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ARTICLE VII.

THE PRINCIPLE OF EMULATION AS A STIMULUS TO ACADEMICAL

STUDY.

By Rev. Nathan Lord, D. D., Pres. of Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H.

WHOEVER seriously contemplates improvement in any department of patriotic or Christian enterprise will, almost of necessity, encounter two evils; first, severe misconstruction, simply because he goes upon the idea of reform; and, secondly, the danger of becoming bewildered in speculation, and of committing settled and important interests to the chances of experiment. The idea of progressiveness, although not convertible with that of innovation, evidently implies it, and awakens, in a certain class of minds, more or less of the same jealousy and distrust. At the same time, the hazards of advancing upon commonly received opinions and measures are such as few sufficiently contemplate beforehand, and none can adequately appreciate without actual trial. But to shrink from either of these evils, and to remain content in a state of admitted imperfection, through fear of odium, which, however undeserved, is certain, or, mistake, at the same time possible and fatal, is unworthy of those whom God has made, in a measure, responsible for the common weal. These alternatives are, undoubtedly, a weighty argument for the exercise of modesty and charity, of sound wisdom and discretion, but a poor apology for indifference and sloth. It is perhaps impossible for man not to err, either on the side of not doing, or of overdoing; but it were almost better to suffer the consequences of an erroneous, though honest zeal, than of heartless negligence and unbelief, or an obstinate holding to positions which time is showing to be false, or out of season and untenable.

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There is, however, less danger to society than is commonly supposed in prosecuting improvements upon principles about which there can be no mistake but in the application of them. Society is destined to advance. But its advancement consists in the successive development, admission, practice of elementa

ry and essential truths. These truths are all original in nature or in Revelation, and are brought out, in the providence of God, as society is able to comprehend and bear them. There is nothing new in morals or religion, more than in the relations and laws of the material world, and reform that is propounded to us only in consistency with that acknowledgment, and offers but a more excellent way of applying an old and unquestionable faith, can be hardly injurious otherwise than as it may anticipate the designs of Providence, and provoke an unnecessary degree of agitation and resistance. New-light, another system of the world, the hallucination of enthusiasts, the consuming element of fanaticism, bewilders and destroys. But there is not a greater error than to put, indiscriminately, into the same class with visionaries and dreamers, those who, following God's appointed luminaries, the sun and moon and stars which he has ordained, yet aspire to take their observations with the advantage of more favorable circles, a clearer atmosphere, or a higher elevation. It is to discredit the source of all wisdom. It is to disparage those benefactors of mankind who have contributed to raise society to higher successive levels, or have laid the foundations on which others have erected those goodly and perfect structures which continue always the delight and admiration of the world.

The guardians of some of our public institutions have, of late, discarded the principle of emulation as a stimulus to academical study, and have substituted means which they regard as more simply moral, and for that reason more likely to answer the legitimate purposes of education. Have these men acted unwisely, injuriously? Is the change which they have introduced visionary, empirical, illusory? The inquiry is important. The regulation of the colleges and universities of our country is a matter of too great moment to admit of rude or romantic experiment. If such an error has been committed, the correction of it cannot be too speedily or imperiously required by an enlightened public sentiment. But if, on the other hand, a questionable principle has been exchanged for one whose soundness is undeniable, however intelligent and good men might differ in their judgments upon its practicability, there would be at least an apology for claiming a fair field of trial, if not a sufficient argument for the patronage and support of those who profess to favor the progress of society upon the principles of Revelation. It could not be thought wise, digni

fied, or safe to discredit and oppose attempts, which, if successful, could result only beneficially to the community, and whose failure would argue a state of society more disordered and hopeless, from the fact that it was owing to the disapprobation of the very guardians and conservators of the public virtue.

The first issue respects the fitness of the principle of emulation, as an incentive in the education of youth; and to that the following remarks will be confined.

A distinction will be admitted between duty and interest, as impulsive principles of action. The former is a moral element, an original guide to virtue. The latter is sensuous, and peculiarly liable to the vicissitudes of the disordered mind. The one has relation to the right, to principle, to the general good, and to the will and honor of the Creator; the other to the expedient, the politic, to personal convenience and happiness, as these objects are viewed by the degenerate mind; the one purifying and elevating in its moral tendencies, in proportion to the degree of its cultivation; the other, in similar conditions, running down into a lust, and inviting to sordid and unworthy gratifications, according to the predominance of one or another class of affections. This distinction, even if not of the nature of an axiom, will hardly fail to commend itself to minds inclined to a spiritual morality, and conversant with the different stages and phenomena of mental history.

