Education. 21% 



revolution which has been mentioned may be con- 

 sidered, in general, as a real improvement. 



Another obvious revolution which the last age 

 has produced in the business of education, is re- 

 moving a large portion of that constraint and ser- 

 vility, and of those monkish habits, which were 

 formerly connected with the diligent pursuit of 

 knowledge, and considered a necessary part of a 

 system of study. Modern academic discipline is 

 much less rigid than it was a century ago. More 

 scope is given to the natural spirit and tendencies 

 of the youthful mind. The paths of instruction are 

 more diversified, and more strewed with flowers. 

 In a word, the labour of youthful study, formerly 

 fashionable, has, in a great measure, ceased to 

 exist. This has arisen from several causes; from 

 the growth of luxury and dissipation, which are 

 always unfavourable to sound erudition ; from the 

 multiplication of helps and abridgements, to be 

 hereafter mentioned, which, while they lessen the 

 toil of the student, deceive him, by promising 

 greater acquisitions than he can gain from them; 

 and especially from the plans of education in 

 modern times being so much extended, and the 

 objects of study so greatly multiplied, as to render 

 the wonted attention to each difficult, if not im- 

 possible. Hence the greater number of scholars, 

 at the present day, are more remarkable fox variety 

 than depth of learning; and have generally con- 

 tented themselves with walking lightly over the 

 fields, and plucking the flowers of literature and 

 science, instead of digging deeply, and with un- 

 wearied patience, to gain the recondite treasures 

 of knowledge/ 



y It has been asserted, by good judges, and probably with truth, that 

 #ne of the principal reasons to be assigned for the comparative superficiality 

 of modern classical learning, even in the best seminaries, is the increased 

 use of translations, particularly within the last sixty or seventy yean. It 



VOL. II. zN 



