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168 The Enquirer, No. XV. What is Education?

himself; a finaller ftill can be directed by
purchased tuition of any kind. You
engage for
your child mafters and tutors
at large falaries, and you do well, for
they are competent to inftruct him; they
will give him the means, at leaft, of ac-
quiring fcience and accomplishments;
but in the bufinefs of education, properly
fo called, they can do little for you. Do
you afk then, what will educate your fon?
Your example will educate him; your
converfation with your friends; the
business he fees you tranfact; the likings
and diflikings you exprefs; thefe will
educate him---the fociety you live in
will educate him; your domeftics will
educate him; above all, your rank and fi-
tuation in life, your houfe, your table,
your pleafure-grounds, your hounds and
your tables will educate him. It is not
in your power to withdraw him from the
continual influence of thefe things, except
you were to withdraw yourself from them
alfo. You fpeak of beginning the educa-
tion of your fon. The moment he was
able to form an idea his education was al-
ready begun; the education of circum-
ftances-infenfible education-which, like
infenfible perfpiration, is of more conftant
and powerful effect, and of infinitely
more confequence to the habit than that
which is direct and apparent. This
education goes on at every inftant of time;
it goes on like time; you can neither top
it nor turn its courfe. What thefe have
a tendency to make your child, that he
will be. Maxims and documents are
good precifely till they are tried, and no
longer; they will teach him to talk, and
nothing more. The circumftances in
which your fon is placed will be even
more prevalent than your example; and
you have no right to expect him to become
what you yourself are, but by the fame
means. You, that have toiled during
youth,to fet your fon upon higher ground,
and to enable him to begin where you
left off, do not expect that fon to be
what you were, diligent, modeft, active,
fimple in his taftes, fertile in resources.
You have put him under quite a different
mafter. Poverty educated you; wealth
will educate him. You cannot fuppofe
the refult will be the fame. You inuft
not even expect that he will be what you
now are; for though relaxed perhaps from
the feverity of your frugal habits, you
till derive advantage from having formed
them; and, in your heart, you like plain
dinners, and early hours, and old friends,
whenever your fortune will permit you to
enjoy them. But it will not be fo with

your fon: his taftes will be formed by your prefent fituation, and in no degree by your former one. But I take great care, you will fay, to counteract these tendencies, and to bring him up in hardy and fimple manners. I know their value, and am refolved that he shall acquire no other. Yes, you make him hardy; that is to fay, you take a country-house in a good air, and make him run, well clothed and carefully attended, for, it may be, an hour in a clear frofty winter's day upon your gravelled terrace; or perhaps you take the puny fhivering infant from his warm bed, and dip him in an icy cold bath, and you think you have done great matters. And fo you have'; you have done all you can. But you were fuffered to run abroad half the day on a bleak heath, in weather fit and unfit, wading barefoot through dirty ponds, fometimes lofing your way benighted, fcrambling over hedges, climbing trees, in perils every hour both of life and limb. Your life was of very little confequence to any one; even your parents, encumbered with a numerous family, had little time to indulge the foftneffes of affection, or the folicitude of anxiety; and to every one else it was of no confequence at all, It is not poffible for you, it would not even be right for you, in your prefent fituation, to pay. no more attention to your child than was paid to you. In thefe mimic experiments of education, there is always fomething which diftinguishes them from reality; fome weak part left unfortified, for the arrows of misfortune to find their way into. Achilles was a young nobleman, dios Achilleus, and therefore, though he had Chiron for his tutor, there was one foot left undipped. You may throw by Rouffeau; your parents practiced without having read it; and you may read, but imperious circumftances forbid you the practice of it.

