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

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

The Project Gutenberg EBook of 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 This
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Title: 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
Author: S.R. Calthrop
Release Date: May 25, 2004 [EBook #12430]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LECTURE ON PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT ***

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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.
MDCCCLIX.
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 thousand
copies of Mr. Calthrop's Lecture be printed at the expense of the
Institute, for gratuitous circulation.

LECTURE.
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 a subject not easy to be exhausted. For we all of us feel that the
Human Nature,--out of whose bosom has flowed all history, all science,
all poetry, all art, all life in short,--contains within itself far more than
that which has hitherto been manifested through all the periods of its
history, though that history dates from the creation of the world, and
has already progressed as far as the nineteenth century of the Christian
era. Yes! we all of us feel that the land of promise lies far away in the
future, that the goal of human history is yet a long way off.
A large portion of this assembly consists of those whose business it is
to study Human Nature in all its various forms, and who have taken
upon themselves the task of developing that nature in the youth of
America, in that rising generation whose duty it will be to carry out the
nascent projects of reform in every department of human interest, and
make the thought of to-day the fact of tomorrow.
Some doubtless there are among this number, who by very nature are
born Teachers, called to this office, as by a voice from heaven! Men,

who in spite of foolish detraction, or yet more foolish patronage,
understand the dignity, the true nobility of their calling; who know that
the office of the teacher is coëval with the world; and also feel with true
prophetic foresight, that the world, fifty years hence, will be very much
what its Teachers intend, by God's blessing, to make it.
Brothers in a high calling! The speaker, proudly enrolling himself in
the number of your noble band, greets you from his heart this day, and
invites you to spend a thoughtful hour with him; and to help him, by
your best wishes, to unfold in a manner not wholly unworthy of his
theme, some small portion of the nature and method of Human
Development.
Ours is the age of analysis. We begin to see that before we can
understand a substance, it is necessary to become acquainted with all its
component parts. Thus, then, with regard to Human Nature, we must
understand all at least of its grand divisions, before we can comprehend
the method of developing it as a whole.
Let us then say, that there are five grand divisions in Human
Nature,--the physical, the intellectual, the affectional, the moral, and
the devotional,--or in other words, that man has body, mind, heart,
conscience, and soul.
Concerning these great divisions, I shall assert, first, that they are all
mutually dependent upon each other; that if one of them suffer, all the
others suffer with it; that man is dwarfed and incomplete, unless he is
fully developed in all the five: and, secondly, as my special subject, I
maintain that physical well-being, health of body, is therefore necessary
not only to the complete development of Human Nature, but that it is
also essential to a happy and harmonious development of each one of