confefs I have very often with much Sorrow bewail'd the Misfortune of the Children of Great Britain, when I confider the Ignorance and Undifcerning of the Generality of School-masters. The boafted Liberty we talk of is but a mean Reward for the long Servitude, the many Heart Aches and Terrours, to which our Childhood is expofed in gcing through a Grammar-School: Many of thefe ftupid Tyrants exercife their Cruelty without any manner of Diftinction of the Capacities of Children, or the Intention of Parents in their Behalf. There are many excellent Tempers which are worthy to be nourished and cultivated with all poffible Diligence and Care, that were never defigned to be acquainted with Ariftotle, Tully or Virgil, and there are as many who have Capacities for understanding every Word thofe great Perfons have writ, and yet were not born to have any Relifh of their Wri tings. For want of this common and obvious difcerning in those who have the Care of Youth, we have fo many Hundred unaccountable Creatures every Age whipped up into great Scholars, that are for ever near a right Understanding, and will never arrive at it. Thele are the Scandal of Letters, and thefe are generally the Men who are to teach others. The Senfe of Shame and HCnour is enough to keep the World it felf in Order without Corporal Punishment, much more to train the Minds of uncorrupted and innocent Children. It happens, I doubt not, more than once in a Year, that a Lad is chaftifed for a Blockhead, when it is good Apprehenfion that makes him incapable of knowing what his Teacher means; A brisk Imagination very often may fuggeft an Errour, which a Lad could have not fallen into, if he had been as heavy in conjecturing as his M:fter in explaining: But there is no Mercy even towards a wrong Interpretation of his Meaning, the Sufferings of the Scholar's Body are to rectify the Mistakes of his Mind. I am confident that no Boy who will not be allured to Letters without Blows, will ever be brought to any thing with them. A great or good Mind must neceffarily be the worfe for fuch Indignities; and it is a fad Change to lofe of its Virtue for the Improvement of its Knowledge. No one who has gone through what they call call a great School, but must remember to have seen Children of excellent and ingenuous Natures, (as has afterwards appeared in their Manhood) I fay no Man has paffed through this Way of Education, but must have feen an ingenuous Creature expiring with Shame, with pale Looks, befeeching Sorrow, and filent Tears, throw up its honeft Eyes, and kneel on its tender Knees to an inexorable Blockhead, to be forgiven the falfe Quantity of a Word in making a Latin Verfe: The Child is punished, and the next Day he commits a like Crime, and fo a third with the fame Confequence. I would fain ask any reasonable Man whether this Lad, in the Simplicity of his Native Innocence, full of Shame, and capable of any Impreffion from that Grace of Soul, was not fitter for any Purpose in this Life, than after that Spark of Virtue is extinguifhed in him, tho' he is able to write twenty Verfes in an Evening ? Seneca fays, after his exalted Way of Talking, As the immortal Gods never learnt any Virtue tho' they are endued with all that is good; fo there are some Men who bave fo natural a Propensity to what they fhould follow, that they learn it almost as foon as they hear it. Plants and Vegetables are cultivated into the Production of finer Fruit than they would yield without that Care; and yet we cannot entertain Hopes of producing a tender confcious Spirit into Acts of Virtue, without the fame Methods as is used to cut Timber, or give new Shape to a Piece of Stone. IT is wholly to this dreadful Practice that we may attribute a certain Hardness and Ferocity which fome Men, tho' liberally educated, carry about them in all their Behaviour. To be bred like a Gentleman, and punished like a Malefactor, muft, as we fee it does, produce that illiberal Saucinefs which we fee fometimes in Men of Letters. THE Spartan Boy who fuffered the Fox (which he had ftollen and hid under his Coat) to eat into his Bowels, I dare fay had not half the Wit or Petulance which we learn at great Schools among us: But the glorious Senf of Honour, or rather Fear of Shame, which he demonAtrated in that Action, was worth all she Learning in the World, without it. IT is methinks a very melancholy Confideration, that a little Negligence can spoil us, but great Industry is neceffary to improve us; the most excellent Natures are foon depreciated, but evil Tempers are long before they are exalted into good Habits. To help this by Punishments, is the fame thing as killing a Man to cure him of a Diftemper; when he comes to fuffer Punifhment in that one Circumftance, he is brought below the Existence of a rational Creature, and is in the State of a Brute that moves only by the Admonition of Stripes. But fince this Cuftom of educating by the Lafh is fuffered by the Gentry of Great Britain, I would prevail only that honeft heavy