R. SCOTT was not of a temperament that would permit him to be unaffected by the civil, political, and moral questions of his day; on all of them he had convictions which he was ready at all proper times to express, but he ever held those convictions in subordination to the great religious questions which it was the great business of his life to investigate, set forth, and defend. In politics he was a democrat, but he never permitted himself to be drawn into the petty intrigues and issues of party strife, and while he had a very high admiration of the great men of that party from Jefferson to Jackson, of the former for his statesmanship, and of the latter for his energy and decision, he did not withhold his admiration of the men and measures of the opposite party, when both were often such, that as a patriot, if not as a partisan, he could warmly approve. Although a foreigner by birth, he was a great lover of free institutions, and was proud of his citizenship, and none the less so because it was his deliberate choice, rather than a birthright. He once said to an intimate friend: "I remember distinctly the moment that I became an American citizen in heart; it was [352] not when I went through the forms of the laws of naturalization, but on the occasion of my meeting with a procession headed by a band playing the national air, and bearing the national banner; inspired by the strain as I looked on the national emblem, I felt that under that flag, and for it, if need be, I could die, and I felt at that moment that I was in feeling, as well as in law, an American citizen, that that flag was my flag, and that this country was my country."

      Patriotism has by some been thought to be inconsistent with Christianity, and an elaborate attempt was made by Soame Jenyns, a learned and pious English statesman, to prove that patriotism was not included in the list of virtues by either Christ or his apostles. The essay, to which allusion has been made, was regarded as exhaustive and unanswerable, and is even yet esteemed not only as a fine specimen of close thought, but as an argument for the truth of Christianity. Elder Scott took different ground; his views are striking and forcible, and admirably expressed, and are none the less valuable for being in opposition to those of one of the leading men of his age. They are as follows:

      "A British Parliamentarian affirms that the virtue of patriotism is not taught in our religion. In order to know whether this is correct it is necessary to understand the meaning of the word. Patriotism then, as I apprehend it, is a special attachment to our countrymen. Philanthropy is the love of the species--the love of all men. But patriotism is the love of country, the love of our fellow-citizens in particular.

      "This special passion for our own, and this general [353] benevolence, or patriotism and philanthropy, are alike elements of human nature. Nay, they have their foundation in the God-head after whom man is modeled, for although God loves all men with benevolence, he loves his saints only with complacency. He is said, therefore, to be the preserver of all men, but especially of them who believe.

      "When God was manifest in the flesh did he--Christ--in his high example disclose to us in the moral form of overt action, the several virtues of general benevolence and patriotic attachment? Did he love the race--all nations? And did he love the Jews his countrymen and some individuals in particular? He loved the race of man; this is admitted, and although he died for the world yet he lived only for the the Jews; and said: 'I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' He gave his countrymen, therefore, the exclusive benefit and excellent honor of his own personal administrations. 'He was a minister of the circumcision' said the apostle.

      "After he had arisen from the dead, and organized the apostolic mission, he sent the twelve to the world; but in harmony both with their and his own natural patriotism he commanded them to begin at Jerusalem. This they did, preaching in the first instance the gospel to none but Jews only. In like manner, Paul, after preaching to the Jews betook himself to his native city, Tarsus, among the Gentiles. Christ, then, and his apostles, were at once lovers of the whole race of man, and of their own countrymen, the Jews in particular. And can it be affirmed legitimately, their examples to the contrary notwithstanding, that Christianity does not teach patriotism--a superior regard for our own countrymen--our kinsmen according to the flesh? No, No; the British statesman is wrong. God loves all men, but particularly his saints. Christ was the desire of all nations, yet he came only to his own. The apostles felt for the world, but especially for their kindred according to the flesh, who were Israelites. And we, if we [354] are true to nature, will have a special affection for our own countrymen, who are Americans.

