ALectureOnPhysical Development, and its Relations toMental and Spiritual Development, delivered before theAmerican Institute of Instruction, at theirTwenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, inNorwich, Conn. , August 20, 1858. 

ByS. R. Calthrop, of Bridgeport, Conn. , Formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge, England. 

MDCCCLIX. 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by Ticknor AndFields, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts. 

On motion of G. F. Thayer, --_Voted_, unanimously, That five thousandcopies of Mr. Calthrop's Lecture be printed at the expense of theInstitute, for gratuitous circulation. 

LECTURE. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:--

We have met together to consider the best methods of Educating, that is, drawing out, or developing the Human Nature common to all of us. Truly asubject not easy to be exhausted. For we all of us feel that the HumanNature, --out of whose bosom has flowed all history, all science, allpoetry, all art, all life in short, --contains within itself far morethan that which has hitherto been manifested through all the periods ofits history, though that history dates from the creation of the world, and has already progressed as far as the nineteenth century of theChristian era. Yes! we all of us feel that the land of promise lies faraway in the future, that the goal of human history is yet a long wayoff. 

A large portion of this assembly consists of those whose business it isto study Human Nature in all its various forms, and who have taken uponthemselves the task of developing that nature in the youth of America, in that rising generation whose duty it will be to carry out the nascentprojects of reform in every department of human interest, and make thethought of to-day the fact of tomorrow. 

Some doubtless there are among this number, who by very nature are bornTeachers, called to this office, as by a voice from heaven! Men, who inspite of foolish detraction, or yet more foolish patronage, understandthe dignity, the true nobility of their calling; who know that theoffice of the teacher is coëval with the world; and also feel with trueprophetic foresight, that the world, fifty years hence, will be verymuch what its Teachers intend, by God's blessing, to make it. 

Brothers in a high calling! The speaker, proudly enrolling himself inthe number of your noble band, greets you from his heart this day, andinvites you to spend a thoughtful hour with him; and to help him, byyour best wishes, to unfold in a manner not wholly unworthy of histheme, some small portion of the nature and method of Human Development. 

Ours is the age of analysis. We begin to see that before we canunderstand a substance, it is necessary to become acquainted with allits component parts. Thus, then, with regard to Human Nature, we mustunderstand all at least of its grand divisions, before we can comprehendthe method of developing it as a whole. 

Let us then say, that there are five grand divisions in HumanNature, --the physical, the intellectual, the affectional, the moral, andthe devotional, --or in other words, that man has body, mind, heart, conscience, and soul. 

Concerning these great divisions, I shall assert, _first_, that they areall mutually dependent upon each other; that if one of them suffer, allthe others suffer with it; that man is dwarfed and incomplete, unless heis fully developed in all the five: and, _secondly_, as my specialsubject, I maintain that physical well-being, health of body, istherefore necessary not only to the complete development of HumanNature, but that it is also essential to a happy and harmoniousdevelopment of each one of the four other great divisions of HumanNature; or in other words, I assert the body has something to do bothwith the mind, heart, conscience, and soul of man, not merely to allthese collectively, but also to each of them separately. 

First, then, I shall speak on the mutual dependence of the faculties. 

Now, although it is not possible that any faculty should be socompletely isolated, as to act without moving any of the rest at all;nevertheless, since a comparative isolation and separation of thefaculties is but too common, let us glance through the history of thepast, and mark any notable instances of such isolation; and if we findthat a one-sided development has always proved a failure, we shall beginto discern the folly of trying such disastrous experiments over again, specially since they would have to be made upon living human beings, upon he young children of the rising generation, who cannot resent ourfolly, but whose distorted natures will be living proofs of ourincapacity, of our impotence as educators, when the experiment tried forthe thousand and first time fails yet again, as it always has done, andalways will do to the world's end, while Human Nature remains the same. 

Let us then take a few examples, which are not intended to stand thetest of severe criticism, but which are only used as illustrations ofthe idea which we are now considering. 

Let us then first suppose that the devotional element in man acts alone. The experiment has already been tried. Many a hermit in lonely cell orrocky cavern, has cut himself off from the society of men, from action, duty and love, in order that he may be devout without hindrance. Howmany such men have poured out their souls upon the ground, on barrensand or desert rock, souls which might have watered thousands with thedew of heaven, and all because they made one fatal life-mistake;--theythought, that to pray always meant to be always saying prayers. 

Who could be more devout than Saint Simeon Stylites? who spent all hislife upon the top of a tall pillar, absorbed in contemplation, ecstasy, remorse and prayer. Let the poet speak for him. 

 "Bethink thee, Lord? while Thou and all the saints Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth House in the shade of comfortable roofs, Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, I, 'twixt the spring and downfal of the light Bow down one thousand and two hundred times To Christ, the Virgin Mother and the Saints: Or in the night, after a little sleep, I wake, the chill stars sparkle; I am wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost, I wear an undressed goatskin on my neck, And in my weak, lean arms I lift the Cross, And strive and wrestle with Thee till I die. O mercy, mercy, wash away my sin!"

A mournful spectacle. Devotion excited to madness, while mind, heart, and conscience, all are dumb, and the poor weak body only bears theheavy burdens which the tyrannous soul heaps upon it!

