254 titerary olla, No. x. Oct. 16, 
two or three children of his friends or neighbours, of the 
same age, and put them under the tuition of a gentleman, . 
fit at once to perform the part of a father, a friend, and 
preceptor ; for it is with concern that I am obliged to 
remark, that men of our condition, who have the, gifts of 
fortune, and have not been bred, like us, in the school 
of adversity, have seldom any thing but wealth to fitthem 
for those important functions. . . . 
My pupils, thus situated, are to appear constantly at 
the family table, or in the public rooms at meals, They 
are to be encouraged in the fharpest and most critical at- 
tention to the virtues, oddities, and aukwardnelses of each 
other, and to excite and improve each other by innocent 
and gay exercises of this sort, so that their capacities may 
be continually strengthened; For wit, humour, and ster- 
ling good sense, cousist in little more than a conception, 
more or lefs rapid, of the minute and characteristic rela- 
tions of things, exprefsed with more or lefs gaiety, con- 
trast, velocity, or correctnefs. As my pupils advanced, 
I would have them sent to public schools, but under the 
same eye and tuition, and that private fhould be judicious- 
ly mixed with public education, so as to do no more 
than to hold up as it were the chins of my pupils till 
their feet touched the ground. 
I would have them taught to labour by themselves; I 
would have them inspired by the love of virtuous ame 
and the admiration of illustrious characters. 
I would rather see the tears standing in their eyes, 
when they read or recited the stories of the death of Bru- 
tus, Cato, Helvidius Priscus, Arulenus Rusticus, Thrasea 
Peetus, and of Arria, than melting with the fictitious and 
enervating sorrow of a love novel, or gaping at the ridi- 
culous immensity of a fairy tale. I would have them 
trained to an uncontaminated appetite for truth, exercis- 
