Lecture on Teachers' 
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 LECTURE 
 
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 iACHEES' MORALS AND JIANNte, 
 
 
 DELIVERED BEFOKE THE 
 
 
 
 AMERICAN T-sriTUTE INSTRUCTION; 
 
 
 
 At Keene, N, fl.. August, 18G1. 
 
 
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 By henry K. OLIVER, 
 
 
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 OF LAWRENCE, MASS. 
 
 
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 ^y Published by order of the Institute, for grat .itous uistributiou. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 
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 TICKNOR, REED. & FIELDS, 
 
 Corner of Washington and School Sts. 
 
 
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 M.DCCC.LI. 
 
 
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— e-t i^ L 
 
 
 LECTURE \ 
 
 TEACHERS' MORALS AND MANNERS. 
 
 BY HENRY K. OLIVER, 
 
 OF LAWRENCE, MASS. 
 
 We are here assembled, specially to turn our 
 thoughts to that great subject, to the mfluence of 
 which, more than to any other source, we owe all of 
 happiness, all of national greatness, all of true gran- 
 deur, all of pride for the past, all of hope for the 
 future, that we now possess, or ever can expect. And 
 who can find words adequate to the true expression 
 of what we ought to be? Who shall be found bold 
 enough to unfold to our vision all that the future has 
 in store for us, if rightly appreciating the true dignity 
 of our position and of our destiny, we guard ourselves 
 against the encroachments of ignorance, vice, infidel- 
 ity and every other baneful influence, by erecting, on 
 the broadest, and deepest, and firmest foundation, a 
 superstructure of the most diffusive Christian educa- 
 tion. What skill of artist could then sketch, or what 
 glowing canvas could contain the story of this peo- 
 1 
 
A MR. OLIVER S LECTURE. 
 
 pie, from the feeble birth-ship of the nation, as with 
 fluttering sail and trembling step, — yet home of brave 
 hearts, and enduring heroism, — she neared the rock* 
 bound coast of our great bay, to that resistless tide, 
 now sweeping its emigrating thousands towards that 
 other mighty ocean, which skirts our land on Cali- 
 fornia and Oregon's far shores. In contemplating 
 this deeply interesting picture, I seem to be carried 
 backward to the earliest days of our liistory, and 
 standing upon the upper height of some lofty Pisgah 
 of our continent, as Moses looked back towards the 
 desert, and forward towards the promised land, so I 
 bend my sight towards the horizon of the dim east, 
 and behold the broad waste of boundless sea, wliose 
 waves beat against and mingle with the bending 
 sky. As I gaze yet more, there ariseth out of the 
 sea, " a little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand.'' 
 And as I wonder what the vision may be, it swells 
 upon my sight, and '' it is as the way of a ship in the 
 midst of the sea," and I hear a voice, as of an angel, 
 wiiich saith unto mc, " Behold, it is the coming of a 
 nation, wiiich (jJod hath essayed to take from the 
 midst of another nation, by signs and by wonders, and 
 by a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm." 
 And now turn thine eyes westward, and declare 
 what is the other vision. And I look, as it were, 
 " far down the gulf of lime," and '• Behold ! a great 
 multitude, which no mah could number, from all 
 nations and kindred and people and tongues, and to 
 them is given the land in possession, and they are 
 filling it and replenishing it, from the rising of the sun 
 to the going down of the same." And yet again the 
 angel saith unto mc, " Ask now of the days that are 
 
past, which were before thee, since the day that God 
 created man upon the face of the earth, and ask, from 
 the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there 
 hath been any such great thing as this great thing is, 
 or hath been heard hke it." No, my friends, no such 
 amazing contrast hath ever been known ; and if it 
 were not that " with God all things are possible," one 
 would be almost ready to believe that the like could 
 never again be known. They were the feeblest of the 
 feeble, faint, few, yet fearless ; a wilderness and deso- 
 late snows of winter before them ; a wild, an untried 
 coast, a frozen soil, the terror of the savage dwellers 
 of the land, a scanty supply of stores: homeless, 
 houseless men and women and tender children, — yet 
 all was nought to them, because there dwelt in every 
 bosom the unquenchable fires of liberty — liberty, civil 
 and religious. Loving women, and daring men, what 
 could they not fearlessly encounter? What have 
 they not surely brought to pass? And the deep secret 
 of the whole success lies in the simple truth, that they 
 were men of the Church and of the School-house. 
 Blest badges of New-England ! sure sources of all 
 her greatness ! Let me traverse through the wide 
 fields of the air, at such towering height, that I can 
 take into my range of sight all of cities and towns 
 and villages and hamlets that dot the face of the re- 
 volving earth, and I will tell you where the sons of 
 New-England congregate, and where they make their 
 home. It will be where I find these marks of their 
 peculiar way of life, the spire and the school. And 
 it is to these we are to trace her greatness, and to the 
 continued existence of these we are to bind our hopes 
 of her future influences in directing and controling 
 
the destinies of the nation. Attica was the smallest 
 in territorial extent of all the Grecian States, yet the 
 influence of Athens was felt throughout all Greece, 
 and has not yet ceased to make itself known and 
 commended, in all that is beautiful and elaborate in 
 eloquence and in art. The rival cities of Greece 
 dreaded, yet acknowledged, her power, — a power 
 which eclipsed their splendor and endangered their 
 safety. And the origin and permanence of this power 
 lay deeply bedded in the very nature of the mental 
 and physical education of the people. " Their powers 
 were excited by emulation, inflamed by opposition, 
 nourished by interest, strengthened and elevated by a 
 sense of personal honor and the hope of immortal 
 fame." Thus were all their energies awakened and 
 displayed in the field, in the senate, in the academy, 
 and in the studios of her painters and sculptors. 
 
 Such a people could not but be great ; and longer 
 had they endured, and more widely had their in- 
 fluence been felt, had the blest adornment, the hal- 
 lowing leaven, the preservative force of Christianity, 
 been mingled with the other elements of their great- 
 ness. There was indeed the school and the academy, 
 but the spire was wanting. Tell me not that there 
 was a religion established and recognized, and felt in 
 its way. I grant it, because I know it. Hut it was 
 debasing heathenism, not elevating Christianity. It 
 was a religion that made tlic masses fools and abject, 
 instead of raising them to their just position as men 
 and as immortals. 
 
 Now New-England is the smallest subdivision of 
 the United States, and the several States which com- 
 pose it, can only keep th.eir just foothold of influence. 
 
and make their sway felt in the pulsation of the henrt 
 of this mighty people, by the moral and intellectual 
 power they shall exert. The whole Union beyond 
 our limits looks hither and sends hither, for their 
 preachers and their teachers. A friend once told me, 
 that of three hundred and sixt^^-six teachers whom 
 he met in Georgia, three hundred and sixty were 
 from the Eastern States; and hundreds of others are 
 going out from amongst us, carrying our habits, our 
 thoughts, our wisdom and our name. It is by our 
 mind alone that we can expect to maintain our 
 power, — the power of intellect and thought, — when 
 all other influence may be of the smallest. If faithful 
 to our privileges and to ourselves, we shall surely 
 accomplish it. It was the '' poor man," — not the rich 
 nor the powerful, but the "poor wise man," poor and 
 neglected, — that by his wisdom delivered the city, 
 when the " great king came and besieged it." 
 
 On this point, the influence of Christianity and of 
 a Christian education upon the permanence of our in- 
 stitutions, we are entirely too thoughtless. Nay, we 
 are all but wholly forgetful. Let the eyes of a blind 
 man, blind from birth, be opened, all at once, to the 
 glory of the stars, to the mild lustre of the moon and 
 the gorgeous blaze of the sun, and in what an ecstasy 
 of delight would he shout for wonder and joy ! In 
 what unspeakable happiness would he revel, as he 
 contemplated the variegated rainbow, the glories of 
 the rising and setting sun, the plumage of birds, the 
 flowers of the field and of the garden ; and, in fine, 
 all the amazing display of wonderful sights that fill 
 and adorn God's beautiful world ! But how is it with 
 us, who, in the plenitude of perfect vision, have seen 
 1* 
 
all these sights from our youth upwards? We pass 
 by them, as almost worthless, — " as the idle wind, 
 which we regard not." Why, within a month, I have 
 seen men and women, too indifferent to the sight, to 
 take the trouble of turning their eyes upward, to 
 look upon the most glorious and gorgeous rainbow 
 that ever spanned the sky, — that unspeakably magni- 
 ficent arch of promise, all ghttering with gems and 
 gold, 
 
 Binding the " earth 
 With one entire and perfect chrysolite." 
 