Devotion, then, needs _conscience_. Conscience tells a man that he mustact as well as pray. Devotion makes the great act of prayer. Conscienceworks out into the actual of every-day life, the ideal of which devotionhas conceived. Will then devotion and conscience be sufficient for anoble manhood? Devotion and conscience alone developed, have ofttimes, in the days that are past, formed some stern old grand inquisitor, torturing the life out of human sinews because he ought. The grandinquisitor's devotion and conscience told him that he ought to advancethe holy faith by every engine in his power, and therefore, as heconsidered that the rack, the thumbscrews, the rope, the fire and thefaggot were the best possible engines, he used the same to the utmost ofhis ability; and thought, alas for humanity! that he was doing Godservice. 

The grand inquisitor had devotion, he had conscience, he probablyalso had nerves of iron; but he could not possibly have had a_heart_. Devotion, then, and conscience need a loving, human heart. Willthese three be sufficient? The picture grows fairer, we begin to feelless pain when we turn away from the stern, dark portrait of the grandinquisitor, which frowns so grimly in the picture gallery of history, and look upon that fair and gentle upturned face, half shaded by theveil that covers her head. That is a nun of the order of Saint Theresa. 

The pale, emaciated countenance tells of many a vigil protracted throughthe long hours of the night; those wild eyes once saw, or thought theysaw, the picture of the Virgin hanging in her cell smiling on her as sheprayed; yea, and have wept many a tear as she repeated her sins over toher confessor, or as she stood by the bed-side of some poor sufferer, while those gentle Christian hands smoothed the dying pillow. Rest inpeace, soul sainted and dear! The tears thou didst once shed, are wipedaway now forever; the sins thou didst once bewail, are all forgiven now, for thou hast loved much!

But the day of nuns has gone forever. A higher development must besought for. The nun becomes impossible when we train the _intellect_;Devotion says, Worship; the Mind adds, The Lord thy God. The Consciencesays, Do right; the Intellect shows what is right. The Heart says, Lovethy fellow-men; the Intellect tells the right way of loving them. Pietyand charity! these are glorious! these are the two angels from Heavenwhich prompt us to help our brothers who need our help; but intellectmust show us the way to do it. To take a single instance. Piety andcharity cannot show us how to drain and ventilate and rebuild the hovelsof the poor in New York. No, every spade, every saw, every hammeremployed in that most righteous undertaking must be directed byintellect, by science. Piety and charity may prompt, but intellect mustguide. 

I know full well that many a woman's heart, guided only by her sacredinstinct of loving, acts out the law of right without any consciousquestioning of the intellect; that a thousand tender feet carry thegospel of Christ along the alleys of New York and London, or along thecorridors of the Crimean hospital, though even there also woman's withas to aid woman's heart. The noble heart, the Christian love ofFlorence Nightingale took her to those eastern shores; this made thevoice tender and the hand gentle. But whoso reads the account of whatshe did, will see that beside these, wit and wisdom, keen discerning ofmeans to ends, ability to see what ought to be done, intellect, reasonin short, was necessary in order to make a Florence Nightingalepossible, together with an exhaustless fund of bodily endurance, fortitude and stoicism. 

Thus, then, we find that devotion, conscience, heart, and intellect areall necessary to each other in the harmonious development of HumanNature. Will they be found sufficient for a perfect life?

Put together a strong soul, a tender conscience, a woman's heart, and aman's intellect, and we have a Charlotte Bronté, --surely one of the besttypes of the modern mind. Will she find these four noble parts of HumanNature sufficient for the task of living?

Let Charlotte Bronté answer, walking painfully across the moor with handheld hard to beating side, sitting now and then upon a stone to keepherself from falling, wondering why the daylight blinds her so, obligedto give up Villette owing to the terrible headaches which it brings on. Let Charlotte Bronté answer, dying before her time at thirty-nine yearsof age, when the path of fame was just beginning to be bright beforeher, and the world was just beginning to know how much it wanted her. Charlotte Bronté, the gifted and the feeble, the lynx-eyed and theblind, so full of glorious strength and pitiable weakness! CharlotteBronté, who feels the pressure of every-day life to be as hard as agiant's grasp upon her throat! Charlotte Bronté cannot tell why she isso unhappy, why she feels like a prisoner in the world, --why earth, ourbeautiful earth, is like a charnel house to her. And yet we think thatthe most ordinary passerby could see very satisfactory reasons whyCharlotte Bronté was what she was, and felt what she felt. Hollow cheekand faded eye, teach their wisdom to their possessor last of all. Thepale-eyed school-girl, who never played along with the other children, never ran and laughed and shouted with the rest, little knew what daysand hours and years of dulness, of pain and agony, she was laying up forthe future, what a premature grave she was digging for herself. Peace bewith her, her toil is over; it is now three years since Heaven receivedin Charlotte Bronté one angel more. 

Intellect, then, needs _body_. Come, then, and see me build a Man! Acalm, silent devotion, a conscience pure and reverent, a heart manfuland true, an intellect clear and keen, a frame of iron, --with these willwe dower our hero, and call him Washington!