Emulation is an excitement of the selfish principle in appropriate circumstances of the social condition. It is the desire of excelling; it supposes competition; it contemplates precedence, pre-eminence. It is the action of diseased mind, subject to the irregularities and excesses of the self-will, overreaching, sequestering, or otherwise counteracting the moral sense, the law of charity, according to the strength of the constitutional bias, or the acquired stimulus. If any think the term admits of a more rational and intelligible definition, this is the only idea contemplated by those who so describe the principle in question, and who, in this view of it, discard it as immoral and of pernicious tendency both in private and public discipline.

The subject has been rarely treated by moral writers, and society has acquiesced in loose and indeterminate views of it. Emulation has been strangely vindicated on the ground that it is inseparable from our nature, and coeval with intelligence; that it was cultivated in the schools of antiquity, was the spirit of national games and festivals, and for these reasons has a sort

of jure divino authority, without any consideration of its moral qualities or results. Šome more ingenious and candid minds have confounded it with other impulses and affections, less concerned with moral agency, mere instincts, and useful or injurious only according to their relation to other principles of our nature. Thus the ordinary natural sympathies, the feelings dependent on peculiarities of structure and temperament, on our complex nature, the diversities of place, or the power of association sometimes urge us forcibly in a career of improvement, influence and distinction, which is mistaken for the effect of the principle in question, yet does not result from it, and is not necessarily indicative of any wrong habit of the mind. The same is true of the principles of self-respect, regard for personal rights, the love of approbation, the desire of an honorable standing, and of the rewards of industry, temperance, frugality and study, all inherent and innocent, subserving important uses in the forming of our character, and no more to be condemned than the instinctive pleasures of the palate, or of vision. The Scriptures speak of this general appetency to personal good with decided commendation: A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold. They reprobate the want of it, as more injurious than speculative unbelief: He that provideth not for his own house hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. It is indispensable to individual and social advancement. He, who obeys it, is not, indeed, on that account, a good man, in the evangelical sense of that appellation; but neither is he, on that account, a bad It is a mercifully conservative element in our nature. We put in the same class with taste, the pleasures of the imagination, the love of letters. We should as wisely disparage polite learning, mechanical improvements, the fine arts, or any other ingredients of civilization, as that property of our nature which is obviously related to these effects of intelligence, and which is the evidence of our capacity for elevation and enjoyment, and of likeness to the original of all fitness and beauty. It is a poor substitute for moral virtue, but a necessary preservative from the coarseness of brutality. It regulates the inferior passions, bringing into correspondence the material and the spiritual of our nature, and, when controlled by the higher principles, conducing to that symmetry, proportion and harmony which are essential to the idea of a perfect man.

man.

We can easily stop here, at the idea of desiring a personal

good, and putting forth the requisite effort to obtain it. And in coming to this point, we offend not against any moral sentiment. It is obedience to an instinct, a law of sentient being, apart from any regard to moral faculty or accountability. We have it in common with the lower orders of the creation. But when we place ourselves in connection with our fellow-beings, then a law comes over us adapted to that new relation, regulating the instinct so far as it affects the interests of social life, and limiting our desire of personal good to a rigid impartiality. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. No commentary can simplify the conception of our obligation in this respect. To have an exclusive regard for our own advantage, or a selfish complacency in it, is a violation of the law; and to seek that advantage, in a course of competition, aggravates the criminality, just in proportion to the excitement of the race. When we have attained the objects of our wrong ambition, we perceive that we have invaded the territory of conscience, and have lost the assurance and the recompense of spiritual integrity. The laurel and the crown are the price of disinterested virtue.

The ideas, related to those which have been already considered, of imitating a model, of appreciating our own abilities, or of taking a place corresponding to our merits, have been often confounded with that of emulation. Let it be considered with how little reason. We are made to perceive and to admire the beautiful, the sublime, and to approve the right. By Christianity we are inclined to love true virtue, and reach forth to new degrees of moral excellence. Aspiration after greatness and goodness is legitimate; and eminence, honor, power, consequent upon the cultivation of our abilities, are as necessary, in the moral economy of God, as the proportion between gravitation and the quantity of matter, under the physical laws. They are the product, justly proportioned, of every man's seed sown. But this love of the excellent is distinct from the principle in question. It belongs to another class of our sentiments, and tends to abase and subdue the selfish passions. They propose distinction for an end; this receives it as a consequence. They run before that they may win; this follows that it may resemble. It obeys a universal law of Providence and of moral government; while they contemplate no divine arrangement or requirement, but a mere private interest, and that in circumstances and conditions where such a limitation constitutes transgression. You may be a Bacon, a Newton, a SECOND SERIES, VOL. V. NO. II.

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