Chapter VIII: The Importance of Popular Education (4)

"The records of cases at this institution and my own observation justify me in saying that the neglect of moral discipline, the too great indulgence of the passions and emotions in early life, together with the excessive and premature exercise of the mental powers, are among the most frequent causes that predispose to insanity. But these causes are in no other way operative in producing insanity than by unduly exciting the brain. By neglect of moral discipline, a character is formed subject to violent passions, and to extreme emotions and anxiety from the unavoidable evils and disappointments of life, and thus the brain, by being often and violently agitated, becomes diseased; and by too early exercising and prematurely developing the mental powers, this organ is rendered more susceptible and liable to disease.

"I am confident there is too much mental labor imposed upon youth at our schools and colleges. There have been several admissions of young ladies at this institution direct from boarding-schools, and of young men from college, where they had studied excessively. Should such intense exertion of the mind in youth not lead to insanity or immediate disease, it predisposes to dyspepsy, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and affections allied to insanity, and which are often its precursors. Should that portion of the community who now act most wisely in obtaining a knowledge of the functions of the digestive organs, and in carefully guarding them from undue excitation, be equally regardful of the brain, they would do a very great service to society, and, in my opinion, do much toward arresting the alarming increase of insanity, and all disorders of the nervous system."[52]

[52] In the education of many, very many, I fear, the same mistake is
made as in the case of Lord Dudley, thus described in a late number of
the London Quarterly Review: "The irritable susceptibility of the brain
was stimulated at the expense of bodily power and health. His foolish
tutors took a pride in his precocious progress, which they ought to have
kept back. They watered the forced plant with the blood of life; they
encouraged the violation of Nature's laws, which are not to be broken in
vain; they infringed the condition of conjoint moral and physical
existence; they imprisoned him in a vicious circle, where the overworked
brain injured the stomach, which reacted to the injury of the brain.
They watched the slightest deviation from the rules of logic, and
neglected those of dietetics, to which the former are a farce. They
thought of no exercises but Latin; they gave him a Gradus instead of a
cricket-bat, until his mind became too keen for its mortal coil, and the
foundation was laid for ill health, derangement of stomach, moral
pusillanimity, irresolution, lowness of spirits, and all the Protean
miseries of nervous disorders, by which his after life was haunted, and
which are sadly depicted in almost every letter before us."

EDUCATION INCREASES HUMAN HAPPINESS.

What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To rust in us unused.--SHAKSPEARE.

All the happiness of man is derived from discovering, applying, or
obeying the laws of his Creator; and all his misery is the result of
ignorance or disobedience.--DR. WAYLAND.

If the doctrines taught and the sentiments inculcated in the preceding chapters of this work, but more especially in the preceding sections of this chapter, are true; if it is established that education dissipates the evils of ignorance; that it increases the productiveness of labor; that it diminishes pauperism and crime--if all this is true, it may seem a work of supererogation to attempt the establishment of the proposition that education increases human happiness. I admit this seeming impropriety; for that the proposition is true may be legitimately inferred from what has gone before. But I wish to amplify and extend this thought, and to show that education has, if possible, still higher claims upon our attention than have yet been presented; that it not only has the power of removing physical and moral evils, and of multiplying and augmenting personal and social enjoyments, but that, when rightly understood, it constitutes our chief good; that to it, and to it only, we may safely look for man's highest and enduring joys, and for the permanent elevation of the race.

MAN IN IGNORANCE.--That we may be the better prepared to appreciate the advantages of education, and its usefulness as a means of increasing human happiness, let us consider the state and the enjoyments of the man whose mind is shrouded in ignorance. He grows up to manhood like a vegetable, or like one of the lower animals that are fed and nourished for the slaughter. He exerts his physical powers because such exertion is necessary for his subsistence. Were it otherwise, we should most frequently find him dozing over the fire with a gaze as dull and stupid as his ox, regardless of every thing but the gratification of his appetites. He has, perhaps, been taught the art of reading, but has never applied it to the acquisition of knowledge. His views are chiefly confined to the objects immediately around him, and to the daily avocations in which he is employed. His knowledge of society is circumscribed within the limits of his neighborhood, and his views of the world are confined within the range of the country in which he resides, or of the blue hills which skirt his horizon.

Of the aspect of the globe in other countries, of the various tribes with which these are peopled, of the seas and rivers, continents and islands, which diversify the landscape of the earth, of the numerous orders of animated beings which people the ocean, the atmosphere, and the land, of the revolutions of nations, and the events which have taken place in the history of the world, he has almost as little conception as have the animals which range the forest.

