274 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 5 



•'we feel the fullest conviction that every student 

 who neglects systematic exercise, is effecting the 

 ruin of his physical and moral powers. Nor is 

 ihe influence of this unpardonable neglect less 

 perceptible or deleterious, as it regards his moral 

 feelings. Without it, however pure his motives, 

 or ardent his desire to do good, we have but faint 

 hopes of his success. Such habits as he would 

 inevitably form, we believe, would ruin all the no- 

 bler energies of his nature. We think three 

 liours appropriate exercise each day will not even- 

 tually retard progress ni study. We must say, 

 from five or six years experience in the institution, 

 we have not teamed that any close student has 

 ever completed an entire course of study without 

 serious detriment to health. We hope, however, 

 our present sj^stem of exercise will soon enable us 

 to exhibit a diflerent statement. In the preserva- 

 tion and improvement of health, wc have found 

 an unspeakable benefit arising from systematic 

 exercise. Without it, we deem it impossible for 

 the close student to preserve his health." 



The supermtendents of a kindred institution, in 

 a document which they have laid before the public, 

 declare, that they ''have great satisfaction in be- 

 ing able to state that a strong conviction pervades 

 the minds oC the young msii generally, as well as 

 their own, that laborious exercise for three hours 

 per day does not occupy more time than is neces- 

 sary for the highest corporeal and mental energy; 

 that so far from retarding literary progress, it great- 

 ly accelerates it; that instead of finding labor to 

 encroach upon their regular hours of stud}', they 

 find themselves able, with a vigorous mind, to de- 

 vote from eight to ten hours per day to intellectual 

 pursuits; that under the influence of this system, 

 mental lassitude is seldom if ever known; that 

 good health and a good constitution are rarely if 

 ever injured; that constitutions, rendered delicate, 

 and prostrated by hard study without exercise, have 

 been built up and established; that this system, 

 with temperance, is a sovereign antidote against 

 dyspepsia and hypochondria, with all their innu- 

 merable and indescribable woes, that it annihilates 

 the dread of fixture toil, self-denial, and dependence; 

 secures to them the practical knowledge and bene- 

 fits of agricultural and mechanical employments; 

 gives them fiimiliar access to and important influ- 

 ence over that g^reat class of business men, ofwhich 

 the world is principally composed; equalizes and 

 extends the advantages of education; and lays 

 deep and broad the foundations of republicanism; 

 promotes the advancement of consistent piety, by 

 connecting diligence in business with fervency of 

 spirit, and will bless the church with such increas- 

 ing numbers of ministers, of such spirit and physi- 

 cal energy, as will fit them to endure hardness as 

 good soldiers of Jesus Christ. 



We are every day more and more impressed 

 with the importance and practicability of the man- 

 ual labor system, as the only one by which the in- 

 creasing hundreds and thousands of the pious and 

 talented sons of the church can be raised up with 

 the enterprise, and activity, and power of endu- 

 rance, which are indispensable for the conversion 

 of the world to God. 



To these statements the individual who has col- 

 lected them, adds his own testimony in the follow- 

 ing language: " I have been for three years and 

 a half a member of a manual labor school. The 

 whole number of my fellow students duriuv that 



period was about two hundred. I was personally 

 acquainted with every individual, and merely 

 " speak what I know," and " testily what I have 

 seen," when 1 state that every student Avho ac- 

 quired a reputation for sound scholarship during 

 this time, was a fast friend of the manual labor 

 system. The most intelligent, without a single ex- 

 ception, were notonly thoroughly convinced of the 

 importance of the system, but they loved itwith all 

 their hearts. They counted it a privilege and a 

 delight to give their testimony in its favor, and they 

 did it in good earnest. Their approval of the sys- 

 tem rose into an intelligent and abiding passion; 

 and it is no marvel that it was so; for they had 

 within them a permanent, living consciousness of 

 its benefits and blessings. They felt it in their bo- 

 dies, knitting their muscles into firmness, compact- 

 in'j' theirlimbs, consolidating their frame work, and 

 thrilling with fresh life the very marrow of their 

 bones. They felt it in in their7?u';?rfs, giving tena- 

 city to memory, stability to judgment, acuteness to 

 discrimination, multilbrm analogy to the suggestive 

 fiiculty, and daylight to perception. They felt it 

 in their hearts, renovating every susceptibility, and 

 swellingthe tide of emotion. Itistrue, withafew, 

 a very lew of the students, the system was unpop- 

 ular, and so were languages and mathematics, 

 philosophy and rhetoric, and every thing else in the 

 daily routme, save the bed and the dinner table. 

 Such students were snails in the field, drones in the 

 workshop, dumb in debate, pigmies in the recitation 

 room, and cyphers at the black board. 



" fn every n)anual labor school which I visited 

 in my tour," he continues, "it was the invariabfe 

 testimony of trustees and teachers, that the talent, 

 the scholarship, the manliness, the high promise 

 of all such institutions, were found among the pu- 

 pils who gave the manual labor sytem their hearty 

 approval; whereas if there were among tlie stu- 

 dents brainless coxcombs, eighing sentimentalists, 

 languishingeffeminates, and other nameless things 

 of equivocal gender; to prostitute their delicate 

 persons to the vile outrage of manual labor, was 

 indeed a sore affliction!" 



We shall close these selections by adding to 

 them the testimony of" an individual* of distin- 

 guished literary attainments, whose advantages for 

 obtaining correct information on this topic, asweH 

 as many others, have been of the most favorable 

 kind. 



" The God of nature," he observes, "has de- 

 signed the body lor action; and all efforts fo coun- 

 teract this design, end of course in disappointment, 

 sooner or later. The same God has designed that 

 men should cultivate their minds; and I never can 

 believe that this is deleterious in itself; it is so on- 

 ly when we neglect what he has bidden us to ob- 

 serve, i. e. daily discipline and effort to preserve 

 health. 



" Students want vacations, journeys, remission 

 from employment, &c. &c. and this at a great ex- 

 pense of lime and money. Why 1 Because they 

 will not be fiiiihful, every day, to watch over their 

 health, and to use all the requisite means for its 

 preservation. Why should the f'lrmer, the ma- 

 chanic, the merchant, the physician, the lawyer, 

 support a never ceasing round ol"en)ploymcnt, and 

 the student not '? Is there any curse laid by heav- 

 en upon study 1 No; it is inaction — laziness — that 



Prolessor Stuart. 