You are fenfible of the advantages of fimplicity of diet, and you make a point of reftricting that of your child to the plaineft food, for you are refolved that he fhall not be nice. But this plain food is of the choiceft quality, prepared by your own cook; his fruit is ripened from your walls; his cloth, his glaffes, all the accompaniments of the table, are fuch as are only met with in families of opulence; the very fervants who attend him are neat, well dreffed, and have a certain air of fashion. You may call this fimplicity, but I fay he will be nice, for it is a kind of fimplicity which only wealth can attain to, and which will fubject him to

be

The Enquirer, No. XV. What is Education?

be difgufted at all common tables. Befides, he will from time to time partake of thofe delicacies which your table abounds with; you yourself will give him of them occafionally; you would be unkind if you did not; your fervants, if good natured, will do the fame. Do you think you can keep the full ftream of luxury running by his lips, and he not tafte of it? Vain imagination!

I would not be understood to inveigh against wealth, or against the enjoyments of it; they are real enjoyments, and allied to many elegancies in manners and in tafte; I only with to prevent unprofitable pains and inconfiftent expectations.

You are fenfible of the benefit of early rifing, and you may, if you pleafe, make it a point that your daughter fhall retire with her governess, and your fon with his tutor, at the hour when you are preparing to fee company. But their deep, in the first place, will not be fo fweet and undisturbed amidst the rattle of carriages, and the glare of tapers glancing through the rooms, as that of the village child in his quiet cottage, protected by filence and darknefs; and, moreover, you may depend upon it, that as the coercive power of education is laid afide, they will in a few months flide into the habitudes of the rest of the family, whofe hours are determined by their company and fituation in life. You have, however, done good as far as it goes; it is fomething gained to defer pernicious habits, if we cannot prevent them.

There is nothing which has fo little fhare in education as direct precept. To be convinced of this, we need only reflect, that there is no one point we labour more to establish with children than that of their fpeaking truth, and there is not any in which we fucceed worfe. And why? Becaufe children readily fee we have an intereft in it. Their fpeaking truth is used by us as an engine of government. "Tell me, my dear child, when you have broken any thing, and I will not be angry with you." "Thank you for nothing, fays the child. If I prevent you from finding it out, I am fure you will not be angry ;" and nine times out of ten he can prevent it. He knows that, in the common intercourfes of life, you tell a thoufand fallehoods. But these are neceffary lies on important occafions.

Your child is the best judge how much occafion he has to tell a lie; he may have as great occafion for it, as you have to conceal a bad piece of news from a fick friend, or to hide your vexation from an unwel

169

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come visitor. tends its claims over every action, and That authority which exanfwer to every interrogation, however even every thought, which insists upon an indifcreet or oppreffive to the feelings, will, in young or old, produce falfehood; or, if in fome few inftances, the deeply imbibed fear of future and unknown nishment should reftrain from direct falfelation, which is ftill worse. The child, the hood, it will produce a habit of diffimuflave, or the fubject, who, on proper occafions may not fay, "I do not chufe to tell," will certainly, by the circumstances in which you place him, be driven to have recourse to deceit, even should he not be countenanced by your example.

I do not mean to affert, that fentiments inculcated in education have no influence; they have much, though not the most: but it is the fentiments we let drop occafionally, the converfation they overhear when playing unnoticed in a corner of the room, which has an effect dren, and not what is addreffed directly upon chilto them in the tone of exhortation. If you would know precisely the effect these fet difcourfes have upon your child, be pleased to reflect upon that which a difcourfe from the pulpit, which you have reafon to think merely profeffional, has upon you. Children have almost an intuitive difcernment between the maxims

you bring forward for their use, and thofe by which you direct your own conduct. Be as cunning as you will, they are always more cunning than you. Every child knows whom his father and mother love, and fee with pleasure, and whom they diflike; for whom they think themfelves obliged to fet out their best plate and china; whom they think it an hohonour by admitting thern to their comnour to vifit, and upon whom they confer virtue, (fays Esgenio to his fon) virtue pany. "Respect nothing fo much as and talents are the only grounds of diftinction." The child prefently has occafion to enquire why his father pulls off his hat to fome people and not to others; he is told, that outward respect must be proportioned to different ftations in life; this is a little difficult of comprehenfion; however, by dint of explanation, he gets over it tolerably well. But he fees his father's houfe in the buftle and hurry of every body in movement, an unusual anxpreparation; common business laid afide, iety to pleafe and to fine. Nobody is at leifure to receive his careffes, or attend to his questions; his leffons are interrupted, his hours deranged. At length a