In regard to the boundless regions that lie beyond him in the firmament, and the bodies that roll there in magnificent grandeur, he has the most confused and inaccurate ideas; indeed, he seldom troubles himself with inquiries in relation to such subjects. Whether the stars are great or small, whether they are near us or at a distance, and whether they move or stand still, are to him matters of trivial importance. If the sun gives him light by day and the moon by night, and the clouds distil their watery treasures upon his parched fields, he is contented, and leaves all such inquiries and investigations to those who have leisure and inclination to engage in them. He views the canopy of heaven as merely a ceiling to our earthly habitation, and the starry orbs as only so many luminous tapers to diversify its aspect, and to afford a glimmering light to the benighted traveler.

Such a person has no idea of the manner in which the understanding may be enlightened and expanded by education; he has no relish for intellectual pursuits, and no conception of the pleasures they afford; and he sets no value on knowledge but in so far as it may increase his riches and his sensual gratifications. He has no desire for making improvements in his trade or domestic arrangements, and gives no countenance to those useful inventions and public improvements which are devised by others. He sets himself against every innovation, whether religious, political, mechanical, or agricultural, and is determined to abide by the "good old customs" of his forefathers, even though they compel him to carry his grist to mill in one end of a bag, with a stone in the other to balance it. Were it dependent upon him, the moral world would stand still, as the material world was supposed to in former times; all useful inventions would cease; existing evils would never be remedied; ignorance and superstition would universally prevail; the human mind would be arrested in its progress to perfection, and man would never arrive at the true dignity of his intellectual nature.

It is evident that such an individual--and the world contains thousands and millions of such characters--can never have his mind elevated to those sublime objects and contemplations which enrapture the man of science, nor feel those pure and exquisite pleasures which cultivated minds so frequently experience; nor can he form those lofty and expansive conceptions of the Deity which the grandeur and magnificence of his works are calculated to inspire. He is left as a prey to all those foolish notions and vain alarms which are engendered by ignorance and superstition; and he swallows, without the least hesitation, all the absurdities and childish tales respecting witches, hobgoblins, specters, and apparitions, which have been handed down to him by his forefathers.

While the ignorant man thus gorges his mind with fooleries and absurdities, he spurns at the discoveries of science as impositions on the credulity of mankind, and contrary to reason and common sense. That the sun is a million of times larger than the earth; that light flies from his body at the rate of a hundred thousand miles in the hundredth part of a second; and that the earth is whirling round its axis from day to day with a velocity of a thousand miles every hour, are regarded by him as notions far more improbable and extravagant than the story of the "Wonderful Lamp," and all the other tales of the "Arabian Night's Entertainments." In his hours of leisure from his daily avocations, his thoughts either run wild among the most groveling objects, or sink into sensuality and inanity; and solitude and retirement present no charms to his vacant mind.

While human beings are thus immersed in ignorance, destitute of rational ideas and of a solid substratum of thought, they can never experience those pleasures and enjoyments which flow from the exercise of the understanding, and which correspond to the dignity of a rational and immortal nature.

AN ENLIGHTENED MIND.--On the other hand, the man whose mind is irradiated with the light of substantial science has views, and feelings, and exquisite enjoyments to which the former is an entire stranger. In consequence of the numerous and multifarious ideas he has acquired, he is introduced, as it were, into a new world, where he is entertained with scenes, objects, and movements, of which the mind enveloped in ignorance can form no conception. He can trace back the stream of time to its commencement, and, gliding along its downward course, can survey the most memorable events which have happened in every part of its progress, from the primeval ages to the present day; the rise of empires, the fall of kings, the revolutions of nations, the battles of warriors, and the important events which have followed in their train; the progress of civilization, and of the arts and sciences; the judgments which have been inflicted on wicked nations, the dawnings of Divine mercy toward our fallen race, the manifestation of the Son of God in our nature, the physical changes and revolutions which have taken place in the constitution of our globe; in short, the whole of the leading events in the chain of divine dispensation, from the beginning of the world to the period in which we live.

With his mental eye the enlightened man can survey the terraqueous globe in all its variety of aspects; he can contemplate the continents, islands, and oceans which surround its exterior; the numerous rivers by which it is indented; the lofty ranges of mountains which diversify its surface; its winding caverns; its forests, lakes, and sandy deserts; its whirlpools, boiling springs, and glaciers; its sulphurous mountains, bituminous lakes, and the states and empires into which it is distributed; the tides and currents of the ocean; the icebergs of the polar regions, and the verdant scenes of the torrid zone.

