The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 1, August, 1834Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 1, August, 1834
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Upon the subject of moral restraint and college discipline, Mr. Olin is
forcible and interesting. With a mind well organized for the clear
perception of truth, we take the President to be fearless in
proclaiming his convictions, without stopping to calculate the strength
of opposing prejudices and opinions. He does not hesitate to come up
boldly to the mark, and to advocate the only rational system by which
our erring nature, and especially our youthful nature, can be brought
to a just sense of what is due to its own interests, as well as to the
requirements of society. Upon this subject, however, we prefer that the
President should speak for himself.
"In proportion as virtue is more valuable than knowledge, pure and
enlightened morality will be regarded by every considerate father the
highest recommendation of a literary institution. The youth is
withdrawn from the salutary restraints of parental influence and
authority, and committed to other guardians, at a time of life most
decisive of his prospects and destinies. The period devoted to
education usually impresses its own character upon all his future
history. Vigilant supervision, employment, and seclusion from all
facilities and temptations to vice, are the ordinary and essential
securities which every institution of learning is bound to provide for
the sacred interests which are committed to its charge. But safeguards
and negative provisions are not sufficient. The tendencies of our
nature are retrograde, and they call for the interposition of positive
remedial influences. The most perfect human society speedily
degenerates, if the active agencies which were employed in its
elevation are once withdrawn or suspended. What then can be expected of
inexperienced youth, sent forth from the pure atmosphere of domestic
piety, and left to the single support of its own untested and unsettled
principles, in the midst of circumstances which often prove fatal to
the most practised virtue! I frankly confess that I see no safety but
in the preaching of the cross, and in a clear and unfaltering
exhibition of the doctrines and sanctions of christianity. The beauty
and excellence of virtue are excusable topics, though they must ever be
inefficient motives, with those who reject the authority of revelation;
but in a christian land, morality divorced from religion, is the
emptiest of all the empty names by which a deceitful philosophy has
blinded and corrupted the world. I venture to affirm, that this
generation has not given birth to another absurdity so monstrous, as
that which would exclude from our seminaries of learning the open and
vigorous inculcation of the religious faith which is acknowledged by
our whole population, and which pervades every one of our free
institutions. Our governors and legislators, and all the depositaries
of honor and trust, are prohibited from exercising their humblest
functions till they have pledged their fidelity to the country upon the
holy gospels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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