Mental Hygiene. 
By JOHN P. GRAY, M. D., LL. D., 
Medical Superintendent New York State Lunatic Asylum, Utica. 
Professor of Psychological Medicine and Jurisprudence in Bellevue Hospital 
Medical College, New York. 
[From the American Journal of Insanity, for January, 1878.] MENTAL HYGIENE.* 
BY JOHN P. GRAY, M. D., LL. D., 
Medical Superintendent New York State Lunatic Asylum, Utica. 
Professor of Psychological Medicine and Jurisprudence in Bellevue Hospital 
Medical College, New York. 
The classical phrase, "Mens Sana in Corpora Sano" 
is a general and true expression of the related condi- 
tion of the mind and body for the best functions of 
human life. Health of body has, in all times, been re- 
garded as essential to the best balance and culture 
of the mind, and to the most effective application of 
its activities to the concerns of the world, whether edu- 
cational or practical, whether in the realm of Philoso- 
phy or in the lower plane of Manual Labor. This is 
true, notwithstanding that there are notable exceptions 
where great intellectual activity and application have 
been conjoined with feeble physical structure, and even 
disease.^ 
Indeed we must start with the proposition that what 
is now denominated Mental Hygiene, is practically 
inseparable from Physical Hygiene. It is comparatively 
* Delivered before the International Medical Congress, at Philadelphia, 
September 8, 1876. 
f Dr. Godman, Dr. Robert Hall, the historian Prescott, and numerous other 
instances might be cited. 
1 2 
a new application of the word hygiene. Dr. Maudsley, 
in his Gulstonian Lectures for 1870, says: "The time 
has come when the immediate business which lies be- 
fore any one who would advance our knowledge of 
mind, unquestionably is a clear and searching scrutiny 
of the bodily conditions, of its manifestations in health 
and disease." Again, " as physicians, we can not afford 
to lose sight of the physical aspects of mental states, if 
we would truly comprehend the nature of mental dis- 
ease, and learn to treat it with success. The metaphy- 
sician may, for purposes of speculation, separate mind 
from body, and evoke the laws of its operation out of 
the depths of self-consciousness; but the physician who 
has to deal practically with the thoughts, feelings and 
conduct of men, who has to do with the mind, not as 
an abstract entity, concerning which he may be content 
to speculate, but as a force in nature, the operations of 
which he must patiently observe and anxiously labor 
to influence, must recognize how entirely the integrity 
of the mental functions depends on the bodily organ- 
ization, must acknowledge the essential unity of mind 
and body."* 
And the great change which has t^tken place in the 
views regarding insanity, within the memory of men 
now living, transferring it from the domain of mere 
metaphysics, to the jurisdiction of medical science, as a 
recognized physical disease, witnesses to the same thing. 
But notwithstanding this intimate connection of physi- 
cal with psychological conditions, iu the study of mental: 
hygiene, it will not be expected that I should go into 
the former, or into the field immediately related, of Pre- 
ventive Medicine, as that whole subject has been as- 
signed to my learned confrere, Dr. Bowditch, who has 
already explored and expounded it in the most exhaust- 
*Body and Mind, pp. 1, 108. 3 
ive and satisfactory manner. Aly range of thought 
must, therefore, rather be general, and less limited 
by professional metes and bounds than if it were a 
strictly medical or a purely psychological one, and may, 
therefore, not prove as satisfactory to my professional 
brethren. I shall also be pardoned, I trust, on this 
National Centennial, if I refer to our own nation largely 
in elucidation of principles, and for practical illustra- 
tions. 
This whole subject was formerly confined within the 
range of philosophy alone. In the days of ancient civ- 
ilization, before real science was born, when the oracle 
"know thyself," had only a subjective metaphysical 
meaning, men like Plato and Cicero placed all mental 
hygiene in the delights of literary conversation and 
philosophizing. The Academic Groves were the resorts 
of dreamy contemplation of a State and a World that 
never could be realized. The Tusculan Villa was a 
refuse from the clamor of Senates and the wrangles of 
the Forum, where Cicero and his friends sought their 
otium cum diguitate^ secure from the jealousies and 
conspiracies of politics, whether Caesar or Pompey 
should triumph. They knew little of the physiological 
functions of the body, while they indulged in their 
acute' and poetical, and sometimes touching, specu- 
lations upon the immortality of the soul; but modern 
science, in studying and dignifying the visible temple 
of the immortal spirit, has only confirmed and followed 
in the track of Christianity, which first promised to the 
human body an equal dowry of immortality with the 
human soul. The Resurrection staggered the Stoics 
and Epicureans; but it is at least the best warrant in 
the diploma of modern medical science, now, perhaps, 
somewhat disposed to spiritualize even matter itself, to 
endow it with " the promise and potency of every form 4 
and quality of life." On the other hand, the expression 
"mental physiology" has been coined to identify the 
study of mind with that of body, and some would even 
attempt to resolve all psychology into physiology. 
Mental hygiene may be variously classified, but, as a 
whole, it embraces all that relates to the development, 
exercise, and maintenance of mental activity in indi- 
viduals, communities and nations, and must, therefore, 
be considered from an individual, social, and national 
point of view. It involves education, social culture, re- 
ligion and national life. With the individual, it begins 
at birth, and takes cognizance of even the constitutional 
tendencies, under laws of heredity, as well as of all the 
circumstances of subsequent life. To the individual 
then, in a general way, it consists in that general train- 
ing which will most perfectly and harmoniously develop 
the body and the mental faculties for the duties of life. 
At the outset, therefore, on this point, we are met with 
the questions, who is the individual ? What has he to 
do as an occupation of life? However we may settle on 
general principles, the rules for individuals must be spe- 
cial. Practically, we must consider classes and conditions. 
The occupation and pecuniary condition of parents; 
their culture, social status, and surroundings; clothing, 
food and climate; proximity to schools, churches, and 
places of amusement; density or sparseness of popula- 
tion; laws, government, etc., must all be considered-as 
among the efficient and constantly modifying conditions 
of any system of hygiene proposed. 
Thus, it will be seen, it is a many sided and all-em- 
bracing subject, evidently too vast for one, in an address 
of an hour, to do more than simply glance at its main 
features. Though it may be looked at from various 
stand-points, as men contemplate life, its duties, objects 
and ends, from the work they are doing in the world, 5 
the fundamental ideas must be the same, to lead to any 
practical results. The views which the minister, the 
lawyer, the teacher, the scholar, the physician, the 
scientist and the statesman, may take, will be directed, 
or colored somewhat, by their field of observation, and 
their bias of education; but on general principles they 
must be in accord. Mental hygiene covers all the broad 
field of human energy, embracing all the professions 
and every branch of industrial life. It looks after 
man's moral as well as his intellectual nature, for the 
two can not be separated. It enters into his domestic 
and social conditions, and follows him in his duties as 
a citizen. 