From me Washington needs no eulogy. Free America is at once his eulogyand his monument! It is useless to say more. Every one here feels in hisheart a higher praise than can be uttered by the tongue. But let me askyou, What would Washington's qualities of mind and heart have availedhis country, unless the manly strength, the frame of iron had beenadded? A good man he might have been, a patriot he surely would havebeen; but the Father of his Country, never! The soul that trusted inGod, the conscience that felt the omnipotence of justice and right, theheart that beat for his country's weal alone, the mind that thought outher freedom, was upborne by the body that knew no fatigue, by the nervesthat knew not how to tremble. 

Washington had to endure physical fatigue enough to have killed threeordinary men. And how well did his youth prepare him for alife of protracted toil. Hear his biographer Irving. "He was aself-disciplinarian in physical as well as mental matters, and practisedhimself in all kinds of athletic exercises, such as running, leaping, pitching quoits, and tossing bars. His frame even in infancy had beenlarge and powerful, and he now excelled most of his playmates incontests of agility and strength. As a proof of his muscular power, aplace is still pointed out at Fredericksburg, near the lower ferry, where, when a boy, he threw a stone across the river. In horsemanship, too, he already excelled, and was ready to back, and able to manage, themost fiery steed. Traditional anecdotes still remain of his achievementsin this respect. "

Some of you have doubtless seen in Thackeray's 'Virginians, ' that youngWarrington found that he was more than a match for the English jumpers, as indeed, writes he, he ought to be, as he could jump twenty-one feetand a half, and no one in Virginia could beat him, except Colonel G. Washington. 

It is needless to say that I do not mean to exalt the body at theexpense of the higher faculties. I only maintain that the rest areincomplete without the physical element; in which indeed all the otherpowers dwell, and by means of which they are more or less clearlymanifested. There may, of course, be vast physical energy without anycorresponding development of mind or soul, as any blacksmith or prizefighter could tell us. And further, there may be a character, in whichsome of the higher qualities may exist in great perfection, coupled, too, with mighty force of body, and yet the character may be incomplete. Take, as an instance, another of America's great men. 

Daniel Webster! perhaps the most cavernous head, set upon the strongestshoulders, which has appeared upon the planet, since the soul ofSocrates went back to God. Daniel Webster! strong mind in strong body, leader and king of men, deep-chested, lion-voiced, whose words of powermoved men as the wind moves the sea, whose eloquence had a physicalenergy, a bodily grandeur about it like to that of no other man. DanielWebster! pride of all Americans; to you I leave it to say where he wasweak. It belongs not to me, a stranger, to pluck one laurel from thatstately brow; his own brethren must do it, with reluctant and halfremorseful hands, pitying the errors which marred so grand a character, but saying of him as I would say of England, Webster, with all thyfaults, I love thee still. 

Our analysis of human character, necessarily one-sided and imperfect, isnow ended. It remains for us to ask, What are its bearings upon Americaneducation? How far does American education fulfil the wants of HumanNature, and wherein does it disregard them? The title of my Lecturetells plainly enough, where I think that the great deficiency is found;a deficiency which reacts upon both mind and morals, and ofttimesutterly defeats the best efforts of clergymen and teachers. I assert, then, that, in America, the body is almost entirely neglected. Thirtythousand clergymen, from as many pulpits, advocate the claims of theconscience and the soul. A hundred thousand teachers are busiedthroughout the length and breadth of the land in training the intellect, while a man could almost count on his fingers the number of thoseengaged in training the body. The intellectual training which the massesreceive, is the highest glory of American education. If I wanted astranger to believe that the Millennium was not far off, I would takehim to some of those grand Ward Schools in New York, where able headsare trained by the thousand. When I myself entered them, I was literallyastonished. When I looked at the teachers who instructed that throng ofyoung souls, I could not help saying to myself, Ah! dear friends, itwould do you good to know what I feel just now. I can feel the veryblessing of God descending on your labors, just as if I could see itwith mine eyes. What piety have been at work here, in the constructionof this colossal system of education! What inspired energy was needed towork it out! What charity is necessary to carry it on! Many a teachersaw I there, unknown, may-be, to all the world, carrying on her workwith noble zeal and earnestness, to whom the quick young brains aroundbore abundant testimony. When I saw them, I blessed them in my heart, Imagnified mine office, and said to myself, I, too, am a teacher. 

I spent four or five days doing little else than going through thesetruly wonderful schools. I stayed more than three hours in one of them, wondering at all I saw, admiring the stately order, the unbrokendiscipline of the whole arrangements, and the wonderful quickness andintelligence of the scholars. That same evening I went to see a friend, whose daughter, a child of thirteen, was at one of the ward schools. Iexamined her in algebra, and found that the little girl of thirteencould hold her own with many of a larger growth. Did she go to schoolto-day? asked I. No, was the answer, she has not been for some time, asshe was beginning to get quite a serious curvature of the spine, so nowshe goes regularly to a gymnastic doctor. I almost feel ashamed tocriticize such noble institutions as the schools of New York; but truthcompels me to do this. Hitherto, nothing whatever has been done to trainthe bodies of the tens of thousands who are educated there. All that isdone is excellent, is wonderful, but fearful drawbacks come into play, in the shape of physical weakness, and positive male-formation of body. 

