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foundation for complaining, lies and inventions will be called in; for youth have very little principle. They will be listened to by the fond parent. The number of them will increase, upon their meeting encouragement. The edu cation of the child, and his very morals, will in this manner be hurt, if not ruined.-This is not theory; but experienced and notorious fact. The weakness of parents in this respect does, indeed, exceed belief. And unhappily, the best people are often most given to this weakness, having minds the most susceptible of tenderness and affection, and of the most easy credulity. This weakness appears in all shapes, and produces all kinds of bad effects. It is the case of parents overlooking the most dangerous and fatal turns of mind in their children, till the season of correcting them be past; of indulging them in the very things they ought to be restrained in; of their hating those who endeavour to open their eyes to the faults of their children; of listening to their groundless complaints against their masters; of restraining and hampering them in the discharge of their duty to their children; and of ungratefully imputing to the master's want of care the failure of their children's improvement in what nature has denied them capacities for; at the same time, that they know other youths have made proper improvements under the same care; and cannot with any colour of reason suppose a prudent master so much his own enemy, as to neglect one pupil, and use diligence with another.

SECTION III.

Process of Education from four Years of Age, to the fir ishing of the Puerile Studies and Exercises.

FROM the age of four to six, a healthy child of good capacity may learn to read English distinctly according to the spelling and points. The propriety of emphasis and cadence must not be expected at so early an age. Within this period likewise, he may be introduced into the ru diments of Latin, and may learn to decline by memory a set of examples of all the declinable parts of speech.

If I did not think some knowledge in the Latin language absolutely necessary to any person, whose station raises

him above the rank of a working mechanic, I should not recommend it. Notwithstanding what has been said by many against the necessity of any knowledge of Latin, I must own, I cannot see that an English education can be begun upon any other foundation. Without grammar, there can be no regular education. And the grammar of one language might as well be learnt as another, the science being in the main the same in all. It is very well known, that most of the European languages are more Latin than any thing else. And what more thorough method is there of letting a person into the spirit of a language, than by making him early acquainted with the original roots, from whence it is derived? As great part of the Latin arises from the Greek, some judicious persons have thought it best to begin with that language.

Upon the whole, one would think, no parent should wish his son brought up in so defective a manner, as to be at a stand at a Latin phrase in an English book, or a saying of an ancient author mentioned in conversation, which must be very often met with by any man who reads at all, or keeps company above the very lowest ranks of life.

From the age of six to eight, his reading may be continued and improved, his principles of Latin reviewed from time to time, and he may be employed in reading such easy books as Corderius, and some of Erasmus' Colloquies with an English Translation.

About this age likewise, children may be taught to read a little French, a language which no gentleman, or man of business can be without. After they have gone through Boyer's Grammar and learned by memory a set of examples of verbs regular and irregular, and common phrases, they may read a little collection lately published, called, Recueil des auteus Francois, printed at Edinburgh. Les avantures de Gil Blas, Le diable boiteux, Les avantures de Telemaque, Les comedies de Moliere, and Les tragedies de Racine, are proper books for youth to read for their improvement in French. They must likewise practise translating into French, and speaking the language. From eight to twelve years of age, they may be employed in the same manner, and may besides be introduced to such Latin authors as Justin, Cornelius Nepos, Eutropius, Phædrus, and the like. There is likewise a pretty

collection lately published, entitled, Selecta Latina Sermonis Exemplaria, &c. very proper for the lower classes. Qvid is an author usually put into the hands of youth about this age. But for my part, I do not think any thing of his, besides his Fasti, at all fit for the young and unprincipled mind. His obscenities and indecencies will, I hope, be readily given up. And the bulk of his other writings are either overstrained witticisms, bombastic rants, or improbable and monstrous fictions; none of which seem proper for laying a good foundation in the young mind for raising a superstructure of true taste; rational goodness; and a steady love of truth...

From twelve years of age to sixteen or eighteen, that is, to the finishing of the education, properly so called; for a wise man never finishes his inquiries and improvements till life itself be finished; in the beginning of this period, I say besides carrying on and improving the above, youth ought (and not much before according to my judgment) to be entered into writing, and soon after into arithmetic, and then to read a little of the elements of geometry. Writing requires some degree of strength of muscle, and of sight; and numbers and the elements of geometry, some ripeness of judgment, which are not to be found in the generality of youth before twelve years of age.

