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A BRIEF MEMOIR
Dr. Elisha Bartlett 
 

^ /?L~ ^^tY^Yc^k^
BBIEF  MEMOIR
DR.  ELISHA  BARTLETT
SELECTIONS FROM HIS  WRITINGS
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE SAME.
   PROVIDENCE:
SIDNEY S. RIDKR
     1878H' 
\VS.
                             Privately Printed.

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF  MEDICfflff1™OF 3tK) COPIFS-
      BETHESOA  14, MD.
PROVIDENCE PRESS COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
BRIEF  MEMOIR
ELISHA   BAETLETT.
   The foundation of a state rests on the virtue, the
 patriotism and the  knowledge possessed by its citi-
 zens ;  why, then, is it not the duty of the state to
 perpetuate the memory of those of its citizens who
 most possess  these virtues, as a  means of strength-
 ening its own existence.  The good name of its cit-
 izens is the heritage of the state, and  should not be
 confined to family limits.   The state is lavish of her
 bounty while  we recite deeds of bravery and hero-
 ism, too often coupled  with brutality, for the pur-
 pose of inciting emulation  in  the  minds of youth.
 Peace also hath her victories, and these, too, deserve
well at the hands of the state.  Scholastic  pursuits,
even if unaccompanied with the  pomp and pride
and circumstance of war, have sometimes resulted in 
4
BRIEF MEMOIR OF
greater benefits to the race than those events which
come heralded with more noise, but less real worth.

       " A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
        Is more than armies to the public weal."

  Let me, therefore, present the name  of a Rhode
Island scholar for emulation — a man who, while he
possessed the rugged reasoning powers of men, pos-
sessed also  the delicate,  sensitive, sympathetic na-
ture of woman; a close  student, a wise counsellor,
a true  friend,  to  be loved by all who knew  him.
Possessed of ample  knowledge and of perfect sim-
plicity, a man who, but  little  known in his native
state, yet exercised a wide influence outside its nar-
row borders,  an  influence always on  the  side  of
virtue.
  This, then, is my defence.  That to perpetuate the
memory of  good civil acts tends  to  strengthen the
basis of a state, and things which  tend  to  this end
are for the good of its citizens.  I suggest for con-
sideration the  name of Elisha Bartlett.
  Doctor or Professor Bartlett (for  he  was equally
known by either title) was the  son  of Otis and Wait 
PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
5
Bartlett, of Smithfield, Rhode Island, where he was
born October 6th,"1804.  He early betrayed a fond-
ness for scholastic pursuits, books were the compan-
ions of his boyhood, his solace and his delight.
   His  parents  were  members of  the Society  of
Friends, and while desirous of giving their son the
best advantages of education, they yet did not find
in the  universities of their time such results as they
desired him to reach;  so that, although it must be
said he did not receive a university  education, he
did yet obtain,  by means  of excellent schools and
close application, as fine a classical education as any
American university of his time  could have given
him.
   His  inclination  was towards  the  medical profes-
sion, a path which he afterwards described in these
fine sentences :  " It is the  path which was trodden
by the Sydeuhams, the Hallers and the Hunters.   It
is  the  path  which led Harvey to the  most brilliant
achievement in the annals of physiological science.
It  is the path which led the more fortunate Jenner  to
that discovery which has embalmed his name in the
gratitude  and the  love of all  peoples and  of  all 
6
BRIEF MEMOIR OF
tongues.  It is the path which led Newton up to the
loftiest  pinnacle ever reached by uninspired human-
ity.   A pinnacle  crowned  with light of ineffable
brightness, where the veil was rent, which, from the
creation of the world, had hung before the universe,
hiding its wonder and its mystery, and man was suf-
fered to look, for the first time, out upon the beauty,
the majesty,  the unchangeable  order of the  handi-
work of God.  Into  this  path, be it  our effort and
our happiness to enter."   Such was the language
with which he inspired the young men to whom  he
spoke to exertion in their profession.
  He pursued his studies in this department under
several masters in New England, all of them men of
distinction.   Among these  men mention  may  be
made of Dr. Levi Wheaton, of Providence, (1761—
1852).  He attended medical lectures at Boston and
in Providence, where, at Brown University, he took
his degree of M. D.  in 1828, one  of the last grad-
uates  of that school,  which was abandoned  at the
close of that  academic year, although the chairs of
several of the professors seem to have been occupied
for a year or  two after.   Solomon  Drowne held the 
PROFESSOR  BARTLETT.
7
position of Professor of Materia Medica and Botany,
Levi Wheaton that of Theory and Practice of Phy-
sic, Usher Parsons that of Anatomy and Surgery,—
names long and well known in Rhode Island.
  After his graduation at Brown University, Dr.
Bartlett visited Paris, France, where he still further
pursued his medical studies, under the  distinguished
teachers for which the French capital was  then and
has always  since been so celebrated.   On his return
from France he took up his residence in the town of
Lowell, Massachusetts.  On its becoming  a city, in
1836, Dr. Bartlett became its first Mayor.  He was
afterwards  honored by a seat in  the Legislature of
Massachusetts.   But these positions were uncongen-
ial  to his  delicate  nature, and he soon abandoned
them for a  more congenial pursuit, that of a medical
teacher.  He had held a professorship at  Pittsfield
since 1832.  In  1841  he abandoned the practice of
medicine and accepted a professorship  at Transylva-
nia University, Lexington, Kentucky, at which place
he  remained six years,  and  afterwards a year at
Louisville.   During these years  he  had also deliv-
ered lectures at Woodstock, Vermont, and at other
places. 
8
BRIEF MEMOIR OF
  In this quiet but effective way was the life of this
excellent man spent — in sowing throughout  the ex-
tent of this broad land the seeds of a sound medical
knowledge, and  inciting his pupils to  aspire to the
higher walks of the  profession.  Truly the amount
of good accomplished in this way by this earnest,
simple scholar cannot be estimated.  It is still ex-
panding in the  community,  and like the  beams of
the morning sun, gilding and brightening whatever it
touches.
  Professor Bartlett's influence  over  his students
during these years must have  been of the happiest
nature.   In a recent conversation with one of them,
who was a student at the Berkshire School at Pitts-
field,  we  gather some insight into it.   Here  were
gathered sixty young men so rude, so wild, so rough,
that no professor could in quiet order deliver his lec-
ture ; but no sooner  did  Professor Bartlett enter his
lecture-room than perfect order immediately ob-
tained, and a profound silence was maintained  until
he  had  finished.  Every student  loved him.   We
will not call it the  influence of mind over matter ; it
was the natural  force of  a pure, simple, earnest and
strong intellect. 
                PROFESSOR  BARTLETT.              9
   Finally he was called to an important  professor-
 ship in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
 the City of New York.  Here he continued for three
 years, when, compelled by failing health,  he aban-
 doned the position to retire to the paternal acres in
 Smithfield to die, which sorrowful event took place
 July 19th,  1855.

       " We cannot doubt, through our Eedeemer's love,
         His name is written in that book
         The angels keep above."

