for ladies to be talked of: but we really think those 57 has, she is driven out of them by diameter and derision. stands, aims only at embellishing a few years of life, which are in themselves so full of grace and happiness, The system of female education, as it now Their exemption from all the necessary business of existence a miserable prey to idle insignificance. No that they hardly want it; and then leaves the rest of life is one of the most powerful motives for the im- woman of understanding and reflection can possibly provement of education in women. Lawyers and conceive she is doing justice to her children by such physicians have in their professions a constant motive kind of education. to exertion; if you neglect their education, they must in a certain degree educate themselves by their com- habits that time will ameliorate, not destroy,-occuresources that will endure as long as life endures,The object is, to give to children merce with the world: they must learn caution, ac-pations that will render sickness tolerable, solitude suracy, and judgment, because they must incur re- pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, sponsibility. But if you neglect to educate the mind and therefore death less terrible: and the compensaof a woman, by the speculative difficulties which tion which is offered for the ommission of all this, is a occur in literature, it can never be educated at all: if short-lived blaze,—a little temporary effect, which has you do not effectually rouse it by education, it must no other consequence than to deprive the remainder remain for ever languid. Uneducated men may escape of life of all taste and relish. There may be women intellectual degradation; uneducated women cannot. They have nothing to do; and if they come untaught decided talent for drawing, or for music. who have a taste for the fine arts, and who evince a from the schools of education, they will never be in- case, there can be no objection to the cultivation of structed in the school of events. In that Women have not their livelihood to gain by know-grand and universal object,-to insist upon it that these arts; but the error is, to make such things the ledge; and that is one motive for relaxing all those every woman is to sing, and draw, and dance-with efforts which are made in the education of inen. They nature, or against nature,-to bind her apprentice to certainly have not; but they have happiness to gain, some accomplishment, and if she cannot succeed in to which knowledge leads as probably as it does to oil or water-colours, to prefer gilding, varnishing, bur profit; and that is a reason against mistaken indul- nishing, box-making,to real solid improvement in taste, gence. Besides, we conceive the labour and fatigue knowledge, and understanding. of accomplishments to be quite equal to the labour and fatigue of knowledge; and that it takes quite as many years to be charming as it does to be learned. Another difference of the sexes is, that women are attended to, and men attend and politeness originate from the one sex, and are All acts of courtesy received by the other. We can see no sort of reason, in this diversity of condition, for giving to women a trifling and insignificant education; but we see in it a very powerful reason for strengthening their judgment, and inspiring them with the habit of employing time usefully. We admit many striking differences in the situation of the two sexes, and many striking differences of understanding, proceeding from the dif ferent circumstances in which they are placed: but there is not a single difference of this kind which does not afford a new argument for making the education of women better than it is. They have nothing serious to do is that a reason why they should be brought up to do nothing but what is trifling? They are exposed to great dangers ;-is that a reason why their faculties are to be purposely and industriously weakened? They are to form the characters of future men;-is that a cause why their own characters are to be broken and frittered down as they now are? In short, there is not a single trait in that diversity of circumstances, in which the two sexes are placed, that does not decidedly prove the magnitude of the error we commit in neglecting (as we do neglect) the edu cation of women. of the fine arts. Music gives pleasure to others. A great deal is said in favour of the social nature Drawing is an art, the amusement of which does not centre in him who exercises it, but is diffused among thing, after all, so social as a cultivated mind. We the rest of the world. This is true; but there is nodo not mean to speak slightingly of the fine arts, or sometimes exhibited; but we appeal to any man, whe to depreciate the good humour with which they are ther a little spirited and sensible conversation-dis. playing, modestly, useful acquirements and evincing rational curiosity, is not well worth the highest exertions of musical or graphical skill. accomplishments may entertain those who have the pleasure of knowing her for half an hour with A woman of great brilliancy; but a mind full of ideas, and with that elastic spring which the love of knowledge only can convey, is a perpetual source of exhilaration