it may, in this method of education, be improved to the highest pitch; if there is any thing bad, it cannot be long unknown, and may be remedied, if it is remediable; if a child has a bright capacity, there is emulation, honour, and reward, to encourage him to make the best of it; and if his faculties be low, there are proper methods for putting him upon using his utmost diligence; and there is opportunity to give him private assistance at by-hours, to enable him to keep nearly upon a footing with others of his age. In such a place of education, the master has it in his power, by assiduity and diligence, to make the highest improvements upon the youth under his care, both in human and divine knowledge; and, by a tender and affectionate treatment of them, may gain the love, the esteem, and the obedience due to a parent rather than a master. Such a place of education is indeed no way different from another private house, only, that instead of three or four, or half a dozen children, there may be thirty or forty in a family. Instead of an indulgent parent, who might fondle or spoil the youth, there is at the head of such an economy, an impartial and prudent governor, who, not being biassed by paternal weakness, is likely to consult, in the most disinterested manner, their real advantage. Having no other scheme in his head, nor any thing else to engage his thoughts, he is at liberty, which few parents are, to bestow his whole time upon the improvement of the youth under his care. Having no other dependence for raising himself in life, he is likely to apply himself in good earnest to do whatever he can for the advantage of the youth, and his own reputation; as knowing that, though foundations, exhibitions, fellowships, and preferments, will always draw pupils to public schools and universities, it is quite other. wise with a private place of education, which must depend wholly upon real and substantial care and visible improvement of the youth; and that a failure of these must be the ruin of his credit and fortune. And suppose a competent set of duly qualified teachers employed in such a place of education, it is plain, that there is no part of improvement to be had at any kind of school, academy, or university, which may not be taken in, and carried to the utmost length, the pupils are capable of, according to their age and natural parts.

This is indeed, in the main, the great Milton's plan of a place of education to carry youth from grammar quite to the finishing of their studies. In which the very circumstance of a person's being brought up under the same authority from childhood to mature age, is of inestimable advantage. When a child is first put to a silly old woman to learn to read, or rather murder his book, what a number of bad habits does he acquire, all which must afterwards be unlearned? When from thence he is removed to a public, or boarding school, with what contempt does he look back upon his poor old mistress, and how saucily does he talk of her? The case is the same, when he is removed from the school to the university. Then my young master thinks himself a man, finds himself at his own disposal, and resolves to make use of that liberty, which no person ought to be trusted with before years of discretion. And the consequences are generally seen to answer accordingly. But a youth, who has been brought up from childhood to ripe age, under the same person, supposing him properly qualified, acquires in time the af fection and the sense of authority of a son to a parent, rather than of a pupil to a master, than which nothing can more, or so much contribute to his improvement in learning, or to the forming of his manners.

Whether there are not some particulars in the very constitution and plan of certain places of education, that may be said to be fundamentally wrong, I shall leave to better judgments, after setting down a few queries on the subject.

Whether the most perfect knowledge of two dead lan. guages is, to any person whatever, let his views in life be what they will, worth the expense of ten years study, to the exclusion of all other improvements?

Whether, in order to a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, there is any real necessity for learning by rote a number of crabbed grammar rules? And whether the same method which is commonly used in teaching French and Italian, (in which it is notorious that people do actually acquire as great, or rather a greater mastery) would not be as effectual, and incomparably more compendious, for acquiring a sufficient knowledge of Latin or Greek? I mean, only learning to decline nouns and verbs, and a

few rules of construction, and then reading books in the language.

Whether the superfluous time, bestowed in learning grammar rules, would not be much better employed in writing, arithmetic, elements of mathematics, or other improvements of indispensable use in life? especially as it may be farther asked,

Whether the neglect of the first principles of those valuable parts of knowledge, till the more tractable years of youth are past (all for the sake of Latin and Greek,) is not in experience found to be a great and irreparable loss to those who have been educated in that imperfect method? And whether they do not find it extremely hard, if not impossible, in afterlife, to acquire a perfect knowledge of what they were not in early youth sufficiently grounded in?

Whether the time spent in making Latin themes and verses is not wholly thrown away? Whether English people do not commonly acquire a very sufficient knowledge of French and Italian, without ever thinking of making verses in those languages? Whether putting a youth, not yet out of his teens, upon composition of any kind, is at all reasonable? Whether it is not requiring him to produce what, from his unripe age and uninformed judgment, is not to be supposed to be in him, I mean thought? Whether the proper employment of those tender years is not rather planting than reaping? Whether therefore it would not be a more useful exercise to set a youth of fifteen to translate, paraphrase, comment upon, or make abstracts from the productions of masterly hands, than tọ put him upon producing any thing of his own?

