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I say, prepared you; for the education of the youth can only be preparatory to the purfuits of the man; and he who is beft enabled, from a comprehensive view of the objects before him, to poffefs himself of those which are moft worthy of his choice, is best educated.

For this reafon, I am not afraid of the censure usually paffed upon a copious scheme of early inftruction, that it is calculated rather to make fmatterers in every thing, than proficients in any thing. Let but a folid foundation be laid of those elemental parts of learning which employ the memory when that is the only faculty in full vigour, and it is immaterial how flight is the fuperftructure first erected. I would with it rather to resemble the fcaffolding of a great building, than the finished model of a fmall one. Befides that almost all the branches of knowledge have a mutual connexion and dependence; it is the only way of preventing narrow prejudices in favour of any one, at the fame time to afford a profpect of several,

and alternately to exercise the mind upon each. As reafoning confifts in the comparison of ideas, the understanding cannot be furnished with too large a store to work upon. Nor need it be apprehended that confufion will arise from the early mixture of a variety of objects in the mind; or that the time usually allotted for education will prove infufficient for acquiring the principles of general knowledge. The physical character of the mental and bodily frame in youth, is an aptitude for various exertions, but an impatience of confinement to a single one. The mind and body can scarcely at that period be too much employed, provided employment be judiciously varied; and numerous exam ples have proved, that prodigious acquifi tions may be made in very early life, by those who have proper objects presented to them. I know that fome have chofen to represent these acquifitions as fugitive, and as calculated rather to make extraordinary children, than diftinguished men. This is undoubtedly the cafe when the studies

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ftudies of youth are laid afide in more advanced years; but when they are unremittingly followed up, I fee no reason to doubt that the lead gained at the outset, will be preferved during the course.

You are apprifed, as well as myself, that the established fyftem of fchool and univerfity education in this country, is as oppofite as poffible to thefe ideas; but we know that this has happened, not in confequence of a preference founded upon fair comparifon, but either of habits and ways of thinking tranfmitted from generation to generation, or of a neceffity derived from the plans of future life. Where honours and emoluments are only to be obtained by particular acquirements, these receive a relative importance, which must continue as long as the fame circumstances exift. If Greek and Latin be the only paffports from the school to the university and Greek and Latin ftill, with antiquated logic and abstract mathematics, be the means of induction to degrees and fellowfhips, and thence of admiffion to lucra

tive offices in church and ftate, they will, without queftion, be the leading objects of attention to those who are educated for the purpose of obtaining thefe offices. But their value in this cafe is properly profeffional, and ought no more to form a rule of eftimation for perfons with different views, than the value of legal and medical knowledge to lawyers and phyficians.

It is a great advantage attending an unfhackled plan of life, that thefe artificial eftimates of things may in good meafure be avoided. There is nothing in your destination which obliges you to purfue any other courfe of ftudy, than that beft fitted to enlarge your mind, and ftore it with the most effentially valuable products of human knowledge. The fciences which will be properly profeffional to you, thofe of ethics and theology, ftand at the head of fuch as dignify a rational being. Critical and polite literature is not only valuable for the affiftance it affords in the pursuit of those studies,

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but for the pure and elevated pleasures it is capable of yielding as an ultimate object. The study of nature under her various forms, which cannot but be peculiarly interesting to one who afpires to an acquaintance with the author of nature, has in it likewise every quality which can render a pursuit delightful. To all these the exertions of your mind will naturally be turned. Their fources will be alike open to you.

You have books, leifure, and friends; but you have no friend who has your improvement more at heart than myself. And as the longer tract I have paffed over in the journey of life has, of course, given me a more extenfive acquaintance with fome of its objects than you can yet have acquired, I trust you will not think your time mifapplied in perufing the reflections on various topics, inftructive or amusing, which I mean to communicate to you in a series of letters. Whether my fentiments do or do not meet with your concurrence, you will, by examining them,

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