      "But it may be asked, will not this special affection for our own country interfere with the rights and prerogatives of other countries? It may and it may not. If regulated and purified it will not. Christ's personal preference for John interfered not with the honors of the other apostles, for although the mother of Zebedee's children asked that her sons might enjoy the distinction of sitting on his right and left hand in the kingdom, yet Christ gave to Peter the Apostolic Primacy and the keys of the kingdom. Nor did this patriotic preference for the Jews and Jerusalem at all derogate from the universality of his benevolence, for, although he lived for one nation, yet he died for all. He did not give to the world what was due to his own nation, nor to his own nation what was designed for the world. But being a philanthropist--a lover of all men--he was, of course, also a patriot--a lover of the Jews, his countrymen in particular. He did not weep over the capitals of other nations, but over Jerusalem he did weep. And the man who would attain to finished life, and be perfect as Christ is perfect, must, like him, live for his country, and, if it be necessary, die for the world.

      "But again, what is Christian patriotism? Is it Roman patriotism? No, no. These two forms of patriotism are vastly dissimilar. They are as unlike as truth and falsehood, light and darkness, Christ and Cæsar. Cæsar rose to dominion by the blood of others--millions of others. Christ ascended by his own blood. Cæsar was a tyrant. Christ was a servant. Cæsar exalted the Roman people by wars, military murders, requisitions, and the general degradation of the feelings and property of all other nations. Christ would have exalted the Jewish nation by making them the depositories of his gospel and the carriers of restored rights and righteousness to all the earth besides. Cæsar made Rome the mistress of the civilized [355] world, and planted on her brows the diadems of the nations which he had plucked from their monarchs by the hands of a bloody and ferocious soldiery. Christ the Lord would have adorned Jerusalem with a crown of righteousness, and made her the queen city of nations--the medium and means of righteousness and religion to a fallen world--but she would not. The patriotism of Cæsar and the Romans is selfishness; that of Christ and Christians is benevolence--a benevolence that would develop in the heart and life of their countrymen gifts and graces that would set them high above all Greek, all Roman fame. The fact is this. As nature makes men what they are, so Christianity is designed to make them what they ought to be, and must be, if they would live forever. Christianity, therefore, is nothing less than finished life--a divine nature--the formation of a character that shall please God--the remodeling of man after the image of his Maker--the image of his Son Jesus Christ; and as it is the business of all true Christians to sow society thick with such character, and as such character alone can give stability even to the best and freest political institutions, it follows, therefore, that Christian patriotism is the true patriotism. But the Christian patriot does not, like Cæsar, brandish a sword at the kingdoms. Nor is it that morbidly sensitive and pensioned loquacity, too often heard in our halls of legislation, prating of law, property,, trade, and commerce, liberty and the rights of man. No! it is a pure and sublime passion of the soul derived to man from nature, and in the Christian consecrated by faith in God and Christ leading him earnestly to desire, and if possible to compass, the good and grandeur of his country by the development of all her resources in the formation of great and good men, divine character--finished life--for what is the eternal value of government and law, of art and science, of trade and commerce and manufacture, and all civil and political and domestic institutions, without individual and national [356] character? 'Righteousness alone exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.'

      "Who then is the Christian patriot? Is it the statesman? the soldier? or the saint? None of them, if he is not a good and honest man. He is the Christian patriot who, having arrayed himself with the gifts and graces of the divine nature, which was broken at the fall of man, 'like the body of Osiris, scattered to the four winds of heaven,' but which in the person and character of our Lord Jesus Christ has again 'been gathered together and moulded in every joint and member into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection,' does afterward labor to induce the same form of divine nature upon all his countrymen, and by finished life and lovely perfection swell the note of his country's applause among foreign nations and before God the supreme ruler of the world. Yes, he is the true patriot, and all other forms of patriotism are bastard and illegitimate, and will at last fail to inherit the commendation of God.