Sitting at his fireside during the blasts of winter, the enlightened man can survey the numerous tribes of mankind scattered over the various climates of the earth, and entertain himself with views of their manners, customs, religion, laws, trade, manufactures, marriage ceremonies, civil and ecclesiastical governments, arts, sciences, cities, towns, and villages, and the animals peculiar to every region. In his rural walks he can not only appreciate the beneficence of Nature, and the beauties and harmonies of the vegetable kingdom in their exterior aspect, but he can also penetrate into the hidden processes which are going on in the roots, trunks, and leaves of plants and flowers, and contemplate the numerous vessels through which the sap is flowing from their roots through the trunks and branches; the millions of pores through which their odoriferous effluvia exhale; their fine and delicate texture; their microscopical beauties; their orders, genera, and species, and their uses in the economy of nature.

Even when shrouded in darkness and in solitude, where other minds could find no enjoyment, the man of knowledge can entertain himself with the most sublime contemplations. He can trace the huge earth we inhabit flying through the depths of space, carrying along with it its vast population, at the rate of sixty thousand miles every hour, and, by the inclination of its axis, bringing about the alternate succession of summer and winter, of seed-time and harvest. By the aid of his telescope he can transport himself toward the moon, and survey the circular plains, the deep caverns, the conical hills, the lofty peaks, and the rugged and romantic mountain scenery which diversify the surface of this orb of night.

By the help of the same instrument he can range through the planetary system, wing his way through the regions of space along with the swiftest orbs, and trace many of the physical aspects and revolutions which have a relation to distant worlds. He can transport himself to the planet Saturn, and behold a stupendous ring six hundred thousand miles in circumference, revolving in majestic grandeur every ten hours around a globe nine hundred times larger than the earth, while seven moons larger than ours, along with an innumerable host of stars, display their radiance to adorn the firmament of that magnificent world. He can wing his flight through the still more distant regions of the universe, leaving the sun and all his planets behind him, till they appear like a scarcely discernible speck in creation, and contemplate thousands and millions of stars and starry systems beyond the range of the unassisted eye, and wander among the suns and worlds dispersed throughout the boundless dimensions of space.

In his imagination he can fill up those blanks which astronomy has never directly explored, and conceive thousands of systems and ten thousands of worlds beyond all that is visible by the optic tube, stretching out to infinity on every hand, peopled with intelligences of various orders, and all under the superintendence and government of the "King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible," whose power is omnipotent, and the limit of his dominions past finding out.

It is evident that a mind capable of such excursions and contemplations as I have now supposed must experience enjoyments infinitely superior to those of the individual whose soul is enveloped in intellectual darkness. If substantial happiness is chiefly situated in the mind; if it depends on the multiplicity of objects which lie within the range of its contemplation; if it is augmented by the view of scenes of beauty and sublimity, and displays of infinite intelligence and power; if it is connected with tranquillity of mind, which generally accompanies intellectual pursuits, and the subjugation of the pleasures of sense to the dictates of reason, the enlightened mind must enjoy gratifications as far superior to those of the ignorant as man is superior in station and capacity to the worms of the dust.

In order to illustrate this topic a little further, I shall select a few facts and deductions in relation to science, which demonstrate the interesting nature and delightful tendency of scientific pursuits.

There are several recorded instances of the powerful effect which the study of astronomy has produced upon the human mind. Dr. Rittenhouse, of Pennsylvania, after he had calculated the transit of Venus, which was to happen June 3d, 1769, was appointed, at Philadelphia, with others, to repair to the township of Norriston, and there to observe this planet until its passage over the sun's disc should verify the correctness of his calculations. This occurrence had never been witnessed but twice before by an inhabitant of our earth, and was never to be again seen by any person then living. A phenomenon so rare, and so important in its bearings upon astronomical science, was, indeed, well calculated to agitate the soul of one so alive as he was to the great truths of nature. The day arrived, and there was no cloud on the horizon. The observers, in silence and trembling anxiety, awaited for the predicted moment of observation to arrive. It came, and in the instant of contact, an emotion of joy so powerful was excited in the bosom of Dr. Rittenhouse that he fainted.

Sir Isaac Newton, after he had advanced so far in his mathematical proof of one of his great astronomical doctrines as to see that the result was to be triumphant, was so affected in view of the momentous truth he was about to demonstrate that he was unable to proceed, and begged one of his companions in study to relieve him, and carry out the calculation. These are striking illustrations, and the effect is perhaps heightened from their connection with a most sublime science, all of whose conclusions stand in open contradiction with those of superficial and vulgar observation.

