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IF the facts have been thus for above fixty years past, (whereof I could with a little farther recollection produce many more inftances) I would ask again, How it hath happened, that, in a nation plentifully abounding with nobility, fo great fhare in the moft competent parts of public management hath been for so long a period chiefly intrufted to commoners, unlefs fome omiffions or defects of the highest import may be charged upon those to whom the care of educating our noble youth had been committed? For if there be any difference between human creatures in the point of natural parts, as we usually call them, it should feem, that the advantage lies on the fide of children born from noble and wealthy parents; the fame traditional floth and luxury, which render their body weak and effeminate, perhaps refining and giving a freer motion to the fpirits, beyond what can be expected from the grofs, robust iffue of meaner mortals. Add to this the peculiar advantages which all young noblemen poffefs, by the privileges of their birth; fuch as a free access to courts, and an univerfal deference paid to their persons.

BUT as my Lord Bacon chargeth it for a fault on princes, that they are impatient to compafs ends, without giving themfelves the trouble of confulting or executing the means; fo perhaps it may be the difpofition of young nobles, either from the indulgence of parents, tutors, and governors, or their own inactivity, that they expect the accomplishments of a good education, without the leaft expence of time or ftudy to acquire them.

WHAT I faid laft, I am ready to retract; for the cafe is infinitely worfe; and the very maxims fet up to direct modern education, are enough to deftroy all the feeds of knowledge, honour, wifdom, and virtue, among us. The current opinion prevails, that the ftudy of Greek and Latin is lofs of time; that public fchools, by mingling the fons of noblemen with thofe of the vulgar, engage the former in bad company; that whipping breaks the fpirits of lads well born; that univerfities make young men pedants; that to dance, fence, speak French, and know how to behave yourself among great

perfons

perfons of both fexes, comprehends the whole duty of a gentleman.

I cannot but think this wife fyftem of education hath been much cultivated among us by thofe worthies of the army, who, during the lalt war, returning from Flanders at the clofe of each campaign, became the dictators of behaviour, drefs, and politenefs. to all thofe youngsters who frequent chocolate-coffee gaming houfes, drawingrooms, operas, levees, and affemblies; where a colonel, by his pay, perquifites, and plunder, was qualified to outfhine many peers of the realm; and by the influence of an exotic habit and demeanor, added to other foreign accomplishments, gave the law to the whole town, and was copied as the standard-pattern of whatever was refined in drefs, equipage, converfation, or dive: fons.

I remember in those times an admired original of that vocation fitting in a coffee-houfe near two gentlemen, whereof one was of the clergy, who were engaged in fome difcourfe that favoured of learning. This officer

thought fit to interpofe, and profeffing to deliver the fentiments his fraternity, as well as his own, (and probably he aid fo of too many among them,) turned to the clergyman, and fpoke in the following manner : * D-n me, Doctor, fay what you will, the army is the only school for gentlemen. Do you think my "Lord Marlborough beat the French with Greek and "Latin? D-n me, a fcholar when he comes into

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good company, what is he but an afs? D-n me, "I would be glad, by G-d, to fee any of your scholars with his nouns, and his verbs, and his philofophy, and trigonometry, what a figure he would "make at a fiege or blockade, or rencountring

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"Dn me," &. After which he proceeded with a volley of military terms, lefs fignificant, founding worfe, and harder to be understood, than any that were ever coined by the commentators upon Ariftotle. I would not here be thought to charge the foldiery with ignorance and contempt of learning, without allowing exceptions, of which I have known many; but, however,

the

See the poem called The grand question debated, in vol. 6.

P. 343.

the worst example, efpecially in a great majority, will certainly prevail.

I have heard, that the late Earl of Oxford, in the time of his ministry, never paffed by White's chocolate-house, (the common rendezvous of infamous fharpers, and noble cullies), without beftowing a curfe upon that famous academy, as the bane of half the English nobility. I have likewife been told another paffage concerning that great minifter, which, because it gives a humorous idea of one principal ingredient in modern education, take as followeth. Le Sack, the famous French dancingmaster, in great admiration, asked a friend, whether it were true, that Mr Harley was made an Earl and Lord Treasurer and finding it confirmed, faid, "Well, I "wonder what the devil the Queen could fee in him; for I attended him two years, and he was the greatest "dunce that ever I taught."