 The only excuse I could fiud for them was, that they 
 were going home from a hard day's work, and were 
 probably too tired and too hungry, to gaze at raree- 
 shows, either on earth or in heaven. 
 
 So it is with us. We are as hhnd men in the midst 
 of wondrous sights. We are morally blind to the 
 great well-spring of our civil and social happiness. 
 As was beautifully and justly said by the late onii- 
 nent English jurist, Sir Allan Parke, at a ])ublic 
 meeting in London : " We live in the midst of bless- 
 ings, till we are utterly insensible of their greatness 
 and of the source from which they flow. We speak 
 of our civilization, our arts, our freedom, our laws, — 
 and forget entirely how large a share is due to Chris- 
 tianity. Blot Christianity out of man's history, and 
 what would his laws have been, what his civiliza- 
 tion 7 Christianity is mixed up with our very being 
 and our very life; there is not a fanuliar object 
 around us which does not wear a ditfcrcnt aspect, be- 
 cause the light oi' Christian love is upon it ; not a law 
 which docs not owe its truth and irontkncss to Chris- 
 
MORALS AND MANNERS. / 
 
 tianity; not a ciislom which cannot be traced in all 
 its holy, beautiful parts to the Gospel." 
 
 Every Hne of these expressions is tilled with truth. 
 From such obtuseness of mental vision, should we 
 suddenly wake, we should feel all the rapture which 
 the blind mau felt, when the miracle of Christ poured 
 light upon his sightless orbs, and when, to his fully 
 restored vision, God's glorious earth and heaven were 
 revealed. 
 
 I make then this point, that education, to be per- 
 manent and true in its influence, must partake largely 
 of Christianity as an element; and that our institu- 
 tions, to be abiding and trust-worthy, and to work 
 out all the good beginnings and just expectations of 
 our fathers, must be leavened with the Christian ele- 
 ment of preservation. 
 
 I presume I need not argue the necessity of a reli- 
 gious education before an assembly of New-England 
 men and women, and New-England teachers. '* Are 
 ye masters of Israel and know not these things?" The 
 necessity, then, of such education being granted, the 
 question comes at once hefore us, how is it to be ac- 
 complished 7 I find on the shelves of my library a 
 book entitled a " History of the various Denomina- 
 tions of the Christian Religion:" and I examine the 
 book to see what this term "various" may have for 
 its limitation, and behold " their name is legion," and 
 I should be very unwilling to be understood as advo- 
 cating the indoctrination of pupils into a knowledge 
 of all the peculiarities of these several varieties. Such 
 no teacher could do, or would have a right to do, and 
 such is not my meaning. A teacher is employed for 
 a definite purpose. To that he must devote all his 
 
8 MR. 
 
 energies and apply all his skill. He is to instruct 
 the children under his charge in what is usually un- 
 derstood by the phrase "useful learning/' and such 
 " useful learning," in its various phases, is arranged 
 to be taught in onr several schools, according to their 
 grades of Primary, Grannuar and High Schools. 
 
 But the laws of Massachusetts, after declaring what 
 sorts of schools shall be established, and what studies 
 shall be pursued, impose, and wisely too, a most sol- 
 emn and important duty upon all teachers, specifying 
 distinctly who they are. It declares it to be the duty 
 of " the president, professors and tutors of the Uni- 
 versity at Cambridge, and of the several colleges, and 
 of all preceptors and teachers of academies, and all 
 other instructors of youth, to exert their best endeav- 
 ors to impress on the minds of children and youth, 
 committed to their care and instruction, the princi- 
 ples of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, 
 love to their country, humanity, and universal benev- 
 olence, sobriety, industry and frugality, chastity, 
 moderation and tcuiperance, and those other virtues 
 which are the oruaiuent of human society and the 
 basis upon which a republican constitution is found- 
 ed; and it shall be the duty of such instructors to en- 
 deavor to lead their jnipils into a clear understanding 
 of the tendency of the above-mentioned virtues, to 
 preserve and perfect a republican constitution and 
 secure the blessings of liberty, as well as to promote 
 their future happiness ; and, also, to point out to them 
 the evil tendency of the opposite vices." 
 
 What language of commendation shall I find strong 
 enough to express the high admiration due to the 
 mind that engendered, the hand that penned, and the 
 
TEACHERS MORALS AND MANxNERS. \f 
 
 people that adopted these glorious sentiments. Long 
 live the republic whose statute-book they adorn ! I 
 wish they could be blazoned in starlike letters upon 
 the broad sky, that all the world may read them as a 
 daily lesson. In times of imminent peril, the Roman 
 Senate gave full power to their Consuls to see that the 
 republic should receive no harm. Teachers of New- 
 England, the State requires you, by a greater, more 
 enduring and holier law, to guard her, by the practi- 
 cal and constant enforcement of these great princi- 
 ples, against every inroad of more powerful, because 
 more subtle foes, than Gauls, or Goths, or barbarian 
 enemies, of any name or strength. 
 
 Does not this single article of the law comprise all 
 the great, distinctive, practical features of an exalted 
 Christian character ? Let me be understood, that I 
 make no reference to disputed points of doctrinal 
 belief My neighbor may believe many matters to 
 be essential parts of Christianity, about which I may 
 not be so precise. He and I may actively discuss 
 many points, and ardently canvass their relative im- 
 portance, and, after all, they shall remain only points 
 of doubtful disputation. But there are principles, 
 which all classes of Christians, with one consent, be- 
 lieve and acknowledge to be wholly essential, about 
 which there never has been and never can be any 
 dispute, and which therefore every Teacher, in any 
 school, however miscellaneous may be the religious 
 creeds of the parents of the attending children, may 
 and must inculcate. We all believe that there is a 
 God; we all believe that He has made revelations to 
 men ; that He has sent prophets, a Saviour, and 
 apostles ; and that He authenticated their mission by 
 
10 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 giving them extraordinary preternatural powers. 
 We all believe in the immortality of the soul. We 
 all believe that a life of holiness is essential to a life 
 of happiness ; and that this life of happiness is con- 
 nected, in some form or other, with forgiveness of sins 
 through the Saviour. We all believe that the points 
 I have quoted from the statutes of Massachusetts, are 
 indispensable elements, if we would make up the 
 character of a good man. — a man perfect, so far as 
 mere man can be made perfect. On all this broad 
 neutrality of common ground, there is scope and 
 verge enough for all to stand, and for every teacher 
 to do a great and good work. Have you, Teachers ! 
 been faithful in these matters ? Have you complied 
 with conscience ? Have you obeyed the law I And 
 as this word " Teachers," comes up to my lips, I feel 
 my most ardent sympatliies stirred within me and 
 drawn forth. Man and boy. teacher and pupil, I was 
 an iudweller of ihe school-room for forty years save 
 one ; and of these, a quarter of a century was passed 
 in imparting instruction to the young, ^hiy I not 
 justly say, -'Ye are my bretiiren, ye are my bones 
 and my llesh." Have 1 not a right to contend, that 
 higher rej^pect and greater honor should be awarded 
 to those, whose energies are enlisted to forward the 
 incommensurably great work of education ? Have I 
 not a right to complain, when 1 witness the stinted 
 and sparse iionors and emoluments that are too often 
 doled out to those who labor in this great vocation, — 
 a vocation, to which the happiness of the nation, 
 moral and physical, is inseparably connected ? Have 
 I not a right to complain, when I find them made 
 objects of ridicule in the pages of some of the most 
 
MORALS AND MANNERS. 11 
 
 popular and celebrated literature of modern times'? 
 Need I mention Dr. Pangloss, and Ichabod Crane, 
 and Dominie Sampson, and Mr. Squeers of Do-the- 
 boys' Hall ? Need I remind you of the Sleeping Mis- 
 tress of the "School in Repose," — fair, fat, and fifty 7 
 or of the shrivel-faced master of the " School in an 
 Uproar," those well-known pictures by Henry Rich- 
 ter? 
 
