individual affection watches the boy too narrowly, controls him too much, renders him too poor a slave. In public education there is comparative liberty. The boy knows how much of his time is subjected to his task-master, and how much is sacredly his own. "Slavery, disguise it as we will, is a bitter draught* ;" and will always excite a mutinous and indignant spirit. But the most

wretched of all slaveries is that which I endure alone; the whole weight of which falls upon my own shoulders, and in which I have no fellow-sufferer to share with me a particle of my burthen. Under this slavery the mind pusillanimously shrinks. I am left alone with my tyrant, and am utterly hopeless and forlorn. But, when I have companions in the house of my labour, my mind begins to erect itself. I place some glory in bearing my sufferings with an equal mind. I do not feel annihilated by my condition, but find that I also am something. I adjust the account in my own mind with my task-master, and say, Thus far you may proceed; but there is a conquest that you cannot atchieve. The control exercised in private education is a contention of the passions; and I feel all the bitterness of being obliged unmurmuring to submit the turbulence of my own passions to the turbulence of the passions of my preceptor.

* Sterne.

Anger glows in the breast of both the contending parties; my heart pants with indignation against the injustice, real or imaginary, that I endure; in the final triumph of my Brobdingnagian persecutor I recognise the indulgence of hatred and revenge. But in the discipline of a public school I submit to the inflexible laws of nature and necessity, in the administration of which the passions have little share. The master is an object placed in too distant a sphere for me to enter into contention with him. I live in a little world of my own of which he is no member; and I scarcely think more of quarrelling with him, than a sailor does of bearing malice against a tempest.

The consequences of these two modes of education are usually eminently conspicuous, when the scholar is grown up into a man. The pupil of private education is commonly either aukward and silent, or pert, presumptuous and pedantical. In either case he is out of his element, embarrassed with himself, and chiefly anxious about how he shall appear. On the contrary, the pupil of public education usually knows himself, and rests upon his proper centre. He is easy and frank, neither eager to shew himself, nor afraid of being observed. His spirits are gay and uniform. His imagination is playful, and his limbs are active. Not engrossed by a continual attention to himself, his generosity is ever ready to break out; he is

eager to fly to the assistance of others, and intrepid and bold in the face of danger. He has been used to contend only upon a footing of equality; or to endure suffering with equanimity and courage. His spirit therefore is unbroken; while the man, who has been privately educated, too often continues for the remainder of his life timid, incapable of a ready self-possession, and ever prone to prognosticate ill of the contentions in which he may unavoidably be engaged.

We shall perhaps perceive a still further advantage in public education, if we reflect that the scene which is to prepare us for the world, should have some resemblance to the world. It is desirable that we should be brought in early life to experience human events, to suffer human adversities, and to observe human passions. To practise upon a smaller theatre the business of the world, must be one of the most desirable sources of instruction and improvement. Morals cannot be effectually taught, but where the topics and occasions of moral conduct offer themselves. A false tenderness for their children sometimes induces parents to wish to keep them wholly unacquainted with the vices, the irregularities and injustice of their species. But this mode of proceeding seems to have a fatal effect. They are introduced to temptation unprepared, just in that tumultuous season of human life when temptation has the

greatest power. They find men treacherous, deceitful and selfish; they find the most destructive and hateful purposes every where pursued ; while their minds, unwarned of the truth, expected universal honesty. They come into the world, as ignorant of every thing it contains, as uninstructed in the scenes they have to encounter, as if they had passed their early years in a desert island. Surely the advantages we possess for a gradual initiation of our youth in the economy of human life, ought not to be neglected. Surely we ought to anticipate and break the shock, which might otherwise persuade them that the lessons of education are an antiquated legend, and the practices of the sensual and corrupt the only practices proper to

men.

The objections to both the modes of education here discussed are of great magnitude. It is unavoidable to enquire, whether a middle way might not be selected, neither entirely public, nor entirely private, avoiding the mischiefs of each, and embracing the advantages of both. This however is perhaps a subordinate question, and of an importance purely temporary. We have here considered only the modes of education at this time in practice. Perhaps an adventurous and un daunted philosophy would lead to the rejecting them altogether, and pursuing the investigation of a mode totally dissimilar. There is nothing so fas

cinating in either, as should in reason check the further excursions of our understanding*.

ESSAY VIII.

OF THE HAPPINESS OF YOUTH.

A SUBJECT upon which the poets of all ages have delighted to expatiate, is the happiness of youth.

This is a topic which has usually been handled by persons advanced in life. I do not recollect that it has been selected as a theme for description by the young themselves.

It is easy to perceive why the opinion upon which it proceeds, has been so generally entertained.

The appearance of young persons is essentially gratifying to the eye. Their countenances are usually smooth; unmarked with wrinkles, unfurrowed by time. Their eye is sprightly and roving. Their limbs elastic and active. Their temper kind, and easy of attachment. They are frank and inartificial; and their frankness shews itself in their very voice. Their gaiety is noisy and obtrusive. Their spirits are inexhaustible; and their sorrows and their cares are speedily dismissed.

*The subject here treated of, may be considered as taken up, at the point where the present disquisition leaves it, in Essay IX.