A number of good students, I grant, could have been formed by emulation and self-discipline; but to convey ahead these clever boys, the well being and morals of a quantity have been sacrificed. It’s not for the good thing about society that a few sensible males needs to be introduced ahead on the expense of the multitude. So convinced am I of this fact, that I’ll venture to predict that virtue will never prevail in society till the virtues of each sexes are founded on reason; and, till the affections common to each are allowed to realize their due power by the discharge of mutual duties. Nay, marriage will never be held sacred until ladies, by being introduced up with males, are prepared to be their companions quite than their mistresses; for the mean doublings of cunning will ever render them contemptible, while oppression renders them timid. Sunday, visit the college, and are impressed by the very parade that renders the state of affairs of their kids uncomfortable. I don’t say that these devotional feelings are of extra use, in a ethical sense, than any other emotion of style; but I contend that the theatrical pomp which gratifies our senses, is to be most popular to the chilly parade that insults the understanding without reaching the heart.
As these ceremonies have probably the most fatal impact on their morals, and as a ritual carried out by the lips, when the guts and mind are far away, just isn’t now stored up by our church as a financial institution to attract on for the fees of the poor souls in purgatory, why should they not be abolished? If the reader will study Merriam’s temperature charts in relation to zoological distribution, he will note that the coloration symbol of the southern states of the Union extends far to the westward. The sons of our gentry and rich commoners are principally educated at these seminaries, and can anyone pretend to assert that almost all, making each allowance, come under the description of tolerable students? To date, however, from pondering of the morals of boys, I’ve heard a number of masters of colleges argue, that they solely undertook to show Latin and Greek; and that they’d fulfilled their duty, by sending some good students to college. There is just not, perhaps, in the kingdom, a more dogmatical, or luxurious set of males, than the pedantic tyrants who reside in schools and preside at public faculties. Yet, how can these things be remedied whilst school-masters depend fully on parents for a subsistence; and when so many rival faculties cling out their lures, to be a focus for vain fathers and mothers, whose parental affection solely leads them to want that their kids should outshine these of their neighbours?
The need of residing in the identical fashion, because the rank simply above them, infects each individual and every class of people, and meanness is the concomitant of this ignoble ambition; however those professions are most debasing whose ladder is patronage: yet, out of one of those professions the tutors of youth are, basically, chosen. But, these must be nationwide institutions, for while college-masters are dependent on the caprice of mother and father, little exertion could be expected from them, more than is essential to please ignorant individuals. In the most effective regulated colleges, however; the place swarms are not crammed together, many unhealthy habits have to be acquired; however, at frequent faculties, the body, coronary heart, and understanding, are equally stunted, for fogeys are sometimes only in quest of the most cost effective faculty, and the master couldn’t dwell, if he did not take a much higher quantity than he may manage himself; nor will the scanty pittance, allowed for each youngster, permit him to hire ushers enough to help within the discharge of the mechanical part of the enterprise. The little consideration paid to the cultivation of modesty, amongst men, produces great depravity in all the relationships of society; for, not solely love-love that should purify the heart, and first call forth all of the youthful powers, to organize the man to discharge the benevolent duties of life, is sacrificed to premature lust; but, all of the social affections are deadened by the selfish gratifications, which very early pollute the mind, and dry up the generous juices of the center.
Every earthly affection turns again, at intervals, to prey upon the center that feeds it; and the purest effusions of benevolence, typically rudely damped by man, must mount as a free-will offering to Him who gave them birth, whose shiny picture they faintly replicate. Half the employment of the youths is to elude the necessity of attending public worship; and well they may, for such a relentless repetition of the same thing have to be a really irksome restraint on their natural vivacity. In what an unnatural manner is innocence often violated; and what serious penalties ensue to render non-public vices a public pest. I’ve already animadverted on the unhealthy habits which females acquire when they are shut up collectively; and, I believe, that the remark might fairly be prolonged to the other sex, until the natural inference is drawn which I’ve had in view throughout-that to enhance both sexes they ought, not solely in personal families, however in public faculties, to be educated collectively.