I. It first looks at human nature-at a man as he is 
born-his utter helplessness, his passions, his needs, 
physical and mental, and his social, moral, and spiritual 
wants, and then must devise a scheme for his develop- 
ment. Is this an easy task? The science that would 
do this perfectly, must, from the realm of physiology, 
single out the laws written on his members, and har- 
monize them, in their development and action, -with the 
laws of the spirit written on the psychological side of 
his nature, and put these in harmony with the laws of 
nature around him, in whose realm he dwells, and bring 
all in obedience and loving accord with the eternal 
truths of God. Mankind has been working upon this 
problem ever since Adam first contemplated the tree of 
knowledge, in the Garden of Eden, and was sent forth 
to his toil and to his own reflections. It will continue 
to be a problem, for human nature will not change; the 
human passions, in all their wide scope, are not to be 
obliterated under culture, but regulated and controlled. 
Indeed, the discipline of the passions is, in a large 
measure, the moral side of this great question. Except 
for speculative study, there is no separation of the in- 6 
tellectual and moral elements, and the regulation of 
the passions and their proper development become a 
part of education. 
A fundamental principle, therefore, in mental hygiene, 
is harmonious, intellectual and moral culture, under the 
recognition of man's essential nature as a spiritual being. 
This cultivation is imperative, in order that man may 
be able to recognize, not only his own needs, but his 
relations to others; that he may, while taking care of 
himself, be able to see that he forms an integral part of 
a social organization absolutely essential for his own 
welfare. The machinery for the preservation, harmony 
and elevation of social life, must reach to every class 
and condition; otherwise, the antagonistic elements 
would impede, if not prevent, all progress, and engender 
discord. 
Common customs, common schools, and common 
laws, are the most fundamental, and also the most 
powerful, equalizing agencies in the great machinery of 
the politico-social life of a people. Through these means 
the rich and poor meet on common ground, and acquire 
a certain degree of unity in physical and mental train- 
ing, and a certain likeness of character and harmony of 
thought on the great questions of education, morals, 
politics, and religion, highly favorable to stability, both 
social and national. Thus great general principles of 
government become more readily and universally re- 
ceived, and there are left for difference and discussion 
only the methods and forms of development and appli- 
cation. Still, these means only partially reach into the 
home life of individuals, where influences are constantly 
limiting and modifying development, both physical and 
mental. Indeed, however distinctly the laws of physical 
and mental hygiene may be stated, like fundamental 
propositions in law and morals, their individual appli- 7 
cation may be difficult. The circumstances surrounding 
and controlling, may not only modify, but entirely for- 
bid, their application ; and persons, families, and whole 
communities, do thus drift away from any regulated 
plan of life, or any reasonable principles of action, as 
the history of moral epidemics, not only in the past but 
in the present, would abundantly show. Poverty and 
ignorance, the breeders' of vices and crimes, and the 
enemies of culture, may render all principles nugatory, 
except as they are enforced by law. And in this di- 
rection political economy is a most important element 
in the study of mental hygiene, in its broad application 
to the interests of mankind. 
Thus we see in hygienic science the ideas which lead 
to the study of pauperism and crime, and the care of 
the dependent classes, whether made so by disease or 
misfortune; to the origination of means for preventing 
social evils of every character; to the enactment of laws 
for the regulation of morals by limiting vices, as in 
licensing prostitution and the sale of intoxicating drinks; 
laws for the suppression of gambling, and providing 
punishment for the publication of obscene literature; 
laws to prevent the spread of contagious and infectious 
diseases; and also that higher and grander step, laws 
for compulsory education, thus compelling the elevation 
of the masses by undermining ignorance and supersti- 
tion, the prolific sources of human misery and degrada- 
tion. This is itself a wide field of inquiry; a field 
where Christianity and moral hygiene, social and medi- 
cal science, and sanitary police, must join hands with 
education and law, to lift into social order the victims of 
evil and hereditary influences which they are powerless 
in themselves either to- avoid or to conquer. 
That mental activity is highly favorable to physical 
health and development, when systematically directed 8 
into useful channels, need hardly be argued in this day. 
Intellectual labor seems, as a rule, to contribute to 
longevity. It was formerly a sort of proverb, that 
"one of the rewards of philosophy is long life." The 
ancient philosophers, especially the Peripatetics, pur- 
sued their studies and imparted their instructions 
largely out of doors, amid the varied objects of nature. 
The amount of physical exercise taken in the open air 
was a remarkable feature in the life of antiquity, even 
among its scholars; and we have among them numer- 
ous examples of great longevity in men of intellect. 
Homer, Pythagoras, Plutarch, Thales, Galen, Xenophon, 
Carneades, Sophocles, Zeno, Hippocrates, Xenophanes, 
Democritus, and others, reached the age of ninety and 
upwards, while the majority of such men passed the 
limit of three-score and ten. 
In the early days of this Republic, with simplicity 
and plain living, we find the same rule holding good. 
Chief Justice Marshall and Thomas Jefferson reached 
eighty-four; Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, eighty- 
five; James Madison, eighty-seven; and John Adams 
ninety-one. All these men certainly had not only vast 
intellectual labors to perform, but great burdens of care, 
anxiety, and responsibility to carry, and even serious 
privations to encounter; and we might greatly lengthen 
this list. Bearing on this point I have recently been 
informed by Governor Seymour, of New York, who has 
given great attention to the history and character of 
the North American Indians, that the more intelligent 
tribes were not only the dominant and conquering ones, 
but that they afterwards met the struggle with civiliza- 
tion more successfully than those giving themselves up 
wholly to physical exercises; that they also maintained 
a higher physical and mental standard, and lived to a 
greater age ; that these tribes, this day, number nearly 9 
as many as in the early history of this country; that 
they maintain their language, and largely their sim- 
plicity of life, in the midst of civilization.* 
The ancient gymnasia, as well as the modern signifi- 
cation of the word gymnasium, bear witness to the 
sense of the importance of combining mental and phys- 
ical culture. Mental culture is a powerful influence in 
developing the symmetry of the bodily organism, the 
tone and expression of the face, the organs of special 
sense, and harmony of co-ordinating movements of the 
whole body. One can see this illustrated in our com- 
mon schools at any time. The power of attention in 
the majority of young children, in any community, is 
not much aroused in ordinary life, and they often look 
dull and stupid on this account. These children enter 
school, and the direction of the attention to a few sim- 
ple exercises, in common, awakens the power of atten- 
tion ; and soon, at the tap of a rule, the sound of a 
musical note, or the word of the teacher, the whole 
* Extract from Appendix to Address by Gov. Horatio Seymour, of New 
York, at the dedication of the Kirkland Monument, Clinton, N. Y., June 25, 
1873.-The superiority of the Indians of New York, over those of adjoining 
States, is proved not only by contemporaneous history, but by striking facts 
within our own observation. Their pride, heroism, and victories through a 
long series of years, affected not onlv their mental and moral characters, but 
even their physical organizations. * * * Beyond the evidences of their 
superiority to be found in history and science, we have living proofs of the 
vitality and vigor of the Iroquois. All others of the Indians, who once lived 
in the States lying east of the Mississippi, have been swept away, except a 
few who linger in the wild regions south of Lake Superior. None of them 
have withstood the power and influence of the whites, except the Iroquois. 