 I have now in my recollection two samples of de- 
 cayed school-masters. They lived in one of the 
 largest cities of New-England; and having spent a 
 long hfe in the business of instruction, had well 
 fulfilled their several duties. Kept upon pay just 
 enough to feed the stomachs and clothe the backs of 
 themselves and their progeny, they gradually ripened 
 in years, turned to '• the sere and yellow leaf," and 
 '•went to seed." Useless as teachers, from the wast- 
 ing influence of their professional tasks and from the 
 decrepitude of old age, the tender sympathy of those 
 about them made one of them "a parish clerk, to say 
 amen" on holy-days, and the other an almshouse chap- 
 lain, — each at one hundred dollars per-annum and no 
 perquisites. They lived 
 
 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; 
 They died, — and from all memories passed away. 
 
 These somewhat extended prefatory thoughts bring 
 me to the consideration of my principal topics. 
 
 I deem the occasion appropriate to my addressing- 
 myself specially to the Teachers who are connected 
 with this Institute. And I now ask their candid 
 hearing to the thoughts which I may embody in 
 
13 
 
 words, — thoughts which constantly presented them- 
 selves to my mind, when I was m the "harness and 
 strife" of my school-master days, and which have 
 never faded out of my memory. These are upon the 
 Morals and Manners which should rharaclerize the 
 Teacher ; and both these, if of the right sort, are 
 legitimate fruits and flowers from true Christian seed. 
 
 Our countrymen have gradually fallen into negli- 
 gent habits in their mode of conversation, and in their 
 general bearing and carriage. This fault grows, in 
 part at least, out of our notions of independence. 
 AVe are so sure that we are the greatest, the most en- 
 lightened nation on the face of the earth, that what- 
 ever we do or say, must be right, simply because we 
 say, or do it; and that it is morally inipossible for us 
 to think, say, or do any thing repugnant to sound 
 sense and honest truth, either in morals or manners. 
 "We are so sure that we must not and will not bow 
 down to any earthly potentate, that very many of us 
 are particularly careful not to bow to any body, for 
 fear, apparently, of getting the neck into a bad habit 
 that way. We are so specially determined that we 
 will not bend the knee to power, that we forego to 
 kneel even at our devotions, and sit when we pray 
 in the house of God, and rise only in complimentary 
 respect to " the sound of the cornet, the flute, the sack- 
 but and all manner of instruments, and when we hear 
 the voice of the singing-men and the singing-women.'' 
 
 This steady and stubborn independence is infused 
 into the whole heart of our people. It shows itself in 
 the young and in the old, modified only, and that 
 slightly, by the occasional influence of association 
 with men and women of high intellectual culture and 
 
teachers' morals and manners. 13 
 
 of a studious and cautious regard to the proprieties of 
 refined society. Now I do not object to the general 
 feeUng of independence which pervades the great 
 mass of our people. I hope it will never die out. I 
 hope it will continue to exert a healthful influence, 
 until we shall become as independent of ignorance, 
 and as free from the shackles of vice and immorality, 
 as we are free from the thraldom of foreign power. 
 I hope it will continue to diffuse its wholesome and 
 life-giving energies, through the great heart of all the 
 people, until the words of our Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, '• that all men are born free and equal," 
 shall be uncontradicted by any inconsistency, through 
 the whole length and breadth of the land. I hope it 
 will not cease to operate, until the sun that traverses 
 our heavens, shall shine on none but freemen, from 
 "sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of our 
 earth." But I cannot see any necessity for any de- 
 claration of independence from the power of those 
 " small, sweet courtesies of life," that betoken the per- 
 fectness of good breeding. And I am so singular in 
 my notions in these matters, as to believe that there 
 is some, not very remote, connection between the man- 
 ner in which a man carries his body, and disposes of 
 his hat, and sits in a chair, (whether upon four or 
 two of its legs,) and his moral qualifications. 
 
 Education, and you, as its administrators, have 
 something more to look after, than the mere training 
 of the intellect. The healthful and graceful activity 
 of the bodily, as well as of the mental powers, is to 
 be cared for, in the great business of education. A 
 sound mind and a sound body are both to be attempt- 
 ed. But we, in our excess of effort in cultivating the 
 2 
 
14 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 intellect, almost wholly neglect the body. If a child 
 can be made expert and discreet as a reader, accurate 
 as an arithmetician, and skilful as a penman, we 
 seem to care but little whether he possess any graces 
 of carriage dnd manners; whether he say "yes,"' 
 or " yes-sir," — '• no," or '• no-sir," or '' no-siree ! " 
 whether he can enter a room with propriety, whether 
 he can eat and drink decently, and not as a clown ; 
 whether he desiccate his system by a perpetual 
 spitting, or save his saliva to aid the digesting of 
 his food ; whether he can address his equals with 
 kindness, his inferiors with courtesy, and his superi- 
 ors with respect, and bear himself gracefully and 
 easily among them all. "I wish," says an English 
 writer, " to see our people distinguished by good man- 
 ners, not so much for the sake of these good manners, 
 as because they indicate more than they show, and 
 because they tend powerl'ully to nourish and protect 
 the virtues which they indicate. What are they, 
 when rightly considered, but the silent, though active 
 expression of Christian feelings and dispositions ? 
 The gentleness, the tenderness, the delicacy, the for- 
 bearance, the fear of giving pain, tlie repression of all 
 angry and resentful feelings, tlie respect and consid- 
 eration due to a fellow man, and which every one 
 should be ready to pay and ought to receive; what 
 are all these, but the very spirit of courtesy 7 AVhat 
 are they, but the very spirit of Christianity 7 And 
 what is there in them all. that is not equally an orna- 
 ment to the palace and the cottage, to the peasant and 
 the nobleman I " 
 
 Now the practical virtues named in this quotation 
 are, I believe, indicative of the right spirit, the spirit 
 
15 
 
 of Christianity. I know it may be argued, that a 
 man may be cheerful in his temperament, graceful 
 in his bearing, engaging in his manners and address, 
 — and yet be destitute of a true Christian spirit. I 
 grant it is true, and " pity 't is, 'tis true.*' But in 
 such case it is but the similitude of virtue, and not 
 virtue herself, that appears. It is the counterfeit 
 currency of the world, having selfishness for its 
 great ingredient and alloy, and which is sure to be 
 exposed, if it receive some smart rubs in its pass- 
 ing through men's hands. It is only skin-deep, and 
 reaches not to the bones and the marrow. It is but 
 surface-gilding, and the baser metal which it cov- 
 ers, is only concealed so long as nothing impinges, 
 with rude friction, upon the exterior. But the true 
 coin, the pure gold, the unadulterated twenty-four- 
 carats fine of the real California metal, lasts through 
 all severity of handling. Rough hands and rough 
 blows only serve to polish it, and use and abuse both 
 make it shine the more brightly. Nothing dims its 
 lustre, and it brings, at all times, its full value in the 
 great market of the world. Like this, are the gentle- 
 ness, the courtesy of manner, the quiet dignity of 
 bearing, that have their foundation in a true Chris- 
 tian heart, betokening " a wisdom from above, pure, 
 peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy 
 and good fruits, without partiality and without hy-» 
 pocrisy," diffusing itself over the whole heart and 
 conduct, and modelling the whole man after the truest 
 pattern. So influenced and so fashioned, a man 
 Avould eminently possess the best and most attractive 
 manners, a gentleman, because so gentle^ and in this 
 view, refinement of manners becomes a polished link 
 
16 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 ill the great chain of Christian virtues, that chain 
 which binds man to Heaven and to God. and which 
 is yet the more closely to be entwined around the 
 great heart of humanity, and to be drawn more and 
 more firmly upward, till heaven and earth, joined in 
 inseparable bands, shall eternally assimilate. 
 