   No more fitting  words can be used than his own,
 spoken on another occasion  :  " Worthy was his life of
 that divine  philosophy whose disciple and expositor
 he was.   Worthily  did he fulfil  the great  mission
 upon which he came,— to reveal to humanity its true
 nature,— to vindicate its true  nobleness,—to clear
 away its blindness,—to rebuke its waywardness and
 folly,—to teach it its  best good,—to call  it to its
highest happiness,—to reclaim it from its  wander-
ings,— to  lead  it  into  paths  of  pleasantness  and
peace,—to  enlighten it, to elevate,  and adorn it.
Single-hearted  seeker  after  Truth,—Lover  of all 
10
BRIEF MEMOIR OF
human excellence  and good, — Friend and benefac-
tor of men,— Peace be to thy  ashes ! "
  An address on the Life, Character and Writings
of Dr. Bartlett was delivered  before  the  Middlesex
North District Medical Society, by Dr. Elisha Hunt-
ington,  and  published  at Lowell  by the Society.
George D.  Prentice  gave an almost eulogistic  ac-
count of Dr. Bartlett in the Louisville Journal, and
Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  gave  for the  Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal a short but very beau-
tiful memoir.  From it we extract a few paragraphs
which  peculiarly illustrate  the  personal  charms of
Professor Bartlett:

  " After a long illness, the issue of which has been
but too plainly foreseen by all his friends, Dr. Elisha
Bartlett  has left us, regretted  and honored through-
out  our  whole land.   His  life  has borne fruits to
science, and done  good service to his fellow men in
various spheres of duty.   While we trust  that it
may find  a faithful chronicler  in  some one of those
who have been  near to him in its more active periods,
it will not be out of place to devote a brief space in 
PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
11
our  pages to his  memory.  Hardly any American
physician was  more widely known  to  his country-
men, or more  favorably considered abroad, where
his writings  had  carried his  name.   His personal
graces were known to a less extensive  circle of ad-
miring friends,  and yet his image is  familiar to very
many who have received his kind attentions, or list-
ened to his instructions, or been connected with him
in the administration of public duties.
   " To them it is easy to recall his ever welcome and
gracious presence.  On his expanded  forehead  no
one  could fail  to  trace the impress of a large and
calm intelligence.   In his  most open  and beaming
smile, none could help feeling the warmth of a  heart
which was the seat of all generous and  kindly affec-
tions.   When he  spoke, his tones were of singular
softness, his thoughts  came in chosen words, scholar-
like, yet unpretending, often playful, always full of
lively expressions, giving the idea of one that could
be dangerously keen in his judgments,  had he not
kept his fastidiousness to himself, and his charity to
sheathe the weakness of others.   In familiar  inter-
course— and the writer of these paragraphs was once 
12
BRIEF MEMOIR OF
under the same roof with him for some months — no
one could be more companionable and winning in all
his  ways.  The little trials of  life he took kindly,
and cheerily, turning into  pleasantry the petty in-
conveniences which a less thoroughly good-natured
man would have fretted over.   A man so full of life
will rarely be found so gentle  and quiet in all his
ways.  A man  who could be so satirical, must have
been very kind-hearted to  let the sharp edge of his
intellect be turned towards  his neghbors' weaknesses
so seldom.  None was less disposed to put on airs
in any community ; he was rather  too modest in com-
ing out than too forward,  though a  silver-tongued
speaker,  to whom multitudes were  always ready to
listen whenever he was forced  or beguiled to open
his lips in public."

  Some further illustrations of the fine traits of Doc-
tor Bartlett's personal character are well expressed
in the following extracts from Bishop Clark's address
delivered on the occasion of the funeral:
  "Some  twenty-five  years ago,  I  used to meet  a
young man in  the town of Lowell, whose presence 
PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
13
carried  sunshine  wherever he went;  whose tender-
ness and skill relieved the darkness of many a cham-
ber of sickness, and whom  all the community were
fast  learning to love  and  honor.  Life lay  before
him, full of promise ;  the delicate temper of his soul
fitting him to the most exquisite enjoyment of all
the pure delights  of nature, and his cheerful tem-
perament giving a genial and generous glow  to the
refined  circles of which he  was one of the chiefest
ornaments.   He was a man of true  and earnest
thought; he grappled  with the mysteries of science,
and she yielded up to him her choicest treasures ; he
walked  with observant eye in the fields of  literature
and  gathered its choicest fruits;  he tuned his harp
to song, and melody vibrated from the golden  cords.
  "The  enterprising  town to which  he  gave the
freshness of his life, as soon as it rose to the dignity
of a city,  made him her chief magistrate, and be-
stowed  upon him all  the civic honors  that were in
her keeping.  He soon became  widely known, not
only as  a skilful and  learned physician, but also as
an accurate and  eloquent lecturer, and as a valuable
contributor to the journals of medical science.  Into
       2 
14
BRIEF MEMOIR OF
the details of his career,  I am not competent to
enter ; others, who are more familiar with his works,
will write his biography, and when this is done the
world  will see that  a bright and shining  light has
been extinguished in his death.   But ere  long, the
angel of sorrow crossed  his path, and laid a blight-
ing hand upon his vigorous frame.   His strong arm
grew tremulous and his elastic step gave way.  The
lines of bitter pain furrowed his brow, and an inex-
orable  disease fastened upon the  central springs of
life.  The energy of  an  indomitable will triumphed
in a measure over those physical infirmities; and
often,  while  his nerves  were tingling with  acutest
agony, he stood placidly in the lecture-room,  teach-
ing his students  howT to apply those remedies which
he knew could be of no further avail to him.  At
last, he came home, to the  quiet retirement of these
rural scenes,  where he had  passed his childhood, to
learn the lesson of patient  submission to the will of
God, and lie  down to die.  Here, on his  couch of
sickness, in the short intervals of suffering which his
disease allowed him, he brought his clear and vigor-
ous mind into close contact with  those great prob- 
PROFESSOR  BARTLETT.
15
lems which bear upon man's eternal interests,  and
found a shelter under the shadow of Calvary.  With
the calmness of a philosopher, and with the  child-
like faith of a Christian disciple,  he looked off from
this narrow strip  of time, into the infinite of eter-
nity.    'Lord, I believe, help thou  my unbelief!'
was the constant  attitude  of his mind, and  so  he
waited for  his summons.   ' Talk  to me of realities ;
I want  more of the faith of a little child,' he would
say, often and often.  'I merit nothing; God must
give me all, of his free grace  !'  Not a murmur ever
fell from his lips; fThough  He slay me, yet will I
trust in my Father,' was the  feeling which kept him
quiet, when heart and flesh gave  way under the tor-
ture of  most excruciating pangs.
  " And now, at last, he has found rest.  All that
was noble  and loving and  holy lives ; only  the frail
and suffering part is dead.  He has carried his treas-
ures of  knowledge  and virtue with him, and left us
the legacy of his spotless fame.  He has passed on,
a little  before these dear friends  who have watched
so faithfully by his  bedside;  and  now, waits awhile
for them to come.  The  stream which, for a quarter 
16              A BRIEF MEMOIR.
of a century, flowed on so  gently, making two lives
one, for a short  distance now seems to diverge  and
separate  a little;  but the waters  will  soon meet
again; those marriage vows which are truly made
for life, in some sense must abide, when mortal life
is over."

  In the course  of his labors in the various schools
where he delivered  medical lectures it lay within his
path to address sundry other audiences than medical
ones.  Several of the addresses thus delivered were
published, and at the close of this memorial we have
gathered the titles of such as are known to us.
  In addition to these writings Professor  Bartlett
was a constant contributor to the medical journals of
his day,  while his graceful  poems are still treasured
by  his many friends, who gathered them from the
papers as they from time to time appeared. 
HIPPOCRATES
DYIjSTG-  BED  OF  PERICLES
EXTRACT FROM A
Discourse read before the Trustees, Faculty and Medical
    Class of the College of Physictans and Surgeons,
                  New York,  1852. 
 