Lads may be difmiffed from Slavery fooner than they are at prefent, and not whipped on to their fourteenth or fifteenth Year, whether they expect any Progrefs from them or not. Let the Child's Capacity be forthwith examined, and he fent to fome Mechanick Way of Life, without Refpect to his Birth, if Nature defigned him for nothing higher: let him go before he has innocently fuffered, and is debafed into a Dereliction of Mind for being what it is no Guilt to be, a plain Man. I would not here be fuppofed to have faid, that our learned Men of either Robe who have been whipped at School, are not still Men of noble and liberal Minds; but I am fure they had been much more fo than they are, had they never fuffered that Infamy. BUT tho' there is fo little Care, as I have obferved, taken, or Obfervation made of the natural Strain of Men, it is no fmall Comfort to me, as a SPECTATOR, that there is any right Value fet upon the bona Indoles of other Animals; as appears by the following Advertisement handed about the County of Lincoln, and subscribed by Enos Thomas, a Perfon whom I have not the Honour to know, but fuppofe to be profoundly learned in Horfe-Flesh. A Chefnut Horfe called Cæfar, bred by James Darcy, Efq; at Sedbury near Richmond in the County of York; his Grandam was his old royal Mare, and got by Blunderbufs, which was got by Hemily-Turk, and he got Mr. Courant's Arabian, which got Mr. Minfhul's Jewstrump. Mr. Cæfar fold him to a Nobleman (coming five Years old, when he had but one Sweat) for three hun dred dred Guineas. A Guinea a Leap and Tryal, and a Shilling the Man. T Enos Thomas, Ο ·Nos hac novimus effe nihil. UT of a firm Regard to Impartiality I print thefe Mr. SPECTATOR, • tend to. I Have obferved through the whole Course of your Rhapsodies, (as you once very well called them) you are very induftrious to overthrow all that many your Superiors who have gone before you have made their Rule of writing. I am now between fifty and fixty, and had the Honour to be well with the first Men of Taste and Gallantry in the joyous Reign of • Charles the Second: We then had, I humbly prefume, as good Understandings among us as any now can preAs for your felf, Mr. SPECTATOR, you feem with the utmoft Arrogance to undermine the · very Fundamentals upon which we conducted our felves. It is monftrous to fet up for a Man of Wit, and yet deny that Honour in a Woman is any thing elle but Peevifhnefs, that Inclination is the best Rule of Life, or Virtue and Vice any thing elfe but Health and Disease. We had no more to do but to put a Lady in good Humour, and all we could wish followed of Courfe. Then again, your Tully, and your Difcourfes ' of another Life, are the very Bane of Mirth and good Humour. Pr'ythee don't value thy felf on thy Rea fon at that exorbitant Rate, and the Dignity of hu mane Nature; take my Word for it, a Setting-dog has as good Reason as any Man in England. Had you (as by your Diurnals one would think you do) fet up for being in vogue in Town, you should have fallen in with the Bent of Paffion and Appetite; your Songs ⚫ had then been in every pretty Mouth in England, and your little Diftichs had been the Maxims of the Fair and the Witty to walk by: But alas, Sir, what can you hope for from entertaining People with what muft needs make them like themselves worse than they did before they read you? Had you made it your Bufinefs to defcribe Corinna charming, though inconftant, to find fomething in human Nature it felf to make Zoilus ex'cufe himfelf for being fond of her; and to make every Man in good Commerce with his own Reflections, you had done fomething worthy our Applaufe; but indeed, Sir, we fhall not commend you for difapproving us. I have a great deal more to fay to you, but I fhall fum it up all in this one Remark, In fhort, Sir, you do not write like a Gentleman. I am, SIR, Your moft humble Servant. Mr. SPECTATOR, THE other Day we were feveral of us at a TeaTable, and according to Custom and your own Advice had the Spectator read among us: It was that Paper wherein you are pleafed to treat with great Freedom that Character which you call a Woman's Man, We gave up all the Kinds you have mentioned, except those who, you fay, are our conftant Vifitants. 1 was upon the Occafion commiffioned by the Company to write to you, and tell you, That we shall not part with the Men we have at prefent, 'till the Men of Senfe think fit to relieve them, and give us their Company in their Stead. You cannot imagine but that we love to hear Reafon and good Senfe better than the Ribaldry we are at prefent entertained with, but we must have Company, and among us very inconfideraable is better than none at all. We are made for the • Cements of Society, and came into the World to create Relations among Mankind; and Solitude is an unnatural Being to us. If the Men of good Underftanding would forget a little of their Severity, they would find their Account in it; and their Wisdom ・ would have a Pleasure in it, to which they are now ⚫ Strangers. |