and amusement to all that come within its reach ;—not collecting its force into single and insulated achieve. ments, like the effort made in the fine arts-but diffusing, equally over the whole of existence, a calm pleasure-better loved as it is longer felt-and suitable to every variety and every period of life. Therefore, instead of hanging the understanding of a woman upon walls, or hearing it vibrate upon strings,-instead of seeing it in clouds, or hearing it in the wind, society, by enriching it with attainments upon which we would make it the first spring and ornament of alone such power depends. If the objections against the better education of women could be overruled, one of the great advantages cation of men would be improved also. Let any one If the education of women were improved, the edu that would ensue would be the extinction of innumera- consider (in order to bring the matter more home by ble follies. A decided and prevailing taste for one or another mode of education there must be. an individual instance) of what immense importance past, it was for housewifery-now it is for accomplish- tune and distinction is well or ill brought up-what A century to society it is, whether a nobleman of first-rate forments. The object now is, to make women artists, a taste and fashion he may inspire for private and for to give them an excellence in drawing, music, paint-political vice !—and what misery and mischief he may ing, and dancing,-of which, persons who make these produce to the thousand human beings who are de pursuits the occupation of their lives, and derive from pendent on him! them their subsistence, need not be ashamed. Now, within its bosom. Youth, wealth, high rank, and one great evil of all this is, that it does not last. If vice, form a combination which baffles all remon A country contains no such curse the whole of life were an Olympic game, if we could strance and beats down all opposition. A man of high go on feasting and dancing to the end,-this might do; rank who combines these qualifications for corruption, but it is in truth merely a provision for the little inter- is almost the master of the manners of the age, and val between coming into life, and settling in it; while has the public happiness within his grasp. it leaves a long and dreary expanse behind, devoid most beautiful possession which a country can have both of dignity and cheerfulness. No mother, no wo- is a noble and rich man, who loves virtue and know. man who has passed over the few first years of life, ledge-who without being feeble or fanatical is pious sings, or dances, or draws, or plays upon musical in--and who without being factious is firm and inde struments! These are merely means for displaying pendent-who, in his political life, is an equitable the grace and vivacity of youth, which every woman mediator between king and people; and, in his civil gives up, as she gives up the dress and the manners life, a firm promoter of all which can shed a lustre eighteen; she has no wish to retain them; or, if she upon his country, or promote the peace and order of D2 But the the world. But if these objects are of the importance | perils which make it necessary that such talents The burthen of proof does not lie which we attribute to them, the education of women should be totally extinguished, or, at most, very par must be important, as the formation of character for tially drawn out. the first seven or eight years of life seems to depend with those who say, increase the quantity of talent in It is certainly in the any country as much as possible-for such a proposi almost entirely upon them. power of a sensible and well-educated mother to in- tion is in conformity with every man's feelings: but spire within that period, such tastes and propensities it lies with those who say, take care to keep that unas shall nearly decide the destiny of the future man; derstanding weak and trifling, which nature has made and this is done, not only by the intentional exertions capable of becoming strong and powerful. The para of the mother, but by the gradual and insensible imi- dox is with them, not with us. In all human reasonBut now, nature makes to us tation of the child; for there is something extremely ing, knowledge must be taken for a good, till it can contagious in greatness and rectitude of thinking, even be shown to be an evil. at that age; and the character of the mother with rich and magnificent presents; and we say to herwhom he passes his early infancy, is always an event You are too luxuriant and munificent-we must keep of the utmost importance to the child. A merely ac- you under, and prune you-we have talents enough complished woman cannot infuse her tastes into the in the other half of the creation ;-and, if you will not minds of her sons; and, if she could, nothing could stupefy and enfeeble the mind of women to our hands, be more unfortunate than her success. Besides, when we ourselves must expose them to a narcotic process, her accomplishments are given up, she has nothing and educate away that fatal redundance with which left for it but to amuse herself in the best way she the world is afflicted, and the order of sublunary things can; and, becoming entirely frivolous, either declines deranged. One of the greatest pleasures of life is conversation; altogether the fatigues of attending to her children, or, attending to them, has neither talents nor know--and the pleasures of conversation are of course enledge to succeed; and therefore, here is a plain and hanced by every increase of knowledge: not that we fair answer to those who ask so triumphantly, why should meet together to talk of alkalis and angles, or should a woman dedicate herself to this branch of to add to our stock of history and philology-though knowledge? or why should she be attached to such a little of these things is no bad ingredient in converscience?