Education. 301 



quality of many species of the vegetable tribes. 

 He may cause that which, in a neglected spot, was 

 small, feeble and unpromising, to become, in more 

 favourable circumstances, vigorous, luxuriant and 

 flourishing: in short, it is not easy to say how far, 

 under enlightened and unwearied cultivation, he 

 may carry the improvement of those objects to which 

 he devotes his attention. But to suppose that there 

 are no limits to this improvement; to suppose that 

 under the wisest management a rose might be so ex- 

 panded as to cover a field of many acres, or a stalk 

 of wheat so enlarged as to vie with the oak of the 

 forest, would surely be the height of extravagance 

 and folly. 



The doctrine of human perfectibility, however, 

 is too flattering to the pride of man not to have 

 considerable currency among certain classes of 

 society. Accordingly, the effects of this doctrine 

 may be distinctly traced in many parts of the civi- 

 lized world, from its influence in seminaries of 

 learning, on the general interests of education, 

 and on many social institutions. That this influ- 

 ence is unfavourable, will not be questioned for a 

 moment by those who consider truth and utility as 

 inseparably and eternally connected. 



From the foregoing remarks it appears that edu- 

 cation, in the course of the eighteenth century, 

 underwent important revolutions. That so far as 

 respects the extension of its benefits in a greater 

 degree to the female sex, and to almost every 

 grade in society; the multiplication of seminaries 

 of learning, of popular elementary works for the 

 use of youth, and of the various means and excite- 

 ments to the acquisition of knowledge; and the 

 decline of that despotic reign which the dead lan- 

 guages held for three preceding centuries, we may 

 look back on the period under consideration as a 

 period of honourable improvement: but that in 