HIPPOCRATES
               BY THE

DYING  BED   OF   PERICLES.
  Leaving the sterile island of Tharos let us follow
the young physician  to another sick chamber—to a
scene of domestic life still further illustrative of that
remote and wonderful period with which we are con-
cerned.  The  time  is a year or two later—it is the
house of Pericles that we enter, and we stand by the
death bed of the great and venerable Archon.  Every
thing in the  spacious apartment indicates the per-
vading presence—not of  obtrusive grandeur or of
showy and ostentatious wealth,—but of stately ele-
gance and of high, various, many-sided luxury, cul-
ture and refinement.  Philosophy,  letters, and art
breathe in the quiet atmosphere of the room; and
the  taste of Aspasia sheds an Asiatic grace over its 
20       SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS
furnishing and its decorations.  In one corner stands
a statue of Minerva, from the chisel of Phidias; and
the walls  are  covered  with pictures  fresh from the
pencils of Panaenus and Polygnotus, illustrating the
legendary  and historic glories  of Greece.  There
might have been seen Theseus bearing off from the
field of victory, on the banks of the Thermodon, the
masculine and magnificent queen of the Amazons —
half willing, perhaps, to be the  captive of such  a
victor; Jason  in  his good ship Argo, with his fifty
selectest heroes, convoyed by the queen of love, the
awful Hera, and Apollo, winds his various  and ad-
venturous voyage, crowded with poetic imagery and
romantic incident, and brings back the golden fleece
from Colchis;—Helen  at  her loom is weaving into
her  golden web the story of the Trojan wars ;—the
chaste  Penelope  by the light of her midnight lamp,
undoes  the delusive labors of the day ;—Ulysses,
returned from  his  long  wanderings,  surveys  once
more, with boyish pride  and delight, the dear old
bow, which no arm but his could bend.  The central
figure on that old historic canvas, that I have endeav-
ored to unroll before you, is that of the dying states- 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
21
man.   Raised and  resting, in solemn and  august
serenity upon its last pillow, lies that head of Olym-
pian grandeur; his long and glorious life is about to
close.   He had been for more than an entire genera-
tion— if never the first Archon and not always  the
most popular—by common  consent, the most emi-
nent citizen,  statesman and orator of the republic —
the great defender of her constitution — the cham-
pion of her freedom and her rights — the upholder
and  the magnifier of her renown.  Political rivals,
disappointed partisans, and a few malignant personal
enemies and  professional libellers and satirists had
been hostile to  his career and had endeavored to
blacken his fair fame; but his strong  and unshaken
democratic faith — his far-seeing sagacity—his firm-
ness and moderation — his enlarged, liberal, human-
izing, conservative  and pacific policy — his moral
courage and  independence, and his high public pro-
bity had triumphed  over  them all;  and although
braving the prejudices of his friends and supporters
in his devotion to the general weal, he had gathered
over his declining sun  some clouds  of public dis-
favor— the sense of  justice, and the feeling of grati- 
22       SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS
tude in the minds of his countrymen were quick to
return—the  clouds were already scattered or they
served only to deepen and reflect the  setting splen-
dor which for a  moment they had intercepted and
obscured.
  The Plague had visited Athens, many of his near
personal friends and relatives had already fallen vic-
tims to the pestilence.   Both his sons  had perished,
and the young Pericles—the child of Aspasia—had
been  sent away,  with his mother, for safety,  into
Thessaly.   Phidias, and his old teacher, Anaxagoras,
his
          " Guide, philosopher and friend,"

had died a little  while before the breaking out of
the epidemic.  Those  who were left had now  gath-
ered around the bed of the dying Archon, to receive
the rich legacy of his  parting words, and to pay to
him the last  solemn and kindly offices of life.   Not
often  in the world's history has there met together a
more  august  and  illustrious company.  These  are a
few of those whom we  are able  to recognize amongst
them : Resting his head on the shoulder of Socrates, 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
23
and  sobbing aloud  in  unrestrained and  passionate
sorrow, leans the wild and reckless Alcibiades—just
in the first bloom of that resplendent personal beauty
which made him seem to the eyes even of the Greeks
more like a radiant apparition of a young Apollo,
than any form of mere  earthly mould—subdued for
the first time in his life and probably for  the last—
by the  spectacle before him  of  his dying relative
and  guardian—to reverence,  tenderness,  and truth.
Sophocles, his old companion  in arms,  is there; and
near him, in his coarse  mantle and with unsandaled
feet, may have  stood a grandson of Aristides, still
poor with the honorable poverty of his great ances-
tor.   Conspicuous amidst  this group of generals,
admirals, statesmen, orators, artists, poets and phi-
losophers ;—in rank and  fortune, in social position,
in reputation, in learning,  culture, and refinement
their equal and associate, sits the young physician of
Cos.  Already had his  rising fame reached Athens,
and when the city, overcrowded with the inhabitants
of Attica, driven  from their  homes by the armies
of Sparta, was smitten with the  pestilence, he was
summoned from his island  home in the iEgean, to 
24       SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS.
stay if he could the march of the destroying angel,
and  to succor  with his  skill  those who had fallen
under the shadow of his  wings. 
                         THE



       HEAD  AJSTD  THE  HEART,


                        or the


Relative Importance of Intellectual & Moral Education


                     A LECTURE,


  Delivered before the American Institute of Instruction,
                 in Lowell, August, 1838,


              BY ELISHA BARTLETT, M. D.

