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to four; but this were a falfe eflimate; for, 
from thefe four years, we muft fubtraft the 
time required to regain what has been ab- 
folutely forgotten and loft during the feveral 
total ceffations from learning; and, on a 
very fair computation, this confideration 
will deduct two years from the four : fo that 
our eight years are reduced to two; and I 
will venture to affirm that, under a better 
fyftem, boys might, in two years, be taught 
all they ufually learn, at any of our public 
fchools, in eight. 
There is another material impediment in 
the progrefs of a boy at a public fchool. I 
mean the gothic cuftom of fuffering the un- 
der boys to be the fervants, the flaves, of 
the upper. Regardlefs of the cruelty of 
fubjefting a child to the irrational caprice 
of a lad of fifteen; regardlefs of the injury 
he muft fuftain in being conftantly depriv- 
ed, by the mandates of his tyrannical maf- 
ter, of the fleep which nature, at that age 
particularly, requires; regardlefs of that ig- 
nominious habit of fervility which this in- 
famous fyftem muft neceflarily induce; re- 
gardlefs, I fay, of thefe confiderations, the 
menial fervices to which cuftom obliges him 
to attend, leave him little or no time for 
appli- 
