Which clogs the noble and aspiring soul, 1040 LET EDUCATION. ET holy discipline clear the soil, let sacred instruction sow it with the best of seed; let skill and vigilance dress the rising shoots, direct the young idea how to spread; the wayward passions how to move. Then what a different state of the inner man will quickly take place! Charity will breathe her sweets, and hope expand her blossoms; the personal virtues display their graces, and the social ones their fruits: the sentiments become generous; the carriage endearing; and the life honorable and useful. Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, Posterity wisely regulates the rewards due to men of learning, and equals them to the greatest princes: Three thousand years after their death, their honor is not tarnished by that of the greatest heroes. Homer is as well known as Achilles. The able historian, the famous poet, the great-the pious and ingenious philosopher have an advantage over the conqueror and the general. Twenty centuries after they are dead and rotten they speak with as much eloquence and vivacity as when living; and all that read their writings perceive their genius. The heroes who have rendered themselves famous by their actions have not near such an ascendant over our hearts; for he, at one and the same instant, persuades, engages, and captivates the heart of one man shut up in his closet at Stockholm, and of another that lives in the middle of Paris, London, &c. &c. Heroes are infinitely obliged to poets and historians, but the latter are seldom obliged to the former. Achilles owes part of his glory to Homer. If there had been no historians, it scarce would have been known that there ever was such a man as Alexander, &c. &c. &c. Education is the ruling motive in most of the actions of mankind; they are more or less cultivated in their youth. When they have been taught early to render themselves sociable, to bend their tempers and to accommodate their wills to those of others', it grows into a custom, and they become insensibly complaisant, without thinking of being 50. In short, habit is to them a second nature, We should justly consider religion as the most essential necessary qualification; at the same time children should be fitted for an appearance becoming their station in the world. Many are apt to disjoin the ideas of piety and politeness; but true religion is not only consistent with, but necessary to the perfection of true politeness. The end of learning is to know God, and, in consequence of that knowledge, to love him, and to imitate him, as we may the nearer, by possessing ourselves of virtue." What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul. The philosopher, the saint, the herp, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lie hid and concealed in a plebian; which a proper education might have disinterred, and brought to light. The educator's care should be, above all things, to lay in his charge the foundation of religion and virtue. Parents are more careful to bestow wit on their children, than virtue; the art of speaking well, rather than doing well; but their morals ought to be their greatest concern. An industrious and virtuous education of children is a better inheritance for them than a great estate. To what purpose is it, said Crates, to heap up estates, and have no care what kind of heirs they leave them to? The highest learning is to be wise, and the greatest wisdom to be good. The great business of man is, to improve his mind, and govern his manners. Excess of ceremony shews want of breeding. That civility is best, which excludes all superfluous formality. True philosophy, says Plato, consists more in fidelity, constancy, justice, sincerity, and in the love of our duty, than in a great capacity. If our painful perigrinations in studies be destitute of the supreme light, it is nothing else but a miserable kind of wandering. The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may turn to thinking the better. Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science. Poetry is inspirationit was breathed into the soul when it was first quickened, and should neither be stiled art nor science, but genius. Great men are always reserved and modest, and being content with meriting praise, do not endeavor to court it; and for this they are the more praise-worthy, because if vanity is pardonable, it is in the man who deserves those shining compliments, which are so becoming to many learned men. "Tis said, that Racine was a whole year in composing his tragedy of Phædra, the master-piece of the theatre, and before he committed it to the stage, consulted his friends a long time, corrected several passages by their advice, and waited for the success of his performance be fore he would presume to pronounce it a good one. Prado wrote the same in a month's time; gave it out boldly to be acted, and assured the public it was an excellent piece. But it happened to him as it often does to all half-witted authors; his works quickly went to the chandlers' shops, whereas Racine's will reach to the latest posterity. Great talents, such as honor, virtue, learning, and parts, are above the generality of the world, who neither possess them themselves, nor judge of them rightly in others: But all people are judges of the lesser talents, such as civility, affability, and an obliging, agreeable address and manner: Because they feel the good effects of them, as making society easy and pleasing. Almost all the advantages or miscarriages of our lives depend, in a great measure, on our education. Therefore it is greatly the duty of all who have in any way the inspection of this important affair, by every means possible, to win young minds to improvement; to the end that good parts may not take an evil turn, nor indifferent ones be lost for want of industrious cultivation. Education, when it works upon an ingen ious mind, brings out to view every latent perfection; which without such helps are never able to make their appearance. And, if we take the trouble to look round, we shall find very few, to whom nature has been such a |