The only remedy which can be devised, I think, in a crowded city likeNew York, where it is impossible to get open ground, is to have largegymnasiums attached to every ward school, and daily exercise thereinshould form an essential part of the education there. The importance ofthis to New York cannot be estimated, and I heard with joy, that agymnasium was established in at least one of the ward schools, and Ifound out that the teachers of others were alive to this most cryingneed. I read too, with very great pleasure, that a Mr. Sedgwick of NewYork was appointed to deliver a lecture on the importance of physicaleducation, at the next meeting of the Teachers Association, in thatState; and indeed every one begins to feel that something must be done, and that quickly. Miss Beecher's book enlightened most people on thissubject, and reform is already inaugurated. It is well that it is so, orthe race would dwindle away before our very eyes. Listen to someserio-comic verse upon this subject, taken out of your Lecturer'sportfolio. It is an address to America, dictated by an ancient sage:--

 'Oh! latest born of time, the wise man said, A mighty destiny surrounds thy head; Great is thy mission, but the puny son Lacks strength to finish what the sires begun; Thy hapless daughters breathe the poison'd air, Fair they may be, but fragile more than fair; They know not, doom'd ones, that the air of heaven, For breathing purposes to man was given; They know not half the things which life requires, But melt their lives away where stoves and fires, And furnace issuing from the realms beneath, Distils through parlor floors its poisonous breath. Sooner or later must the slighted air And exercise take vengeance on the fair. Ah! one by one I see them fade and fall, Both old and young, fair, dark or short or tall, Till one stupendous ruin wraps them all. '

One can sometimes, in a smiling way, give utterance to truths which seemhard and stern when spoken in grim earnest. Let us see whether we cannotfind some allegory to represent what we mean. 

Some time ago, I read a tale which related that a certain gentleman was, once on a time, digging a deep hole in his garden. He had, as I myselfhad in my younger days, a perfect passion for digging holes, for themere pleasure of doing it; but the hole which he was now digging was byfar the deepest which he had ever attempted. At last he became perfectlyfascinated, carried away by his pursuit, and actually had his dinner letdown to him by a bucket. Well, he dug on late and early, when just as hewas plunging in his spade with great energy for a new dig, he penetratedright through, and fell down, down to the centre of the earth. 

To his astonishment he landed upon the top of a coach which was passingat the time, and soon found himself perfectly at home, and began toenter into conversation with the passenger opposite to him, a verygentlemanly looking man enveloped entirely in a black cloak. He soonfound out that the country into which his lot had fallen was a verystrange one. Its peculiarities were thus stated by his gentlemanlyfellow-passenger. "Ours, Sir, " said he, "is called the country ofSkitzland. All the Skitzlanders are born with all their limbs andfeatures perfect; but when they arrive at a certain age, all their limbsand features which have not been used drop off, leaving only the bonesbehind. It is rather dark this evening, or you would have seen this moreplainly. Look forward there at our coachman, he consists simply of astomach and hands, these being the only things he has ever used. Thosetwo whom you see chatting together are brothers in misfortune; one is aclergyman, the other a lawyer; they have neither of them got any legs atall, though each of them possess a finely developed understanding; andyou cannot help remarking what a massive jaw the lawyer has got. Yonderis Mr. ----, the celebrated millionaire, he is just raising his hat; yousee he has lost all the top part of his head, indeed he has little ofhis head left, except the bump of acquisitiveness and the faculty ofarithmetical calculation. There are two ladies, members of thefashionable world, their case is very pitiable, they consist of nothingwhatever but a pair of eyes and a bundle of nerves. There are twomembers of the mercantile world, they are munching some sandwiches, yousee, but it is merely for the sake of keeping up appearances; as I canassure you, from my own personal knowledge, that they have no digestiveorgans whatever. As for myself, I am a schoolmaster. I have been a hardstudent all my life, at school and at college, and moreover I have had anatural sympathy with my fellow-men, and so I am blessed with a brainand heart entire. But see here. " And he lifted up his cloak, and lo!underneath, a skeleton, save just here! "See, here are the limbs I neverused, and therefore they have deserted me. All the solace I now haveconsists in teaching the young children to avoid a similar doom. Isometimes show them what I have shown you. I labor hard to convince themthat most assuredly the same misfortune will befall them which hashappened to me and to all the grown-up inhabitants; but even then, Igrieve to say, I cannot always succeed. Many believe that they will belucky enough to escape, and some of the grown-up inhabitants padthemselves, and so cheat the poor children into the belief that they areall right, though all the elder ones know better. You will now perceivethe reason why all the gentlemen you see wear such tight pantaloons, they pretend that it is fashionable, but in reality it is in order toprevent their false legs from tumbling out. Surely my case is miserableenough; my only hope consists in the idea of educating the risinggeneration to do better. No doubt it is easy to persuade them to do soin the country from which you come, but I assure you, " added he with aheartfelt sigh, "that it is sometimes very hard to do so here. Nearlyall of us, then, have lost something of our bodies. Some have no head, some no legs, some no heart, and so on; the less a man has lost, thehigher he ranks in the social scale; and our Aristocracy, the governingbody, consists of the few individuals who have used all their faculties, and therefore now possess them all. "

At this moment a dreadful earthquake broke out, and an extempore volcanoshot the gentleman who had listened to this interesting, narration rightup to the crust of the earth again, and by a strange and fortunatechance shot him up into the very hole which he had been digging, and hediscovered himself lying down at the bottom of the hole, feeling just asif he had awakened from a dream; and to his surprise, heard distinctlythe voice of his wife crying out from the top, "Come, come, dear, you'revery late, and supper is getting quite cold!"