 This winning spirit of true courtesy and Christian 
 refinement of manners, will diffuse an alhiring odor 
 about the spot devoted to the Teachers toil, and can- 
 not fail to attract the impressible minds and hearts of 
 those who frequent it. A grateful perfume is exhaled, 
 at early dawn, from the mouths of well-filled hives, 
 wherein " sweet honey-sucking bees,*' — " from out of 
 summer velvet buds," have closely stowed the pillage 
 of the fields. All about the busy scene, where con- 
 gregate the buzzing seekers after learning's grateful 
 sweets, let the alluring perfume of winning ways and 
 mild demeanor rejoice their hearts. I make this an 
 important point for you, Teachers, to consider, and I 
 say emphatically, that the school-room should never 
 be a place, the associations of which arc those of ter- 
 ror, dread and unhappiness. If there be any matter 
 calling for unceasing effort on your part, it is that the 
 place of gathering, should be to your pupils a spot of 
 happy associations. In most instances it is the case, 
 especially in the country, that the scholar is not, for 
 ■^ lone-continued time, under the direct iiilluence of 
 the Teacher. The greater then should be his etl'ort to 
 make an early and deep impression. But if by liis 
 ordinary treatment of those committed to his charge, 
 such Teacher cause himself to be looked upon, as a 
 sort of human machine, selected by a committee, to 
 deal out a certain amount of blows, and to elaborate 
 
teachers' morals and manners. 17 
 
 a certain quantity of scolding and fretful vitupera- 
 tions, from the infliction of which the children are to 
 insure themselves, by a certain per-centage of knowl- 
 edge acquired, (and this would emphatically be called, 
 the " pursuit of knowledge under difficulties,") — if 
 such be his habitual and daily practice, that his pu- 
 pils come into his presence with feelings of dread ; if, 
 on each morning, as they enter the precincts of his 
 tyrannic realm, 
 
 " The boding tremblers learn to trace 
 
 The day's disasters in his morning face," — 
 
 then, surely, to the pupils who gather beneath his 
 frowns, the school-room is hut a place of misery, and. 
 their fellowship with him but a fellowship of sorrow. 
 An ancient tyrant is said to have tormented his 
 captured enemies, by fastening each live man to a dead 
 body, and so leaving them, till death had possession of 
 both. In that horrid and. ghastly partnership, there 
 was at least quietness, and that is denied to the live 
 child, when in contact with a fretful, fault-finding, 
 irascible master. Master? tyrant! Not instructor, 
 guide, friend. I will sooner confide my child to a 
 man of patient spirit and just discrimination, even 
 though of less brilliant intellect and of inferior attain- 
 ments, than to a man of profound acquirements, but 
 who is so destitute of true wisdom, tliat he neither 
 knows, nor can control, his own spirit, and in whose 
 bosom there is perpetual peril of wrathful hurricanes 
 and whirlwinds of rage. '' Better is a dry morsel 
 and quietness therewith, than a house full of sacri- 
 fices with strife ;" and " better is a dinner of herbs, 
 where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred there- 
 with." 
 
 2* 
 
18 MR. -Oliver's lecture. 
 
 Let there be no cloud upon your morning face ; for, 
 as was well observed by Mr. Mann, in one of his ad- 
 mirable Reports, •' the storm which envelops a school 
 by day. blighting all its joys and its benefits, is often 
 only the spreading abroad of the cloud that lowered 
 upon the Teacher's brow at morning." " For the noble 
 office of improving others, the first step is self-im- 
 provement; for those who worship at the altar of this 
 ministry, the first act of worship is the purification of 
 the worshipper." From the impulsive and excitable 
 Teacher of whom I have just spoken, every parent 
 may justly beseech a good deliverance; and upon the 
 place where he tyrannized, every child will be sure, 
 in tifter life, to look back, as Bunyan's Pilgrim did 
 upon the Slough of Despond, with shuddering remin- 
 iscence of his floundering therein, and with grateful 
 emotions of joy for deliverance therefrom. 
 
 Let such a state of feeling never be kn(nvn where 
 you shall preside and instruct. The scene of your 
 labors may possess every appliance and advantage, 
 which can conduce to your comfort and success, and 
 all about it may be replete with cverytTiarm of 
 scenery that the eye loves to contemplate. Add to 
 its attractions the pleasant associations of a calm, 
 yet cheerful demeanor; of a co!ifiding and heart- 
 winning intercourse with your pupils, and so bind 
 them to you by the ten thousand little ties which, 
 with just tact and right judgment, you may, from 
 time to time, twine around their liearts. In the 
 well-known satire entitled "Gulliver's Travels," by 
 Dean Swift, we are told that he visited a race of 
 Pigmies, inhabitants of the Empire of Lilliput, and 
 that they, feeble and diminutive as they were, 
 
19 
 
 contrived to bind him immovably to the ground, by 
 the hairs of his head, and by the sliglit cords which 
 they wreathed about his hmbs. There are countless 
 Httle cords which you may use, most advantageously 
 and securely, to bind the hearts of pupils, so that their 
 aflections can never be sundered from you. A look, 
 a word, a smile, an encouraging tone given by you at 
 the fitting time, even without apparent effort, may 
 prove a silken cord, that no time can weaken and no 
 accident of after-life can disunite. 
 
 The mind, impressible and soft, with ease 
 Imbibes and copies what it hears and sees ; 
 And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue 
 That Education gives it, be it false or true. 
 
 Your own character will stand forth in a thousand 
 points, clear, bold, well-defined. Are you sudden in 
 temper, unable to control yourself; hot, hasty, petu- 
 lant, peevish, — what disasters may you not produce 
 upon the pliant minds of the conmiunity wherein you 
 preside! Are yon slow to anger, mild, gentle, forgiv- 
 ing, — yet firm and energetic, — what miracles of good 
 may you not effect ! The tempest chafes and roars 
 and blusters with windy fnry, and the traveller the 
 more closely binds his cloak about him, and resists. 
 Then shines the sun, calm, steady, noiseless, yet 
 gently energetic. The traveller unfolds his garment, 
 lays it down, and yields. 
 
 What an object of pity is an enraged man, and 
 what an object of pity and scorn is a frantic Teacher, 
 to those of his pupils who have firmness and good 
 sense enough not to be terrified by his temporary in- 
 sanity ! But a gentle firmness of manner, in seasons 
 
20 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 requiring it, an even, cheerful, frank bearing, works 
 a thousand-fold more upon the heart and the under- 
 standing. It speaks a language more intelligible, 
 more significant, more persuasive. It allures, not 
 drives; it wins, not terrifies; it binds with a golden 
 chain, not fetters with an iron shackle. And when 
 to this steady and cheerful deportment, are added the 
 graceful proprieties and amenities of good manners, 
 the collected and cultivated bearing of a true gentle- 
 man or lady, a charm is all about the person, that 
 chains the willing lieart, and that powerfully and 
 pleasantly pervades the whole atmosphere of the 
 school. 
 
 But it may be, that the place where you labor has 
 none of the proper and requisite conveniences. The 
 house may be a lame apology, the location a nude 
 wilderness of a spot, upon which the farmer, who 
 once owned it, would not put his hencoop nor his pig- 
 sty, and so sold it to the school-district; — rough, rude 
 and rocky, not a tree, nor a shrub, nor a spot of green 
 grass about it. The very barberry-bush avoids it, 
 and grows half a mile oil. So that it would not have 
 entered the imagination of man to have built upon it 
 any thing but a school-house. And years have pass- 
 ed by, and now the winds and the rain and the snows 
 and the boys, — those wasteful elements of destruction, 
 — have all fulfilled their several missions, and it is 
 become a shaky shanty, with here a streak" or so of 
 red ochre, and there a worn s[)ot of aged gray, and on 
 the rattling shingle-top, fertile patches of bunchy moss. 
 The chinniey moans in the wnid, with a cracked and 
 asthmatic voice, and wheezing out the doleful song of 
 age and bad mortar, bids a melancholy farewell to the 
 
teachers' morals and manners. 21 
 
 rotten roof. The door is but half a door, and will 
 soon sink below the value of fifty per-ceiit. Tlie 
 windows would rattle, if there were glass enough in 
 them to hold the wind. The old hats, that are stnck 
 through the broken panes, — ah ! painful sight ! — can 
 by no possibility be called •' crown glass," for their 
 crowns were long ago knocked out. Cold, cheerless, 
 shameless type of the estimate placed upon the 
 "young and blooming creation of God," which daily 
 congregates therein. Sorry am I to say, that such 
 things I have seen, though they are now of rarer oc- 
 currence. 
 
