are assailed but if we are thus ready to be infected with folly and vice, even at any age, surely little argument will be necessary, to show the propriety of confining children from those scenes in which this infection may be so readily caught. Whoever examines the state of public schools, with careful and candid attention, even those under the most virtuous, judicious, and assiduous teachers, will soon find reason to acknowledge, that the en.pire of vice is there established not less fully than in the world abroad. Nothing, therefore, can be more negligent, more inhuman, than for parents to expose their children to those seductions which a great public school presents, at a time too, when they are particularly disposed to imitate any example set before them, and have not yet learned to distinguish between such examples as are worthy of imitation, and those which ought to be beheld with abhorrence. Even while under the parent's eye, from intercourse with servants and visitors, the native innocence of children may be considerably impaired still the parent's care will be much more likely to preserve the manners of his child uncorrupted in his own house, than all the assiduity and watchfulness of teachers in a public school.

The morals and dispositions of a child, ought to be the first objects of concern, in conducting his education; his initiation into the principles of knowledge, is but a secondary object; and it is natural to suppose, that in a private system of education, both those great purposes may be more readily and securely attained, than in a public. Thus in fact it happens: when one or two boys are intrusted to the care of a judicious tutor, he can watch for, and seize the most favorable seasons for communicating instruction; he can awake curiosity, and command attention, by the gentle arts of insinuation: though he strive not to inflame their breasts with emulation, which often leads to envy and hatred; yet he will succeed in rendering know

ledge

ledge pleasing, by other means, less likely to produce unfavorable effects on the temper and dispositions of his pu pils. As his attention is not divided among a great number, he can pay more regard to the particular dispositions and turn of mind of each of his pupils: he can encourage the slow, and repress the quick and volatile; he can call forth their powers, by leading them, at one time, to view the face of nature, and the changes she undergoes through the succession of seasons; at another, he calls them to attend to entertaining experiments in natural philosophy, or artfully allures them to perform their literary exercises; with these he may mix some active games, and he may assume so much of the fondness of a parent, as to join in them with his little pupils. These are certainly circumstances favorable to both the happiness and the literary improvement of youth but they are peculiar to a private education. Besides, as in a private education, children spend much more time in the company of grown people, than in a public; those who receive a domestic education, sooner acquire our manner of thinking, of expressing ourselves, and of behaving, in our ordinary intercourse with one another. For the very same reason for which girls are often observed to be capable of prudence and propriety of behaviour, at an carlier age than boys, those boys who are educated at home, will sooner begin to think and act like men, than those who pass their first years in a public seminary. Although the boy be brought up at home, it is not necessary that he should be more accustomed to domineer over his inferiors, or to indulge a capricious and inhumane disposition, than if he had been educated among fifty or a hundred boys, all his fellows in age, size, and rank. He may also, in a private education, exercise his limbs with the same activity as in public: he cannot, indeed, engage in those sports, for which a number of companions is necessary: but still there are a thousand objects which call forth his activity: if in

the

the country, he will be disposed to fish, to climb for birds'nests, to imitate all he sees done by labourers and mechanics; in short, he will run, leap, throw stones, and keenly exert himself in a variety of exercises, which will produce the best advantages on the powers of both his body and his mind. It is true that, by opposing the designs of nature in the boy, you may effectually repress his natural activity, and cause him to pine away his time in listless indolence; but in this you will do violence to his dispositions, as well as to those instincts which nature has planted in his breast: the bad consequences, however, resulting from this management, are not to be considered as the proper effects of a domestic education, but of an education carelessly or imprudently conducted.

There is yet another consideration, which will perhaps be more likely than any of those hitherto urged, to prevail in favour of a private education. As the infant who is abandoned by its mother to the care of a hireling nurse, naturally transfers its affection from the parent to the person who supplies her place and performs her duties; so the boy who is banished from a parent's house, at a time when he has scarcely begun to understand the relation in which he stands to his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, soon ceases to regard them with that fondness he had contracted for them, from living intheir company and receiving kind offices. His respect, his affection, and his kindness, are bestowed on new objects, on his master and his companions; or else his heart, for want of suitable objects, becomes selfish and destitute of every tender and generous feeling and when the gentle and amiable affections of filial and fraternal love are thus, as it were, torn up by the roots, every evil passion springs up, with rapid growth, to supply their place in his bosom. When the boy returns to his father's house, it is no home to him; there he is a stranger, and is no longer capable of regarding his parents and relations,

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F

tions with the same tenderness of affection. He is unacquainted with that filial love which rises in the breast of a child, constantly sensible of the tender care of his parents, and which appears rather the effect of instinct than of habit. Selfish views are now the only bond connecting the youth with his parents and relations; and by thus falling under the influence of such views in early life, he runs the hazard of being ever incapable of all the most amiable virtues of his nature. Such are the arguments commonly adduced in behalf of a private and domestic education:-But let us listen to what has been advanced by the partizans of a public system of tuition. It has been asserted, that a public education is the most favourable to the pupil's improvement in knowledge, and the most likely to inspire him with an ardour for learning. In private, with whatever assiduity and tenderness you labour to render learning agreeable to your pupil, still it will be but an irksome task: you may confine him to his books but for a short space in the course of the day, and allow him regular changes of study and recreation; but you will never be able to render his books the favourite object of his attention; he will apply to them with reluctance, and careless indifference; even while he seems engaged on his lesson his mind will be otherwise occupied if the period during which you require his application be short, during the first part of it he will be thinking of the amusements he has left, and regretting his confinement, during the last, he will fondly anticipate the moment when he is to return to his sports. Again, if his

the effects are

attendance is required for a longer period, still more unfavourable: peevishness, dulness, and a determined aversion to all that bears the name of learning, will naturally be impressed on his tender mind. Nor can it well be otherwise; for books possess so few of the qualities which recommend any object to the attention of children, that they cannot be naturally agreeable to them: they have

nothing

nothing to gratify the eye, the ear, or any of the senses; they present things with which children are unacquainted, and of which they know not the value. Children cannot look beyond the letters and words to the things these represent; and even if they could do this, it is much more plea. sing to view objects and scenes as they exist originally in nature, than to trace their images in a faint and imperfect representation. It is in vain, therefore, to hope that children will be prevailed on to give attention to books, by means of any allurements which books alone can present; other means must be used; but such means, in a private system of education, cannot be commanded. In a public seminary, on the other hand, the situations of pupils and masters are widely different. When a number of boys meet together in the same school, they soon begin to feel the impulse of a principle which enables the master to command their attention without difficulty, and prompts them to apply, with cheerful ardour, to tasks which would otherwise be extremely irksome. This principle is a generous emulation, animating the breast with the desire of superior excellence, without inspiring envy or hatred of a competitor. When children are properly managed in a great school, it is impossible for them not to feel this impulse; it renders their tasks scarcely less agreeable than their amusements, and directs their natural activity and cu riosity to proper objects. Behold a scholar at a public school, composing his theme, or turning over his dictionary: how alert! how cheerful! how indefatigable! He applies with all the eagerness, and all the perseverence of a candidate for one of the most honorable places in the Temple of Fame. On the other hand, view and pity the poor youth who is confined to his chamber, with no companion but his tutor, none whose superiority can provoke his emulation, or whose inferiority might flatter him with thoughts of his own excellence, and so move him to