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ARTICLE II.

THE CONNECTION OF MORAL WITH INTELLECTUAL CULTI

VATION.

By Charles B. Hadduck, Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, Dartmouth College.

WRITERS Upon Education have always insisted on the importance of connecting moral with intellectual culture. Even heathen authors have expressed themselves very strongly on this subject. Plato and Quinctilian laid it down as a first principle, that instruction, which does not make men better, as well as wiser, is essentially defective, and unworthy of public patronage. The language of the latter, in that part of his Institutions, which relates to early education, is particularly worthy of remark. In all the departments of instruction, from that of the nurse to that of the master of rhetoric, he inculcates the most watchful care over every moral influence, to which the youthful mind may be exposed. With a degree of caution, which it were well, if christian teachers and parents always exercised, this illustrious Roman, himself a model of mental discipline, taste, and rectitude, and well acquainted with all the principles of education known to his age, or to preceding times, requires the teacher to be a holy man" praeceptorem sanctissimum;" and to discourse much, to his pupils, of the honorable and the good" de honesto ac bono." In his prescription of a course of reading he would scarcely escape the censure of modern critics, for fastidiousness. Portions of Horace he would not have read by boys. His profound maxim, that none but a good man can be an orator, is more frequently quoted than understood. He evidently saw, what many, under better advantages, have yet to learn, that to the highest order of mind moral rectitude is essential; and, of course, that in professional character, especially that of the orator, we never find the very first eminence attained without a heart delicately attuned to moral emotion.

It would have been natural to think that as our moral constitution came to be better explained, and our relations more accurately traced out, the importance of moral cultivation would be better understood and more clearly illustrated. The reverse, however, happens to be true, at least in respect to a large portion of the community. And by a singular species of logic, the VOL. IX. No. 25.

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very importance of the subject is alleged as one of the reasons for excluding it from our systems of education. On points of such vital interest as our moral judgments and spiritual concerns, it is gravely asserted, men should be left to form their own opinions. It only need be added to this profound maxim, that on points of little importance men may be safely left to form their own opinions, because on such points opinions are of so little consequence; and we should then be furnished with a theory of education broad enough to cover the whole subject. It seems to be, sometimes, forgotten by men, who have little excuse for such imposition on themselves, that the great end of education is, in fact, to teach men to form opinions for themselves; to train them to those habits of thought and feeling, which lay the mind most fairly open to argument, and secure it most perfectly against the infinite forms of error; and to do this, above all, with special reference to those subjects, on which the acquisition of knowledge, the full understanding of truth, is of greatest moment to us. They appear to imagine, that there may possibly be some other way of educating men, than that so long practised, of bringing minds together. They forget that one mind leads another on in useful or exciting trains of thought; that comparison of ideas corrects false impressions; and that the opening of new fields of contemplation by other intellects is the main source of activity and enterprise to our own. What else is all reading and all instruction but occasions of thinking and feeling, to us? What but the influence of other minds leading the way and beckoning to us to follow, it may be, with unequal steps, and it may be too, without yielding our assent to every step, but still to follow the trains of ideas pursued by them? The hand no more traces the copy set by the writing-master, the voice no more utters the notes of music, in the lesson for the day, than the mind pursues the course of thought presented to it by the living instructor or the written volume. And yet in neither case does it necessarily follow, that the pupil will be an exact fac-simile of his teacher. In neither case is there any other way to learn.

really no such Education can not occasional.

It seems, also, to be forgotten, that there is thing as leaving the mind to itself, if we would. never be intermitted. It is not optional; it is It never can be wholly so, even in solitude; for every scene of nature has a voice and an influence incessantly stealing into the mind. Much less can it be so in society. Nothing could be

imagined worse in any system of moral education, than total neglect, the entire surrender of the youthful heart to the unchecked and unselected agencies of the world.

Christianity is the perfection of moral science. Yet it has become a question, whether her divine influence should be allowed to mingle at all with academical instruction; whether even the records of our religious faith should not be excluded from literary institutions, and all religious services, all exercises of devotion banished from our seats of learning. The Bible has been rejected from nearly all our primary schools; not because its sanctity may be sullied by the familiar use of it as a readingbook; not because portions of it are above the understandings of children; but because, it is, in short, unsuitable to be read, it is religious, and religion has nothing to do in schools. In the same spirit prayer also is omitted or forbidden in these institutions. In many places neither the reading of the Bible nor prayer could be introduced by a teacher without giving offence to the district. Difficulties of no small consequence have actually arisen from difference of opinion between the instructor and his employers on this subject. Even in New England it has been proclaimed as a recommendation of certain literary Institutions, that they adopt no religious creed, and enjoin no religious observances; that they profess a "liberality" of faith and practice, which consists, in fact, in discarding religion altogether. Charters have been asked for, and granted to institutions, holding out such claims to public favor. Men, professedly belonging to christian denominations, have urged the merits of such a system of education; and it cannot be denied that considerable sympathy has been awakened for them in large portions of the community. Indeed it is hardly unjust to New England to say, that her towns are full of men, men of some pretensions and some character too, who suffer themselves to be led astray by this shallow sophistry.