The name of the country of Skitzland translated into the vulgar tongueis the planet earth, and America is one of the portions thereof. If wewere to look round in a circuit of a hundred miles, how many of theSkitzland aristocracy should we find, think you? What a dropping off oflimbs and features there would be, if the letter of the law of Skitzlandwere carried out! But it is absolutely certain that, this is in effectthe law of nature, which does not act, it is true, all in a moment; butwhich slowly and truly tends to this. The Hindoo ties up an arm, foryears together, as a penance, thinking thereby he does Brahma service;the limb with fatal sureness withers away, and rots. The prisoner insolitary confinement has his mind and faculties bound, fettered andtied, and by a law as fixed as that which keeps the stars in theirplaces, the said prisoner's mind grows weaker, feebler, less sane, dayby day. School children are confined six long hours in a closeschool-room, sitting in one unvarying posture, their lungs breathingcorrupted air, no single limb moving as it ought to move, not thefaintest shadow of attention being paid to heart, lungs, digestiveorgans, legs or arms, all these being bound down, and tied as it were;and so, by the stern edict of heaven, which, when man was placed uponearth, decreed that the faculties unused should weaken and fail, we seearound us thousands of unhealthy children whose brains are developed atthe expense of their bodies; the ultimate consequence of which will be, deterioration of brain as well as body. 

What is the remedy for all this? I have before stated that in largecrowded cities, gymnastic training, systematically pursued _as a study_, is the only thing which seems possible to be done, and most assuredlywill be beneficial wherever it is introduced. But there is a differentmethod of physical education, which can be pursued either exclusively, or in association with gymnastics, which can be followed up either inthe country, or in towns, where playgrounds can be obtained. This is themethod which I have invariably pursued myself, namely, the systematicpursuit of health and strength by all manner of manly sports and games. I myself learnt to play and love these games at school and at college. Ihave given them now nearly four years' trial in my school, and every dayconvinces me more and more of their beneficial results. 

I cannot tell how much physical weakness, how much moral evil we havebatted, and bowled, and shinnied away from our door; but I do know thatwe have batted and bowled away indolence, and listlessness, and doingnothing, which I believe is the Devil's greatest engine; and I also knowthat the enthusiasm of the boys in these games never dies out, theirenjoyment never flags, for these games supply the want of the boys'natures, and keep their thoughts from straying to forbidden ground. 

Now these games are the very thing which that portion of mankind calledthe sporting world, have always loved and cherished. They have infusedthe love of these games into the very bones of Englishmen, and who knowshow much good England owes to them! Let us then overlook for a while thereligious world, the commercial world, the literary world, for they donot contain what we seek now, and let us look at this poor sister world, a world which seldom finds itself in such good company. 

Each of these worlds has its work; the one we now have to do with, thesporting world, is a world probably as much decried, and with as muchreason, as any. But see how pertinaciously this world will persist incoming up to the surface wherever a community of men may be. See howrigorously the Puritans tried to put down, or rather _squeeze_ thisheinous tendency out of Human Nature! But they did not succeed, thoughgoodness knows, they tried hard enough. Yet it has come up again, andlo! it is now as vigorous as ever. Friends! I am finding fault with thePuritans in the very midst of their descendants. But what greatercompliment could I pay these old Puritans than this? for their greatestglory is, that they left to their descendants the precious legacy offree thought! and so deeply imbedded is this in the very bones of therace, that they will gladly hear a stranger criticize and even condemn, a portion of the Puritan mind: knowing full well, that the fabric whichthey builded on the shores of this Continent is sufficient to bearwitness to the real manhood that was in them. But what was the reason oftheir failure? Simply they were trying to drive out Nature with apitchfork, and she of course will perpetually keep coming back. So wesay of this world, the sporting world, so liable to abuse, and sounsparingly abused, what is true of all the worlds, and that is, that itwould be well for mankind, if they were to bestow a little thought uponthe demands of this, as well as of the other worlds; and not be contentto ignore wholly a thing the value of which they do not understand;--howthe sporting world has witnessed, does witness, and will foreverwitness, for a fact in Human Nature, which no amount of pressure willever squeeze out of Human Nature, and that is, the necessity which humanbeings feel for amusement, and for open air exercise, not exercisemerely, but hearty, joyous, blood-stirring exercise, with a good amountof pleasant emulation in it. 

