The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 9, August, 1836Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 9, August, 1836
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
In all schools having a sufficient number of scholars to embrace much
variety of character, the pupils may be divided into four distinct
classes or castes, which may be thus described. The first, not content
with doing merely what is required of them, in a manner barely
sufficient to avoid a violation of the rules established for their
government, exert every faculty, at all times, to do their best. They
love knowledge and virtue for their own sakes—not from merely selfish
considerations; and their earnest desire to obtain them for the sake
also of their fellow creatures, gives additional power and efficacy to
their efforts. Their constant study is, to please all with whom they
are connected or concerned: they sedulously cultivate every source of
moral and intellectual improvement, and they ardently desire to secure
their own happiness by promoting that of other people. In a word, they
constitute spectacles in the moral world, as refreshing and delightful
to the eyes of the mind, as those enchanting spots of the physical
world, found only in the great desarts of Africa, are to the eyes of
the exhausted traveller perishing with intolerable heat, thirst and
hunger. They console us for much of the evil which we anticipate, in
beholding the many thousands of the rising generation growing up in
ignorance and all its consequent vices: they encourage our efforts to
labor in the noble cause of education, while they cheer our hearts and
animate our hopes in pursuing that course which we believe to be the
only available one for permanently promoting human happiness. The
pride and joy of their parents' hearts—the highly prized objects of
warmest affection among all their other relatives, and of esteem and
regard to every one who knows them—they constitute, in fact, our
country's only sure reliance for the preservation of its honor—the
promotion of its welfare—the security of its happiness. How supremely
important then, is it to increase their number! But my present object
being rather to expose faults, than to eulogize good qualities, I
shall say no more of this first class, than to wish them, from my
inmost soul, every blessing to be enjoyed in the present life, and all
the felicity of the life to come.
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