The Mohawks went to Canada, during the Revolutionary War, and most of 
the Oneidas removed to Wisconsin about forty years since. The other tribes 
still live in New York. In all their homes they are surrounded by the 
whites, and by high civilization, yet their numbers do not diminish at this 
time. For a while after the whites went among them, they fell off about 
one-third in population, but they now hold their number, with a slight in- 
crease in some cases. But the strength of their character is more strikingly 
shown by another fact. Although the Indians of New York, for three gener- 
ations, have lived in the centers of civilization surrounded by a dense white 
population, with whom they are in constant contact, as their reservations 10 
school instantly responds. Now, under such simple 
but common and systematic exercises and study, the 
whole expression of the school changes. The bodily 
organism soon conforms to the habit of attention and 
to the systematic mental training, and awkwardness 
and dullness are soon transformed into gracefulness, 
courtesy and intelligence. 
Another common illustration is the change we mark 
in servants under the training of intelligent masters; 
under simple example and the stimulation of mind in 
the direction of systematic attention to duties, how 
quickly they are transformed, if they have any reason- 
able degree of capacity. The same may also be said of 
soldiers. Hume, in his Essay on National Character, 
says: " The human mind is of a very imitative nature ; 
nor is it possible for any set of men to converse often 
together without acquiring a similitude of manners, and 
communicating to each other their vices as well as their 
virtues." 
are small, yet they retain their own language, their own customs, and about 
one-half hold their old religious faith; yet they have white teachers and 
preachers who live among them. In sermons or addresses, they must be 
spoken to in their own tongue, or through interpreters. At the celebration 
of the Kirkland Monument, a deputation of Oneidas was present. They be- 
longed to a small remnant of their tribe, numbering less than one hundred 
and fifty, who did not go with their people to Wisconsin. They and their 
fathers and grandfathers always lived in the heart of New York, in the 
vicinity of large cities and villages. The tract of land they own contains but 
a few hundred acres, yet those present at Clinton, who were well-dressed 
men and women, could only speak to the assembly through an interpreter. 
In private conversation, with a few exceptions, they speak the English with 
hesitancy, as their thoughts are all conceived in the Indian language. The 
whole world is sending representatives of every lineage, language, and 
nationality to our country ; all of these in a few years speak our tongue and 
adopt our customs, and in a little time are assimilated in all respects with 
our people. Even the most stubborn races of Asia yield to our phases of 
civilization. There is not in ethnology a more extraordinary fact than the 
resistance for more than a hundred years of our influences by this little band 
of natives. The continued existence of the Iroquois, while their kindred 
tribes have been swept away, and their resistance to our language and mode 
of thought, while all other lineages in our land have been assimilated, give 
proof of the vigor and marked peculiarities of their race. 11 
The great power of mental activity and attention, in 
modifying expression, bodily habits and movements, as 
well as general manners, may not only be seen in indi- 
viduals and schools, but in whole communities and even 
nations. This is far more than imitation, it is substan- 
tial individual culture, the development of all the fac- 
ulties in more or less symmetry. If we were asked the 
secret of the physical prowess and conquering power of 
the Roman people for a thousand years, we should 
answer it was the military education and discipline of 
the whole population from seventeen years of age, with 
its stern system of self-restraint and self-regulation. It 
was a civilization based upon the rigorous principles of 
the Lacedaemonians, rather than the lighter and more 
artistic life of Athens, The modern meaning of the 
word virtue was the cause of its Latin meaning, as con- 
fined to the behavior of men in battle, a stern temper- 
ance and self-control behind unflinching courage and 
endurance. It was once said by an American orator* 
that Rome was thrice mistress of the world, by her 
arms, her religion and her law. It is in the last only 
that she retains supremacy, for there is hardly a civi- 
lized nation in which the maxims of Roman civil law 
do not form the basis of equity. And this is all the 
result of the primitive training of that great people 
both physical and mental. The same principle was 
illustrated in the Puritan Cromwell's troops, the sol- 
diers of William the Conqueror, the German armies of 
Frederick William in the Franco Prussian War, and 
■conspicuously in the Revolutionary patriots of America 
and in their descendants, the soldiers on both sides of 
the contest in the recent war of Rebellion, in this 
country. 
The more we examine into this question of mental 
hygiene the more it seems to resolve itself, on the men- 
*Hon. Hugh S. Legare, of South Carolina; N. ¥. Review, 1841. 12 
tai side, into a statement of the best methods of educa- 
tion and training to secure the highest and truest 
culture. And this is the line of thought which forces 
itself upon the mind as the true exposition of the words 
mental hygiene-a system of culture embracing all the 
interests of man in all his relations of life; education in 
its highest expression and broadest application; educa- 
tion to secure not simply a knowledge of man, and of 
nature and her laws, and the awakening of the faculties 
to a deep obedience which will make man reverence her 
in all her works and ways, or, in the beautiful language 
of Prof. Huxley, "the instruction of the intellect in the 
laws of nature, under which name I include not merely 
things and their forces, but men and their ways, and 
the fashioning of the affections and the will into an 
earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with 
these laws," adding " for me education means neither 
more nor less than this"-clear emphatic words of 
which no one can mistake the meaning; but far more 
than this, we should demand a broad and deep culture 
of man which would do all this, and which would also 
awaken in the soul a full consciousness of its responsi- 
bility to One by whom all things exist; an education 
which would not only raise man to harmony with the 
laws of nature, but which would also raise him to 
obedience to the laws of God; which would make his 
life, real, earnest, pure and useful. To accomplish this, 
mental hygiene must include, therefore, not simply the 
mental and moral training in a general, but also in a 
particular way; must as well include social restraints 
and duties, as I have heretofore indicated, and embrace 
a supreme regard for the welfare of the country-a true 
patriotism. 
It is not out of place in this centenary year of the 
nation, to remind ourselves that this element of moral 13 
and religious restraint and discipline, this spirit of 
subjection to an overruling power above nature, was 
not left out of the practical life and training of its 
original founders. The first settlers of this continent 
began their conflict with wild nature, and still wilder 
savages, under a system of self-discipline and sense of 
religious responsibility, sterner even than that of the 
old Romans. It was indeed their virtue that brought 
them through successfully in their contest with the 
mightiest empire of Europe, and enabled them to lay 
the foundations of a governmental fabric which has 
been the astonishment and the study of European 
statesmen. 
But to follow up the subject of mental hygiene in re- 
lation to individual life, it must be evident that I should 
have to enter into details not possible in such an 
address as this; I should have to take into considera- 
tion, not only the whole scope of what I have denomi- 
nated, in a general way, educational means and 
influences, including domestic life, but also age, sex, 
civil condition, heredity, passions, the influence of cli- 
mate, social customs, religion, etc., in all their varied 
relations as found in action in individuals, as also the 
questions of food, water, exercise, air, sleep, etc., all 
essential conditions and vital questions in the study of 
individual hygiene. 
II. When we come to the question of mental hy- 
giene in communities, we include all hygiene as to indi- 
vidual life, and at the same time enter the wide domain 
of sociology or social science. Here again we meet the 
great problems of education, social customs and laws, 
intermarriage, amusements, and indeed all the condi- 
tions of social and civil life, together with religious 
culture, which, though I have named it last, is really 
first and fundamental. In this age of books and think- 14 
ing no man can ignore this latter point, if he would. 
