Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Why train generation after generation to circumscribe their vision to the scenes of their childhood? Why appeal continually to motives, which do not become us, motives either entirely false, or partial and degrading? Why assume, at the outset, in our systems of education, that there is something better to be held up to the view of youth than the truth and the whole truth, in relation to their condition and prospects? Why take it for granted, that God, who has adapted the mind to the theatre, in which it is to exist and act, has not so made it as to render the real circumstances, in which it is placed, the most efficient and most suitable motives to its exertion and development? It should be considered, that by employing a meaner incentive to action, we, in fact exclude the influence of nobler motives. When we appeal to pride, or avarice, we preclude the operation of patriotism, or benevolence, we preoccupy the ground. Rewards addressed to the ambition of the student, for example, take the place of the higher motives addressed to his conscience, to his love of letters, to his love of God.

Is there not something preposterous in the idea of opening the heart to virtuous and benevolent affections, by constantly addressing, and thus exercising, the selfish and wrong sensibilities? How are dormant principles of our nature ever to be awakened? Certainly not by neglecting to appeal to them, by suffering them to slumber. We might as reasonably hope to recover the strength of an enfeebled limb by entirely disusing it. The bad passions of a child are cultivated by presenting occasions of indulging them. His better feelings are strengthened in the same way.

The great precept of education should be to make use of all the means we have to bring out the best feelings, the best mental action, it should be to press upon the attention those objects, and those only, which naturally cherish and strengthen these feelings. The best feelings are, of course, the feelings, which most become our true condition; and the objects, which naturally produce these feelings are the objects, which make that condition what it is; the objects, with which we stand connected as intelligent, moral, social, immortal beings. Any view of life, which overlooks important relations of the human mind, especially its all important spiritual and eternal relations, is something less, infinitely less, than the truth, and cannot be wisely, or safely, made the foundation of a system of education. In this view, it is worthy of serious consideration, how far the

rewards held out to diligence and success in study, are justified by a truly christian philosophy. The practice of appealing to emulation, the pride of superiority, has, it is true, been encouraged by the approbation of nearly all the great and good men, who have had the conduct of our institutions of learning. It is but carrying the motives which stimulate men in real life, into the scenes of academical instruction. But, though it may be true, that, in so doing, we are only applying the incentives to literary enterprise and industry, by which most of the energy and perfection of talent in the world are produced, may it not, nevertheless, be wrong? Ought the conductors of education to take for granted, that men are, in fact, actuated by the best principles, in real life? Do we not, on the contrary, feel assured, that nothing is so desirable as the production of a higher and purer ambition in the leading members of society? That nothing is so important to the present generation, and to posterity, as the prevalence of christian motives among literary men, the sanctification, we may say, of genius? To train up a child in the way those, who have already become men, actually go, is not to follow the counsels of divine wisdom, nor to improve mankind.

So long as men are educated to make money merely, to attain to office, to distinguish themselves, they may indeed be taught to do these things. But they are neither of them, nor all together, the end of life. And in being made ends at all, they necessarily take the place of the true and higher objects of our being. Under such a system of motives the very best character cannot be produced. And though the pupil may be told, that there are higher, purer, nobler objects, of what avail can it be, so long as he is really induced to exert himself, and that too, by the very same instructor, for entirely different and even opposite ends? What must a child think of the consistency or sincerity of the parent, who calls on him to glorify God, or do good to men, in an act, which, at the very same time he urges by an appeal to the love of praise, or the fear of the lash?

It is not pretended, that this subject is clear of embarrassments. It is not doubted, that inferior motives may be employed to strengthen the superior ones. The splendor of the Jewish ritual, was doubtless intended to attract men to the worship of Jehovah, and to attach them to that worship, though ever so great veneration for the temple and its service, was not devotion to God. Filial obedience may be enforced by the rod, when other considerations fail to secure it. Right action,

in the absence of right motive, is better than no action; because habits of acting right have a natural tendency to produce habits of feeling right, just as habits of feeling right produce right action. There is a reciprocal influence between feeling and action, between mind and body. A child compelled to obey, is more likely afterwards to obey from choice than if left to disobey. A man induced to worship God, in form, by the attractions of the place of worship, is more likely afterwards to worship God, in truth, than if he had neither worshipped in spirit, nor in form, before.

