Produced by Curtis Weyant, Kelsey Innis and PG Distributed Proofreaders
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.
By
S.R. Calthrop,
of Bridgeport, Conn.,
Formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge, England.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by Ticknor And
Fields, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
On motion of G.F. Thayer,—Voted, unanimously, That five thousandcopies of Mr. Calthrop's Lecture be printed at the expense of theInstitute, for gratuitous circulation.
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 asubject not easy to be exhausted. For we all of us feel that the HumanNature,—out of whose bosom has flowed all history, all science, allpoetry, all art, all life in short,—contains within itself far morethan that which has hitherto been manifested through all the periods ofits history, though that history dates from the creation of the world,and has already progressed as far as the nineteenth century of theChristian era. Yes! we all of us feel that the land of promise lies faraway in the future, that the goal of human history is yet a long wayoff.
A large portion of this assembly consists of those whose business it isto study Human Nature in all its various forms, and who have taken uponthemselves the task of developing that nature in the youth of America,in that rising generation whose duty it will be to carry out the nascentprojects of reform in every department of human interest, and make thethought of to-day the fact of tomorrow.
Some doubtless there are among this number, who by very nature are bornTeachers, called to this office, as by a voice from heaven! Men, who inspite of foolish detraction, or yet more foolish patronage, understandthe dignity, the true nobility of their calling; who know that theoffice of the teacher is coëval with the world; and also feel with trueprophetic foresight, that the world, fifty years hence, will be verymuch what its Teachers intend, by God's blessing, to make it.
Brothers in a high calling! The speaker, proudly enrolling himself inthe number of your noble band, greets you from his heart this day, andinvites you to spend a thoughtful hour with him; and to help him, byyour best wishes, to unfold in a manner not wholly unworthy of histheme, some small portion of the nature and method of Human Development.
Ours is the age of analysis. We begin to see that before we canunderstand a substance, it is necessary to become acquainted with allits component parts. Thus, then, with regard to Human Nature, we mustunderstand all at least of its grand divisions, before we can comprehendthe method of developing it as a whole.
Let us then say, that there are five grand divisions in HumanNature,—the physical, the intellectual, the affectional, the moral, andthe devotional,—or in other words, that man has body, mind, heart,conscience, and soul.
Concerning these great divisions, I shall assert, first, that they areall mutually dependent up