While I have never been able to see any conflict be- 
tween Science and Religion, certainly the tendencies of 
the times are rather to question closely their relations 
and their respective domains. Christianity has been 
challenged by science, in some quarters, and the old 
questions of faith, free will, responsibility, necessity, 
etc., are again discussed in the light of increased physi- 
cal knowledge and physiological investigations, and the 
more advanced views of psychology. 
The literature of the age itself illustrates the subject 
of mental hygiene. Bulwer, in his " Caxtons," gives an 
admirable chapter on the hygiene of books. Ue sug- 
gests that reading should be governed by the mental 
state; that it should be suited to the morbid drift of 
thought, or the malady of the individual. As an illus- 
tration, he speaks of the folly of attempting to amuse a 
man in the midst of a great sorrow; and nothing could 
be more in accord with sound psychology. Referring 
to Goethe taking up the study of science, after the- 
death of his son, he says, " Ah! Goethe was a physician 
who knew what he was about. In a great grief like 
that you can not tickle and divert the mind." He re- 
commends for the sorrows of middle life and old age, 
" bringing the brain to act upon the heart." He would 
thus have philosophy lead and temper the emotions and 
the will, and enrich the true life by contemplating the 
lessons of experience. He says: "For that vice of the 
mind, which I will call sectarianism, not in the religious 
sense of the word, but little narrow prejudices that 
make you hate your next-door neighbor because he has 
his eggs roasted, when you have yours boiled, and gos- 
siping and prying into people's affairs, and backbiting, 
and thinking heaven and earth are coming together if 
some broom touch a cobweb that you have let grow 15 
over the window-sill of your brains-what like a large 
and generous, mildly aperient dose of history ! How 
it clears away all the fumes of the head * * * how 
your mind enlarges beyond that little feverish animosity 
to John Styles!" Here we have a strong hint, not 
only against the cultivation of a narrow range of 
thought, but also of the great value of that wide men- 
tal scope which takes in the interests of others, and 
occupies the mind in public and social interests and 
affairs of State. 
Again he says: " I remember to have cured a discon- 
solate widower, who obstinately refused every medica- 
ment, by a strict course of geology. I dipped him deep 
into gneiss and mica-schist. Amidst the first strata, I 
suffered the watery action to expend itself upon cooling 
crystallized masses; and by the time I had got him 
into the tertiary period, amongst the transition chalks 
of Maestricht and the conchiferous marls of Gossau, he 
was ready for a new wife." But all men and women 
can not grasp geology. No, but all can find, in morbid 
states, some serious mental occupation, 4f it be only 
their own sphere of labor, or some useful course of 
reading wdiich will occupy them out- of themselves] 
this is the secret, out of themselves^ This would be 
substituting action for mere sentiment, a most import- 
ant principle in mental culture. No lesson is more 
important than this, and it gives emphasis to what all 
experience teaches, that in the substantial realities of 
life are to be found the true sources of healthful mental 
discipline and growth; that while amusements are use- 
ful as recreation after toil and responsibility, they are 
not to be looked upon as the daily pabulum of the in- 
dividual or of society; that, in excess, amusements- 
become a kind of dissipation which creates a distaste 
for systematic and useful labor, and for the quiet of 16 
home life and its practical duties, and for all rational 
social intercourse. Thus real life grows tame and 
insipid; a constant, restless desire for excitement is 
substituted for the deep, solid stimulus of duty, of 
domestic responsibility, and of that substantial mental 
culture which alone can give to society strength and 
virtue. 
Sentimentalism is a tendency of the age, and has a 
most important place, but it should not become so dom- 
inant in social life and in education as to exhaust the 
mental energy in trivialities, or in mere expression of 
the feelings, instead of leading it to action and duty. 
Mere sentimentalism, whether in social life, religion or 
politics, demoralizes and emasculates all life and action ; 
it is but a sensual indulgence at the expense of all vigor 
and energy in the practical advancement of the indi- 
vidual or of society. What the school of sentiment, as 
headed by Rousseau, did for France-the extravagances, 
the follies and the fanaticisms to which it led--is pat- 
ent enough from French history since the Revolution 
of 1789. By* sentimentalism is here meant that exalta- 
tion of the feelings and sympathies of the mind which 
is always expending itself upon unworthy objects or 
causes, or in the mere contemplation of those that are 
worthy; which Butler, in his Analogy, has pointed 
out with great psychological penetration, as mere emo- 
tional impulse, with no practical object, and no outlet 
for reasonable action, and which is, therefore, always 
enervating and destructive to mental character. 
This tendency is not found simply in the immense 
indulgence in novel reading in these days; in the 
graphic and picturesque portrayal of crimes and social 
vices; in newspaper serials, which flood the country, 
and which are brought before people at every book- 
stand, and in all the avenues of travel; in the publica- 17 
tion, broadcast, of the minute details of crimes, suicides, 
and court trials, where sickly sentiment, and social 
vices, and the passions of mankind, become the staple 
and the sum; but this tendency is also seen in science 
and in much quasi-religious teaching, as well as in a 
multitude of so-called social and humanitarian schemes 
which promise to lift man into a realm of thought and 
feeling where he will necessarily, as by a law of his 
being, drift to the good. This spirit of sentimentalism 
and restless love of novelty is only a form of skep 
ticism, and drifts into sensualism in morals, into useless 
and vague speculations in science, and into transcenden. 
talism and infidelity in religion, and in all its tenden- 
cies leads to morbid, unhealthful, and impracticable 
mental action. 
Carlyle has said that "the proper task of literature 
lies in the domain of Belief, within which, poetic fiction, 
as it is charitably named, will have to take a quite 
new figure, if allowed a settlement there," and that 
"the exceeding great multitude of novel writers and 
such like, must do one of two things, either retire into 
nurseries, and work for children, minors and semi-fatu- 
ous persons, or sweep their whole novel fabric into the 
dust cart, and betake them with such faculty as they 
have, to understand and record what is true, of which 
there is, and ever will be, a whole infinitude unknown 
to us;" and he adds, "poetry will more and more come 
to be understood as nothing but higher knowledge, and 
the only genuine romance for grown persons, Reality." 
Bulwer, with a sort of prophetic fore-glimpse over 
the field of these developing tendencies, speaks in the 
chapter already mentioned, of " curing a young scholar, 
at Cambridge, who was meant for the Church, when he 
suddenly caught a cold fit of free-thinking, with great 
shiverings, from wading out of his depth in Spinosa." 18 
He failed when he tried him on the divines, but suc- 
ceeded by dosing him first with chapters of faith, in 
Abraham Tucker's book; then strong doses of Fichte; 
after these the Scotch metaphysicians; ending up with a 
plunge bath into certain German trail cenden tai ists. 