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170

The Enquirer, No. XV.

gueft arrives-It is my Lord-whom he has heard you speak of, twenty times, as one of the most worthlefs characters upon earth. Your child, Eugenio, has received a leffon of education. Refume, if you will, your fyftems of morality on the morrow, you will in vain attempt to eradicate it. "You expect company, Mamma, must I be dreffed to-day?" "No, it is only good Mrs. fuch a one." Your child has received a leffon of education, one which the well understands, and will long remember. You have fent your child to a public fchool, but to fecure his morals against the vice which you too jufly apprehend abounds there, you have given him a private tutor, a man of strict morals and religion. He may help him to prepare his talks, but do you imagine it will be in his power to form his mind? His fchoolfellows, the allowance you give him, the manners of the age, and of the place, will do that, and not the lectures which he is obliged to hear. If thefe are different from what you yourself experienced, you must not be furprifed to fee him gradually recede from the principles, civil and religious, which you hold, and to break off from your connections, and to adopt manners different from your own. This is remarkably exemplified amongst thofe of the Diffenters who have rifer to wealth and confequence. I believe it would be difficult to find an inftance of families, who, for three geperations, have kept their carriage and I continued Diffenters.

Education, it is often obferved, is an expenfive thing. It is fo, but the paying for leffons is the fmalleft part of the coft. If you would go to the price of having your fon a worthy man, you must be fo yourself; your friends, your fervants, your company must be all of that ftamp. Suppofe this to be the cafe, much is done; but there will remain circumftances which perhaps you cannot alter, that will fill have their effect. Do you wish him to love fimplicity? Would you be content to lay down your coach, to drop your title? Where is the parent who would do this to educate his fon? You carry him to the workshops of artifans, and fhow him different machines and fabrics, to awaken his ingenuity. The neceffity of getting his bread would awaken it much more effectually. The fingle circumftance of having a fortune to get, or a fortune to spend, will probably operate more frongly upon his mind, not only than your precepts, but even than your example. You with your child to be

What is Education?

modeft and unaffuming; you are fo, per
haps, yourfelf, and you pay liberally a
preceptor for giving him leffens of humi-
lity. You do not perceive, that the very
circumftance of having a man of letters
and accomplishments retained about his
perfon, for his fole advantage, tends more
forcibly to infpire him with an idea of
felt-confequence, than all the leffons he
can give him to reprefs it. Why do not
you look fad, you rascal? fays the Under-
taker to his man, in the play of the Fu-
neral, I give you I know not how much
money for looking fad, and the more I give
you, the gladder I think
you are. So will
it be with the wealthy heir. The lectures
that are given him, on condefcenfion and
affability, only prove to him upon how
much higher ground he ftands than thofe
about him; and the very pains that are
taken with his moral character will make
him proud, by fhewing him how much
he is the object of attention. You cannot
help thefe things. Your fervants, out of
refpect to you, will bear with his petu-
lance; your company, out of refpect to
you, will forbear to check his impati-
ence; and you yourfelf, if he is clever,
will repeat his obfervations.

In the exploded doctrine of fympathies, you are directed, if you have cut your finger, to let that alone, and put your plaifter upon the knife. This is very bad doctrine, I must confefs, in philofophy, but very good in morals. Is a man luxurious, felf-indulgent? do not apply your phyfic of the foul to him, but cure his fortune. Is he haughty? cure his rank, his title. Is he vulgar? cure his company. Is he diffident, or mean-fpirited? cure his poverty, give him confequence-but thefe prefcriptions go far beyond the family recipes of education.

