Education. Ill 



From this multiplication of the means zx\& faci- 

 lities of education we may account for the fact, 

 that during the last century the advantages of edu- 

 cation were more extensively diffused through the 

 different grades of society than in any former age. 

 It may safely be asserted, that there never was a 

 period in which the elements of useful knowledge 

 were so common and popular as during that which 

 is under review. In all preceding stages of human 

 improvement, knowledge was possessed by few. 

 Before the invention of printing, indeed, the ob- 

 stacles in the way of a general diffusion of informa- 

 tion were numerous, and almost insurmountable; 

 and even with the advantage of that invention, it 

 was, in a great measure, confined to the opulent, 

 until within the last hundred years. During this 

 period, the great increase in the number of semi- 

 naries of learning; the wonderful multiplication of 

 circulating and other libraries ; the growing prac- 

 tice of divesting the most important parts of know- 

 ledge of their scholastic dress, and detaching them 

 from the envelopments of dead languages; with 

 various other considerations, have all conspired to 

 extend the advantages of education, and to render 

 the elements of useful knowledge more cheap and 

 common than ever before. 



Towards the close of the eighteenth century, 

 the physical education of youth became an object 

 of more particular attention than it was in any for- 

 mer period. The considerations of bodily health 

 and vigour were by no means forgotten in the most 

 ancient systems of education with which we are 

 acquainted. Nay, it may be asserted, that, in 

 practice, the ancients succeeded much betrer than 

 the moderns, in rearing robust and vigorous chil- 

 dren. But they attended less to theory than prac- 

 tice; they attained the end without having just phi- 

 losophical ideas respecting the means; and some- 



