, Discourse, to Nauvoo City Council, , Hancock Co., IL, 3 Feb. 1841. Version published in “Inaugural Address,” Times and Seasons, 15 Feb. 1841, 2:316–318.
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bacchanalians in the houses of blasphemy and noise will always prove a disgrace to a moral people. Public sentiment will do much to suppress the vice of intemperance, and its concomitant evil results: but ample experience has incontrovertibly proven that it cannot do all—the law must be brought to the rescue, and an effective prohibitory ordinance enacted. This cannot be done at a better time than at the present. Let us commence correctly, and the great work of reform, at least so far as our peaceful is concerned, can be summarily consummated. It would be difficult to calculate the vast amout of evil and crime that would be prevented, and the great good that would accrue to the public at large by fostering the cause of temperance; but suffice it to say that the one would be commensurate to the other.— No sales of spirituous liquors whatever, in a less quantity than a quart, except in cases of sickness on the recommendation of a physician or surgeon duly accredited by the Chancellor and Regents of the University, should be tolerated. The liberty of selling the intoxicating cup is a false liberty—it enslaves, degrades, destroys, and wretchedness and want are attendant on every step,—its touch, like that of the poison Upas, is death. Liberty to do good should be cheerfully and freely accorded to every man; but liberty to do evil, which is licentiousness, should be peremptorily prohibited. The public good imperiously demands it—and the cause of humanity pleads for help. The protecting aegis of the corporation should be thrown around every moral, and religious, institution of the day, which is in any way calculated to ennoble, or ameliorate the condition of the human family.
The immediate organization of the University, as contemplated in the 24th Sec. of the act incorporating our , cannot be too forcibly impressed upon you at this time.— As all matters in relation to mental culture, and public instruction, from common schools up to the highest branches of a full collegiate course in the Arts, Sciences, and Learned Professions, will devolve upon the Chancellor and Regents of the University, they should be speedily elected, and instructed to perfect their plan, and enter upon its execution with as little delay as possible. The wheels of education should never be clogged, or retrograde, but roll progressively from the Alpha to the Omega of a most perfect, liberal, and thorough course of university attainments. The following observations in relation to false education, from Alexander’s Messenger, so perfectly accords with my feelings and views on this highly important subject, that I cannot do better than incorporate them in this message.
“Among the changes for the worse, which the world has witnessed within the last century, we include that specious, superficial, incomplete way of doing certain things, which were formerly thought to be deserving of care, labor and attention. It would seem that appearance is now considered of more moment than reality. The modern mode of education is an example in point. Children are so instructed as to acquire a smattering of every thing; and, as a matter of consequence, they know nothing properly. Seminaries and academies deal out their moral and natural philosophy, their geometry, trigonometry, and astronomy, their chemistry, botany, and mineralogy, until the mind of the pupil becomes a chaos; and, like the stomach when it is overloaded with a variety of food, it digests nothing, but converts the superabundant nutriment to poison. This mode of education answers one purpose:—it enables people to seem learned; and seemingly, by a great many, is thought all-sufficient. Thus we are schooled in quackery, and are early taught to regard showy and superficial attainments as most desirable. Every boarding school Miss is a Plato in petticoats, without an ounce of that genuine knowledge, that true philosophy, which would enable her to be useful in the world, and to escape those perils with which she must necessarily be encompassed. Young people are taught to use a variety of hard terms, which they understand but imperfectly;—to repeat lessons which they are unable to apply;—to astonish their grand-mothers with a display of their parrot-like acquisitions;—but their mental energies are clogged and torpified with a variety of learned lumber, most of which is discarded from the brain long before its possessor knows how to use it. This is the quackery of education.
The effects of the erring system are not easily obliterated. The habit of using words without thonght, sticks to the unfortunate student through life, and should he ever learn to think, he cannot express his ideas without the most tedious and perplexing verbosity. This is, more or less, the fault of every writer in the nineteenth century. The sense is encumbered with sound. The scribbler appears to imagine that if he puts a sufficient number of words together he has done his part; and, alas! how many books are written on this principle. Thus literature, and even science itself, is overloaded with froth and flummery. Verbalizing has become fashionable and indispensible, and one line from an ancient author will furnish the materials for a modern treatise.”
Our University should be a “utilitarian” institution—and competent, industrious, teachers, and professors, should be immediately elected for the several departments. “Knowledge is power,”—foster education and we are forever free! Nothing can be done which is more certainly calculated to perpetuate the free institutions of our common country, for which our progenitors “fought and bled, and died,” than the general diffusion of useful knowledge amongst the people. Education should always be of a purely practical character, for such, and such alone, is calculated to perfect the happiness, and prosperity, of our fellow-citizens—ignorance, impudence, and false knowledge, are equally detestable,—shame and confusion follow in their train. As you now possess the power, afford the most ample facilities to the Regents to make their plan complete; and thus enable them to set a glorious example to the world at large. The most liberal policy should attend the organization of the Univer [p. 317]