         3 
 
THE  HEAD  AND  THE  HEART.
   The  title  of the  Association, which I now have
the honor to address, is the American  Institute of
Instruction.   Its principal objects are, I suppose, to
ascertain, and  to bring into  general usage, the best
methods and processes of instruction.  Conformably
to this  design  a  large  proportion  of the lectures
which are read at its annual meetings are, very prop-
erly,  from practical teachers on  practical  matters.
Experience,  not theory,  is its acknowledged guide
and oracle;  and the true principles,  and the most
efficient  systems of intellectual education its  para-
mount objects of pursuit.  I presume, however, that
the Institute  does not intend to  confine its  labors
wholly within  such  limits.  No one department of
the sreat  Science of Human  Culture  can be  en- 
2%       SELECTIONS FROM THE  WRITINGS
tirely without its province and recognition.   Any
contribution, from whatever  quarter it may conic,
will, I am sure,  be cordially received.  Any offer-
ing, how humble soevei' it may be, if brought  with
pure  hands  to  the altar,  will  be  welcomed and
accepted.
  The directors  of the Institute, in inviting me to
give a lecture on the present occasion, very kindly
left the selection of a subject to myself.  For  vari-
ous reasons,  I shall ask your attention, for the pass-
ing hour, to the relative value  and importance of
intellectual and moral education ; or, more correctly,
perhaps, to some of the considerations wThich go to
show that in  this science of human culture the moral
nature should be the chief object of  concern,  and
that all systems  which fail to recognize this truth,
are vicious in principle, and must be unsatisfactory
in their results.   I have avoided the  discussion of
any one of the numerous questions of practical edu-
cation, because I have  no store of observation and
experience to bring to their solution.  I have chosen
this general  topic because it  has been the frequent
subject of my meditations — because it has been but 
              OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.           29
 little attended to by the community in which we live,
 and because I believe right notions respecting it to
 be of paramount and unspeakable importance.
   It may be  proper for me to state  here, that the
 general design of my lecture was formed, and a con-
 siderable portion of it already written out, before I
 had read the  excellent lectures by  Mr. Abbott, and
 by President  Bates, on Moral Education, delivered
 before  the  Institute at  its former sessions.   But
 although these  gentlemen may have anticipated me
 in many things, still the  scope of their  lectures and
 of mine is not precisely similar, and the same  sub-
ject must, almost necessarily, present itself in dif-
ferent  aspects to different  minds.   I  may  also say
here that during my attendance on the present series
of lectures, it has delighted me to find that this very
subject, in its various bearings, is occupying so large
a share  of  your attention.   It  is  one of  the  best
signs of the time.  All men every where, who have
at all rightly studied the nature  and destiny of the
human race, are calling for a radical reformation of
educational principles and systems.  Widely as they
may differ on other matters,  they agree on this; 
30       SELECTIONS FROM  THE WRITINGS
widely as they may differ as to the means of accom-
plishing  the  end,  the end  itself they all agree in
demanding.   They all call for moral  and religious
culture.  The old philosophies call for it; the new
philosophies call for it.  Spiritualism  and Phrenol-
ogy—Cousin and Spurzheim — Germany  and France
call for it.  Common sense demands it with its plain
Saxon utterance, and Transcendentalism preaches it,
with  its  melodious voice,  summoning us, like the
skylark,  from the invisible  depths of the heavens,
through it and by it  to strive thitherward.   I would
add my mite to this  rich contribution.  I would  do
my little part in  promoting  the reformation which
we all so ardently desire to see consummated.
  I start with this proposition, — that in the multi-
plex organization of human  nature, the highest ele-
ment is the moral and religious element.  The being
— man—is a  perfect, complete, whole,—made  up
of many parts, each  sustaining to the others, certain
definite and uniform  relations.  He has a body, with
its own laws, functions and  properties.  He  has  in-
stincts and perceptions which belong to him in com-
mon with the beasts of the field and the fowls of the 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
31
 air.   He has knowing and  reasoning powers, tastes
 and  desires,  which are  denied  to  these  latter.
 Superadded to all these he has various  powers and
 capacities which  constitute  his  moral and religious
 nature.   Among these,  and related to them, are
 Hope, throwing over all the future its golden light;
 Faith, dwelling amid the mysteries of God and the
 Universe, leaning on the high promises  of his word
 and  his works; Love, linking him  by sweet but in-
 definable sympathies with his brotherhood;  Rever-
 ence, bowing down before the great, the awful, the
 supreme, — the very act  of adoration imparting to
 the spirit something of the  excellence which it wor-
 ships ; and Conscience, the  stern lawgiver of all his
 being, and  its most  delightful solace and rewarder.
 To this nature, thus constituted,  belongs the suprem-
 acy.  All the  other  elements of humanity were in-
tended to be subject to  this its  sovereign element.
Its ministers, its  guides, were they designed to  be,
but always its servants.   No one of the  other pow-
ers,— sensitive,   instinctive, social,  intellectual,—
no combination of them can  usurp dominion over
the moral  nature without  reversing the  order of 
32       SELECTIONS  FROM  THE WRITINGS
creation, — without upturning  from  its  basis  and
poising on its apex the pyramid of humanity.
  The whole universe of matter and of mind, so far
as we can  understand it, has  been arranged and is
governed in conformity to the principle of this  har-
monious  development  of all the human  capacities,
and the supremacy of the highest nature.  This is
the greatest single truth, except that of the immor-
tality of the human soul, that can be put into human
language.  It  is yet on\y dawning  upon the world.
The sky is but just reddening with its auroral light.
But this light, like the ruddy harbinger of the morn-
ing, is the certain  presage of the full coming, in his
glory, of the day at last.  And it is in this day only,
by the light only of this moral sun, that  God's uni-
verse of  world and spirit can be clearly seen.   Only
by this radiance can the clouds and darkness, which
have  so  long  rested upon nature,  providence, and
man,  be dispelled;  only by the brooding of this
spirit over the waste, shall the chaos be turned to
order, and the void  be filled.   It will then come to
be seen,  that all evil and all good, — all suffering and
all joy hinge  upon this principle; that they are the 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
33
offspring of its violation or its fulfilment.   The earth
performs  her perpetual and appointed circuit, — the
firmament is fretted with its golden fires,—the dew
gathers its liquid drop on the green blade of grass,—
the lightning rends the oak, — the storm upheaves
the sea,— rosy health warms  the cheek, — delight
sparkles in the eye,— disease wastes, and pain racks
the body, — neglect dwarfs, and culture  expands the
intellect, — low desires debase,  and lofty aspirations
and high  hopes ennoble the soul, all in conformity
to the laws of this great relationship.   Men can be
sure  that  the functions  of their  own  bodies,  the
workings  of their own spirits, the events of Provi-
dence, and all the infinite operations and  processes
of the outer universe, will minister  to their  happi-
ness and their good,  only so far as they are  obedi-
ent to the conditions I have stated.  Only by this
obedience, full and unqualified, can man bring him-
self into harmony with his position.   Only by this
obedience can he  accomplish his highest and truest
destiny.   This is the great work which is given him
to do.  This  is the mission  on which  he has been
sent.   Every  individual soul  of man that has ever 
34       SELECTIONS FROM  THE WRITINGS
heretofore issued, and that shall hereafter issue from
the bossom of God, has been summoned and shall be
summoned, by the manifold voices of truth and wis-
dom, to  work out this destiny, each for itself, and
in aid also of its brotherhood.
  The mission of humanity, as a race, — as  an in-
finite succession  of generations, — the  destiny to
which it is called, and towards which, through much
tribulation, in its  strength and its weakness, through
many hindrances  and obstructions, it has ever been
and shall ever be struggling onward, is the gradual,
and more and more perfect evolving of this harmony ;
the bringing into  it of all the sons and daughters of
men.
  It is hardly necessary for me to say, that this rela-
tive value and importance of the moral and religious
powers, which I  insist upon, is nowhere generally
recognized.   It is preached, to be sure, nominally,
from  the pulpit,  but too often  sadly enough muti-
lated, and overlaid with technicalities and  cant.  It
has always been the doctrine of the inspired teachers
of men ;  it has constituted their chief message from
Heaven to  earth.   But nowhere has this  universal 
             OF PROFESSOR  BARTLETT.          35
gospel been  generally received.   Every  where do
men overestimate the relative dignity and worth of
the mere intellect.   Strength of mind receives the
homage which properly and of right belongs to good-
ness of  heart and greatness of soul.   Intellectual
power is too  much coveted and honored, and moral
worth not enough.
  From  this wrong appreciation, it comes,  of course,
that intellectual culture is much regarded,  and moral
culture  much neglected.   This is true every where,
but it seems  to  me to be especially so here.  What
is  the great  defect  in our own  national character?
It seems to me,  that there can be but one  answer to
this  question.   This national  character  is faulty,
especially, in the want of high moral principle.   The
intellect,—the general intellect,— is very well cared
for amongst us.   Its enlightenment and guidance are
the themes of constant  discussion.   This Institute
was established  expressly to  promote the culture of
the general intellect.   To the same end are our local
state governments, many of  them at least, lavish of
their bounty.  Agents are sent to Europe to study
its systems, and no pains arc spared to procure, for 
36       SELECTIONS  FROM THE WRITINGS
all our children, the means of education.   The sub-
ject is a popular one, and it is every day growing in
favor with the popular mind.  Political parties write
it on their banners.  Fashionable, in some quarters,
and in some schools of constitutional politics, as  the
let alone doctrine of government is becoming, jeal-
ous as our people are disposed to feel of all  legisla-
tion which touches their personal freedom of thought
and action,— sensitive as they are to  any apparent
infringement of their dear rights to do with them-
selves and with their own as seemeth to them good,
the doctrine, that the children, in a certain qualified
sense, belong to the state, and that  the  state  not
only may  interfere in the matter of their  education,
but that it is in duty bound so to interfere, is becom-
ing every  day more and more a settled article of  our
political faith.   We submit, not passively, merely,