Whether any knowledge of the learned languages, besides being qualified to understand the sense, and relish the beauties, of an ancient author, be of any use? and whether the making of themes or verses does at all contribute to that end?

Whether, in a seminary of learning, where some hundreds of youth are together, it is by any human means possible to prevent their corrupting one another, undistinguished and undiscovered? Whether it is by any human means possible to find out the real characters, the laudable or faulty turns of disposition in such a number of youth, or to apply particularly to the correction or en

couragement of each fault or weakness, as they may respectively require?*

It is not to be expected that the business of education should go on to purpose, unless parents resolve to allow a gentleman, properly qualified for the important trust to be reposed in him, such an income as may be sufficient to enable him to carry on his scheme without uneasiness and anxiety, to support proper assistants, and to furnish himself with books, and the other apparatus necessary for the improvement of the youth under his care.

There is no danger of rewarding too well the person whose faithful diligence has, by the divine blessing, made your son a scholar, a virtuous man, and a christian. That the gentlemen who employ, or rather wear themselves out, in the laborious work of the education of youth, do but too generally meet with narrow and ungrateful returns, is evident from this demonstration, that so few of them are seen to reap such fruits of their labours, as are sufficient to put them in easy, much less affluent circumstances, when old age comes upon them, while fiddlers, singers, players, and those who serve at best only to amuse, and often to debauch us, wallow in wealth and luxury.-And yet, without reserve, and without disparagement, be it spoken, there is not a more valuable member of society, than a faithful and able instructor of youth.

Nor is it to be expected that the education of youth should succeed properly, if parents will thwart every measure taken by a prudent master for the advantage of a child, taking him home from time to time, interrupting the course of his studies, and pampering and fondling him in a manner incompatible with the economy of a place of edu

Whoever is in doubt about the subjects of the foregoing queries, may read, for settling his judgment, the following Authors, viz. Hor. Lib. I. Sat. x. upon the absurdity of making verses in a foreign language. Mr. Locke's Treat. of Educat, in various places, particularly page 305, on the absurdity of putting youth upon making themes and verses. Cowley upon that of fatiguing them with a needless heap of grammar rules. To which, add the authorities of Tu naquil Faber, Mr. Clark, Milton, Carew, the Governors of the Princes of the Royal blood of France, Roger Ascham, Esq. Latin preceptor to Queen Elizabeth, and others quoted at large by Mr. Philips, formerly preceptor to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, in his Compendious Method of teaching languages, printed 1750. And if these be not enough to condemn the laborious trifling commonly used in certain places of education, let Mr. Walker, Addison, Pope, and many other able men who have writ on the subject, be consulted.

cation, whereby a child must be led to conclude, that it is an unhappiness to be obliged to be at school; that it is doing him a kindness to fetch him home, to keep him in idleness, to feed him with rich food, and high sauces, and to allow him to drink wine, and, to keep such hours for eating and sleeping as are unsuitable to his age. Did parents but consider, that a child's happiness depends not at all upon his being indulged and pampered; but upon having his mind easy, without hankering after what he does not know, and will never think of, if not put in his head by their improper management of him; and that the more he is humoured in his childish follies, the more wants, and, consequently, the more uneasiness he will have; did parents, I say, consider this, they would not give themselves and their children the trouble they do, only to make both unhappy.

I have heard of a mother, who humoured her son to that pitch of folly, that, upon his taking it into his head, that it would be pretty to ride upon a cold surloin of beef, which was brought to table, she gravely ordered the servant to put a napkin upon it, and set him astride in the dish, that be might have his fancy. And of another, who begged her little daughter's nurse to take care, of all things, that the child should not see the moon, lest she should cry for it.

If parents will, in this manner, make it a point, never, even in the most necessary cases, to oppose the wayward wills of infants, what can they expect, but that peevishness and perverseness should grow upon them to a degree, that must make them unhappy on every occasion, when they meet with proper treatment from more reasonable people? The youth, who, at his father's table, has been used to eat of a variety of dishes every day, than which nothing is more pernicious to any constitution, old or young, will think himself miserable, when he comes to the simple and regulated diet of a boarding school; though this last is much more conducive to health. He, who has been used to do whatever he pleased at home, will think it very grievous to be controuled, when he comes to a place of education. The consequence of which will be, that his complaints will be innumerable, as his imaginary grievances. Where the truth will not seem a sufficient