the ignorance of the mafter be not fufficient, the child is generally configned to the ufher. This is generally fome poor needy animal, little fuperior to a footman either in learning or fpirit, invited to his place by an advertisement, and kept there merely from his being of a complying difpofition, and making the children fond of him. "You give your "child to be educated to a flave," fays a philofopher to a rich man; "instead of one flave, you will 66 then have two.

It were well however if parents upon fixing their children in one of these houfes, would examine the abilities of the ufher as well as of the mafter; for, whatever they are told to the contrary, the. ufher is generally the perfon moft employed in their education. If then a gentleman, upon putting out his fon to one of thefe houfes, fees the ufher difregarded by the mafter, he may depend upon it, that he is equally difregarded by the boys; the truth is, in fpite of all their endeavours to please, they are generally the laughing ftock of the school. Every trick is played upon the ufher; the oddity of his manners, his drefs, or his language, is a fund of eternal ridicule; the mafter himself now and then cannot avoid joining in the laugh, and the poor wretch, eternally refenting this ill ufage, feems to live in a state of war with all the family. This is a very proper perfon, is it not, to give children a relish for learning? They muft efteem learning very much, when they fee its profeffors ufed with fuch ceremony. If the uther be despised, the father may be affured his child will never be properly instructed.

But let me fuppofe, that there are fome schools without thefe inconveniencies, where the mafter and ufhers are men of learning, reputation, and affiduity. If there are to be found fuch, they cannot be prized in a ftate fufficiently. A boy will learn more true

wisdom in a public school in a year, than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, youth learn a knowledge of the world; the little tricks they play each other, the punishment that frequently attends the commiffion, is a juft picture of the great world, and all the waysof men are practifed in a public school in miniature. It is true, a child is early made acquainted with fome vices in a school, but it is better to know these when a boy, than be firft taught them when a man, for their novelty then may have irrefiftible charms.

In a public education boys early learn temperance; and if the parents and friends would give them less money upon their usual visits, it would be much to their advantage, fince it may juftly be faid, that a great part of their diforders arife from furfeit, plus occidit gula quam gladius. And now I am come to the article of health, it may not be amifs to obferve, that Mr. Locke and fome others have advised that children fhould be inured to cold, to fatigue and hardfhip from their youth; but Mr. Locke was but an indifferent phyfician. Habit, I grant, has great influence over our conftitutions, but we have not precife ideas upon this fubject.

We know that among favages and even among our peasants there are found children born with fuch conftitutions, that they crofs rivers by fwimming, endure cold, thirft, hunger, and want of fleep to a furprizing degree; that when they happen to fall fick, they are cured without the help of medicine by nature alone. Such examples are adduced to perfuade us to imitate their manner of education, and accuftom ourselves betimes to fupport the fame fatigues. But had thefe gentlemen confidered. first, that those favages and peafants are generally not fo long-lived as they who have led a more indolent life: Secondly, that the more laborious the life

is, the lefs populous is the country. Had they confidered, that what phyficians call the ftamina vita, by fatigue and labour become rigid, and thus anticipate old age. That the number, who furvive those rude trials, bears no proportion to those who die in the experiment. Had thefe things been properly confidered, they would not have thus extolled an education begun in fatigue and hardships. Peter the Great, willing to enure the children of his feamen to a life of hardship, ordered that they fhould drink only fea water, but they unfortunately all died under the experiment.

But while I would exclude all unneceffary labours, yet ftill I would recommend temperance in the higheft degree. No luxurious dishes with high-feafoning, nothing given children to force an appetite, as little fugared or falted provifions as poffible, though never fo pleafing; but milk, morning and night, fhould be their conftant food. This diet would make them more healthy than any of those flops that are usually cooked by the mistress of a boarding school; befides, it corrects any confumptive habits, not unfrequently found amongst the children of city parents.

As boys fhould be educated with temperance, fo the first greatest leffon that should be taught them is, to admire frugality. It is by the exercife of this virtue alone, they can ever expect to be useful members of fociety. It is true, lectures continually repeated upon this fubject may make fome boys when they grow up, run into an extreme, and become mifers; but it were well, had we more mifers than we have among us. I know few characters more ufeful in fociety, for a man's having a larger or fmaller fhare of money lying ufelefs by him, no way injures the common wealth; fince, fhould every mifer now exhauft his ftores, this might make gold VOL. IV.

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more plenty, but it would not increase the commodities or pleasures of life; they would ftill remain as they are at prefent; it matters not therefore, whether men are mifers or not, if they be only frugal, laborious, and fill the station they have chofen. If they deny themselves the neceffaries of life, fociety is no way injured by their folly.

Inftead therefore of romances, which praife young men of fpirit, who go through a variety of adventures, and at laft conclude a life of diffipation, folly, and extravagance in riches and matrimony, there fhould be fome men of wit employed to compofe books that might equally intereft the paffions of our youth, where fuch an one might be praised for having refifted allurements when young, and how he at laft became lord mayor; how he was married to a lady of great fenfe, fortune, and beauty: to be as explicit as poffible, the old ftory of Whittington, were his cat left out, might be more ferviceable to the tender mind, than either Tom Jones, Jofeph Andrews, or an hundred others, where frugality is the only good quality the hero is not poffeffed of. Were our school-mafters, if any of them had sense enough to draw up fuch a work, thus employed, it would be much more ferviceable to their pupils, than all the grammars and dictionaries they may publish these ten years.

Children fhould early be inftructed in the arts from which they would afterwards draw the greatest advantages. When the wonders of nature are never expofed to our view, we have no great defire to become acquainted with thofe parts of learning which pretend to account for the phænomena. One of the ancients complains, that as foon as young men have left school, and are obliged to converfe in the world, they fancy themselves tranfported into a new region. Ut cum in forum venerint exiftiment se in aliam terrarum orbem

orbem delatos. We fhould early therefore inftruct them in the experiments, if I may fo exprefs it, of knowledge, and leave to maturer age the accounting for the causes. But instead of that, when boys begin natural philofophy in colleges, they have not the leaft curiofity for those parts of the science which are proposed for their inftruction; they have never before feen the phænomena, and confequently have no curiofity to learn the reafons. Might natural philofophy therefore be made their pastime in school, by this means it would in college become their amusement.

In feveral of the machines now in ufe there would be ample field both for inftruction and amusement; the different forts of the phosphorus, the artificial pyrites, magnetifm, electricity, the experiments upon the rarefaction and weight of the air, and those upon elastic bodies, might employ their idle hours, and none should be called from play to fee fuch experiments but fuch as thought proper. At first then it would be fufficient if the inftruments, and the effects of their combination were only fhewn ; the caufes fhould be deferred to a maturer age, or to those times when natural curiofity prompts us to discover the wonders of nature. Man is placed in this world as a spectator; when he is tired with wondering at all the novelties about him, and not till then, does he defire to be made acquainted with the causes that create those wonders.

What I have obferved with regard to natural philofophy, I would extend to every other science whatsoever. We fhould teach them as many of the facts as were poffible, and defer the caufes until they seemed of themselves defirous of knowing them. A mind thus leaving fchool ftored with all the fimple experiences of fcience, would be the fittest in the world for the college courfe; and though fuch a youth

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