This, then, is what cricket and boating, battledore and archery, shinneyand skating, fishing, hunting, shooting, and baseball mean, namely, thatthere is a joyous spontaneity in human beings; and thus Nature, by meansof the sporting world, by means of a great number of very imperfect, undignified, and sometimes quite disreputable mouthpieces, isperpetually striving to say something deserving of far nobler andclearer utterance; something which statesmen, lawgivers, preachers, andeducators would do well to lay to heart. My children, she would say, arenot intended to be made working machines; they have capacities for joy, for spontaneous action, for doing some pleasant thing for the mere sakeof doing it, without any regard to gain or profit, whether it be ofmoney or anything else; and by obeying my dictates, they will findriches which they never sought for, will obtain gifts they never asked. 

Why, a fast young man at an English University too often learns no goodthing there, except to play a capital game at cricket, have a good seatupon a horse, pull an oar till he drops, and to have a general belief inthe omnipotence of pluck! And I can tell you that is no bad educationtoo, as far as it goes. I am perfectly well aware that fast young mentoo often learn other and worse things than these, learn to drink, andswear, and debauch, and to spend as fast as possible in riotous livingthe manhood and strength which God has given them. But this I know andpublicly declare, that it is this love of manly sports which keeps thefast young men of England from utter corruption and decay. Such men, renowned in their school and college days as good cricketers, oarsmen orriders, were the men that made Alma, Inkermann, and Balaklava possible;who have just done battle at fearful odds on the burning plains ofIndia, on behalf of helpless women and slaughtered babies; and thosewhom their strong right arm could not save, it was able to avenge! Theiron endurance which they had gained in many a bloodless contest, stoodthem in good stead there, when all their manhood was needed, if ever itwas; and over those that nobly died there, methinks that I can see theGenius of England weep bitter tears, and thus speak with deepself-reproach:--"Ah! sons of mine! loved and early lost! ye whom I couldnot teach, whom no one in all my broad lands could teach, how to unitethe virtuous, wise and holy soul, together with the soul joyous andfree! Alas! for me, that ye had to die, before I could know how noble yewere! that your cold bodies, fallen on the field, wounds all in front, and none behind, would be so many poor dumb mouths to tell me of theuntold wealth which I have in my children, those very ones who too oftenare nought but shame and grief to me!" Dear, noble old England! if Godwill teach her this wisdom, her old heart will beat on bravely for athousand years to come. 

The preponderance of the animal, the bodily element, produces fast youngmen; and fast young men, and boys tending to become such, are theproblem of society, the terror of the peace-loving, money-making world, and the scandal of the Educator, as he himself feels well enough his ownimpotence in dealing with them. 

I have seen many an Educator who has felt that he ought to get at theseyoung rebellious forces, but who does not know the way, and despairinglywonders why he cannot do so. Friend! I would say, no man can influenceanother, unless he has something akin to Him. What do you think givesthese blacklegs, men of not a tithe of your force and talent, such powerover them? Why, it is community of nature, interests in common. But whatinterests have you in common with a fast young man? You know nothingthat he knows, you admire nothing that he admires; and until you doreally get a community of interest with him, you will be wide asunder asthe poles, and the fast young man will remain, as he has hithertoremained, the one disgraceful problem which modern education cannotsolve. 

If an educator or college tutor wishes to influence this class of hisscholars, or if a clergyman wishes to gain the souls of this part of hiscongregation, the one most difficult to deal with, let him join withthem in some manly game, and let him assuredly know that whatever truemanhood he has will stand him in good stead, and nothing else: nothingbut real vital religion, real nobleness of character will be of any usein the cricket-field or the row-boat; and this will hold its own here aswell as elsewhere. 

Once, then, establish a community of interest on any one subject withyoung men, and you open to yourself a door, by which all good may enter. Nature, dear friends, makes nothing in vain, and it is of such infiniteimportance that strength of limb, readiness of eye and hand, physicalvigor in short, should be transmitted from generation to generation, that she keeps producing fast young men, in spite of the thousandexcesses which they commit, and will do so, until the ablest and wisesthuman minds take the matter in hand, and see to it that this part ofHuman Nature has its proper and legitimate food, guided by mind, thought, and reverence, instead of being allowed to run riot in allmanner of wantonness. 

The sporting world, then, with its manly games and manly sports, givesus the means which are needed by the community at large for physicaleducation; and the future educators of the country must be taught tolove these manly games at school and at college, and then they will beable to disseminate them; whereas, at present, educators in this countryare almost entirely ignorant of any manly games whatever. "But are notthese games very dangerous, " asks a careful mamma; "don't you find thatboys get hurt very much by them? I have heard of some one who got histeeth knocked down his throat by them. Somebody else got his head hurtat shinney and so that was put a stop to, I believe, at Mr. ----'sschool. " Such mammas, doubtless, put into the hands of their childrensome good little book, with a narration of this sort. Little Johnny wastold by his mamma not to climb trees. He was a good boy, and generallyobedient. But one day he was in the garden of one of his schoolfellows, who asked him to climb a cherry tree; he forgot his mother's command, and went up, but after he had climbed nearly to the top his footslipped, and down he tumbled through the branches on to the ground. Hecried very much, and could not move, so they had to put him upon ashutter and carry him home. The doctor found that his leg was broken;the pain was dreadful when he had it set, &c. &c. ; the drama ending byJohnny throwing his arms round his mother's neck, and declaring that ifhe ever got well, he would never disobey his dear, dear mother any more!

