yet a long way
off.

A large portion of this assembly consists of those whose business it is
to study Human Nature in all its various forms, and who have taken upon
themselves the task of developing that nature in the youth of America,
in that rising generation whose duty it will be to carry out the nascent
projects of reform in every department of human interest, and make the
thought of to-day the fact of tomorrow.

Some doubtless there are among this number, who by very nature are born
Teachers, called to this office, as by a voice from heaven! Men, who in
spite of foolish detraction, or yet more foolish patronage, understand
the dignity, the true nobility of their calling; who know that the
office of the teacher is coeval with the world; and also feel with true
prophetic foresight, that the world, fifty years hence, will be very
much what its Teachers intend, by God's blessing, to make it.

Brothers in a high calling! The speaker, proudly enrolling himself in
the number of your noble band, greets you from his heart this day, and
invites you to spend a thoughtful hour with him; and to help him, by
your best wishes, to unfold in a manner not wholly unworthy of his
theme, some small portion of the nature and method of Human Development.

Ours is the age of analysis. We begin to see that before we can
understand a substance, it is necessary to become acquainted with all
its component parts. Thus, then, with regard to Human Nature, we must
understand all at least of its grand divisions, before we can comprehend
the method of developing it as a whole.

Let us then say, that there are five grand divisions in Human
Nature,--the physical, the intellectual, the affectional, the moral, and
the devotional,--or in other words, that man has body, mind, heart,
conscience, and soul.

Concerning these great divisions, I shall assert, _first_, that they are
all mutually dependent upon each other; that if one of them suffer, all
the others suffer with it; that man is dwarfed and incomplete, unless he
is fully developed in all the five: and, _secondly_, as my special
subject, I maintain that physical well-being, health of body, is
therefore necessary not only to the complete development of Human
Nature, but that it is also essential to a happy and harmonious
development of each one of the four other great divisions of Human
Nature; or in other words, I assert the body has something to do both
with the mind, heart, conscience, an