But the discovery and contemplation of truths in philosophy, chemistry, and the mathematics have, in numerous instances, awakened kindred emotions. The enlightened man sees in every thing he beholds upon the surface of the earth, whether animal or vegetable, and in the very elements themselves, no less than when contemplating the wonders of astronomy, instances innumerable illustrative of the wisdom and beneficence of the Architect, all of which has a direct tendency to increase his happiness. In the invisible atmosphere which surrounds him, where other minds discern nothing but an immense blank, he beholds an assemblage of wonders, and a striking scene of divine wisdom and omnipotence. He views this invisible agent not only as a _material_, but as a _compound_ substance, composed of two opposite principles, the one the source of flame and animal life, and the other destructive to both. He perceives the atmosphere as the agent under the Almighty which produces the germination and growth of plants, and all the beauties of the vegetable creation; which preserves water in a liquid state, supports fire and flame, and produces animal heat; which sustains the clouds, and gives buoyancy to the feathered tribes; which is the cause of winds, the vehicle of smells, the medium of sounds, the source of all the pleasures we derive from the harmonies of music, the cause of the universal light and splendor which is diffused around us, and of the advantages we derive from the morning and evening twilight. He contemplates it as the prime mover in a variety of machines, as impelling ships across the ocean, raising balloons to the region of the clouds, blowing our furnaces, raising water from the deepest pits, extinguishing fires, and performing a thousand other beneficent agencies, without which our globe would cease to be habitable. No one can doubt that all these views and contemplations have a direct tendency to enlarge the capacity of the mind, to stimulate its faculties, and to produce rational enjoyment.

But there is another view of this subject which is perhaps still more impressive. The atmosphere, it has been stated, is a compound substance. A knowledge of its elementary principles, which chemistry teaches, introduces its possessor to a new world of happiness. The adaptation of air to respiration, and the influence of a change in the nature or proportion of its elements upon health and longevity, have already been considered.[53] We have seen that carbonic acid, the vitiating product of respiration, although immediately fatal to animals, constitutes the very life of vegetation; that in the growth of plants the vitiated air is purified and fitted again for the sustenance of animal life; and that, by a beneficent provision of the Creator, animals and vegetables are thus perpetually interchanging kindly offices. It will suffice for our present purpose simply to remind the reader that the atmosphere is composed of the two gases, oxygen and nitrogen, united in the ratio of one to four by volume. Oxygen is a supporter of combustion, nitrogen is not. Increase the proportion of oxygen in the air, and the same substances burn with increased brilliancy; but diminish the proportion gradually, and they will burn more and more dimly until they become extinct. Iron and steel, as well as wood and the ordinary combustibles, will burn with great brilliancy in pure oxygen.

[53] See Chapter IV., especially from the 89th page to the 105th.

Water, I may add, is composed of the two gases, oxygen and hydrogen. The former, as we have seen, is a supporter of combustion, and the latter is one of the most combustible substances known. These two gases are nearly two thousand times more voluminous than their equivalent of water, and, when ignited, they _combine with explosive energy_. If, then, the Creator were to decompose the atmosphere that surrounds the earth to the height of forty-five miles, and the water that rests upon its surface, either or both of them, the oxygen, being specifically heavier than the nitrogen or hydrogen, would settle immediately upon the earth, and, coming in contact with fires here and there, its whole surface would, in an instant of time, be enveloped in one general conflagration, and "the day of the Lord," spoken of in the Scriptures, "in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the things therein shall be burned up," would be speedily ushered in. He who understands the first principles of chemical science can not fail to perceive how readily (and in perfect accordance with laws well understood) such a general conflagration would take place were the great Architect simply to resolve these two elements--air and water--into their constituent parts. How full of meaning to such a one are the words of the Psalmist, _The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork_.