-Because, by having gained information on sation; but let the subject be what it may, there is these points, she may inspire her son with valuable always a prodigious difference between the conversa tastes, which may abide by him through life, and car- tion of those who have been well educated and of ry him up to all the sublimities of knowledge;-be- those who have not enjoyed this advantage. Educa cause she cannot lay the foundation of a great charac- tion gives fecundity of thought, copiousness of illuster, if she is absorbed in frivolous amusements, nor tration, quickness, vigour, fancy, words, images, and inspire her child with noble desires, when a long illustrations;-it decorates every common thing, and course of trifling has destroyed the little talents which gives the power of trifling without being undignified and absurd. The subjects themselves may not be were left by a bad education. wanted upon which the talents of an educated man have been exercised; but there is always a demand for those talents which his education has rendered strong and quick. Now, really, nothing can be further from our intention than to say any thing rude and unpleasant; but we must be excused for observing that it is not now a very common thing to be interested by the variety and extent of female knowledge, but it is a very common thing to lament that the finest faculties in the world have been confined to trifles utterly unworthy of their richness and their strength. It is of great importance to a country, that there should be as many understandings as possible actively employed within it. Mankind are much happier for the discovery of barometers, thermometers, steam-engines, and all the innumerable inventions in the arts and sciences. We are every day and every hour reaping the benefit of such talent and ingenuity. The same observation is true of such works as those of Dryden, Pope, Milton, and Shakspeare. Mankind are much happier that such individuals have lived and written; they add every day to the stock of public enjoyment-and perpetually gladden and embellish The pursuit of knowledge is the most innocent and life. Now, the number of those who exercise their understandings to any good purpose, is exactly in interesting occupation which can be given to the proportion to those who exercise it at all; but, as the female sex; nor can there be a better method of checkmatter stands at present, half the talent in the uni- ing a spirit of dissipation than by diffusing a taste for Give to women, in verse runs to waste, and is totally unprofitable. It literature. The way to attack vice, is by setting would have been almost as well for the world, hither-up something else against it. verance in future life-teach them that happiness is to be derived from the acquisition of knowledge, as well as the gratification of vanity: and you will raise up a much more formidable barrier against dissi pation than an host of exhortations and invectives can supply. to, that women, instead of possessing the capacities early youth, something to acquire, of sufficient inthey do at present, should have been born wholly terest and importance to command the application of destitute of wit, genius, and every other attribute of their mature faculties, and to excite their persemind, of which men make so eminent an use: and the ideas of use and possession are so united together, that, because it has been the custom in almost all countries to give to women a different and a worse education than to men, the notion has obtained that they do not possess faculties which they do not cultiIt sometimes happens that an unfortunate man gets vate. Just as, in breaking up a common, it is sometimes very difficult to make the poor believe it will drunk with very bad wine,-not to gratify his palate, carry corn, merely because they have been hitherto but to forget his cares: he does not set any value on accustomed to see it produce nothing but weeds and what he receives, but on account of what it excludes: grass-they very naturally mistake present condition it keeps out something worse than itself. Now, for general nature. So completely have the talents though it were denied that the acquisition of serious of women been kept down, that there is scarcely a knowledge is of itself important to a woman, still it single work, either of reason or imagination, written prevents a taste for silly and pernicious works of ima by a woman, which is in general circulation either in gination; it keeps away the horrid trash of novels; the English, French, or Italian literature;-scarcely