The country in which physical education cannot prevail, in the onward march of improvements for which the present age is distinguished, must necessarily be destined to be outstripped in the pursuit of those objects which constitute the felicity and the glory of a people. That this country is to fall behind, and to be contented to remain there, is to suppose an event too disreputable for tolerance, and too much opposed to a laudable spirit of emulation to be cheerfully acquiesced in. The south needs men of vigorous constitutions for professional avocations and other purposes, as well as the rest of the world, and if she has them, must obtain them by the same process. Trained on a different plan, her sons, in comparison with others, will be effeminate and inefficient. Many of them, as has happened with others in past times, would become the prey of incurable disease, or fall the victims of an untimely grave. According to the most accurate investigations that have been made, at least one-fourth of the individuals who, for several years past, have been educated in our American colleges, have been completely prostrated in their course, or have survived only to drag out an existence rendered burdensome to themselves and unprofitable to others. The voice of warning on this topic, while mournful and alarming, is as "the voice of many waters."
Distinguished intellectual excellence depends, we believe, to a greater extent than almost any have imagined, on a robust frame of the body; and in farther corroboration of the views that have already been expressed on this subject, I would request the privilege of subjoining a few passages of striking originality, from the pen of the powerful and popular author of the essay "On Decision of Character."
"As a previous observation," he remarks, "it is beyond all doubt that very much of the principles that appear to produce, or to constitute this commanding distinction, (of decision of character) depends on the constitution of the body. It is for physiologists to explain the manner in which corporeal organization affects the mind; I only assert the fact, that there is in the material construction of some persons, much more than of others, some quality which augments, if it does not create, both the stability of their resolution, and the energy of their active tendencies. There is something that, like the ligatures which one class of Olympic combatants bound on their hands and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe it, and compresses the powers of the mind, giving them a steady and forcible spring and reaction, which they would presently lose, if they could be transferred into a constitution of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong character seems to demand something firm in its corporeal basis, as massive engines require for their weight and for their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. Accordingly I believe it would be found, that a majority of the persons most remarkable for decisive character, have possessed great constitutional firmness. I do not mean an exemption from disease and pain, nor any certain measure of mechanical strength, but a tone of vigor, the opposite to lassitude, and adapted to great exertion and endurance. This is clearly evinced in respect to many of them, by the prodigious labors and deprivations which they have borne in prosecuting their designs. The physical nature has seemed a proud ally of the moral one, and with a hardness that would never shrink, has sustained the energy that could never remit.
"A view of the disparities between the different races of animals inferior to man, will show the effect of organization on disposition. Compare, for instance, a lion with the common beasts of our fields, many of them composed of a larger bulk of animated substance. What a vast superiority of courage, impetuous movement, and determined action; and we attribute this difference to some great dissimilarity of modification in the composition of the animated material. Now it is probable that some difference, partly analogous, subsists between human bodies, and that this is no small part of the cause of the striking inequalities in respect of decisive character. A very decisive man has probably more of the physical quality of a lion in his composition than other men.
"It is observable that women in general have less inflexibility of character than men; and though many moral influences contribute to this difference, the principal cause is, probably, something less firm in the corporeal texture. Now, one may have in his constitution a firmness of texture, exceeding that of other men, in a much greater degree than that by which men in general exceed women.
"If there have been found some resolute spirits powerfully asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so much the better; since this would authorize a hope, that if all other grand requisites can be combined, they may form a strong character, in spite of the counteraction of an unadapted constitution. And on the other hand, no constitutional hardness will form the true character without those grand principles; though it may produce that false and contemptible kind of decision which we term obstinacy; a mere stubbornness of temper, which can assign no reason but its will, for a constancy which acts in the nature of dead weight rather than of strength; resembling less the reaction of a powerful spring than the gravitation of a big stone."
In opposition to the system of education which we would defend, a voice of objection has been raised, to which it may not be improper to pay a passing regard.
It has been preferred as an objection to manual labor schools, which we shall assume, are, on the whole, the most unexceptionably expedient that has been proposed for connecting exercise with a course of literary training,3 that youth who have been unaccustomed to manual labor, and who have been permitted to indulge in idleness and sportive amusements for the purpose of recreation, will feel an insuperable aversion to the toils and restraints which such a revolution in their habits, as the one contemplated, will impose on them.
3 Gymnastic exercises are both dangerous and frivolous.
The process of taming, though quite essential to the unruly, to "flesh and blood" is never "joyous, but rather grievous." The objection started is something like that which the celebrated Rush, in some of his original effusions, has observed is met with in the case of certain morbid patients, whose weak stomachs refuse milk as a diet. The food itself, in the judgment of the acute physician, is of the most simple, inoffensive, and invigorating character; and the fact that it is rejected is the proof that it is needed. The intemperate can ill brook the privation of alcohol; the epicure and debauché will not relinquish with good will the gratification of inordinate appetites; nor will the slothful, who turns himself in his bed as the door on the hinges, give up with cheerfulness the luxury of laziness. But the true and proper question for determination is, would it not be doing to loungers and profligates themselves, as well as to others, a kindness, to put them upon a course of regimen, (provided it can be done without too great an exertion of violence,) which should bring them back to nature, and constrain them to a just and proper observance of the salutary laws of industry, sobriety, and temperance? With such an authority we think that the parents and guardians of youth every where should be invested; and those who should manifest a spirit of insubordination against its exercise, if that spirit could not be quelled by a temperate yet firm resistance, would exhibit the proof of a temper that ought to be regarded in a young man as a positive disqualification for receiving an education.