 Well, it is hard for you, hard for the children, infi- 
 nitely worse for the reputation of the district. Make 
 the best of it, so long as you stay, (though you will 
 be fully justified in not staying long,) and so demean 
 yourself, that, if it be possible, all thoughts of such 
 shameless neglect may be lost in the happiness which 
 you can make to reign even there. 
 
 There let sweet peace and calm content be found, 
 There sunny joy and smiling hearts abound ; 
 There be soft words and gentle tones to bless ; 
 There winning ways and looks, and kind address. 
 
 If it be so, the children, who, in a community that 
 sanctions such neglect of their comfort, as scholars, 
 must be pretty sure to find small happiness at home, 
 will rejoice to meet 3^ou even there. They will sym- 
 pathize with you. They will aid you. You will find 
 little difliculty in governing them, and they will study 
 and learn, because they will see that what profits 
 them, gives you happiness. But, under all circum- 
 stances, secure their personal attachment by every 
 
22 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 possible means. Let them feel the force and learn 
 the value of commendation, by bestowing it upon 
 them, with good judgment and right tact, when they 
 do any thing well. What a blessed act it is to give 
 well-merited praise, and how sparing some people 
 are of it. It costs nothing; it calls for no sacrifice of 
 true dignity, and the false you hardh^ need cultivate. 
 It lessens you nowise, to notice and address your 
 pupils, whenever or wherever you may meet them. 
 A " Good morning," or a '• Good evening," is vastly 
 preferable to a stiff, starched, stately stalking, in your 
 daily demeanor, as though you were vertebrated 
 with a ramrod, and were lithopliagous, and not hu- 
 man. How would you disappoint the hopes of some 
 little member of your* community, who, when he 
 meets you, — 
 
 For a smile or nod, receives a scowl, 
 And for a cheerful word, a sullen growl. 
 
 Decontly-brcd dogs wag their tails and show unques- 
 tionable tokens of civilization, whenever they meet 
 an acquaintance. Do not permit yourself to be re- 
 puted of inferior breeding. 
 
 Self-sacrifice is an important element, to he largely 
 infused into the Teacher's character. He must rigid- 
 ly school himself by the most steadfast and uncom- 
 promising discipline, and the more he thinks of others, 
 and the less he thinks of himself, the greater will be 
 his desire to do good, and his success in accomi)lish- 
 ing that desire. One is most mindful of those nearest 
 at hand, and one's self is always so particularly close 
 at hand to one's self, that it is no easy matter to forget 
 one's self Out of sight, out of mind ; and, vice vcrsa^ 
 
teachers' morals and manners. 23 
 
 always in sig]it, always in mind. Self is ever before 
 the mind's eye, and uppermost in the thoughts. Short 
 and blcary-visioned as we are, we counsel most upon 
 what may be for the more immediate benefit of self. 
 The adventitious advantages which may, most palpa- 
 bly, show themselves to the outward eye, are sought 
 for, and pursued with hot haste. The trapping and 
 gearing and furnishing of the outward man, are 
 bright meteors, that seduce the short vision of the 
 great mass of mankind. No spiritual telescope seems 
 to aid them in penetrating into a remoter heaven of 
 intenser and more enduring stars, and no spiritual 
 microscope reveals to their sight, the minute animal- 
 cula of congregated foUies that float infused within 
 the heart. The hopes are all for self; the aspirations 
 are for self; the ambition is all for self. Some men's 
 religion, even, seems to have been assumed, because 
 they are rather disposed to think that, on the whole, 
 it will be best in the long run. Good men these to 
 the outer seeming; good, not for goodness' sake, and 
 because goodness assimilates man to God, but rather 
 because " godliness " may be " great gain," and a 
 good investment. '• Be ye not like unto them." 
 Build no foundations upon a sand-heap of selfishness. 
 Forget yourself, and let your best memories be of 
 others. Look towards the millions. Promote the 
 good of the masses. Imparadise not yourself within 
 an Eden of your own making, careless of the throngs 
 that are struggling and starving without. 
 
 Why, it makes an honest heart burn with indig- 
 nant amazement, when it sees it inscribed, on every 
 page of History, how successfully and how shame- 
 lessly, the few have made Gibeonites of the many, — 
 
24 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water, — bondmen and 
 bondwomen, — helots, gladiators, serfs, slaves, — dig- 
 gers and ditchers, — laboring, drudging, sweating, 
 starving, even fighting and slaying one another, and 
 making widows and orphans, — all for sixpence a day ; 
 all in no better cause, than that some rarer diamond, 
 of more brilliant hue, may be stolen from some eastern 
 realm, to glitter rnid the regalia, to beautify the brow, 
 or flash and dazzle from the coronet of some imperial 
 queen. Labor, I know, there must be. The wide 
 world has, by man's toil, undergone, and must yet 
 undergo great changes, to adapt it to man's varied 
 purposes and wants. But 1 am yet to learn, that ig- 
 norance and debasement are essential to a supply of 
 labor. The most productive labor is educated labor, 
 and educated labor cannot leave the laborer either 
 debased or poor. Man cannot live without labor. 
 There must be food and houses and raiment, and the 
 endless ministrations wliich comfort requires. Were 
 all men rich as Cropsus, and wise as Solomon, and 
 tender and delicate as babes, and were there no poor, 
 no ignorant, — why then, the rich and the wise and 
 the delicate must buckle to, and work, and })roduce 
 for themselves. But the poor ye have, and always 
 will have with you; and the equilibrium of society 
 is best preserved, and its various classes are most 
 prosperous and most happy, when properly and labor 
 fraternize, without jealousy and without oppression, 
 under the influence of a wise and diffusive education. 
 It may be, doubtless it is, a severe task, to leave 
 yourself, and live more for others. Habit will make 
 it easy, and the habit must be formed while the heart 
 is pliant and young. And you, Teachers, you to 
 
25 
 
 whom confiding parents surrender the youthful bo- 
 dies and the pliant minds of iheir children, for the 
 great business of educating them both, you must be- 
 gin the work, and begin it aright. Remember how 
 forcible is example, and remember that it mightily 
 overpowers all precept. Looks, actions, attitudes, 
 expressions, modes of utterance, all are watched, all 
 imitated. If you enter your room with your hat on 
 your head, — (I once saw three teachers do it, and 
 persevere in it, although the then excellent Chief Ma- 
 gistrate of Massachusetts was there present,) — will 
 you reprove the thoughless, unsuspecting child, who 
 copies the fault? If you speak ungrammatically; if 
 you pronounce awkwardly and inelegantly; if you use 
 words in an improper sense ; if you are unseemly, 
 careless, clownish in your dress, address, and general 
 demeanor, — do you not know that your pupils will 
 use your example and authority for being so too? Can 
 you, with any expectation of success, attempt to teach, 
 by words, the importance of a just and careful observ- 
 ance of all the rules of right behavior, when every 
 word you utter is nullified by your example 1 If you 
 are redolent of the fumes, or savor of the powder of 
 that unwholesome and nauseous weed, which too 
 often befouls men's mouths and noses ; if you, by the 
 daily influence of its pernicious use, show yourself to 
 be a morbid and unhappy instance of unnatural sali- 
 vation, can you complain, if some stout lad of your 
 group, thinking the habit manly, mistakes the school- 
 room for an overgrown spittoon, and makes illustra- 
 tions of Black and Yellow Seas, all about the floor ? 
 