      "Christian patriotism has for its motto 'Our Country, right or wrong;' if right, we go with her because of the right; if wrong, we go for her to deliver her from the wrong, and put her right. Christ and his apostles adhered to the Israelitish nation right and wrong; and abandoned it only at that point of utter and total incorrigibility where every nation, who refuses to reform, must meet its fate."^a

      The temperance question was one of the great issues of his times; he not only warmly approved of the movement when set on foot, but he, in a measure, anticipated it, and gave his testimony against the use of strong drink when public sentiment was in its favor, and the practice almost universal. Every family that could afford it, had its side-board, and one [357] of the first rites of hospitality was to invite the guest to drink, and his departure was attended by the same ceremony as the greeting. It was not at all unministerial for the preacher to take some of that kind of comfort before starting to his appointment some miles away, nor to repeat it on reaching the scene of his labors before the sermon began. Preachers even could engage in the manufacture of whisky without compromising their character; there was as little disgrace in running a still-house as in managing a grist-mill. Into this feeling, however, Eider Scott never entered, and, on one occasion, after stopping over night with a preaching brother who was the proprietor of a distillery, he gave him a solemn admonition upon the subject and closed by advising him to abandon the business, with the words, "Let the devil boil his own tea-kettle, my brother, and do you preach the gospel."

      He would also warn the people against the common practice of furnishing liquor freely to workmen in harvest time, urging that it was ruinous in the extreme.^b The church at Carthage, which was planted by his labors, at an early period of its history was induced to take strong ground against intemperance. This was done by the passage of a resolution to the effect that she would have no Christian communion with those who used liquor, or with any one who should sell wine or strong drink, except for medicine or the Lord's Supper. This course, brought about by his influence and teaching, was very gratifying, and he expressed his pleasure at the action taken by the church as follows: "This is exceedingly proper, for how can evangelists stand up to plead with a [358] community to obey the gospel, and receive the Holy Spirit, when others, with the name of Christ upon them, stand behind their counters, and make the hearts of the people mad with wine and ardent spirits? The churches have need to cleanse their hands of sin, the coming of the Lord draws nigh."^c

      He fully sympathized with the various temperance organizations, and gave all the aid in his power to their efforts for the suppression of this monster evil, which like a fearful deluge had overwhelmed both pew and pulpit, and threatened to sweep away every virtue and every relic of righteousness. He had no fears that the church would suffer by its members allying themselves with the Sons of Temperance and similar orders, as he thought that no evil could result to religion from virtuous practices.

      But the great question of the day was that of slavery, and was to him, in common with others, one of unbounded extent, interest, and perplexity. He was often called upon to define his position in regard to it, and frequently did so with pen and tongue in public and in private. He inclined to the views of the colonizationists, rather than those of the abolitionists, as the former proposed to return the emancipated blacks to their own country, while the latter demanded their instant and absolute liberation, without proposing any means, in his view, by which both master and slave might be able to bear the change with the least injury. There were difficulties in any view of the case; he felt, with the wisest and best men in the nation, that it was an increasing and intolerable evil, and yet difficulties seemed to beset every method of solving it which had been proposed. [359] At one time he wrote: "The manumission of our slave population can be accomplished now only by a means which heaven alone knows--I know it not;" and then adds, "I am no friend to slavery, I deprecate its commencement, I deplore its continuance, and tremble for its issue; but I am silent because I think to speak would be folly. What ought to be said I can not say, and what ought not to be said, I will not say."^d His language is that of perplexity, not of timidity; and this perplexity was shared in a greater or less degree by the most eminent men in the nation; none of them had fallen upon a solution of the then difficult problem--which never was easy of solution until solved--but that he did not live to see.

