What ftronger proof can be required 
ef the impolicy of legal eftablifhments 
for the education of youth ? 
If any kind of national interference in 
the bufinefs of education be admiflible, 
st can only .extend to the provifion of 
vee inftruGtion for the poor in the arts 
of reading, writing, and accormpts, and, 
perhaps, of public buildings for tchools 
and colleges, to be occupied by precep- 
tors chofen by the different claffes of to- 
ciety, for whole benefit they are defign- 
ed. Every thing beyond this, tends to 
create. a monopoly in education, which, 
however beneficial to individnals, muit 
always be injurious to the public, by 
«preventing improvements in the art of 
inftruction ; an art, which, after all the 
experiments which have been made, and 
the volumes which have been written 
mpon it, is fall in its infancy. 
When Dr. Johnfon, in his ufual tone 
ef dogmatif{m, faid, ‘¢ Education is as 
well known, and has long been as well 
known, as it can be; _I hate bye-roads 
in education,’’ he certainly fpoke the 
Janguage of prejudice and bigotry, ra- 
ther than of rea{on. 
ee EE 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
ON THE PRIMZVAL FORM OF 
* EUROPE. 
WHETHER the earth’s motion have 
a tendency progreflively to gather 
the ocean about the equator, as theorifts 
have maintained— 
~ Whether fome great convulfion of na- 
ture, breaking down the fouthern mound 
of the Cafpian, occafioned a vaft mafs of 
fea to flow fouthward along the courfe of 
the Dejleh and the Forat (Tigris and 
Euphrates ) deluging whole provinces and 
forming, or deforming, with its alluvion 
fand, much of the plainy peninfula of 
Arabia, as various traditional and natural 
evidence con{pire to prove— 
Whether, by an unrelenting procefs, 
the water on this globe, is gradually 
metamorphofed into folid and into atmof- 
Pheric fubftance, without being repro- 
éuced with correfponding celerity ; as, 
from experiment, is poffible, and, from 
ebfervation, highly probable— 
Certain it is, that the European feas, 
north of forty-five degrees latitude, have 
greatly diminifhed in extent. 
Linnezus * obferves upon this fubjeé& : 
** It is evident, from ocular infpeétion, 
~ 

* Seleé Differtations from the Amznitates 
Academicz, p 82, 
On the Primeval Form of Europe. 
[March 
that the land increafes from year to year, 
and that the bounds of our continent are 
extended. 
‘“< We fee the fea-ports of Eaft and 
Weft Bothnia every year decreafing, and 
becoming incapable of admitting veffels, 
by the jand and foil thrown up, which 
are always adding new increments to the 
fhore. ‘The inhabitants of the ports are 
obliged to change their feats, and fome- 
times remove a quarter of a mile nearer 
to the fea; of this we have feen examples 
at Pithea, Lulea, and Hudwickval. On 
the eaftern fide of Gothland, near Hoburg, 
the increafé-of the continent, for the laf 
hundred years, is difinétly vifible, being 
from two to three toifes annually. Near 
Slite and Kylle, in the fame country, 
are enormous ftones, which rudely re- 
prefent temples, giants, and_ coloffal 
ftatues in their magnitude, yet worked 
out of the moft folid rock, by the force 
of the water. ; 
‘* The two very tall mountains of 
Torfburg and Hoburg, in Gothland, are 
formed of calcareous rock, and were 
marked and hollowed out by the force of 
the waer, at the fame time that all 
Gothland lay immerfed in the fea, ex- 
ept thefe two mountains, which raifed 
their heads out of the deep in the fame 
manner, and with a fimilar appearance 
to the Carclinian iflands (Carlfoe) in 
their prefent ftate.”’ 
+‘ The inhabitants of Weft Bothnia 
have obferved, by marks upon rocks, 
that the fea decreafes every ten years, 
five inches and five or fix lines perpen- 
dicularly, which amounts, in an age, to 
about four feet and a half. According 
to which calculation, 6000 years ago, the 
fea was two hundred and feventy feet 
deeper than it is at this prefent.” 
Not only in the Gulf of Bothnia, but 
in that of Finland, is the withdrawment 
of the Baltic very fenfible. Profeffor 
Pallas obferves: “* As foon as from the 
marfhes of Ingria, which forms toward 
the Baltic a fort of gulf of low lands, 
ee begin afcending the elevated foil of 
uffia, the inclination of which forms 
what are called the mountains of Valdais, 
ancient traces of ihe fea occur at every 
ftep. At firft, in a foil interfeéted with 
ravines, which has vifibly fuffered by an 
inundation of the greateft violence, or 
rather by the flowing-off of an enormous: 
mafs of water: afterwards, in whole 
calcareous beds, which can only refult 
+ A. Celfii Obf. in A&. Acad. &c, Suecian 
1743. 

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