The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1857-08-25
MORAL IMPROVEMENT OF STU
DENTS

Mr.. Horace Mann has lately written @
letter upon this subject, which appears
among the proceedings of the American
i Association, for the Advancement of Educa-
ton. Mr.. Mann asks: "What is the duty
of College Faculties, or what has the com
muni:y at large to expect from them. in
| regard to the moral character and conduct
! of the graduates upon whom they confer the
| honors and prerogatiYes of an academical
| degree - In answer to his question, Mr..
Mann proposes to connect merals and
| academic education; to make the Degree
| the guerdon of morals as well as scientific
requirements. His Ideals briefly: THAT
vice ought never to be armed with the
power of knowledge. Hence, whatever
hopeful lenity of forbearance may be ex-
tended toward students during their pre-
paratory course, yet when they enter Col
lege, their day of probation should be con-
sidered as about ended. There they are
bound to lay the foundation broad and
deep of all those virtues, upon which alone
the fabric of a prosperous and noble COM
monwealth can be reared. Hence, if the
conduct of any student, during his College
life, is justly obnoxious to the charge of
intempcrance, of blasphemy, profanity and
impurity of conversation, of yielding to
sensual allurements. or to any of those in
famies which when they graduate from
College halls, become the scandal and pest
of society, which disgrace the professions
and become the opprobrium of the nation
such student should be forthwith deprived
of those means of knowledge which he
threatens to abuse by being dismissed"
Among the forbidden things, Mr.. Mann
places liquor, tobacco. profanity and foul
language. The New York Tribune is
greatly disgruntled that Mr.. Mann proposes
to treat the use of tobacco and foul Ian
guage with more lenity than profanity and
that they are not to be made
cause of expulsion, but of simple rebuke
and denunciation. In advocating the i'm
portance Of decorum of speech, the Trib-
une uses foul language" enough to supply
a Billingsgate University and in denounc
ing the filthiness of tobacco, it elects from
it's mouth a collection of expletives COM
r,nrnd with which. the abominated quids
are cleanliness itself. "The hideous prac-
tice,'' says the Tribune, '.of chewing and
splitting should be considered evidence
that man is untitled for the human:tes.'
and he should accordingly be excluded from !
the selected circle of education and refine
ment. What can a youth learn of the |
principles of virtuous seif-denial when he |
| filthy plug of narcotic nastiness, roll it
ike sweet morsel under his tongue, ard |
hen belch forth the disgusting juice We
10 not believe national refinement or tenn
indeed, 'our country so far as it is imper-
onated in hotels, steamboats,, railroad cars,
heatres, halls, work -shopsand public walks,
S beastly, owing to tobacco sPittle. Go
where you will, and no place is sacred
indeed, among some Of the nastiest idolaters
f this filth are members of the clergy
look at the boys and lads who are addict
d to tobacco. They are old almost before
hey are out of their teens. The poison
ppears to have occupied every pore of
heir skin. Sallow,, scraggy, ghastly even
these qualities are the facial phenomena
f the poor wretches who become slaves to
Obacco. The sense of taste, physical and
nfellectual, is dulled. The instincts of the
Gentleman are forestalled The appetite
Or furious cxcitements is stimulated. We
hink, then, that Mr.. Mann has not gone
ar enough, in failing to class the use of
obacco with that Of alcohol in his inter
lets to youth who aspire to the benefits
nd honors ola college education
1t cannot be pretended that the chewing
tobacco is a very nice and elegant OPP
ration, and yet we have seldom seen an
Id tobacco chewer make himself hide
US" and ''flthy'' as the Tribune in de-
ouncing the practice. After all, the
rorld is the same old world, and the Trib-
ne, which aspires to be the organ ofevery
ovelty, belongs to the same school of
lorals which fourished in Judea more than
ighteen hundred years ago which was
,rever compounding ''for sins they were
,clined to. by damning those they had no
lind to - which was searching for notes in
ther peoples eyes without regard to the
cams in its own; which made great fuss
yer trifes and neglected the weightier
latters of the law, and which was thus
ddressed by the Founder OF Christianity
Now do We, Pharisees, make clean the
utside of the cup and the platter. but your
award part is full of rayening and wick ed
ess."
SECRETARY DoBBIN.-The incident to
hich the Hon. James c. Bobbin owed his
'abinet appointment is thus given in an
xchange paper: /
"He was in the Baltimore Convention,
nj tho of ten. PIafcos 1