We have seen the most magnificent University, which any State in the Union has endowed, and which, in many of its features, is certainly worthy of the patriotic and high-minded men who projected it, founded expressly on the principle of the exclusion of religion-an university, conceived and carried into operation by no less a man than the author of the Declaration of American Independence, the man, perhaps, whose principles and personal influence have done more than those of any other individual in promoting the popular errors, at this time prevalent in

the country, on the subject of moral and religious institutions. It is understood, and it is certainly matter of joy, that better ideas have recently been entertained by the trustees of this university.

In another intelligent and patriotic State, the largest fortune, which any individual has accumulated in America, was lately left to endow a college, in the very metropolis of American art, from whose walls, religion is, in any and every form, expressly and forever, excluded. The genius of our age, the taste of antiquity, art and industry with all their resources, are to be lavished in perfecting the proportions and decorating the columns of a structure, over whose threshold no minister of religion of any denomination is permitted to pass, on whose marble classic front the proscription of Faith, Hope and Charity is to be written with a pen of iron.

As another symptom of the same feeling, it may be remarked that the clergy have been complained of, and their motives impeached, for occupying the places of instruction and discipline in our higher literary institutions. The plain matter of fact has not been observed, that Christianity is, in truth, the parent of these institutions. She has fostered them with a mother's

care. In every country converted to the gospel, the church and the school-house have risen up side by side; the light of science has mingled with the light of revelation. The torch of knowledge was first carried over to our ancestors in Britain by christian hands. The favorite work of Augustine, the apostle of England, was the famous school of Canterbury, in which most of the distinguished men of the ensuing century were educated. It was her first christian king, that gave to England a written code of laws. It was her christian kings that founded and refounded her universities. It is christian charity that has from age to age endowed colleges and established fellowships in these universities, institutions which have nurtured the English mind, and sustained the English character almost from the commencement of her civilization.

In our own country, christian zeal founded nearly all the older seminaries. Christian charity has endowed them. Christian minds have toiled in them. And all this, not because there has been any design on the part of the clergy to take possession of the keys of knowledge. They have not thus come into possession of them. They have been naturally, and necessarily, put forward in the work, by the impulse of christian benevo

lence. They are the natural almoners of religious charity, the natural agents of that living power in the churches under their care, which has originated and sustained our institutions of learning. Because the church and her clergy have, with pains and sacrifices, and sometimes in the face of persecution, succeeded in planting seminaries, and collecting libraries, and educating statesmen, physicians, lawyers and divines, and in diffusing a taste for letters among the people, must they be reproached for usurping the places of public instruction? What class of men have they supplanted? Whom have they openly, or secretly, thrust out from the business of instruction? Whom have they refused to countenance in any good thing, because he wore not their garb, and appeared not in canonicals? Let the instance be produced in which the christian clergy have not introduced letters and civilization with religion, into the countries converted to Christ; let the case be named, in which they have not been concerned in originating the institutions of learning which adorn such countries; let the case be stated, in which they have not essentially promoted education, by their influence in colleges and schools and it may be admitted, that they have not always merited the praise we claim for them, and claim without fear of refutation, the praise of deserving to be placed foremost in our seminaries, the praise of earning a distinction, which they have certainly enjoyed.

There are advantages in placing clergymen in public literary institutions. It is wise to continue them there, as well as ungrateful to deny them the right to be there. The clerical profession is better adapted than any other to fit men for sedentary, studious pursuits. It is the profession of a public teacher; and is therefore eminently fitted to produce an aptness to teach, to foster those mental habits which are favorable to instruction. It familiarizes the mind to those aspects of human nature, which awaken the deepest sympathy with the young, in their pursuits, their feelings, and their prospects. It promotes an intimate association of the employments of life and the formation of character with the great moral and religious truths, which are the study of the theologian, and which ought to be the basis of every system of education. We say the basis of education, because, after all has been done, which instruction can do, in developing the intellectual powers and storing the memory with ideas, if no permanent and efficient active principles have been awakened, if the moral sensibilities are left dormant, there is no certainty

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