which they have already learned at their respective homes. It is highly unreasonable to expect, that all these habits should be reformed by a public preceptor. If he had patience, how could he have time for such an undertaking? Those who have never attempted to break a pupil of any one bad habit, have no idea of the degree of patience requisite to success. We once heard an officer of dragoons assert, that he would rather break twenty horses of their bad habits, than one man of his. The proportionate difficulty of teaching boys may be easily calculated. It is sometimes asserted, that the novelty of a school life and the change of situation alter the habits, and form in boys a new character. Habits of eight or nine years standing cannot be instantaneously, perhaps can never be, radically destroyed: they will mix themselves imperceptibly with the new ideas which are planted in their minds; and though these may strike the eye by the rapidity of their growth, the others, which have taken a strong root, will not easily be dispossessed of the soil. In this new character, as it is called, there will, to a discerning eye, appear a strong mixture of the old disposition. The boy who at home lived with his father's servants, and was never taught to love any species of literature, will not acquire a taste for it at school, merely by being compelled to learn his lessons; the boy who at home was suffered to be the little tyrant of a family, will, it is true, be forced to submit to superior strength or superior numbers at school;* but does it improve the temper to practise alternately the habits of a tyrant and a slave? The lesson which experience usually teaches to the temper of a schoolboy, is, that strength, and power, and cunning, will inevitably govern in society as to reason, it is out of the question; it would be hissed or laughed out of the company. With respect to social virtues, they are commonly among schoolboys so much mixed with party spirit, that they mislead even the best dispositions. A boy at home, whose pleasures are all immediately connected with the idea of self, will not feel a sudden enlargement of mind from entering a public school. He will, probably, preserve his selfish character in his new society; or, * See Barne's Essay on Public and Private Education. Man. chester Society. even suppose he catches that of his companions, the progress is not great, in moral education, from selfishness to spirit of party: the one is a despicable, the other a dangerous, principle of action. It has been observed, that what we are when we are twenty, depends on what we were when we were ten years old. What a young man is at college, depends upon what he was at school; and what he is at school, depends upon what he was before he went to school. In his father's house, the first important lessons, those which decide his future abilities and character, must be learned. We have repeated this idea, and placed it in different points of view, in hopes that it will catch and fix the attention. Suppose that parents educated their children well for the first eight or nine years of their lives, and then sent them all to public seminaries; what a difference this must immediately make in public education: the boys would be disposed to improve themselves with all the ardour which the most sanguine preceptor would desire; their tutors would find that there was nothing to be unlearned; no habits of idleness to conquer; no perverse stupidity would provoke them; no capricious contempt of application would appear in pupils of the quickest abilities. The moral education could then be made a part of the preceptor's care, with some hopes of success; the pupils would all have learned the first necessary moral principles and habits; they would, consequently, be all fit companions for each other; in each other's society they would continue to be governed by the same ideas of right and wrong by which they had been governed all their lives; they would not have any new character to learn; they would improve, by mixing with numbers, the social virtues, without learning party spirit; and though they would love their companions, they would not, therefore, combine together to treat their instructers as pedagogues and tyrants. This may be thought an Utopian idea of a school; indeed it is very improbable, that out of the numbers of parents who send their children to large schools, many should suddenly be much moved by any thing that we can say, to persuade them to take serious trouble in their previous instruction. But much may be effected by gradual attempts. Ten well-educated boys, sent to a public seminary at nine or ten years old, would, probably, far surpass their competitors in every respect; they would inspire others with so much emulation, would do their parents and preceptors so much credit, that numbers would eagerly inquire into the causes of their superiority; and these boys would, perhaps, do more good by their example, than by their actual acquirements. We do not mean to promise, that a boy judiciously educated shall appear at ten years old a prodigy of learning; far from it: we should not even estimate his capacity, or the chain of his future progress, by the quantity of knowledge stored in his memory, by the number of Latin lines he has got by rote, by his expertness in repeating the rules of his grammar, by his pointing out a number of places readily in a map, or even by his knowing the latitude and longitude of all the capital cities in Europe; these are all useful articles of knowledge; but they are not the test of a good education. We should rather, if we were to examine a boy of ten years old, for the credit of his parents, produce proofs of his being able to reason accurately, of his quickness in invention, of his habits of industry and application, of his having learned to generalize his ideas, and to apply his observations and his principles if we found that he had learned all or any