272 Education. 



century was published a work entitled Lectures on 

 Education, by David Williams, which, though 

 it manifests considerable talents and erudition, is 

 decidedly unfriendly to religion, and consequently 

 to genuine virtue. To these may be added, the 

 Theatre of Education, by Madame Genlis; a 

 treatise on Practical Education, by Mr. and Mrs. 

 Edgeworth; and smaller works, on the same 

 subject, by Miss Wakefield and Miss Hamil- 

 ton, both of Great-Britain; all of which, with 

 various kinds and degrees of merit, have been much 

 read and esteemed. 



The eighteenth century produced a remarkable 

 revolution with respect to the objects of study m 

 the education of youth. These are now more ac- 

 commodated to the different employments for 

 which the pupils are intended than in former 

 times. Education, during this period, has been 

 more than ever divested of its scholastic form, and 

 rendered more conducive to the useful purposes 

 of life. The study of the dead languages has been 

 gradually declining throughout the age under re- 

 view, and scientific and literary pursuits of a more 

 practical nature taking their place. Instead of 

 spending eight or ten years, as formerly, in the 

 acquisition of Latin and Greek words and rules> 

 youth are now more liberally instructed in the 

 physical sciences, in belles lettres, in modern Ian- 

 guages, in history, in geography, and generally in 

 those branches of knowledge which are calculated 

 to fit them for action, as well as speculation . Though 

 the change in this respect has been carried to an ex- 

 treme; though the disposition discovered by many 

 instructors, during the last fifty years, to discard en- 

 tirely from among the objects of study,therich stores 

 of ancient literature, may be pronounced un^ 

 friendly to true taste and sound learning; yet the 