and, in lieu of that eagerness for emotion and adven one that has crept even into the ranks of our minor ture which books of that sort inspire, promotes a calm and steady temperament of mind. poets. If the possession of excellent talents is not a conclusive reason why they should be improved, it at least amounts to a very strong presumption; and, if it can be shown that women may be trained to reason and imagine as well as man, the strongest reasons are certainly necessary to show us why we should not avail ourselves of such rich gifts of nature; and we have a right to call for the clear statement of those A man who deserves such a piece of good fortune, may generally find an excellent companion for all the vicissitudes of life; but it is not so easy to find a com panion for his understanding, who has similar pursuits with himself, or who can comprehend the pleasure he derives from them. We really see no reason why it should not be otherwise; nor comprehend how the pleasures of domestic life can be promoted by dimi aishing the number of subjects in which persons who | provision; and the gentleness and elegance of women are to spend their lives together take a common in terest. One of the most agreeable consequences of knowledge is the respect and importance which it communicates to old age. Men rise in character often as they increase in years;-they are venerable from what they have acquired, and pleasing from what they can impart. If they outlive their faculties, the mere frame itself is respected for what it once contained; but women (such is their unfortunate style of education) hazard every thing upon one cast of the die ;when youth is gone, all is gone. No human creature gives his admiration for nothing: either the eye must be charmed, or the understanding gratified. A woman must talk wisely or look well. Every human being must put up with the coldest civility, who has neither the charms of youth nor the wisdom of age. Neither is there the slightest commiseration for decayed accomplishments;-no man mourns over the fragments of a dancer, or drops a tear on the relics of musical skill. They are flowers destined to perish; but the decay of great talents is always the subject of solemu pity; and, even when their last memorial is over, their ruins and vestiges are regarded with pious affection. is the natural consequence of that desire to please, which is productive of the greatest part of civilization and refinement, and which rests upon a foundation too deep to be shaken by any such modifications in education as we have proposed. If you educate women to attend to dignified and important subjects, you are multiplying, beyond measure, the chances of human improvement, by preparing and medicating those early impressions, which always come from the mother; and which, in a great majority of instances, are quite decisive of character and genius. Nor is it only in the business of education that women would influence the destiny of men. If women know more, men must learn more-for ignorance would then be shameful-and it would become the fashion to be instructed. The instruction of women improves the stock of national talents, and employs more minds for the instruction and amusement of the world;-it increases the pleasures of society, by multiplying the topics upon which the two sexes take a common interest; and makes marriage an intercourse of understanding as well as of affection, by giving dignity and importance to the female character. The education of women favours public morals; it provides for every season of life, as well as for the brightest and the best; and leaves a woman when she is stricken by the hand of time, not as she now is, destitute of every thing, and neglected by all; but with the full power and the splendid attractions of knowledge,-diffusing the ele gant pleasures of polite literature, and receiving the just homage of learned and accomplished men. Remarks on the System of Education in Public Schools. 8vo. Hatchard. London, 1809. THERE is a set of well-dressed, prosperous gentlemen who assemble daily at Mr. Hatchard's shop;clean, civil personages, well in with people in power, There is no connection between the ignorance in which women are kept, and the preservation of moral and religious principle; and yet certainly there is, in the minds of some timid and respectable persons, a vague, indefinite dread of knowledge, as if it were capable of producing these effects. It might almost be supposed, from the dread which the propagation of knowledge has excited, that there was some great secret which was to be kept in impenetrable obscurity, -that all moral rules were a species of delusion and PUBLIC SCHOOLS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1810.) imposture, the detection of which, by the improve. ment of the understanding, would be attended with the most fatal consequences to all, and particularly to women. If we could possibly understand what these great secrets were, we might perhaps be disposed to concur in their preservation; but believing that all the salutary rules which are imposed on women are delighted with every existing institution-and althe result of true wisdom, and productive of the most with every existing circumstance :-and, every greatest happiness, we cannot understand how they now and then, one of these personages writes a little are to become less sensible of this truth in proportion book;-and the rest praise that little book-expecting as their power of discovering truth in general is in- to be praised, in their turn, for their own little books: creased, and the habit of viewing questions with ac--and of these little books, thus written by these clean, curacy and comprehension established by education. civil personages, so expecting to be praised, the There are men, indeed, who are always exclaiming pamphlet before us appears to be one. against every species of power, because it is connect- The subject of it is the advantage of public schools; ed with danger: their dread of abuses is so much and the author, very creditably to himself, ridicules stronger than their admiration of uses, that they the absurd clamour, first set on foot by Dr. Rennel, would cheerfully give up the use of fire, gunpowder, of the irreligious tendency of public schools: he then and printing, to be freed from robbers, incendiaries, and libels. It is true, that every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application. But, trust to the natural love of good where there is no temptation to be bad-it operates nowhere more forcibly than in education. No man, whether he be tutor, guardian, or friend, ever contents himself with infusing the mere ability to acquire; but giving the power, he gives with it a taste for the wise and rational exercise of that power; so that an educated person is not only one with stronger and better faculties than others, but with a more useful propensity-a disposition better cultivated-and associations of a higher and more important class. proceeds to an investigation of the effects which public schools may produce upon the moral character; and here the subject becomes more difficult, and the pamphlet worse. In arguing any large or general question, it is of infinite importance to attend to the first feelings which the mention of the topic has a tendency to excite; and the name of a public school brings with it immediately the idea of brilliant classical attainments; but, upon the importance of these studies, we are not now offer. ing any opinion. The only points for consideration are, whether boys are put in the way of becoming good and wise men by these schools; and whether they actually gather there those attainments which it pleases mankind, for the time being, to consider as valuable, and to decorate by the name of learning. In short, and to recapitulate the main points upon By a public school, we mean any endowed place of which we have insisted-Why the disproportion in education, of old standing, to which the sons of genknowledge between the two sexes should be so great, tlemen resort in considerable numbers, and where when the inequality in natural talents is so small; or they continue to reside, from eight or nine, to eighteen why the understanding of women should be lavished years of age. We do not give this as a definition upon trifles, when nature has made it capable of high- which would have satisfied Porphyry or Duns-Scotus, er and better things, we profess ourselves not able to but as one sufficiently accurate for our purpose. The understand. The affectation charged upon female characteristic features of these schools are, their anknowledge is best cured by making that knowledge tiquity, the numbers, and the ages of the young people more general: and the economy devolved upon women who are educated at them. We beg leave, however, is best secured by the ruin, disgrace, and inconveni- to premise, that we have not the slightest intention of ence which proceeds from neglecting it. For the care insinuating any thing to the disparagement of the of children. nature has made a direct and powerful present discipline or present rulers of these schools, as compared with other times and other men: we have no reason whatever to doubt that they are as ably govered at this as they have been at any preceding period. Whatever objections we may have to these institutions, they are to faults, not depending on present administration, but upon original con struction.* conciliation towards others, and that anxiety for self improvement, which result from the natural modesty of youth. Nor is this conceit very easily and speedily gotten rid of ;-we have seen (if we mistake not) public school importance lasting through the half of arter life, strutting in lawn, swelling in ermine, and dis playing itself, both ridiculously and offensively, in the haunts and business of bearded men. At a public school (for such is the system established by immemorial custom), every boy is alter- There is a manliness in the athletic exercises of nately tyrant and slave. The power which the elder public schools which is as seductive to the imaginapart of these communities exercises over the younger tion as it is utterly unimportant in itself. Of what is exceedingly great-very difficult to be controlled-importance is it in after life whether a boy can play and accompanied, not unfrequently, with cruelty and well or ill at cricket; or row a boat with the skill and caprice. It is the common