He adds, "having convinced him that faith is not an 
unphilosophical state of mind, and that he might believe 
without compromising his understanding, for he was 
mightily conceited on that score, I threw in my divines, 
which he was now fit to digest, and his theological con- 
stitution since has become so robust that he has eaten 
up two livings and a deanery." Now " wading out of 
his depths in Spinosa," is admirable. These youths 
are now grown quite numerous, and count among them 
some of the ablest scientists, who seem to be carried 
away by " winds," or by " doctrine," into what St. Paul 
styled, in his day, " science, falsely so-called." They 
drift so far out as to get into what they call the " un- 
knowable" and the "unthinkable," which phrases, if 
the veil of time was removed, would disclose under- 
neath the inscription of the Athenian philosophers on 
a certain altar, noticed by St. Paul, as he entered that 
learned city eighteen hundred years ago. 
If we look through the history of such mental drift- 
ing, we can not but recognize it as productive of vast 
evil. Certainly such speculations have, as yet, made 
no scholar wiser or better, judging by what they have 
imparted to the world on the subjects of Christianity 
or Revelation. To be sure, we are aware that doubt 
has been even dignified as an essential condition of 
mind for the highest perception of Truth ! Now the 
mental hygiene suggested by Bulwer was as admirable 
as his diagnosis. He did not strand his patient, at the 
start, by discussion and dialectics, but led him by a 
line of thought, natural to the patient, through the 19 
regions of apparent contradictions and doubt, according 
to his powers of mental digestion, and finally cultured 
him to the full truth, and at length made a Dean of 
him, where he had the widest scope for faith and works, 
as well as a field for mental action in the highest range 
of human duty. 
A most notable instance of this "wading out" is the 
case of a late president of the British Association. A 
brilliant man, with rare powers of analysis of physical 
facts and phenomena, his'mind trained in this direction, 
he launches out on the track of the great spiritual 
ocean, to which he applies his physical tests, and fails. 
He is followed instantly by another brilliant mind in 
physical science, who takes down his system of astron- 
omy to follow the wake of a new leader. These are 
conspicuous cases, and in other times the former might 
have become the founder of a sect; but instead of that, 
his structure falls to pieces as he contemplates it. Be- 
sides, he confesses that he has moodn, which is equiva- 
lent to unsoundness, when moods are confessed in 
explanation of statements and opinions. This is en- 
couraging, for it shows that the great and constantly 
increasing body of truth, extended in all directions, is 
not only unmoved by skepticism, but is gradually un- 
dermining it by explaining the phenomena on which it 
rests for the title of its existence, and is also revealing 
principles so much mightier and broader than man's 
theories of Nature and of God, that Skepticism dies in 
the light of Truth. 
Newton, after reaching far into the arcana of nature, 
and finding his vast knowledge so little of the whole 
that he compared it to a few pebbles on the shore of 
the ocean, is the modest but grand symbol of true 
progress. He illustrates the majesty of science, and 
her respectful homage at the feet of the Creator. That 20 
science which is "puffed up," and which stands ready 
to unveil the sanctuary, and to enter into the holy of 
holies and reveal the Almighty to man by chemistry 
and telescope, and thus find out the secret of his creation 
and existence, and discover the government of the moral 
world in a series of correlated forces, is not the science 
of religion which can captivate the world of to-day. 
However man may move in a cycle of the same truths 
and deceptions, in kaleidoscopic variation from age to 
age, God is unchangeable, and has declared Himself to 
be " past finding out." 
So principles are eternal, though our methods change. 
The ideas of God, in ancient philosophy, which Pytha- 
goras and Socrates, Plato and Cicero, saw dimly through 
the body of science and truth then developed, can not, 
at this day, be accepted as religion, though their faith 
and loyalty to an invisible Creative power stand unques- 
tioned, and like a rock in the desert of centuries. 
Though Plato is perhaps the grandest figure standing 
forth in the history of human mind, his theories are but 
as the dawning light to the mid-day sun, in the abstract 
truths, developed science, and revelation of to-day. 
Much less can we accept Democritus and his followers. 
When Horace sang of the "Integer vitae, scelerisque 
purus" he but struck a glimpse of the same truth 
which belongs to the province of religious culture, and 
which had long before been uttered by the Royal 
Psalmist, " Blessed is the man who hath not walked in 
the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of 
sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful, but his de- 
light is in the law of the Lord." The psalm of Horace 
and the psalm of David are alike devout confessions of 
the blessedness of purity, and are tributes to the im- 
portance of moral culture as an essential to the full de- 
velopment of mind and mental balance. 21 
Indeed, without this moral culture, we may say, it is 
well nigh impossible to understand even Nature herself. 
Certainly this is so, as far as the ideas of purpose and 
design are concerned. As Baring Gould has well put 
it, the world is a visible exhibition of the ideas of God, 
a mighty book to be read. But who is to spell out 
this Created speech and comprehend its significance? 
Those who are to catch and understand the ideas of 
God, must have a spiritual nature capable of perceiving 
such truths. "Therefore, he who is to read Creation, 
must be neither mere spirit nor mere body, but must have 
a spiritual nature combined with a corporeal nature, so 
that, through the things revealed to the mind by the 
bodily senses, the thoughts of God may be perceived." 
Mental hygiene or culture, from this standpoint, recog- 
nizes the essential nature of man as a spiritual being, 
and points to the necessity of educating his moral na- 
ture in harmony with his intellectual, to bring forth the 
full man. 
In this view the very wastes and solitudes of nature 
come to have their moral and spiritual uses. In a burst 
of enthusiasm, Baring Gould exclaims: "The time of 
Alpine snow has come; age after age has seen it 
powdered on the mountain peaks, slide down the flanks 
in ice, and flow away in rivers to the sea, unesteemed 
save for the water it yielded. But its time has come, 
its value is known. There is no medicine to a weary 
brain, like the golden light on a distant bank of Alpine 
snow * * * * I remember a mountain scramble 
leading me suddenly from rough rocks and sear grass, 
upon a dell of rich greensward, girt about with pines. 
Set in the turf was here and there a fallen star-a yel- 
low anemone; on the rocks the carmine Alpine rhododen- 
dron was in full blaze of blossom, and over all the sward 
was a tender bloom of forget-me-not. Overhead burnt 22 
a glacier in the summer sun, and a thread of silver fell 
in powder from it, waving in the soft air. I am not 
ashamed to tell you that that vision filled my heart to 
overflowing. God spake through that scene, through 
every flower, out of the mountain, out of the ice. The 
voice of God, walking in that garden, was as audible 
as of old in Paradise, when Adam heard it in the cool of 
the day." 
No reflecting man can fail to see that the attention 
given to education, all over the world, is a most signfi- 
cant fact in the history of this period. That education, 
in some degree, shall be universal, seems to be a com- 
mon sentiment. That this is essential to the progress 
of civilization, needs only to be stated. The great 
questions that arise are, what shall education be, and 
what shall it include? Shall it include religious in- 
instruction in all fundamental training? is the leal 
problem, however the question may be stated. And 
reaching higher in the scale, the same gieat question 
intrudes itself, only in a different form. The scientific 
theory of culture, set forth by the school of which 
Professors Huxley and Tyndall are exponents, as Prin- 
cipal Shairp has so well pointed out, gives little account 
of, and makes no provision for the moral elements of 
human nature, and this would seem to be its deep de- 
fect. As he truly says, "the knowledge of the highest 
things, those which most deeply concern us, is not 
attained by mere intellect, but by the harmonious 
action of understanding, imagination, feeling, conscience, 
will-that is, of the whole man-reason in its highest 
exercise, intelligence raised to its highest power." And 
this for the single reason that no science can call our 
whole nature into play at once. This can only be done 
by religion, which alone calls upon the whole of man. 
