162 Notice of * Plans for the Instruetion and 
most important years of life under a despotism=-not a Turk- 
ish or a Russian depotism, we grant. 
‘The genius of Education no longer bears the rod. ‘The 
best gift of one generation to another is not forced upon 
the recipient with blows nor received with tears and exe- 
crations. But the rule, though mitigated, 1s nevertheless a 
mitigated despotism; not a particle of real freedom has 
yet found its way into these important microcosms. 
The causes of the general neglect which the subject of 
boy-government has so long endured; while every other part 
of the field of science is teeming with improvement, are 
worthy of consideration. In the first place, it is only 
among the few nations which can really be called free, that 
improvements would be encouraged or perhaps endured. 
Where the fashionable creeds teach that man cannot be 
entrusted with government, unless endowed with such @ 
stock of hereditary wisdom as is possessed only by the de- 
scendants of a line of rulers, it would be no welcome dis- 
covery to find the profound mysteries of legislation and 
jurisprudence fathomed by children. Another cause is to 
be found in the feelings and inclinations of those by whom 
experiments must be made. Schoolmasters like other men 
are far from being insensible to the blandishments of pow- 
er. It is so pleasant to see our-will carried into prompt and 
complete effect: so delightful to pronounce our opinions 
ex cathedra without fear of dissent; that he who can resolve 
to forego such enjoyments and encounter opposition, must 
be actuated by motives which it would be idle to expect, 
should impel the actions of men in general. 
Thus, without an attempt to overcome the difficulties 
naturally attendant on such an undertaking, it has been set 
down (sub silentio) by almost every man, as an impossibility 
that boys should ever be able to form self-governing com- 
munities, 
We have however, evidence before us, which will we 
think shew the contrary, and that most satisfactorily, but 
before we enter upon it, we had better perhaps make a few 
observations on the desirableness ofa free government for 
boys ; for so much are even the most enlightened under the 
dominion of custom, that whatever is new is sure to be op- 
posed and stands in need of defence. - 
It is an excellent rule in education, so to teach as that 
the pupil may have nothing to unlearn, What then more 