law of the place, that the precision of a waterman? If our young lords and young should be implicitly obedient to the elder boys; esquires were hereafter to wrestle together in public, and this obedience resembles more the submission of or the gentlemen of the Bar to exhibit Olympic games a slave to his master, or of a sailor to his captain, in Hilary Term, the glory attached to these exercises than the common and natural deference which would at public schools would be rational and important. always be shown by one boy to another a few years But of what use is the body of an athlete, when we older than himself. Now, this system we cannot have good laws over our heads, or when a pistol, a help considering as an evil,-because it inflicts upon post chaise, or a porter, can be hired for a few shilboys, for two or three years of their lives, many pain- lings? A gentleman does nothing but ride or walk; ful hardships, and much unpleasant servitude. These and yet such a ridiculous stress is laid upon the mansufferings might perhaps be of some use in military liness of the exercises customary at public schoolsschools; but, to give to a boy the habit of enduring exercises in which the greatest blockheads commonly privations to which he will never again be called upon excel the most-which often render habits of idleness to submit-to inure him to pains which he will never inveterate-and often lead to foolish expense and dis. again feel-and to subject him to the privation of com- sipation at a more advanced period of life. forts with which he will always in future abound-is surely not a very useful and valuable severity in education. It is not the life in miniature which he is to lead hereafter-nor does it bear any relation to it :he will never again be subjected to so much insolence and caprice; nor ever, in all human probability, called upon to make so many sacrifices. The servile obedience which it teaches might be useful to a menial domestic; or the habits of enterprise which it encourages prove of importance to a military partisan; but we cannot see what bearing it has upon the calm, regular, civil life, which the sons of gentlemen, destined to opulent idleness, or to any of the three learned professions, are destined to lead. Such a system makes many boys very miserable; and produces those bad effects upon the temper and disposition, which unjust suffering always does produce; but what good it does we are much at a loss to conceive. Reasonable obedience is extremely useful in forming the disposition. Submission to tyranny lays the foundation of hatred, suspicion, cunning, and a variety of odious passions. We are convinced that these young people will turn out to be the best men, who have been guarded most effectually in their childhood, from every species of useless vexation; and experienced, in the greatest degree, the blessings of a wise and rational indulgence. But even if these effects upon future character are not produced, still four or five years in childhood make a very considerable period of human existence; and it is by no means a trifling consideration whether they are passed happily or unhappily. The wretchedness of school tyranny is trifling enough to a man who only contemplates it in ease of body and tranquillity of mind, through the medium of twenty intervening years; but it is quite as real, and quite as acute, while it lasts, as any of the sufferings of mature life and the utility of these sufferings, or the price paid in compensation for them, should be clearly made out to a conscientious parent before he consents to expose his children to them. This system also gives to the elder boys an absurd and pernicious opinion of their own importance, which is often with difficulty effaced by a considerable commerce with the world. The head of a public school is generally a very conceited young man, utterly ignorant of his own dimensions, and losing all that habit of * A public school is thought to be the best cure for the insolence of youthful aristocracy. This insolence, however, is not a little increased by the homage of masters, and would soon meet with its natural check in the world. There can be no occasion to bring five hundred boys together to teach a young nobleman that proper demeanor which he would learn so much better from the first English gentleman whom he might think proper to insult. One of the supposed advantages of a public school is the greater knowledge of the world which a boy is considered to derive from those situations; but if, by a knowledge of the world, is meant a knowledge of the forms and manners which are found to be the most pleasing and useful in the world, a boy from a public school is almost always extremely deficient in these particulars; and his sister, who has remained at home at the apron-strings of her mother, is very much his superior in the science of manners. It is probably true, that a boy at a public school has made more observations on human character, because he has had more opportunities of observing than have been enjoyed by young persons educated either at home or at private schools: but this little advance gained at a public school is so soon overtaken at college or in the world, that, to have made it, is of