What then is the refult? In the first place, that we should contract our ideas of education, and expect no more from it than it is able to perform. It can giye inftruction. There will always be an effential difference between a human being cultivated and uncultivated. Education can provide proper inftructors in the various arts and fciences, and portion out to the beft advantage, thofe precious hours of youth which never will return. It can likewife give, in a great degreee, perfonal habits; and even if these should afterwards give way, under the influence of contrary circumftances, your child will feel the good effects of them, for the later and the lefs will he go into what is wrong. Let us also be affured, that the bufinefs of education, properly fo called,

The Enquirer, No. XV.

is not transferrable. You may engage mafters to inftruct your child in this or the other accomplishment, but you must educate him yourself. You not only ought to do it, but you must do it, whether you intend it or no. As education is a thing neceffary for all; for the poor and for the rich, for the illiterate as well as for the learned; providence has not made it dependent upon fyftems uncertain, operofe, and difficult of inveftigation. It is not neceffary with Rouffeau or Madame Genlis, to devote to the education of one child, the talents and the time of a number of grown men; to furround him with an artificial world; and to counteract, by maxims, the natural tendencies of the fituation he is placed in in fociety. Every one has time to educate his child; -the poor man educates him while working in his cottage the man of bufinefs while employed in his countinghoufe.

Do we fee a father who is diligent in his profeffion, domeftic in his habits, whofe houfe is the refort of well-informed intelligent people-a mother, whofe time is ufefully filled, whofe attention to her duties fecures efteem, and whofe amiable manners attract affection? Do not be folicitous, refpectable couple, about the moral education of your offspring! do not be uneafy becaufe you cannot fur round them with the apparatus of books and fyftems; or fancy you must retire from the world to devote yourselves to their improvement. In your world they are brought up much better than could be under any plan of factitious education which you could provide for them; they will imbibe affection from your careffes; taste from your converfation; urbanity from the commerce of your fociety; and mutual love from your example. Do not regret that you are not rich enough to provide tutors and governors, to watch his fteps with fedulous and fervile anxiety, and furnish him with maxims it is morally impoffible he fhould act upon when grown up. Do not you fee how feldom this over culture produces its effect, and how many fhining and excellent characters ftart up every day, from the bafom of obfcurity, with fcarcely any care at all?

Are children then to be neglected? furely not; but having given them the inftruction and accomplishments which their fituation in life requires, let us reject fuperfluous folicitude, and truft that their characters will form themfelves from the fpontaneous influence of good ex

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amples, and circumstances which impel them to useful action.

But the education of your house, important as it is, is-only a part of a more comprehenfive fyftem. Providence takes your child, where you leave him. Providence continues his education upon a larger fcale, and by a procefs which in cludes means far more efficacious. Has your fon entered the world at eighteen, opinionated, haughty, rash, inclined to diffipation? Do not defpair, he may yet be cured of these faults, if it pleases heaven. There are remedies which you could not perfuade yourself to use, if they were in your power, and which are specific in cafes of this kind. How often do we fee the prefumptuous, giddy youth, changed into the wife counfellor, the confiderate, feady friend! How often the thoughtless, gay girl, into the fober wife, the affectionate mother! Faded beauty, humbled felf-confequence, difappointed ambition, lofs of fortune, this is the rough phyfic provided by providence, to meliorate the temper, to correct the offenfive petulancies of youth, and bring out all the energies of the finifhed character. Afflictions foften the proud; difficulties push foward the ingenious; fuccessful. industry gives confequence and credit, and developes a thousand latent good qualities. There is no malady of the mind fo inveterate, which this education of events is not calculated to cure, if life were long enough; and fhall we not hope, that he, in whofe hand are all the remedial proceffes of nature, will renew the difcipline in another state, and finish the imperfect man?

States are educated as individuals, by circumstances; the prophet may cry aloud, and fpare not; the philofopher may defcant on morals; eloquence may exhauft itself in invective against the vices of the age: thefe vices will certainly follow certain ftates of poverty or riches, ignorance or high civilization. But what thefe gentle alteratives fail of doing, may be accomplished by an unsuccessful war, a lofs of trade, or any of thofe great calamities, by which it pleafes Providence to speak to a nation in fuch language as will be heard. If, as a nation, we would be cured of pride, it must be by mortification; if of luxury, by a national bankruptcy, perhaps; if of injuftice, or the fpirit of domination, by a lofs of national confequence. In com. parifon of thefe ftrong remedies, a fast, a fermon, are prefcriptions of very little efficacy.

