; and in so far as our own statements were incorrect, we are truly glad to have them corrected. Yet, after all, we wish our correspondent could have found a more pleasing task than that of attempting to exonerate the School Committee, in regard to their school hours, and complain of the City Government. We had hoped, when we began to peruse the article, that he was going to prove, or at least attempt to prove, that our statements in regard to the condition of the schools were themselves erroneous; instead of confirming those statements, or at least substantially doing so by his own confessions. That the Boston Primary School Houses, are, in many instances, and in many respects, sadly deficient, is beyond debate. We are glad so much has been done, in relation not only to them, but for the improvement of school books, and for the advancement of morals. Yet, after all, we are more confirmed than we were before we received the following article, in the belief that the primary school system of Boston, though better than nothing, great y needs reform; and we are sorry to have good men so zealously opposed, as many seem to be, to its improvement. The facts before us, while they show that something was done in regard

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