The good people who write these edifying stories never seem to thinkwhether it was wise for mamma to forbid Johnny to climb a tree. Monkeysare never forbidden to do so, and I seldom hear anything of theirfalling off. Poor people's children climb trees, and there does not seemto be an extraordinary increase of juvenile mortality on this account. What should you say if some hard-hearted person, myself for instance, were to say to the dear mother of little Johnny, "Dear Madam, youyourself, I grieve to say, were the cause of Johnny's accident; you havehabitually prevented him from doing anything which would quicken hisperceptions and strengthen his limbs. He must not soil his pinafore, hemust not get his hands dirty, and above all he must not play at anygames which make his hair untidy, or tear his clothes. In fact, you haveforbidden him to do precisely those things which Nature prompted him todo. He has generally been very obedient, you say, and therefore hisbodily powers have become weaker instead of stronger. Well, thetemptation came, the unused and untrustworthy limbs were summoned toact, his consciousness of doing wrong enfeebled him still further, andmade them still more nervous. He went up the tree, and the naturalconsequence was, that he fell. "

This, in substance, is the answer to all questions of this class. I haveplayed at cricket or shinney, or boated, since I was nine years old. During the last three years and a half, I have played at one or theother almost every day. I have played at shinney, or hockey, as we callit, all through the winter, through snow a foot deep, and when thethermometer was below zero; I have played at cricket in summer with thethermometer at 90, and I have never yet seen one serious accident. Thefact is, that I have a theory that Nature loves young men and boys, andlove to aid them in their sports. She sends her ice and snow to educatethem and make them hardy, while we are sitting by the stove and abusingthe weather. She won't let them be hurt half as much by a blow or afall, as older people who do not love her half as well. She breaks theyoung one's fall, and herself puts the plaster on his little fingers. She is delighted at every conquest that these young children of hersmake over herself, just like some big boxer she stands, who is teachinghis boy to box. He feints and threatens and looks big, but who sopleased as he when the young one gets in his one two!

Again, the danger is little or nothing to the daring and courageous. Thefellow that isn't afraid of the ball, is scarcely ever hurt. He defendshimself with eye and hand. The coward is the one most likely to gethurt. I think that there is just enough risk in these games to engendera manly contempt for pain, and a bold handling of a danger. If thecricket ball were a soft affair, it would be a game for babies not boys. 

Let us then take a hint from the sporting world, and turn to the use ofthe many that which has formed the only redeeming feature of a few. Thegood that these manly games do, should not be confined to a small class, but should be diffused among the whole community, for the sporting worldhas something to say to all of us. It rouses the scholar from his desk, shakes him, and tells him that much study is a weariness to the flesh, and that the fields are alive with song. Out then he must come, andleave his musty books. 

It comes to the business man in the crowded city, and babbles of greenfields, nudges Mr. Sparrowgrass with its elbow, and tells him to takeMrs. S. And the children into the country. 

It comes to Mr. Fezziwig at Christmas time, and tells him to let theyoung men in his shop have a jolly time of it, put by their work, listento the fiddle, and join the dance. 

Ay, and the dream of those half-forgotten days comes over Scrooge, themiserly, miserable Scrooge, and wakes up something like a soul in him. 

It comes to Colonel Newcome, and bids him go to Charter House School, and take his boy out for a holiday. 

This same spirit came to the ancient Greek in drama, dance and game, andwith him was set to music, and consecrated to the gods, to Apollo theever young, to Pallas the wise, to Bacchus the joy-giver. 

It came to the stern old Roman with his Saturnalia, when for once in allthe year the slave and the plebeian might speak their minds withoutfear. 

It came to the dark-eyed Hebrew with his feasts of tabernacles, hisfeast of the harvest and the vintage, and over his joyaunce a sacredshadow rested, as of One who was over these things, who both made andconsecrated the joy. 

Spirit of joy! Wide as the world! Offspring of heaven! That descendestwith airs redolent of thy native home, and comest to give to thetoil-worn brickmakers of the earth a little rest! Forgive us, foolishdwellers in the clay, if ofttimes we take thy festal garlands, and dragthem in the mire! drunk with the wine of thy pleasures, we turn thygifts to ashes and to mourning. Come thou, nevertheless! and stay not, turn not away for our folly, come with thy love-light, and smile-light, and make the whole earth green with thy summer of delight. 

It were a theme worthy of the place and time, if we could sketch out theprogress of mankind; to show how God laid the foundations of the humanrace in the barbaric ages, strong, savage human bodies being the stonesthereof; how in due order, order as sure and stately as that of thegeologic eras, arose the Roman and the Greek, the types of fulldeveloped body and mind together: how in the fullness of timeChristianity revealed the mighty powers of heart, conscience and soul, which before were lying dormant in the human race; so that now at lastupon us has fallen the task of developing the whole of man, --body, mind, heart, conscience and soul. 

But my time, if not your patience, fails me: so I leave it as a hint forfuture thought, and will in conclusion utter a few words of courage andhope for mankind, which each event of to-day seems to strengthen andenlarge. Yes, it is no longer fitting, that for the future we shouldhave few hopers and many fearers. Nay, rather let us all join handsto-day, and form a great Electric Cable of Hope, that shall stretch fromsea to sea, from shore to shore. 

