On a subsequent occasion another set of pupils belonging to the same institution, express their convictions in a similar tone of approbation.
"The influence of the system," they say, "on health, is decidedly beneficial, as all of us can testify who have pursued it for any length of time. We can pursue our studies not only without injury, but with essential advantage. Not only is our bodily power increased instead of being diminished on this plan, but the powers of the mind are augmented, while moral sensibility is not blunted by hours of idleness and dissipation. We suffer no loss of time, as no more is spent in labor than is usually spent by students in recreation; and we are taught to improve every hour. Our opinion is, that intellectual progress is accelerated rather than retarded by this system. In its success, we are convinced, is deeply involved the prosperity of education, and the great work of evangelizing the world."
The students of Cumberland College in the State of Kentucky, say, "we beg leave to state the results of our own experience. Having been for a considerable time, members of a manual labor institution, we have had an exhibition of its principles and efficacy continually before us; and we are convinced that labor, for two hours or more each day, is essential to the health of all close students, and equally necessary for the development of the mind."
The young men in the theological institution at Hamilton, in the State of New York, say, "we feel the fullest conviction that every student who neglects systematic exercise, is effecting the ruin of his physical and moral powers. Nor is the influence of this unpardonable neglect less perceptible or deleterious, as it regards his moral feelings. Without it, however pure his motives, or ardent his desire to do good, we have but faint hopes of his success. Such habits as he would inevitably form, we believe, would ruin all the nobler energies of his nature. We think three hours appropriate exercise each day will not eventually retard progress in study. We must say, from five or six years experience in the institution, we have not learned that any close student has ever completed an entire course of study without serious detriment to health. We hope, however, our present system of exercise will soon enable us to exhibit a different statement. In the preservation and improvement of health, we have found an unspeakable benefit arising from systematic exercise. Without it, we deem it impossible for the close student to preserve his health."
The superintendants of a kindred institution, in a document which they have laid before the public, declare, that they "have great satisfaction in being able to state that a strong conviction pervades the minds of the young men generally, as well as their own, that laborious exercise for three hours per day does not occupy more time than is necessary for the highest corporeal and mental energy; that so far from retarding literary progress, it greatly accelerates it; that instead of finding labor to encroach upon their regular hours of study, they find themselves able, with a vigorous mind, to devote from eight to ten hours per day to intellectual pursuits; that under the influence of this system, mental lassitude is seldom if ever known; that good health and a good constitution are rarely if ever injured; that constitutions rendered delicate, and prostrated by hard study without exercise, have been built up and established; that this system with temperance is a sovereign antidote against dyspepsia and hypochondria, with all their innumerable and indescribable woes; that it annihilates the dread of future toil, self-denial, and dependence; secures to them the practical knowledge and benefits of agricultural and mechanical employments; gives them familiar access to, and important influence over that great class of business men, of which the world is principally composed; equalizes and extends the advantages of education; and lays deep and broad the foundations of republicanism; promotes the advancement of consistent piety, by connecting diligence in business with fervency of spirit, and will bless the church with such increasing numbers of ministers of such spirit and physical energy, as will fit them to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ."
We are every day more and more impressed with the importance and practicability of the manual labor system, as the only one by which the increasing hundreds and thousands of the pious and talented sons of the church can be raised up with the enterprise, and activity, and power of endurance, which are indispensable for the conversion of the world to God.
To these statements the individual who has collected them, adds his own testimony in the following language: "I have been for three years and a half a member of a manual labor school. The whole number of my fellow students during that period was about two hundred. I was personally acquainted with every individual, and merely 'speak what I know,' and 'testify what I have seen,' when I state that every student who acquired a reputation for sound scholarship during this time, was a fast friend of the manual labor system. The most intelligent, without a single exception, were not only thoroughly convinced of the importance of the system, but they loved it with all their hearts. They counted it a privilege and a delight to give their testimony in its favor, and they did it in good earnest. Their approval of the system rose into an intelligent and abiding passion; and it is no marvel that it was so; for they had within them a permanent, living consciousness of its benefits and blessings. They felt it in their bodies, knitting their muscles into firmness, compacting their limbs, consolidating their frame work, and thrilling with fresh life the very marrow of their bones. They felt it in their minds, giving tenacity to memory, stability to judgment, acuteness to discrimination, multiform analogy to the suggestive faculty, and daylight to perception. They felt it in their hearts, renovating every susceptibility, and swelling the tide of emotion. It is true, with a few, a very few of the students, the system was unpopular, and so were languages and mathematics, philosophy and rhetoric, and every thing else in the daily routine, save the bed and the dinner table. Such students were snails in the field, drones in the workshop, dumb in debate, pigmies in the recitation room, and cyphers at the black board.
"In every manual labor school which I visited in my tour," he continues, "it was the invariable testimony of trustees and teachers, that the talent, the scholarship, the manliness, the high promise of all such institutions, were found among the pupils who gave the manual labor system their hearty approval; whereas if there were among the students brainless coxcombs, sighing sentimentalists, languishing effeminates, and other nameless things of equivocal gender; to prostitute their delicate persons to the vile outrage of manual labor, was indeed a sore affliction!"
We shall close these selections by adding to them the testimony of an individual4 of distinguished literary attainments, whose advantages for obtaining correct information on this topic, as well as many others, have been of the most favorable kind.
4 Professor Stuart.