but cheerfully,—gladly,—to the imposition of heavy
taxes, in the benefits of  which many of us have no
direct share whatever.  The man with no children,
paying largely for the education of the children of
his neighbor, who pays nothing, makes no complaint
of unfairness or inequality in the  apportionment of
the public burden. 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
37
  Physical  education,—the laws  and conditions of
the well-being of the body, are subjects less attended
to,  but,  by no means, wholly neglected, and they
are coming, daily, to be  better and better under-
stood.
  The purely religious and devotional part of our
character is very extensively developed.   It is active,
earnest and fervent.  Weekly, from thousands of
public altars goes  up the sound  of worship ;  and
daily  and nightly, from tens of thousands of single
hearts ascends the sweet incense of silent adoration
and prayer.
  Neither are the benevolent and philanthropic sen-
timents at all wanting in activity amongst us.  The
efforts which are prompted by these sentiments have
kept,  and they are likely  long  to  keep, the  entire
moral elements of the country in commotion,— often
in commotion of  wildest  and  stormiest  character.
All forms of spiritual evil,  and of physical suffering,
— at home and abroad,—are met with our warmest
sympathies.  We feed the  huugry,—we minister to
the sick,—we clothe the naked,—we give ears to
the deaf, and eyes to the blind.   In almost every
       i 
38       SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS
pagan island of the sea,—in the frozen earth of the
Arctic circle, and in the sands  of hot Africa, rest the
bones of our Christian missionaries.
  But with all this we want high, stern, uncompro-
mising moral principle.  We want conscience.   We
want the sense of duty.   We want  simple honesty.
The Golden Rule  is not where it  should be, a sign
upon our hands, and a frontlet between our eyes.  We
have  more religion than  morality.  Our feeling of
piety  is stronger than our sense of right and wrong.
We worship the good, not too much, but we worship
the right far  too little.   How uncommon,— even in
matters of mere worldly concern,— in the every day
transactions of dollars and cents,—is true, thorough-
going, absolute honesty !   I  do  not  advocate  any
Utopian system of  life  or philosophy.  I am no
dreamer of vain visions.   I hold up no fanciful  and
unattainable  ideal of right.   I have lived  more in
the world than in  the  closet,  and  I claim  to be
guided by common sense.   But  still, I say, how
rare,  in the business world,  is true, simple,  genuine,
thorough-going honesty !  A man who pays his hon-
est and just  debts,  after he  has been legally ex- 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
39
empted from discharging them,—or in other words,
who  returns  to  his neighbor  the  money which
belongs to him, the payment of which that neighbor
is unable to enforce, is regarded as a moral anomaly.
People,— very good, and benevolent, and religious
people too,—will call him either a fanatic or a fool.
He is stared  at,  as he  walks the street, or enters
church, as  something strange, unusual,  out of the
way.   As  he passes, men say there he goes.  If he
has heirs, they will hint  at the shattered condition of
his mind,— at his lost wits, and at the necessity of a
legal  guardian to look after him, before he is utterly
ruined.  Some  of the  best  men  amongst us will
accept a reward, as a matter of course, for the resti-
tution to its owner, of a lost sum of money.
  I have spoken especially of this want of conscien-
tiousness, as it shows itself in the business relations
of men, because it is in these relations that this want
is most manifest and flagrant.  But the same defect
vitiates, still more deeply and fatally, other elements
of our national  character.  It renders  us unjust in
our social  and  civil  relations. It  transforms our
political  and religious  differences of opinion  into 
40       SELECTIONS  FROM  THE WRITINGS
harsh and  ferocious  controversies.   It  makes  us
intolerant, uncharitable, censorious.  It  curdles the
milk of  human kindness.  It turns to  bitterness the
sweet charities of life.   It  renders us  reckless of
means in the  accomplishment of our favorite ends.
How seldom  is it, that  in the fierce strife of opin-
ions, we calmly and honestly ask ourselves, whether
these things which we are saying, or these measures
which we are about  to  adopt,  to  further our own
purposes, and to frustrate those of the men or party
from whom we differ, are right!  Is it not notorious,
that every  species  of misrepresentation, deception
and  trickery is daily and hourly resorted  to in the
partisan warfare, which so constantly agitates and
embroils our whole country?  Is  it not notorious,
that a simple return  in  figures, of the result of an
election, is not to be depended upon?  Is there a
single public  man amongst us,  of any considerable
eminence, whose character is  not perpetually and
wantonly traduced, misrepresented and vilified?  Is
there any defamation too malignant,—is there any
outrage too  cruel,—is  there  any scurrility too low
to be received with favor and relish?   And is not 
             OF  PROFESSOR BARTLETT.          41
the infamous doctrine, that all this is fair and right,
very generally admitted to the heart, and  in  some
instances boldly  and  openly avowed?  This  same
absence of moral  principle, more than anything else,
is the cause of that want of moral independence,
with which, as a  people, we have been so frequently
reproached.  It is the profound feeling of right and
wrong, far more than intellectual strength or attain-
ment, which gives individuality to a man.   It is the
sense of duty which enables him to stand on his own
feet.   It is this, and this only, which gives him true
freedom; it is this  only which delivers him  from
fear and  dependence.
  There  may be many, perhaps, who, while  they are
willing to  admit the truth of these remarks upon
the relative value and importance of moral  culture,
and  upon  the  prominent  defects  of  our  national
character, may still be unable to see how an Ameri-
can Institute  of  Instruction  can do much  towards
remedying the evils of which I have complained.  It
is not the purpose of this lecture to enter into prac-
tical details, or to propose specific measures,  so much
as to state and illustrate some general principles per- 
42        SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS
taining to this particular subject.   But great good
may be done in this way, greater perhaps in the pre-
sent condition of the public mind, than in any other.
If these principles are  sound, their application will
be very easily  made;  there will be no difficulty in
working them out.
  I shall proceed, therefore, with a brief exposition
of some further principles  connected with  the  sub-
ject  of my lecture.  One of  these, and an exceed-
ingly  important  one,  relates to  the  necessity  of
moral  education  in early life.  This topic  involves
the consideration of the condition and characteristics
of the mind during its  first  stages of activity and
development.  Nothing  is  more  certain than  that
the different powers and  capacities of the mind, like
the several parts  and organs of the body, are devel-
oped more or less successively,—to a greater or less
extent, in a definite order.   Some of these powers
are quick and  active in earliest childhood,— others
are more tardily  awakened, and  some  acquire their
highest degree  of intensity  only in the later periods
of life, at a time when  many of the  dominant  im-
pulses of manhood and of youth may have lost their 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
43
energy, or have become almost  extinct.  Thus, the
morbid passion for gain, which constitutes the miser,
ordinarily acquires its  fullest strength  in somewhat
advanced age.   It is often when life is waning, after
the fountains of its early joys are dried up, that this
feeling becomes an insatiable and parching thirst in
the soul, changing all the heart's greenness to ashes,
and  making  its flesh harder than  the  nether  mill-
stone.  The  intellect is very slowly  and gradually
unfolded,—it fully posseses itself  only during the
ripe period of manhood, and it sinks with the failing
body into second childishness in old age.
  Early life is characterized by great activity of cer-
tain  of the selfish  and instinctive feelings, of some
of the social affections, and of  many of the moral
and  religious sentiments.   The  reasoning powers,
together with some  of the strongest motives and
impulses of  mature life  are  nearly  dormant and
inoperative.  When I speak, here, of  the activity in
childhood, of the moral and religious  sense, I mean
its ready and quick susceptibilities,— its capacity for
action, when properly appealed to,—when placed in
relation to its appropriate  objects, or, in plainer 
44       SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS
speech, when rightly trained and  educated.   And
with this explanation,  no one,  I  think,  who  has
studied the character of childhood,  will be disposed
to doubt the  truth of what I have  said.  I believe
that I may safely appeal to all who  hear me, for  all
have been young, and all, it may be hoped, have felt
some of the movements of the spirit of God through
the depths of the infant soul, and responded to their
mysterious stirrings.   When has self-reproach for
wrong doing been more  keenly and  bitterly felt,
than in the very days of the nursery?  When has
irrepressible joy at the  thought of  duty performed,
or  obedience rendered, or selfishness  sacrificed, so
overspread the heart like a fountain of sweet waters,
as in the orient morning of our being?   We have all
seen the  spectacle,—and the  whole earth, in  the
infinitude of its loveliness, has  no object more beau-
tiful,—than that of a sweet tempered, affectionate,
religious  child.   How  does its  young spirit bow
itself down before the felt and almost visible majesty
of the  Divine Presence !  With what a full, undoubt-
ing faith, does it rest on the promise of another and
an  immortal  life !  How does  its fresh imagination 
             OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.          45
call up and portray the scenes of that future life,—
its companions, its employments, its joys,—with  a
vivid and life-like reality, that absolutely awes and
startles minds of maturer growth !
  I have no wish for the purpose  of  making out  a
strong case, to  overstate  or  to  exaggerate, in any
way,  these higher and better attributes of the youth-
ful mind.  Neither do I desire to  keep out of sight
or in the  back-ground,  any of the principles and
feelings,  antagonist to its moral and religious nature.
I aim to  state the whole  subject,  fairly and fully.   I
do not claim for the mind  of childhood, what can
properly be  called any natural or preponderating
tendency towards the right, the  just, and the true.
I admit, readily, that it has other  capacities, other
faculties, other tendencies,  than those  of which  I
have been speaking, not  less ready  to be excited and
acted upon  than these, and  leading it, when so
excited  and  acted  upon, through  all wretchedness
and  degradation  to  moral  death.   I  know well
enough,  that in the actual condition of society, and
in its own natural and unavoidable  relations,— with
the  elements  of moral evil scattered  broad-cast all 
46       SELECTIONS FROM  THE AVRITINGS
about it, and sown thick within it,— with  countless
multitudes and Protean forms of temptation to evil,
and of provocation to wrong, watching it with vigi-