One more illustration must suffice. All fluids, except water, contract in volume as they become colder to the point of congelation. But the point of greatest density in water is about eight degrees above freezing. As the temperature of ALL fluids _increases_ above this point, their volume increases. As the temperature of all fluids, with the single exception of WATER, _decreases_, the volume decreases down to the freezing point. Water increases in density as it becomes colder until it reaches the temperature of forty degrees--eight degrees above the freezing point--when it begins to expand. This only exception to the general law of fluids is of greater importance in the economy of nature than most persons are conscious of. As the cold season advances in the temperate and frigid zones, the water in our lakes and rivers is reduced to the temperature of forty degrees; but at this point, by a beneficent provision of an All-wise Providence, the upper substratum becomes specifically lighter, and is converted into a covering of ice, which, resting upon the water beneath, protects it from freezing. Moreover, when water is converted into ice, one hundred and forty degrees of heat are given out, a part of which, entering into the water below, retards the further formation of ice.[54]

[54] I may here add, that exactly the _reverse_ is true in the _melting_
of snow and ice. It requires as much heat to convert these solids into
fluids, without at all increasing their temperature, as it does to raise
the temperature of water from the freezing point, one hundred and forty
degrees, or from thirty-two to one hundred and seventy-two degrees, as
indicated by the thermometer. This principle is of vast importance to
the world, and particularly to the inhabitants of cold countries, where
the ground is covered with snow and ice a part or the whole of the year.
The transition from the cold of winter to the heat of summer, in some of
the northern climates, takes place within a few days. In these climates,
also, there are vast accumulations of snow and ice, which, but for this
principle, would be converted into water as soon as the temperature of
the atmosphere becomes above thirty-two degrees, which would produce a
flood sufficient to inundate and destroy the whole country. But the
uniform action of this law renders the melting of snow gradual, and no
such accident ensues.

A similar law is observed in the conversion of _water_ into _vapor_,
which is of great use in enabling us to cool apartments by sprinkling
floors or hanging up moistened cloths. The heat of even a whole city is
in like manner greatly moderated by frequently sprinkling the streets.
It is on this account that gentle showers in hot weather are so cooling
and refreshing.

If water, like other fluids, continued to increase in density to the freezing point, the cold air of winter would rob the water of our lakes and rivers of its heat, until the whole was reduced to the temperature of thirty-two degrees; when, but for the circumstance to which we have just alluded, it would be immediately converted into a solid mass of ice from top to bottom, causing instant death to every animal living in it. The lower strata of such a mass of ice would never again become liquefied.

This is a striking proof of the beneficence and design of the Creator in forming water with such an exception to the ordinary laws of nature, and a knowledge of it can hardly fail to exert a most salutary, elevating, and ennobling influence on the mind of its possessor. The field of human happiness, then, with the virtuous, seems to enlarge in proportion as a knowledge of the works and laws of the beneficent Creator is extended. There is little ground for doubt as to what is GOD'S WILL in relation to the universal education of the family of man, when he has connected with the exercise of mind in the study of his works superior enjoyments and heavenly aspirations.

The various propositions stated and elucidated in this chapter, we think, are as fully established as any moral truths need be, and, we doubt not, they commend themselves to the judgment and conscience of all who have carefully perused the preceding pages, if, indeed, they had not been duly considered and adopted before. If, then, a system of universal education, judiciously administered, would dissipate the evils of ignorance, which are legion; if it would greatly increase the productiveness of labor; if it would diminish--not to say exterminate--pauperism and crime; if it would prevent the great majority of fatal accidents that are constantly occurring in every community; if it would save the lives of a hundred thousand children in the United States every year, and as many more puny survivors from dragging out a miserable existence in consequence of being the offspring of ignorant or vicious parents; if it would prevent so much of idiocy, and would humanize those who are born _idiots only_, but have hitherto been permitted, nay, doomed to _die_ BRUTES; if it would prevent so much insanity, and would save to society and their family and friends, "clothed and in their right mind," multitudes of every generation who now dwell in mental darkness and gloom; if it would increase the sum total of human happiness in proportion to its excellence, and the number of persons who are brought under its benign influence and uplifting power; if it would do all this--and that this is its legitimate tendency there can be no doubt--it would seem that no enlightened community could be found in any country, and especially that there can be no state in this Union, that would not at once resolve upon maintaining a system of universal education by opening the doors of _improved free schools_ to all her sons and daughters, and, if need be, employing agents, vigilant and active, "to go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in." If this is not done, thousands and tens of thousands of every generation will continue to lead cheerless lives, and will go down to their graves like the brute that perisheth, without knowing that He who gave to man life has also, in his goodness, which knows no bounds, provided that in the proper exercise of his faculties man shall find an inexhaustible source of happiness.[55]

[55] In the annual report of the Trustees of the New England Institution
for the Education of the Blind for the year 1834, this beautiful passage
occurs: "The expression of one of the pupils, '_that she had never
known, before she began to learn, that it was a happiness to be alive_,'
may be applied to many."