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ANOTHER hindrance to good education, and I think the greatest of any, is that pernicious custom in rich and noble families, of entertaining French tutors in their houfes. Thefe wretched pedagogues are injoined by the father to take fpecial care, that the boy fhall be perfect in his French; by the mother, that Mafter must not walk till he is hot, nor be fuffered to play with other boys, nor be wet in his feet, nor daub his cloaths, and to fee the dancing-mafter attends conftantly, and docs his duty fhe further infifts, that the child be not kept too long poring on his book, because he is fubject to fore eyes, and of a weakly conftitution.

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By thefe methods the young gentleman is in every article as fully accomplished at eight years old as at eight and twenty, age adding only to the growth of his perfon and his vice; fo that, if you fhould look at him in his boyhood through the magnifying end of a perfpective, and in his manhood through the other, it would be impoffible to spy any difference; the fame airs, the fame ftrut, the fame cock of his hat, and posture of his sword, (as far as the change of fashions will allow), the fame understanding, the fame compafs of knowledge, with the very fame abfurdity, impudence, and impertinence of

tongue.

He is taught from the nursery, that he muft inherit a

great

great eftate, and hath no need to mind his book; which is a leffon he never forgets to the end of his life. His chief folace is to steal down, and play at span-farthing with the page, or young black-a-moor, or little favourite foot boy; one of which is his principal confident and bofom-friend.

THERE is one young Lord * in this town, who, by an unexampled piece of good fortune, was miraculously fnatched out of the gulf of ignorance, confined to a public school for a due term of years, well whipped when he deserved it, clad no better than his comrades, and always their play-fellow on the fame foot; had no precedence in the fchool, but what was given him by his merit, and loft it whenever he was negligent.

It is well

known how many mutinies were bred at this unprece dented treatment, what complaints among his relations, and other great ones of both fexes; that his ftockings with filver clocks were ravished from him; that he wore his own hair; that his dress was undistinguished; that he was not fit to appear at a ball or affembly, nor fuffered to go to either and it was with the utmost difficulty that he became qualified for his prefent removal, where he may probably be farther perfecuted, and poffibly with fuccefs, if the firmness of a very wor thy governor, and his own good difpofitions, will not preferve him. I confefs, I cannot but wish he may go on in the way he began; because, I have a curiofity to know by fo fingular an experiment, whether truth, honour, juftice, temperance, courage, and good fenfe, acquired by a school and college education, may not produce a very tolerable lad, altho' he should happen to fail in one or two of thofe accomplishments, which in the general vogue are held fo important to the finishing of a gentleman.

IT is true, I have known an academical education to have been exploded in public affemblies; and have heard more than one or two perfons of high rank declare, they could learn nothing more at Oxford and Cambridge, than to drink ale and fmoke tobacco; wherein

The author is fuppofed to mean the Lord Viscount Montcaffel of Ireland.

wherein I firmly believed them; and could have added some hundred examples from my own obfervation in one of those universities: but they all were of young heirs, fent thither only for form; either from fchools, where they were not fuffered by their careful parents to stay above three months in the year; or from under the management of French family-tutors, who yet often attended them to their college, to prevent all poffibility of their improvement. But I never yet knew any one perfon of quality, who followed his ftudies at the university, and carried away his juft proportion of learning, that was not ready upon all occafions to celebrate and defend that courfe of education, and to prove a patron of learned men.

THERE is one circumftance in a learned education, which ought to have much weight, even with those who have no learning at all. The books read at school and colleges, are full of incitements to virtue, and difcouragements from vice, drawn from the wifeft reasons, the strongest motives, and the most influencing examples. Thus young minds are filled early with an inclination to good, and an abhorrence of evil; both which increase in them, according to the advances they make in literature and altho' they may be, and too often are drawn, by the temptations of youth, and the opportunities of a large fortune, into fome irregularities, when they come forward into the great world; yet it is ever with reluctance and compunction of mind, because their bias to virtue ftill continues. They may ftray fometimes out of infirmity or compliance, but they will foon return to the right road, and keep it always in view. I fpeak only of thofe exceffes which are too much the attendants of youth and warmer blood; for as to the points of honour, truth, juftice, and other noble gifts of the mind, wherein the temperature of the body hath no concern, they are feldom or ever known to be wild.

I have engaged myfelf very unwarily in too copious a fubject for fo fhort a paper. The prefent fcope I would aim at, is, to prove that fome proportion of human knowledge appears requifite to thofe who, by their birth or fortune, are called to the making of laws, and in a fubordinate way to the execution of them; and that

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