lance that never sleeps, and addressing it with a per-
tinacity  that  never tires,— I  know that  with  all
these, it must often happen, as it too generally does
happen, that the lower nature attains the ascendancy,
and  that  the  higher is trodden down  in  the  dust,
despoiled of its purity, and shorn  of  its  strength.
But  I  still  claim  that  the Infinite Father  of this
immortal  spirit has so constituted it,— he has so
commingled its various  elements,—he has  so merci-
fully and graciously attempered its attributes, that
when the means which he  has provided  and put
into  our hands, and commanded us to use,  are faith-
fully brought  to bear  upon it,—it may be saved,—
saved from the dominion  of sin,—saved to all holi-
ness,— saved to all excellence,—saved to truth, to
duty, to happiness, to  peace.   He has so arranged
and endowed its several powers, as to secure for it,
by a conformity on our part, to the plain  and easy
conditions which he has established, the supremacy
of its moral and religious  nature. 
              OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.           47
 , I have already stated, that the purely intellectual
 powers may or may not  be called into  early action.
 Some of them, such, for instance, as the higher rea-
 soning faculties,  are  not susceptible of sound and
 vigorous action, until  the first period of youth  is
 already passed.  It is well known that very many of
 the most extraordinary intellectual men of the world
 were, in no way, remarkable  for  their  peculiar
powers in  early life.  But this is not the case with
 these other capacities of the mind.  It is not so with
 the moral and religious capacities;  it is not so with
 the  selfish  instincts, and  the  animal appetites.  It
 seems to me  exceedingly important, that the  actual
 constitution of  the youthful mind should be  better
understood than it generally is.  There is  a  spon-
taneity, belonging  to both these  classes of  powers,
which does  not belong to the  intellectual  nature.
Either one class or the  other will  be educated.   The
intellect may slumber from the cradle to the coffin,—
from infancy to  old age,— knowledge, science,  learn-
ing,  may never  dawn, even in  faintest glimmer, on
its darkness; but in  every  human soul, with its
ordinary endowments, there will  be  activity,— life, 
48       SELECTIONS FROM  THE WRITINGS
—at times, probably, intense burning life, either of
the higher or the lower nature.  No circumstances,
no contrivances, can prevent this result.   It is inev-
itable.  It  is a fearful and  momentous condition of
our very being.   It is true, every where and in all
time, among  all races, in all states of society.   In
every soul  of man  must there be lighted up,— not
on its intellectual, but on its other spiritual altars,—
kindled by  the good or bad  affections,—fires  of
Hell, lurid, scorching and consuming,— or celestial,
heavenly light, caught from the throne of God.
  It should  never  be forgotten,  that  the  intellect
may be cultivated alike in connection with the activ-
ity and supremacy,  either of the lower or the  higher
nature.  All history is  full of illustrations of this
truth.   All  biography is full  of  it.  Every  man's
own consciousness   tells  him  of  this  truth.   The
intellect is not the  antagonist power of the  selfish
and  low desires.   By enlightening the former you
may repress the  latter, and  you may,  also, inflame
and  excite them.   The intellect  may  as readily
become the handmaid of vice  as  of virtue.   Her
powers are Swiss mercenaries, ready to enlist under 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
49
any banner, and to fight for any cause,—to-day on
the side of freedom  and right,— to-morrow on that
of oppression and wrong.  This is  not true in rela-
tion to the high and the low affections,— to the noble
and the base desires.  These may  reign alternately
in the  same soul; they may hold a divided empire.
In too many cases, they are permitted to do so.   In
all of us there must be conflict between them ; there
must  be strife for the ascendancy.  Who  has not
felt, one hour, the angel nestling in his bosom, and
the fiend  rioting  there, the  next?  But however
these  powers of darkness and of light may succeed
each other in the empire of the mind ; however they
may,  by  turns, dwell within it, they cannot reign
peacefully there together.  Both may call the intel-
lect to their assistance, but  they  cannot aid each
other.   There  is a perpetual and  an irreconcilable
hostility between them.  From the  beginning of the
world, have they been  foes, and at deadly enmity
with each other must they remain till  the  end of
time.
  All  this is as true of the  imaginative portion of
our nature, and of the fine arts, as it is of the purely
       5 
50       SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS
knowing and reasoning faculties.  The former may
link  themselves  in  like  close fellowship with  the
higher and the lower nature.  They have no essen-
tial,  inherent affinity for the right  and the  good.
Poetry may come to us an angel of light, or a spirit
of darkness, the quickener  of our best passions,
or the pander to our worst.   The voluptuous sensu-
ality of a Venus, and the  sainted purity of a Ma-
donna, have often been the creation of the same pen-
cil, and the hand which has moulded the majestic
countenance of a Moses  to-day, has worked at the
physiognomy of a  Bacchus or a Satyr to-morrow.
Music has quite  as  often swelled the chorus of rev-
elry  and riot, as it has hymned the praises of good-
ness  and of God.   All I mean  to say is this, that
there is no natural or necessary connection or sym-
pathy between any  of these  faculties  and suscepti-
bilities of the mind  and its higher nature.
  Another important  truth  connected with these
considerations, is this :—the bad passions, the selfish
and corrupt desires  can never be so safely and effect-
ually repressed  or   driven out  from  the soul, by
direct attacks made upon them through the means 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
51
and agency of the intellect, as by letting them alone,
and by calling into the soul  and invigorating those
other powers to which  they stand in  opposition.
Licentiousness may take knowledge into its service,
and gain new strength and new resources  from the
alliance, but it will be withered  to  impotency in the
gentle,  majestic presence  of purity  and  holiness.
Simple  rest of the lower nature  is very often one of
the most powerful and efficient means of moral cul-
ture.   I fear that this plain and  obvious principle is
fatally overlooked in some of the efforts now making
for the removal of moral evil.  God forbid that any
word of mine should be construed  into even a seem-
ing wish to  discourage judicious and  rational exer-
tion for the removal or the diminution of that dark
and   enormous  aggregate  of ills  growing out  of
licentiousness; but let me say, in language as sin-
cere  as my  conviction of its truth is strong and
settled, that these  ills are to be  removed, if ever
removed, by correcting the  heart and not by enlight-
ening the head.  The rays  which have power  to
consume and drive away this  dense cloud of corrup-
tion, these thick shadows of  death, must come, not 
52       SELECTIONS  FROM  THE WRITINGS
from the intellectual but the moral sun.  Not phil-
osophy, but conscience,— not science, but religion,
is the minister and physician to the mind so diseased.
No fires of knowledge can ever burn out this plague-
spot from  the  soul;  it  must be  washed away by
sweet and living waters from  the fountains of right
principles and true affections.
  I have said that the lower nature is not to be kept
in abeyance  by  the  intellect.   So  neither  is the
higher nature  to  be  strengthened  and educated
through the medium of the  intellect.  So far as the
moral, social, and religious faculties are  concerned,
it is the  province of the intellect to guide and en-
lighten, not to  vivify and arouse.  Each individual
power of the soul must  be excited  by means which
operate directly upon itself.  It can be strengthened
in no other way than by its own activity and exer-
cise.   This is generally  admitted  of the knowing
and  reasoning  powers, but  it is as absolutely  and
strictly true of  moral principle and  of the religious
sentiments, as it is of the intellect.   God's laws are
as simple as they are universal  and immutable.   A
muscle of  the  human body acquires strength  and 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
53
freedom of action only by the frequent exertion of
its own powers.   So it is with every faculty of the
intellect,— so it  is  with the animal  appetites  and
instincts,— so it  is  with all the capacities of  the
moral  and religious nature.  In order to  educate
the sense of  duty, it is not enough to enlighten the
intellect.   The sense of duty itself must be appealed
to;—it must be called into  living action.   I would
not  knowingly  tread upon forbidden  ground,— I
would  not willingly lay profane  hands on the altar
of religious  faith; and I trust that I am not now
guilty  of so  doing.   But I wish  to say, that  of all
the errors of the  Christian church, by far the great-
est,  the most  disastrous, and  the  most  universal,
seems  to me to have arisen from ignorance or  disre-
gard of the  principle which I am now endeavoring
to illustrate.  The essential elements of religion have
been placed in the head and not in the heart.  Theo-
logical science has been substituted for moral princi-
ple and religious feeling.   Before  the  moral  and
religious nature can be effectively cultivated, it must
come to be seen  that it is a nature by itself;  as en-
tirely  different from the intellect as  are  the selfish 
54       SELECTIONS FROM  THE WRITINGS
passions.   The cold deductions of  the reason, in
relation to the  doctrines of any system of religious
belief, may be perfectly sound, while the  moral and
religious nature itself is  dormant or lifeless.   The
   ©
head  may be right in theology,  while  the  heart is
dead in trespasses  and sins.  The deductions of the
reason maybe obscure, uncertain, or positively erro-
neous, while  the moral and religious nature is glow-
ing with  intense and rapturous life.  No  want of
logical acumen ; no mistake of the speculative mind;
no absence of mere knowledge can cool the fervor of
an adoring spirit, or hold back from its ascent to the
throne of Heaven  the supplication of penitence and
faith.  Every faculty of the mind,—instinctive, so-
cial, reasoning, moral and religious,—must be educa-
ted and strengthened  by placing it in relation to the
objects for which it has been created and endowed.
The instinctive powers must  be excited through the
objects which have been placed in relation to them:
the social powers through their objects; the reason-
ing powers through theirs; the moral and religious
powers through theirs.  To  every power there are
certain things,  objects, phenomena, placed in a defi- 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
55
nite relation.  In this especial relation to the intel-
lect have been placed the laws,  appearances,  and
properties of  matter;  the laws,  operations,  and
actions of the  powers  of the mind;  their  mutual
dependences, and  their  various   other  relations.
Within us there is a sense  of the beautiful, and  this
faculty recognizes, appreciates, and delights in, all
forms  and manifestations,  in  nature and in  art, in
matter and in mind, of the perfect,  the  excellent
and the fair.   In relation to the feeling of reverence
have been placed all things and beings that are lofty,