 Can you expect your pupils to be studious, if they 
 see and hear and know that you are an idler ? De- 
 3 
 
26 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 pend upon it, they will not fail to find it out. But 
 with what propriety can you be an idle man 7 How 
 can you have at your disposal any time for loitering] 
 Are you so deeply versed in all learning, that all 
 further study is a work of superfluity ? Do you know 
 so much, that you need know no more ? It is indeed 
 altogether probable, that you are sufficiently well 
 acquainted with the particular books, selected for the 
 particular studies that are pursued in the school in 
 which you teach. But this is far from being suffi- 
 cient. If you would be successful in imparting in- 
 struction in any assigned branch of knowledge, you 
 must have something beyond a familiarity wnth the 
 particular text-book adopted for that branch. If this 
 were not the case, your task would be comparatively 
 easy. You would be under the necessity of merely 
 drilling yourself up to a certain amount, contained in 
 a limited number of books, and spare yourself all 
 further labor and study. Behold ! your education is 
 finished. 
 
 Now this will never answer. I maintain, that 
 every Teacher, who would perform liis work as it 
 ought to be perlbrmed, must be devotedly studious, of 
 very considerable reading, and of no ordinary amount 
 of acquisition in such brandies of learning as have 
 relation to the several subjects upon which his pupils 
 are engaged. His knowledge must be general, as 
 well as particular; and when he shall have tasted 
 the pleasure, and known the distinction of intellectual 
 acquisition, he will be irresistibly ini])ellcd to t'urther 
 attainment. While drinking at the pure fountains of 
 true learning, he will imbibe with every draught the 
 spirit of self-cultivation, and that cultivation will aid 
 
27 
 
 him in cultivating the same spirit in others. A great 
 object of education is to originate an earnest desire 
 for knowledge, not merely to store the head with 
 facts. A crowded and overstocked memory nmst 
 not be mistaken for a fertilized and improved mind. 
 Against this error be cautiously guarded, and be in- 
 defatigable and doggedly obstinate in your pursuit of 
 further truth. Get it. if by any means you may, for 
 " the discovery of Truth is the highest, the noblest 
 achievement to which a mortal can aspire, — the ap- 
 probation of his own mind, the highest gratification a 
 mortal can enjoy." * 
 
 There is, indeed, a barrier, beyond which the hu- 
 man intellect cannot advance. There are bounds to 
 our knowledge, over which we cannot pass. They 
 stand in barricade, where the finite borders on the 
 Infinite, and where we can only gaze, and wonder, 
 and adore ! 
 
 Again, can you expect your pupils to heed your 
 praises of truth, if they have, even but once, found 
 you to be untrue? Do you not know, that at the 
 earliest age, children are acute enough to detect all 
 grimace, all counterfeiting? I venture to say, that in 
 all cases when, as a new teacher, you enter upon a new 
 sphere of action, the children of the school find out 
 all your points, long before you get familiar with theirs. 
 Your example is to them, and at once, the beginning, 
 the continuance, and the end of your teaching. Do 
 you desire them to be true, just, honest, studious, 
 graceful in demeanor, forbearing, forgiving, religious? 
 Let your unvarying example teach them that you 
 
 * J. R. Young's Lectures on Mathematics, supplied the lead- 
 ing thoughts of this paragraph. 
 
28 
 
 are all these yourself. You have no right to be 
 otherwise, under any circumstances, or in any posi- 
 tion you may occupy. Specially have yon no such 
 right, if you occupy the responsible post of a Teacher, 
 — responsible to man, responsible to society, and infi- 
 nitely more responsible to God. You have no right, 
 I say, to be untrue, unjust, dishonest, idle, irreligious. 
 I will suppose that you are intrusted with the care 
 and the education of my child, — of my child! — and 
 what associations does not that word awaken in 
 every parent's bosom ! At this moment of speaking, 
 my thoughts fly over yonder hills, to the homestead 
 wherein my children dwell. I see them all, — yes, 
 all ! — her, from whose dimmed eyes, God hath, in His 
 own good pleasure, withheld the matchless blessings 
 of perfect vision, and over whose sight will soon close 
 the darkest pall of 
 
 " Total eclipse, — no sun, no moon. 
 All dark, amid the blaze of noon ! " * 
 
 and all the rest, for whom the light of llenvon irradi- 
 ates rich scenes of joy and of gladness, in all the glo- 
 rious beauty of their colors, and in all the exquisite 
 harmony of their blending together. Clustered are 
 they about my hearth, and still more closely twined 
 around my heart. " God do so to me, and more also," 
 if 1 forget or neglect the unspeakable, the awful re- 
 sponsibility, that ab.ides upon me as their parent! 
 And as thousands of parents have done and nuist do, 
 each child has been intrusted to the care and training 
 of others, to be prepared for duty and tor hajipiness; 
 yet not for this world alone, whose period is but a 
 
 * Milton's •' Samson Ajjonistes." 
 
29 
 
 drop in the great ocean of time, — whose duties are 
 transitory and evanescent; not for this world alone ! 
 but for that other, yet to come, whose years are be- 
 yond the measure of all computing: whose joys, no 
 mines of countless gold, no mountain-heaps of glitter- 
 ing diamonds, no holocaust of multitudinous sacrifice 
 can purchase, — yet all within the good man's grasp ! 
 And as I say to their teacher, so may the yearning 
 heart of each parent say, m like case, to you : " You 
 have no i^ight to be untrue, unjust, immoral, an idler, 
 and irreligious ! Remember, — remember ! as you train 
 my child, you are influencing its destiny for more 
 than this world's time. There is something far be- 
 yond, infinitely grander, immeasurably more endur- 
 ing, inconceivably vaster, which shall begin its end- 
 less duration, when time shall be swallowed up in 
 Eternity; when earth's wide surface shall be whiten- 
 ed with the bones of those, whom there shall be no 
 survivors to bury ; when 
 
 * All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, 
 
 The sun himself shall die, — 
 And when this mortal shall assume 
 
 Its immortality ; — 
 'Tis when the last of human mould 
 Shall all Creation's death behold, 
 
 As Adam saw its prime ! ' * 
 
 See to it, that you jeopard not the eternal bliss of 
 my child ! See to it, that no thought, no look, no 
 word, no act of yours, imperil the safety of his undy- 
 ing soul ! If 3^ou harm it, if you make it a castaway 
 from happiness and from heaven, then, when you, and 
 I, and the child, stand up for judgment at the bar of 
 
 * Campbell's " Last Man." 
 
30 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 God, I will demand justice for the wrong; and justice 
 shall be meted out, for God is neither untrue nor un- 
 just ! See to it, that you fail not iu all these duties ! " 
 Again. Do you desire, (and you certainly should 
 desire it, and strive to accomplish the desire,) do you 
 desire that your pupils should be graceful, easy, re- 
 spectful, — ready in the practice of all tlie courtesies 
 of refined society ? Strive to illustrate the beauty of 
 these graces in your own person. " The trophies of 
 Miltiades will not let me sleep," said the young 
 Themistocles, when he heard of the successes at 
 Marathon. In a nobler cause, a mightier struggle 
 with the giant powers of ignorance and vice, let the 
 laurels of your brethren awaken a generous emula- 
 tion, whose results shall benefit yourself and your 
 profession, and make a deep and abiding mark upoQ 
 the times in which you lived. We are too negligent, 
 too thoughtless, upon the important topic I am dis- 
 cussing ; and there is an occasional awkwardness, 
 and sometimes an impolishcd oddity in manners: an 
 unseemly, ungraceful style of address and demeanor, 
 an absence of what is called perfeclness of good- 
 breeding, plainly visible even to an eye of limited 
 practice. Were it not so, and had it never been so, 
 no Dr. Pangloss, no Dominie Sampson, no Ichabod 
 Crane, would have entered into the imagination of 
 fiction-writers. Well-bred foreigners notice and allude 
 to this fact, as one of our national faults. Allow me, 
 then, in the spirit of kindness, and in deep sympathy 
 witli your success, — for with the full strength of such 
 feelings, have 1 come to hold a brief comnumion with 
 you, — allow me to suggest, that these faults are spe- 
 cially noticeable in the remoter and more rural dis- 
 
MORALS AND MANNERS. 31 
 
 tricts of our country. There is a great and sincere 
 spirit of kindness, — but the independence of feeling 
 which pervades our people, has, in some unfavorable 
 degree, detracted from the charm of that kindness, 
 and rendered it less impressive, than if courtesy of 
 manner had come as its grateful auxiliary. 
 
