WILLIAM COBBETT. 8i 



the most largely in the more popular and enduring part of them, 

 namely — the Rural Rides, the Year''s Residence in America, 

 and the Advice to Young Men. In the latter work he says, in 

 treating of education, and, in particular, of learning grammar : — 

 ' The study need subtract from the hours of no business, 

 nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary exercise ; the hours 

 usually spent on the tea and coffee slops, and in the mere 

 gossip which accompany them — those wasted hours of only 

 one year employed in the study of English grammar would 

 make you a correct speaker and writer for the rest of your 

 life. You want no school, no room to study in, no expenses, 

 and no troublesome circumstances of any sort I learned 

 grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence 

 a day. The edge of my berth or that of the guard-bed 

 v\as my seat to study in, my knapsack was my bookcase, 

 a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and 

 the task did not demand anything like a year of my life. 

 I had no money to purchase candle or oil ; in winter time it 

 was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the 

 fire, and only my turn even of that. And if I under such 

 circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or 

 encourage me, accomplished this r.ndertaking, what excuse can 

 there be for any youth, howevei poor, however pressed with 

 business, or however chcumstanced as to room or other 

 conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet jf paper, I was 

 compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state 

 of half starvation ; I had no moment of time that I could call 

 my own, and I had to read and to write amidst the talking, 

 laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least half a 

 score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the 

 hours of their freedom from all control Think not lightly of 



