of condemnation upon his own child, which, in the style of the courts, would run as follows:

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"My son, you are now to receive that dreadful "sentence which the laws of pride, fashion, and cus"tom, direct me in my parental capacity to pro<< nounce upon you. The crime of which you stand "convicted by an attentive and impartial jury is "that of being born to a great estate, with a slender portion of abilities. For this crime, which your country has considered as worthy of the severest punishment, you are to suffer in the manner I am 66 now to declare to you. You are to be taken from "this place to a public school, where as much as possible of crude Greek and Latin is to be forced "into your head, to the entire exclusion of all those "subjects which your capacity might embrace and "turn to advantage. Every morning, fasting, you "are to be publicly whipped in part of your sen"tence, and this punishment will be continued through ten long years. After this, instead of sending you to hard labour for a term of three years at college, you will there pass three years of "compulsory idleness; during which time, all that "cast of pursuits will be shut out from your view, "which might provoke in you some laudable attempts to become useful, by harmonising with the "colour of your mind. In this desperation you are "to be driven into courses, for want of better em<< ployment, which must terminate in the wreck of your constitution, and the total ruin of those dor"mant capacities, which, if once called forth, might "render you valuable to others, and happy in your"self. Thus your case will be put beyond all hope "of redemption in this world. While you are in

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"this state of punishment, you will be branded by "certain marks of ridicule called Degrees, in receiv ing which you are to be led with a hood about your neck to a stage, or rostrum, where you are to "be publicly put to the question. When this part "of your sentence shall be completed, you will be transported to the Continent, where every day a "slow poison will be administered to you, called "philosophy by some, and infidelity by others. "The laws which dictate this terrible sentence have 66 decreed, that, for a crime so flagrant, it is not enough that your body be sacrificed; your mind "is to be the principal object of the pains and pe"nalties enacted. You will carry this about with "you in anaked, lacerated, miserable state, through "all the great cities of Europe, till it is brought "back, at the end of two years, to be starved to death "in the midst of unavailing abundance. When debauchery has done that for your body which edu"cation has done for your mind, you shall be carried "to Stationer's-Hall, as the statute directs, and dis"sected for the public in a sixpenny magazine, and “the L―d have mercy upon your sinful soul!"

It is not with the common modes of education, but with the application of those modes, that I declare myself at hostility. For a youth whose mind shows any bias towards literary and philosophical objects, and faculties equal to the pursuit, our ordi. nary plans and institutions may be tolerably calculated. Though I am persuaded that at an early age nothing is to be obtained at school, comparatively with that which parental example and precept can effect at home: yet I am willing to allow that the opportunities, the leisure, the tranquillity, the ab

straction, and the emulation of an university career are excellently adapted to encourage growing ta lents, and to rivet the application of real genius. Yet these same characteristics of a college education are eminently ruinous to minds of another cast; and where there are not powers of thinking for the full employment of leisure and abstraction, there is no safety or resource but in a perpetual round of suitable occupation. The expanse and the depth of the waters which compose a lake preserve it in a pure and pellucid state; but the little rivulet must be constantly running, to save itself from corruption, and to maintain its colour and salubrity.

The same remark will apply to what is called finishing the education by travel. It applies indeed with greater propriety and force, inasmuch as this part of education has a more decisive influence on the habits and principles. There is in some minds a propensity to draw inferences from every occurrence in life, and to start fresh matter for contemplation at every step they proceed: for such as have minds of this make and quality, a plan of education would be very imperfect that did not include the advantages of foreign travel. To a youth so qualified, it is fruitful in the most important lessons of life: it generalises his views, and enlarges his comprehension, in respect to all the concerns and objects of humanity. In that greater scale in which he contemplates man, he rises to a better judgement on his comparative excellences and defects.

Moreover, by a survey of those different characters and complexions under whole classes and descriptions, which a narrower range would only suffer him to contemplate in the detail and among individuals, his understanding becomes stored with general

maxims, and fortified with general rules; he is thus enabled to consider man in the abstract, and independently of particular associations or prejudices, till his thoughts mount gradually to that true philosophical elevation which fits us for great situations, for wide connections, and for illustrious distinctions, among the rest of our species.

But where we see in a youth no spontaneous essays of thought and observation, no tendency towards enlargement, no principle of growth, nothing that binds, that builds, that accumulates, nothing that buckles to the objects which are presented before it, we have no way of doing him a more fatal injustice, no better way of condemning him to perpetual sterility, and of barring out every solace and every resource, no better way of damning his hopes, his peace, and his principles, than that of sending him abroad into a vortex of dissipation and infidelity, where he can only acquire some little grimace, or some little talent to disguise mischief or decorate inanity, in exchange for whatever manliness, virtue, or reverence, the earlier lessons of his life may have taught him.

If there were really no other mode of filling up the years between eighteen and twenty-one, of a youth of ordinary capacity, it were better, methinks could it be done, to set him to sleep for this interval of his existence, and let it be a blank rather than a blot in the catalogue of his life. I must own too it appears to me something like robbing our country, and betraying its interests, to send abroad such an useful class of manufacturers, who, in their proper departments at home, in those departments for which nature so manifestly designed them, might have rendered a service to mankind, and a particular

benefit to the land in which they were born. I have just room to introduce a letter, received about five years ago by a gentleman in our neighbourhood from his son on his travels It was exultingly shown to me, as a proof of vivacity and observation, by the sagacious parent.

"We are at last arrived at the town of Geneva. T'ent half so fine a place as London, for all it is abroad. How we got here the Lord knows; for you never see such a sight of mountains and rivers in your life. We get tolerable good eating here, but never was nothing like the living all the way through France: I thought I should have been starved-and so I should, I believe, in good earnest, if Parson Jones had not fried us a homlet, as they call it, every night. How you would have laughed to have seen them all a jabbering French! and even the children that play in the streets talk it as fast as sister's governess. I keep a regular journal of all I see, and have got down upon paper the market-days of every town, the number of miles from one place to another, the names of all the principal countryseats and their owners, with the rivers that runs by them, and all that. I think they beat us out and out in religion; their churches are as fine you can't think! but then we beat them in malt liquor and boots. I went into one of their churches the other day, and I think their service is much prettier than ours. I here found what it was to have been at a Lattin school; for every now and then I caught a word as I know'd, though they thought I did not, I'll warrant 'em. The monks, as they call 'em, are very comical in their dress, and look some'at like