THE UNIVERSITY COURIER.
3
common sense, that it is extremely injurious to that country to have such a class of people within her boundaries.
Now we come to the consideration of the much mooted question—Has the country the right to prohibit Chinese immigration? It seems to me, we might just as well ask: Has the country the right to protect her interests? I think I have shown quite clearly that the presence of the Chinese is detrimental to the interests of the country, and if we acknowledge that the Government has the right to look after her interests, it seems to me that we are bound to acknowledge that the right to prohibit the immigration of a people whose presence is injurious to the country. Those who argue the other side of the question, hold that such a measure would be incompatible with the Constitution of the United States; that it would be unjust to prevent any one class of people from immigrating to our country while permitting and even encouraging immigration from other classes.
Whatever tends to injure the interests of the people of a country should undoubtedly be prohibited by legislation. All governments reserve this right—the right of self protection. Acknowledging this principle, we can come to no other conclusion than, since Chinese immigration is detrimental to the interests of our country, the Government should take steps to suppress it. F.R.
THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND.
The human mind is that living, vital, active principle in man that perceives, resolves, remembers, reasons, loves, hopes, fears, desires, compares and aspires after immortality. It is that faculty that raises man above the brute creation, and places him among the higher order of intelligences and allies him to the angelic and divine. It is immortal in its nature, and is full of undying thoughts and sublime conceptions. It can resist the power and progress of time, and bid defiance to decay, and dart through space and span the Universe and scatter around it, in living and breathing creations, the ample evidences of its divinity. It can throw its richness into the arts, 'till rapture shall stand still to gaze upon it. It can embody into marble all the fervor and intensity of passion, and all the sublimity of its emotion. It can infuse into language an eloquence that can move and melt and charm the heart of the world. It grasps things past and links them with the present, and, by the light of the past and the experience of the present, looks into the future with joyous hope and earnest expectation.
But what advantages are to be derived from the improvement of this faculty? Much every way. An improved mind forms the basis of all true honor and felicity. Not the lustre of a noble birth, not the influence of wealth, not the pomp of titles, not the splendors of power can give dignity to the mind that is destitute of improvement. By this faculty we may claim relationship with angels, and be made to rise higher and higher forever in the scale of being. Such, indeed, is the inherent worth of the improvement of this faculty, that it has always been represented under the most pleasing images. It has been compared to light, that most valuable and reviving part of nature, and to that glorious luminary which is the most beautiful and transporting object our eyes behold. It is also of great importance to our personal and private happiness, as it furnishes us with a pleasure that cannot be met with, or derived from the possession of inferior enjoyments. It furnishes us with a fine entertainment, which adds a relish and a
pleasure to prosperity, and cheers, consoles and alleviates adversity. It throws a lustre upon greatness and reflects an honor upon poverty, causing its possessor, whether he be the monarch upon his throne, or the humble and lowly day laborer, to stand as the crowning work of his creator. It also instructs us how to employ our different talents for the benefit of mankind. It makes us capable of advising others, and hence, we become the lights of the world and are enabled to diffuse those beneficent beams around us which shall shine on benighted travelers and point out to them the pathway of ree- titude and bliss. It also tends to destroy bigotry and intolerant enthusiasm. To its enlightening and purifying influence we are indebted for all we have and all we enjoy of literature and the sciences, religious freedom and toleration.
Before the reformation, for many centuries, the iron hand of bigotry and into'erance had gradually extinguished the lamp of intelligence. Science received a deadly blow. Liberty of thought and conscience was bound hand and foot. Gross darkness and ignorance took possession of the minds of the people, and the glorious light of knowledge, human and divine, was obscured by worse than Egyptian darkness. But through the instrumentality of such men as Luther, Zuinglius, and Melancthon, taking in their hands the source of all wisdom, the foundation of all knowledge, the means of all purity, the standard of all freedom (the Bible), to which we are indebted for the refinement and general cultivation of the understandings of men, the shackles of ignorance were broken in pieces.
It also points out to us all the branches of science, that are intended to bless and adorn our existence, and we are enabled to contemplate, with wonder and delight, "those beautiful arches that rise so immensely high, and stretch so immeasurably wide; that stupendous amphitheatre, amidst whose expansive circuit, orbs of the most dreadful grandeur are perpetually running their amazing races; to those unfathomable depths, where worlds unnumbered float, and, to our unlimited sight, worlds unnumbered are lost."
There is a great and glorious future opening for the improvement of the mind. No stone is left unturned, no art left unimproved, that will afford facilities for condensing and compressing, into a narrow compass, all the themes of observation and all the subjects of investigation, that they may be readily comprehended in a few years.
The improvement of this faculty, also, fits us for the enjoyment of each other's society. Man is created a social being. He loves to associate and mingle with his kind, exchange thoughts, and reciprocate feelings, the experience of each improving the mind and directing the reflections of the other. But can the mind of the one that is cultivated derive pleasure and satisfaction from one that is not? Not at all. Then he seeks his equal, and in interchange of views and discussion of topics with which both may be familiar, there is great pleasure and enjoyment.
Among the many means of improving the mind, are those of experience, observation and conversation; the last, but not least, is that of careful and systematical reading; reading only such works as will add to our stock of knowledge and cause us to grow in intellectual strength, and by means of which we may become conversant with nearly all the branches of learning, that tend to elevate and ennoble our race, that will also be to us a source of profit as well as pleasure, and a blessing to all with whom we may come in contact. G. T. S.