      The state of perplexity, to which allusion has been made, did not arise from any doubts as to the nature and tendency of slavery, but wholly from the difficulty of getting rid of it; and yet this state of mind, for which there was abundant reason, gave rise to his being called, by a radical and impulsive brother, "an apologist for slavery." To this charge he replied as follows: "Be not surprised, my brother, if I ask where the root of the evil is to be found, and whether slavery is to be associated originally and radically with the Church, or with the State. When men would kill a tree they do not lop off a few of the uppermost boughs as you would, but strike a blow at the root. You are on the house-top. I wish to feel around the foundations, to grapple with the pillars, and to know the length and strength of the things on which the fabric is raised. It is radically a state question, and slavery might exist in the Union even [360] after every disciple of the true gospel had exercised his individual right and freed his slaves on the spot. I assert, then, that the government, and not the church of Christ, is to be blamed for slavery. She did not originate it, she did not propose it, she did not desire it, and she can not annul it. Hence, slavery is radically a political and not a religious evil. You have so mistaken the state of the case, or the question, that you have dared me to a viva voce defense of slavery as practiced in the United States! I will not defend slavery in any State; it is a political evil, and to defend it would be like defending evil of any other kind. The fact is, the government must be made to act in this affair if we would cure it, and all attempts to remove the disease by any other means is so much time lost."^e This was written some thirty years before emancipation came, but it was effected, as he had said, by the government; the only power, in his judgment, that could remove it.

      Apart, however, from the great work of religious reformation, nothing occupied more of his attention than the subject of education. A thorough scholar, an eminently successful teacher, and at all times a close student, he was well prepared to speak on this important theme.

      For a short period he acted as president of Bacon College, Kentucky,^f and it was, doubtless, his connection with his institution that brought him prominently and favorably before the friends of education in the West. The College of Teachers and Western Literary Institute, which met at Cincinnati, embraced among its members some of the ablest men of the period, many of whom have since achieved a national [361] and even a world-wide reputation. Among them were Samuel Lewis, Dr. Daniel Drake, Joseph Ray, the author of the well known series of arithmetics and algebras, which have found a place in nearly every school and college in the land. Prof. McGuffey, Alex. Campbell, Bishop (now Archbishop) Purcell, A. Kinmont, an accomplished scholar, critic, and author; and Dr. Calvin E. Stowe, Professor of Sacred Literature in Lane Seminary, and son-in-law of Dr. Lyman Beecher, and husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe, of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame. By this association Walter Scott was invited to address them at their anniversary in the autumn of 1837, an invitation which any man, at that time, might have regarded as a compliment.

      Prof. Stowe was, at that time, in Europe preparing a report on the Prussian system of education which he was expected to present at the coming anniversary, and was looked forward to as the lion of the occasion. The appointed time came, the Professor had arrived, and he laid before the convention the results of his observations, fully indorsing and recommending the Prussian system. A majority of the eminent scholars present were in favor of adopting a system which the Professor regarded as the most perfect scheme of education as yet devised by human wisdom, and were startled when Mr. Scott rose and gave it as his view that a system of education was to be discovered, not invented, and that the Prussian system, of which they had heard so much, was defective in that it had not its foundation in a proper knowledge of human nature, and was artificial rather than natural; an attempt, in fact, to make nature conform to a system, [362] rather than a system adapted to man from a profound knowledge of his physical, intellectual, and moral nature. Had he presented his views before Prof. Stowe addressed the convention, they would, beyond a doubt, have been warmly received; but being in opposition to them, after they had been received with such general favor, the effect was not only to mortify his friends with regard to his criticisms upon the views of the learned Professor, but also to excite their fears with regard to the address he was himself soon to deliver. Prof. Ray feared that his speech would be a failure, and mentioned his fears to Alexander Campbell, who became, if possible, more fearful than he; others heard of their fears, and in turn became fearful, and at last, when the fears of his best friends came to his ears, Scott, as was natural, became fearful himself. To make the matter worse, in order to give him more time, his address was postponed to the very latest hour, and that a most unpropitious hour for both speaker and audience--the hour after dinner. The time came, and as he ascended the steps of the pulpit his friends saw with dismay that he was pale, haggard, and trembling; and when he stood face to face with his large and critical audience, the heads of most of his friends were down. He began with visible embarrassment, but soon rallied; tone, manner, expression--all improved, and before many minutes had passed he was master of his subject, and of his audience. The whole scheme of education he described as consisting of four grand elements, as follows:

      "1st. THINGS--The things taught by the master and learned by the pupil. 2d. IDEAS--the ideas of the things [363] found in the school-course, and constituting the knowledge of the scholar. 3d. RELATION--that is, the adaptation of this knowledge to the intellectual and moral constitution of the scholar. 4th. USE--that is, the practical application of knowledge to the formation of the scholar's character as a being related to material nature, to his own species generally, to the commonwealth in particular, and to his Creator. Thus education works inward from things, and outward to relations--four sets of external relations--and consists of things, and ideas; their relations and uses as its elements or first principles, for under these four categories may the whole details of the educational science be assembled or classed.

      "In nothing, perhaps, does man appear more eminent than in his admirable powers to compass and assort the mighty mass which the present life lays before him. In nothing, perhaps does he appear more grand than in his faculty for generalization. Although he finds himself thrown upon a vast globe, twenty-five thousand miles in circumference, and forever falling with inconceivable velocity through space, and though that globe is but a component part of an organized system of globes called the solar system, and although the solar system itself be but one member of that vast and multitudinous family of systems or planetaria which form the starry heavens; and though he has thrown before him, in this boundless and tremendous scene, suns and moons, and planets and comets, and this great globe with its numerous contents, physical and rational, and its exhaustless resources, yet does he soar above the entire scene, himself the phœnix of it all! and by his glorious powers to compass and arrange the endlessly varied objects of this unlimited field of living nature, greatly demonstrate the certainty of the divine oracle concerning him, namely: 'In the beginning God created man in his own likeness.'

      "For the sake of the answer, then, I ask, On what is the [364] professional teacher to form his science? I answer on things, and on this classification of them, namely, that they are all either of God or of man; that is, they are either the things of nature or religion; or they are things of art or society.

      "If, then, the word things be the first predicament of subjective education, nature and religion, art and society, are that predicament run out in several categories, and on these categories will rest immediately the whole educational science. Two of these systems then are of God, and two of them of man. Nature and religion are divine systems, art and society are human. The first two are the divine mind in positive development, the last two are the human mind in development. In nature and religion we behold the power and authority of God. In art and society we behold the power and authority of man; nature and art are systems in which we see mind acting on matter; religion and society, systems in which we see mind acting upon mind. In searching for the foundations of the educational science we find that it rests ultimately on things--the things of nature and art, religion and society. And, in making up the true school-course, we must have respect to this classification; that is, the things of the divine systems may not thrust out the things of the human systems. Nature is not to exclude art, neither is society religion, or contrariwise; but the school-course is to comprehend things from all these systems.^g

      "Nothing short of the words physical, animal, moral, and intellectual, will describe our entire constitution; and that our external relations are reducible to four classes, for our physical nature connects us with material nature, our animal nature classes us with our species, our moral nature connects us with society and with God, while our intellectual constitution establishes and confirms us in all these relations.

      "Education, therefore, must consist of the impartation [365] of knowledge--sensible, rational, conscious, and revealed knowledge--with reference to this four-fold nature, and to the relations in which it involves us; and it must be in the discharge of duty as a being of these relations that man finds his happiness, and a field of exercise for the different orders of powers and sentiments found in this analysis of his nature.

      "His connection with material nature constitutes philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics--a part of his education. His animal nature makes it proper that he should understand natural history, physiology, and anatomy. His moral constitution makes mental philosophy, government, and economics, a part of his educational instruction; and his intellectual faculties can be invigorated and matured only by a due supply of all these kinds of knowledge.

      "But now, if it be inquired what it is, in a moral point of view, that the professional teacher may, by the course recommended, develop in the nature of his pupil, I answer, certain cardinal virtues, as the love of truth, taste, or love of the useful and the beautiful, the love of our own species, the love of God; elements of virtuous character to which the subjects of education are severally and respectively related.

