Ch.ap. XXV.] Education, 119 



was published a work entitled Lectures on Edu- 

 cation, by David Williams, which, though it ma- 

 nifests considerable talents and erudition, is de- 

 cidedly unfriendly to religion, and consequently 

 to genuine virtue. To these may be added, the 

 Theatre of Education, by madame Genlis ; Prac- 

 tical Education, by Mr. and miss Edgeworth ; 

 and treatises on the same subject by Mrs. H, 

 More, and miss Hamilton, which have been much 

 read and esteemed. 



The eighteenth century produced a remarkable 

 revolution with respect to the objects of study in 

 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 review, and scientific and literarj' pursuits 

 of a more practical nature taking their place. 

 Instead of spending eight or ten years, as for- 

 merly, in the acquisition of Latin and Greek 

 words and rules, youth are now more liberally 

 instructed in the physical sciences, in belles let- 

 tres, in modern languages, in history, in geogra- 

 phy, and generally in those branches of know- 

 ledge which are calculated to fit them for action, 

 as well as speculation. Though the change in 

 this respect has been carried to an extreme; 

 though the disposition discovered by many in- 

 structors, during the last fifty years, to di^car4 