the least possible consequence, and utterly undeserving of any risk incurred in the acquisition. Is it any injury to a man of thirty or thirty-five years of age-to a learned ser jeant or venerable dean—that at eighteen they did not know so much of the world as some other boys of the same standing? They have probably escaped the arrogant character so often attendant upon this trifling superiority; nor is there much chance that they have ever fallen into the common and youthful error of mistaking a premature initiation into vice for a knowledge of the ways of mankind; and, in addition to these salutary exemptions, a winter in London brings it all to a level; and offers to every novice the ad vantages which are supposed to be derived from this precocity of confidence and polish. According to the general prejudice in favour of pub lic schools, it would be thought quite as absurd and superflous to enumerate the illustrious characters who have been bred at our three great seminaries of this description, as it would be to descant upon the illustrious characters who have passsed in and out of London over our three great bridges. Almost eve ry conspicuous person is supposed to have been educated at public schools; and there are scarcely any means (as it is imagined) of making an actual comparison; and yet, great as the rage is, and leng has been, for public schools, it is very remark able, that the most eminent men in every art and science have not been educated at public schools; and this is true, even if we include, in the term of public schools, not only Eton, Winchester, and Westminster, but the Charter-House, St. Paul's School, Merchant Tailors', Rugby, and every school in England, at all conducted upon the plan of the three first. The great schools of Scotland we do not call public schools; be cause, in these, the mixture of domestic life gives to them a widely different character. Spenser, Pope, 61 did, and to lavish care upon those who would almost thrive without any care at all. almost as idle, and the dull almost as dull, as it found this effectually; but it commonly leaves the idle A public school does them. It disdains the tedious cultivation of those human beings are possessed. When a strong desire middling talents of which only the great mass of of improvement exists, it is encouraged, but no pains are taken to inspire it. or six hundred other boys, and is left to form his own character;-if his love of knowledge survives this A boy is cast in among five severe trial, it, in general, carries him very far: and, upon the same principle, a savage, who grows up to manhood, is, in general, well made, and free from all bodily defects; not because the severities of such a state are favourable to animal life, but because they are so much the reverse, that none but the strongest and a few incorrigibly eager for knowledge; but the can survive them. A few boys are incorrigibly idle great mass are in a state of doubt and fluctuation, and they come to school for the express purpose, not of being left to themselves-for that could be done any where-but that their wavering tastes and pro pensities should be decided by the intervention of a master. elms, the trees are left to themselves; the strong In a forest, or public school for oaks and plants live, and the weak ones die: the towering oak that remains is admired; the saplings that perish around it are cast into the flames and forgotten. But it is not surely to the vegetable struggle of a forest, or the hasty glance of a forester, that a botanist would commit a favourite plant; he would naturally seek for it a situation of less hazard, and a cultivator whose limited occupations would enable him to give to it a reasonable share of his time and attention. The very meaning of education seems to us to be, that the old should teach the young, and the wise direct the weak; that a man who professes to instruct, should get among his pupils, study their characters, gain their affections, and form their inclinations and aversions. In a public school, the numbers render this impossible; it is impossible that sufficient time should be found for this useful and affectionate interference. Boys, therefore, are left to their own crude conceptions and ill-formed propensities; and this neglect is called a spirited and manly education. Shakspeare, Butler, Rochester, Spratt, Parnell, Garth, Congreve, Gay, Swift, Thompson, Shenstone, Akenside, Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Sir Philip Sydney, Savage, Arbuthnot, and Burns, among the poets, were not edicated in the system of English schools. Newton, Miclaurin, Wallis, Hamstead, Saunderson, Sir Isaac Simpson, and Napier, among men of science, were not educated at public schools. The three best historians that the English language has produced, Clarendon, Hume, and Robertson, were not educated at public schools. Public schools have done little in England for the fine arts-as in the examples of Inigo Jones, Vanbrugh, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Garrick, &c. The great medical writer and discoverers in Great Britain, Harvey, Cheselden, Hunter, Jenner, Meade, Brown, and Cullen, were not educated at public schools. Of the great writers on morals and