 You may even punish gracefully. On a certain 
 great occasion of state, at the Court of St. James, her 
 Majesty, the Queen of England, was compelled to 
 practice an uncommon degree of patience, by the de- 
 lay of the Duchess of Sutherland, one of her Maids 
 of honor. At last, her Grace arrived, filled with ap- 
 prehension that her tardiness would be rebuked. As 
 she entered the presence of royalty, the Queen step- 
 ped forward, and placing about the neck of the trem- 
 bling lady, an elegant, diamonded gold watch, simply 
 observed, " Allow me, my dear Madam, to substitute 
 this exact time-keeper, for the micertain instrument, 
 which has delayed your prompt arrival." 
 
 Now the quiet and graceful dignity with which 
 this rebuke was administered, took the sting from its 
 severity, and yet thoroughly cured the fault. Cannot 
 you. Instructresses, who may hear me, practice the 
 same, in the little realm of which each of you is the 
 reigning Queen ? 
 
 As President Washington, surrounded b}^ a bril- 
 liant cortege of officers, was once passing through a 
 street in Philadelphia, he was met by an aged negro, 
 who raised his hat in token of respect. The General 
 did the same; and when one of his attendants ex- 
 pressed surprise, he merely observed, " Would you 
 have a negro surpass me in civility?" Cannot you, 
 Instructors, practice an equal degree of courteous 
 
32 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 bearing, in the little republic, of which each of you 
 is the President ? 
 
 I say then, and I desire to be remembered as hav- 
 ing fully adopted the sentiment, that 5^ou, Teachers, 
 have the greatest obligations and the weightiest 
 responsibilities pressing upon you, and these you 
 assumed, whether knowingly or thoughtlessly, when 
 you ventured upon a vocation, which should bring 
 all its energies to act upon minds that are to be illu- 
 mined with the light of knowledge, upon hearts 
 that are to be hallowed by the sanctity of religion, 
 upon souls that are to dwell in the immediate efful- 
 gence of God present in Heaven. 
 
 " A cloud of witnesses around, 
 Holds you in full survey ; 
 Foroet the steps already trod, 
 And onward urge your way." * 
 
 Go on to perfection, by perfecting yourselves in the 
 general example you may exhibit, in the words and 
 language you may use, the manners and deportment 
 that may distinguish you, the training to which you 
 may subject your temper and your heart, the study 
 and preparation for your great daily work, and in the 
 religious character which your great vocation demands 
 of you. For your position, in relation to all these 
 matters, you arc hold in fearful responsibility. 
 
 Do you ask, " Who can be suliicient for these 
 tilings?" I reply, "Be not discouraged. Be but 
 faithful and just to your purpose. Be the trnf/i m 
 every relation ; — speak it, — act it, — live it, — because 
 the truth IS truth, and is of (iod ! '' 
 
 • Watts. 
 
33 
 
 At the shrine of ail ancient Eastern divinity, a rich 
 man brought his gold, a mighty man his fame and 
 his power, a learned man his wisdom, and a certain 
 poor man an honest heart and a penitent sigh. Each 
 left liis gift upon the altar, and went his way; — and lo ! 
 when the orient morn, "from out the starry sphere," 
 upon the temple broke, the gold lay all untouched ; 
 the power was unheeded ; the wisdom was despised ; 
 but, behold ! the true heart and the penitent sigh rose 
 on a sunbeam, and mingled in with Heaven ! 
 
 Mr. President, and 
 
 Gentle3ien and Ladies of the Institute, 
 I feel, at this point, that I shall hardly be thought 
 to be consistent with my own defence of a courteous 
 bearing and a tender regard for the feelings of others, 
 if I do not apologize to you, for detaining you so long. 
 It is the cause that must plead for me ; and my ex- 
 cuse shall be phrased, with some small change of a 
 well-known couplet, — 
 
 Brief I had been, — yet if prolonged " in aught, 
 " The love I bear to Learning is in fault." * 
 
 It is the cause in which I speak that moves my inner 
 heart. All my best sympathies are with it; and 
 shame to me were it otherwise. Long years of pa- 
 tient toil, I spent within the four walls of the school- 
 room, and many hours and scenes of happiness do I 
 recall. And now that I have left them forever, — now 
 that they are as'the misty shadows of days that fled 
 away with each setting sun, my heart exclaims: "If 
 I forget thee. O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
 
 * Goldsmith's " Deserted Village." 
 
34 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 her cunning. If T do not remember thee, let my 
 tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, — if I prefer 
 not Jerusalem above my chief joy." 
 
 Yet why should I longer plead the cause of a 
 widely-diffused education, of sound learning, and 
 high mental culture, of deep religious feeling, of pure 
 morality and of refinement of manners, before so 
 intelligent a jury ? The verdict swells upon your 
 lips, and bursts upon mine ear. You are not con- 
 tent that the world shall stand still, and that the 
 men and the women and the children thereof, shall 
 be, and continue to be, as darkened and benighted, as 
 they were before the flood. If the stand-still theory 
 were the right one, why then ''you and I and all of 
 us," like the savage tenants whom our fathers found 
 upon these shores, might still be taking our food, and 
 putting it into our mouths with our fingers, from otf 
 a big shell or a piece of bark, and the knife and fork, 
 and the chop-stick and the plate, be matters unin- 
 ventcd. If things were well enough as they were, the 
 camel and the dromedary, the horse, and the ox, and 
 the ass, would be quite suflicient for purposes of tra- 
 vel, and that great and terrible iron-courser, with liis 
 thundering tread, his hissing-hot breath, his shrieking 
 whistle, his fiery trail, and his hurricane speed, as he 
 dashes though your hills, would be as much unknown, 
 as if iron had never been disembowelled from the 
 earth, and water had never been boiled. 
 
 If things were well enough as they were, then the 
 simple and frail canoe of 
 
 " the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
 
 Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind," — 
 
 were sufficient lor the naviization of the seas : and 
 
teachers' morals and manners. 35 
 
 those giant monsters of the deep, those huge levia- 
 thans of modem commerce, which, freighted with the 
 miiUiform productions of men's wits and men's hands, 
 and with men themselves, drive with resistless energy, 
 against wind and wave, bringing into proximity people 
 and nations, whom ocean vainly divides,— these match- 
 less trophies of human skill and human daring, would 
 be yet to burst upon the sight of an astonished world ! 
 
 If things were well enough as they were, men 
 would be still writing with the end of a reed, upon a 
 perishing piece of bark, or on a liquescent table of 
 wax, — and parchment and paper, and the gray-goose 
 quill, and the steel and golden pen, be still beyond 
 our grasp; while the leaden type, and the wiry 
 telegraph, and the iron and steam printing-press, 
 and, in fine, all the powerful appliances and engines 
 of modern civilization, be as unknown to us, as was 
 the steam-ship itself to the mariners of Noah's ark, — 
 all matters for posterity, or nobody, to think about ! 
 
 If things were well enough as they were, then war, 
 and human slavery, and intemperance, those dread 
 
 " Spirits of the nethermost abyss, 
 
 Besmeared with blood 
 Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears," — 
 
 horrible monsters, which curse and have cursed the 
 fair face of earth almost since 
 
 " Man's first disobedience 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe," — 
 
 these may continue their accursed work, and never 
 return to that deep, dark and demoniac nativity, of 
 which alone they are congenial spirits ! 
 