When Prof. Huxley presents life as a game of chess, 23 
with an invisible player, he endeavors to save the idea 
that a man must respect the rights of others; but there 
is no more room for such an idea in his scheme than 
there is in a shipwreck, or in Darwin's doctrine of the 
survival of the fittest. It is not a natural impulse of 
man to respect the rights of others, or "to love one's 
neighbor as one's self;" as Principal Shairp has well 
said, it requires the whole weight of Christian motive 
to do either. 
III. When we come - to examine mental hygiene 
from a national point of view, we see that it comprises 
all that gives intelligence, character, dignity, progress, 
and stability to national life. In this greater field the 
lesser are included. That hygiene which tends to ele- 
vate a people both mentally and physically, by a true 
and rational culture, is in fact mental, moral and physi- 
cal training, resting on definite principles, and these so 
accepted as to become the prevailing and growing habit 
of the people; or, in other words, culture extending 
itself into national habits, thoughts and pursuits. 
Whatever theories we may adopt as to the equality of 
man, the best practical result of national training must 
be to give to each class of minds that bias which will 
serve to develop useful individual tendencies, and at the 
same time, in the main, correspond with its social status. 
For whatever general education or fundamental culture 
we may rest upon as a prescribed system for general 
application, the professional man, the merchant and 
business man, the mechanic, the farmer, the clerk and 
the laboring man need different training to fit them for 
practical life. The question of mental hygiene is there- 
fore not simply how we may best train men so as to 
cultivate mental health and physical vigor, but also 
how we are to bring about the use and application of 
all the principles and agencies which are best adapted 24 
to develop, expand, and maintain in balance the mental 
and spiritual life of individuals, communities and na- 
tions, so as to insure progress in civilization, a healthy 
state of general and domestic morals, and, at the same 
time, the advancement of culture, arts and industries. 
It is only within a comparatively short period, that 
the study of general and mental hygiene has been de- 
manded, under the progress of science. This study has 
been stimulated by the developing necessities of civili- 
zation, the greater attention to sociology, and the pro- 
gressive ideas of personal liberty and responsibility. 
All the ancient civilizations were but little concerned 
in the welfare of the individual, as a unit going to make 
up national life. Knowledge and the exercise of gov- 
ernmental functions were confined to the few. The 
great masses were only so much brute force, or mere 
physical elements, in the hands of rulers and leaders, 
to carry out their own ends; and to all this the masses 
gave almost absolute assent. The lives of the people 
were held cheap by the rulers, as well as by the people 
themselves. Even the great revolutions, from time to 
time, were not movements of the people, but were 
simply brought about by kindred though antagonistic 
governing families, and the people were used in their 
respective interests, being aroused under the temporary 
stimulation of the passions of the hour. They had no 
appreciation of the ultimate tendencies of public move- 
ments, and no hope or desire for personal elevation or 
advancement. In such a state of national life, mental 
culture could have no wide significance, and no place 
except among the learned, as a mere subject of contem- 
plation. Therefore for many ages we have little on the 
subject of mental hygiene, in any direction, beyond the 
philosophic declarations and fables of learned men. 
The priestly orders, indeed, in ancient times combined 25 
and exercised largely the professions of minister, teacher 
and physician, and were also the trusted advisers of 
kings. The Mosaic law laid down the rules of hygiene, 
as it did those of morals, intermarriage, and worship, in 
a single code. 
The aphorisms of Hippocrates embrace about all that 
is valuable in medical literature of the pre-Christian 
centuries. The Code of Health of the School of Saler- 
num, for hundreds of years a medical classic, contains 
the recorded knowledge on the subject of health down 
to the sixteenth century. A recent translator, Prof. 
John Ordronaux, says of it, "It was for ages the Medical 
Bible of all Western Europe, and held undisputed 
sway over the teachings of its schools, next to the writ- 
ings of Hippocrates and Galen." It contains a great 
many precepts and dietetic rules, but deals little with 
mental hygiene ; and this is the sum:- 
" Salerno's School, in conclave high, unites 
To counsel England's King, and thus indites: 
If thou to health and vigor wouldst attain, 
Shun weighty cares-all anger deem profane, 
From heavy suppers and much wine abstain, 
Nor trivial count it, after pompous fare, 
To rise from table and to take the air. 
Shun idle, noon-day slumber, nor delay 
The urgent calls of Nature to obey. 
These rules, if thou wilt follow to the end, 
Thy life to greater length thou mayest extend. 
Shouldst Doctors need ? be this in Doctors' stead-• 
Rest, cheerfulness, and table thinly-spread." 26 
The author closes with a valedictory which would 
indicate that he felt he had accomplished a great 
work:- 
" The Flower of Physic endeth here its strain ; 
The Author, happy o'er his garnered grain, 
Prays that in Heaven there be prepared for him 
A seat near Christ, and His blest Seraphim. 
Amen! " 
We must not forget, however, the great services ren- 
dered, during the dark ages, to Science and Literature 
by the Monks and Religieux while buried in their 
cloisters, as well as their work in preserving the treas- 
ures of learning from the all-surrounding devastation. 
It is admitted by all historians that, in days of vio- 
lence and anarchy, the Church was a defence and refuge 
of the poor and the oppressed, as well as of the learned, 
against the hand of tyranny and rapacity. To the 
Benedictine orders, at least in their constant and syste- 
matic attention to the cultivation of the soil, and the 
implements and improvements of agriculture, we owe a 
great lesson of that primitive truth, that in the sweat 
of man's face shall he eat bread. It may even be said 
that the motto of this order, labora/re est orare, has be- 
come the watchword of modern civilization, for in no 
period of the world has labor been so dignified as in 
these times, and the machinery of labor so multiplied 
for the uses of man. 
Mental hygiene, from a national point of view, would 
also cultivate in the people a harmonious and universal 
aim towards elevated and yet practical ideas. A 
national sentiment, fostered and dignified by govern- 
ment, in favor of education, mechanics, agriculture, arts, 
becomes a most powerful mental stimulant to individual 
effort, and seems to give breadth, tone, and vigor to 27 
national mind and character. No people, perhaps, ever 
gave more earnest and practical attention to educational 
power and the value of morality, as elements in gov- 
ernment, than the Puritan stock of New England. 
From the first, the church and the school-house rose 
side by side, and whatever economy and frugality they 
exercised in affairs, and they were marvels in these 
virtues, they never stinted the head and the heart. 
