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 education! What inspired energy was needed to
work it out! What charity is necessary to carry it on! Many a teacher
saw I there, unknown, may-be, to all the world, carrying on her work
with noble zeal and earnestness, to whom the quick young brains around
bore abundant testimony. When I saw them, I blessed them in my heart, I
magnified mine office, and said to myself, I, too, am a teacher.