FEMALE EDUCATION—INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.
BY REV. S.W. FISHER.
Let us now enter upon the second part of the field of education, the training of the intellect. It is obvious that we have in this, a much higher subject to deal with than that on which we have just dwelt. The physical form in a few years develops itself, and soon reaches its utmost limits of growth. It is then an instrument whose powers we seek to maintain but cannot increase. As time advances, indeed, those powers gradually yield to the influence of disease or age, until the senses begin to neglect their office, the brain declines in vigor, while the tongue, the eye, the hand, forget their accustomed work in the imbecility wrought by the approach of death. But no such limitation is manifest to us in the growth and future life of the intellect. Dependent upon the body for a healthful home in this world, and so far limited by the conditions of mortality, it yet seems to have in itself no absolute limitation bounding its prospective and possible attainments, save as the finite never can fully attain to the infinite. Granting it a congenial home, a fitting position, with full opportunity for progress, and there is scarcely a height this side infinity which in the ascent of ages it seems not capable of reaching. All creatures are finite, and as such, limited; but the horizon around the soul is so amazingly expansive, and the capacities of the mind for progress so immense, that to us, in our present state, it is almost as if there were no limitations at all.
The power of the intellect to acquire facts and relations, and from them to ascend to the laws which control; its power to advance in a daily ascending path into the region of intuition, where masses of things, once isolated or chaotic, range themselves into harmony, and move in numbers most musical; its power thus to rise into an enlarging vision of truths now latent, and behold directly laws, relations and facts which once evaded the sight, or were only seen dimly and after great toil, it is utterly beyond our sphere to limit. We know that what to us in childhood was a mystery, is now simple; that some of the grandest laws of the material world which a few years back were reached only after stupendous labor, are now become intuitive truths; and we can see no reason why the human mind is not capacitated for just such advances eternally; at every ascent sweeping its vision over a broader range of truth, and rising ever nearer that Omniscient Intellect to which all things open. The instinct and imperfect reason of the noblest brutes, are here in marked contrast to the mind of man. They reach the limit of knowledge with the ripening of their physical frame; a limit which no training, however protracted and ingenious, can overpass; which never varies, except as a cord drawn round a center may vary, by being enlarged on the one side and contracted on the other; and which prepares them without the acquisition of a particle of superfluous intelligence for their brute life as the servitors of man. While his mind, never wholly stationary for a long period, has capacities for development that seem to spurn a merely sensual life, and lift the spirit to a companionship with angels; which, instead of resting satisfied with the mere demands of the body, seeks to penetrate the deep springs of life, discern the exquisite organism of an insect's wing, measure the stars, and analyze the light that reveals them.
Possessing an intellect of so fine a nature, it is not to be questioned that, according to our opportunities, it is incumbent on us to carry forward its improvement from childhood to hoary age. A power like this, of indefinite expansion, in directions surpassingly noble, among subjects infinitely grand, has been conferred that it might be expanded, and go on expanding in an eternal progression; that it might sweep far beyond its present horizon and firmament, where the stars now shining above us, shall become the jeweled pavement beneath us, while above still roll other spheres of knowledge, destined in like manner to descend below us as the trophies of our victorious progress.
To bury such an intellect as this in the commonplaces of a life of mere sense; to confine it to the narrow circle of a brute instinct and reason; to live in such a world, with the infinite mind of Jehovah looking at us from all natural forms, breathing around us in all tones of music, shining upon us from all the host of heaven, and soliciting us to launch away into an atmosphere of knowledge and ascend to an acquaintance with the great First Cause, even as the bird challenges the fledgling to leave its nest, and be at home on the wing; to live amid such incitements to thought, yet never lift the eyes from the dull round of physical necessities, is treason toward our higher nature, the voluntary defacement of the grandest characteristic of our being. The education of the intellect is not a question to be debated with men who have the slightest appreciation of their noble capacities. The obligation to improve it is commensurate with its susceptibility of advancement and our opportunities. It is not limited to a few years in early life, it presses on us still in manhood and declining age. Such is a general statement of the duty of intellectual improvement.