exalted above  us, — its highest object being God.
The intellect may study his attributes, his character,
his designs ;  but reverence alone can feel the majesty
of his  presence, and  bow down in humility and awe t
before  Him.  The intellect may study the  nature
and uses of praj^er, but it cannot pray;  it may utter
the words, but it cannot breathe the spirit that ani-
mates  and fills them; it may mould the form, but it
cannot add the wings which alone can carry it up to
Heaven.  The  intellect may seek out and  ascertain
what particular course of action  is right, but  it can-
not feel the  obligation of doing right.   The head 
56       SELECTIONS  FROM  THE WRITINGS
must do its own work, it cannot do that of the heart;
the heart must work out its own salvation, this can-
not be done by the head.
  A great deal has been said about the connection of
    ©
Science with Religion.   But let us be careful that
we do not misapprehend the nature of this connec-
tion.   It is the province  of science,—it should be
its  highest  and  noblest  proviuce,—to act as  the
handmaid of religion.   It should free the mind from
superstitious and debasing  fears; from narrow and
illiberal prejudices ; from the mists of ignorance and
error.  It should unfold to us the character of God,
as it is revealed to us in his word, in his works and
in his dealings with men.   It should follow its man-
ifold  and noble  vocation,  always  in  the  spirit of
religion.  In the generous  ardor of self-devotion it
should consecrate all its labors to the glory of God
and the  good  of men.   But let it  be remembered,
after all, that science cannot usurp the place, or ex-
ercise the functions  of religion.   The intellectual
eye may " look through nature up to nature's God,"
and it  may thus see him  more  distinctly  than it
otherwise can; as we survey through the telescope 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
57
those distant worlds which the unaided vision could
never reach.   But no appliances of art, and no cun-
ning of earthly wisdom can  impart  that look of in-
effable confidence, devotion and trust, which fills  the
eye when we gaze directly upon  a beloved face, or
commune in  the depths of our spirit with the great
object of adoration  and worship.   Science has  its
own mission, and a glorious one it is;  let it fulfil it.
Duty and love have theirs also, and  it is still more
glorious  than the former; let them,  too,  do their
work.   All  these  powers  may  aid each  other,  but
every one must perform its own appropriate part for
itself.
  That science has no  necessary connection with
moral and religious principle is evident enough from
the entire history, both of science and  religion.   If
it is true that
          "An undevout astronomer is mad,"
there  should  be some strange transfers of illustrious
names from the rolls of philosophy to the  registers
of  lunatic hospitals.   All  these shining  spheres,
which inlay the firmament with patins of bright gold, 
58        SELECTIONS FROM  THE WRITINGS
may be as familiar to the understanding as household
things while the heart is as cold as  the light which
they shed down upon us.
  If these principles, which I have thus  attempted
very briefly and partially to  illustrate, are  sound and
true, it is easy to see what the practical results  are,
which ought to grow out of  them.
  If they are sound and true, the best methods and
plans for their  practical application will  naturally
present themselves; or they will soon be ascertained
by  trial  and experience.  This portion of the  sub-
ject I  have not thought it proper  to touch upon.
There are many and various duties in relation to this
matter which we owe to the cause of  humanity.
While one  workman clears off the  old timber  and
removes  the rocks with gunpowder and fire, another
may turn up the deep furrow, a third may plant the
seed, and a fourth may water.   I have thought it best
to limit myself to the office of stating and developing
some few of the general doctrines of the subject,
and> I  shall now conclude,  as  I have  thus far pro-
ceeded, with a few further observations of the same
comprehensive character, in  relation  especially to the
stated subject of the lecture. 
             OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.           59
   The patriot or the martyr, who gives  his body to
the stake, or the  scaffold, rather than  renounce his
allegiance to the  right  and the  true;—the  lone
woman, who in  solitude, neglect and penury, amid
suffering and wrong, bears patiently and cheerily up,
sacrificing her whole self at the call of duty and the
voice of love—are loftier and nobler manifestations
of human nature than the hero who conquers nations,
or the philosopher who creates new sciences or dis-
covers new worlds.  Only so far is intellectual great-
ness a good as it corresponds to the promptings and
principles of the  higher nature.  Full as  is  the
world of false judgment, and unjust appreciation,
and  wrong passion, it is after all only the true, the
disinterested, and the  right, that is garnered  up in
the heart of humanity, and cherished  as  its  best
possession.   Only this lives and  grows  green with
age.  Meanness, injustice, wrong-doing, selfishness,
will  at  length dethrone and drag down to the earth
the proudest spirit that ever reigned in the empire
of mind.  Not all the  wonderful genius and  the
various  learning of Bacon can keep sweet his mem-
ory, or  wipe off  the cloud  that is daily  and silently 
60       SELECTIONS  FROM THE WRITINGS
gathering over the brightness and sullying the glory
of his  name.  Time is ever setting right the wrong
judgments of men ; reversing their premature decis-
ions ; breaking in pieces the false gods of the past;
casting down its idols of clay ;  stripping the crowns
from the foreheads of the temporarily great or no-
torious only, and  placing them on the browe of the
pure, the disinterested, the just and the good.  The
same  thing  is  seen  in literature, one of  the  most
universal modes of expression  of the  intellectual
and moral nature.   In this,  as in the living action  of
humanity, only the excellent  and the true endures.
What  are the immortal utterances of the bard and
the orator;  living on  through all time;  received
into all hearts; echoed by  all tongues; humanity's
familiar  and household words ?   They are those and
only  those  which, coming from man's  holiest and
highest  nature, address  themselves  to  the  same
nature again.   They  are those which speak to us  of
the innocency and joyousness  of childhood; of the
sacredness of friendship and love; of the patriot's
valor and the martyr's cross; — they are those Avhich
tell us of self-sacrifice; of  heroic daring; of patient 
             OF  PROFESSOR BARTLETT.          61
endurance for  the glory of God, in  the rights and
the interests of men.  With what a triumphant and
eternal  harmony do  these voices,  issuing from the
great deep of  the  past,  ever roll on, gathering
strength from generation to generation, and sweet-
ness from age to age !
  I  have been  speaking of the  relative value of
moral and of intellectual endowments.  I will not,
on the present occasion, so wrong  and degrade the
former as to institute any comparison between  their
worth  and that  of  all  temporal good,—riches,
power,  or fame.  All  these  have  their value.  I
wish to  speak  no  words but  those  of truth and
soberness.  I make  no fanatical crusade against the
goods  of this life, or  against  those desires of the
mind which covet them.  They are God's gifts, and
when occupying their  right places  and  devoted to
their right ends, they are  worthy of  the Giver.
Neither will any one suspect me, I trust, of a  wish
to underrate,  or  disparage the nobleness,  or the
usefulness of intellectual strength or attainment.  I
only claim  that all  these  should  be held as goods
subordinate to  moral and religious truth.  A sweet
        6 
62       SELECTIONS  FROM THE WRITINGS
temper is a richer  dowry than a  keen wit,—the
spirit  of  self-sacrifice a  higher  and more  difficult
attainment  than  a knowledge of  the  stars.  " He
that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and
he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."
  I would see the whole of man's nature reverenced
and developed.   His body,—this tabernacle of flesh
and  blood,— the instincts which  he possesses  in
common with  the brutes, as  well as  the  intellect
which  conceives,  and the adoration  which  bows
down  before  Him are the  works  of his  Maker's
hands.  No one  of their  properties or powers is  to
be hated or contemned.  Let the senses  receive the
fullest culture  of which  they are susceptible.  Let
the eye be gratified with the beauty of form and
color which God has  framed it  to  perceive  and  to
delight in:—let the  ear  be filled with the ravish-
ment of sweet sounds, which God has so exquisitely
attuned it  to  hear.  Let  art  imitate and rival the
cunning of nature.   Let her glory in the creation  of
ideal beauty.  Let the marble be  made  to speak,
and the canvas to glow with  life.  Let the charm  of
gentle  manners, and the graceful courtesies  of civil- 
OF PROFESSOR BARTLETT.
63
ization and refinement be spread over the  face  of
society.  Let invention minister to all the commoner
wants  of man: — let  it call  the elements into his
service;  let it  bid the fire, the water, the earth and
the air to  do his work; to weave  his clothing,  to
build his houses, to print his  books, to  bring  to
his doors all the products of the earth;—to carry
him over the land and the sea.   Let science unfold
to him the  mysteries of the  universe;  let it count
the flowers,—let  it number the  stars,— let it weigh
the sun and  the  planets in a balance;  but running
through all this multiform action of soul and body;
ruling it all,—regulating it all,— harmonizing it  all
and  sanctifying it, let there  be  moral principle and
religious emotion.
  In order to secure with any certainty, this  result,
the means must be put in operation at the beginning
of life.   The seal  of Heaven must be set on the
moral nature during its fresh and plastic childhood;
and  then  shall the  form  and  pressure   continue
through its whole subsequent  existence.  Thus, and
thus only, shall the  great ends  of life be attained.
And  how  glorious is the certain  destiny, which 
64       SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS.
awaits the spirit so impressed, and so moulded !   Its
essential interests arc secured.  No  harm  can  ever
come near it.   It is girt round with a celestial pano-
ply which  shall guard it from all perilous calamity.
It shall fear no evil tidings.  The unavoidable ills,
as we call them, of life, shall be transformed into
ministering angels;  and  multiplied and  heightened
beyond all the conceptions of the selfish  and the
worldly, shall be its many and  sacred joys.  The
sunshine shall be brighter on  its  pathway,—the
grass shall be greener under its  feet.  The natural
blessedness of its early morn shall  be made more
blessed,—its  ripe manhood shall  be prodigal  of
fruit,—no clouds shall  gather over  its  declining
age,  and  the  dark valley of the shadow  of death
shall be  lighted  up by the dawning  rays of that
sun  of  life, which then rises on the  soul, to  set  no
more forever. 
" God  bless him, then, for all the good his gray goose quill has
        wrought,
  For  all the lessons, grave and gay, his genial lips have taught,
  For all the light his sunny face has shed o'er lonely hours,
  For  all the rugged paths  his hands have scattered o'er with
        flowers." 
 
       CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST







                OK THIi







PUBLISHED   WRITINGS





                 OF






        DR. ELISHA  BARTLETT. 
 
PUBLICATIONS
DR.  ELISHA  BARTLETT.
Sketches  of the Character and  Writings  of Eminent
    Living Surgeons and Physicians of Paris :  Translated
    by Elisha Bartlett, M. D.  12mo.  Portraits, pp.131.  Bos-
    ton.  1831.
Obedience to the Laws of Health a Moral Duty :  A Lec-
    ture delivered before the American Physiological Society,
    January 30, 1838, by Elisha Bartlett, M. D.  12mo.  pp. 24.
    Boston.
An  Address delivered at the Anniversary  Celebration
    of the Birth of Spurzheim and the Organization of
    the Boston  Phrenological Society, January 1st,  1838,
    by Elisha Bartlett, M D.  8vo.  pp. 28.  Boston. 1838.

The Head and the Heart, or the Relative Importance of
    Intellectual and Moral Education:  A Lecture deliv-
    ered before the American Institute of Instruction, in  Low-
    ell, August,  1838, by Elisha Bartlett.   8vo.  pp. 20.  Bos-
    ton.  1838. 
70
PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF
Objects and Nature of Medical Science :  An Introductory
    Lecture,  delivered at  Transylvania University,  November
    3rd, 1841, by Elisha Bartlett, M. D.  8vo.  pp. 18.  Lexing-
    ton, Ky.   1841.

History, Diagnosis and Treatment of the Fevers of the
    United States.  By Elisha Bartlett, M. D   8vo.  1st ed.
    1841.  2nd ed. 1847. 3rd ed. 1852.  Philadelphia.

Address at the Annual Meeting of the Orphan Society,
    at the Court  House, Lexington,  November  1st, 1842, by
    Prof. E. Bartlett.

Valedictory Address to the Graduating  Class of Tran-
    sylvania University, by Dr. Bartlett. 8vo. pp. 8.  1843.

The Sense of the Beautiful :   A Lecture  delivered before
    the Lexington Lyceum, January 20th, 1843, by Elisha Bart-
    lett, M. D. 8vo.  pp. 16.   Lexington.  1843.

An Essay on the  Philosophy of  Medical  Science.   By
    Elisha Bartlett,  M. D.  8vo. pp. 312.  Philadelphia.  1844.

An Oration delivered before  the Municipal Authorities
    and the  Citizens of Lowell, July 4th, 1848, by Elisha
    Bartlett, M. D.  8vo. pp. 38.  Lowell.  1848.

An Inquiry  into  the Degree of Certainty in Medicine
    and into the Nature and  Extent of its Power over
    Disease.  By Elisha Bartlett, M. D.  8vo. pp. 84.  Phila-
    delphia.   1848. 
                 PROFESSOR BARTLETT.               71

Brief Sketch of the Life, Character and Writings of
    William Charles  Wells, M. D., F. R. S.:  An Address
    delivered before the Louisville Medical Society, December
    7th, 1849,  by  Elisha Bartlett, M. D.  8vo.  pp. 32.  Phila-
    delphia.  1849.

Discourse on the  Times, Character, and Writings  of
    Hippocrates :  Read before the Trustees, Faculty and Med-
    ical Class of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at the
    opening of the Term of 1852-3, by Elisha Bartlett,  M. D.
    8vo. pp. 72.  New York.  1852.

Simple  Settings in Verse, for  Six  Portraits and Pic-
    tures.  From Mr. Dickens's Gallery.  12mo. pp. 80.  Bos-
    ton.  1855. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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