Freedom of thought

 

 

 "To train the student to power of thought and utterance, let him be left, and still more, encouraged to free investigation. Without this a theological institution becomes a prison to the intellect and a nuisance to the church. The mind grows by free action. Confine it to beaten paths, prescribe to it the results in which all study must end, and you rob it of elasticity and life. It will never spread to its full dimensions. 

  Teach the young person that the instructions of others are designed to quicken, not supersede his own activity; that he has a divine intellect for which he has to answer to God, and that to surrender it to another is to cast the crown from his head, and yield up his noblest birthright.

  Encourage them in all great questions to hear both sides, and to meet fairly the point of every hostile argument. Guard him against tampering with his own mind, against silencing its whispers and objections, that he may enjoy a favorite opinion undisturbed. Do not give him the shadow for the substance of freedom, by telling him to inquire, but prescribing to him the convictions at which he must stop. Better show him honestly his chains than mock the slave with the show of liberty. 

   I know the objection to this course. It puts to hazard, we are told, the religious principles of the young. The objection is not without foundation. The danger is not unreal. But I know of no method of forming a manly intellect or a manly character without danger. Peril is the element in which power is developed. Remove the youth from every hazard, keep him in leading-strings lest he should stray into forbidden paths, surround him with soft down lest he should be injured by a fall, shield him from wind and storms, and you doom him to perpetual infancy. All liberty is perilous. Freedom of will is almost a tremendous gift; but still a free agent, with all his capacity of crime, is infinitely more interesting and noble than the most harmonious and beautiful machine. Freedom is the nurse of intellectual and moral vigor. Better expose the mind to error than rob it of hardihood and individuality. Keep not the destined teacher of mankind from the perilous field where the battle between Truth and Falsehood is fought. Let him grapple with difficulty, sophistry, and error. Truth is a conquest, and no one holds her so fast as he who has won her by conflict." William Ellery Channing.