In the actual education of the mind, our course will necessarily be modified by the ultimate objects at which we aim. Properly these are twofold—the first general, the second specific. The first embraces the general training of our intellectual powers, with direct reference to the high spiritual life here and hereafter. We place before us that state of immortality to which the present stands in the relation of a portico to a vast temple. The intellect is itself destined to survive the body, and as the instrument through which the heart is to be disciplined and fitted for this condition of exalted humanity, is to be informed with all that truth most essential for this purpose. Whatever there be in the heavens or the earth—in books or works of men, to discipline, enlarge and exalt the mind, to that we shall be attracted. A right heart breathes in an atmosphere of truth; it grows and rejoices in communion with all the light that shines upon it from the works or word of God. All truth, indeed, is not of the same importance. There is that which is primary and essential; there is that which adds to the completeness, without going to the foundation of character. The truths that enter a well cultivated mind, animated by right sentiments, will arrange themselves by a natural law in the relative positions they hold as the exponents of the character of God, and the means more or less adapted to promote the purity and elevation of man. All truth is of God; yet it is not all of equal value as an educational influence. There are different circles—some central, some remote. The crystals of the rock, the stratification of the globe, and the facts of a like character, will fill an outer circle, as beautiful, or skillful, or wonderful, in the demonstration of divine powers, but not so in themselves unfolding the highest attributes of God. The architecture of animate nature, the processes of vegetable life, the composition of the atmosphere, the clouds and the water, will range themselves in another circle, within the former, and gradually blending with it, as the manifestations of the wisdom and benificence of God. Then the unfoldings of his moral character in the government of nations, in the facts of history, and in the general revelation of himself in the Scriptures, will constitute another band of truth concentric with the others, yet brighter and nearer the center. While at length in the cross and person of Christ—in the system of redemption, and all the great facts which it embodies, we behold the innermost circle that, sweeping round Jehovah as its center, reflects the light of his being, most luminously upon the universe. Such is obviously the relative order of the truth we seek to know. It is the different manifestations of God, ascending from the lowest attributes of divinity, to those which constitute a character worthy the homage and love of all beings. Now, as it is the great object of life to know God and enjoy him, so in education we are to keep this steadily in view, and follow the order of procedure for the attainment of it which God has himself established. To spend the life or the years of youth on the study of rocks and crystals, to the neglect of the higher moral truths which lie within their circle, is unpardonable folly—a folly not to be redeemed by the fact that such knowledge is a partial unfolding of God to man. It is little better than studying the costume to the neglect of the person—than the examination of the frame to the neglect of the master-piece of a Raphael inclosed within it—than the criticism of a single window to the neglect of the glorious dome of St. Peter's—than viewing the rapids to the neglect of the mighty fall of Niagara. In education, the observance of this natural order of truth will bring us, at length, to that which fills the outer circle, and thus all the kinds of knowledge will receive a just attention. Indeed, the study of the one naturally leads us to the other. We shall pass from the inner to the outer lines of truth, and back again, learning all the while this important lesson, that the study of the more remote class of truths is designed to conduct us to a more perfect appreciation of that which is moral, religious, central and saving; while the study of the higher parts of revelation will show us that the former come in to finish and perfect the latter. We do not despise the frieze—the architrave—the cornice—the spires, and the other ornaments of the temple, because we regard as most essential the foundation, the corner stone, the walls and the roofing; but in due time we seek to impart to our edifice not only strength and security, but the beauty of the noblest and richest adornment. According to our means, and as the necessities of life will permit, we shall seek for knowledge from all its various spheres, and despise nothing that God has thought worthy of his creative power or supporting energy.
Now this large course of education in obedience to its first great object, is not limited by anything in itself or in us, to a particular class of individuals. It is the common path along which all intelligent beings are to pass. The object to which it conducts is before us all, and common to all. It is not divided into departments for separate classes. Woman, as well as man, has an interest in it, and an obligation to seek for it, just as binding as that which rests on him. All souls are equal, and though intellects may vary, yet the pursuit of truth for the exaltation of the soul is common to all. As this obligation to unfold the powers of the intellect, that we may grasp the truth, is primary, taking precedence of other objects—since all duty is based on knowledge, and all love and worship, and right action on the intelligence and apprehension of God—so education, which in this department is but the development of our capacity, preparing us to pursue the truth, and master the difficulties which frown us away from its attainment, rises into a duty the most imperative upon all rational beings. The same path here stretches onward before both sexes, the same motives impel them, the same objects are presented to them, the same obligations rest upon them. Neither youth nor age—neither man nor woman, can here make a limitation that shall confine one sex to a narrow corner—an acre of this broad world of intelligence—and leave the other free to roam at large among all sciences. Whatever it is truly healthful for the heart of man to know, whatever befits his spiritual nature and immortal destiny, that is just as open to the mind of woman, and just as consistent with her nature. To deny this abstract truth, we must either affirm the sentiment falsely ascribed to Mahomet, although harmonizing well enough with his faith in general, that women have no souls; or take the ground that truth in this, its widest extent, is not as essential to their highest welfare as it is to ours; or assert, that possessing inferior intellects, they are incapable of deriving advantage from the general pursuit of knowledge, and therefore must be confined to a few primary truths, of which man is to be the judge. The first supposition we leave with the fanaticism that may have given it birth, and with which it so well harmonizes; the second we surrender to those atheistic fools and swindling politicians who can see no excellence in knowledge, save as it may minister to their sensual natures, or assist them to cajole the people; while the man who maintains the third, we would recommend to a court of Ladies, with Queen Elizabeth as judge, Madame de Stael as prosecuting attorney, and Hannah More, Mrs. Hemans, and other bright spirits of the same sex, as jury.
I have dwelt thus at length on the first and most general object before us in the pursuit of knowledge, because it is really of the highest and noblest education, common to both sexes and unlimited by anything in their character or different spheres of life.