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172

Authenticity of Mr. Toplady's Pofthumous Works.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

I

SIR,

Am a conftant reader of your Monthly Magazine, and muft own I am much pleated with the Journal of Mr. HOUSMAN; but I am forry he should fo far miflead your readers, by ftating in your Magazine for January, 1798, that adjoining the road from Birmingham to Wolverhampton, he aw a number of fires burning in a field of oats; and that the works for forging iron in that neighbourhood belong to Mr. WILKINSON: it is true that Mr. W. has large works there, but though he has expended perhaps 60,col. in his erections, there are many works in the vicinity of Wolverhampton which make more iron than he does. I have attended Mr. HOUSMAN hitherto with pleasure, as I know most of the places he fpeaks of. I am, Sir, &c. Dance, JAS. LOXDALE. Near Wolverhampton, 2d March, 1798.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

UNDERS

NDERSTANDING that confiderable doubts have arifen refpecting the authenticity of the manufcripts of the late Rev. Mr. Toplady, (which came into my hands, as his executor, and which I have fince communicated to Mr. Row, for publication,) I feel myfelf called upon to ftep forward, and vindicate them from the charge of impofition. Thofe perfons who fuppofed them to be furreptitious, must have done fo from a knowledge of that claufe in Mr. T's will, which directs "all the manufcripts of, and in his own hand-writing, to be confumed by fire, within one week after his interment. It must however be observed, that Mr. T. little thought, at the time of his making his will, that he fhould perform, in part, this fad office himself, which he actually did, aflifted by me. We were two days occupied in, the business; and thofe few writings, which have eicaped the flames, would doubtless have fhared the fame fate as the reft, if it had not been for the intervention of the late Dr. Gifford, and the Rev. Mr. Ryland fenior, of Northampton, who called to fee Mr. Toplady, during his illness, and found him in the very act of deftroying his papers. They expreffed their fincere regret at this procedure, and endeavoured · to divert him from the further execution of his purpofe. To this, Mr. Toplady, after repeated expoftulations, at length reluctantly confented. Then, turning to

me, he faid, "My dear friend, you are at liberty to do whatever you pleate with the reft," which declaration has virtually done away the injunction laid upon me by his will.

And here I cannot but lament, the lofs which the religious and literary world have fuitained, from the fcrupulous delicacy of Mr. T's mind. The anfwers he affigned to me for this part of his condust, were, that "fome paffages might be twisted from their intended meaning, which, when dead, he fhould not be able to defend." I perceived, among the MSS. which were committed to the flames, many works of tafte and genius, particularly a very voluminous "History of England," nearly completed. There are, however, among the nanufcripts which have been refcued, " An Effay towards a concije Chronological Dictionary," and, "An History of the Ancient State of Britain," in ixteen letters, addreffed to the late Mrs. Catherine Macaulay, which I doubt not will confirm his reputation as a writer. I understand Mr. Row defigns fhortly to publifh them.

I cannot conclude this letter without improving the opportunity of returning my fincere thanks to Mr. Row for the very liberal manner in which he has conducted himself, and the ample justice he has rendered, at an enormousexpence, to the publication of the books of my dear deceafed friend. I am confident, the public feel themfelves equally indebted to his exertions in the caufe of religion. I have only to add, that I have given up all the manufcripts I have found to Mr. Row, who will publifh them in a seventh vo. lume, as foon as a fufficient number of fubfcribers fhall be found. From my knowledge of the contents, I can assure the public, that for usefulness, sentiment, and language, they are not inferior to thofe publifhed in Mr. Toplady's lifetime. If any perfons fhould ftill entertain doubts of their authenticity, they may, by reference to Mr. Row, Great Marlborough-ftreet, fee the MS. in the hand-writing of Mr. Toplady himself, or upon application to me, I will give them every fatisfaction in my power. I remain your's, &c. WILLIAM HUSSEY. Kenfington Gore, March, 1798.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

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