308 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



planting thither the jealoufies, the hatreds, and the 

 vain emulations which rendered them miierable. 



It was Charlemagne, we are told, who inflituted 

 our courfe of ftudies ; and fome fay it was in the 

 view of dividing his fubje<5ts, and of giving them 

 employment. He has fucceeded in this to a mi- 

 racle. Seven years devoted to humanity^ or clajjical 

 learning, two to Philofnphy, three to Theology : twelve 

 years of languor, of ambition, and of felf-conceitj 

 without taking into the account the years which 

 well-meaning parents double upon 'their children, 

 to make fure work of it, as they allege. I afk 

 whether, on emerging thence, a ftudent is, accord- 

 ing to the denomination of thofe refpeftive branches 

 of ftudy, more humane, more of a philofopher, and 

 believes more in God, than an honefl peafant, who 

 has not been taught to read ? What good purpofe, 

 then, does all this anfvver to the greateft part of 

 Mankind? What benefit do the majority derive, 

 from this irkfome courfe, on mixing with the 

 World, toward perfefting their own intelligence, 

 and even toward purity of diftion. We have feen, 

 that the claffical Authors themfelves have borrowed 

 their illumination only from Nature, and that thofe 

 of our own Nation who have diftinguiflied them- 

 felves the moft, in literature and in the fciences, 

 fi.ch as Dcjcartes, Michael Montaigney J. J. RouJ 



feau. 



