3i50 STtJDIES OF NATURE. 



more unprofitably, that, thanks to the printing of 

 the books, the verfions, or themes, of which they 

 copy, they have no occafioh for all this irkfome 

 labour. But on what fliould the Regents them- 

 felves employ their own time, if the pupils did not 

 wade theirs > 



In the National Schools, every thing would gd 

 on after the academic manner of the Greek Philo- 

 fophers. The pupils (hould there purfue their 

 ftudies, fometimes feated, fometimes flanding; 

 fometimes in the fields, at other times in the am- 

 phitheatre, or in the park which furrounded it. 

 There would be no occafion for either pen, or pa- 

 per, or ink j every one would bring with him only 

 the claflical book which might contain the fubjed: 

 of the lefTon. I have had frequent experience that 

 we forget what we commit to writing. That which 

 I have conveyed to paper, I difcharge from my 

 memory, and very foon from my recolledtive fa- 

 culty. I have become fenfible of this with refpedt 

 to complete Works, which I had fairly tranfcribed, 

 and which appeared to me afterward as ftrange, as 

 if they had been the produ(5lion of a different hand 

 from my own. This does not take place with re- 



thereby be reduced to almoft nothing. There might be devifed 

 happy and glorious compenfations for the privileges of the Maf- 

 ters : but a money objection, in this venal age, feems to me abfo- 

 lutely unanfwerable, 



gard 



