1810.] 
are the instruments which must be em- 
ployed in all these operations, it is evi- 
dent that great advantages must accrue 
from a precise acquaintance with them, 
from the habit of tracing them to their 
elements, of analysing sentences, and 
exercising the sagacity in annexing such 
meaning to phrases, and connecting 
them in such order, as will bring out 
sense and beauty from the whole. Me- 
mory, judgment, taste, discrimination, 
and invention, have each its due ex- 
ercise in such an employment; and the 
child that has been trained in such ha- 
bits; -will come to the investigation of 
facts, and the study of things in riper 
years, with advantages never enjoyed, 
and therefore not to be justly estimated, 
by those who have been differently 
trained. If the knowledge acquired by 
this process were of less value than it is, 
the habits produced by it would be alone 
a recommendation of great authority. 
But the acquisition of knowledge was 
named as one of the great objects of 
education; and it should be added, of 
such branches of knowledge in particu- 
lar, as, though of extensive and constant 
use in the application, are generally un- 
attainable at a later period. The de- 
scription of places and of plants, the 
history of nations and of animals, the 
characters of men and of minerals, are 
subjects which engage the industry or 
entertain the leisure of men, more 
or less through the whole of life: but 
an elementary knowledge of language, 
and the possession is of some value, 
must be obtained during the years of 
education, or notat all. What has been 
said is dictated by nothing less than a 
wish to under-rate the studies which are 
recommended by the advocates of an 
Opposite system. All that is meant is, 
to express and to justify the conviction, 
that by substituting such pursuits in the’ 
place of those which have been generally 
assigned to early youth, nothing would be 
gained even to them, and much would of 
necessity be lost to elegant and polite 
literature. The youth that has -been 
conducted to the penetralia of philoso- 
phy through the vestibule of classical 
learning, will have acquired such habits, 
and such an accurate knowledge and 
use of language, as will give him a de- 
cided advantage over his unlearned com-: 
petitors; and his progress in scientific 
pursuits will, ceteris paribus, be so much 
more rapid-than their’s, that at the same 
age he will not fall far behind them in 
that sort of knowledge which is the sum 
On Lducution. 531 
of their attainments, At the same time 
he will have secured no contemptible 
place in the rank of scholars: to make 
profound philologists of course is not 
proposed by any plan of education which 
is intended for general use. It must 
however be conceded, that the good 
which ought to be derived from the old 
‘mode of literary education, is not gene-~ 
rally obtained. .If the failure is to be 
attributed to any error in the conduct 
of it, a remedy, if there be one, ought to 
be applied ; but if none exists, it would 
be difficult to establish the utility of a 
process in its general application, wie 
is found to be generally abortive. It is 
not too much to demand, that after the 
consumption of seven or eight years 
almost exclusively in the study of the 
languages.of antiquity, such a proficiency 
shall have been made in them by every 
ordinary capacity, as will make it easy 
to preserve and extend an acquaintance 
with them, by giving to the pursuit a 
portion. of that leisure which cannot be 
commonly wanting even ine life of ac- 
tivity and business. ~It might even be 
reasonably expected, that in those years 
so much knewledge shali have been 
worked into the mind, and such mental 
habits engendered and naturalized, as 
shall give the possessor a certain, and 
not an inconsiderable, elevation in the 
scale of intellect, through the rest of life; 
and that even on the supposition of» the 
total abandonment of his youthful stu- 
dies, in a necessary compliance with the 
claims of his particular. profession. If 
however neither of these results is or 
can be generally secured, if in a large 
proportion of cases little is gained, either 
in knowledge or in habit, so little that 
Ids alec below estimation when 
weighed against the product of a ninth 
part of a good life, and that part natu- 
rally the most productive, if an evil of 
uch magnitude exists, and in insepara- 
ble connection with that mode of 
education, the superior advantages of 
which, when it succeeds, have been j just 
displayed, every unprejudiced mind 
must admit that for general utility it 
would be better to substitute any system 
of instruction which can be shewn to be 
more certain in its operation, though 
otherwise less beneficial in its tendency. 
It would however be rash to act on this 
conclusion, till it be fully ascertained 
that the failure so generally lamented, 
ought to be imputed to the systei it- 
self, and not to any error in the practical 
application ofit. Severalcenturies have 
now 
