STUDY VII. IÎ5 



political economy engaged, among the Ancients, 

 the attention of the greateft Legiflators. The 

 Perfians, the Eg^-^ptians, and the Chinefe, made it 

 the bafis of their Government. On this foundation 

 Lycurgiis reared the fabric of the Spartan Repub- 

 lic. We may even go fo far as to affirm, that 

 wherever there is no national education, there is 

 no durable leglflation. With us, education has no 

 manner of reference to the conllitution of the State. 

 Our moft celebrated Writers, fuch as Montagne^ 

 FeneloHi John James Rouffeau, have been abundantly 

 fenfible how defeélive our police is, in this re- 

 fped: : but defpairing, perhaps, of effeding a re- 

 formation, they have preferred offering plans of 

 private and domeftic education, to patching up 

 the old method, and adapting it to all the abfur- 

 dities of the prefent ftate of Society. For my own 

 part, as I am tracing up our evils to their fource, 

 only in the view of exculpating Nature, and in 

 the hope that fome favoured genius may one day 

 arife to apply a remedy, I find myfelf farther en- 

 gaged, to examine into the influence of education 

 on our particular happinefs, and on that of our 

 Country in general. 



Man is the only fenfible being who forms his 

 reafon on continual obfervations. His education 

 begins with life, and ends only with death. His 

 days would fleet away in a flate of perpetual un- 



I z certainty, 



