Litchfield enquirer., 1844-02-22

MR EDrroR,-The Society for intellectual an d moral Improvement of South Farms, were recently favored with highly interesting and instructive address, from the Rev. Mir Eastman of your village, on the necessity of thorough moral culture on the part of the young men of our country. For the interest which originated the happy efforts of the Rev. Gentleman before our association, we tender the expression of our acknowledgements.
 The principles in mental culture which the Rev.
 Lecturer advanced, and the logical deductions from those principles, it must be admitted are peculiar ly applicable to the present era, when a reckless spirit of innovation, and speculation, is rife in the land when political ambition is marshaling the energies of young men, and the illusive hopes of preerment are sapping the principles of political virtue The fact cannot be disguised to any per- son, who has critically watched the operations of mind in our Republic, during the last half century, that loose and nerveless tone of thought, has in great measure pervaded the mass of intellect It IS painfully evident that the young men of our country have become somewhat infected with this contagious mania in letters, the consequences of which are visible in the absence of that thorough intellectual drill, that evident want of mental stamina, which arc at once indispensable for healthful and bracing tone of mental being The causes which have combined to produce this result may be traced to some extent to the spirit of the age, the tendency of which has been to abrdge the necessity for protracted mental effort, by reducing every thing in its nature, possible to the strict test of mechanical agency. The emulation visible in converting the powers of physical nature, into sub- jection to the human will, appears to react with retaiatory force upon the intellectual powers. A sort of sympathy, owing to their near relation be- tween mind and material objects, has engendered in some cases desire to abolish the need for long and labored mental application.
 In training and informing the minds of young men with application and discipline, that literature its character whose tendency is to vitate the taste by causing disrelsh for sober and sanctifed lit- erature, should succumb to the over shadowing merits of the less ostentatous sciences. The nne- teenth century has been sufficiently lauded as an age of bold and free inquiry; as an age signalized by the law of progress; as an age when the press with all its giant powers, is discriminating as on the wings of wind, light and knowledge. It can- not be denied that the fund of knowledge increas ing, and that genius is going to the world the bles sings of its creations. Yet where there is much of positive intellectual good, there will be of necess ty, under the apostacy of intellect, an attending evil.
 Of late class of writers have sprung into exis- tence, who with cultivated intellect, and prolific fancy, ransack earth and sea to hunt up heroes to gratiy the morbid and feversh appetite of society. It cannot be questioned that some of these writings which pass among us with such currency, have most pernicious influence upon youthful minds too frequently seducing it into wrong action by not suf-
 ciently gossing over the characters of its herocs or not pointing them with moral throughout
 Truth needs not the gaudy drapery of fiction to find passage to the mind. No! The powers of fancy may weave into this literature of the rasrons the most charming Vaccinations, and strew it thick ly with the gay flowers, which will seem only to conceal the thorns that they implant within the breast.
 There arc incentives to thorough mental culture on the part of young men, of high and unmeasured import Here no feudal institutions have left their lines of demarcation; wailing up the pathway to fame and preferment. The pulse of hope for future distinction in letters and political science beats high and flee. The elements of thorough mental culture richly lavshed in our pathway, and this will make ignorance crime and knowledge virtue
 South Farms, Feb 17th, 1874.