A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn., August 20, 1858 — John Shaqi
A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn., August 20, 1858Calthrop, S. R. (Samuel Robert)
Science
A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn., August 20, 1858
Calthrop, S. R. (Samuel Robert)
Physical education and training
Why, a fast young man at an English University too often learns no good
thing there, except to play a capital game at cricket, have a good seat
upon a horse, pull an oar till he drops, and to have a general belief in
the omnipotence of pluck! And I can tell you that is no bad education
too, as far as it goes. I am perfectly well aware that fast young men
too often learn other and worse things than these, learn to drink, and
swear, and debauch, and to spend as fast as possible in riotous living
the manhood and strength which God has given them. But this I know and
publicly declare, that it is this love of manly sports which keeps the
fast young men of England from utter corruption and decay. Such men,
renowned in their school and college days as good cricketers, oarsmen or
riders, were the men that made Alma, Inkermann, and Balaklava possible;
who have just done battle at fearful odds on the burning plains of
India, on behalf of helpless women and slaughtered babies; and those
whom their strong right arm could not save, it was able to avenge! The
iron endurance which they had gained in many a bloodless contest, stood
them in good stead there, when all their manhood was needed, if ever it
was; and over those that nobly died there, methinks that I can see the
Genius of England weep bitter tears, and thus speak with deep
self-reproach:--"Ah! sons of mine! loved and early lost! ye whom I could
not teach, whom no one in all my broad lands could teach, how to unite
the virtuous, wise and holy soul, together with the soul joyous and
free! Alas! for me, that ye had to die, before I could know how noble ye
were! 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 the
untold wealth which I have in my children, those very ones who too often
are nought but shame and grief to me!" Dear, noble old England! if God
will teach her this wisdom, her old heart will beat on bravely for a
thousand years to come.
The preponderance of the animal, the bodily element, produces fast young
men; and fast young men, and boys tending to become such, are the
problem of society, the terror of the peace-loving, money-making world,
and the scandal of the Educator, as he himself feels well enough his own
impotence in dealing with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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