, 
BIOS" _ kiterary olla. No. x. 251 
LITERARY OLLA. No. x. 
For the Bee. 
Gray the Poet,—A dialogue concerning Youth. 
Conunued from p, 181. 
Walpole. Your principles, gentlemen, are just, and 
your reflections excellent ; but give me leave to say, that 
your plans of education are better adapted’to people of 
fortune and eminence, than to the public at large. 
Much has been talked and written concerning a code 
of education ; but this would be incompatible with a free go- 
vernment, and would require in every different case, a dif- 
ferent mode of application to the situation, capacity, and 
genius of the subje-t. By what means then do ye think 
it pofsible to- establifh and diffuse among the people, 
modes of education productive of useful knowledge and 
of virtue ? ' 
Gray. My plan is not above the reach of people of 
the middle station and fortune; and were it once establith- 
ed as the best for them, it would soon be adopted in the 
schools for the people at large. Europe, and particular. 
ly our country, swarms with societies for the incour age- 
ment and improyement of sciences, arts, manufactures, and 
every thing that can either amuse ér enrich the public ; 
but I never heard of a society for the improvement of this 
most important of all public works, the formation of good 
and useful citizens. 
_ A society of this nature once judiciously formed, would 
lead to thousands of the same nature, and to the general 
adoption of a system for the improvement of the human 
mind, in knowledge and virtue, without entrenching on 
the freedom of families in the management of their chil 
dren, 
