Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Instruction (Volume 15) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845. Excerpt: ... LECTURE X. THE NECESSITY OF EDUCATION IN A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. BY HORACE MANN. The common arguments in favor of Education have been so often repeated, that, in rising to address you on this subject, I feel like appealing to your own judgment and good sense to bear testimony to its worth, rather than attempting to make your convictions firmer, or your feelings stronger, by any attestations of mine. I hardly need to say, that by the word Education, I mean much more than an ability to read, write, and keep common accounts. I comprehend, under this noble word, such a training of the body as shall build it up with robustness and vigor, --at once protecting it from disease, and enabling it to act, formatively, upon the crude substances of nature, --to turn a wilderness into cultivated fields, forests into ships, or quarries and clay-pits into villages and cities. I mean also to include such a cultivation of the intellect as shall enable it to discover those permanent and mighty laws which pervade all parts of the created universe, whether natural or spiritual. This is necessary, because if we act in obedience to these laws, all the resistless forces of Nature become our auxiliaries and cheer us on to certain prosperity and triumph; but, if we act in contravention or defiance of these laws, then Nature resists, thwarts, baffles us; and, in the end, it is just as certain that she will overwhelm us with ruin, as it is that God is stronger than man. And, finally, by the term Education, I mean such a culture of our moral affections and religious susceptibilities, as, in the course of Nature and Providence, shall lead to a subjection or conformity of all our appetites, propensities and sentiments, to the will of Heaven. My friends, is it not manifest to us all, that.