 No, my friends ! I am persuaded, that with a doc- 
 
36 MR. Oliver's lecture. 
 
 trine so admirably adapted to chill the glowing spirit 
 of the world's progress, to check all effort at improv- 
 ing the moral and intellectual character of the age, 
 yon, as men who love their fellow men, can have no 
 sympathy. Your efforts, I am persuaded, will be in 
 the opposite direction, and will be put forth to sustain 
 a nobler cause. It is to promote that cause, that you 
 have congregated here, joining heart with heart, and 
 hand in hand. You have a great vocation before 
 you, the high office of strengthening and improving 
 '• the instrument upon wliicli, and with which. Edu- 
 cation herself labors to fulfil her mission. — to expand 
 the powers, to enlarge the grasp, to sharpen the per- 
 ceptions of the intellect." * It is yours to excite in 
 the mind a love of learning. It is yours to develop 
 and invigorate the powers by which all learning shall 
 be attained, and your first successful step, either in 
 the training of yourself, or of others, is the sure and 
 unmistakable prognostic of all future success. Let 
 the mind be but once awakened to the beauties of 
 science ; let it but once imbibe a draught of that deli- 
 cious stream, which, with perennial waters, wells 
 forth from wisdom's sacred fountain, and it can never 
 sutler its appetite to be satiated. The acquisition of 
 knowledge begets the desire for more. Like Jealousy, 
 '•it makes what it doth feed on.*' And to awaken 
 this desire, to incite this appetite, to quicken and in- 
 vigorate all the powers of the intellect in the pursuit 
 of food with which to supply this appetite, constitutes 
 the great business of Education. 
 
 The time has indeed been, when philosophy and 
 
 * J. R. Youiiff. 
 
37 
 
 all learning was a sealed, and unknown, nay, almost 
 an unseen book, to the great n)ass of mankind. A 
 few individuals, whose inclinations, whose seclusion 
 from the world, whose freedom from harassing cares 
 and life-supporting toil; whose means and whose 
 minds were all propitious to the favored possessor, 
 and, fortunately for him, propitiously disposed for the 
 work, attempted to achieve the undertaking, and to 
 surmount the obstacles, which the ancient method of 
 study and of education delighted to throw in the way 
 of the scholar. The disciples of Plato listened to the 
 instructions of their master five long years, before 
 they were considered wise enough even to ask a ques- 
 tion ; and the novices of Druidism, the ancient reli- 
 gion of our primitive British progenitors, spent the 
 longer period of twenty years in mastering the ob- 
 scure and mysterious versification, under which all 
 the profound learning of the Druidical priests was 
 enveloped. But a brighter day has dawned. The 
 temple of learning is no longer obscured by impervi- 
 ous clouds, and denied to the vision of those who 
 would seek to enter and worship at the altar of the 
 Divinity enshrined within. She herself is the uncom- 
 promising foe of all mystery and concealment, abhor- 
 ring all pedantry and conceitedness of learning, and 
 all the vain folly of intellectual pride. She holds out 
 persuasive and substantial allurements to all men, of 
 every grade and name, to enter her hallowed pre- 
 cincts. Unlike the fabled divinities of Grecian and 
 Roman and Northern Mythology, she takes no votive 
 offerings from her worshippers, but loads them all 
 with precious gifts, in just proportion to the sincerity 
 of their devotion. None are rejected, none unreward- 
 4 
 
38 
 
 MR. 
 
 ed. " Riches and honor are with her, — her fruit is 
 better than gold, her revenue than choice silver." 
 Philosophy has been called down from heaven, and, 
 obeying the summons, is now within the reach of 
 ordinary minds; and lamentable and desperate be- 
 yond all hope of awakening, must be the lethargy of 
 that intellect, which is not excited to efibrt, and, in 
 some degree, at least, improved by the countless facil- 
 ities and the generous offers of aid, wiiich surround 
 it. In the words of another: "Science is no longer 
 cloistered in monasteries. It is no longer imprisoned 
 in walled colleges. It is no longer buried in unknown 
 tongues. It is no longer reverenced as supernatural 
 inspiration. It is no longer the privilege of the few, 
 and no longer, as, while abused, it too often proved, 
 the scourge of the many." No, my friends, a liood 
 of intellectual light is flashing round us, and who 
 shall forbid that you, and I, and all, shall not be 
 baptized in its beams, and bask in its shine, and be 
 warmed and invigorated by its heat. The gates of 
 the once impregnable Gaza of learning have been un- 
 hinged, and carried off, by the intellectual Samsons 
 of modern times ; the veil of the inner temple of wis- 
 dom is rent in twain, and the broad pathway into the 
 innermost recesses is spread wide open to all v/ho 
 would enter. Wisdom herself " now cricth from 
 within and from without. She uttereth her voice in 
 the streets ; she crieth in the cliief place of concourse, 
 in the opening of the gates : ' Behold, I will pour out 
 my spirit unto you, I will make my words known 
 unto you.' " 
 
 Knowledge may be had, (thanks to the liberality 
 of many of our States, it is specially so for their sons 
 
TEACHERS MORALS AND MANNERS. d9 
 
 and daughters,) — it may be bad " without money 
 and without price." In the dehghtful path, which 
 spreads its grateful fruits and flowers before our sight, 
 the good, the great, the mighty, the truly noble, both 
 in character and in rank, princes and subjects of every 
 degree, the votaries of science of every name, age 
 and sex, have thronged in dense array. With con- 
 centrated and successful effort, they have assisted in 
 the good work of clearing away whatever hindrances, 
 ages of scholastic selfishness had heaped up, as bar- 
 ricades against their progress, and in smoothing and 
 adorning the way, for the good of those who are to 
 follow after them. Genius brings forward her theo- 
 ries and her speculations, and invention supplies to 
 experiment the means of bringing them to the test. 
 Never could it more truly be said, that " Wisdom is 
 justified of her children." Since the spirit of investi- 
 gation was awakened by Bacon, that giant-minded 
 pioneer in inductive science, a host of ingenious and 
 gifted men have arisen, who have made, and an- 
 nounced to the world the most wonderful discoveries. 
 The race is not yet extinct. Why should I detain 
 you, to recount their names and their deeds? They 
 urged forward the car of human progress; they widen- 
 ed the phylacteries of human knowledge; they enno- 
 bled science and art, and the very good they wrought 
 for others, immortalized themselves. The gloomy, 
 sullen shade of ignorance and vice fled before the sun, 
 which, with "healing in its beams," darted its light 
 athwart their eastern skies. 
 
 " So, when the sun, from his watery bed, 
 
 All curtained with a cloudy red, 
 Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, 
 
40 MR. OLIVER'S LECTURE. 
 
 The flocking shadows, ghastly pale, 
 All troop to their infernal jail ; 
 Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave." * 
 
 Yetj much as they acconiphshed, they garnered not 
 in, all the fruits of the teeming fields of knowledge. 
 Other and greater discoveries are yet to come ; and 
 who shall say, that some of those whom you are 
 skilled to train and prepare for the work, shall not 
 reap and bind the ample sheaves, and bear them re- 
 joicing home? The deep debt of gratitude imposed 
 upon jjs by the wise labors and thoughtful forecast of 
 our ancestors, we must not fail to meet, and to pay, 
 with full interest added. Nor must we fail to toil as 
 sedulously for the good of posterity, as our progeni- 
 tors toiled for our good, and we cancel the debt that 
 we owe, just so far as we are earnest and successful 
 in this duty. The good or the evil of untold genera- 
 tions will be influenced by what we do, and fearful 
 is the responsibility. That all but limitless realm, 
 that lies far towards the western sun, is to be ten- 
 anted by the countless throngs of unborn Americans. 
 Upon these is our iulluence to operate, upon their 
 minds is our teaching to bear; and whether rich gar- 
 ners of virtuous fruits shall send a blessed odor to 
 their skies, or the noxious weeds of vice shall taint 
 their moral atmosphere with pestilence and death, 
 can alone be determined by success or failure, in 
 planting and rearing, on every acre of that wide do- 
 main, the manners, the morals and the institutions 
 that bless and adorn Psew-England. 
 
 * Milton's '* Christmas Hymn," as varied in Handel's " Sam- 
 son." 
 
University of 
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