MANUAL LABOR SCHOOLS.
[Their importance as connected with Literary Institutions.1]
1 This Address was delivered by the Rev. E. F. Stanton, before the "Literary Institute" of Hampden Sidney College, at its annual commencement in September last, and is now published, for the first time, at the request of the Institute.
The proper connection of physical, moral, and intellectual culture, in a course of education, is a subject which, judging from the defective systems that have almost universally prevailed, has hitherto been but imperfectly understood, and whose importance has been but superficially estimated. Man is a being possessed of a compound nature, which consists of body, mind and spirit. In other words, he has animal, intellectual, and moral powers. He is destined for existence and action in two worlds—in this, and in that which is to come. He is formed for an earthly, and an immortal state. Any system of education, therefore, which restricts attention to either of these constituent portions of his nature, is necessarily and essentially defective. It is the cultivation which assigns to each its appropriate share, that constitutes the perfection of education. But few appear to admit, at least practically, the importance of improving the mind to any great extent by the aids which Literature and Science bestow. Fewer still are in favor of making religious instruction a distinct and indispensable part of their plan. Yet smaller is the number of those who would allow any suitable prominence to be given to the cultivation of the physical powers: and probably by far the most diminutive of all is the proportion of those who would contend for a just and equable combination in the improvement of the whole man, body, mind, and spirit.
The monitory experience of past ages, which, if duly heeded, might prevent a recurrence of serious disasters that have befallen other generations, is overlooked or disregarded, as the devotees of a worldly pleasure discredit the assurance of the sage, that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit," and each in its turn, and for itself, must try the experiment which wisdom had beforehand decided to be folly. Vanity seeks the preferment arising from novel discoveries; and inflated with an apprehension of superior knowledge, disdains to receive the instructions of former ages, and in spite of experience, gives an unrestrained indulgence to wild and hurtful extravagances. Enough has long since been disclosed in the history of mankind, if they were sufficiently docile and apt, to have demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that on the early and assiduous inculcation of religious principle, depend the temporal, to say nothing of the eternal welfare of individuals, and the peace and prosperity of nations. The world, by this time, ought to have known, even if Revelation had not proclaimed it, that righteousness, by which I mean religion, is the stability and safeguard of nations—that it cannot be dispensed with—that no substitute can be made for it—and that no government can be prosperous or lasting without it. Devoid of religious principle, the educated are but madmen; and the more extensive and brilliant their talents, whether natural or acquired, the more completely are they accoutred for the work of mischief. Within the recollection of the present generation, South America, and Greece, and France, where Romish corruptions and infidel perfidy have obtained the ascendancy, and rooted out a pure Christianity, have alternately struggled for the establishment of freedom. Our own nation, so deeply enamored of the "fair goddess," have looked on with an intensity of interest that bordered on inebriation, and have hailed them as brethren of the republican fraternity. But how soon have our hopes been disappointed, and our exultation proved to be premature. The despotism which has been thrown off, has been speedily succeeded by another which was scarcely less odious and intolerable. Their temple of freedom was not reared on the rock of religious principle, but on the sand. The tempest of ungoverned passions, which righteousness only has the power to allay, beat vehemently upon it, and it fell; and great has been the fall of it. Better that a population deficient in virtue, (the virtue which a pure religion only can impart,) be also deficient in knowledge. There is no regenerating or transforming influence in literature and science. The reverse of this, however, is the practical creed of most politicians. Religion with them, if not an odious and obsolete affair, is regarded as of secondary or inconsiderable importance; and all the attention which, in their estimation, it deserves, is to leave it for a spontaneous development. But the issue of such an experiment is sure to result in an absence of the fear of God, and an exuberant growth of noxious and destructive passions. If no plan can be devised, which in its operation shall secure an inseparable connection between literature and religion in our American academies and colleges, their demolition were devoutly to be desired, and our youth might better be reared in ignorance and barbarism.
These observations are made in passing, to anticipate an impression which might arise in the minds of some who may accompany us in the sequel of this discussion, that we are for giving to the physical an importance over every other department of education. So far from admitting that this is the position which we intend to assume, we would here be distinctly understood to allow, if you please, that it is the least important of all, and sinks as far in comparison with the cultivation of the mind and the heart, as the body is inferior to the soul, or as the interests of time are transcended by those of eternity. But the body, though comparatively insignificant, is still deserving of special regard. The corporeal is a part of the nature which the infinite Creator has bestowed on us—a piece of mechanism "curiously wrought," and "fearfully and wonderfully made." The body is the casement of the mind—the tenement in which the soul resides—the "outer" in which dwells the "inner man." With the nature of this union we are mostly unacquainted. We know, however, that it is close, and that the influences which body and mind exert on each other are reciprocal and powerful.
A gentleman of our own country, who has been at great pains to investigate this subject himself, and to collect the opinions of others on it, has embodied in a pamphlet, which has been published, a mass of information of the most valuable kind; but the production to which I refer has been only partially circulated in this region, and therefore has probably attracted less notice here than almost any where else in the Union. And since I have ample evidence to believe that his observations, and those of others which accompany them, are better suited to subserve the purpose which I have in view, than any of my own which I might hope to offer, I shall indulge myself on this occasion in the liberty of making somewhat copious extracts from his labors.
The individual to whom I allude, was appointed the General Agent of "the Society for promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions," which was formed in the city of New York in July of 1831, "under the conviction," as their committee remark, "that a reform in our seminaries of learning was greatly needed, both for the preservation of health, and for giving energy to the character by habits of useful and vigorous exercise." Shortly after entering upon the prosecution of his object, in an extensive tour of observation in the northern and western states, the journey of the agent,2 as his employers relate, was interrupted by serious accidents which befel him, one of which (and we notice the narrative as an apt and striking illustration of the excellency of that system of training to which he had been accustomed, and which it was the design of his agency to recommend,) was the carrying away of the stage in Alum Creek, near Columbus, in the state of Ohio. "The creek," as they inform us, "being swollen by the great flood, in crossing, at midnight, the swiftness of the current forced the whole down the stream, till the stage-wagon came to pieces, and the Agent was thrown directly among the horses. After being repeatedly struck down by their struggles, he became entangled in the harness, and hurried with them along the current. At length, released from this peril, he reached the shore, and grasped a root in the bank; but it broke, and again the stream bore him on to the middle of the channel. At length he espied a tree which had fallen so that its top lay in the water, and by the most desperate efforts, all encumbered as he was with his travelling garments, he succeeded in reaching a branch; but his benumbed hands refused their grasp, and slipped, and then he was swept among some bushes in an eddy, where his feet rested on the ground. Here in the dead of night, in the forest, ignorant whether there was a house or a human being within many miles, bruised and chilled in the wintry stream, he seems calmly to have made up his mind to die, sustained by the hopes of the religion which he professed. But Providence had determined otherwise, and reserved him for farther usefulness. His cries were heard by a kind hearted woman on the opposite side of the stream, who wakened her husband; and, after a few days detention, he proceeded on his journey. From the accounts (the committee continue,) which are already before the public, it seems plain that nothing but a constitution invigorated by manual labor, and a soul sustained by the grace of God, could have survived the hardships of that night."