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

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LECTURE.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:—

We have met together to consider the best methods of Educating, that is, drawing out, or developing the Human Nature common to all of us. Truly a subject not easy to be exhausted. For we all of us feel that the Human Nature,—out of whose bosom has flowed all history, all science, all poetry, all art, all life in short,—contains within itself far more than that which has hitherto been manifested through all the periods of its history, though that history dates from the creation of the world, and has already progressed as far as the nineteenth century of the Christian era. Yes! we all of us feel that the land of promise lies far away in the future, that the goal of human history is yet a long way off.

A large portion of this assembly consists of those whose business it is to study Human Nature in all its various forms, and who have taken upon themselves the task of developing that nature in the youth of America, in that rising generation whose duty it will be to carry out the nascent projects of reform in every department of human interest, and make the thought of to-day the fact of tomorrow.

Some doubtless there are among this number, who by very nature are born Teachers, called to this office, as by a voice from heaven! Men, who in spite of foolish detraction, or yet more foolish patronage, understand the dignity, the true nobility of their calling; who know that the office of the teacher is coëval with the world; and also feel with true prophetic foresight, that the world, fifty years hence, will be very much what its Teachers intend, by God's blessing, to make it.

Brothers in a high calling! The speaker, proudly enrolling himself in the number of your noble band, greets you from his heart this day, and invites you to spend a thoughtful hour with him; and to help him, by your best wishes, to unfold in a manner not wholly unworthy of his theme, some small portion of the nature and method of Human Development.

Ours is the age of analysis. We begin to see that before we can understand a substance, it is necessary to become acquainted with all its component parts. Thus, then, with regard to Human Nature, we must understand all at least of its grand divisions, before we can comprehend the method of developing it as a whole.

Let us then say, that there are five grand divisions in Human Nature,—the physical, the intellectual, the affectional, the moral, and the devotional,—or in other words, that man has body, mind, heart, conscience, and soul.

Concerning these great divisions, I shall assert, first, that they are all mutually dependent upon each other; that if one of them suffer, all the others suffer with it; that man is dwarfed and incomplete, unless he is fully developed in all the five: and, secondly, as my special subject, I maintain that physical well-being, health of body, is therefore necessary not only to the complete development of Human Nature, but that it is also essential to a happy and harmonious development of each one of the four other great divisions of Human Nature; or in other words, I assert the body has something to do both with the mind, heart, conscience, and soul of man, not merely to all these collectively, but also to each of them separately....