Chap. XXV.] Education, 151 



society. Accordingly, the effects of tliis doctrine 

 may be distinctly traced in many parts of the ci- 

 vilised 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 arid eternally connected. 



From the foregoing remarks it appears that 

 education, in the course of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, 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 rank in society; the multiplication of se- 

 minaries of learning, of popular elementary works 

 for the use of youth, and of the various means 

 and excitements to the acquisition of knowledge ; 

 and the decline of that despotic reign which the 

 dead languages held for three preceding centu- 

 ries, we may look back on the period under con- 

 sideration as a period of honourable improve- 

 ment : but that in some other respects, and par- 

 ticularly with respect to the patient, laborious, 

 and thorough investigation of the various objects 

 of knowledge ; the depth of erudition ; the disci- 

 pline and subordination of academic establish- 

 ments ; and the general moral influence of lite- 

 rary and scientific acquirements ; the last age can- 

 not with propriety boast of much progress. 