metaphysics, it was not the system of public schools which produced Bacon, Shaftesbury, Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hume, Hartley, or Dugald Stewart. The greatest discoverers in chemistry have not been brought up at public schools-we mean Dr. Priestley, Dr. Black, and Mr. Davy. The only Englishmen who have evinced a remarkable genius, in modern times, for the art of war, the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Peterborough, General Wolfe, and Lord Clive, were all trained in private schools. So were Lord Coke, Sir Matthew Hale, and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, and Chief Justice Holt, among the lawyers. So also, among statesmen, were Lord Burleigh, Walsingham, the Earl of Strafford, Thurloe, Cromwell, Hampden, Lord Clarendon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sydney, Russel, Sir W. Temple, Lord Somers, Burke, Sheridan, Pitt. In addition to this list, we must not forget the name, of such eminent scholars and men of letters, as Cudworth, Chillingworth, Tillotson, Archbishop King, Selden, Conyers, Middleton, Bentley, Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, Bishops Sherlock and Wilkins, Jeremy Taylor, Isaac Hooker, Bishops Usher, Stillingfleet, and Spelman, Dr. Samuel Clarke, Bishop Hoadley, and Dr. Lardner. Nor must it be forgotten, in this examination, that none of the conspicious writers upon political economy which this country has as yet produced, have been brought up in public schools. If it be urged that public schools have only assumed their present character within this last century, or half century, and that what are now called public schools partook, before this period, of the nature of private schools, there must then be added to our lists the names of Milton, Dryden, Addison, &c. &c. and it will follow, that the English have done almost all that they have done in the arts and sciences, without the aid of that system of education to which every person, before he comes to man's estate, must It is contended by the friends to public schools, that they are now so much attached. Ample as this cata-run through a certain career of dissipation; and if logue of celebrated names already is, it would be easy to double it; yet, as it stands, it is obviously sufficient to show that great eminence may be attained in any line of fame without the aid of public schools. Some more striking inferences might perhaps be drawn from it; but we content ourselves with the simple fact. The most important peculiarity in the constitution of a public school is its numbers, which are so great, that a close inspection of the master into the studies and conduct of each individual is quite impossible. We must be allowed to doubt, whether such an arrangement is favourable either to literature or morals. Upon this system, a boy is left almost entirely to himself, to impress upon his own mind, as well as he can, the distant advantages of knowledge, and to withstand, from his own innate resolution, the examples and the seductions of idleness. A firm character survives this brave neglect; and very exalted talents may sometimes remedy it by subsequent diligence: but schools are not made for a few youths of pre-eminent talents, and strong characters; such prizes can, of course, be drawn but by a very few parents. The best school is that which is best accommodated to the greatest variety of characters, and which embraces the greatest number of cases. object of education to render the splendid more splenIt cannot be the main think public schools favourable to the cultivation of In by far the greatest number of cases, we cannot knowledge; and we have equally strong doubts if they that, upon this point, the most striking arguments be so to the cultivation of morals, though we admit, have been produced in their favour. that career is, by the means of a private education, deferred to a more advanced period of life, it will only be begun with more eagerness, and pursued into more blameable excess. when every man must be his own master; when his conduct can be no longer regulated by the watchful The time must, of course, come own discretion. Emancipation must come at last; superintendence of another, but must be guided by his and we admit, that the object to be aimed at is, that such emancipation should be gradual, and not premature. Upon this very invidious point of the discus. sion, we rather wish to avoid offering any opinion. time to time; and what may have been true many The manners of great schools vary considerably from years ago, is very possibly not true at the present period. In this instance, every parent must be governed by his own observations and means of informais only a fair increase of liberty, proportionate to adtion. If the license which prevails at public schools vancing age, and calculated to prevent the bad effects of a sudden transition from tutelary thraldom to perfect self-government, it is certainly a good rather than an evil. If, on the contrary, there exists in these places of education a system of premature debauchery, and if they only prevent men from being corrupted by the world, they can then only be looked upon as evils the world, by corrupting them before their entry into |