      "Is it asked, What is that virtue which is especially fostered and made fruitful by the study of the things of nature in all her forms, colors, sounds, attitudes, motions, actions, changes, heights, and distances, tastes and odors, tacts and expressions of utility, beauty and grace, the picturesque, the grand and the sublime, with the variety of her natural history, natural philosophy, chemistry, etc.? It is answered, the love of truth. This entire department of knowledge works together for the love of truth in man.

      "But again what is that element in our nature set free by the study of the arts? Taste--taste for the useful, taste for the beautiful and the grand, an attribute in our nature [366] to the proper development of which is very nearly related all that is beautiful in polished life, and elegant in refined manners. It is in this element of education, that man chiefly finds his ideal conceptions of the illustrious and the grand, the graceful and the fair; for it is in art alone that he can fully assemble or group the elements which constitute these ideas.

      "Divest education of study in the arts, and you divest it of a chief element. If you break not the shaft, if you raze not the foundation, you at least strike from the elevation to which it is entitled the chief ornament of the column of education; you dethrone its capital and negative the fairest forms and loveliest specimens of human genius to which society has given birth in every age of the world, from him who, before the flood, invented the organ, down to Handel, Haydn, and Mozart; from Praxiteles and Phidias to Thom and Cordova; from him who sculptured out for everlasting admiration, the Venus de Medicis, and horrific Laocoon, down David; from him whose pencil breathed life upon the walls of Grecian temples, down to Raphael the sublime, and Michael Angelo, and Rubens who grouped his fair creations like 'hillocks of roses.'

      "Again, what moral element is chiefly addressed by the study of that part of education which is referable to society? I answer, philanthropy--the love of our own species. Society is an expression of our sense of the duty of each individual to all the rest, and of the duty of all the rest to each individual.

      "Now, it is certain that there are in that part of the educational course supplied from this source many co-relatives of the virtue styled philanthropy, such as generosity, liberality, hospitality, and a thousand other of the charities of life; but these are all an under-growth in comparison of the master virtue, the love of our own species manifesting itself by justice, and every other grace of behavior. Philanthropy is a cardinal [367] virtue, and it is a greatly important point to be, like Aristides, just.

      "Finally, what is it that is chiefly inculcated by religion? answer, the love of God, resolving it into a belief of his existence, and true and gracious character as our Creator and Redeemer by Jesus Christ. Lord Bacon has said that 'the grand end of philosophy was to fill society with arts and useful inventions,' and it may be added, that the end of religion is to sow society with divine principles and righteousness."^h

      As he proceeds to elaborate the views of which the above extracts are but a faint outline, his hearers were brought into warm sympathy with him; he made them see and feel the truth and beauty of the theory of education which he proposed, and one of those who doubted and feared when he began, says that before he closed, the audience was enraptured. The speaker was all that could be desired. He was grand. He was sublime. All drooping heads were lifted, all fears removed. When he closed, one of the best thinkers in the convention, A. Kinmont, rose and moved a vote of thanks to the speaker "for the only profoundly philosophical discourse that had been delivered during the convention." The mover was a metaphysician, and was perfectly carried away with Scott's speech. It was a triumph--a triumph under difficulties, and one of which any man might have been proud.

      He afterward wrote at length upon this subject, and threw much light upon educational science. He anticipated many of the wants of society in this particular, and education has since that time been advancing in the path which he pointed out. He [368] greatly favored teaching by experiment rather than by rote; he deemed it better to address the eye by objects, and collections of specimens from every department of natural history, than to address the ear, as was then the custom, by a recital of their names and properties. He saw, too, that in a country, and under a government like ours, a system different from that of the old world was needed, a system peculiarly national; and, above all, he insisted upon uniting moral with literary and scientific culture. Nor were his labors in vain, and he is worthy to be regarded for his toil, in this field, as a public benefactor. [369]

[LEWS 352-369]