A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development | Page 4

added? A good man he might have been, a patriot he surely would have been; but the Father of his Country, never! The soul that trusted in God, the conscience that felt the omnipotence of justice and right, the heart that beat for his country's weal alone, the mind that thought out her freedom, was upborne by the body that knew no fatigue, by the nerves that knew not how to tremble.
Washington had to endure physical fatigue enough to have killed three ordinary men. And how well did his youth prepare him for a life of protracted toil. Hear his biographer Irving. "He was a self-disciplinarian in physical as well as mental matters, and practised himself in all kinds of athletic exercises, such as running, leaping, pitching quoits, and tossing bars. His frame even in infancy had been large and powerful, and he now excelled most of his playmates in contests of agility and strength. As a proof of his muscular power, a place is still pointed out at Fredericksburg, near the lower ferry, where, when a boy, he threw a stone across the river. In horsemanship, too, he already excelled, and was ready to back, and able to manage, the most fiery steed. Traditional anecdotes still remain of his achievements in this respect."
Some of you have doubtless seen in Thackeray's 'Virginians,' that young Warrington found that he was more than a match for the English jumpers, as indeed, writes he, he ought to be, as he could jump twenty-one feet and a half, and no one in Virginia could beat him, except Colonel G. Washington.
It is needless to say that I do not mean to exalt the body at the expense of the higher faculties. I only maintain that the rest are incomplete without the physical element; in which indeed all the other powers dwell, and by means of which they are more or less clearly manifested. There may, of course, be vast physical energy without any corresponding development of mind or soul, as any blacksmith or prize fighter could tell us. And further, there may be a character, in which some of the higher qualities may exist in great perfection, coupled, too, with mighty force of body, and yet the character may be incomplete. Take, as an instance, another of America's great men.
Daniel Webster! perhaps the most cavernous head, set upon the strongest shoulders, which has appeared upon the planet, since the soul of Socrates went back to God. Daniel Webster! strong mind in strong body, leader and king of men, deep-chested, lion-voiced, whose words of power moved men as the wind moves the sea, whose eloquence had a physical energy, a bodily grandeur about it like to that of no other man. Daniel Webster! pride of all Americans; to you I leave it to say where he was weak. It belongs not to me, a stranger, to pluck one laurel from that stately brow; his own brethren must do it, with reluctant and half remorseful hands, pitying the errors which marred so grand a character, but saying of him as I would say of England, Webster, with all thy faults, I love thee still.
Our analysis of human character, necessarily one-sided and imperfect, is now ended. It remains for us to ask, What are its bearings upon American education? How far does American education fulfil the wants of Human Nature, and wherein does it disregard them? The title of my Lecture tells plainly enough, where I think that the great deficiency is found; a deficiency which reacts upon both mind and morals, and ofttimes utterly defeats the best efforts of clergymen and teachers. I assert, then, that, in America, the body is almost entirely neglected. Thirty thousand clergymen, from as many pulpits, advocate the claims of the conscience and the soul. A hundred thousand teachers are busied throughout the length and breadth of the land in training the intellect, while a man could almost count on his fingers the number of those engaged in training the body. The intellectual training which the masses receive, is the highest glory of American education. If I wanted a stranger to believe that the Millennium was not far off, I would take him to some of those grand Ward Schools in New York, where able heads are trained by the thousand. When I myself entered them, I was literally astonished. When I looked at the teachers who instructed that throng of young souls, I could not help saying to myself, Ah! dear friends, it would do you good to know what I feel just now. I can feel the very blessing of God descending on your labors, just as if I could see it with mine eyes. What piety have been at work here, in the construction of this colossal system of