of these things, we should be in little pain about grammar, or geography, or even Latin; we should be tolerably certain that he would not long remain deficient in any of these; we should know that he would overtake and surpass a competitor who had only been technically taught, as certainly as the giant would overtake the panting dwarf, who might have many miles the start of him in the race. We do not mean to say that a boy should not be taught the principles of grammar, and some knowledge of geography, at the same time that his understanding is cultivated in the most enlarged manner: these objects are not incompatible; and we particularly recommend it to parents who intend to send their children to school, early to give them confidence in themselves, by securing the rudiments of literary education; otherwise their pupils, with a real superiority of understanding, may feel depressed, and may, perhaps, be despised, when they mix at a public school with numbers who will estimate their abilities merely by their proficiency in particular studies. : Mr. Frend,* in recommending the study of arithmetic * See Mr. Frend's Principles of Algebra. for young people, has very sensibly remarked, that boys bred up in public schools are apt to compare themselves with each other merely as classical scholars; and, when they afterward go into the world excellent Greek and Latin scholars, are much astonished to perceive, that many of the companions whom they had undervalued at school, get before them when they come to actual business and to actual life. Many, in the pursuit of their classical studies, have neglected all other knowledge, especially that of arithmetic, that useful, essential branch of knowledge, without which neither the abstract sciences nor practical arts can be taught. The precision which the habit of applying the common rules of arithmetic gives to the understanding, is highly advantageous, particularly to young people of vivacity, or, as others would say, of genius. The influence which the habit of estimating has upon that part of the moral character called prudence, is of material consequence. We shall farther explain upon this subject, when we speak of the means of teaching arithmetic and reasoning to children; we only mention the general ideas here, to induce intelligent parents to attend early to these particulars. If they mean to send their children to public classical schools, it must be peculiarly advantageous to teach them early the rudiments of arithmetic, and to give them the habit of applying their knowledge in the common business of life. We forbear to enumerate other useful things, which might easily be taught to young people before they leave home, because we do not wish to terrify with the apprehension, that a perplexing variety of things are to be taught. One thing well taught, is better than a hundred taught imperfectly. The effect of the pains which are taken in the first nine or ten years of a child's life, may not be apparent immediately to the view, but it will gradually become visible. To careless observers, two boys of nine years old, who have been very differently educated, may appear nearly alike in abilities, in temper, and in the promise of future character. Send them both to a large public school, let them be placed in the same new situation, and exposed to the same trials, the difference will then appear: the difference in a few years will be such as to strike every eye, and people will wonder what can have produced, in so short a time, such an amazing change. In the Hindoo art of dying, the same liquors communi : cate different colours to particular spots, according to the several bases previously applied to the ignorant eye, no difference is discernible in the ground, nor can the design be distinctly traced till the air, and light, and open exposure, bring out the bright and permanent colours to the wondering eye of the spectator. Besides bestowing some attention upon early education, parents who send their children to school may much assist the public preceptor, by judicious conduct towards children during the portion of the year which is usually spent at home.* Mistaken parental fondness delights to make the period of time which children spend at home, as striking a contrast as possible with that which they pass at school. The holydays are made a jubilee, or, rather, resemble the Saturnalia. Even if parents do not wish to represent a schoolmaster as a tyrant, they are by no means displeased to observe that he is not the friend or favourite of their children. They put themselves in mean competition with him for their affection, instead of co-operating with him in all his views for their advantage. How is it possible that any master can long retain the wish or the hope of succeeding in any plan of education, if he perceives that his pupils are but partially under his government; if his influence over their minds be counteracted from time to time by the superior influence of their parents ?-an influence which he must not wish to destroy. To him is left the power to punish, it is true; but parents reserve to themselves the privilege to reward. The ancients did not suppose that even Jupiter could govern the world without the command of pain and pleasure. Upon the vases near his throne, depended his influence over mankind. And what are these holyday delights?—and in what consist paternal rewards? In dissipation and idleness. With these are consequently associated the idea of happiness and the name of pleasure; the name is often sufficient, without the reality. During the vacation, children have a glimpse of what is called the world; and then are sent back to their prison with heads full of visions of liberty, and with a second-sight of the blessed lives which they are to lead when they have left school for ever. What man of sense who has studied the human mind, who knows that the success of any plan of *See Williams's Lectures on Education. |