The neglecting too long the first principles of geometry, and the knowledge of numbers, is found in experi ence to be very prejudicial; as a person, whose mind comes once to be full of various ideas, and eager after different pursuits, as those of most people are by sixteen oreighteen, can hardly by any means bring himself to apply to any new branch of knowledge, of which he has not had, in the young and tractable years of life, some principles. Mathematics, to one who has had no tincture of that sort of knowledge infused into his mind in youth, will be a mere terra incognita; and therefore too disagreeable and irksome to be ever pursued by him with any considerable success. The case is by experience found to be the same with respect to languages, and every other complex or extensive branch of knowledge; which gave occasion to the great Mr. Locke to observe, that "the taking a taste of every sort of knowledge is necessary to form the

mind, and is the only way to give the understanding its due improvement to the full extent of its capacity."

*Books proper for learning the elements of geometry, some think Pardie's an easy introduction. Simpson's geometry is a very elegant compend. But Cunn's or Simpson's Euclid is the best book for a young beginner. Of the higher parts of mathematics I shall speak afterwards.

About the age of twelve it will be proper for a youth to enter on the Greek language. From the small Westminster Grammar (which is as good as any) he may go on to read the New Testament, and from thence to sundry Col lections, and Isocrates, or Demosthenes, Plato, and Homer.

I know no occasion a youth can have to be obliged to get any thing by memory in learned or foreign languages, except the declensions of a set of examples, a few phrases, and rules of construction, which last may be learned in English. The memory may be, to much greater advantage, furnished with what may be of real use in life, than with crabbed grammar rules, or with heaps of Latin or Greek verse. As to making Latin or Greek themes or verses, I would as soon have a son of mine taught to dance. on a rope. But of this enough.

From the Latin authors above-mentioned, a youth of parts, may, about fourteen and fifteen, and onwards, be advanced to Virgil, Salust, Terence, Livy, Tully, with select parts of Horace (for many parts of that author ought not to be in print,) and so on to Tacitus, Juvenal, and Persius.

One of the best school books extant is a small collec. tion lately published, printed for L. Hawes, in Paternoster-Row which I could wish enlarged to the extent of a volume or two more, collected with equal judgment. It is entitled, Selectæ ex profanis scriptoribus historia. This may be read by youth from ten years of age and upwards; and would be very proper to make translations from, for improving them at once in orthography, in writ ing, in stile, and sentiment. If they were to speak such versions, corrected by the master, by way of orations, before their parents, I should think the end of improving

The Books now used in our Colleges and other seminaries of learning in the various branches of science, are so changed since the time of Burgh, that we propose saying something of them at the end of the volume.-Publisher.

their elocution and giving them courage to speak in public, might be thereby much better attained, than by their being taught either to act plays in a dead language, or to rant in a theatrical manner English tragedies. To speak a grave speech with proper grace and dignity may be of use in real life. The rant of the stage can never be used off the stage. And practising it in youth has often produced very bad effects.

I know no necessity for a youth's going through every classic author he reads. There are parts in all books less entertaining than others. And perhaps it might have a good effect to leave off some times where the pupil shows a desire to go on, rather than fully satiate his curiosity.

When youth come to read Horace, Livy, and such authors, they may be supposed capable of entering a little into the critical beauties of the ancients, and of writing in general. It will be of great consequence, that they be early put in the right way of thinking with respect to the real merit of the ancients, their excellencies, which may properly be imitated, their faults to be avoided, and deficiencies to be supplied. Of which more fully afterwards.

Pope's Essay on Criticism, may with success be commented upon. From which, as it takes in the principal rules laid down and observations made by the writers before him, as well as his own, may be drawn a general view of the requisites for a well written piece. The principles of this knowledge, early planted in the mind, would be of great use in leading people to form their taste by some clear and certain rules drawn from nature and reason, which might prevent their praising and blaming in the wrong place; their mistaking noisy bombast for the true sublime; a stile holding forth more than is expressed, for the dull and unanimated; bigness, for greatness; whining for the pathetic; bullying for the heroic; oddity for terror; the barbarous for the tragical; farce for comedy; quaint conceit, pert scurrility, or affected cant, for true wit; and so forth. The beauty and advantage of method; the force of expression suited to the thought; the causes of perspicuity or confusion, in a writer, the peculiar delicacy in the turn of a phrase; the importance or insignificancy of a thought, the aptness of a simile; the music of a cadence in prose, and measure in verse; the liveliness of

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