296 



vitiated by romance, and all the efforts of human ingenu- 

 ity to have volatilized themselves into fiction. Science 

 has been transmuted into pills, and distilled into extracts 

 so that it is difl&cult to tell how much either to take or to 

 give. So much as concerns the public instruction is pre- 

 tended to be taught in two and six penny treatises and 

 pretty nursery fables, while the sanctions of religion and 

 obligations of morality are inculcated and taught, not 

 only to us but the heathen, by tracts of about the same 

 dimension and value.* Writing is now done by the acre, 

 and seems to have no definite purpose but the support of 

 the trade; for it would be utterly impossible for the most 

 ingenious casuist to assign any other object for nine tenths 

 of the productions with which the press at present teems. 

 So far as the mature part of society is concerned, this 

 state of things is bad enough, but considering the interest 

 of the young, it is still worse. It cannot be a judicious 

 system of education to begin with the fancy and leave 

 the reason to mature itself. By such means the judgment 



the ability to profit by our industry or observation. To 

 improve any of our qualities they must be confined and 

 exercised, and not left to run riot through whole worlds 

 at once. As corroborative of this, we notice that under 

 the older systems of education, which, though absurd 

 enough in some things were certainly not deficient m 

 strictness, the growth of both literature and science was 

 not only luxuriant but strong. 



This legerity of education and literature also tends to 

 demoralize it. As an instance I will remark that in the 

 time of Johnson, French newspapers were not accounte 

 proper to be read in English families by reason of their 

 levity and the loose character of their descriptions. The 

 tables are turned upon us now, and English newspapers, 

 are in general held discreditable among the French, for 

 reasons which the perusal of many of our public journals 

 will make sufficiently apparent.! 