Yet, it is certainly reasonable to suppose, it must be admitted as a great principle, that men are to be prepared for future life, and for eternity, by keeping life and eternity before them. To assert, that such views cannot be expected to affect young minds, is to determine, a priori, a question not yet well settled by fair experiment. What seminary has duly tried it? Suppose the attempt should not, in all cases, succeed. Grant, that in a majority of cases even, it must fail. On how large a portion of young men, have the rewards, now offered to industry, any decidedly useful effect? What numbers, distinguished at college, go out, on leaving their alma mater like a taper in bad air! Who afterwards hears of a large part of those, who graduate with the highest honors of their class? The love of letters never dies; the zeal of benevolence is imperishable; the industry of love is patient, unto death. Instead, then, of treating things which we feel to be above all important, with comparative neglect, let the experiment be made of assuming, at once, and always, that a child, or a youth will feel most what is most worthy to be felt. Let us not fear to show him what God has made him, and for what God has made him.

It seems to the writer, that even if we would, we cannot now forego the advantages of a strictly religious education. It is too late. There is nothing else left to lean upon. The old foundations are broken up. Old institutions, and customs, and prejudices, are dead. There is little reverence for authority, or age, or forms. The day has come, in which there seems to be no medium between force and persuasion. Usage, habit, once held a sort of middle place between power and conviction. It is so no longer. Constitutions and laws have no influence, now, any further than they are regarded from the force of feelings and principles of action, which may be almost said to render law unnecessary. All the devices of men have failed. It

remains to make experiment of divine truth. We seem driven to rely, as our last hope, on the power of the gospel of Christ. If we find here a conservative principle, well; if not, there is none any where. The restless, licentious spirit, the spirit of selfishness and indulgence, which infects society, and burns unsmothered in the bosoms of our young men especially, in all the villages and towns of New England, and still more, in other parts of the land, threatens to involve every thing dear to us in ruin.

The nation seems to have at length arisen, and the time arrived, in which Christianity is to wage an open war with the giant power of unchained sin. She has contended with kings, and overcome them. She has assailed the institutions of ages, and overturned them. She has fought with superstition and barbarism, and they fled before her. She has been training herself for another, and the last conflict, the conflict with unsanctified liberty. Here, in free America, is the field of this war. On the one side is divine truth, unincumbered with establishments and forms, in its intelligence and simplicity, confident in itself, and full of faith in God; on the other, the fierce democracy of mind, in its pride, scorning alike the opinions of men and the authority of Jehovah. Terrible will be the struggle; and it may be, victory, for a long time, doubtful. But when this triumph of truth is achieved, it will be final and eternal. Liberty will then pay homage to religion, and both bow down together before God.

ARTICLE III.

ON THE STUDY OF LANGUAGES AS A MEANS OF INTELLECTUAL

CULTURE.

By Robert B. Patton, Professor of Greek Literature in the University of New York.

around, and beneath us, a mystery to the past, a probably, to awaken and

In the midst of wonders, above, stands the inexplicable being man, mystery to the present, and destined, baffle curiosity until the end of time. His anatomy;- what a field for research! His physiology;

- what a labyrinth! His complicated relations to his fellowcreatures and to his Creator;-what a perplexing maze! His feeble origin, his feverish existence, and his sure decay; his lofty aspirations, and his grovelling propensities; his fearful responsibilities and his eternal destiny; what a theme for the grasp of a gigantic intellect !

How eloquent, then, is the exclamation of the psalmist: "I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;" and the touching apostrophe which the prince of uninspired poets puts into the mouth of his contemplative and melancholy Hamlet: "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust ?"

[ocr errors]

Among the objects of interest furnished by the analysis of man, his capacity for language stands forth in bold relief. It is this faculty of language, whether we trace it to a mental or an organic superiority this power of employing articulate sounds, or their written representatives, as the vehicle of thought and emotion, that distinguishes man from every order of the brute creation; that gives efficient support and unbounded scope to his reasoning powers; perpetuates from generation to generation his knowledge and intellectual culture; and enables mind to act on mind with a reciprocal and ever augmenting energy.

Science, knowledge, and philosophy, regarded as the intellectual condition of man at any point of his existence, — the connected and digested whole, that moves onward with ever increasing momentum, from age to age, regardless of the generations of thinking beings that successively arise and flourish and decay, could have no real existence, and would prove but "the baseless fabric of a vision," without the fostering aid of connected and imperishable discourse. Reason itself, which the discriminating Greek so beautifully identifies with discourse, by employing the same term, "lóyos," to designate both, -embracing both the ratio and the oratio of the Latin,—is mainly indebted, for its high degree of cultivation, to the existence and use of language. But like the element that forms our daily beverage, so munificently provided; or the noiseless but invigorating influences of the atmosphere we breathe; or the gentle and uninterrupted flow of pleasurable emotions that accom

« AnteriorContinuar »