They had lofty ideals, and they practiced stern virtues, 
and when national oppression came they had stout 
hearts, willing hands, and clear heads, to offer in the 
struggle for liberty and the founding of a nation. The 
sentiments of Union and Liberty, early and deeply 
rooted in the mental soil of the early inhabitants of the 
American Republic, have propagated their influences 
and spread their roots and fibers through the blood- 
soil of children's children, and we see the result in 
millions of active, intelligent minds, carrying forward 
with united and persistent purpose the vast interests 
of this great nation, and subduing this mighty conti- 
nent, in its multiplied physical resources, to the utilities 
of mankind, as though governed by a single national 
impulse. 
The founders of the Republic, in every part of the 
land, seemed to have been thoroughly permeated with 
the spirit of personal and public duty. With them, 
Liberty meant Law and obedience to principles of Jus- 
tice-an obedience, as beautifully expressed by Ruskin, 
" chastisement of the passions, discipline of the intellect, 
subjection of the will, fear of inflicting and shame of 
committing a wrong; respect for all who are in author- 
ity, consideration for all who are in dependence; ven- 
eration for the good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with 
the weak; watchfulness over all thoughts, temperance 
in all pleasures, and perseverance in all toils." 28 
Had our ancestors cultivated the softer graces, and 
given themselves up to games, sports, and ease of life, 
and the government contented itself with hereditary 
dignities, leaving the mass of people in ignorance, and 
to think and act only in the narrow sphere of providing 
daily bread by daily toil, how different would have 
been the mental status of this nation to-day ! If, on 
the other hand, the inhabitants of this country should 
ever become so demoralized and degraded as to find 
their contentment, like the people in the latter ages of 
Rome, in material comforts alone-panem et circenses- 
mere bread and amusements-then, too, like the later 
Romans, they would soon become the prey of family 
feuds and contending factions, ending in the despotism 
of a swift succession of flao-itious rulers, till the whole 
political system would sink into final disintegration 
and ruin. 
This Centennial, a part of the movement of which 
this International Medical Congress represents, is a 
great national thought, and a most powerful influence 
in stimulating national mind, as well as individual, in 
the direction of healthful mental activity. Indeed, it is 
itself a vast and far-reaching means of culture, which 
touches a responsive chord in nationalities of the most 
diverse social and political character, but nevertheless 
in harmony in the one direction of progress. To im- 
press men by such magnificent displays of wealth, 
mechanism, and art; to show them that life is more 
than meat and drink ; that a nation is great and power- 
ful in proportion as its citizens are cultured to refine- 
ment, utility, morality, and personal responsibility 
that these constitute the foundation stones of national 
greatness and prosperity is, in itself, a great national 
hygienic measure. As the accumulation of patrimonial 
treasures, learning and office, give dignity to families, 29 
and stimulate to higher culture, so the accumulation of 
treasures of all kinds, and the recognition and cultiva- 
tion of art and learning by nations, tend to dignify 
national reputation, and to stimulate citizens of all 
classes to higher efforts and more patriotic lives. 
Thus a nation secures mental and moral growth and 
breadth of enterprise. No one can look at the wonder- 
ful Exposition, now held in this city, without realizing 
this fact. The world seems, indeed, to be here assem- 
bled. The Egyptian, the oldest civilization, stands 
before us to-day as it stood in the days of the Pharaohs. 
The march of progress and the attrition of nations may 
have modified her national life in some outward things, 
but the central ideas remain the same; her escutcheon 
is unchanged, and she sends to this Centennial, as an 
essential treasure, the head of Karneses, thus typifying 
her original and perpetual dignity, unbroken through 
the long tide and flow of centuries. And so down 
through the roll-call of nations, to our own, each has its 
own grand representative idea. At the end of a hund- 
red years we stand at the statue of Washington, and 
relate his virtues, as embodying the central ideas out of 
which grew, and on which rests, the deep, broad and 
sure foundation of this Republic. Egypt may come to 
us; she may take our ploughs and reapers, our engines 
and printing presses ; but she will only enthrone Wash- 
ington when she accepts our ideas. 
The true greatness and dignity of any nation will 
always be measured by the standard of its mental and 
moral culture, not simply by the intellectual standard 
it presents in its military power, its science and arts, 
and its dynamic forces, but also by its will and capacity 
for morally elevating its citizens, without clash of 
caste; maintaining universal freedom, with all men 
-equal before the law. The present Emperor of Russia, 30 
realizing such a sentiment as essential to the dignity,, 
prosperity and permanence of the government, trans- 
formed, in a day, millions of serfs into freemen, the 
grandest ukase in the history of time. This is the sub- 
stance of Magna Charta, the glory of England. This 
was the ostensible aim of C^sar. His memory is quite 
as much dependent on his philosophic culture, and his 
assimilation to the people, as on his conquests. He 
shed lustre on Rome, and on mankind, by his amazing 
combination of simplicity, learning and statesmanship, 
with the greatest capabilities of a soldier, all of which 
he illustrated in the midst of a galaxy of the most 
magnificent minds in the annals of the world. His 
name fitly represents the power of mental culture in the 
direction of definite ideas, in a ruler looking to the ele- 
vation of a people as the true source of national power. 
Rome lost in prestige when she accustomed her peo- 
ple to ideas of conquest and personal ease, above moral 
culture, in its wide meaning. Indeed, no nation has 
ever maintained permanent elevation and power, which 
has encouraged or permitted public opinion to act out- 
side of the pre-ordained boundaries of religious truth. 
The belief in a God must be the corner-stone on which 
a nation rests. Both Greece and Rome flourished in 
power, arts and arms, so long as they clung to a belief 
in a supreme Providence, above Nature. But when the 
speculative philosophy of Epicurus and Lucretius, with 
its absorbing sensualism, usurped the ancient worship, 
they perished beneath the blight of a cold skepticism. 
The glory of Egypt was clouded with Cleopatra, who 
represented deified sensuality on the throne of a Nation. 
The great Assyrian Empire, in like manner, fell under 
Sardanapalus, the gilded monarch of Asiatic licentious- 
ness. France well nigh perished when she installed the 
Goddess of Reason in the seat of Worship, and her 
Chief Assembly voted Death to be an Eternal Sleep. 31 
Under the cultivation of ideas, and the practice ot the 
principles, to which I have referred, by the founders ot 
this Republic, we have the national fruit, not only in a 
great and well-established nation, but conspicuously in 
the wonderful development of the resources of high 
civilization all over this continent. It is a truth, well 
worthy to bear in mind always, that education, with 
them, embraced ideas of religious freedom, which were 
cultivated together, no matter what the calling in life. 
And it is not too much to say that in the rigid spirit of 
utility and the high sense of responsibility of the early 
fathers, we have the seed from which has germinated, 
over this broad land, the personal independence of char- 
acter, the inventive genius, the subjection to law, and 
the matchless energy, which have made us equal in 
power to the older nations of the world, which have 
also given us an individual national character-stamped 
us as Americans-notwithstanding that we represent 
all the nationalities of Europe; which have developed 
a national mental hygeine which reduces and conforms 
the cosmopolitan ideas of the vast and constant drift to 
our shores, to the national standard, which prevents 
anything antagonistic to the fundamental principles of 
the government from taking root, and which assimilates 
and harmonizes all the seeming antagonisms to the 
genius and spirit of the constitution, the moment they 
are subjected to its dominating idea, "government of 
the people, by the people, for the people." 