For it is certain, then, that the planet upon which God has placed us, is absolutely well fitted for the development of the human race. Themore Science investigates, the more wonderful seems the adaptation ofHuman Nature to the world in which it is placed. The more refined a manbecomes, the more delicate his insight into Nature, the more satisfied, the more overjoyed is he with her exhaustless charms. It is only oursin, our folly, our ignorance, which perpetually befools us, and robs usof our inheritance. 

When the great coming race, prophesied of so long, shall at last inhabitthe earth, they shall see no more glorious stars, no bluer atmosphere, than we do to-day; the moon shall pour forth no more silver from herbounteous horn; the sun shall lavish his golden rays no more freely, than he does to-day. But yet the whole world shall be unimaginablybrighter and more beautiful to that crowning race. And why? Becausetheir natures shall be in tune with the outward universe; their eyes andears, and all their senses, shall be unimaginably more acute than ours;their bodies shall be perpetual sources of joy to them, and their soulsshall be awake to knowledge, truth and love. 

If our eyes were endowed with magnifying powers equal to that of somecolossal telescope, how would the dome of heaven expand intoinconceivable dimensions, the stars would be seen to be scattered alongthe sky like the sands upon the sea-shore. Each bright particular starwould be magnified a thousand times, seeming vastly larger, and yetvastly more distant. The whole concave of heaven then would appear athousand times larger than it does to our eyes, that is, it would appeara thousand times over more like its real size, though even then, eyesthus grandly gifted would fall immeasurably short of the reality of theuniverse which lies in the bosom of God! Now that great race of thefuture shall have their nature so in tune with things, and theirspiritual conceptions so enlarged, that the great world shall berealized in its vastness, so much more vividly than we can conceive ofit, that it shall be as if their material eye were exalted to the powerof Lord Rosse's telescope. 

Put together the fragments of men that we have amongst us to-day, --thephysical joy in existence of the western hunter, the intellectualkeenness of the man of science, the love of Nature of the artist orpoet, the love for each little bird and insect of the naturalist, thejustice of a Washington, the love for God and man of a FlorenceNightingale, and then we gain some glimpses of the men of the futurewhom God has willed shall possess the planet at last. For assuredly therace is safe, though nations or individuals may fail and perish. Safe, because God has not built the planet in vain; safe, because his longpatience shall have its full satisfaction at the last. How shall thesethings be? God will give this blessing to human labor directed by truthand love. 

From partial and one-sided cultivation of Human Nature, partial andone-sided results can alone ensue. The commencement of this glorious erawill date from the first complete education of all the manifold natureof man. The grand work once inaugurated, by the wondrous law ofhereditary descent, natures completer and nobler on all sides will bethe heritage of the next generation, by virtue of their birth, and so onin stately progression each generation shall expand and transmit alarger power to the generation that succeeds it; and at last the granduniverse of matter shall put the world of man to shame no longer, butman with God's image shining through him, shall be seen to be worthy ofthe glorious nature in whose bosom he dwells. 

See to it then, Educators! that young Human Nature has its due. See toit that conscience and the soul have their rightful supremacy, thatintellect and sweet human affection walk hand in hand. And lastly, seeto it, Educators! that these young bodies have their due. Learn foryourselves numberless manly sports and games, and resolutely continue toteach them and practise them yourselves in the midst of your scholars. Love open air and exercise yourselves first; this love will becontagious, and will communicate itself to those around you. No atom oftrue dignity will be lost, and a priceless fund of good humor will begained for yourself, and a mutual good feeling will be establishedforever between you and your scholars. Do this, and we shall no longerhear of schoolmasters becoming old men before they are forty; but theschoolmaster will be known as the youngest looking, healthiest andhappiest man in the district. 

Upon us, my friends, more than upon any other class of men, this great, this lamentably neglected duty devolves. We are to see to it that younglimbs and lungs have their rights; we must make men understand that itwill be a sin against God, if they do not have their rights; a sin, whose punishment is as certain as the law of gravitation. And more, itmust be our task to make men understand the inevitable blessing which issure to descend upon the keeping of God's commandments written upon thebody. 

Schoolmaster in country village! whose two dollars per diem arebegrudged and shaved down by some committee of boobies! whose lot, may-be, is additionally blessed by the privilege of boarding out amongthe exceedingly willing inhabitants of the district! upon thee nofoolish word of pity shall fall from lips of mine! Thee no wise man willpity, but rather bid thee be of good cheer and play the man! Witnessthou, in thy little corner of the great world, for all Human Nature. Seethou that each part has its due, in the little flock of which thou artshepherd. Be faithful to thy sacred trust, and eyes yet unborn shallshine with the truth-light which thou didst first impart. Yea, generations shall rise up and call thee blessed! By thee the youngnerves, and limbs, and brain shall be loved, and pitied, and understood. Thou, like another Greatheart, shalt shield them from ignorance andwrong. To thee no word of man can matter much. Whether thou be praisedor despised of men, is to thee a small thing; for in the calm eventide, when the day's work is over, thou hast ears to listen to the Master'svoice, saying to his servant, Well done!