I might properly allude to the great influence exerted 
on the national mind by such men as Franklin, Rush, 
William Penn, Robert Morris, Richard Henry Lee, 
John Jay, the Adamses, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, 
and others, if there were time; but such influence, 
however special and potent, was, after all, only the pro- 
jection and happy presentation of principles which, 32 
when thoroughly impressed, acted on the mind of the 
people in moulding national thought. The work of 
these men was done through the reason and judgment, 
and not by popular display and glamour, and it was 
abiding. Economics and population, education, states- 
manship, finance, constitutional law, Political Economy 
in all its wide bearings, received from them the most 
earnest and profound discussion. However great their 
attention to religion, they did not confound it with 
state morals; but, on the one hand, they maintained 
Christianity and the highest responsibility to God, and, 
on the other, they sought to work out, under laws, the 
mutual rights and relations of men under their new 
social and political conditions of government. 
Their lives were illustrations of the principles they 
advocated; William Penn exercised a wide and mighty 
influence in securing not only the mutual co-operation 
of savages, but also of classes of men bred in other tra- 
ditions, and in bringing all to the formation of national 
habits and character. Yet he represented no victor 
with temporary plaudits, no sensational or dramatic 
phase of social life or regeneration. His power illus- 
trates what education, aided by elevation of character 
and equilibrium of the intellectual life and passions, 
may do in a man who is controlled by truth and di- 
rected by spiritual light. Wilberforce, in England, 
illustrated the same great influence on national mind. 
He showed how a strong mind, panoplied in its convic- 
tions of universal justice, might gradually undermine 
historic precedents, against all the forces of conservatism 
arrayed in opposition, as well as against the apparent 
interests of the nation. Slavery was then a part of the 
national wealth, but it died through the influence of 
this one peaceful mind, breathing condemnation upon 
it, and this in the very.presence of those whose material 33 
relations to it were of the closest character. Thus a 
whole nation was transformed by a mental revolution, 
wrought solely in the name of universal philanthropy, 
justice, freedom and religion. 
Such are some of the higher triumphs of national 
culture, when it embraces the moral and spiritual ele- 
ments of Christianity. Though this age may be char- 
acterized as one of liberal tendencies of thought, in all 
directions, it has been permeated by the principles of 
Christianity, and to-day there is more respect for relig- 
ious truth, and a firmer belief in the necessity, foi both 
man and nations, of faith in a God, than when the cen- 
tury commenced. When, in the recent French Revolu- 
tion, the Archbishop of Paris, Monsiegneur Darboy, 
was struck down by the Commune, the nation turned 
from the act with horror. Yet the Bishop was only a 
man, and one among the hundreds of noble men who 
thus perished. But he represented Religion, and mil- 
lions of people, alike Protestant and Catholic, con- 
demned the deed as one of infamy, and as a diabolical 
defiance of the very instincts of humanity, as well as of 
the traditional sentiment of Christendom. 
The lesson of mental hygiene, for nations, which we 
learn from all example, is, not that education and 
wealth, nor the refining influences of aesthetic art, will 
suffice for the highest development of national mind, 
but that, if underneath and through all these are not 
interwoven the great truths of moral responsibility to 
the author and upholder of all governments, lifting man 
above the dominion of the baser passions, the nation 
dies as an individual dies; for " unless the Lord built 
the house, they labor in vain who build it." 
In the convention at Philadelphia, in 1787, for form- 
ing a constitution for the United States, after some 
weeks had passed in fruitless debate, a proposition hav- 34 
ing been made for daily prayers, Dr. Franklin rose and 
said: uIn the beginning of the contest with Britain, 
when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers 
in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers were 
heard and graciously answered. All of us who were 
engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent 
instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. 
To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportu- 
nity of consulting in peace on the means of establish- 
ing our future national felicity. And have we forgotten 
this powerful friend; or do we no longer need His 
assistance ? I have lived a long time, and the longer I 
live the more convincing proof 1 see of this truth, that 
God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow 
can not fall to the ground without His notice, is it 
probable that an empire can rise without His aid ? 
We have been assured in the sacred writings that, 
except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain 
that build it. I firmly believe this, and I also believe 
that without His concurring aid we shall succeed no 
better, in this political building, than did the builders 
of Babel."* The motion was carried. 
This illustrates the sentiment and temper of those 
who founded this nation, and may we not say, standing 
where we do, that the influence of this illustrious ex- 
ample has had some share in determining the tone and 
the practice, in that respect, of this renowned Univer- 
sity from its foundation, whose successive Provosts have 
been eminent examples of the essential harmony between 
the different qualities of Faith and Science? These 
latter thoughts have come into my mind since entering 
this hall, while looking round upon the long line of 
Reverend Provosts speaking out from the canvas, and 
then reading over the door of entrance the grand in- 
* Debates on the Constitution. 35 
scription, "In Honorem Dei." An institution, like a 
State, which writes over its portals, " in honor of God," 
can not fail of success and power, before the people, as 
more than a century has here demonstrated. And this 
is my Alma Mater. 
For individuals and communities, the quaint lines of 
Georg-e Herbert, with which I close this Address, are a 
suggestive and pregnant summary:- 
Slight those who say amidst their sickly healths, 
Thou livest by rule. What doth not so but man ? 
Houses are built by rule, and Commonwealths. 
Entice the trusty sun, if that you can, 
From his ecliptic line; beckon the sky. 
Who lives by rule then, keeps good company. 
Who keeps no guard upon himself, is slack, 
And rots to nothing at the next great thaw. 
Man is a shop of rules, a well-trussed pack, 
Whose every parcel underwrites a law. 
Lose not thyself, nor give thy humors way; 
God gave them to thee under lock and key. THE 
AMEKICAN-JOIIRNAL OF INSANITY. 
» 
The American Journal of Insanity is published quarterly, at the 
State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y( The first number of each volume 
is issued in July. • 
Editor, 
JOHN P. GRAY, M. D., LL. D., Medical Superintendent. 
-» 
6 Associate Editors, 
JUDSON B. ANDREWS? M. D., 
WILLIS E. FORD, M. D., I 
ALFRED T. LIVINGSTON, M. D., [ y 
T. F. KENRICK, M. D., J 
THEODORE DEECKE, Special Pathologist. 
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, 
Five Dollars per Annum, in Advance. 
- 
• • 
Exchanges, Books for Review, and Business Communications 
may be sent to the Editor, directed as follows: "Journal of 
Insanity, State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y." 
The Journal is now in its thirty-fourth year. It was established 
by the late Dr. Brigham, the first Superintendent of the New York 
State Lunatic Asylum, and after his death edited by Dr. T. Romeyn 
Beck, author of "Beck's Medical Jurisprudence;" and since 1854, by 
Dr. John P. Gray, and the Medical Staff* of the Asylum. It is the 
oldest journal devoted especially to Insanity, its Treatment, Juris- 
prudence, &c., and is particularly valuable to the medical and legal 
professions, and to all interested in the subject of Insanity and Psy- 
chological Science